Ilyana opened the door and came out on the porch framed by the light behind her. Then Joel limped into view and Im’ran hurried up onto the porch, saying, “What happened to your leg?”
Joel said, “Must have sprained it down in that hall sometime, but I didn’t notice it until just now.”
Digen gathered Ilyana up in his arms, burying himself in her field. In the light from the doorway she noticed the livid marks on Digen’s arms. “What happened?”
Digen told her.
“Roshi did that to you?”
“Don’t blame him too much,” said Digen. “I provoked him on purpose.” He explained his diagnosis of Roshi’s developing secondary system, saying, “I’ll teach Fen how to handle it and all will be back to normal in a month or so.”
Digen had been leaning more and more on Ilyana, and now his knees did begin to buckle. Im’ran came up on his left side and together they got him into the front room and laid out on the couch. For nearly an hour both Ilyana and Im’ran worked over Digen’s systems.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
NEW CHOICES
Later, over trin tea and steaming soup, Digen said, “Well. It’s over.”
“You’re not normalized already?” asked Im’ran.
Digen shook his head. “No. I’m stronger than I’ve ever been, but I’ll never have a decent recovery time again. In fact, my head’s still spinning from playing that shendi-flamed shiltpron. No, it’s what I was thinking this morning.” He explained his train of thought as he had sat overlooking the valley, not wanting the peace of life here to end.
“And now the world and all its questions comes pouring in on my head. Yesterday I could have welcomed you and not asked. Now I’ve got to know. How is Rin?”
They were seated at a little round table in the middle of the front room. Hogan put down his tea, almost untouched, and stood to pace up and down. “He’s fine, Digen. Completely recovered from the surgery.”
Digen released a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.
Im’ran said, “He has a lot less scarring than you do.” Then he ran through a technical list of channel’s functional parameters that had changed for Hayashi, ending off, “Other than that, Joel’s right, he’s fine.”
Im’ran and Hogan took turns filling Digen in on all the happenings of the last six months.
After Digen and Ilyana had disappeared, Im’ran had been called back to Westfield to manage Hayashi’s convalescence. He had asked Hogan to stay on as surgical expert. Together they had pulled Hayashi through an infection, pneumonia, and a grueling assortment of transfer dysfunctions.
Sometime during the convalescence, Hayashi had wakened one morning with the sudden knowledge of exactly what had gone wrong with Dane Rizdel’s training that had caused Jesse Elkar to take a suicide abort. “Or, rather,” said Im’ran, “he figured out a new equation with some universal constants nobody’s ever heard of before—” Im’ran broke off, looking at Ilyana. “This may not be the right time to say it, but, Digen, you and Ilyana—you can come home.”
“No!” Digen shook his head. He realized he had said it louder than necessary. What am I afraid of? A choice? “No, this is the only home we have. It’s all over, finished. I—I am—for all practical intents and purposes—junct. I can never work as a channel again. What have I to go back to?”
“Surgery,” said Hogan.
“The House of Zeor,” said Im’ran.
Digen looked from one to the other and said, “Don’t be cruel.”
“The House is not disbanded,” said Im’ran. “Your sister took over as interim Head of Householding. They voted to wait a year and then, if you didn’t come back, to look for a new Sectuib among the Farris families allied to Zeor. Bett has pledged to marry any man they choose as Sectuib in order to keep the family line unbroken.”
“She can’t!” said Digen, lunging to his feet. “She can’t marry a Farris! Our father was a double Farris. If she tries to have a child by a Farris, it will probably kill her.”
“That’s what I told her,” said Im’ran. “We all did. But she’s determined. She says Farris women always die in childbirth anyway, so what difference does it make.”
He knew his sister pretty well, and he could see this as her way of forcing him to return. “I can’t go back, Im’ran. I’m under a death sentence several times over.”
“No,” said Joel. “Not anymore. It’s all—fixed.”
Then Digen noticed that Hogan had been speaking Simelan—haltingly but understandably. At his quizzical stare Hogan shrugged. “I’ve been trying to pick up the language,” he said in English. “But I’m not any good at saying important things yet.”
Im’ran said, “Hayashi’s made a deal with the World Controller. If you and Ilyana will come back and let him use you to evaluate those new constants, he says it will give him the key to the safe wholesale training of Donors. And the World Controller says that if you’ll do that, all charges will be dropped. You may not get your out-Territory license back, but you could do almost anything you wanted to in-Territory.”
“Like, for example,” said Hogan, “surgery.”
“It won’t be easy,” said Im’ran. “World opinion is against you. People are more scared now than ever before about introducing any surgical techniques. But Hayashi is living proof that it can be beneficial, and he’s working on a paper that proves mathematically that you got into trouble basically because you’d been shorted to the brink far too long.”
“You could open a little clinic,” said Hogan. “For terminal cases. When I finish my residency I’ll join you. It could be a good life and we could all accomplish something worth doing.”
“If we could just establish the use of blood transfusion, Digen, think of the lives we could save.”
“Wait. Wait,” said Digen.
“You can’t refuse,” said Hogan, carried away in his enthusiasm. “We’re giving you your whole life back.”
“But,” said Digen, “you’re assuming that what you’re offering is better than what I’ve got. I’ve been happy here. This has been the very best time of my entire life.”
“I can see that,” said Im’ran, glancing at Ilyana. “The vacation has been good for you. And—and you’ll come back to an official lortuen exclusive. Nobody will ever be able to separate you.”
Ilyana was biting her lips, watching Digen. He got up to stand looking out the window into the night.
Im’ran added, “Hayashi’s a genius, Digen. And since you accepted his pledge—he’s become maniacal in his loyalty to you. He’ll find a way to get you disjuncted—eventually, he’ll find a way.”
Digen whirled on him, blue cloak flying about him. “You’re assuming that I want to be disjunct! Can’t you see what this has done for me? I haven’t taken a single medication since I’ve been here. There isn’t a rash anywhere on me, no watering bloodshot eyes, no sinus congestion. And functionally—don’t you realize—I played the shiltpron full range for over two hours and then performed an A-prime functional for Roshi after six months of secondary dormancy and here I stand on my own two feet, not one drug in my system and no therapist hovering over me, expecting me to die any minute. Now I should want to go back to a world where health is illegal?”
There was a silence in which Im’ran’s eye fell on the cloak Digen still wore, Zeor blue ornately embroidered with the Rior crest. After a space, he said, “Have you then pledged to Rior?”
Digen became aware of the cloak for the first time since he’d painfully donned it that afternoon. All the unanswered questions that he had been shunting out of his mind flooded back to overwhelm him. What was right? What was wrong? What should the world be? How much personal responsibility did he have to make the world over into what he thought it should be? What did he really want to do? And why should he do it?
He loosened the clasp at his neck and let the cloak fall from his shoulders. “No,” he said. “The cloak was just for the festival—to make Ilyana happy. But now,” he said, turnin
g to Ilyana, “I see why you wanted me to wear it. To make me confront the problems, the decisions yet to be faced.”
“Digen,” she said, “I can’t go back. If you go, you go without me.” She turned to Im’ran. “I grew up here in this valley. And for years, all I wanted was to get out of here and see the real world. But when I got there, I found it was insane, cruel, vicious, and sick. Most of my memory of that time is mercifully hazy or blank. I did have a few lucid moments, though, and I saw what your precious Tecton was doing to Digen. I saw him meekly accepting living death as the lot he was born to—so that others might also live their tortured half-lives. I used all the strength in me to stick it out until he would see the evil of the Tecton and come home with me. I don’t have the strength to face that again, and I won’t.”
“I won’t defend the Tecton,” said Im’ran. “It’s a hard life, and the channels are never given a choice about the sacrifices they make. But that’s why I’m in the profession. If they can do so much, how can I do less? And I’m not the only Gen who feels that way. Ilyana, Digen suffered not from the Tecton so much as from the Donor shortage And with his help, Hayashi can solve that problem once and for all.”
Joel said, “I grew up in a little town not too unlike this one. Except only Gens lived there. If you want to know what’s insane, cruel, vicious, and sick, Ilyana, it’s a community without any Simes at all, a community of Gens who beat their own children to death in changeover. That’s what the real world would be like without the Tecton and its channels.”
“We’ve learned a terrible lesson from what happened to you, Digen,” said Im’ran. “The Micklands and Beccards are being removed from public office. The transfer code and penalty clauses are undergoing a complete revision. There’s even been some question about whether Mickland’s injunction on you was ever legal in the first place. People are asking themselves the hard questions about the purpose of what we’re all doing. And Zeor is leading it.”
Hogan said, “Im’, tell them about the strike.”
“Strike?” said Digen.
“Just after you left, when the condemnation on you was published, the entire House of Zeor went on strike. And the next day all the Firsts—channels and Donors—went out too. Then all the householding-owned businesses closed their doors. The Seconds and Thirds wanted to join the strike, but we wouldn’t let them. We wanted to dramatize a point, not destroy the Tecton. If the law permits the Sectuib in Zeor, the best channel in all the Tecton and the one Sime in the whole world with the greatest measure of control, to be shorted beyond his endurance, how can any of the rest of us live with that law? If the Sectuib in Zeor can sacrifice—well, his integrity—for the life of the man who can save the Tecton—how can we condemn him?
“We won our point, Digen, in just forty-eight hours. You’re not a criminal, and you haven’t been for almost six months. You don’t have to hide here. You can come home—in lortuen exclusive, and stay junct if that’s what you want. But we’ve got to have you and Ilyana so that Hayashi can get the data to solve his theoretical equations and start relieving the Donor shortage.”
Hogan said, “It’s much worse now than when you left. The situation is critical.”
“He’s right,” said Im’ran. “The incidence of suicide abort is way up. The Firsts are counting the days until your return. You are their only hope.”
“And the Tecton is our only hope,” said Hogan.
“You can’t tell me,” said Digen, “that the fate of the whole world depends on how I order my private life.”
“The Sectuib in Zeor doesn’t have a private life. Whether you like it or not, Digen, in some kind of metaphysical way, you are the Tecton. Too many generations have sacrificed more than you’re being asked for. Zeor has a life of its own. You can’t abdicate.”
Digen turned to look out the black window. Everything in him cried out to answer that summons. He’d been born to it, raised to it, and he had invested all the years of his adult life in it. In a strangled whisper, he said, “I can’t—I can’t do it.”
“Why?” asked Im’ran, standing to pace restlessly.
“I—I don’t know why. There’s just no strength in me. Not for this.”
Ilyana picked up the cloak from Digen’s feet and took station by his left hand, facing Im’ran. “Leave him alone, can’t you?”
“No, I can’t leave him alone, Ilyana, and I can’t leave you alone either. Too much depends.…”
Im’ran broke off. He suddenly crumpled to his knees, weak, dizzy, and sweating. Digen was at his side instantly, scooping the Gen onto the couch. “Don’t talk, Im’. You’ve got your production rate way up again.”
Im’ran wiped his forehead with the back of one hand and said, “I don’t know how you ever stood this, Ilyana.”
Hogan said, “You were all right a minute ago. What happened?”
“He only has a slight touch of underdraw,” said Digen. “His governors were working fine there for a while. His net field was actually bleeding downward. Im’, how long has it been since you had transfer?”
“Six or seven weeks. Somebody open a window.”
“They are open,” said Hogan.
“I’ll get a cold towel,” said Ilyana, going toward the kitchen.
Digen considered. “You began to feel it when you were about a week overdue?”
“Yes. But it’s getting worse.”
Digen nodded. “It would—about now, your body is expecting transfer again.”
Ilyana came with the towel and began sponging Im’ran’s head and arms. He said, “I thought you told me I wouldn’t be likely to have this problem.”
“Well,” said Digen, “you didn’t exactly level with me that day, as I recall.”
Im’ran seized Digen’s hands with all his strength, suddenly flooded with all the remorse and pain of their parting. “Digen, I did the best I knew how for you. I was under orders….” His selyn-production rate began to climb precipitously.
Digen had, despite Ilyana’s presence, automatically fallen into synch with Im’ran’s dead-true Tecton standard rhythms. Now he used all his new strength to gain control of the fanir’s body fields and bring down the production rate. At the same time, he said gently, “I know, Im’. When I finally shook loose of the dependency—Im’, I would have done the same in your place.”
“If I’d been able to get back, though—you wouldn’t have been—your conditioning wouldn’t have—I could have prevented this. Oh, if I’d handled Jesse right and kept you away from Ilyana, none of this would have happened.”
The Sectuib in Zeor—junct.
Ilyana, waving the towel over Im’ran to make a breeze said, “You mustn’t blame yourself. That’s just underdraw depression. Take it from me, I know.”
“Im’,” said Digen, “I wanted Ilyana from the very first moment her field touched me. Nothing could have kept us apart much longer—not even you. Lortuen—lortuen is stronger than orhuen, you know—and you and I aren’t quite close enough for that, even.”
“That’s what I mean—for us it would have been relatively safe.” He looked backward and up at Ilyana, then back at Digen. With a rueful, bittersweet ache, he said, “I can’t say I’m not happy for you. You’ve got what ordinary people only dream about—and—and never did anyone deserve it more. But—why did it have to turn out like this! Oh, don’t listen to me. I need a good transfer!”
Im’ran squirmed restlessly on the couch. Digen frowned. “Haven’t they been using you four-plus at all?”
Im’ran shook his head.
Criminal! thought Digen. But, to be expected from the timid little rulebookers like Mickland who have taken over the Tecton without understanding what they are really supposed to be doing. “Well, that’s probably why you’ve run into this trouble, then. But you should normalize in a week or two, if you avoid getting so intense about things—and stay away from Simes in need.”
“A little difficult to do around here “ said Im’ran.
“True,�
� said Digen. “They’ll be chasing you all over the settlement, with your field the way it is.”
Hogan said, “What’s to keep us here? There are no fences. We could just walk away.” And then he had a sudden thought. “You wouldn’t set those—people—on us again, would you?”
“I wouldn’t have to,” said Digen. “They have Sime lookouts posted all the way around the perimeter. You might get through by yourself, Joel, but Im’ran’s field—even when he’s at his lowest—would be perceptible to any renSime for almost a day’s ride in any direction.”
“You mean,” said Hogan, “they’re keeping you prisoner?”
“No,” said Digen. “It’s just their normal security procedure. You can imagine what the Tecton or out-Territory Gen government would do if they could locate this place.”
Ilyana said, “They’d raze every building to the ground and execute us all—publicly.”
“Digen,” said Im’ran, “would they let you go back?”
I never thought about that. But Digen couldn’t say so, or Im’ran’s production rate would soar again. “I’d never reveal the location,” said Digen, “and everyone here knows that. These people have never done anything to deserve destruction. They don’t raid or steal or kill Gens. Though they’re against the Tecton in principle, they’re not foolish enough to do anything about it.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Im’ran. “They’ve nearly destroyed the Tecton just by holding you here.”
“I stay here of my own will. The Tecton was going to execute me—remember?”
Im’ran struggled up to rest on his elbows. “You don’t believe that Beccard and Mickland could have gotten away with anything like that?” His field began to climb again.
Digen wasn’t so sure. He’d met many people in his life who positively enjoyed seeing any householder, but especially Zeor members, suffer humiliation, degradation, or defeat. Pushing Im’ran back down, Digen said, “Let’s drop it for now and just deal with your immediate problem. I can see that there’s no way to hold your production down long enough for nature to take its course. I can’t offer you a full primary transfer.” Digen looked at Ilyana, knowing he’d never be able to take transfer from anyone else for the rest of his life. “And there isn’t a Sime in this settlement who could even total your TN-2 level. So, in my—professional opinion—I think the best thing for you is to attain transfer dormancy.”
Unto Zeor, Forever Page 25