Unto Zeor, Forever

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  Digen groped for Im’ran’s hands, concentrating on his field, accepting his help. Bewildered, Ilyana faded back some distance to let them work. Im’ran made the contact, firm, steady, dead-true Tecton norm. It was such balm to Digen’s nerves that when it was over he almost felt like crying. He straightened up, gulping air and throwing off the feeling.

  Im’ran worked his fingers along Digen’s laterals analytically. “This is the first occurrence since you did me?”

  Ilyana said, “Yes, he’s been fine. I can’t….”

  Digen shook his head. “No, it’s the fourth episode. The other three were trivial, though.”

  “Digen!” said Ilyana. “Trivial?”

  “There’s a Zeor technique for it. It’s good for the system.”

  Ilyana’s gaze flicked from one to the other. “You were testing yourself! You’re thinking seriously of going back!”

  “No!” said Digen. “I—” He broke off, realizing that it was true. He’d gotten back into the Zeor disciplines not because he had to but because of a discomforting prick of conscience—and a self-doubt: Can I still do it?

  “Well,” asked Ilyana, “why did you choose Im’ran then?”

  Digen looked at the fanir’s hands, brown and roughened, against his arms. He felt so good—so safe—in the fanir’s grip. He’s a product of the Tecton. Why did I choose him over Ilyana? Because I’m a product of the Tecton, too. He raised his eyes to Ilyana. “Maybe you’re right and I should pledge Rior. I saw it there for a minute. But,” he said, glancing at Im’ran, “obviously, deep down inside, I still don’t quite believe it. And I don’t know why. I can’t argue against you, but I can’t accept Rior either.”

  “Ilyana,” said Im’ran, “that’s enough for now. Or you’ll have him in another attack.”

  She looked at the two Tecton men for a moment. And then, without another word, she picked up her washbasin and went inside to make lunch.

  Im’ran sat with Digen, sharing the spot of sunlight, without comment, providing the support that Digen’s secondary system required with such finesse that Digen wasn’t aware he was being supported. After a while the Gen said, “I’d expect one or two more hard ones like that, and then you should be back in secondary dormancy. But don’t try it alone, Digen. That’s foolish.”

  Disengaging with meticulous care, Im’ran left Digen to his spot of sun and his thoughts, saying only, “As One First—All Firsts. Even if you pledge Rior—you can still come to me for help.”

  Later, at supper, Im’ran started to apologize to Ilyana for intruding between her and her client. But the moment he used the Tecton word, that started the whole thing over again, Tecton against Distect—and it turned into a discussion that lasted well past midnight. At one point it escalated into a screaming match over the issue of whether the world should be run for the incapable majority or the capable minority. For a moment, Digen thought Ilyana and Im’ran would actually come to blows, but Im’ran apologized stiffly when he realized he was talking to his hostess.

  Hogan came to the rescue with the comment that there could be no such thing as a government of laws but not of men. One good and just man was worth any number of good and just laws. But, in theory anyway, a good law could keep an incompetent fool like Mickland from doing too much damage. They all went to bed friends again.

  There was a long stretch of days in which clouds thickened overhead and they never saw the sun. He knew that the storms of winter were coming. If he didn’t decide now, they would all have to stay the winter—and still the roof wasn’t repaired, wood wasn’t stored up, and he had no energy for all the hundreds of little things that had to be done to keep Ilyana safe through the cold of winter.

  One dawn brought with it a driving, pelting hail and sleet storm that sent the last of the harvest crews scurrying for cover. The storm lay heavily over everyone’s spirits, especially Digen’s, as he knew his time had run out. He had to make a decision.

  They lived under artificial light for three days, hardly able to chip the back door free of ice to take out the waste and garbage. Digen spent most of the time sitting by the front windows, battling a growing anxiety due both to the decision confronting him and to approaching need.

  The Gens in the house had long since given up trying to argue with him. Everything that could be said had been said several times over. They slept a lot, played games with elaborate rules, helped Ilyana with mending tackle or cleaning up the root cellar, and spent hours in the kitchen, concocting strange recipes. So Digen wasn’t surprised when he noticed that he had been alone in the front room for hours.

  He found Ilyana asleep in their room beside a roaring fire. He covered her gently, and from the ambient nager concluded that Im’ran and Hogan were in the kitchen—or was it the pantry? Yes, the back pantry, where there was no heat.

  Curious at the strange twist to the reading he was getting, Digen went on through the kitchen and out the back door, then followed the nager into the back pantry.

  There, by the dim light from the windows, he saw Im’ran standing by the door to the front pantry. And between him and Im’ran, Skip Ozik was sitting knee to knee with Joel Hogan. He heard just a snatch of conversation, underscored by the nager: from Skip, a pulsing of need with a kind of hopeless loneliness; from Hogan, a terrible wrenching sympathy and, as always, curiosity.

  “Skip, I want to. But the only times I’ve ever felt selyn movement, it—it was terrifying. Digen says.…”

  “Digen! He’s living in the past. Anyone who wants to do it can. It’s that simple. I wouldn’t hurt you for all the world—I just feel—it would be so perfect.”

  Digen saw their hands entwine, Skip’s laterals just grazing Gen flesh. He’s serious! thought Digen. He’s half into commitment! The worst was that Hogan could not know just how deeply into it Skip already was.

  Digen held his breath, wanting to scream out to Hogan “Don’t move!” But just then Hogan felt the whirling draft from the door Digen had opened, and he turned. Skip, in the grip of reflex, pounced the moment Hogan moved. At the same time, Digen launched himself at Skip, preparing to offer transfer.

  Digen lifted Skip’s tentacles from Hogan’s arms, sliding his own tentacles into place. But Skip yelled out in the shock of pure shen, and, realizing that Digen was prepared to serve, he wrenched himself away, rolling on the floor in agony, yelling, “No!” Hogan stood rigidly as if skewered by an electric current.

  In a blur, Im’ran slid to his knees beside Skip and took him into transfer position, lavishing on the undeveloped channel all the skills and resources of a Donor. Digen turned to shield Hogan from the sight of the transfer, taking the Gen into his own arms. Hogan was stiff, not just from fright but from cold. His blood pressure was dropping and he’d begun to black out.

  Picking up the Gen bodily, Digen said, “Let’s get you in by the fire.”

  By the time Digen reached the door to the front pantry, the transfer was complete. Digen said, “Come on inside, both of you. It’s too cold out here.”

  By the fire in the front room, Digen chafed Hogan’s hands and feet. The Gen revived enough to look up and say ruefully, “You seem to make a habit of rescuing me.”

  Im’ran came in with Skip, and Digen swallowed a sharp reprimand to Hogan. He got up and fetched the kettle out of the fireplace to make tea. “How long were you two out there?” he asked Skip, handing him a glass.

  “An hour,” said Skip.

  “You have to take better care of a Gen than that,” said Digen. He handed Im’ran a glass, saying, over his shoulder, to Skip, “You enjoy it?”

  “Im’ is—smooth. You know that. All the Tecton Donors are like that.”

  “No,” said Digen, offering Hogan a glass. “Im’ is something very rare.”

  “Digen,” said Im’ran, “I didn’t plan that.”

  “I know. In a few weeks you’ll have the whole underdraw thing to go through all over again.”

  Hogan said, “In a few weeks we could be back in civilizat
ion.” He was stroking the sides of his wrists, where Skip’s ronaplin had sensitized the nerves, and his nager held regret. He raised one arm to smell the sensitized area. He’d wanted to experience transfer—at least once—and he’d wanted it with Skip. He knew it would have killed him. He locked glances with Digen.

  All the unresolved anxieties flooded through Digen. He had to take a definitive action. He had to put it all behind him or it would kill him. Hogan—a surgeon, and a fine one, a friend and a loyal one—an example of humanity’s best—and he would have died under Skip’s hands. Not because he was genetically defective. Not because he was unfit to survive. Because he was a cripple, like Digen himself. The Tecton existed for the sake of the joelhogans of this word, not for the farrises. The farrises could afford to take the punishment. The hogans couldn’t.

  He looked at Skip. “You’ve kind of been in all this right from the start. You’ve become a man through it all. Will you give me your word not to let what I’m about to say go beyond this room?”

  “I’ve pledged to Rior, Digen—unto Roshi. I had no choice—I’ve nowhere else to go., I won’t do anything against Rior.”

  “Nor I,” said Digen. “Rior is too fine a thing to destroy. But—I’ve got to take my friends home. We’ll require your help. Or—Did anyone see you come here? Are you accepting banishment being here?”

  “I came to get your supply list. So many people are sick—there aren’t any more guards on the house.”

  Digen cast about outside, noting that what he said was indeed true.

  Ilyana, in suspended shock, had come from the bedroom to hear Digen’s decision. Now she advanced into the front room, saying, “Sick? What do you mean, so many are sick?”

  “Oh, everybody—dozens, anyway--all from those who were at the celebration—they’re all coming down with the shaking plague.”

  “Shaking plague?” said Hogan. “How do you know?”

  “Roshi was the first—and he knew right away….”

  “Roshi’s sick?” asked Ilyana. “With shaking plague?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  PLAGUE

  “The shaking plague!” said Im’ran.

  “That’s what Roshi’s been so afraid of all along,” said Skip. “That’s why he’s been acting like this—with Fen—and with you—and everybody. But now it’s happened and everybody knows it.”

  Together, Hogan and Digen said, “Now wait a minute.” They looked at each other, and Digen went on, “How could he possibly anticipate an outbreak of something like shaking plague without taking cultures to screen every Sime in the valley?”

  Lips compressed, Skip looked around at them all, “Well, he did swear me to secrecy when I went to work in the lab--but everybody else knows now, so why shouldn’t you?”

  “Knows what?” asked Ilyana.

  “A few months ago—just before you came back—he discovered a mutant strain of the shaking plague among some routine cultures. It doesn’t grow out on the usual culture plates in less than ten days.”

  Hogan asked, “Then how do you know it’s shaking plague? It should only take twenty-four hours to grow out.”

  “That’s what makes it a powerful weapon. Turned loose in the Tecton—with the channels vectoring it with every transfer and the labs not catching it at all—why, the Tecton is wide open, defenseless against this, but only those foolish enough to stick with the channels will die. The Distect was supposed to be immune because we stick with our own transfer mates. That’s why he didn’t want the celebration—because there’d been an accident in the lab, and he wasn’t sure whether anyone had been infected. He tried to take all the possible carriers away with him—but then Digen played—and everybody—well, on Founder’s Day you experiment.”

  Ilyana said, “I ordered the celebration.”

  Skip said, “He wouldn’t tell you why. He knew you wouldn’t approve the plan—Digen wouldn’t. I didn’t find out until this morning.”

  Numbly, Ilyana repeated, “I ordered the celebration.”

  Digen said, “And I played the shiltpron. Skip, what’s the mortality rate on this strain?”

  Skip shrugged.

  Im’ran said, “You mean Roshi intends to infect the Tecton—on purpose—with this disease, and he doesn’t even know the mortality rate?”

  “He may know,” said Skip. “He’s too sick to tell.”

  Ilyana strode to the coat rack and snatched her rain jacket. “I’m going to my brother.” She was halfway out the door before anyone moved, and then they all surged forward at once.

  Slogging through the frozen-stiff muck to Roshi’s house—a virtual copy of Digen’s—they passed many houses with drawn shutters and an aura of illness. Digen was stunned with the magnitude of the epidemic that had struck overnight. But he realized that if the celebration had vectored it, then all those cases were reaching their incubation term at once. Where did Roshi get it? The lab?

  They caught up with Ilyana on Roshi’s porch. As she pounded on the door, it opened. Roshi’s wife, Dula, stood there, her tentacles spread in an urgent demand for silence. “We have two sick ones here,” she whispered.

  Ilyana said, “Banishment or no banishment, I’m going to see my brother.”

  Dula wiped one fatigued tentacle across her brow. “Ilyana, you are Gen. You could catch it from him if you touch him.”

  “Digen can do whatever touching is necessary,” said Ilyana. “Let us in, Dula.”

  Dula looked at them all. “The physician died this morning. You’re the only medically trained people we have left.” She opened the door and stepped aside, saying, “We have them both in the rear bedroom, where it is quiet and dark.”

  Stripping off rainwear, Digen said, “How long since he fell ill? Wait, you said ‘them.’ Is Fen also sick?”

  “Of course. Roshi tried—after you transferred him—he tried to avoid Fen. But….” She shrugged. “Now we know what he was so afraid of.”

  Ilyana had gone straight to the bedroom door, unwinding her wet scarf. She stood with her fingers on the handle, listening to the conversation. Digen said, “How long ago did Roshi become ill?”

  “He was one of the first. Three days ago, during the storm. And he knew right away what it was. He warned us all. He doesn’t want to see you, Ilyana.”

  Ilyana eased open the door. Digen locked gazes with Hogan. “Seventy-two hours,” he said. “Today is critical. Come on.” Digen started for Ilyana, saying, “Wait, let me stabilize the fields or you might throw him into convulsions.”

  “Me?” said Ilyana, who knew she was the smoothest drifter Digen had ever met.

  “You,” said Digen, turning to Dula. “What medications has he been given? Do you have any antispasmodics?”

  “He has refused the drugs. What little we have is to go to the Gens and the elderly.”

  “Digen,” said Ilyana, putting a hand on his chest to stay his advance into the room. “You’re going to treat them?”

  “Yes, of course. And anyone else we can reach in time,” he answered. And he realized that there had been no question about it in his mind since the moment Skip had first said the words “shaking plague.” It was a certainty so solid within him that the creeping horror of doubt that had undermined his will all these days of confinement could not touch it. For the first time, he had something firm to grasp. The universe may be illogical, but I am a physician—whether you call it channel or doctor, still a physician.

  He went on into the darkened room, grappling with the conflicting fields of Roshi on one side of the room and Fen on the other. Approaching Roshi’s bed, he worked up a shielding nager for the Sime, and began examining him. Behind him, Hogan approached Fen in a businesslike way.

  Ilyana crept up to Digen, very worried. Roshi was semiconscious but totally unaware of their presence. Digen let his hands drift over the Sime, laterals extended for a careful reading of body currents. Then, gingerly he touched Roshi, palpating glands, abdomen, and neck. On the other side of the room, Hogan was f
inishing up the same ritual, with his bottom lip bitten tight between his teeth.

  By silent agreement, the two doctors retired from the room for a conference. Any little noise or disturbance at this stage could throw one or both of the patients into convulsions—the shaking which characterized the final stage of the disease and which, in itself, caused death.

  “What we require,” said Hogan, “is complete blood transfusions to wash the toxins from them, heavy doses of antispasmodics, and a nice neat trach set standing by.”

  “Unfortunately,” said Digen, “little of that is available.” He turned to Ilyana. “With Roshi sick, that makes you Head of Householding, doesn’t it?”

  “Well, I hadn’t thought—but yes, I suppose—Digen, Roshi’s not going to die, is he?”

  “I’ll do my best for him--you know that.” He turned to Dula. “He’s got to have the antispasmodics, whatever is available. Something I noticed in transfer, and it’s very prominent now, puts him in a very high risk group.”

  Tight and grim, Ilyana said, “I think he knew that all along. He doesn’t want precious drugs wasted on him. Besides—the drugs themselves would probably kill him.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Im’ran.

  Ilyana shot a glance at him, then turned to Digen as if for a difficult confession. “Here—in Rior,” she said, “by our customs, our family name is Dumas.”

  And Digen knew what was coming.

  “When your great-grandmother, Sectuib Muryin Farris, disappeared at the Battle of Leander Field—she didn’t die. She was captured and brought here. Eventually, she married Jesse Dumas—a descendant of Hugh Valleroy. Digen, she’s my great-grandmother, too—and Roshi’s. So, by Tecton custom, our family name should be Farris.

  I should have known! I did know, but I couldn’t admit it.

  “Well, aren’t you going to say something, Digen?”

  He could only see her dying as she gave birth to his child. Dully, he said, “And you did nothing to prevent this lortuen.” Life without her….

  “I don’t have the allergies, or any of the other problems. It hardly shows in me at all. It will be all right for us.”