Unto Zeor, Forever

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  “No, no, he’s decided—he’s hysterical with deferred need. And—”

  Digen grabbed her by the shoulders as if to squeeze it out of her faster. “He hasn’t had transfer yet?”

  Im’ran said, “I tried, but I just couldn’t do anything with him, Digen. Ilyana was trying—”

  Ilyana shook her head. “He only wants Joel!”

  “That’s insane,” said Digen.

  “He’s out in the kitchen with Joel now, and Joel wants to try it, and—”

  Digen swung his feet to the floor and grabbed a robe around himself as he went. His legs were unsteady, and his system fluttered ominously, but by the time he reached the kitchen doorway he had some command of himself.

  Skip and Hogan were beside the sink pump. Digen felt Skip’s laterals sliding into full contact as the young channel made lip contact, initiating the flow. For one insane moment, even Digen thought it was going to work. Joel seemed to be cooperating fully, glowing with an open sensitivity to Skip’s plight, the likes of which Digen had thought never to see from his friend.

  But then Hogan’s nager burst into a screeching hysteria of Gen terror. As Digen began to move, he felt that terror bite into him.

  I should never have permitted him to be my friend. People like Joel must never be allowed to associate with Simes. That’s what the Tecton is for.

  And then, abruptly, he was catching Hogan’s body as it fell lifelessly from Skip’s arms. The Gen had contained so little selyn that the brief instant of selyn flow had burned and drained him totally. Joel Hogan was dead.

  At that same time, Im’ran came up behind Skip, raising a heavy crystal oil lamp. Skip, in the throes of vicious post-transients from the inadequate transfer, didn’t sense Im’ran until the Gen was almost upon him. He turned to deflect the blow, but Im’ran seized Skip’s arms, fingers biting deep into the swollen ronaplin gland, and as Skip folded in pain, Im’ran smashed the oil lamp over Skip’s head.

  Digen, still holding the empty corpse in his arms, cried out, “No!” But it was too late. Skip Ozik crumpled to the floor, his neck broken, life functions ceased utterly. In stunned silence Digen looked at Im’ran. He had heard of hysterical strength in Gens sometimes equaling low augmentation. He could feel it in the fanir, now beginning to ebb away and leave him weak.

  Im’ran shuffled through the oil and the glass shards to reach out for the corpse Digen held, choking as he said, “He was in my keeping. I was responsible.”

  They sank to the floor together, supporting Hogan’s body. The echo of Skip’s kill was still trapped in Digen’s nerves. Skip craved Joel’s fear, but he feared it too. “He didn’t want to kill him,” said Digen.

  “Now I’m a killer too, a fanir who’s killed a channel.”

  Ilyana knelt beside them. She plucked up one of Hogan’s scorched arms, running her finger along the dirty-looking mark that Skip’s tentacles had left. “The world is full of joelhogans—isn’t it, Digen?”

  “Yes.”

  “He was—nobody could ask a man to be more than he was,” she said.

  “No, you couldn’t,” said Im’ran.

  “There was nothing wrong with him,” said Ilyana. “He just couldn’t tolerate selyn flow. Not at all.”

  “No, he couldn’t,” said Im’ran. “And they’ve got a hundred just like him down there in that”—he broke off, his lip curling around the archaic word—“that pen they’ve built.”

  Digen looked up inquiringly, and Ilyana said, “The raiding party returned at sundown. None of them are in need anymore. They’re playing the shiltpron and enjoying their captives.”

  Now that his attention had been called to it, Digen could sense the merrymaking in the distance. Ilyana said, “Skip could have gone down there and claimed a Gen for himself; they wouldn’t have denied him. I wanted him to go, but he only wanted Joel—you know, you’ve seen how they were.”

  “I don’t blame you, Ilyana,” said Digen.

  “But that wouldn’t have made it all right for him to go. kill some other Gen. They’re all joelhogans down there.”

  “To one degree or another,” said Digen. “I guess that’s true.”

  Crying, Ilyana got to her feet and wandered out of the room. Im’ran followed her with his eyes, then started to get to his feet to go after her. Digen held him back. “Let her have some time to assimilate it. I know what she’s going through.” He picked up a bloodied fragment of crystal. “We’d better take the bodies to the kiln for cremating.”

  “It’s not operating anymore. Besides, they didn’t die of the shaking plague. Let’s bury them properly.”

  Digen thought for a moment. “There’s a nice place on the top of the hill over there. I used to tell Ilyana I wanted to be buried there—when things were bad.”

  Im’ran locked gazes with Digen, and what they shared then had no words.

  As Im’ran straightened out Skip’s frail body to heave it onto his shoulder, Digen’s hand fell on the little silver medallion of the Final Donation Society around Hogan’s neck. Grief burned away all capacity for tears. Im’ran paused, looking at Digen. “It—it meant a lot to him, you know. Digen, will—would you—could you take Skip’s final donation. It would be Joel’s, too.”

  Their eyes met, and without a word Digen bent to the grisly business of stripping the last selyn from the dead boy who had become a man under him and killed his best friend. Out of Death Was I Born, Unto Zeor, Forever!

  When it was done, they hauled the beloved bodies out into the cold, standing under the moon, chopping fiercely at the stubborn, frozen soil to scrape out two lonely trenches facing east at the top of the hill. Shoulder to shoulder, the two men took out all their grief on the hardened ground as if the earth itself had wronged them and must pay for it. Each cracking thud of pick or shovel had a purging effect on them, and in the end, backfilling the graves over the bare bodies, together they came out of their pain and into a new, more barren reality.

  Im’ran wanted to gather up their tools and head right back to the house. But Digen made him pause, saying, “We can’t offer them burial in Zeor, but I’d like to observe our pledge-in-silence, anyway. Stay with me?”

  He sensed that Im’ran wanted badly to say something important, but the Gen only nodded and stood back while Digen performed the one Zeor rite he could extend. It was the first time in his life he had performed that rite in which it seemed to have some piercing inner meaning.

  At last Digen turned from the grave, oddly surprised to find the first stirrings of need in himself. It had been lurking there ever since he first came fuzzily awake, but only now did it claim his attention. Walking back toward the house in the firm luminance of Im’ran’s nager, Digen said, “I thought surely Ilyana would come out with us.” Digen had a moment’s vision of Ilyana trying to clean up the oil in the kitchen, slipping, and getting hurt badly.

  He stepped a little ahead of Im’ran to scan for her nager, but he couldn’t isolate it. “Do you suppose anything’s wrong?” asked Digen. “She’s not in the house.”

  “From what I’ve seen of her, I’d say she surely can hold her own among any group of Simes or Gens. I wouldn’t worry.”

  Im’ran suddenly stopped, cupping hands around his eyes to cut out the moonlight, and said, “Digen, what’s that? There’s no city out here to make a skyglow like that.”

  Digen, feeling the weakness of his recent illness, put a hand to Im’ran’s shoulder to steady himself while he closed his eyes and scanned the distant part of the valley. “Fire! Two—no, four, six, seven houses on fire down there!”

  Im’ran started to lunge past Digen down the path, but Digen caught his wrist and stopped him. “No, those are all abandoned—plague houses. Maybe somebody’s idea of purification.”

  “But what if it spreads?”

  “It’s on the other side of the firebreak, and there aren’t many trees near the houses—the fields are all in stubble. Don’t worry.”

  Digen couldn’t see Ilyana anywhere, but t
here were almost all the Simes and Gens of the settlement gathered in the main hall for the shiltpron party. He pointed toward the brightly lit building. “She must have gone to the party.”

  “To stop it, I bet.”

  Digen started off in that direction, but Im’ran stopped him. “Wait. Those are her people. We’re the outsiders here. Best stay out of it.”

  Digen just looked at him.

  “All right,” conceded Im’ran. “So I have an ulterior motive. It’s an old habit, worrying about my patients. Digen, you just got up from about the most serious illness you’ve ever had. I’m not going to let you go charging into that mess down there until I’ve at least gotten some of my trin tea concoction into you.”

  “I couldn’t stomach anything right now.”

  “I know, me either. But—if I do, will you?”

  Digen made a weak, protesting sound.

  “You can’t hide it from me, Digen. Your knees are getting wobbly—or they will be in a few minutes. You haven’t had any fluids worth mentioning in days. There’s a limit to how far even you can stretch yourself.”

  Digen played his trump. “You don’t want to be too close to me when I’m in need like this. You could disrupt my next transfer with Ilyana.”

  Im’ran whipped around in front of Digen, blocking the way. “Are you questioning my professional ethics? Or my competence?”

  “I wouldn’t dare,” said Digen. And he meant it.

  “Then come along home. We’ll go down there together if Ilyana doesn’t turn up by the time we’ve finished.” He steered Digen onto the path toward the house. Digen went, saying, “Im’ran, you are a fiend.”

  “I know. It’s part of the job description.”

  That’s all it is to him, a job, thought Digen. But he vaguely remembered having dreamed—or was it real?—that Im’ran spent a tremendous effort keeping apart from him. He’s never had a matchmate before.

  Over a wild variant of the trin tea and citrus juice mixture Im’ran had fed him in the glade, Digen asked, “Skip’s transfer didn’t help you much, that time in the pantry, did it?”

  Im’ran went through a medley of emotions as Digen watched. “No, you were right, Digen, a minor transfer just makes the next underdraw worse. But what else could I have done?”

  “Nothing.” Then, after a bit: “It wasn’t your fault. It was mine, for the way I handled Joel all year at the hospital. I should have destroyed what little Donor’s instinct he had left in him.”

  “I should have been able to handle Skip—he was a junct, an undeveloped channel. I should have—Digen, you have to know, he promised me—Unto Rior—not to try to induce Joel.”

  “ ‘An oath in need is no oath at all.’ I don’t blame him. Besides, he was attracted by the peculiar quality of Joel’s fear. It’s a craving it’s awfully easy to get used to satisfying. But the Gens here in Rior don’t fear, they dominate. So he had to go after Joel.”

  Drinking his tea, Im’ran said, “Do you—crave—Gen fear, Digen?”

  “No. Ilyana’s never given me that—I could never harm her.”

  “Then you’re not really junct.”

  “Oh, but I am. I am. With this lateral scar, I could never complete a real kill and survive it. I have to be spoon fed. Ilyana—touches me—in a place only juncts have been touched. I’d do anything—anything—for that.” His need was plain for Im’ran to see. He added, “And this may be my last such transfer—the last worth remembering.”

  “Digen! You’re not going to get sick again!”

  “No, Im’, I’ve got to go back—to Westfield. I know that now. I’ve got to. But—Ilyana can’t and won’t and I don’t want her to. I can’t explain it to you, Im’. Just believe me, it would be altogether too horrible an experience to ask her to live through twice.”

  “But, Digen—you’re not talking about breaking lortuen while both of you are still alive?”

  “That’s impossible. Even for me that’s impossible. But with your help I think I could survive long enough to solve Rin’s equations.”

  “I can offer her an equal chance at death from a pregnancy, or the shaking plague—it may not be over yet.”

  He was talking about a double suicide pact and they both knew it. Im’ran said, “It hasn’t come to this yet, Digen. Surely there’s got to be another way.”

  Digen shook his head. “No, I have to go back. There’s another thing.” He glanced toward the hill where they had just buried two close friends. He took a deep breath, steeling himself as for a confession. “I want to inscribe them in Zeor’s Memorial to the One Billion. It’s important to me, Im’, I can’t explain why.”

  Im’ran knew what that meant. Digen was saying that Zeor would live again, that he would pass it on to an heir before he died—and if Ilyana refused to return and pledge Zeor, then that heir would probably be Mora’s child by Digen—raised as Im’ran’s own.

  With this bleak vista opening before him, Im’ran was shaken. He reached across the table to grip Digen’s wrist. “Digen, I won’t let you die. Understand that, good. I won’t permit it.”

  Digen put his hand over Im’ran’s, letting one lateral tentacle tip just brush the Gen’s finger, “I do understand, Im’, I do.” There was a moment of that all-too-close nageric linkage between them.

  Im’ran grew uncomfortable, and Digen withdrew the contact, taking up his glass of tea again. Im’ran said, “Digen, you’ve been fighting this battle between going back or staying—since we came. Maybe even before Joel—and I—came. One day you’re ready to do one thing. The next day you’ve got to do another. That day Roshi was sick—the first time—you swore to Ilyana you could never go back. Now—Digen, what’s changed your mind?”

  Digen thought about it for a space. It was hard to put such an impelling feeling into words. “Nothing’s changed my mind, Im’. What I said to Ilyana—what I learned over Roshi—it’s still true. All my life I’ve given my allegiance to Zeor and to the Tecton—on blind faith. Now I know what they really are. I know the fallacies underlying them. I’m still just as revolted as when I first saw those fallacies.”

  He met Im’ran’s gaze. “With Skip—and Joel—I saw the Distect in truth—and—choice is forced on me. Im’, the world hasn’t changed—I have. When you came, I didn’t have the strength to force myself to go back. Now I do. And if I don’t use it, I’ll never be able to live with myself.”

  With all the trained perception of a therapist, Im’ran inspected Digen. “Yes—you have changed. But—I couldn’t say how.”

  Digen swirled the tea in the bottom of his glass and drained it. “You were right, I feel much better now, but I’m still in need. I’m nervous about Ilyana, too—she was terribly upset, and if she’s gone down to try to stop that party—”

  “Well,” said Im’ran, putting the two empty glasses neatly together in the middle of the table, “let’s go find her.”

  The party was in full swing when they reached the main hall. The moon threw the shadow of the silo across the open yard. The wide double doors were held back by hay bales, and inside, among the Simes wildly drunk on shiltpron music, a makeshift corral of hay bales had been set up to contain the captured Gens.

  The prisoners were a dispirited lot, suffering from exposure and prolonged terror, but they had been well clothed and fed. Their collective nager was strong but, to Digen, not particularly attractive. His need keened for Ilyana, and he found her up on the stage, confronting Roshi, her anger worn like a crown of light.

  In the loft, and all around the main floor, Simes stood guard with rifles aimed at the captives. Ilyana was saying, as if for the twentieth time, “It’s better to let yourself die of attrition than to cause a death.”

  Roshi said, “It’s easy for a Gen to say that.”

  Someone in the crowd of Simes said, “The Tecton has corrupted her!”

  “No!” she yelled back. “Listen to me. Some Gens just can’t tolerate transfer—”

  “It’s their own fault,” yelled
another Sime.

  “Not always,” Ilyana answered the one in the audience.

  “How else has Rior ever grown, or survived?” asked Roshi. “We’re offering them a chance to join us, a chance at real life. Isn’t what we have worth the risk of death to gain?”

  “Yes, it is,” said Ilyana, still talking to the audience, “but wouldn’t it be better if eighty or ninety of these people could survive and join us—rather than the ten or twelve who might make it at the most?”

  “Ilyana, don’t talk foolishness,” said Roshi. “We’ll have to raid until we build our numbers up again.”

  “No,” said Ilyana. “If you do it again, you’ll be caught—or traced back here. And that will be the end of Rior—forever.”

  She turned back to the audience. “The Tecton is crumbling. Rior is mankind’s last hope. But we are the leading edge of mankind’s progress—our methods cannot be the brute-force methods of the majority. We must cut a new pathway—not back to the days of freeband raiders preying on the helpless Gens and becoming addicted to the savor of Gen terror—you’ve all had a taste of that and you can feel how it could trap you. We must go onward to something new.”

  Cynically, Roshi said to Ilyana while addressing the audience, “And just what do you propose as something new to replace transfer with?”

  “You think that because I’m a Gen I don’t know what need is? Have I not served each and every Sime of Rior in pledge transfer when I accepted your oaths Unto Rior? Can anyone who has known my touch doubt that I know the meaning of need?”

  There was a murmur from the audience, which she silenced. “I’ve been very ill this last year. But, through it all, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve seen the twisted travesty of the channel’s body used to good ends. Most every Sime here who has survived the plague is alive now because of Digen’s touch—as a channel. Let him help us survive while we train these Gens to our way. He can teach them to serve us—we can only terrify them to death. Digen has saved Rior once—let him do it again.”

  With lip curled, Roshi said, “Rior does not bow to the channel’s touch!”

  A cheer went up.