The Channel's Exemption (sime-gen) Read online

  The Channel's Exemption

  ( Sime-Gen )

  Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  Sime-Gen novel

  THE CHANNEL'S EXEMPTION

  Look at you! Yone Farris berated himself. You can'teven take your eyes off her! To his left and a few stridesahead marched Livya Jeter, her pony tail bobbing over the tantalizingswell of her hips. You've got a full scale Imprintation ifever I saw one!

  For the last three months, Yone Farris had guided the band ofshipwrecked Gens, his mutant Sime senses unfailingly alert. Butnow, he no longer noticed the sun-spackled forest around them,or the ominous cracking roar that grew ahead of them. Stopdramatizing! he told himself. It's simply Coital Deprivation.

  The column of ordinary humans, the Gens, depending on Yone's far-reachingSime senses, followed him right up under the falling tree whilehe argued with himself. So why don't any of the other women dothis to you? Well ... but if it's Imprintation, there's onlyone thing to do. Right! Explain it to her and get it over with. Can't. She's a Sime-phobe like her mother. Dozen reasons whyshe's untouchable. Face it! You've got the CD's and an Imprintationtoo. Plead Channel's Exemption and just take her! It doesn'tapply. She's under age. She doesn't have to consent. You'rea channel. You're exempt. There isn't a planet under Earth'sdominion where you can be tried for rape! You can do it rightthis minute. No! Few more months and we'll be back in civilization. I can hold out that long.

  Yone tried to quell the voice of temptation by moving closer toBrian Inikar, one of the Gens walking point, but close, Imprintationis the channel's affliction. You were born a channel, a specialkind of Sime with special problems. You can't help what you are! I can always help it! I am what I choose to be! You can't alwayschoose. What if she just brushed against you now? It's not likeselyn need. I can control it. Yeah. You can control yourselfright into an early grave and everybody else here right alongwith you!

  At that point he saw the shadow blotting out the alien sun, andsimultaneously the Gens around him also looked up to see the wallof living wood majestically descending. Behind him, shrill crieserupted from the children; women's screams joined them, and thedeeper male voices rose over the panic yelling, "Scatter!"

  Without thinking, Yone grabbed Brian Inikar and pushed him towardthe column of Gens. "Move them to the right!"

  Then Yone braced his feet wide apart and raised his arms as ifto take the entire weight of the tree on his bare hands.

  Yone was built like the typical Sime, spare-framed, delicate looking,but incredibly tough. Yet no mere human flesh and bone, howevermutated, could stop that tree. He had to draw on the one thingthat differentiated him from the Gens, and he was the only Simeamong them, the only one with tentacles to do this job.

  From the orifices at each wrist, he extended the six tentaclesthat usually lay sheathed along each of his forearms from elbowto wrist. Flexing them, he touched the tips of his fingers witheach of the dorsal and ventral pairs. Then the two slender lateralsat the sides of each arm stiffened as he threw selyn – the veryenergy of life itself – into his secondary nervous system andout through the four nerve-rich lateral tentacles.

  It felt as if he were focusing four beams of psychokinetic powerthrough those delicate laterals. And for an instant, the treeactually slowed in its fall and hung over their heads. He couldsee the deep, regular expansion cracks in the bark, the festoonsof dirty cobwebs, the trails of insects, the runnels of drippingpink sap. It was a wall that filled the universe.

  His feet sank into the matted forest floor as if it were loosesand. He strengthened his body by consuming selyn at one hundredtimes his basal metabolic rate, a "tenth level Augmentation,"and he knew he couldn't maintain it for more than a few seconds.

  In one final burst of determination, Yone thrust the majestictree to the left of their path as far as he could – only a fewdegrees – and prayed the others had gotten clear. Then he turnedto sprint, with the last burst of augmentation left in him, clearof the far-flung branches of the crashing tree.

  He had gone three steps before his racing brain told him thatLivya Jeter was standing hypnotized in the path of the tree. Skidding wildly, he turned and raced back for her, caught herup over his shoulder, and raced again to get clear.

  Amid a final crescendo, the tree settled to the floor of the foresttaking many lesser growths with it. One of the upper branches,as thick as a man's upper arm, slapped across Yone's backsideand sent him rolling with his burden into a tangle of leaves andtwigs around a lower branch.

  They came to rest between two of the giant's fallen limbs, buriedin musty smelling, bruised leaves, and for a moment both lay stunnedsenseless.

  Then Yone became acutely aware of the soft Gen body lying on hischest, of his arms encircling the hips he had so ached to touch. The scent of her hair overpowered the staleness of crushed leaves. The warmth of her beat through him deliciously reviving his searednerves with that peculiar power only the Gen had. Only the Genbody could generate selyn, and even though Livya had never donatedselyn, as she lay there senseless from shock her body throbbedwith the life of it.

  Yone was not in personal need of selyn, but he had just expendednearly the entire reserve he'd gathered painstakingly from theforty-four general class donors among the survivors. The pulseof newly created selyn he sensed in her body was balm to sorelyscorched nerves. He let his lips touch her cheek, seek her lips. His laterals – usually used only in drawing selyn from the Genbody – caressed her skin through several large rents in her clothing.

  The Sime empathic faculty opened her body to him, and he couldsense not only the reviving throb of selyn production, but eachand every ache, strained muscle, cut, and bruised organ. He knewthat by direct-sensing that made Sime physicians supreme diagnosticians,that she was unhurt by the fall and would soon wake. He alsoknew that she was physically and emotionally a virgin.

  The touch of his lips on hers changed from the coolly impersonalSime contact. It became a kiss that rose from his loins and flowedinward from his limbs. His whole body was responding to the totalpresence of her and he was already growing and searching withthe urgency that flooded him. Now!

  She was still only semi-conscious. He could tell by the totallack of response to what he was doing. There was no feedback,as there must be for a channel to accomplish this purpose. Whenshe wakes, I'll get her to cooperate. It will only take a moment.

  He heard his thought and suddenly it wrenched a moan from him. No! It's not right! It must be her will! He shook with thenegation that coursed down from his mind ramming into the upwardsurging culmination of desire.

  No! I am a Farris. I am a channel. I swore to obey the Tecton'sPrinciples of Action. He had taken the channel's oath to theTecton, and he would not let his body violate that oath. My bodyis mine! I control!

  Painfully, he forced himself back from the brink of instant release,accepting the anguish of frustration and making his peace withit. It was a truly heroic effort, but he was unaware of his heroism. And he was not enraged when she refused to accept his heroicdeed graciously.

  She came to her senses to find herself gripped by his rock-tensebut tender embrace, to find herself being kissed deep and hardas she had never been kissed before. Her soft, yielding body,stiffened. Her peculiarly Gen fear lanced through Yone's unshieldedlaterals, hit him in the pit of the stomach.

  And Yone was Sime. The reflex her fear touched off was even moredeep-seated than the one he had just conquered. Aggression theycalled it, Sime Aggression. The Sime mutation was nature's mostperfectly equipped predator, and the prey was the Gen. But Yonewas also a channel, the one type of Sime able to control thataggression. He forced his shaking arms apart and
rolled her,squirming and flailing, onto the carpet of leaves.

  But even being a channel, he had to get away from the fear emanatingfrom her or succumb to it and strip her of her selyn. His lastinner resources were depleted.

  Half rising, he plunged over the next lower limb of the fallentree, wavered a few more steps, stumbled and fetched up hard againsta greater limb. Stunned, he lay gasping, sweat soaking throughhis trail worn Astrogator's uniform, unaware that he was shakingfrom head to toe with one spasmodic fit after another.

  I did it. I got away from her. It's going to be all right now. I did it. Nothing worse can possibly happen. I did it. Bythe time Brian Inikar reached Yone's side, the channel was obliviousto all but that one saving thought. "I did it."

  Yone was unaware that he was being tended by a Gen whose expertfingers and analytical eyes had been trained by Distect Simes,conspirators dedicated to destroying the Tecton. He knew onlythat it was a male Gen near him, and so he was safe from thatawful temptation that still lived in him. The Gen who workedon him now knew no fear, so he was safe from that reflex too. This Gen soothed his raw nerves with an emotional nager of compassion,concern, and perhaps a tart bit of criticism which was as it shouldbe. Yone knew he'd behaved abominably.

  It was close to an hour before Yone was able to grip the memorythat, here on this forsaken Beacon Planet, on this long trek acrossuncharted wilderness toward an emergency call beacon that mightnot even function, there was no Tecton-trained Gen Donor, no FirstOrder Donor schooled to serve First Order Channels such as YoneFarris. His only Donor was Valyu Alamain, an earnest young manbarely half trained to serve the lowest order channels, and nomatch for Yone's needs. Then who was this Gen?

  No sooner had he asked that question than, to his utter horror,he could answer it.

  Brian Inikar. Convict. Being transported with his wife and childto the planet of exile where the Tecton sent all Distect conspirators. In the press of minute-to-minute survival after the crash, suchsocial distinctions had lost importance. The six convicts hadsaved many lives, lent aid where needed, but always had the prudenceto keep strictly away from the one and only Sime among the survivors. Too many of the Tecton's most loyal channels had succumbed tothe mysterious lure of the Distect after a brief encounter witha Distect Gen. Nobody knew why.

  As if rising from the depths of the blackest ocean, Yone foughthis way toward full consciousness, warding off the aid he hadbeen so gratefully accepting. He knew that Brian's Distect-trainedempathic touch had already saved his life. The Gen's whole nervoussystem had slipped into perfect resonance with Yone's bespeakinga level of skill Yone had not been exposed to for more than fourmonths.

  On the edge of full consciousness, Yone fell back, spent. I'dforgotten how good it can be! The Sime uses selyn; the Gen createsit. Without the Gens to supply that energy, the Sime faces thebleak cold death of attrition. During those days when Need grewand his system ached to function, even the channels who storevast quantities of extra selyn look into that cold abyss and knowdeep-diving terrors beyond Gen comprehension. At that time intheir physiologic cycle, the Simes' libido is totally paralyzed,but instantly when Need is satisfied, that paralyzed sensitivityblooms again, the more intense for the hiatus. The cycle is mostpronounced in the higher level channels such as Yone Farris.

  Even under Alamain's care, Yone had been ruled by it. Now helooked into a future of alternating tortures – two weeks of theCD's within arm's reach of Livya Jeter, then two weeks of increasingneed within reach of Brian Inikar. But maybe, thought Yone, there'sstill time to break the hold he's got on me.

  Meanwhile, Livya Jeter dragged herself away from the limb overwhich Yone had half-fallen, and white with shock, she managedto struggle to her feet. Then Cheryl Inikar, Brian's wife, reachedher side, made her sit for a time with her head between her knees.

  As Livya's color returned to its normal, healthy brown, Cherylencouraged her to talk. "Tell it, honey, tell it all. You'llfeel better to get it out." The Inikars were from In Brim,while Livya and her mother were from Port Alon, but they all sprangfrom the same Terran stock – Sime and Gen alike shared the samemind, the mind of Man. The cultural differences were vast, butCheryl might have been for those moments Livya's big sister asshe held her and listened to her stuttering tale.

  "I was so frightened! You've no idea how strong a Sime is! He could have crushed my ribs to powder! And I could feel histentacles all over my back, and his tongue ... uhh!"

  "Easy Livya, it's over now. Calm down and think. You'rea woman, you ought to be able to tell. You just described howhe was kissing you. Honey, that's not a transfer-contact kindof kiss. He wasn't looking to take selyn from you! He wantedyou to feel that what he was doing was good, but when you respondedwith fear, you undid him. But, Baby, listen, the next time he–"

  Livya rose, knees still shaky but forced to lock her upright. The realization of Cheryl's meaning struck a new note of horror. "Ther ... there isn't going to be a next time. What doyou think I am, some sort of prostitute? So maybe he can claimthe Channel's Exemption, but there's no court of law anywherethat could make me! He has no rights over me!"

  "He asks no more of you than you have stolen from him!"

  "Stolen! You're the one who's the convicted criminal, notme. You're the one who sells your body to any Sime who asks forit! Why don't you go play with him!"

  Before Cheryl could deny that rumored Distect behavior, Livyacaught her breath and went on, cold and fiercely brutal. "Ifthat Sime tries to rape me again, so help me I'll kill him."

  Cheryl drew breath for a scathing retort, but then let it outwearily. "You won't have to. He's Tecton and Farris. He'llkill himself to keep from touching you against your will. That'swhat your precious Tecton stands for, the sacrifice of the noblestchannels to the whim of the non-Donors."

  A new voice joined them "Distect whore!" They bothturned to find Evelyn Jeter picking her way through the branchestoward them. "Get away from my daughter or I'll do the killingshoulda been done to youa year ago!"

  Mrs. Jeter wasn't old enough to be called spry, but she stillretained the lean, wiry build of her vanished youth. At first,Cheryl stood her ground, drawn to her full height as if to launchthunderbolts of rage. But then she gathered a cool self-controlaround her and retreated toward the knot of people gathering andcounting themselves beside the top of the tree.

  "Mother!" Livya greeted suddenly when they were alone. It just now occurred to her that her mother had been in dangertoo.

  "What's this about rape, Liv? Did that Sime get his slimytentacles on you?"

  "They're ..." she started, and then tossed a thoughtfulglance toward the screen of leaves that cut her off from the channel,"They're not slimy, Mother." She let herself drop ontothe leaves.

  Lost now in a calmer reliving of the incident, Livya didn't answer,just stared round-eyed at the barrier of leaves. What she hadlearned of Simes in school was sparse, but she did know that channelswere a secondary mutation from the Sime type, and required a lotof special handling. That was the province of the highly trainedTechnical Class Donors.

  "I'm no Donor, Mother, but –"

  "Well, I certainly hope not! Those professional donors arelittle better than prostitutes!"

  "Mother, this is no time for hysteria. I have to think!" She rose and took a step toward the wall of leaves, hands claspedtogether at her waist, face contorted with the effort to overcomeher shock and think coherently. "I'm no Donor, but he kepthimself from hurting me."

  "Well, that's a relief! Then he didn't actually do it?"

  "He almost did, but he stopped himself. I couldn't breakloose, he let me go, Mama," she asked, eyes fixed on thewall between her and Yone, "are all channels like ... him?"

  Mrs. Jeter got to her feet and went around in front of Livya totake her shoulders and shake her gently, "Oh, Liv, baby,what has he done to you? The Channel's Exemption is law, so wecan't sue that filthy beast for trying to do that. But we canhate him for it. The Simes can't endure hate. If you hate themenough, they'll s
tay away from you."

  "Hate? Mama, he could have done with me whatever he wanted,and he had the legal right to do it, but he did not." Helet me go by an act of will over –" she groped for a word"– over want. How can I hate a man with that kind of strength?"

  "There's not much else to do, Liv. It's your only protection."

  Livya twisted free and backed up. "Maybe there's nothingelse you could do, but what do you think he would do in the samesituation? Just sit in a hole paralyzed with fear and hatred?"

  "He's a Sime. What has he got to fear? Or hate?"

  "He's a Man, an incredibly powerful human being. He chosenot to do what he wanted to do. I don't know his reason, butI'm sure he had a reason and he followed it even though it hurthim. I've never known you to do anything like that."

  Mrs. Jeter shook her head wearily. Livya still looked a littlepale around the lips, and her fingers were cold. "I don'tknow what's gotten into you, Liv, but I'm going to ask Mr. Flickfor protection. That Sime won't be able to get near you alone."

  "That's what you always do, run and hide behind somebody's'protection.' I don't need anybody to protect me, least of allfrom a man like Yone Farris!"

  "From a man, maybe not, but from a slimy snake of a –"

  "Once and for all, Mother, I'm telling you that I felt themand they ... ARE ... NOT ... SLIMY!" Her words came outa fierce whisper though she wanted to shout. She'd been toldso often that the Sime tentacles were slimy that, at first, shehad felt slime. Only later had she been able to calm down andanalyze the sensation. Her choking anger was in part at her motherfor the untruth and in part at herself for being fooled by it.

  "Livya Jeter, haven't I taught you better respect than tocontradict your mother? You're only a child. You don't knowwhat you're saying."

  "I felt them," she repeated, cooler now. "Theyare not slimy. What else have you taught me that's wrong?"

  "Livya!" She recoiled, shocked. "I'm your mother!"