The Farris Channel Read online

  Table of Contents

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  DEDICATION

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  THE STORY OF THE FOUNDING 400

  CHRONOLOGY OF THE SIME~GEN UNIVERSE

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  EPILOGUE

  NAME THE VILLAIN CONTEST

  THE NAZTEHRHAI AMBROV ZEOR

  ABOUT JACQUELINE LICHTENBERG

  THe farris channel

  jacqueline lichtenberg

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  Copyright © 2011 by Sime~Gen, Inc.

  Published by Wildside Press LLC

  www.wildsidebooks.com

  DEDICATION

  To the souls currently living as Salomon, Ernest, Naomi Gail, Becca, Paul, Deborah Ruth, and Julia Summer. Whoever you may be when you read this, know that you are loved, respected, admired, and cherished.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I never intended to write this book about the founding of the House of Zeor. But as Star Trek fans became immersed in the Sime~Gen universe, at first via the first novel, House of Zeor, then the first award winner, Unto Zeor, Forever, both about men who headed up the House of Zeor, they kept asking questions about the House of Zeor, the Farrises, the concept Sectuib, and how it all happened.

  Being Star Trek fans, they wrote stories to argue for their own answers, Sime~Gen fan fiction stories. That body of fan fiction is now much larger than the professionally published novels, and available online for free reading via Simegen.com.

  Jean Lorrah was particularly curious about how the channels ever became channels, and kept asking, none of my answers putting the matter to rest for her. Finally she wrote up a piece of fiction that incorporated my answers to date, gave it to me at a Star Trek fanzine oriented convention. She then posed more and more questions. Which I answered until I got laryngitis.

  So I did what any self-respecting member of science fiction fandom would do, I told her to write her story up as novel. She did. It was terrific (she was already a professional writer, not to mention a Professor of English—she could write, oh boy, could she!). So I presented it to my editor at Doubleday, and they bought it. That novel is First Channel.

  Thus Sime~Gen has two main entry points which are crafted to let you absorb the complex background by osmosis, without pausing as you read the story, House of Zeor and First Channel.

  House of Zeor is for veteran Science Fiction readers, especially Star Trek or Vampire Romance fans who love to be challenged by a very different reading experience. First Channel is for general fiction readers who may be a little leery of science fiction, or who prefer to start reading a “series” at the “beginning.”

  All of the Sime~Gen novels have a love story at the core of the plot, and some, like Jean Lorrah’s To Kiss or to Kill, are Romance Genre. Unto Zeor, Forever is a “doctor novel romance.” My ambition is to have a Sime~Gen novel in each of the recognized genres, to illustrate how Science Fiction is not a genre at all.

  Despite being published as a Series, Sime~Gen is not a series, but a Universe. The novels are not all about one character, though if you pay attention you may find certain souls that reincarnate, having learned one lesson and now face yet another new lesson.

  The Sime~Gen novels were framed as the story of The House of Zeor and the impact of its legend on the course of human history. It’s the story of a group of loosely affiliated souls who struggle with issues bigger than they are and apply various philosophies to their problems in different eras and epochs, including eventually space colonization.

  All the previously published novels can be read in any order, and should be re-read in different orders to get the most out of them. They are re-readable books, books which reveal something new with each re-reading.

  This novel, The Farris Channel, about the founding of the House of Zeor, assumes the reader has read a few of the previously published novels and needs answers to questions.

  So here I must acknowledge all those who asked these questions that led to this novel. They number in the hundreds.

  I must also acknowledge the contribution of Jean Lorrah who wrote First Channel and Channel’s Destiny, the two direct prequels to this novel, chronicling what happened when Rimon Farris discovered the trick of “channeling” and how this eventually led to the founding of something as odd in human history as a Householding. Those two novels made this novel absolutely necessary.

  Now Jean is more interested in writing about her musician characters, Zhag and Tonyo, who appear in the short stories in The Story Untold and Other Sime~Gen Stories as well as the novel, To Kiss or to Kill. If you pay attention, you’ll find prior incarnations of those souls in The Farris Channel. The descendents of Zhag and Tonyo and the film/video industry they found, have as profound an impact on the course of history as the House of Zeor does.

  But there is another story set chronologically between Channel’s Destiny and The Farris Channel. We call it “Companions,” because it’s about the Gens of Fort Freedom and their role in the burgeoning growth of the Fort until it becomes such an irritant to the junct Territory that the Fort is destroyed, the survivors scattering to form the Forts you will read about in The Farris Channel. Because Companions has so much explosive action, flame-and-glory writ large, we are debating whether would make a better screenplay than novel.

  Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  June 2011

  THE STORY OF THE FOUNDING 400

  As the list of Sime~Gen novels grew over the years, it was becoming very difficult for new fans to scrounge up copies of the Sime~Gen novels which were scattered across various publishers in hardcover and mass market paperback. So one of the editors of the Sime~Gen fanzine Ambrov Zeor, Anne Pinzow, who happened to work for Toad Hall, a publisher at that time, sold the idea of doing reprints of the novels along with a large, new novel.

  But publishing was in dire flux (so what else is new?) and Toad Hall did some figures and decided the new novel needed a pre-publication subscription sale of 400 hardcover copies before they could publish it. We had been selling about a thousand copies of each of the Sime~Gen fanzine editions, so we thought that would be possible.

  Jean Lorrah and I went to the fans, who at that time mostly connected with us via snailmail, though we had begun moving online to Simegen.com. It took a few years to get signed pledges from each of 400 people saying they’d pay $25 for a hardcover copy of The Farris Channel. Signing up also gave you the chance to have a character in the novel named as you’d wish. Some of those names have been used here.

  By that point, the publisher had closed up shop. Even though The Farris Channel was mostly written, it wouldn’t get published.

  But by then, we were well ensconced online, and with a form people could sign to join the 400 (list faithfully kept by Ronnie Bob Whitaker and Karen MacLeod). We forgot to take the form down from the Web. We ended up with over 500 subscribers, but no publisher.

  So once again, we were shopping Sime~Gen around. We had a screenplay on the market by Anne Pinzow (yes, she’s a professional at that, too), and Jean was working on an e-book novel for the Romance e-book market.
Fans were still writing Sime~Gen stories and novels and cooperative fiction (a kind of online gaming). New fans were introduced via the fan fiction, scouring online bookstores for used copies of the published novels.

  Meisha Merlin approached us with a good offer, and we signed a deal with them for omnibus reprints and new novels, and they brought out the first volume, Sime~Gen: The Unity Trilogy, with a genuine trilogy of novels—House of Zeor by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Ambrov Keon by Jean Lorrah, and Zelerod’s Doom by Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Jean Lorrah.

  Those three novels are all about the same characters living the same lives, re-engineering society around them.

  I wrote Personal Recognizance for one of those omnibus volumes and rewrote The Farris Channel to Meisha Merlin’s specifications.

  But Meisha Merlin folded before they could bring out any more novels.

  Then, at a convention, Robert Reginald, who runs the Borgo Press imprint of John Betancourt’s Wildside Press, approached us out of the blue. They wanted the novels.

  We worked a deal, but it took a few years to get all the technicalities in place. Wildside already had two of my reprint novels, Molt Brother and City of a Million Legends successfully marketed as e-books and paperbacks. They were releasing reprints and e-book editions of Jean Lorrah’s Savage Empire Series. In addition, they’ve done collections of short stories by each of us. Now finally, with this volume, polished for this new market, they will have all the Sime~Gen Novels extant in print simultaneously.

  All this has taken so long that we lost touch with many of the Founding 400+ subscribers who want this novel, and one fan in Australia has set up a SimeGen Group on facebook to try to connect with them. The List of the 400 is appended to the end of this volume.

  If you know any of these folks who have lost touch, please tell them The Farris Channel is now available.

  CHRONOLOGY OF THE SIME~GEN UNIVERSE

  The Sime~Gen Universe was originated by Jacqueline Lichtenberg who was then joined by a large number of Star Trek fans. Soon, Jean Lorrah, already a professional writer, began writing fanzine stories for one of the Sime~Gen ’zines. But Jean produced a novel about the moment when the first channel discovered he didn’t have to kill to live which Jacqueline sold to Doubleday.

  The chronology of stories in this fictional universe expanded to cover thousands of years of human history, and fans have been filling in the gaps between professionally published novels. The full official chronology is posted at

  http://www.simegen.com/CHRONO1.html

  Here is the chronology of the novels by Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Jean Lorrah by the Unity Calendar date in which they are set.

  -533—First Channel, by Jean Lorrah & Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  -518—Channel’s Destiny, by Jean Lorrah & Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  -468—The Farris Channel, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  -20—Ambrov Keon, by Jean Lorrah

  -15—House of Zeor, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  0—Zelerod’s Doom, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg & Jean Lorrah

  +1—To Kiss or to Kill, by Jean Lorrah

  +1—The Story Untold and Other Sime~Gen Stories, by Jean Lorrah

  +132—Unto Zeor, Forever, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  +152—Mahogany Trinrose, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  +224—“Operation High Time,” by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  +232—RenSime, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  +245—Personal Recognizance, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  Sime~Gen:

  where a mutation makes the evolutionary

  division into male and female

  pale by comparison.

  PROLOGUE

  “NOW IS THE TIME”

  “I, Xigram Klairon Farris, Last Sectuib in Zeor, commend this narrative to the permanent record of the Zeor Archives.”

  A subliminal stir wafted through in the vast amphitheater packed with the members of Zeor. Xigram faced them from the stage and spoke in measured tones. He knew they saw an elderly man, white haired, frail, with the typical black Farris eyes, and a sufficient hint of the Zeor Farris nose, lips, chin.

  In one hand he held a magnificently bound volume from which he was about to read. The formal cloak of the Head of this, the Last Householding still functioning in the galaxy, draped his shoulders. It was the bright blue of Zeor, with the distinctive black edging of the Farris, the hem thrown back over his shoulders to expose the white lining designating the Sectuib. All the primitive, time-honored and hallowed symbolism was echoed in the garb of everyone in the audience.

  They all knew they were about to hear the very private, never before transcribed story of the Founding of Zeor. They had all grown up on this bedtime story, and the amphitheater’s ambient vibrated with the warm, secure feeling of childhood’s bedtime.

  But this telling would be different. This time they would hear it told as the Sectuib in Zeor Received it from his predecessor and Delivered it to his successor. This was the real story, not the fairy tale. Today, they would all Receive Zeor and take it away to give to the galaxy.

  The stage behind the Last Sectuib was set with the archeological treasures of Zeor. Foremost was the remains of the stone on which the names of the first martyrs had been inscribed. Around that oldest symbol of Zeor were arrayed the plaques and monuments that had been added to the Memorial to the One Billion over the centuries. A huge glowing image of Zeor’s stylized dagger symbol dominated the background.

  The Lamp had been lit within a bubbling fountain’s pure water brought from Earth for this ceremony. Over the last ten days, the Roll of Martyrs had been read by the Officers of Zeor in a round-the-clock marathon before an audience that was never less than a third of the crowd Xigram now faced.

  Xigram Klairon Farris took a deep breath, gathering himself before plunging across the point-of-no-return. For once he had recorded the full, unedited narrative into the Archive read aloud before Zeor in his own voice as he had Received it, he would extinguish the Lamp of Zeor for all time.

  Zeor has served its purpose; the Vision has been made real for all humanity. So why, then, did his throat close up tight over the words? As the narrative instructs, this must be my last duty or my soul, the souls of all who have ever been ambrov Zeor, will never know peace.

  He swallowed hard and began as thousands of parents for thousands of generations had begun.

  “This is the Ideal of Zeor.

  “This is the Heart of Zeor.

  “This is the Spirit of Zeor.

  “This is the Reality of Zeor.”

  He opened the great volume he had written with his own hand and began to read in a voice strangely not his own:

  CHAPTER ONE

  FATEFUL DECISION

  Del Rimon Farris, ranking channel in Fort Rimon, rose behind his desk as people boiled through his door and more pushed in behind.

  He had never had so many shouting people cram into his office before. In such a babble, he strained to understand what they were yelling about.

  Simes and Gens alike, those who had come here to homestead with him, and the refugees they’d taken in, all emitted clashing emotional fields which charged the ambient nager with determination, maybe rage, and all of it directed at him, personally, pounding his Sime senses.

  As close as he could figure it, the refugees desperately wanted to avoid another disaster such as had destroyed their homes and left them begging Fort Rimon for shelter. The Fort Rimon natives wanted to defend their homes from the refugees’ panic.

  Del Rimon eased down into his desk chair, braced his elbows on the arms, and calmly laced his fingers and tentacles into an arch. Acutely aware of the painting of Fort Freedom that hung on the wall behind him, framing him in two generations of tradition as he sat there, he worked to spread calm through the room.

  Benart, a big Gen who was Fort Rimon’s chief record keeper, edged through the crowd to sit on a tall stool at the corner of Delri’s desk. He took up a slate on which he usually scrawled notes of m
eetings. His muscles tightened, his chalk screeched jerkily across the slate.

  Fear will be the end of us all. Panic will destroy us.

  Del Rimon’s Companion, a supremely talented Gen, focused steady attention on Rimon. That let him work on the emotional turmoil with his special channel’s talent. He made eye contact with several key individuals, one after another, and they began helping calm the ambient.

  With that bit of local quiet, he zlinned the distance beyond the building. Far outside their little walled compound they dubbed with the grandiose name, Fort Rimon after Del Rimon’s grandfather, smoke plumed from behind the hill that separated them from Shifron, the local junct town.

  Even from within the shielded office, Del Rimon Farris was sure he was zlinning the death of the town of Shifron at the hands of a huge mob of Freeband Raiders. Surely Fort Rimon would be their next target.

  Divided internally by this dispute, whatever it was this time, the Fort would fall more quickly than Fort Freedom, the original Fort, had fallen.

  They didn’t have much time.

  Del Rimon rose from behind his desk, motioned his Companion aside, apologized to Benart with a nod, then stepped up onto his desk as he gathered his nager about him. With the extra height, he let loose a silent nageric snap that spread harmlessly over their heads. The Simes who could perceive the nageric signal fell silent immediately. The Gens noticed the Simes staring at Del Rimon and turned to see what had happened. Silence enveloped the room.

  He stepped down from the desktop. He felt all the other channels in the room finally getting a grip on the ambient, and he realized almost his whole channeling staff was here.

  “Xanon, what exactly is this all about?” asked Del Rimon in soft tones.