Personal Recognizance (Sime~Gen, Book 9) Read online

  Table of Contents

  The Sime~Gen Series

  Copyright Information

  Dedication

  Chronology of the Sime~Gen Universe

  Author’s Foreword

  Sime~Gen:

  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

  About the Author

  PERSONAL RECOGNIZANCE

  SIME~GEN, BOOK NINE

  JACQUELINE LICHTENBERG

  The Sime~Gen Series

  House of Zeor, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg (#1)

  Unto Zeor, Forever, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg (#2)

  First Channel, by Jean Lorrah and Jacqueline Lichtenberg (#3)

  Mahogany Trinrose, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg (#4)

  Channel’s Destiny, by Jean Lorrah and Jacqueline Lichtenberg (#5)

  RenSime, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg (#6)

  Ambrov Keon, by Jean Lorrah (#7)

  Zelerod’s Doom, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Jean Lorrah (#8)

  Personal Recognizance, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg (#9)

  The Story Untold and Other Stories, by Jean Lorrah (#10)

  To Kiss or to Kill, by Jean Lorrah (#11)

  The Farris Channel, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg (#12)

  Other Jacqueline Lichtenberg Books from Wildside:

  City of a Million Legends

  Molt Brother

  Copyright Information

  Copyright © 2011 by Sime~Gen, Inc.

  Published by Wildside Press LLC

  www.wildsidebooks.com

  Dedication

  My work on this new volume of Sime~Gen has to be dedicated to all the people who have supported the Sime~Gen universe and kept it alive in fanzines, online, and in our discussion groups.

  And even beyond that large number of people, there are a few friends and co-workers who have contributed to my ability to cope with life on the internet.

  Friends, family, and the usual list of suspects found in previous Sime~Gen volumes are all repeated here, with one new addition, Patric Michael.

  So Personal Recognizance has to be dedicated to Patric Michael who has during the writing of this story a) kept my email mailboxes working, b) kept the Sime~Gen Inc. server working, c) kept so many of our web pages working, d) managed many image transformations for me, and taught Eric Berlin to do many of them for me e) scolded me roundly for messing up html but taught me better ways of doing things f) moved heaven and earth to keep trivia out of my field of view until I finished writing this story, and g) shared my vision of what www.simegen.com can and should become.

  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

  Author’s Foreword

  This novel was written for those who have read at least one Sime~Gen novel, such as the first published novel in the Sime~Gen Universe, House of Zeor by Jacqueline Lichtenberg or Jean Lorrah’s introduction to the universe, First Channel. The full list is at http://www.simegen.com/writers/simegen/

  Most of the Sime~Gen novels and stories contain a slow and detailed introduction to the background and jargon, but those who have read many of the novels get tired of the repetition. This novel is especially for them.

  If you are new to Sime~Gen or want a refresher, please read Jean Lorrah’s story collection, The Story Untold and Other Stories, on the flip-side of this volume first.

  Note that The Story Untold collection is set in the Year 1 After Unity while Personal Recognizance is set in Year 245 After Unity.

  Some other novels are set during the turmoil surrounding the re-unification of the human species, Sime and Gen, into one political entity, and some of the novels trace vents during the ensuing centuries.

  Please find the official chronology, spanning some 3,000 years of human future-history including some stories by fans published on simegen.com here:

  http://www.simegen.com/CHRONO1.html

  Sime~Gen:

  where a mutation makes the evolutionary

  division into male and female

  pale by comparison.

  Chapter One

  OVERHEARD REMARK

  Striding along the cactus-studded pathway across campus, Vret McClintock overheard the woman say to her Companion, “Well, I certainly don’t intend to stay a QN-3 for the rest of my life. I....”

  And the voice went out of range of his hearing.

  He had just said those exact words to his vriamic functionals trainer. But this woman’s tone of voice was low, unstressed, without defiance or pride. From her it was a simple matter of declaring her plans for her future. She was not going to stay a Third Order channel.

  And the voice draped Vret’s whole body in soothing velvet.

  No, it’s her nager that did that—her nager while she stated her intentions. And that was it, he realized, standing dumbfounded in the pounding heat of the desert sun zlinning the retreating pair. Oddly, his memory of the impact of that nager was purely tactile. He hadn’t known a nager could register as tactile.

  She has intentions and no reason to expect opposition. I have ambitions. I expect to be thwarted.

  He stood there for another three minutes scheming ways to meet that woman.

  But it was a week later before he even learned her name was Ilin Sumz, and a month until he met her in person.

  Chapter Two

  AWKWARD QUESTIONS

  “Vret, what are you daydreaming about?” demanded Kwotiin Lake, Vret’s trainer.

  “As if you didn’t know,” Vret flicked a nageric shrug in the direction of Kwotiin while stifling his alarm.

  His vriamic functionals trainer was a Firs
t Order channel who could zlin right through any showfield Vret’s Third Order system could produce. Sometimes it seemed Kwotiin could actually read his mind. Vret suppressed his nervous squirming at being questioned under the searchlight of a First’s attention.

  Kwotiin had been grinding away on him ferociously for the last two weeks, but Vret was learning to take it and dish it back with frills. Kwotiin relented. “My guess is you’ve been up all night reading those trashy historical stories on the student boards on that new computer network thing?”

  “It’s not trash!” snapped Vret, caught out. “It’s a tried and true, solid historical study method. Some instructors encourage it.”

  Kwotiin was referring to the daily installments on the amateur writers’ boards, historical fiction written to challenge younger students to find the mistakes in historical fact. The truth was Vret had not been reading that board.

  “So you have been reading those stories. They’re no substitute for real study, Vret.”

  “Actually, no, I haven’t been reading that board.” Again Vret concentrated on his vriamic node, blending his fields into a fog. Of course he had no chance against the First Order channel in charge of his training, but Kwotiin would always give him points for improving his technique.

  The vriamic nerve plexus connected the channel’s primary and secondary selyn systems and allowed the channel to project a showfield and use it to control selyn-flow speeds. Training and exercise of the vriamic was also the key to a channel gaining control of his own Kill reflex. Kwotiin was famous on campus for the severity of his training, so Vret was proud to be admitted to his class, but he sweated.

  This time, Vret’s vriamic work did win a genuine smile from the Trainer. “That’s very good, Vret.”

  Then Kwotiin broke off and paced around the tan-and-white training cubicle as if testing the selyn field insulation. “So tell me, what is going on with you? Over the last month or so, your attitude has changed—reversed actually.”

  “It has?” That was news to him, and he wasn’t sure if it was good news. He waited.

  “You’ve lost the antagonism, you’re more focused on the work, and you’re beginning to make serious progress in your basic skills. I wouldn’t have expected it of you a month ago, but now I think you really can make QN-2 before you leave Rialite—if that’s what you want.”

  The Rialite First Year Camp provided the best channel’s training in the world. It was the only Camp always overseen by a Zeor channel, usually a Farris. Not everyone who arrived graduated from here. Vret had already been threatened with being sent elsewhere to finish his training, a fate he strove to avoid. Graduation from Rialite was a ticket to the top slots in the Tecton hierarchy.

  He had been raised on stories of his twin uncles, one of whom had graduated from Rialite and risen to Assistant World Controller, and the other who had been expelled from Rialite for helping a fellow student take an illicit transfer and ended up stoking selyn batteries at a factory deep in-Territory.

  Something had indeed changed for Vret, and it wasn’t his skills or his determination to Qualify Second as well as earn a Rialite Certificate. But what should he tell Kwotiin?

  Vret zlinned his trainer, straining to focus through the First’s showfield. He was rewarded with a relaxing of that shrouding veil of misdirection that could make a Third dizzy. Abruptly, he zlinned sincere hope within, so he confessed, “I do want to Qualify Second. But ultimately whether I get the chance is up to Sectuib Farris, no?”

  “Well, ultimately—yes. If I send you to him, he will decide. Today’s question is—should I send you to him? What have you been doing in your spare time?”

  “What spare time? That history course is destroying my average and you know it.” Not that there’s much of an average to destroy.

  His guilt was showing, Vret was certain. A Farris channel would zlin every nuance and probably figure it out as if he were a telepath. Some Farrises were telepaths like the Zeor heir who had nearly destroyed Rialite about a hundred years ago, and some Firsts were known to have various talents, but they were very rare and Vret couldn’t see them working as teachers in a First Year Camp.

  Kwotiin held the intense focus and open showfield while Vret strove for innocence, then sighed and turned away, fiddling with the test objects on the workbench, his showfield once again swirling into a perfectly controlled cloud around his true nager.

  He turned, holding a rose colored stone sphere about a tentacle length in diameter then circled the transfer lounge that graced the middle of the room. “Zlin carefully,” he commanded as he manipulated the sphere in his tentacles, and wrapped his field around it so Vret couldn’t zlin it even though he could see it, an exercise Vret had failed a few times already.

  Vret zlinned for all he was worth but couldn’t discern the sphere.

  “Vret, you’re not really interested in spending your life working as a channel, are you?”

  Vret’s showfield shattered, his vriamic grip lost in shock. Some kind of decision had been made about his future, and he couldn’t zlin a hint of what it was. “I’m not very good at Healing. But I’ll be better after I Qualify Second.”

  “Seconds spend a lot of their time managing teams of Thirds. Is that why you want to Qualify? To spend less time tentacles-on patients?”

  “Seconds may spend less time dealing with patients or doing transfers directly, but they accomplish more.”

  “There’s quantity—and there’s quality....”

  Kwotiin wasn’t going to quit. Vret asked, “What do you want me to say, Hajene?”

  “Why do you want to Qualify Second? Just the simple, literal truth will do. If you stay a Third, you’ll have more spare time to devote to interests other than Healing or channeling. Over the next couple of decades the Tecton will allow more Thirds to work outside the Tecton, pursuing their own interests in other professions while channeling only part time. In that world, why would you want to be a Second when obviously other pursuits interest you so?”

  Again Kwotiin’s nageric focus narrowed to a penetrating beam that pierced every shell Vret held about his primary nager. Skewered, Vret confessed, “I’d guess it’s because I’m afraid to stay a Third.”

  Why did I say that out loud? This was a revelation that had come to him only last night while reading the latest installment of the story Ilin Sumz was posting on the extremely illicit, totally hidden, completely secret, (everyone hoped) Bulletin Board hidden underneath the officially sanctioned and encouraged one.

  The story—immense sprawling novel—titled Aunser Ambrov D’zehn, made the reader part of the events surrounding Unity over 245 years ago when Third Order Channels had only just been discovered.

  History recorded that Aunser had founded the Secret Pens, but that was disputed, as was every documented fact from that chaotic time.

  It had cost Vret two months stipend, not to mention several dangerous favors, to discover the name of the author of his favorite novel was Ilin Sumz. And just that morning, he’d contrived an encounter in the cafeteria, nager to nager and discovered, with a stunning lack of astonishment, she was the woman he’d zlinned on the path. He couldn’t stop thinking about her and couldn’t stop reading her novel where the Thirds were seen, from Aunser’s point of view, as nearly helpless.

  “Vret,” sighed Kwotiin “had it not been for the Thirds, Unity and the First Contract would never have happened. It is a very proud thing to be a Third.”

  Vret tried not to squirm. “There’s no shame in it, but it’s like being half blind, partly deaf, with patches of numb skin, and a paralyzed hand. It’s just too frustrating and—all right, yes, frightening to be so—so—so handicapped. Do I really have to—to—to resign myself to this for the rest of my life?”

  Kwotiin reached out and put his hand on the back of Vret’s neck, laterals flicking into a quick contact, there and gone again.

  If Vret had thought the First had zlinned him before, he had been wrong. He now knew he’d never been zlinned in al
l his life before. For less than one second, he knew what it felt like to be zlinned through and through, and all the way out again. He couldn’t breathe even after the sensation was gone.

  “You may not believe this, Vret, but I do think I understand. All right then, if that’s what you really want, I’ll see you get another chance.”

  Another chance? Does that mean I’ve already failed once? “I’ll do whatever it takes.” You don’t get three chances, not at Rialite anyway.

  “I’m hoping you will. It isn’t going to be easy—and it won’t get you out of History unless you pass that Unity Test once and for all. What is it about history that you hate so much you can’t pass a simple test?”

  Again the searchlight of the First’s attention ripped through the flimsy shell of Vret’s showfield leaving him feeling skewered and exposed. He struggled to repair the integrity of his fields while he said, “Dates—and names. I always get names mixed up.”

  “Well...that pretty much covers it all, doesn’t it?”

  Actually...no. He’d learned how much more there was to history by reading that infernal novel with the claws that dug his guts out and seeped into his Need nightmares. “I guess so.” He clamped his vriamic as tightly as he could around the vast guilty secret. He tried to let the real misery at being so stupid pervade his fields.

  Kwotiin laughed hugely, head back, mouth wide open to the ceiling, voice shouting in unrestrained release of tension. The ambient shivered with the purity of that moment.

  Something important had just happened, but Vret was mystified as to what.

  Kwotiin set the rosy sphere down in its rack on the bench and turned. “Look, Vret, you will get your Channeling License—maybe with an Out-Territory certification—even if you don’t pass the history test. But overall your general career will be hampered not by your lack of passing the test, but by your lack of knowledge of the essential facts in that course. The course, boring as it is, is part of your training for a reason.”