Unto Zeor, Forever Read online

  THE SIME~GEN SERIES FROM THE BORGO PRESS

  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

  DEDICATION

  To my husband, Salomon Lichtenberg, who has suffered over this book more than anyone can know.

  To a woolly worm called Ray Block, because every girl ought to have an extra father when the going gets tough.

  To my Parents, because you don’t really know what parents are until you’re over thirty and a parent yourself.

  And

  to Aunt Anna; May She Rest in Peace

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  2011

  I’m leaving the Dedication and Acknowledgments from the earlier editions of this novel because they still apply. But I want to thank John Betancourt at Wildside Press and his colleague Robert Reginald at Borgo Press for bringing these novels back into availability along with the new material in Sime~Gen.

  You should find availability information on all other titles at:

  http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

  and

  http://simegen.com

  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 NOTE

  A special acknowledgment goes to Marion Zimmer Bradley.

  While visiting me in August 1975, Marion was sitting on the sofa with two years of notes for this book spread all about her. I came in with a cold cantaloupe in one hand, asking what she’d like for lunch, and she sat me down and forced me to answer the question “But what is this book really about? What’s the story, in one sentence?”

  That cantaloupe was warm before we’d hacked out three little notebook pages, which eventually—and to my astonishment—became this book. Few mortals are so privileged to sit at the feet of a true artist and learn their craft.

  I would also like to thank the many Sime fans who read and criticized the various drafts, especially Betty Herr, Elisabeth Waters, and Cynthia Levine, who were during this writing the editors of Ambrov Zeor,* the magazine where the ardent Sime fan can always get such things as a Simelan vocabulary and pronunciation guide, genealogy charts of the succession in Zeor, how Proficiency Numbers are calculated, the mathematics of transfer, additional Sime stories and what precisely happened to poor Dane Rizdel, as well as a wealth of technical information much too esoteric to be allowed to intrude into a story.

  An additional acknowledgment goes to Jean Lorrah, who had been known to me for many years through her fine writing in Star Trek fanzines before she wrote me an astute analysis of my first Sime novel, House of Zeor (Doubleday 1974, Pocket Books 1977) and then went on to an exhaustive critique on the semifinal version of this book. Do you have any idea what it’s like for a chemist to have her fiction critiqued by an English professor? Don’t ask. Suffice to say she uncovered many implications I had not seen, and many fruitful pathways to explore in future novels.

  In fact; she began exploring those pathways immediately, producing several remarkable stories which are available in Ambrov Zeor, the Sime fanzine. She finally realized she was thoroughly trapped into the Sime universe and yielded to the temptation to write a Sime novel, which our beloved Pat LoBrutto has yielded to the temptation to buy, called First Channel, the story of the first Sime to discover he didn’t have to kill to live.

  Working with Jean is turning into the thrill of a lifetime and is uncovering a multitude of Sime books that “just have to be written” besides the dozen or three I had already planned on. The co-operation of Sharon Jarvis and now Pat LoBrutto at Doubleday in the shaping of this budding series—Sharon sweated out long hours editing this book and showed herself to be a true genius—has been astounding. I want everyone to know how prompt and efficient Doubleday has been in forwarding mail to me unopened. And I want everyone to know that any correct spelling or punctuation in this book is strictly to the credit of the Doubleday copy editing department, especially Fran, who made this book a labor of love.

  No writer can work in a vacuum. I have been fortunate to be surrounded by the support of so many that I could go on and on with these acknowledgments, but space prohibits. May you all Live Long and Prosper,

  Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  Monsey, New York

  December 1977

  2011 UPDATE

  Most of the material first published on paper in the Sime~Gen fanzines is now available online along with new material created in the age of social networking. Master index page is:

  http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/

  where you can dig to find millions of words of fiction and non-fiction about Sime~Gen. Or:

  http://www.simegen.com/writers/simegen/

  to find book availability, free chapters, and much more.

  Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  Arizona

  Sime~Gen:

  where a mutation makes the evolutionary

  division into male and female

  pale by comparison.

  PART I

  THE ARRIVAL

  What Is the House of Zeor?

  Zeor is not a place or a person. Zeor is the striving for perfection, the dedication to excellence, the realization of mankind’s fullest potential—Sime and Gen united.

  “OUT OF DEATH WAS I BORN—

  UNTO ZEOR, FOREVER!”

  Klyd Farris

  Sectuib in Zeor

  CHAPTER ONE

&n
bsp; BERSERKER

  Digen Farris, Head of the House of Zeor, great-great-grandson of the legendary Klyd Farris, walked through the train station waiting room, acutely aware of the people turning to stare at his back. They didn’t know who he was; they only knew he was a Sime.

  In the dusty little farming town of Sorelton, it was unusual to see a Sime in public. Sorelton was in the heart of Gen Territory, far from the nearest Sime Territory border. All the people in the waiting room were Gen, mostly local people waiting for the big weekly event, the arrival of the train to Westfield.

  Naturally, Digen told himself, the retainers, the gleaming metal cuffs peeking from his sleeves, marking him as a Sime, attracted their curiosity, apprehension, even a little fear. In a town like Sorelton, the only Simes they saw with bare forearms were the berserkers intent on using their tentacles to kill Gens.

  Digen pushed open the screen door and went out to the platform, letting the door clatter shut behind him. He paused, squinting against the July sun. Before him, the track arrowed out of sight in both directions, a gleaming blue-green ceramic ribbon along which the train would slide on a cushion of air. To his left, an unpaved road wound into the distance between a scattering of houses and farms. To his right, in the only puddle of shade on the platform, one lone Gen sat on his bleached duffel bag waiting for the slideroad train.

  As Digen moved onto the platform, the Gen’s attention focused on Digen. Even through the sense-deadening retainers, Digen could feel the man’s idle curiosity turn to a sharp stab of alarm as he sighted the gleaming metal at Digen’s wrists. But the alarm had an odd quality to it that Digen couldn’t quite name. It made his tentacles itch under the retainers.

  Digen moved casually toward the far end of the platform, not wanting to distress the Gen any further. At that moment, Inez Tregaskio came out of the women’s restroom and saw Digen.

  “Oh!” she said in Simelan. “I thought you said you’d wait for me inside.”

  “The ambient nager in there is so thick I couldn’t stand it. In fact, it’s not so great out here, either.” As he spoke, Digen moved to place Inez between himself and the lone Gen, using her body’s selyn field to block the Gen’s field.

  Inez, a solidly built young woman a little shorter than Digen, was a Gen specially trained to allow a Sime to draw selyn—the very energy of life itself—from her body without harming her. Closing her eyes to concentrate, she put one hand on Digen’s arm close to the edge of his retainer, and said, “Better?”

  Digen nodded. Her calm steady, confident emotions soothed him deeply. “The fellow down there is afraid.”

  “You shouldn’t be traveling when you’re in Need like this.”

  Gen fear was the trigger that set off the Sime’s attack reflex. But Digen was a channel, one of the rare Simes who could take selyn from any Gen without killing, and later transfer that selyn to an ordinary Sime to satisfy his Need. Digen would never attack and kill a Gen for selyn. But he was not immune to the reflex.

  “I have a nearly perfect Donor waiting for me in Westfield,” said Digen. “Just get me there sane, and reasonably stable, and all my troubles will be over.” He turned her by the elbow so they could stroll back toward the Gen. “Meanwhile, this fellow’s nager interests me. There’s something very odd—I wish I weren’t wearing retainers!”

  “Maybe your perceptions would be clearer without retainers,” she answered, “but those nice friendly Gens inside the station would turn into a howling mob ready to kill you, and legally entitled to do it, too, if they could.”

  “So what should I say, thank God for retainers?” Digen checked his outburst. His frustration was partly due to Need, but also to the injustice of a channel having to wear retainers, which immobilized his vital organs, making him virtually incapable of meeting his responsibilities. “Let’s get a little closer. Maybe I can get a reading. He’s not as afraid now that you’re with me, and there’s something really strange there—almost as if there were two….”

  When they were halfway down the long platform there was a sudden flashing blur of movement behind the seated Gen, and Digen knew what he had only half sensed before. The fearful Gen’s nager had masked the low throb of a berserker Sime’s nager spiraling down toward the intensity of Need. The berserker was no channel, but a renSime intent on killing the Gen.

  From his hiding place under the wooden platform the berserker leaped up and over a pile of cargo bales and made straight for the seated Gen. Digen yelled a warning to the Gen and launched himself down the platform, augmenting his natural speed by burning up extra selyn. The Gen had time only to perceive the two Simes coming at him faster than any Gen could move. His spiking panic was a screaming pain to Digen but a delicious promise of fulfillment to the berserker.

  Digen arrived the split instant the berserker’s fingers touched the Gen’s arms. He swept the berserker’s hands aside, letting them close instead on his own retainer. With his other hand, Digen grabbed the Gen’s arm and yanked the man to his feet, thrusting him aside.

  He had a moment then of eye contact with the berserker. The scrawny, mud-caked, adolescent figure resolved into that of a young girl, face twisted in a feral snarl, eyes dilated in the last stages of death by selyn attrition.

  Still holding the Gen by one arm, Digen shifted his other hand to capture the girl. By this time, Inez pounded to a stop beside Digen, chest heaving. Digen could not shed the retainers to channel selyn to the berserker. And already the girl was straining toward Inez’s more potent selyn field. Digen made an instant decision. “Inez, take care of her!” And he shoved the berserker into the Donor’s arms.

  Still dragging the terror stricken Gen behind him absentmindedly, Digen watched the transfer.

  The berserker girl’s hands closed with bruising Sime strength over Inez’s forearms, and simultaneously the Sime’s strong handling tentacles lashed out from their sheaths—two along the top of each arm and two along the bottom of each arm—to immobilize the Gen. From the sides of the berserk Sime’s arms came the tiny pinkish lateral tentacles, four of them, dripping the selyn conducting hormone, ronaplin.

  As the laterals made contact with Inez’s skin, the berserker sought the mouth-to-mouth, lip-to-lip contact necessary to complete the selyn transfer. Inez made the contact willingly, surprising the young Sime.

  A moment, and it was all over, the young Sime’s Need sated. Digen saw her then, a young girl, bruised and battered, blood mixed with the mud-covered, torn clothing. And he knew what her history must be.

  Children showed no difference between Sime and Gen. But in the teens, without warning, some children—even the children of Gens—went through changeover, developing the need for selyn and the organs to satisfy that Need. Here in Sorelton teenagers were watched, and any child showing the classic symptoms of changeover was apt to be attacked, beaten to death like some crawling horror out of their elders’ own childhood nightmares of going Sime. This girl had escaped during such a beating and hidden herself here under the train platform until her tentacles had matured and broken free. Then, attracted by the Gen’s fear of Digen, she had attacked on simple instinct.

  Raised out-Territory, she knew nothing of Simes, nothing of what she had become, save that it was loathsome.

  Bare seconds had passed since Digen had first pelted past the station room door. Now, the door came open as people crowded out to see what all the commotion was about. Sighting them, the girl gathered herself to spring for freedom, powered now with the speed and strength of the selyn she had taken.

  Digen had to augment to grab and hold her with one hand while with the other he still held the Gen behind him. “Don’t be afraid,” he said to the girl in her own language. He let her see the retainer encasing his arm. “We’ll protect you.”

  From the door, the Gens had begun to mutter, taking in the situation. Inez moved in front of the girl, taking her other arm. One of the Gens coming out onto the platform said, “It’s the Staner girl! She’s Sime!” And he made a grab for th
e rifle kept on the wall inside the door for just such an emergency.

  Digen turned to them, raising his voice. “The situation is under control. Please call the Sime Center and ask them to pick this girl up.” And hurry, he thought, because I’m not going to miss that train!

  He turned to the girl and whispered, “You run for it, and they’ll hunt you down like an animal.” He felt her absorb that with the returning sanity of sated Need. “Now, if I let go of you, will you stay with Inez?”

  The girl looked up at the Donor. Digen could imagine how confused she must be, trying to assimilate the new information her Sime senses gave her. He said, “Inez is a trained Donor. You can’t hurt her, and she can help you feel better.”

  The girl gave one wary jerk of a nod, and Digen, sensing her decision to stand tight, let go of her arm. The crowd of Gens by the door grumbled as one of them thrust his way through to the front. It was the stationmaster. He called to Digen, “They’re on their way to collect the kid.”

  “You see?” said Inez to the girl. “They know your family. They don’t want to kill you. They only want to protect themselves. Don’t scare them and they’ll leave you alone. We’ll take care of you now.”

  As she spoke, she took the girl back among the baled goods and sat her down, keeping her own body between the Sime and the crowd of Gens. Digen watched her work with approval, and then became aware of the tense, twisted Gen arm he still held.

  The Gen had turned away, eyes squeezed shut, inwardly tensed against the scene that had just played out before them. Digen loosened his grip, placing himself between the Gen and the Sime girl. “Hey, it’s all over now. Nothing happened. Nobody’s hurt.”

  Slowly the Gen turned toward Digen and his gaze became fixed on Digen’s hand where it held the Gen arm. Digen let go, watching the Gen carefully for signs of lowering blood pressure, shock. But the Gen was still dazed. Noting the mark where his hand had held the man, Digen said, “I’m sorry if I was a little rough. I didn’t want you to perturb the fields by moving—uh—injudiciously.”