Unto Zeor, Forever Read online

  The Gen’s eyes finally raised to Digen’s, searching the Sime’s face. Digen said, “Forgive me?”

  “You’re a channel?”

  Digen nodded.

  “You look—Farris. I think. I’ve never seen a Farris before.”

  “Digen Farris,” he answered, nodding.

  “Doctor Digen Farris? The one who’s going to intern at Westfield Memorial Hospital?”

  Digen nodded again. “If I can get there by tomorrow morning so I don’t get fired before I’ve even started.”

  “They wouldn’t fire you just for being late,” said the Gen, his voice starting to weaken. “Me, maybe, but not you.” The Gen’s knees started to sag, and Digen backed him up until his duffel bag, was behind his knees.

  “Sure they’d fire me,” said Digen, urging the Gen to sit. “They’d love to find an excuse.” The first Sime to intern in an all Gen hospital was not going to be welcomed, and Digen knew it. “Put your head between your knees for a minute. You’re not hurt. It’s only reaction.”

  The Gen complied, breathing deeply, and then looked up. “I felt her touch me….”

  “Only a fingertip. She never got a grip on you.”

  “It happened so fast…,” said the Gen in a strangled whisper, and the fear and revulsion seized him again. It was, Digen saw, a reaction far beyond the usual fear of Simes. The man was shaking, with teeth clenched and eyes staring. He’s a Simephobe!

  Behind them, the Sime girl had finally broken into her own reaction, crying softly, hopelessly, on Inez’s shoulder. Down the platform, the stationmaster had herded the crowd back into the waiting room, shouting over the babble that the pickup wagon from the Sime Center would soon be there.

  Way down the track, Digen could sense the train finally approaching.

  Digen took the Gen by the shoulders and shook him once, tentatively. He was a big man, taller than Digen, large-boned, gaunt, but still with more muscle on his frame than a Sime would have. Digen took a good grip and shook him hard, saying, “It’s all over. Nothing happened. Snap out of it now!”

  But the man’s stare seemed to have turned inward. It was almost an acute psychotic episode, Digen realized. Gritting his teeth, he drew back his hand and delivered a ringing slap on the Gen’s cheek. The man’s head turned with the blow, and for a moment Digen was afraid his gambit had failed, for the Gen’s head just stayed there.

  Then, all at once, the man seemed to shake himself back to life, one hand going to his cheek. “What happened?”

  Digen drew back a little, saying, “A touch of hysteria, I think. You’re better now.”

  Collecting himself, the Gen focused on Digen, and for the first time seemed normal. “I’m acting like a fool.”

  “No,” said Digen reassuringly. “That was close. It could have turned into an ugly business. Look,” he added, to change the subject, “here comes the train.”

  The long, cross-country train was gliding into the station, blowing up dust and grit with a hissing roar until it settled gently to rest, hovering just a finger’s breadth above its track its selyn powered engines idling. Porters began opening doors at each end of the cars, and men swung down to heave the bales into the cargo cars.

  Crates and boxes were being unloaded and put into hand pulled carts, and the stationmaster was darting here and there. Passengers were getting on and off the cars at the far end of the station. As the Gen picked up his bag, offering his thanks, which Digen waved aside, Digen turned to Inez and the girl, gathering them away from the activity, searching the road with all his senses for sign of the Sime Center’s wagon, until finally he saw it.

  He took the two women around to the side of the station building to meet the wagon, a huge box affair built on a flatbed drawn by four horses. Digen had never seen such a thing outside a museum.

  When the wagon drew up, the driver, a short Sime with long black hair tied with a band, jumped down from his perch, saying, “Couldn’t get that old engine started, so I brought the horse rig. Hajene Farris? I’m Zale, channel, second order.”

  “This is the lady we called you about,” said Digen, presenting the Sime girl in English. “Inez here will go with you….”

  “Digen…?” said Inez. “I’m supposed to be your escort.”

  “You’re required here,” said Digen. The girl had stopped crying, and Digen sensed that the two women had established a form of understanding. “You’re low field now and couldn’t help me much. I want you to stay with her.”

  “I think,” said the driver, “that our local Controller ought to sort this out.”

  “No time,” said Digen. “I’m not going to miss that train. Inez, you’re released from my service and attached to the Sorelton controller on temporary duty. Stay with the kid as long as you can. I’ll see you in Westfield.”

  The train had finished loading and the stationmaster had begun to give the engineer a signal. Digen turned and ran for the train, bounding up onto the platform and making straight for the nearest passenger car.

  Out of sheer habit, the conductor held the door for the tardy passenger, and Digen sidled past and entered the car. But that car was full. He showed his ticket to the conductor and was led ten cars to the rear of the train where the last car was half empty.

  Digen dropped into the last seat, facing the end of the train. He stretched out, catching his breath as the train began to pick up speed. Then gradually the strain of it all caught up with him, and between the sickening blur that the retainers made of his world and the even worse violence the moving train did to his senses, he felt suddenly and intensely ill.

  He drew into himself, ignoring his Need, sustaining his spirits with one thought. He would arrive in Westfield about dawn and would have a good and proper transfer at the Sime Center with the best Donor he’d had in months. Then, when he reported to the Gen hospital, he would be physically and emotionally revived enough to cope with anything they could throw at him.

  CHAPTER TWO

  A CHOICE

  When the train pulled into the outskirts of Westfield, it slowed for the urban traffic. Before long, a Gen came swinging along the car and stopped beside Digen.

  “Respect, Sectuib,” said the Gen. “I am Imrahan, Companion, House of Imil. Sorelton wired ahead that your escort had been diverted. May I help?”

  Digen, exhausted from the long ride, yet feeling a bit better now that the train had slowed, said, “Please sit down.”

  The man folded himself into the seat beside Digen. He was no taller than Digen, but had the typical Gen build, well-developed musculature padded out by a healthy layer of body fat. He spoke the Sime language with an in-Territory accent, music to Digen’s ears. “Thank you, Sectuib Farris. The Controller sent me to meet you and give you a message.”

  Digen could feel the swirl of tension in the Gen. In an effort to put him at ease, Digen said, “House of Zeor offers respect to House of Imil, but these are modern times. I don’t think the titles are necessary, Im’ran.”

  Im’ran smiled, a bit more at ease.

  Digen noticed then how the Gen had already begun to lock into Digen’s nager with a casual precision. It was like a solid, steady hand offered in support of a precarious balance. Instantly Digen relaxed into the familiar hold, luxuriating in it. In seconds, the almost palpable emotions of the Gens at the other end of the car receded from his consciousness, the sickening blur of the outside world steadied, and, best of all, the insistent do something, do something, do something of Need that had been building relentlessly for hours suddenly turned to ah, at last!

  This caused Digen to turn his head and focus his eyes on the man in startlement. The Gen was low field, very low field. He’d obviously donated selyn very recently, possibly even within the last twelve hours. Very few Donors, even First Order Donors, could alleviate the rising tide of Need in a channel while they themselves were in such a low field condition.

  The Gen sat inspecting his fingertips, searching for words to say something that was obviously very
difficult. The silence stretched until Digen said, “You have some sort of bad news for me, Im’ran?”

  The Donor sighed heavily. “I was to be your assigned Donor. But, as you can see, that’s impossible. I’ve already had transfer.”

  Digen froze, stunned into unblinking silence. Though the deeper, more primitive part of his mind no longer screamed the panic of rising Need, suddenly his conscious intellect knew he would get no decent transfer this month. There can’t be two like Im’ran in Westfield. There can’t be.

  Digen became aware of the cool, Gen hands covering his own, intensifying the contact between them. The Gen’s slow, steady pulse of selyn production pulled Digen into a soothing relaxation.

  “Sectuib Farris, I’m sorry. I know it’s been a long time for you—too long.”

  Struggling to come to terms with the blow, Digen absently rubbed at his left arm’s retainer, just over the outer lateral tentacle.

  Im’ran’s hand covered his, and the Gen asked, “The scar pains you?”

  “The famous lateral scar,” said Digen wryly. He was the only Sime who had ever survived such a deep cut through the vital selyn transport nerves of a lateral tentacle. “It takes a very special Donor to get a transfer into me through that scar without a series of transfer aborts.”

  “Controller Mickland—he’s controller for the city as well as for the district of Westfield—he sent me to prepare you to make a choice.”

  Digen sat up straight and looked at Im’ran with his eyes as well as his other senses. “A choice of Donors?”

  Im’ran shrugged. “Mickland is a very strange individual.”

  “Mmmm,” said Digen. “Tell me about this choice.”

  “Mickland has been on the hotwire all night scouring the coast for available Donor matches. It took a nine-way Controllers’ conference to free someone for you.”

  “Well then, who?”

  “Ben Seloyan.”

  “Seloyan?” Digen had worked with Seloyan several times. The man was good, but not as good as Imrahan, and nowhere near what Digen was due. “Is he in phase with me?”

  “Not quite. It will be two and a half days early for him.”

  “He’ll be low field then.” Seloyan at his highest selyn field wasn’t really adequate for Digen. “What’s the rest of the bad news?”

  “It will take him a little more than two days to get here.”

  “I don’t want to hear about the second choice if it’s any worse than the first.”

  “Maybe,” said Im’ran, “you should come and meet your second choice. I really don’t know how to describe her.”

  The train was inching to a stop at its platform at Westfield Terminal. The Gen passengers were crowding into the aisles and a conductor came to open the door nearest Digen.

  It wasn’t far from the train terminal to Westfield’s Sime Center, a towering building in the middle of town, situated right on the Territory border which bisected the city.

  The moment they stepped across that border into Sime Territory, Digen stripped off the cumbersome retainers, freeing his tentacles and clearing his head. He felt much better by the time they took the elevator straight up to the controller’s ninth-floor offices.

  The inner office was spacious, carpeted in thick, luxurious green, with gold upholstery and drapes. A large, polished oak desk at the focal point of the room had the ornate look of modern Gen carving—a gift from out-Territory, Digen surmised. In one corner, a trophy case was lighted softly from within, displaying a number of statues and awards, while one black velvet wall was covered with plaques and certificates. The room had an unused, formal appearance, save for the rows of chart boards standing beside the desk.

  Digen gained only a quick, flash impression of all this: Typical controller’s front office, a well-run Sime Center. The moment the door opened before him, the nager within the room washed over him stunningly. Im’ran stepped in front of Digen, attempting to shield him, but the Gen was far too low field.

  With his eyes Digen saw Controller Mickland, a channel of medium height, standing behind his desk. He was broad-shouldered enough to look shorter than he really was, and though, like all Simes, he scarcely carried eight per cent body fat, his large-boned frame gave him an imposing, Gen look.

  Pacing Mickland, shouting her outraged indignation in a clear soprano, was the Gen woman who was the source of the overwhelming nager. She was petite but had a full figure. Her dark auburn hair was long, caught up high and then allowed to spill freely over her shoulders.

  “Qualify?” the woman was shrieking at Mickland. “Qualify? What makes you think I want to become one of your—your—blensheyla eyeofi! You think it’s some kind of privilege that I have to earn by proving I can do it? You think it takes some kind of special skill to go up to a strange Sime and just let him—just passively let him take selyn? You think it would do the poor Sime any good? Look, I—I have to have transfer. You just find me a channel in Need and I’ll take care of him.”

  Im’ran said quietly to Digen, “There’s your second choice. Ilyana Dumas. She’s Distect.”

  “Shenshid!” said Digen involuntarily.

  The woman turned to look at Digen, hope in her eyes.

  The Distect. A myth. The shattered remnants of the House of Rior—the only real opposition the Tecton had ever faced. A hundred years ago, the Tecton was just a loose confederacy of householdings. At that time, any channel, discovering that he did not have to kill Gens for selyn, could found a Householding, gathering about himself a number of Gens to provide selyn and a number of renSimes who swore to take selyn only from a channel, thus never again killing a Gen.

  Then, Klyd Farris, Sectuib in Zeor, had engineered a coup in which the Tecton had taken over the Sime government and signed a treaty with the Gen government, accepting for the channels the responsibility of preventing renSimes from killing in transfer. Klyd Farris thus founded the modern Tecton. All the sovereign houses had signed the agreement, except the House of Rior, which held that the Tecton’s avowed ideal—the reuniting of the human race, the eradicating of the mutual fear and distrust between Sime and Gen—could not be served by a society in which the only direct Sime~Gen transfers, the transfers between channel and Donor, were depersonalized and regulated by the rigid and sterile Tecton code.

  The House of Rior, under its Gen leader Hugh Valleroy, had broken away from the new Tecton and founded the Distect, dedicated to giving every renSime his own Gen Donor, doing away with the channel intermediary.

  Mickland said, “Ilyana, either you will qualify, taking oath as a Tecton Donor, or no channel will touch you.”

  She looked from Mickland to Digen, pleading. Digen, steeling himself inwardly, advanced into the room. Before he’d gone two paces past Im’ran, Ilyana’s nageric fluctuations had locked in step with his own; but where Im’ran had brought Digen into one of the precisely quantized Tecton standard rhythms, this woman had locked on to Digen and let him drift into whatever natural, nonstandard rhythm his metabolism chose, following him effortlessly.

  It was unsettling. Digen stood poised on the brink of dire Need, controlling his natural reflex to seize and strip one or the other of these two powerful Donors, as only a lawless, killer Sime would. Fighting this predatory instinct so deep in every Sime, Digen looked from one to the other, forcing his mind to analyze their fields’ effects on him.

  Im’ran moved to Digen’s side, trying, despite his depleted field, to fight Ilyana for control of Digen. And, strangely, though the man couldn’t win, he could hold Ilyana at bay.

  Im’ran is a fanir, Ilyana is a drifter—High Order drifter but still a drifter. Given his choice, Digen would have preferred the precisely quantized, dead-true fanir to a drifter. But Im’ran had already served in transfer, and Ilyana was high field. At any rate, she’d be better than Ben Seloyan—and she was here, now. But she’s Distect!

  Legend had it that any Tecton channel who accepted transfer from a Distect Donor would end up junct—unsatisfied with anything exce
pt a kill-mode transfer.

  Digen could see Mickland’s dilemma. As controller Mickland simply couldn’t turn the Sectuib in Zeor over to a Distect Gen—it would be political suicide.

  She was watching him carefully as he took in the situation. Digen said, “The controller is right—no channel would surrender control of a transfer to an unqualified Gen. We work too many years, sacrifice too much, to gain control of our vriamic functions to risk letting an untrained Gen cripple that function for life. But—Ilyana—if you will give me your word that you won’t contest control, that you’ll submit to a qualifying transfer with me, then I will let Controller Mickland assign you to me—right now.”

  As he spoke, Digen moved closer to her. He perceived immediately that this woman was something special. Her nager had a texture and power he hadn’t felt except with his sister, Bett. But her name was Ilyana Dumas, not Farris. She didn’t even look Farris. And then he realized what it was about her that seemed so familiar—underdraw.

  As he approached, she stood fascinated, unable to move or speak. But, the moment Digen saw the nature of her illness, he stopped in his tracks, realizing that with every step closer he was aggravating her disorder.

  The moment he stopped, she whipped around to confront Mickland, her voice rising in hysteria. “I came here begging for help, throwing myself on the much-vaunted mercy of the Tecton. And what do I get? A lousy ultimatum!”

  Digen strode to the corner of Mickland’s desk, trying to put the other Sime’s field between him and the woman while motioning urgently to Im’ran to step between them to protect Ilyana from Digen’s aching Need, which was sending her selyn production rate soaring, causing her the physical and mental stress which—if not relieved by transfer—would ultimately kill her, either by simply burning up her body physically, Or by driving her to commit suicide. Her hysteria was just another symptom of the disease.

  This put an entirely different complexion on the situation. But before Digen could speak. Mickland said, “I’m sorry, Hajene Farris, she’s Distect. And she’s getting more desperate by the minute. I wouldn’t trust her now if she did promise to qualify.”