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This file is pretty much the same as sfgddr1.html EXCEPT it has comments which had been scribbled in the margins by various people in various colored inks.
Chapter One
Funeral
Up on the podium, someone handed the microphone to Mairis Farris, World Controller and Sectuib Apparent in Zeor. He accepted the white painted rod, holding it aloft for a moment to pull the chord [sic RBW cord] loose. Several people dived under the table to free the chord [sic RBW cord] where it had tangled with the banks of lilies and roses, carnations and daffodils.
Laneff Farris ambrov Sat'htine watched her quarry avidly. From where she stood, far back in the sea of humanity surging about the podium, Mairis was still a tall, assured and imposing figure, casually in command despite the tangled chord. [sic RBW cord.] The tall spray of red roses from the House of Keon arched over his head, dominating the podium, but she could also make out the bank of white lilies from Sat'htine just below them.
As the microphone came loose, Mairis took a sip of water from the goblet on the table, beside him - the first sign of nervousness she had detected - and then, setting aside the goblet he picked up a glinting object and turned to the crowd. Silence rippled through them like a wave.
"Digen Ryan Farris, Sectuib in Zeor for the last one hundred and sixteen years, is dead."
The amplification system was perfectly adjusted. Mairis' voice flowed sonorously through Laneff's body, every syllable scouring her clean of the shock and grief that had held them all throughout the last week. Everyone on the face of the globe had known the elder statesman was ailing grievously - but he had overcome much worse so many times before. There wasn't a person alive [Cmt Green. No one remembered Klyd??] [Cmt Purple This is a later century.] who could remember the world before Digen.
"My great-grandfather, who held the office of World Controller a record six times in his life, is dead. An Era has come to an end. All the world feels this as keenly as the members in Zeor."
The balmy spring breeze grabbed at Mairis's dazzling blue cloak and exposed the clean black lining. Laneff noted for the first time that the formal cape he was wearing was of the blue of his House, and the Farris black embroidery and lining, no trace of Sectuib's white. He wasn't claiming that office yet. But he would. She was sure of it.
As Mairis continued speaking, she noted a television van creeping slowly through the crowd toward the podium. On its roof, two Gens wrestled with a huge camera that had a long snout of a sunshade pointing at Mairis.
One of the Gens, a redheaded woman who seemed as young as Laneff herself, leaned over the edge of the van roof to call something to the driver - who was also Gen. Laneff felt the Simes in the area of the van tense, preparing for the shock if the Gen should fall and be hurt, or even merely startled.
It would be a sad commentary indeed if a Sime were provoked into a killmode attack on a Gen - at Digen Farris's funeral. All his life, Digen had worked to make Sime Territory safe for out-Territory Gens, to teach that majority of the world's population that no Sime wants to kill them.
As if paralleling her thoughts, Mairis was saying "... in the last hundred years, under the leadership of Digen Farris, the world has started to move once again toward the dream of our ancestors who founded the Householdings, the union of the two factions of the human race, Sime and Gen. Never again will there be a nation in which only Simes are citizens and Gens are bred and raised in pens like cattle."
He paused, surveying the distaste his words evoked in the emotional nager of the audience. "Ah, but that was progress! Fifteen hundred years ago, my ancestors hunted Gens when they needed selyn. They were nomads without homes, without civilization. And they rarely lived twenty years! And then some of the nomad bands became too big to move easily, so some genius [Cmt Green ?? or Politician] decided to domesticate Gens and set up a government that guaranteed every Sime a kill a month. People lived longer, and paid taxes!
"It was only seven hundred years ago that Rimon Farris discovered he could take selyn from any Gen and give it to a Sime in need - so the Sime didn't have to kill to live. That's right, the world has had Channels and Householdings for only about seven hundred years. Only that long have Simes been able to regard Gens as people. And this is the year two-thirty-two of the Modern Tecton, a mere beginning, but the face of civilization has changed.
"When Digen Farris was a child, the World Controllership was just being established. When he took over as Sectuib in Zeor, nobody could place a telephone call from one Territory to another. He was the first Sime ever to go to school out-Territory under the now burgeoning Student Exchange Program. When he was a young man, all the Tecton's Donors were trained by Channels, a method so slow and inefficient that the result was the famous Donor Shortage.
"That was in the year one-thirty-two, a full century ago. Is there anyone here who remembers that time? Imagine what it must have been like. Through deliberate breeding and training programs, the number of channels was increasing fast enough to serve all the growing Sime population. At last, the Gens out-Territory were donating enough selyn to the channels so that no Sime suffered -- except the channels themselves who depend for the satisfaction of their need on the highly talented and trained Donors. But there weren't enough such Donors." [Cmt Green. I volunteer - Find me a time machine!!]
Laneff's attention drifted back to the camera truck. It was again forcing its way toward the podium, the redheaded Gen holding on with one hand and gesturing to her assistant with the other. They were now near enough so that if she slipped, Laneff would feel it.
She moved to put another Gen whose field was replete with selyn between herself and the television crew. The man traded places with her absently, his attention rivetted [sic RBW riveted] on Mairis's speech. He wasatall, [sic RBW was a tall,] broad shouldered blond with muscles like a fieldhand and a satiny tan to go with them. His selyn field fell into casual synch with her own body rhythms - a trained Donor, she judged.
Sensing her attention on him, he glanced down at her, then followed the gazes of the people about them to the camera crew. Then, to her, he said, "They probably have no idea what they're doing to the Simes near them."
She smiled, not wanting to show just how worried she was. "I just hope she doesn't fall."
"Stay on my right, here, and I guarantee you won't feel it, Hajene Farris."
"Thank you," replied Laneff adding automatically, "but it's not 'Hajene.' I'm renSime, not a channel."
"Thank you," replied Laneff and then cut off the automatic correction, but it's not 'Hajene.' I'm renSime, not a channel. What harm could there be in letting the quite natural mistake go by? Just this once.
[Cmt Green. Why this sudden change? (in the above two paragraphs) If her mind was involved elsewhere - wouldn't it just slip out??]
[Cmt Green. Are you aware that by the bottom of P.1 I started crying.] [Cmt Purple. HWP Hmm]
Lost in the crowd with a perfectly anonymous stranger, she couldn't imagine any harm that could come of it. Nevertheless, her conscience squirmed. [Cmt Green. HWG And well it should!] She looked like a typical member of the Farris submutation, and she was obviously not A Farris Gen. Any stranger would assume she was a channel, and expect her to behave like one. And treat her like one.
[Cmt Green. It would be tempting. I'd prob'ly keep quiet too.]
The Donor beside her had turned his attention back to the podium, but part of his awareness remained on her. She had worked with many Donors over the years, She could feel the textual difference in the pilot light [Cmt Green. ?] of attention he was holding for her. What harm can it do? Just this once?
Mairis was at last holding up the object he had taken from the table . "... feel this is the most suitable tribute to the achievements of Digen Farris. I know you can't all see it, so let me describe it. It is a steel coin with the right profile of my great-grandfather on one side and the epitaph that will appear on his memorial, 'Born from Death, [Cmt Green Shiver, shiver!] he lived for Unity', while on the other aide is a simple sketch of the starred-cross, representing our first efforts toward Unity.
[Cmt Green. I want one!]
"This is the very first one struck, but soon they will be in general circulation, the first coin accepted at face value, in and out-Territory, all over the world. I wish he'd lived to see it."
For the first time, emotion choked his voice and he had to pause. One of the Gens on the podium took a step toward him, but Mairis waved the man back with a gesture that exposed two of his handling tentacles. The two long, supple tentacles, normally sheathed along the underside of his right forearm, emerged from the orifices at his wrist and, at full extension, touched the tips of his fingers, forming a circle, [Cmt Green. ? Meaning?] and then disappeared again into their sheathe.
It was done with such casual grace that Laneff, studying her quary, [Cmt Green. quarry] repeated the gesture with her own right ventral handling tentacles. Then she tried it with her left ventral handling tentacles. The pairs of dorsals remained sheathed along the tops of each arm easily enough, but she felt a restlessness in her laterals and eased all four of them out of their sheaths to touch the sides of her hands.
The blond Gen noticed instantly and turned his full attention to her, putting one hand out to hover over her arms. She sheathed her laterals and scrounged up a smile for him, glancing at the camera truck. "Even through this ambient nager, I could feel those Gens react when Mairis gestured!"
"Sime tentacles are probably a strange sight to them. [Cmt Green. They're Beautiful!!] Even in this day, not many Simes spend much time far out-Territory. There are lots of Gens who've never seen a living Sime." [Cmt Green Pity them!]
"I know," she said, thinking of all the years of schooling she had endured in out-Territory schools. Even though she had not strayed far from the Sime Territory border, she had often been the only Sime in a class, sometimes in the whole school. For the last two years, she had been doing graduate work at Strysko University, she had been the only Sime in the Organic Disciplines program.
[Cmt Green. Grr! What is she going to do?? Why should a Farris hurt a Farris?
Gasp! You've done it again, you know - my emotions have once again become pretzelized - because of you. Drat, darn, shen! I can't wait, I may have to turn a mind sifter on you!!
First reaction: Digen dead! No - It can't be - he was so vital & full of life. I just can't imagine him not there. Where Klyd was a father image, Digen is/was a lover. I want(ed) him. He can't be dead!!
Later: Curiosity - What does Laneff want? Why isn't she ambrov Zeor? Has there been a split in the family? Is Saht'hine [sic RBW Sat'htine] anti-Zeor? Also she's the first Farris rensime we've met. I DON'T LIKE HER!! She reminds me, oddly enough, of the mirror universe Spock. Hm.
Technically: [Cmt Purple. It's exactly the background she has that's confusing her!] It's fascinating so far - but, I have the background. Someone who was not familiar w/the Sime Universe would be so awfully confused by now that they may quit trying. Terminology would be confusing:
(1) Farris Submutation - the reader has learned that Farris is a last name - how can a name have a submutation? See? They don't know about Sime v. Gen & the various submutations of each. Also - they don't know the Farris family - Is there a way of clarifying without taking away from the plot?
(2) Out of curiosity - What Zeor's Flower? [Cmt Purple. I don't know probably flax JL]
(3) Nowhere do you tell the reader that both simes & gens are human. (RBW Note. A note in purple is inserted here.) [Cmt Purple. good point JL] They could be visualizing anytime of a creature for the sime. You do once mention a gens hands.
(4) Sime & RenSime. I think this merit some explanation. I can't quite put myself far away enough from this to imagine I have no knowledge of Simes & Gens - therefore there may be other places a neo would get quite lost. But to this point - You've got what I can see. I was going to be nasty & red pen the spelling error - but decided green would serve.]