ROOTS OF ZEOR

Part I

By Marge Robbins

(Editor's note: Because this article ended up being longer than expected, I decided to split it into two parts. The second half will appear in AZ 18.)

***

It has been my privilege to sort through several years of correspondence between Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Jean Lorrah and put together this article on the evolution of First Channel. I have had a wonderful time doing it, I might add.

For the most part I left the letters more or less in chronological order, and unedited. However, due to space considerations, I was forced to limit the discussions in this article to major issues, so most of it will be about Rimon and Kadi.

I hope you get as much pleasure out of reading this and watching two great minds at work as I did compiling it.

Double parentheses indicate added comments. Initials are as follows: MR -- Marge Robbins, Jean -- Jean Lorrah, and JL -- Jacqueline Lichtenberg.

***

I took the following exchange out of sequence to explain and justify my choice of titles for this article.

*

Jean to JL, 3/19/77

Think of an Old South plantation, with Rimon as the owner's son and Kadi as the mulatto daughter of the owner ... I told you we should call this epic "Roots of Zeor."

*

JL to Jean, 3/23/77

ROOTS OF ZEOR -- yetch. How about THE FIRST CHANNEL or HOUSE OF RIMON? Either title would suggest the theme of subjection of the individual to the common good.

((MR: However, "Roots of Zeor" did remain a working title for a time. I still like it.))

*

Jean to Lisa Waters and Cynthia Levine, 1/31/77

I've seen something else that makes me consider how the world of House of Zeor comes about. Jacqueline has established that at changeover a Sime emerges in hard need, and kills the nearest Gen. Let's go back to the Age of Chaos. Suppose the new Sime kills and escapes. Some two weeks later, he is going to reach the turnover day in his need cycle, and become subject to intil under any kind of stress. There is no Sime territory yet, no government doling out one Gen per Sime per month from the Pens. Common sense is going to keep this new Sime from going among Gens unless he absolutely has to; he fully intends to wait full cycle.

However, it is quite likely that some month this new Sime will get into a stress situation soon after turnover. Intil will occur, and common sense will go out the window. Feeling need, but not really low in selyn, if this Sime comes near a Gen while in this mood he will attack. I would expect this to be a fairly common occurrence, and when it happened, the Gen would frequently survive. Now, Simes are people, and in these early days before they carved out Sime Territory for themselves and deliberately depersonalized Gens, I would expect the Sime who attacked in intil instead of need and found an unconscious but living Gen on his tentacles to think he had found a partial solution to the Sime/Gen problem; don't wait for need. He might not get the kick of egobliss, and he would still hurt someone, but he would not kill, and that would be very important to his conscience. Perhaps he would make a pact with other Simes not to kill, and they would all seek Gens at turnover, working to protect each other because, of course, they would be seeking victims twice as often as if they waited full cycle.

Two factors would work against the good intentions of these early Simes. First, there is a psychological and possibly physical need for egobliss or the simulation of egobliss that a channel or a trained Donor can provide -- but at this time there are no channels or Donors. Thus these well-intentioned Simes would inevitably be driven to kill some of the time despite all their good resolves. The second factor would be the shielding effect of Simes living together. The fields of nearby Gens would be dampened, making intil less likely, and thus increasing the ease of waiting out full-cycle, something almost impossible for a lone Sime skulking on the outskirts of a Gen community with all those fields impinging on him. These little groups of idealistic Simes striving so hard to avoid killing would never be able to achieve their goal. Eventually they would be absorbed into the growing Sime territories, and stop fighting what would come to seem the inevitable.

Nevertheless, stories of those early days would persist -- perhaps into the time of Rimon Farris. Those Simes who occasionally questioned their right to kill (and there would be some in every generation who would fight the battle every human wages between instinct and conscience) would pass on the story now considered by most Simes to be a legend, that it is possible to survive without killing. Rimon, if he is a typical Farris, might have as his life goal (as Klyd's is Sime/Gen Unity and Digen's is bringing surgery in-Territory) finding a way for Simes to live without killing. As usual, it doesn't work out the way he expected, but he changes history.

*

Jacqueline, Selyn Transfer 2/3/77

I want you folks to know how much I absolutely delight in Jean Lorrah's mind. I'm just tickled and thrilled over her loc of 1/31/77. Relentlessly logical.

However, one tiny fact escaped her. Simes don't kill after turnover, and before need, because it wouldn't be satisfying. You don't get healthy by eating when you're not hungry; you get fat. Well, Simes don't store energy in fat, they store energy in a nerve circuit.

What would happen to a Sime who habitually took transfer just after turnover? His selyn storage system would enlarge, he would require more and more selyn to fill it, and eventually his Donor would become a kill, regardless of the short cycle.

During the post-HoZ era before Mairis Farris's time, one job of the channels was to regulate each renSime's cycle so that he got his transfer long enough after turnover so as not to enlarge his capacity and shorten his cycle, and far enough before hard need so that he never experienced the berserker's frenzy. This is tricky because it's different for each individual -- and sometimes the margin is only hours.

But I can see a scenario of Sime history which would include a group of idealistic renSimes such as Jean describes struggling and failing to disjunct because there are no channels among them. Rimon Farris would probably have heard such stories, dismissed as myth and nonsense in his time.

*

JL to Jean, 2/22/77

Okay, since it seems Rimon Farris is more alive for you than he is at this point for me, I suppose we shall both have to bow to whatever muse is activating us both at this point and work out a collaborative method for writing Rimon's book. It will have to start with discussions of the backgrounding such as this letter and go on from there. If I can remember, I am going to carbon Lisa as much and as often as I can on this so that AZ will have an independent file following the genesis, and hopefully, the accomplishment of a book which may prove of great significance.

((MR: several paragraphs skipped here))

Rimon -- I suppose history has a way of producing reformers from rich young spoiled brats, though this aspect of Rimon had never developed for me. I tend to the clean-cut heroic stereotype when I visualize such characters -- but then I only know him from the legend told in modern times, the reality being long since lost -- as with Jesus, for example.

According to legend, he was old enough to be way beyond the age of disjunction when he got caught up in lortuen.

I would expect he went through changeover at the usual Farris age of 11 or 13 or so. You must realize that puberty and changeover occur simultaneously and by the second or third transfer, a boy has become fully a man -- able to sire children and willing to do so as often as possible. Lortuen is a very real risk at First Transfer for a channel.

So there would be nothing truly implausible about Rimon going through changeover at age 11 -- becoming a hardened killer by age 13 and disjuncting in lortuen at 14 or so. History would not have recorded his age chronologically but, by Sime custom, his "age" would be the number of years after his changeover.

((MR: several paragraphs on birthdays skipped.))

Say, I bet I know what happened to Rimon.

The reason he could disjunct after a few years on the kill is that his First Transfer wasn't a kill of a Gen -- it was a kill of a Sime. (That can happen, you know -- provided the drawing Sime is stronger -- and I would say that this weird First Transfer is what was responsible for triggering the growth of Rimon's secondary nerve system which, in the ordinary course, would not have developed at all.)

The Farris changeover is typically swift -- faster than any other sub-mutation's changeover. It can be sudden death, too. The channel can predict with fair accuracy the time of the onset of changeover. (Digen's sense was a bit loused up, I believe, and that happens sometimes, but normally a channel, any channel, can predict his own changeover.)

So what happened to Rimon was that for some spoiled-brat reason, he simply ignored his changeover symptoms. This, too, is typically Farris. In fact, very often at changeover parties the GoH is in attendance and having a gala time right up until the moment of breakout -- which sometimes happens publicly if the timing is off a bit. Farris family doings are often wild enough to give outsiders culture shock.

You have to remember that Rimon lives before the Farris mutation was recognized as a separate entity with laws of its own. He is the one who gave his family name to that mutation strain, and the name was thence adopted by people who were of that strain even though physically unrelated to him, and it was dropped like a hot potato by those who came by the name legitimately in the ordinary way.

So Rimon ends up after breakout isolated with some renSime who he then -- to his consternation and horror -- kills. This kill would not, of course, satisfy his need, but it would take the edge off, and when he presented himself at the Pens, they would take him to be closer to turnover than need. All very frustrating.

I think your analysis of his need pattern, never satisfying, supplementing by buying at auction, etc. is perfectly valid, and ripe with beautiful scenes that ache to be written.

*

Jean to JL, 2/26/77

On to Rimon. I've been thinking about disjunction in the Distect. You say in UZF that it is easy, but it isn't really disjunction; all Distect Simes are "junct." Direct Sime/Gen transfer is the answer, right? Distect Gens are untrained, but unafraid. Sometimes they get burned, but never killed. In the world of UZF, there aren't any killer juncts (as opposed to Distect technical juncts who may never have killed) who have been junct for very long (as they're either killed or hugger-muggered away into disjunction by the Tecton), and this obscured for me for a while the realization that it only seems that disjunction crisis must occur in order for a Sime to live strictly on channel's transfer. Therefore, Digen doesn't need orhuen to disjunct at the end of UZF, as long as the Tecton doesn't declare him unfit to channel and try to put him strictly on channel's transfer, as they did with Skip -- right? This would also explain how Klyd Farris managed to disjunct Sime Territory after Eisdale. The Sime government, no matter how much power the Tecton had acquired, would never be able to enforce a brand new law that said that everyone who had changed over more than a year before was condemned to an agonizing death. Undoubtedly, this was before Klyd and Hugh had their split, and together they used methods discovered at Rior -- perhaps something like this. A Sime over the safe age limit to attempt disjunction is put on channel's transfer. For two or three months, that's fine. Then he begins to enter crisis, which will kill him, and so that month his channel matches him with a Tecton-trained Donor of the proper rating. That will make him "start the disjunct sequence all over" (HoZ p.101), and he will be returned to channel's transfer until he reaches crisis again. The plan would be to abandon this procedure as soon as all juncts incapable of disjunction had died off -- but, as usual in your universe, something must have gone wrong somewhere along the way, and Hugh and Klyd split over questions of transfer dependency and safety and underdraw and whatnot. Their split could not have caused the Tecton to abandon its juncts to die in crisis, however -- perhaps that is why Klyd left both Rior and the Tecton, to disappear into legend. The Tecton adopted all his rules for new Simes, but refused to start another Age of Chaos by suddenly abandoning a technique that was not as safe as channel-only transfer for all Simes, but was preserving the lives of both the older Simes and the Gens who would become their victims if they were told they would have to try to survive disjunction, and knowing they couldn't run amok.

What has all this to do with Rimon? Well, obviously if his first nonkill transfer is in lortuen, then even if he has been junct for several years, as all future transfers would be from Gens (from one particular Gen, he thinks at the time, of course.) he simply will never enter disjunction crisis, which he has never heard of anyway. That part comes in the second part of the book, when all the idealistic visions that Rimon has start to come apart (remember, he doesn't realize that he is any different from other Simes, so naturally he thinks any Sime can be taught to live as he is living, if he can only overcome cultural prejudice). Once he has caught on to channeling, again he thinks he has found a solution, until the first of his followers, after seeming to be getting along fine, enters disjunction crisis.

However these details are worked out, the main point is that Rimon can be sixteen, have been Sime for four years, if I'm right about direct transfer being satisfying enough to prevent disjunction crisis. We don't have to say he's sixteen, if Simes don't count age that way, but there should be things which suggest that he's around that age. He might just be finishing his formal schooling, for example. I'm sorry -- I've never been able to accept fourteen-year-old Romeo, either. The puppy love, yes. The poetry, no. We do have to think of what readers can accept, and despite the fact that Simes become technically adult at changeover that doesn't suddenly make them mature, any more than you and I suddenly leaped to womanhood at first menstruation. That spurt of rapid growth immediately thereafter would lead to the traditional intellectually-mature, emotionally-immature problems that any bright adolescent faces, when he knows a tremendous amount from books, but very little from personal experience.

So, Rimon is about sixteen. Simes die young; therefore they would marry and reproduce young. Rimon's father probably wants his only son and heir to get married as soon as he graduates (or whatever you do from the Sime equivalent of high school/junior college, which Rimon, as a rich kid, has been able to attend all the way through). Problem is, Rimon has known for the past couple of years whom he wants to marry: Kadi. She's a little less than a year younger than he is, and they have been the kind of best-friends-growing-up-to-be-lovers that Hugh and Aisha were. Why is that a problem? Kadi hasn't changed over yet. They can't get married until she does -- and both Rimon's aunts try to warn him that if it happens this late, she will undoubtedly die. I still like that sympathetic aunt with the crusty exterior -- she is truly worried about Rimon's attachment to Kadi, because she knows he's going to be hurt whichever of three ways it happens: first, no one mentions that Kadi might be Gen, but it hovers in the back of all such conversations; second, she will probably die in such a late changeover; and third, if she survives, she will inevitably be so weak she will die of the first complication that comes along -- she couldn't survive pregnancy, for example. But Rimon cannot accept any of this. He has always had everything he wanted, and now he wants Kadi.

Of course, Kadi establishes. Her parents tell her and she takes off for the border. By the time Rimon finds out, she has been captured. Obviously, Simes don't sell the Gen children of Simes in the town where they were born. So, Kadi is being taken off to some exotic expensive auction which caters to the most sadistic Simes -- it's one thing to buy a Wild Gen at auction and try to convince yourself that his gibberish is nonsense; it's quite another to buy someone who can talk back to you in Simelan. This would be a highly specialized market. Maybe it's more bazaar than auction -- we'll have to work it out, and not repeat anything in HoZ. Now it will be very exciting to have Rimon catch up to the traders carrying her away and rescue her, but in that case he would have broken the law and be hunted down like an animal. According to Klyd Farris, the reason the Householdings have been able to survive at all is that they never break any laws. So I think a hunt, following the traders, and buying her is the answer. Now Rimon is in legal possession of Kadi, and plans simply to take her to the border and turn her loose, hoping that no on will find out he did that, which I take it is also illegal. As long as they are merely traveling together, and she is properly tagged, there is no problem of legalities.

Obviously, along the way we have to precipitate Rimon into need. We can work out a new way for that and have the two of them near the border but with Kadi knowing that Rimon can't make it home again. She, too, thinks wild Gens are animals, and she is much more frightened of the world out there than of Rimon. Obviously, she is a natural Donor (a fact lost in the mists of history by Klyd's day), and even though she has never donated, she would be creating a state of trautholo out of her sympathy for Rimon's need (she grew up among Simes, and in the first chapter we should show her sympathy with Rimon's predicament when he is entering need too soon). Finally, Rimon can't help himself. Result: lortuen. Very idyllic.

Rimon has paid for Kadi; she is his legal property. No law says he has to kill her. So he decides to take her home! Perhaps the law won't allow them to marry, but he can live with her. You see what I mean about Rimon's being immature? He's right about the law, but of course his father's going to boot him right out of the house the minute he tells his story!

I'm hazy on how Rimon and Kadi eventually get the land that will one day be Zeor. Ideas? But if I'm right about Gen anatomy, I can tell you how Rimon learns to channel. If you can answer this question, you do know whether the Gen's selyn-transmitting organs are physical or astral: can a Sime take transfer from a one-armed Gen? I think the answer is no. The arm would be present astrally (provided the person had originally been born with it), but not physically, and I think that the Gen would be unable to donate. The astral body is probably what the Sime can perceive outside the Gen's physical body, but the selyn itself remains within the body, not leaking out into the atmosphere unless the Gen is injured. (UZF)

If there are selyn transport nerves in the Gen forearm, then, just as Rimon could have taken selyn from a Sime (that is the perfect complement to what I am about to say, which I had figured out weeks ago), he could supply selyn to a Gen. Why? Childbirth, of course. By the time Kadi gives birth to their first child, there has to be at least one other Gen with them. This could be someone trying to reach the border, whom they have taken in. I know nothing about this individual, even his sex, but he will eventually have to develop into a full-fledged character. Anyway, as Kadi's pregnancy advances, Rimon would be shorted, and would have to turn to the other Gen to make up the difference. In the last month or two, she would be unable to donate at all, and when she went into labor they would face a crisis: the baby (a Farris channel, of course) would be draining her so that she required a transfer. "Prenatal Selyn Drain" (AZ1) discusses various techniques, most of which would require having a channel touch the baby. But labor goes on for hours before the baby enters the birth canal. Logically, the baby is drawing from the mother's system. All a channel has to do is get more selyn into her system -- through the selyn transport nerves. In desperation, Rimon recalls his first transfer. Somehow he drew selyn from a Sime, that means the Sime's system can theoretically work backwards. It killed the Sime ... but then it always killed the Gens until he and Kadi found each other. She's dying anyway. He feels that if she does he might as well. The question is, can he deliberately cause his system to give up selyn instead of taking it in? Of course he doesn't know he has two systems. Anyway, he would make the attempt in transfer position, and drive selyn into Kadi's transport nerves. It would be drawn by the baby's needs through the umbilical, I should think. I would expect this to be terribly painful for Kadi, and therefore for Rimon, but it works. The baby is born, and Kadi survives.

It would be only years later that the next step would be taken. If the above doesn't make sense to you, then I can't go any further with this line of thought.

As to a spoiled rich kid becoming a reformer -- that's where the individual reformers frequently come from. Whole mass movements come from those who can't stand their lives the way they are anymore, and have nothing to lose. Anyway, Rimon has to overcome his background, at least to some extent -- but he ought to have that Farris to-the-manor-born arrogance. Part of the reason he can do what he does is that he never quite believes of anything in life that he can't have it his way. And it usually works out that way for many years. There will be several times in the novel when he comes up with these great, idealistic notions that will fall flat in the face of reality -- but each time he finds a new approach and succeeds in a very different way from the way he originally intended.

*

JL to Jean 3/3/77

((MR: Astrology comments omitted))

Every time you think about disjunction, I get a headache. (That's a joke.)

There's an element of subjectivity involved. When a Sectuib of Klyd's time says "disjunction crisis" -- he means something quite different from what a Tecton channel of Digen's time means when he says "disjunction crisis." But they don't know they mean different things.

There existed at Klyd's time and before, no external, objective instrumentation to measure "crisis." Like a doctor trying to delve into medieval literature for the treatments of diseases reading the lists of symptoms and treatments. Take just fever, for example. Without a mercury thermometer, how do you tell the difference between 103.5 and 104.4 -- the difference between very sick and convulsions? Today, medical men identify diseases by the very minute changes in chemical composition of various bodily fluids. Then, it took intuition and a lot of experience. So just within our lifetimes, medicine has become more of a science and less of a blind art.

Well, a similar but even more-so revolution occurred between HoZ and UNTO in the problems channels could confront and conquer. Disjunction is one of those kinds of things. Firstly, you have the general health of the population increasing through diet, hygiene, and immunology. Mental health also increases as people don't live in fear of their children growing up. Mental health has a large effect on physical stamina.

So the texture and quality of disjunction sequences in Digen's time is actually very different from what it was in Klyd's time -- but the extent of that difference is not known to the characters.

The "disjunction crisis" that occurs when being "weaned" to channels' transfer is a very different thing from that which would occur to a confirmed killer being shifted to Gen transfer. I don't think I'm prepared at this point to tie down exactly what those differences would be. I simply don't know enough yet.

Digen doesn't need orhuen at the end of UNTO to disjunct so much as he needs it to break the lortuen and live through it. The disjunction is a complication to the main problem of breaking lortuen, and since he is a Farris channel, and considering his lateral injury, he would probably die from the complication even with the Zeor techniques for breaking lortuen. If he hadn't established orhuen with Im'ran before the disjunction sequence, then -- provided the Tecton could find and assign him a suitable therapist -- he would have established orhuen/lortuen or some variety thereof with that therapist or died trying. (In case of another lortuen, he probably would have gone insane permanently, and it would be a miracle if they could have kept him from committing suicide.)

Studies have been done (see Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock") showing that elderly people in this country often die within a year of losing a spouse. This is the kind of effect you would see after a broken lortuen. A hefty percentage of those who survive the physical rigors would simply die of something else.

Yes, though, your projection on the Tecton's laws during the decades just after HoZ are correct, except in one minor point.

RenSimes would be kept in constant pre-disjunction states of various descriptions to reduce the number of kills they took. But there was a period of some decades while the older Simes were dying off after a lifetime of kills when both the government and private entrepreneurs kept Pens (Kill-spas?) way out in the back country when they found the strain of living off channels' transfer and/or TN-3 transfer unsatisfactory.

Also, in the transition period, there was a tremendous scarcity of TN-3's. Klyd's big contribution that made the whole thing possible was the identifying of the QN-3 as a channel, too. By extension then, they began hunting for Gens who could serve the Thirds and named them TN-3's.

((MR: several paragraphs skipped.))

The point I do want to make here is that your visualization of the post-HOZ politics of disjunction is entirely valid -- but only from the out-Territory point of view.

Thus into the time of UZF, suspicion and stories survive out-Territory concerning the secret Pens the Simes keep where they sneak away and kill Gens for their own pleasure. This is one of the more formidable obstacles to the kind of integration Digen wants to bring about. It is one of the things that is causing the stagnation that bugs him so.

Not only could the Tecton not enforce a law that would cause adult Simes to die in disjunction crisis, they couldn't make or enforce a law outlawing the kill. They have to sell channels' transfer by public relations work, not by force. They have to prove that Gens are people, that parents don't have to let their kids be killed when they establish, etc, etc. ...

If Rimon goes from the kill to lortuen transfer, then he would probably be living with the kind of junct-lortuen transfer Digen had with Ilyana. He would probably go through a period of a couple of months in which he'd be psychologically disturbed. It might be merely an attack of spiritual enervation, almost depression, where he just sits and has no ambition to do anything. It might be some of the wild swings, such as Digen underwent in the first/second drafts of UNTO -- what I call the perfectly sane, level headed manic depressive cycle which all Simes are subject to in one degree or another.

I don't think he could get away wholly without symptoms of disjunction at all. His symptoms would differ from those of almost anyone else in his environment. If he is a typical Farris First, he'd probably have some physical symptoms too, anything from being totally unable to eat all the way to vriamic fibrillation, and maybe a set of seizures occurring at regular intervals and not unlike what Digen suffered that resulted in primary entran. In fact, though neither entran nor the primary/secondary system are well known at that time, I would expect Rimon to undergo all sorts of difficulties connected with this area.

Remember too, that if he doesn't begin to channel during his First Year, he'll never really develop anything more than rudimentary capacity as a channel, (which is quite formidable as a Farris, but still nothing on the order of what would be expected of a Sectuib.)

But, in general, you are quite right that Rimon would not connect his period of several months of illness with disjunction and would be totally bewildered when the first of his followers hit a sudden, renSime type, channels' transfer crisis -- which has a different texture to it than anything he himself experienced.

Sure, and if you want to make Rimon 18 at the time, it still wouldn't change things much -- he'd just get a little sicker for a time longer. He might have some days in which he behaves totally insane and has to be restrained -- but he would be blacked out and not remember any of it afterwards. He might even attempt a kill.

But this would be brief, and it would disappear suddenly. They would shrug and go on, not really knowing or caring what had caused his illness.

Recall, in UZF, Digen is in a state of nervous breakdown during the first months at Rior. He has a right to be, after what he's been through, but much of his illness could be attributed to going junct after a lifetime of Gen transfer.

*

Jean to JL, 3/7/77

((MR: This section was preceded by a discussion of possible differences between Sime and Gen children.))

I had suggested schooling only to establish Rimon's approximate age for Ancient readers, as we can't give it in years. I still think 16 is ideal. As for Sime kids growing up fast, I'm way ahead of you.

((MR: I've left out a short discussion on Risa Tigue's shrewd business practices which Jean used to support this point.))

"Lortuen" is an early work of yours that you have already violated in UZF, so there is no need for us to force this novel to accommodate to it. What's an out-Territory Gen doing in the Pens in L., anyway? In HoZ, Klyd says they never mix them with the ones in the Pens. Therefore, Rimon's buying Kadi at any kind of auction would make future generations assume she was from out-Territory. If I could write poetry, though, I might write the Ballad of Rimon Farris, and use stanzas to introduce the chapters. Unfortunately, I can't write poetry. Can you write it?

Of course, Kadi can't be a natural Donor in Im's class. Who would train her? He has both native ability and training; she has only natural ability, like Brian Inikar -- but without even the knowledge he has. I'm puzzling over that damned opening chapter that is automatically hell in a Sime/Gen novel. I'm ok for the first couple of pages -- Aunt Tilda wakes Rimon in the morning, and he gets up feeling much the worse for wear. She gives him trin tea and chides him for augmenting, which he hasn't been doing, and we get the fact that for some reason called "need" he is feeling rotten. But I can't really write it until I know what he's supposed to do with himself this day. I had thought of school, and thus introducing Kadi. One important thing about getting her in this soon is to show that there is someone likeable who loves Rimon, because the end of the chapter has to show him killing, a real turnoff to readers who have begun identifying with the point of view character. So anyway, what does Rimon do for a living? If he's in his father's business, what's that?

Ah, the plot is moving. Rimon, having achieved transfer with Kadi without killing her comes home -- with her. She is his property, and he probably has vague ideas about installing her in his father's house. He gets kicked out. They decide to homestead -- but within a few months Rimon is discovering that although augmentation makes some things very easy, he can't do it often enough to build a house and clear some land without putting a lot of plain sweat into it. He begins to be depressed -- we know it's disjunction, but readers will see it as spoiled-kid-itis. All those great ideas about pioneering falling apart in the face of plain hard work. You can do the physical problems he has because of being a non-functioning channel (He's still not channeling, until he uses his ability to save Kadi and the baby.) If it's headaches and cramps rather than seizures, I can see the first fight between Rimon and Kadi -- she thinks he's spoiled and his symptoms are psychosomatic (and she's pregnant and not feeling so good herself, remember) and he says, "You sound just like my Aunt Tilda and no one ever understands me and besides, everybody knows Gens are stupid!" or words to that effect.

Hmm. There are other possibilities here, but you'll have to interpret them. If that other Gen is with them by now, and it were a woman, this fight might have Rimon going to her for comfort -- the first unfaithfulness that is going to become a major problem later in the book when he begins to realize that all Simes can't do what he's doing, and if he's special, he ought to spread his seed around. This early in the novel, it would be foreshadowing, with Rimon and Kadi making up after one hell of a fight -- perhaps they are not totally reconciled until they share the birth of their baby. Your serve. ((MR: Rimon means pomegranate in Hebrew. It is a fertility symbol meaning lots of seeds.))

*

Jean to JL 3/19/77

((MR: background discussion deleted.))

I'm really starting with the last page of your letter, because it has the most important things we have to think about. We seem to work differently. I begin with characters, work from there to plot, and the theme and title eventually suggest themselves. One of the major themes of this novel is evident to me; three stages in the development of your Farris channels. In this novel, we begin with a totally self-centered Farris whose genes impose certain restrictions on him by the end of the novel. It's a hard lesson, and in the process of learning it, he destroys his marriage (we will need to consult on exactly what happens -- probably Kadi's death). One of the ways Rimon rebels against the restrictions imposed on him -- more and more as the years pass -- by his channel's capabilities is to be unfaithful to Kadi. He has a logical reason; he is the only channel he knows (until the first of their children demonstrates the capacity), and obviously he ought to spread his seed as far as possible in order to produce as many channels as possible. If this were his only motivation, Kadi would be able to accept it. Unfortunately, she knows him too well; she knows his straying is a form of escape from anything that seeks to bind him.

It is probably many years after Kadi's death that Rimon finally accepts the restrictions on himself -- perhaps as he has to explain to his own children why they must live such a circumscribed existence. Somehow, it should come clear to him at last then -- but at this point I don't know. HELP!

((MR: several paragraphs skipped discussing Klyd and UZF.))

Back to the plantation. Okay. Rimon's father raises Gens, and also trades with the licensed raiders for the highest quality out-T products. I think that mark of quality could be a front tooth filed with a particular notch, the way they notch the ears of cattle in various patterns. There is apparently a great deal of extra enamel before you reach anything that hurts in those front incisors, for many people around the world have filed them into varying patterns without pain or having them become susceptible to decay. Is that a reasonable idea?

Since your latest letter, my idea for the basic situation at the beginning of the novel is this; when Rimon was just a little boy, maybe only a few months old, Rimon's father purchased Kadi's parents as indentured servants for non-payment of taxes. Kadi's mother became housekeeper and nursemaid to the little boy, her father worked his way up to some kind of overseer. Kadi was born soon after their arrival, and the two children have grown up together. Kadi's parents have long since worked off their indenture, and remain as salaried employees; they have become indispensable to Farris Sr. Rimon never knew his own mother; Kadi's mother has provided all the mothering he needs. She really does love him -- how can you help loving a child you raise? -- and for a long time hoped he and Kadi would marry, but after Rimon's changeover, as Kadi lagged, she began in some sense to distance herself for the inevitable separation from her daughter, for with each passing year, it becomes clearer she will lose her. By the time she is 15, there is a high probability that she will die in changeover or soon thereafter; and if she establishes --

Kadi's mother pays more and more attention to Rimon -- but much of the attention is a kind of loving nagging. With the specter of being sold in her own background (Probably the most humiliating thing that could happen to a Sime -- to be purchased like a Gen) she worries and fusses over Rimon's excessive consumption of selyn. It's transference, too; she would like to worry and fuss over Kadi, but doesn't want to alarm the girl.

Channels and Donors seem to run together in families (at least in the Farris family), and Kadi had better be a Natural Donor to be able to satisfy Rimon. Shall we say that Kadi's mother had two other pregnancies that resulted in stillbirths? Presumably, those would have been channels (You and I, but not the readers, know), but they were unable to derive enough selyn from the mother to be born.

((MR: I left out the rest of the paragraph, as it dealt with premature infants.))

Back to the plot. Setting up the family situation this way, there could be a marvellous scene that Rimon walks into after Kadi has established. Her parents told her, she headed for the border, and was taken by some raiders on their way in to the Farris plantation. They know her, and refuse to sell her to Farris -- probably some written or unwritten law about selling in-T Gens where they have relatives.

Rimon has been off somewhere and hadn't known of Kadi's establishment. By this time the Raiders have gone on. He walks into an argument between his father and Kadi's parents. Farris is bawling them out for telling Kadi and letting her run; they should have told him. (Several things working in his mind; it's almost like losing one of his own kids, and it is also a defiance of his authority -- conflicting emotions making him unreasonable.) He's telling them that Kadi need not have been taken away to die; he could have used her for breeding. Terrific thing to say to her parents, right? They're pretty hysterical, anyway, and the scene ends with their packing up and walking out one way, while Rimon heads out the other way, intent on buying Kadi and escorting her to the border.

This way, when Rimon shows up at home with Kadi and his great news, his father will really be ready to throw him out! Just after Kadi's parents have defied his authority and walked out on him, his son has disappeared for days and returned with the hare-brained notion that he wants to marry a Gen and found a society that not only sounds perverted, but will put his father out of business. How does that sound?

*

JL to Jean, 3/23/77

Rimon's father is probably named Sinus, Syrus, Cyrus, or something like that. I couldn't quite catch it. He probably is known only as Farris, as if it were his first name. This was before the family name came to have any significance, you know.

As for the method of getting Kadi's family indentured -- whatever you like. Nonpayment of taxes would surely do unless you think of something better -- like say, a raid from out-T Gens devastated their business or whatever and left them destitute with the pregnant wife and all that. If you need them to be sold at auction by the government as a psychological thing, then taxes would surely do the job. Yes, you are right, it would be the most humiliating experience a Sime could think of in those days.

Yes, Rimon's straying away from Kadi would be a form of escape which he, himself, is never actually aware of as escape from anything that seeks to bind him.

He must learn to accept a bound existence for the sake of a higher good -- and he must communicate that acceptance so strongly to his children before they go out to found their own Houses that they will propagate this view of themselves down the generations. We need an event as strong as the manifestations at Sinai or the burning bush -- something really symbolic and heavy. Something that will motivate his children and their children emotionally for generations.

He destroys Kadi in some way -- destroys his own lortuen mate. Can anything be worse karma than that? Also, he sows his wild oats far and wide before he realizes that his seed is sudden death to most women.

The load of guilt must be crushing by the end of the book, and something must come along to purge him of guilt entirely.

You might want to consider discovering some Farris channel (woman) who is not named Farris nor related to any Farris family. She's an example of the same submutation strain appearing independently. She can't bear him children, but she "receives" him after Kadi's death much as Im'ran received Digen when Ilyana died.

So, a secondary theme of the book would be guilt and how to handle it -- guilt being intimately connected with responsibility that is not properly discharged.

((Jean: At that time, there was absolutely no way I could have written a book with the theme of guilt.))

The result of not accepting the bonds of a channel are much worse than the bonds themselves. The lesser of two evils, neither of which is tolerable, but there's no third choice.

The final event of the book then, would be the dramatization of the result of not choosing to wear the bonds.

((MR: omitted is a discussion on POV.))

If you are working with a loose viewpoint, or shifting pov, you might consider letting the final event that drives the emotional content of the channel's bonds home to his children be Rimon's death.

It could easily be a very spectacular and messy suicide -- where Ilyana's was clean. Not a self-sacrifice, but a failure. The acknowledgement being that it is impossible to function and live as a channel and then ignore one's responsibilities. Freedom and the secondary system of a channel can not be reconciled.

((Jean: That reconciliation is what Keon is all about.))

The guilt load Rimon carries can literally carry him to his death. A developed channel can't be insane in any significant way. Death is inevitable because of the magnitude of the forces controlled. One slip and bang, you're dead. And the insane usually have a self-destructive streak -- even megalomania is primarily self-destructive, inviting the world to destroy it.

If you want Rimon to succeed in assimilating and discharging his guilt, then we'll have to think of something else. How about an uprising in the Gen Pens his father keeps? Lots of death and bloodshed and action adventure riding to the rescue. If his father dies in his arms, it could mark him for life.

((Jean: This was supposed to be the ending of FCh. Then CD. Maybe someday it will go in Companions.))

If it was a Gen who killed his father and he then kills (in transfer) the Gen who did it -- ?? the very last straw of guilt -- not only is he responsible for the Gen uprising (somehow yet to be determined) but he is responsible for his father's death, and shame of shame, breaks his solemn oath and kills with the best weapon to hand, taking glee in the Gen's terror.

He finds within himself such incredible depths of satisfaction he comes to a new understanding of what it means to be Sime, and what that Sime-ness means to any channel in terms of responsibility of keeping Sime and Gen apart.

((MR: I skipped a paragraph on the Farris family and power.))

Kadi's siblings. She could even have a live sibling who becomes Gen and is kept on the farm for breeding purposes, and who leads the revolt that results in Rimon's father's death and who kills Rimon's father and who Rimon then kills -- a Gen who even looks like Kadi, tastes like Kadi? But without Kadi's resilience in transfer.

((MR: Omitted is a discussion on prenatal draw.))

Your idea for Kadi's mother projecting her fears for Kadi onto Rimon works neatly. In fact, the whole revised opening situation looks nice and neat now. I'm glad Aunt Tilda moved out, I never did like her. I also like the idea of Kadi's parents having worked off the indenture and staying on as salaried employees. It reflects well on Rimon's father's way of managing a business and dealing with people.

*

Jean to JL, 4/16/77

That Gen uprising at the Farris plantation -- yes. At least tentatively. Something like this: Rimon went off with Kadi, while her parents went off with her little sister. There's no contact between Rimon and his father for years; he doesn't know what's going on back home. About two-thirds of the way through the novel we have Kadi's death, maybe twelve-fifteen years after they ran off together. After Rimon recovers, he realizes that in spite of his personal problems he has created something that is thriving -- that both his Simes and his Gens are healthier and happier than most people in Sime territory. A couple of his kids have already turned out to be channels; he knows it's perfectly possible to start a Sime on channel's transfer at changeover and have him perfectly contented without killing. Perhaps they have also learned that very young Simes can disjunct, or perhaps at this point, they only know that once a Sime has killed it seems virtually impossible -- Rimon did it, but several Simes who have joined them out of belief in their principles have either died in disjunction or escaped to go back to killing.

((Jean: Twelve books later, I know better than to plan to cover such a span of years in a single book.))

Even if all Rimon has in mind is to try to convince people to allow their children to start their lives as Simes with channel's transfer, he has suddenly found a goal for his life again. He sets out to proselytize, and decides to start with his father -- now he can demonstrate the success he has achieved, and what better place to pick up a good supply of healthy Gens?

Exactly what happens here is unclear to me at the moment. Obviously his father kicks him out again. But somehow he meets up with Kadi's little sister. She was just a kid of ten or so the last time he saw her. Now she's a grown woman, Gen and being used as a breeder in his father's pens. (She probably established a couple of years after her family left was taken, and as Farris always hears the news of choice Gens for sale, he had the opportunity to buy her.) She looks a lot like Kadi -- no, not twins at all, but the same curly red hair and blue eyes.

Rimon is all confused about his motivations; part of him begins to see her as a substitute for Kadi, a second chance. Objectively he can see that although her own life is safe, it is a horrible one, bearing a child each year by someone chosen by the master, knowing that her children will grow up to be killed -- ugh! He tells her of his householding, his plans to convert all of Sime territory to channels' transfer over the next few generations. Farris's Gens aren't drugged; the woman (don't know her name yet) begins to spread the word among them, and they begin to plot an uprising in which they will all go join Rimon. They haven't done any such thing before because this is the first time there has been anything to run to.

In the midst of all this, Rimon learns that his father not only uses Kadi's sister to breed Gens; he also frequently forces his sexual attentions on her. That sets up the Oedipal situation. Rimon may have been sneaking in to see her -- probably this discovery comes on the heels of the first time Rimon has made love to her, but up to that point having feared that his own feelings were not for her, but for the shadow of Kadi. Father and son discover one another, Rimon is pitched out permanently (arrested?), and the woman, seeing her chance at freedom receding, sets up the uprising which results in the death of Farris Sr.

This would take some engineering. The reader has to believe that Rimon would kill at this point. Motivation? Has he been imprisoned to die of attrition (On what charge?), rescued by his own people who have come looking for him because he's been gone too long? Or what? Something can be worked out. We have to show love/hate between Rimon and his father and love/hate between Rimon and the woman. It can be done, I think. So he kills, and there goes his dream. When he realizes that he, even he, is still subject to bloodlust, he goes home and sets up all those safeguards, preaching them for several months to his children, several of whom observed what happened that terrible night. Then, this time he does die in disjunction crisis, messily. It is a miserable death, slow and ugly, unsuited to a martyr. Most of Rimon's life has been mean and petty, but he has had one great dream, and for a while it worked. His children set out to reconstruct his dream, and also to clean up their father's life story for consumption by future generations. Sound plausible?

*

JL to Jean, 4/28/77

((MR: This is a continuation of the discussion on Rimon's condition in the opening scene of FCH))

To sleep in need is to court nightmare. It's also virtually impossible to attain any restful slumber. Especially not in a Genfarm atmosphere, where the ambient alone would be torture.

Perhaps if his sleep is just a skimming the surface, wishing he could relax but wholly unable to? Would that work?

Also it is entirely wrong to have him come up from sleep groggy. Simes as adults don't reach stage 4 sleep after First Year -- and very seldom even then. He would require, comfortably, no more than 3 hours sleep and that not every night. He'd sleep maybe 2 hours during need, and that would be more resting than true unconsciousness. His senses would keep him aware of everything going on in his vicinity.

He's not like Klyd, remember. He's junct -- a killer with a predator's habits.

So I was thinking, he might come out of sleep, on the edge of a waking dream perhaps with a nightmarish quality that he has to fight his way out of -- and maybe the dream is sparked by the kid jumping on his bed to wake him up. But he comes instantly and totally awake, ready to kill, and wanting to.

Unknown to the reader, and unknown to Rimon, this might mark the first instance of vriamic function in him as he exerts conscious control to abort the kill reflex, seeing it's just the household kid jumping on him.

*

JL to Jean: 5/4/77

((MR: The initial drafts of FCH were written from alternating points of view.))

Kadi's chapter can start with Rimon staggering into her arms -- we show how she manages to put his systems to rights -- work here in developing his vriamic shunts. He doesn't know what she does, nor what is happening, he merely accepts.

Assume that some of this information comes out to Kadi for the first time -- some vital piece of the puzzle she never knew before -- which affects her decision on what she'll do if she establishes. Her contempt for Nerob's choice to come begging asylum -- how her position would be worse than Nerob's if she did that, she'd be nothing but a brood mare (might throw in some heavily pregnant women, in a separate compound, high death rate in birth or pre-natal).

We have to get at the emotional reasons behind Kadi's decision to run at the first sign of establishment -- and how this tears her apart, the idea of running away from Rimon. But also, her knowledge of Rimon's short cycle and fierce needs makes her mind say it's wise to keep clear of him if she establishes.

Then it can be Kadi's words to Farris which causes Rimon to be sent away, that way, it's by her own hand, (as hero of her own story) that she has a clear field to run when the time comes. She's denying the possibility with one part of her mind, but preparing for it with a deeper part that knows.

The way you've got it written, Kadi's true situation with all its emotional overtones doesn't really come through too clearly. We want to see in her woman divided, the hidden man within her, the inner person and the person the outer world sees -- the point of having chapters from her POV has to be to let us glimpse that part of her which she won't let Rimon see. So, show us what she conceals from Rimon. Show her not-telling Rimon about her upsets. Refer to the Im'ran transfer scene in UNTO where Im'ran knew he had to leave right afterward but wasn't telling Digen about it for his own good. It was written from Digen's POV, but could have been just as effective from Im'ran's POV with the reader in on the secret.

((Jean: I don't believe a woman has to have a man inside her to be strong. I believe in feminine strength. That's why Kadi came out very well.))

*

JL to Jean, 5/2/77

((MR: Much of this letter refers to Jean's original outline. Again I've excerpted a few interesting tidbits.))

Chapter 3 of your outline: Make the point in this chapter that Rimon arrives home at his turnover -- his nerves are not steady -- he's probably having vriamic episodes but doesn't recognize them -- neither would anybody else since they don't even have a vriamic node. People would begin to notice something odd about his nager -- odder than it's always been, at any rate. Might remind them of some other undeveloped channel. Undeveloped channels would have been fairly common in the family, more common than renSimes. So nobody is particularly upset or concerned because nothing ever comes of it. Only the ones who have begun to display such an oddly unstable nager (and fluctuating show field is, I expect, the primary symptom, though being Farris, Rimon's fluctuations would only be obvious to another Farris -- they might make a renSime nervous, but would seen a "sourceless anxiety"). Those who begin to manifest such an instability usually die young, but of course his father isn't going to tell Rimon that.

I suppose it takes a few days to get to Reloc Auction, and perhaps some hard travelling, maybe augmentation. Here's a good place to slip in a clue about the Freeband Raiders -- he could run across some badly trampled country, where a few hundred people (like a Gypsy caravan) would have made camp while they used up the Gens they had captured, and then move on to raid another Pen or town or plantation like Farris's.

We have to figure what's happening to his secondary system at this point. In the wholly undeveloped channel, the secondary system is dormant, carrying no more charge than ordinary body cells. It sort of atrophies with the years. In Rimon, since changeover and his strange kill of a Sime (perhaps even a channel? With his capacity he could have killed an undeveloped channel.), the secondary system has been activated. It is the "leaking" of selyn into the secondary system, where it lies dormant and dissipates by simple radiation/attrition, that is causing his ever shorter need cycles. (Also his primary capacity and metabolic rate is high, but not that high) A lot of his need is pure intil because his transfers aren't satisfying, but it is also physical, which obscures the issues and keeps them from solving the problem.

So Rimon's secondary system isn't wholly dormant, and he gets vriamic shifts from one to the other forced on him by external fields (such as the kid jumping on the bed, which is the first time it happens to him).

Kadi's effect on him is to control the wild shifting that uses up so much energy and selyn that it creates the panic of attrition. Kadi eliminates the feeling of being out of control, of being helpless while his body misbehaves. So she creates in him a feeling of security -- and until he knows where the insecurity is coming from, he won't know why he feels secure with her.

And also, you might insert a hint that this sort of thing has happened before, but Rimon has never been told what became of the Simes who didn't kill -- he doesn't even know such a thing is possible. In evolution, even a successful mutation doesn't succeed the first couple of individual times it happens. Not necessarily, anyway. Rimon goes down in history as the First Channel. But there have been many such. The impression has to be that Rimon is the first successful self-identified channel -- the first to be coupled to a lortuen powerful enough to disjunct him -- the first in whom the secondary system wasn't atrophied before circumstances brought the opportunity to use it.

Privately, we can think of it as Rimon's second or third incarnation as a potential disjuncted channel. This is what would give him: a.) the experience to do it right, b) the steely determination not to fail at any cost, even at the cost of the love of his father, and c) the "luck" of having Kadi grow up in his house with him. (Before they met too late in life for it to do any good, or they were the wrong relative ages). No such freaky combination of circumstances that ultimately produces the channels and Houses is going to be purely chance, not in my current world view. This is a culminating lifetime for Rimon --but he (and the reader) don't know that.

((MR: Well, we do now!))

((MR: several paragraphs referring to Jean's outline omitted.))

But I think it important to illustrate that learning to channel without an instructor is difficult -- (Rimon is no superman as history paints him. He's real and he can just barely hack it.) ((Jean: This we pulled off, but it took two books to do it.)) He might wreck the health of the first Sime he attempts to channel to as well, but the Sime might survive after some fairly close calls. At this point in history, it's raw frontier life, a la 1750, not 1800. Death is a way of life. Go look at one of those old graveyards, at the ages of the people buried. Mostly, they are child's graves, less than 5 yrs. Here they would be less than 5, then another group at about 15, plus or minus 2 years, then "adults" old, or dead of disease, war, violence, accident, etc at maybe 40-less for Simes on the average.

((Jean: As it turned out, this is only too true. But you want to talk karma or kismet? Note that in all this discussion there is no mention of Abel. We didn't know him until he suddenly walked out of my subconscious when he was needed.))

Speaking of which, it is unusual for Rimon's father to be alive. He's old as Simes go. Surprisingly, one of the Farris traits is longevity, given half a chance. And a rich man, like Farris (whose Farris forebears worked and died to let him inherit both the tradition and the wealth) can afford a lifestyle which would prolong even a Farris life. You might mention that at their plantation, nutrition for Simes is emphasized. "Hey you, keep eating." It's all too easy for a Sime to get out of the habit of eating and, even, sleeping. The family of Rimon insists that eating and sleeping are essential to Sime longevity, and regiment their lives to it. House of Rimon redoubles that tradition.

((MR: more references to the outline omitted.))

The essence as far as Simes and channels are concerned, is the idea that the feat of functioning at 100% of one's capacity creates a quantum jump shift in consciousness, and the experience becomes addictive because it is essentially what Paramahansa Yogananda calls "God Consciousness".

((Jean: To Farrises, maybe. Not to Tigues.))

((MR: The book referred to is: Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda published by Self-realization Fellowship, Los Angeles, CA, 1975. The book is still available through occult bookstores.))

Rimon, once touched by the possibility of getting himself from less than 50% functional up over 50% functional will now not rest until he can function at 100% capacity -- and when he reaches 100%, the high will be so powerful (though no mortal can sustain ecstasy for long) that he will live only to repeat that high -- as Wallenda said, going back up onto the high wire after a fall that killed 2 members of his troupe: "To be on the wire is life. The rest is waiting."

All of a sudden, Rimon has discovered life -- the rest becomes ashes, waiting.

This is the attitude that grows in him as your story unfolds and at each stage where you've had him discover a new skill (transfer to Kadi during birth, then transfer to his children at changeover, and so on). He is satisfied to perfect the new technique for a while, years perhaps, but then starts wondering about "If I can do this, why couldn't I also do that?" or "What else is possible?" With each new skill, at first he thinks, "This is all there is. Isn't it wonderful this is possible!" But as the inventory of skills grows, he begins to suspect, as a new one is added, that maybe since there were more after the first skill, maybe there's more after this one too?

((MR: several paragraphs omitted.))

In Rimon's labors in the fields, remember the Farris talent of leadership. He's got the Kirk-Charisma. Put Kirk or Spock, or for that matter Sarek, in a group of ordinary laborers, and guess who emerges as their leader, the one looked to in any crisis? This is also a natural talent for the son of a huge business like Genfarming. Rimon has been bossing laborers since before changeover, most likely. He'd probably rise to the position of crew foreman by the time Zeth was working with him. But if, for some reason, he doesn't have the official title he will be the de facto leader of the group, probably of the group of groups. In Ancient times, put him in a factory, and within a year he'll be Chairman of the strongest union in the factory. People are lazy. Government occurs mostly through the apathy of the voters.

Chapter thirteen -- now we run into a problem. I don't know what I said to indicate that Rimon -- in lortuen -- would be able to sleep with other women. He might be able to force himself to do it -- not consistently successful, at that -- but with certain women and just the right timing, he might be able to make it. But doing so would wreck the attunement of the lortuen so that it would literally kill them (the symptoms would resemble underdraw). It certainly wouldn't be the kind of thing he'd like doing. If you've got a full lortuen, you are not going to be unfaithful to it. No way.

Perhaps the lortuen never locked fully and came unstuck during Rimon's disjunction -- which would mean he'd suffer the disjunction more than you've indicated. It would be awfully tricky to work in an orhuen-locked dependency here without making it seem he was flamingly gay to begin with.

Or something might happen to Kadi's system when Rimon makes his first fumblingly clumsy attempt to feed selyn to the unborn child. If she suffered a basal shift, such as Im'ran did in shaking plague, it would jar the lortuen loose at the roots -- putting them both on the raw edge of killing each other in their angry fights and so forth.

((Jean: Starting here, the situation went off in a completely different direction from what Jacqueline suggests. I can't write a woman choosing other women for her husband! Well, not this way! See NTM.)) ((NTM refers to Jean's ST fanzines.))

But they'd be held together because they are outcasts.

If another Donor entered the picture who could control Rimon -- a Farris Donor, not a locked dependency, but just a blazing good Donor -- a real Companion as Kadi wasn't because she was more in love than in dependency on transfer -- then Rimon would come back to sanity, and that would relieve a lot of the strain on Kadi, and they'd make up as husband and wife, able to raise their 2 kids to be sane. They can have love even when apart in transfer. And then, I think it must be Kadi who chooses who else Rimon sleeps with.

This was done in biblical times, you know, and I often think of this period as a new "biblical" period -- a period when new customs are gaining sway that will last thousands of years. A woman sends her maidservant to her husband as a courtesy when she is unable to share his bed -- and the children of the maidservant are acknowledged sons of the father, though sometimes not the heirs.

In a time of many births and huge infant death -- of death in childbirth more often than not for a woman -- in such times, the harem lifestyle must come back. A man can have as many wives as he can protect and provide for. In such times the female birthrate is higher than the male by a good piece.

It is not that Rimon is "unfaithful" to Kadi so much as that at certain times he's virtually in pon farr, and if she doesn't happen to want or be able, he turns to whatever woman attracts him -- probably choosing Sime women if he can, as a gesture that he is faithful, but also because he doesn't want to expose any Gen woman to the fruit of his loins. Most of them couldn't stand what Kadi has endured and live through it. And he is a gentle soul. He can't stand to be the cause of suffering. His need in life is to relieve suffering.

The pon farr above is the kind of thing you envision in the NTM universe, not the Kraith single-bang version, which I still happen to think is more "Vulcan" than your version. Your version fits the first week post transfer for an inexperienced, untutored and clumsy Farris channel, though perhaps total seclusion wouldn't be necessary. He'd be likely to grab a noontime tumble instead of lunch, then two or three before sleep. Then again before breakfast. You'd expect that to go on for 3 to 6 days after transfer for a channel who doesn't know how to manage his inner systems. He builds up a charge that has to be voided or else it back-currents on him and lays him out flat at death's door.

Remember sequencing transfer and sex is strictly forbidden in the Tecton because it does create a powerful bond -- not by any means in the lortuen class, but powerful enough to sway men (women too) to do almost anything. "The face that launched a thousand ships." Sex alone is powerful. Add transfer and WOW.

*

Jean to JL, 5/2/77

Can we do something other than a nightmare for the first scene? I know Simes don't need much sleep, but presumably work on a Genfarm, with the Gens doing the bulk of it, would begin at dawn; probably the Simes would go to bed at three or four in the morning and get up to start the day. I can understand why Rimon would be in a blue funk, and it's ok if he's not asleep. Unless it's carefully worded, though, so that the reader won't know what's happening until a second reading, I feel it would spoil the tone of the first pages to have Rimon attack Serri. (Yes, he will kill her later). That would be something very serious, for any Sime to almost lose control and attack a child; Rimon's problem in chapter one is an old, familiar one. He's more concerned over his father's reaction than about his own physical state; he's been in that state before, and he knows what will cure it. If he even felt like grabbing Serri, he'd be terribly upset, and I think it's best to delay the upset until the end of the chapter. If he's not deeply asleep, and will wake up wide awake, how about a rest-state (Simes are human; humans have been proved to need to sleep in order to dream or they go psychotic; as Simes don't need so much sleep, they may have perfected techniques to go into a light sleep specifically in order to dream) in which he is enjoying a pleasant dream, and he doesn't want to be brought back to harsh reality. Let's think about it, ok?

One distinct problem with this novel is that Rimon is a louse. We want to have reader sympathy and identity before the later events, or readers will want to throw him out of your universe. If he is described as a predator on page 1, we're going to lose sympathy -- and remember, part of what is happening in the novel is Rimon's discovery that a predator is exactly what a Sime is. He lives in an atmosphere which protects him from facing that, just as you and I are protected from facing the fact that we are carnivores. When was the last time you slaughtered a steer, or even plucked a chicken that someone else had killed? The Farrises live in constant contact with Gens; they have to fool themselves even more than the average Sime in order to do what they do. Other Gen producers go the other way, drugging their Gens into an animal-like state, themselves becoming hardened to the kill. The Farrises look on Gens more as we look on dogs and horses than as we look at cattle, and that means that while they produce a superior product, they also have to practice a considerable amount of self-deception. And, of course, no Sime, no matter what his occupation, can see himself as a murderer and maintain his sanity (which is Rimon's problem with his memory of Zeth). So, by all means rewrite the first scene to make Rimon's state correspond to a state a Sime in need could be in, but let's not make it heavy with an aborted attack on Serri.

"Uibo" comes out <wibo>. Is it supposed to be <uibo>? This is a difference in style between you and me. If there is an English word which translates the Simelan word (or Vulcan word or whatever), I don't like to invent a term. I only invent when there is no English word -- when my universal translator would leave the foreign term hanging in the air. "Master" is all wrong -- we want to be subtle. "Mr. Rimon" is wrong for the same reason. How about just "Sir"? Hey, "Tuib" is more obviously pronounceable; "Sectuib" could derive from it later. "Tuib Rimon"? How does that sound?

*

Jean to JL, 5/5/77

As you can tell from Chapter two, I did assume that Zeth was an undeveloped channel; after all, he's also a Farris. It works well into the karmic aspects of the novel; when he saves the life of his son at birth, Rimon names him Zeth, as if he had returned the life he had taken. Maybe he had.

I'm not sure how to work in the idea that once there were Simes who didn't kill this early. However, I think it can come from Kadi, who learns about it at the Reloc Bazaar. All the Gens at the Bazaar are in-Territory Gens, mostly the established children of Simes, so they can talk to each other easily enough, and they know all the stories of Sime Territory.

Now, both Rimon and Kadi grew up on a Genfarm; you don't tell anyone connected with a Genfarm the current route of the Starred Cross; young kids might babble it, adolescents might change over tomorrow and head straight out with a raiding party. But the Gens at the Bazaar know that if they are not bought immediately, they may have other chances to escape, and they might as well trust one another, and so they exchange any information that might help. Here is where Kadi learns the Legend of the Starred Cross (can you write such legend, in terms that won't give it all away, but will bring out the idea that some Simes can, or at least once did, live without killing?) and the current route. In turn, as they proceed toward the border, she tells the stories to Rimon.

Yes, we are in agreement on the karmic aspects of the novel.

((MR: Some discussion skipped on Rimon and Kadi's first transfer and events leading up to it.))

Yes, channeling with no one to teach you how is difficult. Every time Rimon thinks he has solved everything, something new goes wrong. It's trial and error, but the hell of it is that it's playing with people's lives.

((MR: The parts 2&3 referred to in the next section actually became Channel's Destiny. The story got split.))

The rejoicing at the end of Part Two is not easy but it is great. A whole new way of life appears to have opened up. Rimon thinks he is only a normal Sime -- his peculiarities have always made him appear weaker, not stronger, than others. He has probably found other Donors among his Gens, one or two anyway; I think he assumes any Sime can learn to do what he does, although some Gens have the capacity to serve personal transfer and others don't. He could be in conscious control of his secondary system, without being aware that it is a secondary system, just as you move your hand quite consciously without being aware of the nerve synapses, tensing of muscles and all the rest.

What I'd like to do, if I can manage it, is to create two climaxes of joy, at the end of Parts One and Two, with each one sliding back at the beginning of the next part as things begin to go wrong. Then in Part Three, everything appears to go downhill, until Rimon dies. Then, this will be very difficult, there should be a gathering to a crescendo with Zeth's eulogy (I don't know how that scene will go precisely now, what speech or action will go into it -- it will have to grow organically out of the book) where life, a tough, determined, better life, is born from Rimon's death. The rejoicing at the ends of the first two parts was ecstatic and premature -- but not wrong. It was like the joy at a wedding and then the joy at a birth -- the rejoicing in potential, without an understanding of what it will take to fulfill that potential. At the end of FCh, the rejoicing is more restrained, yet more complete. All the essentials of the new way of life are now there; Rimon's dream is realized in a mature, considered form. Readers of your other books will understand this better than those who pick this up as their first Sime/Gen book -- but of course they'll come back to it and understand more when they've read the others anyway.

It's what you didn't say that made me assume Rimon could be unfaithful to Kadi. When I first mentioned it, you didn't say "That can't happen." Anyway, your solution is just fine: it was a true lortuen, but Zeth's birth was so traumatic for Kadi that it put her out of synch with Rimon, distorting their lortuen. Good! This way two basically nice people who love each other, can't live with each other and can't live without each other. They would be aware of some kind of physical problem, and keep determining not to let it get to them.

Somehow, I can't see Kadi putting another woman in Rimon's bed. How about a mutual conspiracy of silence? At first, Kadi is the only Donor who can serve Rimon's personal need. After Zeth's birth, Rimon needs that again as soon as she can possibly provide it, for all that shunting from his secondary system (while he was disjuncting yet) would not have been psychologically satisfying, no matter if it managed to keep him going physically. That pon farr bit will be fun to write -- you know I can do it without being crude. But anyway, at this point, there is no one Rimon can turn to except Kadi, and he wants Kadi, despite the strange feeling of being just slightly off-key. The result would be another pregnancy within a very few months. Before the second child is born, Rimon should have another Donor. Rimon is handsome and personable; a Gen brought up in the Pens would not have had much moral or ethical education -- might not even know that sex leads to babies. She would act on her instincts, and they would make her want Rimon, the first Sime ever to be kind to her, who has given her a home and security. When Rimon didn't come right home, Kadi would easily guess what had happened -- but she knows how helpless Rimon is to control his sexual desire after a good transfer. So she pretends she doesn't know what has happened, and Rimon pretends that Kadi can't guess what has happened, and they raise the children and love each other, but rarely make love together anymore.

Still on the subject of the relationship between Rimon and Kadi. At first, until a couple of women died, he would not realize that bearing his children would mean death to a Gen. He knows it makes for an especially painful birth, but he thinks he knows how to save mother and child. Also, there are no other Simes at the homestead for many years. Where is he to go for Sime female companionship, when he is an outcast and dirt poor?

There he is, surrounded by Gens he has saved from death, many of whom are women -- he has probably unconsciously chosen more women than men. He would be worshipped by these poor, ignorant bits of humanity; as each one outgrew that stage, there would be others to take her place. They are not going to turn into self-sufficient strong personalities overnight, and in that adolescent period they would be overwhelmed by Rimon's sexual potential. And for 3-6 days of each month, he's not going to be able to resist.

Probably one of the things Rimon would be accused of would be running a harem. I did not get the sense that polygamy was the norm in Sime territory from HoZ; even Andle had a wife. Serial monogamy seemed to be the norm -- that's why Risa's family history is as it is. By the time she is 17, her father has outlived two wives and died himself. Incidentally among Ancients more boys than girls are born, but more girls survive infancy, even today.

Chapter 22: I'm not sure why a householding can't be Gen-high, once the majority of its Simes are nonjunct. On the Genfarm, juncts are able to work with Gens all around them even when approaching need. I'm sure there's an occasional accident, but I'm also sure that the second time a Sime loses control without extremely mitigating circumstances, he's fired. Householding Simes would have far stronger motivations for maintaining control; they see Gens as people, and all members of the Householding as family. The channels would keep as many Gens as possible low-field, and such Gens would be safe, I presume, with any Sime on any day. Possibly on his scheduled day of transfer, a Sime would avoid all Gens until afterwards. Gens above mid-field would avoid Simes approaching need -- the other way around actually, but I would think that the householding would be worked into a regular schedule, so that everyone would know who was safe when, in general. The few special cases, such as Simes in disjunction, would be watched over carefully until crisis was past. A Householding isn't a house; there could be isolation quarters at some distance from the rest for either high-field Gens, or for Simes who had trouble maintaining control. It would take some engineering, but I should think that a householding with some decent channels could comfortably accommodate considerably more Gens than Simes -- perhaps half again as many, to allow the Simes plenty of extra selyn for augmentation. A one-to-one ratio would severely limit that practice. The upper limit would be determined by the amount of selyn that can be used healthily in augmentation -- and I'm sure you've got a figure for that somewhere. Anyway, Rimon has to pay the same headtax on Gens that his father must. Come to think of it, most of Farris's Gens are probably exempt because they are purchased for resale, and he pays a head tax only on the breeders and workers he keeps for a month or longer.

*

JL to Jean, 5/8/77

((MR: continuing a discussion on Rimon in Jean's letter of 5/2/77))

Ok, I agree we won't have him so bad off he reflexively attacks Serri. But we can have it be a startle reaction -- say, he's accidentally against his better judgement let himself drift deeper into sleep than he intended and she startles him awake, which forces a vriamic shift that leaves him dizzy in a way he's never felt before. But it passes so quickly (he looks sick for a moment, hence Serri's comment) and maybe leaves him groggy, as you've written it. He puzzles over that -- hasn't felt "groggy" since he was a kid and guzzled too much hard cider or whatever. Adult Simes, especially in need, just don't wake up groggy.

Now, that would be his first vriamic function -- but he doesn't know it, nor does the reader -- it's a plant that something is happening to him that he doesn't understand (which is a good place to start a novel).

As to reader sympathy you're right, his being a louse does make it hard but after all, Digen is a weakling of a Sectuib and though the first couple drafts came off all wrong, I finally got it right. A guy who is a louse and knows it and wants to change, and succeeds in bringing up a son who isn't a louse -- that's good hero material, even if he does "discover" once a killer always a killer and dies of it.

It's a heroic death he chooses -- he sticks by his principles and gives his very life for them. "I will not kill today even if it kills me."

It's what you transmit to your children that counts in the end when summing up what a lifetime has been worth. Sometimes you can't change yourself, but you can break vicious circles. It's a karmic break and he'll reap the rewards next time. For the moment he's seen the horror of living as a predator. That's enough for one lifetime.

So, I think we have hero material in Rimon. He's a predator who's fighting it. He almost wins. His "discovery" that once a killer always a killer, that Simes are predators by nature is of course a false discovery. It's a truth only for him in his time. This is discussed in UNTO (if it hasn't been cut) on the porch scene between Ilyana and Digen just before the drive to the end of the book. The Tecton is built on the unconscious assumption that all Simes are predators by nature -- not symbiotes: killers.

Oh, yes, the only sleeping Simes do, except from habit, (It's a hard habit to break, like eating, but it does fade with the years), is for the REM sleep, to do their astral traveling, and their subconscious digesting. Stage One sleep is all they need and 3 hours is a maximum, 90 minutes minimum, every other day, or you begin to see psychological effects (oddly enough the same effects of personality change you see during need; touchy, aggressive, high strung, bad judgement on certain things etc.)

Your analogy between Rimon's protected environment from the kill and ours from being carnivores is very apt. I have gutted and cleaned chickens and fish (some fish I myself caught). But I've never killed a chicken (though my parents and grandparents have).

Oh, I wonder if I mentioned this: we have a problem with your language work. People like Nerob would, I think, learn the out-Territory language. Also, people raised out-Territory who go through changeover would be accepted as Simes (a bit retarded, not good enough for a lot of jobs requiring skills, but still people) and would know their old language is a perfectly fine language. They would learn Simelan in their First Year -- and they'd learn it pretty well. Farris would probably employ such o-T Simes to handle his Gens.

I don't think the issue of language itself would be one of the ways they would fool themselves about the peoplehood of Gens. It's odd I didn't spot this right off. Of course, you're using the analogy of the South -- and it is a valid analogy to a point. But somehow in this way, it doesn't quite work.

They might call it an "inferior" language, because it doesn't have words for fully half the things people want to talk about. They might call it a children's language, assuming that the Gens experience arrested development of the mind at the child's level. (Just as monkeys do, learning much as human infants up to the age of a few months. Then the monkey stops and the human starts learning in real earnest.)

You are quite right, the Kill must not seem to be "murder" -- and this is a great huge part of Rimon's hang-up.

Thinking about Rimon's first vriamic function experience. It has been established that fatigue for a Sime is not the result of muscular effort. You can think of it as selyn "burning clean". Simes don't sleep to remove chemical poisons and by-products because their muscles don't operate that way, but they are mortals. They do experience fatigue.

And they would experience fatigue as a result of many or prolonged Sime system functionals. For a renSime, the type of fatiguing system is as yet undetermined. For a channel, it has been established that Digen became fatigued not from working in the hospital (and as any intern will tell you, that is grueling work), but from chaining functionals together without fully recovering from one before doing the next.

For Rimon, I think I was right above where I say he would feel groggy if startlement shifted his gears for him. The more I think about it, the more an accidental falling asleep during need seems the right condition to induce vriamic shift. Coming out of a more or less pleasant dream into a shock-sound awakening would surely do it. The immediate reaction would be something resembling a hangover, though it would pass rapidly, since as a Farris he has a short recovery time, and even a mismanaged, off-timed vriamic shift wouldn't knock him down for long. Unlike Digen, he's healthy.

So, for his first true-in-earnest vriamic shift in which he performs a secondary functional (followed, presumably by a shunt from secondary to primary system?) his reaction wouldn't be sexual interest in Kadi, it would be simply a profound fatigue. It would be as if a man wholly out of condition had put in a 16 hour day as a stevedore. Later he would hurt -- like muscles after the first modern dance class of the season, only it's not muscles that hurt him.

Now, I don't know how you planned to do the first Kadi transfer. Was it to be (as legend has it) a straight secondary functional? It so, Rimon shouldn't be in need -- or doesn't have to be high intil. If he is in need, then her First Donation would be a Qualifying donation in which she remained utterly passive and permitted him to satisfy his primary system need from her.

If -- despite need -- Rimon shifts to secondary system and takes from her gently and slowly, then his own need would remain unsatisfied despite the shunt which would supply him with selyn. He would remain high intil, asexual and very uncomfortable. And the upshot would be that Kadi wouldn't be Qualified -- her TN levels would remain untouched, she would have given only a GN donation (which, quantity-wise, would probably last Rimon only about 3 weeks, if that).

Being recently established, she might short Rimon in quantity but make up in quality by satisfying him. That is, she would deliver selyn without resistance, at his draw speed.

I now doubt that Serri's wakening of him caused the First Vriamic incident. I think he would recognize it as having happened 3 times recently. But I don't know what the particular incidents involved were or whether we should establish them.

I think he might have experienced a shift when he killed Zeth.

I think he might have felt it with the boy who talked to him before the kill. In fact, I think it would occur whenever he withdrew from hurting while his body functioned in killmode. It would be the thing most responsible for his increasingly unsatisfactory transfers and short inter-need intervals. He's experiencing vriamic leakage. Of course, we don't explain all this to the reader. Rimon himself doesn't know it. But that is what's happening.

In fact, Rimon probably doesn't know the word "vriamic".

Scholarly anatomists somewhere are probably calling this strange ganglion which appears to serve no function the "bleezup node". Some Simes have it, and others don't, and nobody knows the significance of the difference that has been observed. That's the state of the medical art at this time. They are just discovering that the mutation is more complex than it appears on the surface.

Out where Rimon lives, in the country, most people are impatient with such book learning. After all, what difference does it make what's inside a cadaver? A Sime's a Sime and a Gen's a Gen.

There's a certain similarity in medical condition between Rimon and Roshi, Ilyana's older brother, and the "Sectuib in Rior". Roshi developed secondary system function in his middle years, and became unsatisfied with his transfer-dependent Donor, having a yen for Im'ran instead.

A developing channel, it can be inferred from that, also develops a discrimination among Donors that is mysterious to his compatriots. We also have the arch-villain of HoZ, Andle, going for Aisha because ordinary donors couldn't satisfy him any more.

So you've set the situation up right, with Rimon's increasing needs. All we have to do is figure out how he's going to take Kadi -- primary or secondary? Or some weird mixture of the two??

*

JL to Jean, 5/9/77

((MR: the answers to Jean's letter of 5/5/77))

Oh, Rimon could have been celibate since changeover. He's not a working channel, so he doesn't "need" sex to keep his internal currents working right. His transfers have not been satisfactory, which could result in either a very low sex drive, or a very short one post-transfer. Or, since he is so obviously in lortuen with Kadi, just her proximity might get him over post syndrome. Of course, that would be something his Father would worry about: it's not normal not to be horny.

And you're right, Kadi is still a virgin at this point. It wouldn't give a Sime any thrill to take a child, the nerve current responses wouldn't be sufficient to bring him to ejaculation. Remember, in sex, a Sime is tied into the partner's body empathically. That's why rape by a male Sime of a female Gen is unheard of.

((MR: a paragraph skipped here.))

The legend of the starred cross consists basically of a hodgepodge of personal anecdotes of Gens who have survived a kill attack of a Sime. It's not that Simes can live without killing, but that Gens can survive the kill! You can construct a version of the story to suit whatever character is telling Kadi about it. You are of course right that nobody connected with a Genfarm would be told current routes. We might hint at the Order's guarding the routes by letting Kadi have a mysterious benefactor on the trail somewhere, before she's caught.

((MR: More discussion skipped on events immediately preceding Rimon and Kadi's first transfer. Sorry folks, but AZ is only just so long.))

Getting rid of the corpse -- well, when Rimon turns on Kadi in kill-mode she recognizes it and runs like hell. He catches up to her (room here for sequences of his chase of Zeth), seizes her before he hits a high enough tension to trigger the vriamic function. Your consummation scene can occur over the hill from the corpse -- oh, make it 50 yards, a hundred meters or so.

You might write this sequence from both viewpoints -- Kadi would not run out of fear so much as thinking "How will he live with the fact he's killed me? I mean, after Zeth look what happened to him!"

This has to be the depth of her depression over going Gen. Her life isn't worth 2 cents to her -- she sees it only in its worth to Rimon.

She's been traumatized, she can't face out-T Gens (at least not males -- females may be different.)

Having Rimon overcorrect and slam himself down into hypoconsciousness and (since he doesn't usually achieve that in transfer even) faint or go into convulsions and Kadi nurse him out of it expecting to be killed, but accepting that, now that she is resigned to dying (she only ran out of sheer surprise and reflex) and the transfer/love scene follows, works nicely. Go ahead and do it that way.

I don't think Rimon suddenly "knows what to do to prevent a Gen from dying". As in the legend, he takes Kadi resigned to killing her, she offering up her life willingly, but during the selyn movement, he pulls back in some way, he restrains himself, and shifts to his secondary system. (You are right, he wouldn't be aware there is a secondary system, it's just something he does)

But then he'd still be in primary need, if he did that with Kadi. And a shunt might be beyond their technical knowledge, and certainly would ruin the flow of the scene.

So let's say he attacks Kadi all out -- wholly unable to restrain himself -- and she doesn't die simply because she surrenders completely and enough time has lapsed so that she is at her maximum field. Also, they've spent time together in the woods. His field has induced her selyn production to maximum. She satisfies him as no other Gen ever has -- and he expects her to die of it, and so does she, and she doesn't give a damn. And he thinks of it as a sad but fitting end for the woman he loves -- better he should kill her than anyone else should. Maybe he plans suicide afterwards. Whatever -- it's a moment of total self-sacrifice.

They are both shocked, surprised, dismayed, etc. when they find themselves both alive. But since Rimon has just had his first transfer -- the first real transfer of his life -- he's feeling the post-syndrome effect full force for the first time, and maybe after crying a bit, or having some other form of hysterics, which she controls (the exact wrong thing to do by the way. It would delay and interfere with his mastery of the vriamic) they fall into sex as naturally as Sarek and Amanda when Sarek is in pon farr.

So maybe we should do it this way. Have Rimon attack Kadi without any trace of vriamic control. Kadi defends herself and takes care of Rimon. Kadi takes the dominant role here, the natural Gen role, the role seen only in the Distect nowadays.

((MR: Next we have Chapter Seven, The First Dream, from an early draft of First Channel. These early drafts alternated between Rimon and Kadi's pov. Let's take a look at their transfer through Kadi's eyes.))

((DRAFT))

Rimon turned on her in killmode, all trace of intelligence, of Rimon himself, gone from his unfocused eyes. Such senseless fear, for what had she to live for now?

There was no life for her in Gen Territory, among people who did not kill cleanly, but tortured their victims; people who had no respect for women, but would force them --

Her stomach churned at the thought of that man's arms around her, his hands clawing at her clothing while the others laughed and urged him on. She could not live among people like that! Even if they weren't all like shot, still they were all -- Gens. And she, herself, was Gen, too.

She could not live in Sime Territory, either. She didn't want to live to become -- that, Gen, animal. The only answer was to die cleanly, with a purpose ... to give Rimon life. He had done so much for her. She was sure he had defied his father to come after her. He had risked arrest if he had been caught releasing her at the border. All for her, so she would have a chance to live. And then, finally, because she was so horribly afraid -- ungrateful -- he had shenned himself -- had probably killed himself to keep from killing her.

"Oh, Rimon," she whispered as a third seizure took possession of his body. "Rimon, why did you do it?"

This seizure was shorter than the others. Rimon collapsed, gray with shock, sweat beading his face. He lay limp, only his shallow breathing indicating that he was alive.

What could she do for him? She looked around, as if some solution to her dilemma would magically appear. Even their supplies were back where they had left the horses -- not that she could think of anything in the pack that would help.

The sound of water penetrated her consciousness as she realized how dry her mouth was. A few yards away she found a tiny waterfall cascading merrily into a crystal pool no more than a yard across. She drank, then tore a strip of cloth from her already shredded tunic, dipped it into the water, and returned to wipe Rimon's face. He made no response at all. Kadi opened his sweat-soaked shirt and began to wipe down his body, remembering at least how good it felt to be clean if one had to be ill.

Spasms began building in Rimon's ravaged body. Oh, God, another convulsion would surely kill him! She picked up the belt again.

But the trembling did not build to a convulsion -- instead he shivered with violent chills. Kadi realized to her horror that she had done exactly the wrong thing!

She threw herself down on his trembling body, trying to cover him, willing warmth into him, cursing the shade of the tree under which they lay, and the fact that she dared not move him out into the sunshine. Disorientation on top of attrition --

What was she thinking of? He was dying, his life draining away inexorably, no matter what she did, no matter whether it would be right or wrong in any other situation. Everything she might do for Rimon now was wrong, futile -- except for one thing.

She could give him her life.

If she could bring him to any degree of consciousness, surely this time he would not have enough control to stop himself -- especially as she wanted desperately for him to live. She remembered what he had said, "You can never trust a Sime in need -- not even me, and I love you."

He was wrong. In that one terrible moment when primal fear of death gripped Kadi, Rimon had been trustworthy indeed. If he could do that for her, she could give her life for him. She owed it to him.

As she lay over him, in the shade of the tree, his shivering tapered off, and Kadi sat up to unbutton his shirt again. He remained unconscious, but she noticed that he was just pale now, not that terrible inhuman gray.

She knew his body responded to what she was feeling -- that was how she had controlled his reactions to the kill for all those months. He had said these past few days, now that she was Gen, she affected him more than ever. If he was not to suffer over killing her, she knew he had to feel her willingness to give him her life. He would zlin the truth of it.

She concentrated her effort, bringing all her feelings to the surface. Rimon, I love you. I don't want you to die. Live, Rimon!

Hesitantly, she let her hands slide up his arms, her fingers brushing over the lateral sheaths, where one never touched. His body tensed slightly, and then the lateral orifices relaxed, ronaplin flowing out. The laterals extended, seeking instinctively, but his other tentacles did not move, nor did his hands seek to grip her.

As if she were the attacking Sime, she moved her hands up on his forearms, bringing them into normal alignment. His hot laterals licked at her skin, creating trails of pleasant sensation.

Come on, Rimon. Wake up. You're in need, and I'm here to give you my selyn. I want to do it Rimon. I love you. I won't let you die. You need me -- now!

He coughed, and then his handling tentacles extended to lash about her arms -- not bruisingly, as before, but with something of a caress about their firm grip. Kadi was too relieved to feel fear. I won't die a coward! she told herself, and returned to her litany, dragging the feelings up from somewhere deep inside.

I'm here to help you, Rimon. I love you. I don't want you to die. Take my life, Rimon. Take my selyn. I want to give it to you.

His eyes opened, unfocused. Lest he attempt to shen himself again, Kadi bent forward and pressed her lips to his.

She could feel her life flowing to Rimon, filling him, a sharing, a delicate relief. She had expected pain, not pleasure. The flow become faster and faster, immeasurably sweet. Power sang through her as she drove life into the man she loved, forced him to live, gave in the deepest measure that he might survive, knowing all the while that he perceived what joy it was to her to give thus. Time was suspended for an eternal moment of fulfillment.

When Kadi lifted her head, she found Rimon fully conscious, staring at her.

In a bare, shivering whisper, Rimon breathed, "Kadi?" His dorsal tentacles brushed her cheeks. "Kadi?" The smile rose to his face from the deepest recesses of his soul, and Kadi knew that her expression matched his. A buoyant elation seemed to be carrying them both to a delirious height beyond all human experience.

He touched her, stroking her skin with fingers and tentacles as if he'd never felt her before. "Kadi -- I can't -- zlin. Not at all. Is this attrition?"

"You took selyn from me -- I know you did. And it didn't hurt. I wanted to give -- everything, even my life."

He drew her down to his chest like an infinitely precious lover. "Yes -- I seem to remember -- no fear -- like Zeth only better."

Slowly, his breathing steadied and slowed, and then his arms loosened around her as, content as never before in his life, Rimon drifted into a sleep as deep as any infant's.

As she realized he was in a deep and natural sleep, Kadi picked herself up and sat beside him. It really hit her then. They were both alive. But, what was wrong with him? Why couldn't he zlin? She knew that normally, after a kill, most Simes experienced a varying period of hypoconsciousness during which they perceived the world as a child or a Gen does, with only the five normal senses. But even then, they could shift to duoconsciousness if they wanted to. Why couldn't Rimon? Was he going to die?

Oh, God, not now! Not when I've got him back!

She sat for some time, watching him breath, until at last she realized she was being cowardly again. The thing to do was to deal effectively with each problem as it came up. Right now -- she realized that during his convulsions, he had soiled himself, and her. He was obviously still very sick. She'd never seen him fall asleep after a kill before -- but no, he hadn't killed. Did that matter? Oh, what have we done?

Shaking herself again, she narrowed down to deal with the situation, thinking it through first, item by item, until her mind began to function. It would be dark soon. They had to get clean and dry, get a fire going for hot tea -- maybe even if he can't zlin, he can eat. As she moved away from Rimon, he stirred in his sleep as if reaching out for her. She paused, trying to make him feel secure that she'd be right back. He turned on his side and dropped into deeper sleep again.

Aching in every joint, Kadi forced herself to go about making a small camp for them. Gauging the sun's descent, she thought she had time to go fetch the horses and their gear, after she'd cleaned up as best she could. She had heard horses galloping away and figured the Border Patrol had taken all the Gens -- at least she hoped they were all gone as she scrambled back through the valley, over the rocks where she and Rimon had first spotted the Gen camp -- forcing herself to look at the trampled place of death, noting that the Patrol had taken the bodies.

She found the horses cropping weeds and rode them back, the long way around because she dared not risk getting lost among the rocks or hitting an impasse the horses couldn't take.

She made warm water and washed Rimon thoroughly as she had had to do so many times before when he was so ill and no Sime would come near him. Then she dressed him in clean, dry clothes, rolled blankets over him, and made something to eat.

She sat with him, watching him as she ate, the twilight deepening into a moonlit night. Eventually she had to wrap a blanket about herself to keep warm. Would he wake, or would he just slip deeper and deeper into a coma and die?

She turned to put a larger log on the fire, glancing worriedly at the small pile she'd gathered. Would it last the whole night? They were so close to the water hole -- what would come to drink? Then she chided herself as she stirred the fire up. Here she was conjuring fears out of nothing, just like any Gen.

When she turned back, she found Rimon's eyes on her.

"If you're cold, come here with me," he add in just the way he used to.

She came, arranging her blanket over him and then crawling under him. His arms went around her naturally, just the way they always had when she slept beside him. Her shivering began in earnest then, but after a few minutes abated naturally. "I don't know why I'm so cold. It isn't really all that chilly."

"Mountain air," answered Rimon, his lips buried in her hair. His fingers were exploring every bit of skin they could reach, his tentacles creeping under her clothing to caress her skin. "By God, Kadi, you feel good. Why haven't I ever noticed how good you feel?"

"You can zlin again?"

He stopped a moment, testing. "No -- oh, it doesn't matter," he said, vaguely impatient. "If I die tonight, I die happy." His arms tightened about her and yes, it did feel good to be held like this. Why hadn't she ever noticed just how good it felt? She let her hands stray over his skin, under clothing, enjoying quietly a kind of security she hadn't know she craved.

They luxuriated in themselves a long, long time, relaxing from a tension of separateness that had become a habit. After a while, they even recaptured some of the texture of high rapture they had both felt during selyn flow.

"Kadi? Kadi, what's happening to me? I've never felt like this before. It's like -- it's like a kind of hunger, not need, not real hunger but -- " He broke off, seizing her more tightly in both arms, crushing them together, moaning softly.

It began for bath of them, the giddy whirl of their first truly sexual excitement. The flesh knew what it wanted, and they knew, vaguely, how to go about it. Clumsily, but carried on wave after wave of strangely exaggerated euphoria, they joined and found new heights and, afterwards, a new peace.

Dawn was flushing the sky pink when they woke, still in each others' arms, as if afraid of losing what they'd just found.

"You are so beautiful, Kadi. Do you know how you look?"

"Sleepy?" said Kadi.

He smiled. "That, too. But -- I can't understand it. You seem to have the same glow a Sime has after a kill!"

She pulled herself up to lean on one elbow and look at him. "You mean you can zlin again?"

He paused, searching. "Yes! Yes, I can, but it's like normal, now, I can but I just don't want to. I only want to zlin you like a child -- there's a purity to that, you know."

She regarded him critically. "You know, I think you have that same post-kill glow, too. And I can't recall ever seeing you look like that before."

He nodded. "I feel -- I feel -- right for the first time I can remember, too. It's as if -- what I wanted with Zeth -- I have it now, complete." he sat up. "Kadi -- you weren't afraid -- and you didn't die! Simes don't have to kill! Gens don't have to die! I didn't kill you -- and I feel better than I ever have. I even -- well, Dad should be pleased I'm a man at last!" He bent to kiss her and pull her to her feet.

They embraced for a moment, then Rimon pulled back, a new thought seizing him. "Kadi, here I am going on -- and I haven't even said thank you. You did that to save my life. You expected to die."

"And here we are," said Kadi, in her most practical manner, "as good as married, just like we always wanted to be in spite of my turning out all wrong. Rimon -- Rimon, what are we going to do now? Where are we going to go? Who would have us?"

Rimon sighed, looking around at the gray embers of their fire. "Well, home, I guess, where else? Dad's always been pretty reasonable about my aberrations. I don't know what we are, Kadi, and I don't know what we're going to be. But at least for a few weeks we have each other. Next month, we'll worry about when it happens. Let's start with breakfast, okay?"

*

End of Part 1

(So ends the excerpt. Roots of Zeor will continue next issue.)