RenSime
Plot summary by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Copyright (c) 2000 by Sime~Gen Inc.
One hundred years after the events of Unto Zeor, Forever, in a world of satellites and computers, Digen Farris is dead.
At his state funeral Mairis, Digen's grandson by his only child, Ercy, gives his eulogy. Everyone had been sure Digen would recover this time, too. He had seemed immortal.
Laneff Farris ambrov Sat'htine, a renSime - an oddity in a Farris family - and worse yet, a disjunct renSime - will be presented by Mairis to give a speech about her research, heralding a New Era.
She believes she can find the way to tell Sime from Gen before birth -- children would not face changeover in a situation where they might Kill. No child would be scarred by the shock of changeover or establishment, the long years of childhood anxiety would never happen -- if she can get the funding.
Her attention is distracted by Shanlun ambrov Zeor, Digen's Donor for the last few years of his life. She's deeply attracted to him.
During an attack on the proceedings, terrorists goad Laneff into a Kill to prove the hypocrasy of the Tecton.
A terrorist, a Gen Donor with a searing field, siezes the opportunity to kidnap Laneff, making their escape in a helicopter.
But the Gen Donor who heaved her stunned body into the helicopter is not one of the terrorists flying the helicopter. He enlists her aid to overpower the pilot, so he can fly them to safety.
His name is Yuan, and he is offering her refuge from the Tecton where an adult junct is under a death sentence. Yuan heads the Neo-Distect -- a secret enclave where Laneff can be matched to a Donor who will provide satisfying junct-style transfers but not die in the process. The Neo-Distect gives her a laboratory and all the support she could ask for to continue her research. She knows she will live only a few more months.
In the wake of Digen's death and the passing of an era, the Tecton, the new Distect, the mysterious gypsies, and several dissident factions on both sides of the Sime~Gen borders vie with each other, often erupting in sporadic violence, clandestine raids, spying and cold-war tactics.
Sheltered in a hotbed of Distect internal politics and threatened by security leaks, Laneff makes real progress on her research and learns more than she ever wanted to know about the dark side of the Tecton.
When the Distect hideout is attacked and destroyed by the Diet forces, she escapes with Yuan and Shanlun ambrov Zeor, who had arrived at Yuan's hideout with a band of gypsies -- as one of them. And it's not a disguise, but his real identity. These gypsies are actually School of Rathor under deep cover. Some of these "gypsies" are partially Endowed. Laneff learns about the involvement of The Endowment in Digen's death.
Laneff must choose between going with Yuan or with Shanlun. And she chooses to go to Shanlun's Rathor organization, which will give her laboratories.
Laneff synthesizes kerduvon (not distilling it from the Mahogany Trinrose), as a by product of developing her test which can distinguish Sime from Gen before birth.
Her synthesis method involves telekinesis, and only the endowed can pull off the trick.
Shanlun believes she can disjunct a second time, but by this point she's pregnant (against impossible odds), and this kind of disjunction will probably abort the fetus.
They attempt the procedure using kerduvon and her new compound.
She takes a public disjunction transfer from a Rathor channel as Mairis finally catches up to them, and Shanlun introduces her to Mairis as his newly disjuncted wife. A new era has surely dawned.
The child is born some months later, and Laneff pledges Zeor and is permanently embroiled in world affairs.
The End
For more on the era after RenSime see the Chronology of the S~G
Universe and various articles and comments by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
and Jean Lorrah collaborating on developing the S~G universe background
and overall story-arc in the paper fanzines.
The Universe premise includes the discovery of space travel, involving
Jean Lorrah's Householding Keon, and humankind's spread out to the stars
where many non-human species dominate a civilization that is entirely
"Ancient" -- i.e. selyn-neutral. Humanity has the fasted
FTL space drive -- because only Simes can astrogate through that kind of
space-warp.
|
