(c) copyright 2003 by Sime~Gen Inc. All rights
reserved.
Chapter Three
Unity
The defining moment of Baird Axton’s generation would always be
summed up in the question, "Where were you when you heard the
Unity Proclamation?"
It was an early-summer morning, already hinting at the stickiness
of Norlea’s summer heat. Baird, in shirt sleeves, listened and
zlinned as another shiltpron player auditioned. Only because it was
cool in the parlor did Baird not stop the audition. The musician had
some skill on the audial level, but his control of the nageric
ambience was tentative at best. It grated on Baird’s Need-strained
nerves. He was due to collect this month’s Kill later this morning.
The Gen shortage had grown so bad now that there was only a
five-hour leeway. Of course his father would gladly have bought him a
Choice Kill, but even this close to hard Need, Baird could not
consider killing ... a person. Last month’s liaison with the
beautiful Gen woman might have awakened his sex drive, but it had only
increased his conflict at having to kill to live. He knew what he felt
was Need anxiety, and that he would succumb to his Sime nature when
confronted with a high-field Pen Gen. But it became harder and harder
to silence that little voice that told him they were all human beings,
even the mindless ones raised strictly for the Kill.
Turning his attention back to the music, once again Baird wished
that Zhag Paget were in good enough health to play for a full evening
- he would hire him at once, never mind his father’s objections to
the man’s lifestyle. However, even though he had supposedly passed
his disjunction crisis, Zhag’s health had not improved beyond what
that one good transfer had done for him. He still had little appetite,
tired easily, and moved like an old man.
Zhag played a set at Milily’s every evening, but he didn’t have
the strength to play for hours, as working at The Post would require.
Still, Baird realized he hadn’t seen his friend in over a week, and
Zhag would have taken transfer in the meantime. Maybe it was a good
transfer. Maybe Zhag was getting stronger.
He couldn’t take any more of this fellow’s aimless noodling!
"All right - that’s enough," he told the
shiltpron player. "I have a couple more to audition, and then
I’ll let you know. Be sure to leave your address with Charl."
It was a polite lie; there were no other applicants after him, but
this young man really should be looking for some other employment.
Baird decided to wile away the time before his Kill by going to visit
Zhag.
Baird took his cloak from the back of the chair, but hung it on the
rack by the door - at nearly noon it was already far too warm. Then,
considering the part of town he was headed for, he went upstairs to
change into plain shirt, denims, and the old boots he wore when he
rode out into the country.
He was taking off his ring when his father came up the stairs and
paused at Baird’s open door. "Where are you going, dressed like
that?" Treavor Axton demanded.
"To try to find us a decent shiltpron player," Baird told
him.
"Not that pervert friend of yours! Last time I saw him, he
looked like a day-old Kill. You’ve left that sick lifestyle behind,
Baird. Leave him behind as well."
"He’s the best shiltpron player in Norlea," said Baird.
"That should be all that matters."
"It would be if he weren’t likely to drop dead in front of
my customers. Come on - Sellie’s got some new dancers. Let’s see
if they’re any good."
"What will they dance to if we don’t have musicians?"
Baird asked.
"Charl can play the piano. We’ll break out those casks of
Gen wine I bought - it’s fine stuff. Did you try it?"
Baird had, and found it excellent. The wine was surely contraband,
a bonus picked up on an illegal raid out-Territory and sold on the
black market. Probably another of his father’s deals with Old
Chance, the penkeeper. Idly, he wondered who had ended up with the
Wild Gen he had seen that night his father had set him up with the
lovely -
He pulled his thoughts from the Gen woman who had so bewitched him.
Something about her had made him react like a normal Sime ... but left
him torn between his broken vow to his sister’s memory and the
reactions his father wanted from him. If only Elendra could have lived
to come home, if the two of them could have stood up to Treavor Axton
together.
Deliberately, Baird focused on what his father was planning. The
wine was more expensive than porstan - but without shiltpron music to
enhance the potency of the more common Sime drink, a few special
evenings with wine and dancing girls would preserve the reputation of
The Post as the best establishment in Norlea. Simes liked wine because
it gave them a quick high, but no hangover. They would have until the
wine ran out to find a decent shiltpron player.
Leave it to Treavor Axton to make a virtue of necessity! Baird didn’t
like his father’s dealings with Old Chance. One of these days the
penkeeper would go too far, and then how many of Norlea’s wealthy
and powerful citizens would he take down with him? But despite last
month’s normal post-reaction, Treavor Axton still didn’t accept
his son as an equal - and Baird had no idea what it would take to
convince him that he should have more to say about how the business
was run than auditioning mediocre shiltpron players.
The two men were walking across Norlea’s square - a place that
made Baird shiver to this day with the shame of his all-too-public
Genjacking - when an official crier entered, ringing his bell.
"Gather round, gather round all!" he shouted. "Official
proclamation from the legislature!"
"Another Gen shortfall, bet on it!" said Baird’s father
as they joined the crowd of jittery Simes to listen to the latest
news. "Shen that war out west! Why is Gulf involved in it
anyway?" And Baird knew he was thinking of the apparently
senseless loss of Elendra.
The crier had a large document scrolled up, and was followed by a
man and a woman, each with several scrolls. Those would be copies of
the same document. After the official reading they would be posted in
all the public areas of Norlea.
The crier unrolled the top portion of the scroll and, with a
flourish, turned it so the gathered crowd could see the large black
headline as he declaimed the best news they had heard in months:
"The war is over!"
The cheers greeting that statement drowned anything the official
reader might have tried to say for several minutes. Baird turned to
hug his father who, for once, accepted the gesture. But in a moment he
felt his father tense, zlinned the tension building within the crowd
as they quieted and turned to the crier again.
"Who won?" someone shouted.
"We did! The Freeband Raiders have been defeated!" the
crier replied, and another cheer went up as he turned the scroll so
that he could read the lengthy proclamation.
A hush fell over the crowd as they listened, knowing that until the
official reading was completed the copies would not be posted for
those who could read to absorb perhaps more quickly, perhaps with
greater belief.
The Sime and Gen armies that Elendra had written about had survived
a terrible winter in the mountains - and as the war resumed in the
spring the Raiders cut their supply lines. The Gens ran out of food.
The Simes ran out of Pen Gens. As Elendra had told Baird, many Simes
and Gens had gotten to know one another, had fought side by side, had
saved each other’s lives. Many Sime soldiers found it hard to face
killing even mindless Pen Gens - but now even those were unavailable.
There was no way to prevent the army of Simes from killing the army
of Gens - their allies against the common enemy of the Freeband
Raiders - except to separate them. But that would leave the Simes to
die of attrition, and the Gens under the tentacles of the Raiders.
But then the Householders - those perverted channels and their
wer-Gen Companions tolerated by both armies because of their healing
powers - had suggested a solution: if the Simes gave the Gens all the
food in their supplies, and - through the channels - the Gens donated
their selyn to keep the Sime army alive, they could stand together
against the Freebanders.
Despite his state of Need, tears caught in Baird’s throat. Oh,
Elendra, if only you could have lived to be part of that! And then
he realized, You were there in spirit - you believed Simes and Gens
could survive without killing, and two whole armies proved you right!
Beside him, Baird’s father whispered irreverent words in a
reverent tone: "Bloody shen!"
"We won," Baird murmured. "The war is over - it’s
all over."
"We? Some kind of perverted witchcraft - "
But as the murmurs of amazement dwindled, the crier held up his
scroll again, ready to read on. "Furthermore, a peaceful
accommodation having been achieved between the armies of all Sime and
Gen Territories east of the Great Mountains, the leaders of those
territories have entered into a Unity Treaty together to maintain that
peaceful accord. In exchange for trade across the territories, and an
end to border raids from either side, the governments of the Gen
Territories known as Ningland, Heartland, New Washington, Mizzoo -
" the list continued through names Baird knew and others he had
not known existed, exotic Gen names that even the professional crier’s
tongue tripped over " - have agreed to allow tested and licensed
channels to be stationed within their territories to collect selyn to
provide for the continued welfare of the citizens of the Sime
Territories."
A gasp went up from the crowd. This could not be real! Wild Gens
agreeing to give their selyn to Simes? In return for what? Sime
Territories didn’t grow enough food to support the huge population
of Gens - the Gen population had to outnumber the Sime
population many times over, or else -
- or else the Simes would kill all the Gens, and die in the agony
of attrition. Those Freeband Raiders who had caused such havoc were
the result of NorWest Sime Territory running out of Gens, and
desperate Simes banding together to raid across neighboring
territories. The largest band of Raiders ever known had caused the war
that had taken Elendra’s life.
Baird looked around. Did anyone else in this crowd understand that?
Had anyone else’s brother or sister, son or daughter, written home
about their experiences?
Again the crowd fell expectantly silent. The crier proceeded to the
next section of the proclamation.
"In return, the governments of the Sime Territories known as
Gulf, Lakeland, East Nivet, West Nivet - " again a long list as
the crowd waited impatiently to hear what new taxes they would have to
pay for peace with their Gen neighbors - and for the reassurance that
Gulf Territory would never experience a selyn shortfall such as had
destroyed NorWest. Even someone as set in his ways as Treavor Axton,
Baird was sure, would accept occasional transfer of selyn from a
channel if that were the only way to live for another month.
And then came the unbelievable words that would become the most
famous in the proclamation: "these Sime Territories, joining as
one entity under Tecton law, agree to disjunct all Simes and put an
end to the Kill."
Even Baird, who had wanted so desperately to end the Kill in his
own life, could not believe what the crier read. Put an end to the
Kill? For all Simes? It wasn’t possible!
There was stunned silence. Then a woman said, "You mean when
my son changes over, I have to take him to the perverts? That he won’t
be allowed to kill, like a normal Sime?"
Of course, Baird realized. That had to be it: all new Simes would
be given First Transfer, as he had wanted, not a First Kill. In one
generation, there would be no more killing.
The crier, though, cringed as he looked down at the document he
held, the whole top section now rolled up, already read - only one
brief section to go. Baird could zlin his fear as he looked around,
sweating in the heat and humidity.
Only then did Baird notice the platoon of Home Guard soldiers that
had quietly drawn up around the crowd while they listened to the
proclamation. They think there’s going to be a riot! he
realized. What could the proclamation say? It couldn’t possibly -
The crier swallowed hard, and plowed into the final sentences of
the proclamation. "In compliance with the terms of the Unity
Treaty, the Legislature of Gulf Sime Territory hereby declares that
twenty-eight days from today shall be the day of the Last Kill. During
this month’s transition period the Pen system shall be replaced by a
new selyn distribution system whereby every adult Sime shall receive a
month’s selyn ration from a channel, the distribution of selyn being
managed under the supervision of the Tecton. In order to achieve a
smooth transition and maintain distribution of selyn in a safe and
timely manner, the Tecton is now a branch of the Gulf Territory
government, under the supervision and protection of the Office of
Selyn Management."
There were a few more sentences of legal complications, but no one
was paying attention. The blow had fallen: the entire population of
Gulf Territory were, by government decree, to be turned into what
almost every Sime in the territory considered the worst of perverts!
#
Jonmair noticed a bustle in the Pens, but could not find out the
cause. She and the other Choice Kills were brought out more often, and
the Simes who looked them over had a nervy anxiety that could not be
accounted for by mere Need. In fact, many of them were not in Need at
all, purchasing early for future use. Not wanting to be used sexually,
or possibly tortured before she was killed, Jonmair only allowed her
field to show when the customer was in hard Need. Then she knew she
would get a quick and clean death. Otherwise she drew her imaginary
curtain of privacy, and was ignored.
Finally, Chance told her, "All right, Gen - you want to be
saved for the Final Auction? You got it. But if I have to beat you to
heighten your field and bring the price I need, I ain’t gonna
hesitate that day!" And he locked her back in her cell to
ponder his words.
Final Auction? She had never heard of a Choice Auction called the
Final Auction. And Chance had used the term "Need" for money
instead of selyn. Using the term associated with the very biologic
energy of life in some other context indicated utter desperation. Why
would Old Chance be desperate for money? Everybody thought he had tons
of it, considering all the bribes he had taken over the years. But
then, who knew how many bribes he had had to pay?
Each day as usual Jonmair was taken into the exercise yard with the
other Choice Kills - and as the days passed, their numbers dwindled.
Almost no new Gens replaced those sold. How could fewer children in
Norlea suddenly be establishing as Gens? Where were the new Choice
Kills going?
The Pen smelled of newly sawn wood, fresh paint, and antiseptic.
Sometimes Jonmair heard hammering. Repairs and remodeling - but Chance
was not supervising. He avoided the areas where the work was taking
place. Had he sold the Pen? That must be it. Old Chance must be
retiring - that was why he wanted to make every bit of money out of
his final sales.
Then one morning at exercise time, Jonmair was led past open doors
of what had been other holding cells. The area had been remodeled into
rooms each the size of two cells, lined with new cabinets. In one of
the rooms two women were putting vials and bottles in the cabinets,
laughing and talking as they worked. But - one of the women was Sime
and one was Gen!
Ignoring the Sime holding her chain, Jonmair stopped in her tracks
and gawked. "You’re Householders!" she exclaimed.
The two women turned, and their bright mood fell away, replaced by
looks of pity. "What are you doing here?" Jonmair demanded,
setting her feet as the young Sime leading her tried to drag her
toward the exercise yard. "Has Old Chance sold the Pen to
Carre?"
The Gen woman put an arm protectively around the Sime woman’s
shoulders, saying in a choked voice, "It’s not fair - but what
can we do?"
"Nothing," the Sime woman said grimly. "Nothing but
wait. Just another week, Janine, and it will be over."
"What will be over?" Jonmair tried to ask, but the Sime
leading her set his own feet and yanked. The collar cut into her neck,
and she had to follow him out into the hot sun.
The exercise area was surrounded by Pen buildings so that Simes on
the surrounding streets would not be irritated or tempted by Gen
nager. Jonmair could not see or hear what was going on in Norlea
outside the Pen ... yet she had a feeling, somehow, of a pall over the
city, a desperation she could sense, although she could not explain
how.
There were four other Gens in the exercise area. They were
forbidden to talk to one another, but today Jonmair didn’t care if
she was beaten, or if she was locked in her cell or even drugged - she
had to find out what they knew.
As soon as the chain was unclipped from her collar, she ran to the
two men and two women, exclaiming, "What have you heard? What’s
happening? Why are there Householders here, remodeling the Pens?"
"Hey - you - shut up!" demanded the young Sime guarding
them. He put a threatening hand on his whip, but the five Gens ignored
him.
"I don’t know," said one of the males. He was already
taller than most Simes, broad of shoulder, with powerful thighs.
"I was moved out of my area into another."
"Me, too," said the other male. "They tore down that
whole row of cells. They’re turning the Pen into something
else."
"But where will the Pen be?" asked a short female with
curly black hair. "There has to be one near the center of town,
and Norlea’s all built up."
Suddenly the other female, a pale girl with pimply skin, spoke
angrily. "Won’t be no more Pens!"
"Shut up you!" their guard yelled, but it was too late.
None of them would obey after what the girl had said. She was the
newest addition to the Choice Kills.
As the other four Gens urged her to tell what she knew, their guard
ran off to get help.
"We’re the Last Kills," the girl said. "I dint
hafta be kilt - my ma an’ pa coulda give me to the Householders, all
legal - but they wanted the money for their own Last Kills!"
"What are you talking about?" asked the shorter male.
"The war!" the girl told them. "We won - but only
because the Sime and Gen armies joined together against the
Freebanders. The Gens traded selyn for the Simes’ food, so they
could all keep fighting. And afterward they made a treaty to keep the
peace. Out-Territory Gens - they agreed to keep giving us their
selyn!"
"What?" asked the other woman. "I don’t believe
it! Let themselves be killed?"
"No," the girl replied. "Like the Householders. The
channels will take selyn from the Gens, and give it to Simes. No
Kills. No more Kills after the end of this month."
"That’s not possible," Jonmair whispered, although the
hope vying with fear in her heart almost overwhelmed her.
"Don’t make no difference to us," the girl said.
"We’ll be sold at the Final Auction, and die in the Last
Kill."
That was all Jonmair could find out, because the penkeepers arrived
to herd the Gens back to their cells. They were not allowed out again,
nor were they fed anything but gruel that day - but Old Chance dared
not weaken them too much: the Final Auction was approaching, and he
had to keep his stock in top condition.
The news was simply too much to grasp. Simes and Gens were going to
live together without killing. How could it be? Everyone hated the
perverted Householders! How could people bring themselves to rely on
the detested channels for life itself?
Now she understood the two Householder women she had seen - the
Sime must be one of those channels, the Gen a wer-Gen Companion. They
had looked healthy, and were obviously friends.
Was it possible? Could Simes and Gens really live together the way
the Householders claimed to do?
All her life, Jonmair had been taught that the only way for Simes
to be healthy was to kill, that the Householders were sick and
perverted.
And yet ... people went to the Householders for healing. How could
they heal other people if they were sick themselves?
The glimpse of those two healthy women, obviously friends, yet Sime
and Gen, played over and over in her mind. Then, when she was so
exhausted that she slept despite her excitement, other images took its
place.
Instead of the two Householder women in that cabinet-lined room,
another Sime/Gen pair worked together side by side: Jonmair and Baird
Axton. In the way of dreams, she could not tell exactly what they were
doing, but it was together. Their hands touched. Their bodies touched.
They looked into each other’s eyes.
Then they were in the Post-Kill Suite again, and Baird laid Jonmair
down on the soft, clean bed. He held her close, and she snuggled
against his warm strength, knowing that now they would never have to
part. The world had changed, and they could be together.
The dream shifted again. Baird and Jonmair walked together down the
corridor in the Pen, past the open doors of cells remodeled into rooms
where lives would be saved instead of taken. She saw the two
Householder women again, laughing as they worked until they turned and
looked at her - a look of pity.
Why pity? She was all right. The world was all right. The Kill was
over! She and Baird could be together now, Sime and Gen -
She looked to Baird, and it wasn’t Baird. Old Chance held the
white-painted chain attached to the collar around Jonmair’s neck.
She was being taken to auction, to the Final Auction!
She woke with a start, tears streaming down her face. The barren
holding cell was her reality. There would be no Unity for her, nor for
any Choice Kill in Old Chance’s Pen.
That brave new world would begin just one day after Jonmair’s
death.
#
As the day of the Last Kill approached, Baird Axton tried to decide
what to do. After the reading of the proclamation last month, he had
allowed his father to take him to the Pen, where, his Need exacerbated
by the threat of attrition - for that was how Simes felt what their
government had done to them - he still refused to allow his father to
buy him a Choice Kill, and instead took one of the mindless Pen Gens.
It had not gone well. He had had to go nearly into attrition -
physical, not merely emotional - before his body’s survival reflexes
had kicked in and he had killed it. He had emerged, not post, but in a
state of such guilt and anxiety that he wanted more than anything to
get out of his own skin!
Sime emotions other than fear of dying were suppressed in hard
Need, so Baird had felt only that fear while first trying to absorb
what the government in Lanta had done to Gulf Territory. After his
system received enough selyn to live for another month - even without
true satisfaction - he began to feel hope. Now I have to
disjunct. There won’t be any chance to Genjack someone’s Kill,
because there will be no more Kills, no more Pen Gens led through the
streets.
It was terrifying, but it was what he had wanted ever since he had
spent that week of his childhood inside Householding Carre, cared for
by the Simes and Gens who had saved his life. Gens who were people.
Gens like that female - woman - who had finally awakened his sexual
desire. Was she still alive, or had she long since been sold as a
Choice Kill?
He watched the Householders try to prove that transfer could be as
satisfactory as the Kill, holding open demonstrations to which no one
came until they offered tax rebates. Then many people were ready to
try the channels, planning to use the extra money to buy a final
Choice Kill.
Many Simes were surprised to find channel’s transfer as
satisfying as the Kill, and ended up indisputably post. The
information passed in whispers, and over the first two weeks of the
month – while there was plenty of time to augment into Need again
for the Last Kill – increasing numbers of Simes availed themselves
of free selyn.
Baird recalled his own First Transfer. Yes, it had been good – as
satisfying as his First Kill, and his post reaction unsullied by the
guilt he had felt after his changeover Kill. But he had been only one
month old as a Sime then, too young to have a sexual reaction or
notice the lack. And each succeeding transfer had been less satisfying
until his third transfer, which should have brought about the normal
sexual awakening of Fourth Kill, failed to do so.
So when Baird heard people talking more and more openly about their
transfers, saying it wouldn’t be so bad to do that every month, he
had to hold his tongue and remember that if the vast majority of Simes
were not convinced it was the best way, if they broke the Treaty and
returned to the Kill, then in a very few years first Nivet and then
Gulf would face the same devastation that had destroyed NorWest
Territory.
The Numbers of Zelerod were discussed everywhere now. Newspapers
carried a full explanation, and for those who could not read there
were free lectures with the inexorable truth spelled out in the
simplest of terms: if the current generation of Simes continued to
kill twelve or thirteen Gens each year, their children would change
over into a world of war and deprivation … and their children’s
children would not survive to change over at all.
So Baird suppressed his personal knowledge of how hard it was to
disjunct, and just how sick these Simes currently enjoying transfer
were going to get. Even if they successfully disjuncted, as Baird’s
friend Zhag claimed he had, many would be as weak as the shiltpron
player for the rest of their short lives.
Unless they were supported by a Gen presence.
Baird was determined to rescue the lovely Gen woman who had given
him a single night of normalcy. Something told him that with her by
his side he could survive enforced disjunction and come out healthy.
Deliberately, Baird put on an uncaring air before his father. He
waited a full two weeks, to be sure that Treavor Axton was no longer
watching him like a hawk, before he went to the Pen and asked after
the girl. She was still alive, he learned, and tagged to be sold at
the Final Auction. No, Chance would not sell her to Baird early - he
was running out of Choice Kills since it had become legal for families
to turn their newly established children over to the Householders
instead of selling them into the Pens. For this one month it was still
possible to do either one, but after the Last Kill it would no longer
be legal to sell Gens, period.
Or to kill them.
Chance was predicting disaster, the collapse of the government in a
revolution that would re-establish the old system - but in the
meantime he was being put out of business, and was not about to go
without making enough money to last the rest of his life. "The
Final Auction should be quite an event," he predicted.
"Definitely not enough Choice Kills to go around, so be sure to
bring plenty of money!"
Baird had little cash of his own - he would inherit The Post one
day, but that was far from a liquid asset. He never even considered
asking his father, for he knew what the response would be: Treavor
Axton would gladly buy his son a Choice Kill, but the one he would never
buy him was the only one Baird wanted.
And not to kill.
Unfortunately, Baird’s father knew his son could not kill a Gen
he had even talked with, let alone touched intimately.
Furthermore, everyone was liquidating assets to buy the best Final
Kill they could afford. People who had never had a Choice Kill before
would be bidding for one final opportunity to experience the best life
had to offer. Treavor Axton purchased a Choice Kill - one that Chance
was willing to part with at an inflated price - and caged it in The
Post’s gambling hall. He made more than he had paid for it the first
day they sold raffle tickets.
Like Old Chance, The Post would first profit from the Last Kill,
and then, as people no longer got post from the fake Kills of the
channels, suffer a decline as months passed. Baird’s father, too,
was making his money while he could.
Eventually, of course, there would be more and more Simes who had
never experienced the Kill - people perfectly satisfied with channel’s
transfer. The Post would adapt to whatever happened - Baird shared a
certain pragmatism with his father - but in the meantime, times would
be hard. And for Baird, if he did not fulfill what had become a
virtual obsession of saving that Gen who intruded on his every
thought, life would be nearly impossible.
Even by selling his two fine race horses, Baird was not certain he
could afford the only Gen he wanted. His best chance was to attempt to
be Most in Need at the auction - and bribe Chance to put the Gen he
wanted up early.
But then, everyone else was also bent upon being Most in Need.
At the Choice Auctions the first few Gens went to those Simes who
were in hardest Need, closest to attrition. Simes who could afford to
bid had been augmenting - doing extra work in order to use up selyn as
rapidly as possible - all month long. Some had already taken either a
Kill or a free transfer, and were wasting selyn in order to take a
second at the last possible moment. There were, of course, plenty of
Pen Gens to go around, as none had to be saved for next month. Anyone
who missed out on a Choice Kill would not be deprived of a Last Kill
of some kind.
Baird gauged his selyn consumption very carefully, beginning to
augment only the day before the Last Kill lest some emergency cause
him to use up his supply before the Final Auction began. Anyone not in
Need at the Final Auction would be obviously intent on saving any Gen
he bid on - not acceptable when it deprived someone of a Final Choice
Kill. Householders had been firmly barred - a last snub before they
were given the power of life and death over everyone else.
Baird’s plan was difficult. He would augment into hard Need, tell
Chance that he had become addicted to the nager of that particular
Gen, and wanted her for his Last Kill. Then he would bribe the
Penkeeper to put her up early in the auction. Despite his Need he
would take his purchase to Carre - for if they headed into the part of
the Pen already set up as a Tecton selyn dispensary, everyone would
know he intended to save the girl rather than kill her.
Somehow, he was determined, he would get the girl to the
Householding, where he would turn her over to be trained not to
provoke his Need. He would get his transfer of selyn from the channels
there - and after the girl was trained, he would bring her home, no
matter what his father might say. She would be Baird’s
responsibility. Treavor Axton would have no say in it.
Something told him that Gen could keep him sane and healthy while
he completed his disjunction - and he was certain that once his father
discovered how soothing it was to have a trained Gen on the premises,
he would come to accept her to ease his own disjunction as well.
Baird’s plan went well enough until the day of the Final Auction.
Bidding would start at noon, and end an hour before midnight, giving
even the final bidders time to take their Kills before killing became
illegal. Employees of The Post were scheduled to take their Last Kills
in shifts, as the establishment would be crowded with people
celebrating what might be their last post reaction ever.
In hard Need but still under control, Baird went to the Pen just
before noon. Chance knew which Gen he wanted, but, "She’s gone,
Baird. I sold her this morning."
"What?! But you wouldn’t sell her to me a few days
ago! You said she had to go into the Final Auction."
"Now, Son, you know money talks. You just don’t have enough
to pay for that kind of favor. The auction starts soon. Come and bid
on another Choice Kill - you should have one in your
lifetime."
But Baird felt sick at the very idea.
On unsteady feet, he left Chance’s office and saw Simes streaming
into the big room where the auction was about to begin. He had no
desire to join them - and no desire, either, for the selyn he knew he
needed.
It was the oddest feeling, his life force draining away heartbeat
by heartbeat ... and he just didn’t care. He thought about
collecting a Pen Gen, and grimaced in distaste. He thought about going
to the channels for a transfer, and was equally repelled.
Maybe he should just go home and die.
Through the open doorway of the Auction Chamber, the ambient nager
hit him like a storm. Sime Need lashed his nerves, while the fearful
nager of the first Gens on display punctuated the general stress with
flashes of terror.
The nager of the Gen he yearned for was not there. He had no
concern he would not recognize it again - after the night they had
spent together her signature seemed burned into his soul.
Shen! Why hadn’t he asked Chance who had bought her? He couldn’t
think straight in his state of Need and disappointment. His father had
taught him that there were things money couldn’t buy - and that
equally, there were things to be had for something other than money.
The sum in his pocket might not be enough to buy the Gen woman from
her new owner, but perhaps that money plus some kind of favor would do
it.
He could not just give up! This was his last chance - in a few
hours the Gen would be dead ... if she wasn’t already.
No - the kind of person who would pay a high enough premium to buy
a Choice Kill rather than let it go to auction would not just take his
or her prey into a Killroom and have the whole process over in
seconds. He was sure the Gen was still alive - but she wouldn’t
be for very long.
Baird turned back, and braved the driving ambient to seek out Old
Chance once again.
"No!" the penkeeper told him. "It was a confidential
deal with one of my best customers. Buy yourself something at the
auction before you use up your last reserves. You’re definitely Most
in Need right now, Baird - go find yourself a bargain!"
"I don’t want a bargain!" Baird insisted. "I want that
Gen and no other!"
Chance stared at him. "Your father was afraid of this - but if
you want to kill that Gen - "
"Yes!" Baird lied desperately. "I want to kill
her!"
"Your dad will be proud of you," said Chance. "Come
on, then - that Gen and its owner are in one of the Killsuites."
Chance led Baird through the corridors of the huge pen complex, to
the suites where Baird had spent the night that had changed him
forever. Here the Tecton had not yet penetrated - the green-and-white
decorations were still in place, for these rooms had seen much service
in the past month, and would get even more tonight.
To Baird’s surprise, when they reached the door to the
Pomegranate Suite Chance didn’t signal, but threw the door open,
announcing, "Good news! Here’s Baird, in Need and ripe for that
Gen you bought."
Baird heard and saw no more, for the nager of the Gen he was
fixated on assaulted his nerves like lightning laced with honey. He
gasped and reached for her, ignoring the bright, recently-renewed
field of his father as it flared relief. Then Treavor Axton left, and
all was right with the world.
The Gen woman’s field laved Baird with promise. She did not
shrink from him, but instead ran into his arms, hands seeking his
forearms, face turned up to his, her field a brilliant wash of desire
-
- desire -
He had never, ever, zlinned anything like this Gen’s ...
"Need" was the only term that came anything close to what he
sensed. A "Need to Give." Selyur nager - he had heard
the term at Carre when he had studied there, trying to disjunct - the
sign of a Companion, a Gen who could be trained to give selyn to a
Sime without being killed.
Baird’s thoughts were all jumbled, but one thing he knew was that
this girl was not a Companion. She didn’t know what she was offering
- and if he tried to take it, he would kill her!
She had to be trained first. He didn’t know how he could let her
go, but he had to get to Carre, to the channels - had to save this
woman who was trying to give him her life! Couldn’t she understand?
He didn’t want a Kill - he wanted a future!
#
Jonmair looked into Baird’s eyes and saw desperate Need. Her last
wish was granted: she would die providing life to this fine, strong
man.
Overwhelming attraction pulled her to him. She grasped his arms,
felt his handling tentacles lash warm and firm about her forearms,
binding them together.
But his laterals did not emerge. He could not draw the life he
needed.
She tried to press her mouth to his, but he shied away just as he
had when she had tried to kiss him on their night together. Then, to
her astonishment, she saw his eyes focus on her. "No," he
whispered. "I won’t kill you!"
"Then let me give to you!" she pleaded, her heart telling
her that she could, and that it would be wonderful.
But he shook his head. "You can’t. I don’t want you to
die!"
"I won’t," she insisted, not knowing where her
certainty came from.
But Baird was not listening. "We have to get to Carre!"
he said.
"There are channels here," Jonmair told him. "I’ve
seen them - they must have bought the Pen."
"The Pen is being turned into a Selyn Dispensary." She
saw urgency penetrate his Need. "Tonight is the Last Kill.
Tomorrow you’ll be free - if you can survive till then."
"What?"
"It’s the law. No more killing after midnight. Come
on!"
Somehow he managed to let go of one of her hands to open the door,
although he still held tightly to the other with fingers and
tentacles. Jonmair followed in his wake, wild emotions chasing one
another. Free? If she could just survive until midnight, she would be
free?
Treavor Axton stood in the corridor, barring their way. "Get
back in there!" he exclaimed. "No son of mine is going to be
a pervert by choice!"
"Out of my way, Dad!" Baird replied. "This Gen is mine,
and I will do with her whatever I please!"
"You’ll kill her, like a proper Sime!" insisted his
father. "This is your Last Kill, Baird. I won’t have you -
"
Treavor Axton’s words were cut off with a grunt, as his son’s
free hand connected with his jaw.
Baird dragged Jonmair over his fallen father and demanded,
"Where?"
She ran with him through the corridors to where she had seen the
row of cubicles and the two women from Carre. Yes! Two doors in the
row stood open, light spilling into the hallway.
There was the Sime woman Jonmair had seen before! This time the Gen
with her was a man, but that didn’t matter. They would help Baird.
As he pushed Jonmair into the cubicle, the Sime woman - the channel
- gasped, and reached out a hand. "Baird!"
"Please, Hajene Thea," he gasped. "I don’t want to
kill. Help me save this girl."
Thea, the channel, turned large brown eyes on Jonmair, then looked
down to where her hand clasped Baird’s, his handling tentacles still
desperately clutching her. Then her eyes unfocused, and Jonmair knew
she was zlinning.
"Ronmat, close the door," said Thea, and the male Gen
followed her instructions. Then he moved back to her side, watching
carefully as the channel held out her hands, cupped, and waited for
Baird to lay his and Jonmair’s clasped hands across them.
"Baird," she said, "can you hear me?"
"Yes, Thea."
"All right then. This will be very difficult, but you can do
it." She paused, looking now at Jonmair. "What is your name,
Dear?"
"Jonmair."
"Jonmair," Baird whispered reverently.
Thea smiled. "Yes, Baird - you must release Jonmair so that
she won’t be hurt. You don’t want to hurt her, do you?"
"No."
"That’s good. Jonmair, don’t move until I tell you to.
Baird, dismantle your grip on Jonmair. She’s not going to desert
you. You don’t have to squeeze her hand so hard."
It seemed to take forever before Baird’s grip slackened. As Thea
had instructed her, Jonmair did not move. When she remained holding
his hand, he finally withdrew his tentacles. "Very good,"
said Thea. "Now, when I ask Jonmair to let go of you, relax and
rest on my field. It’s all right. Jonmair is not deserting you - but
she can’t give you transfer. You have to turn to me for transfer,
Baird."
Slowly, Baird nodded.
Thea spoke to Jonmair then, as if Baird couldn’t hear. Perhaps he
couldn’t - he might be hyperconscious, reading the ambient with only
Sime senses. "He’s fixed on you. I’m going to have to entice
him from you, and then I want you to leave the room and close the
door. It won’t be easy - but we cannot risk his killing you. Do you
understand, Jonmair?"
"I don’t care if he kills me, as long as he survives,"
she told the channel.
"He wouldn’t survive killing you by more than a few
months," Thea told her. "I’ll explain later - can you
accept that, much as I wish you were, right now you are not capable of
providing what he needs?"
Jonmair swallowed hard. "All right. What do you want me to
do?"
"Ronmat," Thea said softly, and her Companion moved to
stand side by side with Jonmair.
#
To Baird, when the high-field Companion moved so that his nager
competed with Jonmair’s it was as if his sun was obscured by a
thundercloud. "No!" he gasped, trying to zlin his only hope
of life.
"She’s still there," said Thea.
"I’m here," Jonmair’s voice echoed. He zlinned her
field trying to escape from the Companion’s shadow as she began,
"Let me - "
"No, Jonmair - you’ll hurt Baird," said Ronmat.
"Don’t compete with me - it will just make it harder for Thea
to give him transfer."
Baird wanted to cry, but could not in his state of Need, as Jonmair
withdrew, first her field, then her hand. The murmur of Thea’s voice
grew dim as his hope dwindled. He was going to die.
When all trace of the luminescent field he wanted disappeared from
the ambient, he felt himself collapsing. Vaguely, he was aware of Thea
and Ronmat maneuvering him onto a couch. As he drifted, disconnected
from life, Thea tried to coax his tentacles out of their sheaths to
entwine with hers.
He didn’t fight, but he had no interest in drawing selyn. Thea
tried to imitate Jonmair’s sweet field, but he knew the difference,
and rejected it. In desperation, she grasped the fields entirely, and
drove unwanted selyn into his parched nerves, while he lay passive,
uncaring.
Finally, though, Baird realized that once again he was going to
live. He had a supply of selyn - not the sweet, bright life he craved,
but energy to keep him breathing, to keep his heart beating for
another month.
Thea stood beside the couch, her plain heart-shaped face showing
both weariness and concern as she leaned on Ronmat, breathing hard.
Baird blinked at her, and whispered, "I’m all right."
She smiled and straightened. "You will be. That girl - Jonmair
- will be able to make life much easier for you. But she has to learn
not to be a danger to you or herself."
"I’ll leave her with you, or else take her to Carre right
now," said Baird. "I want her to have that training."
"Good," said Thea. "I’ll take her field down, and
then you can take her to Carre. I can’t leave here right now."
Baird sat up, still feeling hollow. However, his legs seemed to
support him, so he stood, and found that he could move - just as if he
were well and whole. He could wait, he decided. Jonmair was on the
other side of that door, and in a month, perhaps two, she would have
the training to be safe around Simes. And once he had her by his side,
something told him that he would not feel like such a hollow sham
anymore.
So Baird opened the door - to find his father holding a
white-painted chain that he had clipped to Jonmair’s collar.
"Well," said Treavor Axton, "you won’t be needing
this anymore. I’ll just put it back in the auction."
"No!" gasped Baird. "She’s mine! You bought her
for me!"
"You’re right on one thing, Baird: I bought the Gen.
So I am the one to decide what to do with it."
"Mr. Axton," said Thea, "if you want your son to
live for more than a few more months, I suggest you think twice about
letting anyone kill that Gen."
"Pervert!" Treavor Axton spat. "Your kind made him
into a spineless weakling!"
"No," the channel replied, "he is actually very
brave to go against all that he grew up with in order to disjunct. And
he will succeed. Will you have the strength your son has?"
Baird’s father stared at the channel for a moment, then at Baird.
"All right," he said. "You’re the only child I’ve
got left - maybe you’ll give me grandchildren with some spunk to
them. I won’t sell the Gen. But I’m not handing it over to the
perverts, either."
Baird sighed. "I’ll just have to wait until after midnight
to take her to Carre."
"You haven’t been paying attention, Baird. This Gen is not
yours to take anywhere. According to the new laws, any Gen still alive
and in the possession of a Sime at midnight tonight becomes the ward
of that Sime. This Gen becomes my ward, not yours. I’ll
decide what to do with it."
