(c) copyright 2003 by Sime~Gen Inc. All rights
reserved.
Introduction Plus Chapters 1 and 2
Personal Recognizance
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Unexpected
Results
The architects of the First Contract, the hastily
constructed legal machinery of the Year Zero, intended it only as a
temporary patch, a jury-rigged make-do system to save the human
species until they could find a truly workable solution.
But they wrought far better than they knew.
As you have seen in To Kiss Or To Kill
and Best of Fools, human nature had been
drastically and fundamentally changed by the Sime~Gen mutation.
But it was still human nature!
Average people’s ability to set aside their
fears in deference to the needs of others had increased beyond
anything seen in the Ancient world.
A whole generation, caught up in the idealistic vision
promulgated by Klyd Farris and Risa Tigue gave their lives for the
future. This magical
sacrifice imbued the First Contract with far more mystical staying
power than anyone could have expected.
Nearly two and a half centuries later, the First
Contract had evolved from a local quick-fix into a world-girdling
bureaucracy managed entirely on paper, in quadruplicate, and called,
pretentiously, the “World Tecton” headed by the “World
Controller.” In reality,
at first these were as much “world” as the World Series.
During this period of explosive growth, the Tecton
fostered cities that straddled the Sime~Gen Territory borders and
encouraged inter-territory commerce.
And they discovered that where Sime and Gen interacted daily,
vast amounts of creative energy were released.
Inventions multiplied, back-yard engineers flourished,
scientists collaborated across borders to produce breakthrough
concepts, the House of Zeor became fabulously rich on their chemical
businesses, commerce thrived, and the House of Keon became even
richer.
The Tecton that once had managed commerce between
Householdings now managed the selyn delivery system for much of
the world, and thus the wealth of their world.
Householdings, which had always brought Sime and Gen into
family closeness, led this expansion into the innovative new world.
Over the decades, times of crisis brought forth
the best of human nature
as they always had for Ancients. But
this new humanity had a new best, sufficiently compassionate to hold
the Tecton together through crises.
Times of prosperity proved even more challenging though, for as
usual with Ancients, easy times brought forth the scoundrels and
opportunists. Bureaucracy
grew into political power structures, with battle lines drawn between
Householders and non-Householders.
Social strata developed impenetrable barriers to advancement
based on heritage.
In the ranks of the World Tecton, though,
advancement was often based on ability alone.
For a long time the most able Channels and Donors came from the
Householdings, where their childhoods were managed to sharpen those
abilities. Others with
real ability were often asked to Pledge to a Householding, thus being
drawn across the line to rise in the power structure, proudly wearing
their Householding crest rings.
In the times of the Ancients, this socially based
power struggle would have led to war and destruction.
In the Sime~Gen world, it did not – quite – go that far.
And nearly two and a half centuries after Unity, instead of
breaking the stranglehold of the Householdings on the power structures
of the Tecton, society had dissolved that stranglehold.
The influence of Householdings within the Tecton dwindled, as
more and more Channels and Donors from the general populace achieved
high rank. Now
most of the proudly worn rings bore the Tecton crest.
The Householdings, though, remained powerful business and
political entities still revered for producing exceptionally talented
channels and Donors.
To achieve this thriving world-wide economy, Simes
and Gens did not merely
unearth and redeploy the technology of the Ancients.
With a few fragmentary clues supplied by Householding Frihill
and other archeologists, Sime and Gen teams of scientists restored in
new ways the fabled technology of the Ancients.
The new industrial revolution produced mass communications,
railroads, and the reinvention of the computer—all doing what the
Ancient technology did, but with the new selyn technology.
The Ancient concept of the electric battery gave
rise to the Sime~Gen concept of the selyn battery – a means of
storing extra selyn, transporting it anywhere in the world to be used
to power lights, motors, telecommunications, -- and now, at the time
of Personal Recognizance, even computers.
The first large mainframe computers were
commissioned and deployed by the Tecton, which was severely
over-burdened by the on-paper management of the selyn distribution
system. Computer
technology immediately spread to the telecommunications industry.
Huge, clumsy, difficult to program, computers became the core
of all higher education and government facilities before being
deployed to the general population.
One impediment to deploying selyn driven
technology to all social and geographic levels of society was the
slow, clumsy bureaucracy of the Tecton, trying to run the world
on-paper. Often, it was
all they could do to provide a transfer for every Sime in Need, so
selyn technology to homes had to take second priority.
Computers changed everything.
At the cutting edge of all selyn battery and
computer technology were the Tecton run schools that trained channels
and Donors during their First Year as adult Sime or Gen.
Personal Recognizance takes place
during that first, rapid development of the mainframe database method
of managing the ever more complex selyn delivery system.
The students in the story are not on a computer
network such as is seen in schools and businesses today.
They do not (yet) have anything like the Internet.
Rather, a part of the Rialite mainframe is made available to
these students for limited communication with one another within the
confines of their school. They
don’t even have email; what they have is something like the earliest
bulletin boards. They are
participating in the very earliest uses of computer technology in the
Sime~Gen universe.
Personal
Recognizance
A Sime~Gen Novel set in
the Third Century after Unity
By
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
See Sime~Gen Chronology at
www.simegen.net
Table of
Contents
Chapter One: . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .Overheard Remark
Chapter Two . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .Awkward Questions
Chapter
Three . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.The Tutor
Chapter Four . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .Why The Tecton?
Chapter Five . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .The Secret Killroom
Chapter
Six . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..Helping the Tutor
Chapter Seven. . . . .
. . . . . . . ...Reading Addiction
Chapter
Eight . . . . . . . . . . . . ...Turnover
Chapter Nine . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .Dispensary Lab
Chapter Ten . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . ..Disjunction Class
Chapter Eleven . . .
. . . . . . . . ...The Mellow Ambient
Chapter Twelve. . . .
. . . . .Accelerated Development
Chapter Thirteen. .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..Post Transfer
Chapter
Fourteen . . . . . . . . . .. . . .Working The Plan
Chapter Fifteen . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . .Primary System
Chapter Sixteen .
Carefully and Personally Selected
Chapter Seventeen.
. . . . . . . . . . . ..Barrier Control
Chapter
Eighteen . . . . . . . . . . ..Farris Screening
Chapter Nineteen .
. . . . . . . . . . . Graduation Day
Chapter
One
Overheard Remark
Striding along the cactus-studded pathway across
campus, Vret McClintock overheard the woman say to her Companion,
“Well, I certainly don’t intend to stay a QN-3 for the rest of my
life. I …”
And the voice went out of range of his hearing.
He had just said those exact words to his vriamic
functionals trainer. But
this woman’s tone of voice was low, unstressed, without defiance or
pride. From her it was a
simple matter of declaring her plans for her future.
She was not going to stay a Third Order channel.
And the voice draped Vret’s whole body in
soothing velvet.
No, it’s her nager that
did that - her nager while she stated her intentions.
And that was it, he realized, standing dumbfounded in the
pounding heat of the desert sun zlinning the retreating pair.
Oddly, his memory of the impact of that nager was purely
tactile. He hadn’t known
a nager could register as tactile.
She has intentions and no
reason to expect opposition. I
have ambitions. I expect
to be thwarted.
He stood there for another three minutes scheming
ways to meet that woman.
But it was a week later before he even learned her
name was Ilin Sumz, and a month until he met her in person.
Chapter
Two
Awkward Questions
“Vret, what
are you daydreaming about?” demanded Kwotiin Lake, Vret’s
trainer.
“As if you didn’t know,” Vret flicked a
nageric shrug in the direction of Kwotiin while stifling his alarm.
His vriamic functionals trainer was a First Order
channel who could zlin right through any showfield Vret’s Third
Order system could produce. Sometimes
it seemed Kwotiin could actually read his mind. Vret suppressed his
nervous squirming at being questioned under the searchlight of a
First’s attention.
Kwotiin had been grinding away on him ferociously
for the last two weeks, but Vret was learning to take it and dish it
back with frills. Kwotiin
relented. “My guess is
you’ve been up all night reading those trashy historical stories on
the student boards on that new computer network thing?”
“It’s not trash!” snapped Vret, caught out.
“It’s a tried and true, solid historical study method.
Some instructors encourage it.”
Kwotiin was referring to the daily installments on
the amateur writers’ boards, historical fiction written to challenge
younger students to find the mistakes in historical fact.
The truth was Vret had not been reading that
board.
“So you have been reading those stories.
They’re no substitute for real study, Vret.”
“Actually, no, I haven’t been reading that
board.” Again Vret
concentrated on his vriamic node, blending his fields into a fog.
Of course he had no chance against the
First Order channel in
charge of his training, but Kwotiin would always give him points for
improving his technique.
The vriamic nerve plexus connected the channel’s
primary and secondary selyn systems and allowed the channel to project
a showfield and use it to control selyn-flow speeds.
Training and exercise of the vriamic was also the key to a
channel gaining control of his own Kill reflex.
Kwotiin was famous on campus for the severity of his training,
so Vret was proud to be admitted to his class, but he sweated.
This time, Vret’s vriamic work did win a genuine
smile from the Trainer. “That’s
very good, Vret.”
Then Kwotiin broke off and paced around the
tan-and-white training cubicle as if testing the selyn field
insulation. “So tell me,
what is going on with you?
Over the last month or so, your attitude has changed –
reversed actually.”
“It has?”
That was news to him, and he wasn’t sure if it was good news.
He waited.
“You’ve lost the antagonism, you’re more
focused on the work, and you’re beginning to make serious progress
in your basic skills. I
wouldn’t have expected it of you a month ago, but now I think you
really can make QN-2 before you leave Rialite – if that’s what you
want.”
The Rialite First Year Camp provided the best
channel’s training in the world.
It was the only Camp always overseen by a Zeor channel, usually
a Farris. Not everyone who arrived graduated from here. Vret had
already been threatened with being sent elsewhere to finish his
training, a fate he strove to avoid.
Graduation from Rialite was a ticket to the top slots in the
Tecton hierarchy.
He had been raised on stories of his twin uncles,
one of whom had graduated from Rialite and risen to Assistant World
Controller, and the other who had been expelled from Rialite for
helping a fellow student take an illicit transfer and ended up stoking
selyn batteries at a factory deep in-Territory.
Something had indeed changed for Vret, and it
wasn’t his skills or his determination to Qualify Second as well as
earn a Rialite Certificate. But
what should he tell Kwotiin?
Vret zlinned his trainer, straining to focus
through the First’s showfield. He
was rewarded with a relaxing of that shrouding veil of misdirection
that could make a Third dizzy. Abruptly,
he zlinned sincere hope within, so he confessed, “I do want to
Qualify Second. But
ultimately whether I get the chance is up to Sectuib Farris, no?”
“Well, ultimately – yes.
If I send you to him, he will decide.
Today’s question is—should I send you to him?
What have you been doing in your
spare time?”
“What spare time?
That history course is destroying my average and you know
it.” Not
that there’s much of an average to destroy.
His guilt was showing, Vret was certain.
A Farris channel would zlin every nuance and probably figure it
out as if he were a telepath. Some
Farrises were telepaths like the Zeor heir who had nearly destroyed
Rialite in the previous century. Some
Firsts were known to have various talents, but they were rare and Vret
couldn’t see them working as teachers in a First Year Camp.
Kwotiin held the intense focus and open showfield
while Vret strove for innocence, then sighed and turned away, fiddling
with the test objects on the workbench, his showfield once again
swirling into a perfectly controlled cloud around his true nager.
He turned, holding a rose colored stone sphere
about a tentacle length in diameter then circled the transfer lounge
that graced the middle of the room.
“Zlin carefully,” he commanded as he manipulated the sphere
in his tentacles, and wrapped his field around it so Vret couldn’t
zlin it even though he could see it, an exercise Vret had failed a few
times already.
Vret zlinned for all he was worth but couldn’t
discern the sphere.
“Vret, you’re not really interested in
spending your life working as a channel, are you?”
Vret’s showfield shattered, his vriamic grip
lost in shock. Some kind
of decision had been made about his future, and he couldn’t zlin a
hint of what it was. “I’m
not very good at Healing. But
I’ll be better after I Qualify Second.”
“Seconds spend a lot of their time managing
teams of Thirds. Is that
why you want to Qualify? To
spend less time tentacles-on patients?”
“Seconds may spend less time dealing with
patients or doing transfers directly, but they accomplish more.”
“There’s quantity
– and there’s quality …”
Kwotiin wasn’t going to quit.
Vret asked, “What do you want me to say, Hajene?”
“Why do you want to Qualify Second?
Just the simple, literal truth will do.
If you stay a Third, you’ll have more spare time to devote to
interests other than Healing or channeling.
Surely, over the next couple of decades the Tecton will finally
allow more Thirds to work outside the Tecton, pursuing their own
interests in other professions while channeling only part time.
In that world, why would you want to be a Second when obviously
other pursuits interest you so?”
Again Kwotiin’s nageric focus narrowed to a
penetrating beam that pierced every shell Vret held about his primary
nager. Skewered, Vret
confessed, “I’d guess it’s because I’m afraid to stay a
Third.”
Why did I say that out loud?
This was a revelation that had come to him only last night
while reading the latest installment of the story Ilin Sumz was
posting on the extremely illicit, totally hidden, completely secret,
(everyone hoped) Bulletin Board hidden underneath the officially
sanctioned and encouraged one.
The story – immense sprawling novel—titled Aunser
Ambrov D’zehn, made
the reader part of the events surrounding Unity over two centuries ago
when Third Order Channels had only just been discovered.
History recorded that Aunser had founded the
Secret Pens, but that was disputed, as was every documented fact from
that chaotic time.
It had cost Vret two months stipend, not to
mention several dangerous favors, to discover the name of the author
of his favorite novel was Ilin Sumz.
And just that morning, he’d contrived an encounter in the
cafeteria, nager to nager and discovered, with a stunning lack of
astonishment, she was the woman he’d zlinned on the path.
He couldn’t stop thinking about her and couldn’t stop
reading her novel where the Thirds were seen, from Aunser’s point of
view, as nearly helpless.
“Vret,” sighed Kwotiin “had it not been for
the Thirds, Unity and the First Contract would never have happened.
It is a very proud thing to be a Third.”
Vret tried not to squirm.
“There’s no shame in it, but it’s like being half blind,
partly deaf, with patches of numb skin, and a paralyzed hand.
It’s just too frustrating and – all right, yes, frightening
to be so – so – so handicapped.
Do I really have to – to – to resign myself to this for the
rest of my life?”
Kwotiin reached out and put his hand on the back
of Vret’s neck, laterals flicking into a quick contact, there and
gone again.
If Vret had thought the First had zlinned him
before, he had been wrong. He
now knew he’d never been zlinned in all his life before.
For less than one second, he knew what it felt like to be
zlinned through and through, and all the way out again.
He couldn’t breathe even after the sensation was gone.
“You may not believe this, Vret, but I do think
I understand. All right
then, if that’s what you really want, I’ll see you get another
chance.”
Another chance?
Does that mean I’ve already failed once?
“I’ll do whatever it takes.”
You don’t get three chances, not at Rialite anyway.
“I’m hoping you will.
It isn’t going to be easy – and it won’t get you out of
History unless you pass that Unity Test once and for all.
What is it about history that you hate so much you can’t pass
a simple test?”
Again the searchlight of the First’s attention
ripped through the flimsy shell of Vret’s showfield leaving him
feeling skewered and exposed. He
struggled to repair the integrity of his fields while he said,
“Dates – and names. I
always get names mixed up.”
“Well … that pretty much covers it all,
doesn’t it?”
Actually . . .
no. He’d
learned how much more there was to history by reading that infernal
novel with the claws that dug his guts out and seeped into his Need
nightmares. “I guess
so.” He clamped his
vriamic as tightly as he could around the vast guilty secret.
He tried to let the real misery at being so stupid pervade his
fields.
Kwotiin laughed hugely, head back, mouth wide open
to the ceiling, voice shouting in unrestrained release of tension.
The ambient shivered with the purity of that moment.
Something important had just happened, but Vret
was mystified as to what.
Kwotiin set the rosy sphere down in its rack on
the bench and turned. “Look,
Vret, you will get your Channeling License – maybe with an
Out-Territory certification—even if you don’t pass the history
test. But overall your
general career will be hampered not by your lack of passing the test,
but by your lack of knowledge of the essential facts in that course.
The course, boring as it is, is part of your training for a
reason.”
“I know. I
have been trying.” And
if I get caught reading that shenning novel, there goes my
out-Territory license. To
get a license to go out among untrained Gens, the student had to
demonstrate a serious respect for rules in general, and safety rules
in particular. The Secret
Boards were technically a violation of the rules, though a minor one.
“I realize that you have been trying– we all
realize it. So I’ve
found a tutor for you, a Third who is only a month ahead of you but
has a thorough knowledge and understanding of history – made
something of a hobby of it as a child –
and is a very neat match for you, nagerically.
You should communicate very well.
Are you willing?”
Tutor? Someone
to waste all his secret reading time on?
“Sure, if you think it will do any good.”
“Get History out of the way, concentrate on
developing a stronger vriamic control, work on your capacity – and
I’ll test you again next month.”
“Test?” He could never tell if Kwotiin was
drilling him or testing him.
“Today’s test didn’t go too well, Vret.
You’re not ready to try for Second yet.
And besides, if you’re going to pass History, you’ll have
no time for the Seconds’ Physiology course.
Seconds can zlin deeper, so they have a lot more technical
material to learn about the tiny but significant differences among the
sub-mutations.”
The ambient in the small cubicle was suddenly
clear and fresh as a spring breeze.
Only then did Vret’s systems relax, and he knew how much
pressure he’d been under. His
vriamic node ached with fatigue.
“Your new tutor will meet you in the Janroz
Library, study room six, at ten tonight.
Be there and bring your Cassleman and Logan.”
Kwotiin gathered his jacket and briefcase and was out the door
before Vret could say anything.
I failed a test today.
It would be nice to know if you were having a conversation or
being tested with your whole life hanging in the balance.
He collapsed onto the transfer lounge, shaking as
if he’d just spent fifteen minutes holding a functional.
Read
Chapter 3
