The Story Untold and Other Sime~Gen Stories Page 4

  “Shut up, Zhag,” Tonyo told him. “Just feel it!”

  He ignored the protest in Zhag’s eyes, his feeble attempts to escape, keeping the Sime under control by sheer power of will. Something inside him erupted with anticipation. This is even better than our music! it told him, and he leaned forward to touch his lips to Zhag’s.

  It was not a kiss. Twice Tonyo had performed this act with Tecton channels, an impersonal touch that completed the circuit for the transfer of selyn. In those transactions he had felt nothing except vague disappointment. With Zhag he felt hope and exhilaration.

  When need turned him inside-out, he rode the music like an ocean wave. He was pure energy, blissfully pouring life and warmth into the welcoming void. It was perfect harmony, exact counterpoint— A peak of pleasure, another, and then— What—? Poignant ebb— No! Not enough!

  He struggled, needing more, denying that need in crashing discord.

  What more could there possibly be?!

  He caught the panting, terrified Gen in a woodland clearing. Need clawed at his vitals—need for the fear of the Gen writhing and screaming under his tentacles. He pulled it to him, glorying in anticipation of the kill.

  He pressed his lips roughly to the Gen’s whimpering mouth. Terror sang through his nerves—pain—sweet death agony burned away his need. Giddy with satisfaction, he let the husk of the dead Gen drop carelessly from his hands and tentacles....

  He was alive!

  Warm hands loosed their grip on Zhag’s arms and fell away. A head rested heavily against his neck. Fresh, clean, soap scent filled his nostrils. He was brimming with life, but—

  His vision was obscured by fallen sunlight. It took a moment to recognize Tonyo’s blond hair—he never looked at the boy, always consumed in his golden nager. But now...nothing.

  The door opened. Thea and the Sectuib in Carre entered—and stopped so abruptly that Janine, behind them, almost ran into the two Simes.

  Tonyo raised his head, blue eyes wide with awe.

  “You’re alive!” Zhag gasped.

  The Gen grinned. “I’ve never been so alive!”

  Carre’s Sectuib stepped forward, laterals extended. “What the shidoni-doomed shen happened here?”

  Zhag was too busy taking stock of himself to answer. His pain was gone, along with his need. He had a sense of well being so alien he couldn’t respond to it. He wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, and...he couldn’t zlin.

  “Tonyo—what have you done to me?” he asked. “I haven’t felt like this since—”

  “The last time you killed?” Tonyo asked. “You can say it, Zhag. You don’t ever have to do it again.”

  But that wasn’t it. As Zhag changed focus to the trio on the other side of the room, a wave of vertigo swept over him.

  “What’s wrong?” Tonyo gasped.

  “Nothing serious,” said the Sectuib, zlinning them. He shook his head. “God protects fools and children.”

  “Zhag’s alive!” Tonyo protested. “That’s more than you could promise.”

  “Tonyo!” Zhag put a hand on the boy’s arm...and felt his ability to zlin return as he sensed the pulse-pulse-pulse of selyn production. He had been wrong—Tonyo was storing far less selyn than before their transfer, but his field was no less vital. He would be able to perform tonight.

  “Thea,” the Sectuib was saying, “zlin this. You will probably never see anything like it again.”

  “What’s wrong with Zhag?” Tonyo asked anxiously.

  A chuckle escaped the channel’s attempt to be stern. “You burned him!” he told the Gen.

  “...what?” Tonyo and Zhag spoke at once, then looked at one another.

  “How could a Gen burn a Sime?” Zhag asked in confusion.

  “Tonyo is what the juncts call a Giant Killer Gen,” the Sectuib explained.

  “I know,” Zhag said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t allow him to work around the juncts at Milily’s.”

  “Here we call them Natural Donors—Gens who instinctively control transfer. Being in control eliminates fear. Of course they still require training,” he added with a sharp glance at Tonyo, “because they can harm Simes.”

  “Zhag needed pain,” said Tonyo. “I...felt it.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” the Sectuib replied. “But next time deliver something like your pain when the whip cut you today.”

  Tonyo blushed. “Oh. Zhag, I’m sorry. I’ll learn to do it right.”

  “It couldn’t have been more right,” Zhag told him.

  “Tonyo,” said the Sectuib, “you know that, as a channel, Zhag has a dual selyn system?”

  “Yes.”

  “You filled his primary and secondary systems, and when he wasn’t satisfied, you forced more selyn into his primary system against his resistance. It’s only a slight burn—and Zhag, you feel strange because your fields have never been unbalanced in this particular way.”

  Zhag’s secondary system, which Tecton channels used to provide transfer and he used to play the shiltpron, often contained more selyn than his primary system, which stored selyn for daily living. He couldn’t remember ever having it unbalanced in the other direction. “Tonyo, I can correct the imbalance if you’ll let me touch you again.”

  Immediately, his Gen reached out to him. Zhag settled his tentacles, laid his head on Tonyo’s shoulder, and let the two systems level. The movement of energy erased the effects of the burn, and Zhag felt even better.

  Had he ever felt this good in his life? He wanted to run, to dance, to play his shiltpron—but first, “I’m hungry!” he announced in astonishment.

  Tonyo laughed. “Let’s go to the refectory—I was too worried to eat much earlier.”

  “I’ll have to have an accounting first,” the Sectuib said, and Zhag’s good cheer disappeared. Numbly, he submitted to deep contact, unsurprised to hear that he had received more selyn than last month. “You’re still in the same category,” the channel reassured him.

  “Yeah—but early,” he grumbled. He counted out the carefully hoarded coins while Janine made notes. The Sectuib deducted the collection fee, and held out the rest to Tonyo.

  The boy made no move to take it.

  “You were paid for your donations, Tonyo,” said Thea.

  “I can’t take money for what Zhag and I just did. I’d feel like a whore!”

  “Take it,” said Zhag. “You can eat for the next month.”

  Tonyo frowned. “Can’t we have a private arrangement, with no money changing hands?”

  The Sectuib explained, “The government will collect Zhag’s taxes, no matter what. We never used to do accounting inside the Householdings—I’ve got couples who’ve been transfer partners for years. But the new laws apply to everyone.”

  Tonyo reluctantly accepted the money, but did not put it away. “It’s your money,” he said to Zhag.

  “You earned it, Tonyo.”

  “Zhag, it’s not right. We did it together—the way we play music together. At least take half.”

  “Shen it!” Zhag snapped. “I’m beholden to you for my life! Isn’t that enough?”

  Thea said, “Zhag! That’s post syndrome talking.”

  Zhag felt guilty at the boy’s crestfallen look—but he also felt the anger, along with a hundred other emotions he had been incapable of expressing for nearly two years.

  But Tonyo was in the grip of Gen post-syndrome, unable to feel bad for more than a moment. “Zhag,” he said, “I know it bothers you to need me to stay alive...but isn’t it more important that you don’t need me to keep you from killing?”

  At the boy’s words—he felt it, no more doubt or questioning! The most important thing was completely in his own control. Zhag’s mood flipped back to exhilaration, carrying him even higher than he had been a moment ago. Tonyo grinned—and Zhag realized it was in response to his own expression.

  And when he thought his mood could not go any higher, Janine held out the receipt form for Tonyo to sign...and he saw the boy write “T
onyo Logan.” The Simelan version of his name. He’s going to stay! And Tonyo looked up at him as if he felt and shared the overwhelming emotion it caused in Zhag.

  The Sectuib left Thea and Janine to explain to Tonyo what to do as Zhag’s pent-up feelings surfaced.

  “I know what Zhag requires,” said Tonyo. “He’ll work it off on stage tonight.” He turned a charming smile on Thea. “Why don’t you and Janine come to the performance?”

  Zhag expected an automatic refusal—Householders did not frequent shiltpron parlors—but to his surprise Thea said, “I can’t promise...but I’d love to see you perform.”

  After a stop at Carre’s refectory, where Zhag actually enjoyed eating, they started walking home. Zhag had had to conserve energy for so long, had been so weak, that he wanted to run—almost felt he could fly. As his steps speeded, Tonyo scurried to keep up. “We have time to get there,” the Gen protested. “We don’t go on for nearly two hours.”

  “I’m ready to play right now,” Zhag told him. And just because he could, he turned cartwheels down the street, then backflipped back to his Gen.

  Tonyo laughed delightedly. “Are you gonna do that on stage tonight?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

  Tonyo watched him with a puzzled look. Out of the blue, he asked, “Zhag...how old are you?”

  “Six,” the musician replied.

  “Oh. Well, how old were you when you changed over?”

  Out-Territory Gens figured age from birth, Zhag remembered. “Almost fifteen.”

  Tonyo was wide-eyed. “I thought you were at least my dad’s age. You’re only four years older than I am!”

  Zhag laughed at his astonishment. “I feel like a child—as if I didn’t even know the kill existed.”

  Tonyo pondered for a moment. Then, very seriously, he said, “That’s because you gave it to me.”

  “Gave what to you?”

  “The kill,” Tonyo replied. “During transfer. Thea said you’d shen out if you felt killmode, so I guess you made me feel it instead. Was that your First Kill?”

  “Tonyo, what are you talking about?”

  The young Gen frowned. “I was Sime,” he said, “chasing a Gen through the woods. I caught it...and I...killed it.”

  Zhag zlinned Tonyo’s emotions, the rush of anticipation, the glee at his victim’s terror, the bliss of the kill....

  “Shen,” he whispered. “Tonyo, you can’t know those feelings!”

  “I got them from you.”

  Zhag shook his head. “I’ve never hunted. All my kills were...regulated.” A chill ran up his spine. “It doesn’t matter,” he decided, not wanting to know how a Gen could get such a feel for Sime experience. “It was what you...needed...to be able to give me that transfer. Lucky for me you have a vivid imagination, yes?”

  Tonyo nodded, accepting. How long would he continue to accept Zhag’s word, especially when the Sime had no idea what he was talking about?

  “Come on!” said Zhag, as they entered a lane overhung with ancient oaks. He caught a branch, and swung from one tree to another. When he hung upside down by his knees from the last one, he finally got the laughter he wanted from his Gen.

  “You’re not even out of breath,” said Tonyo. “I could use some of that Sime energy for singing.”

  “You sing just fine.” Zhag chuckled, landing on his feet beside the Gen. “Tonight I’ll be able to hear you without working at it. I hope Thea can come.”

  “So do I,” said Tonyo.

  “You think she’s after you, like all the others?”

  “Not Thea!” Tonyo protested. “Can’t you tell she’s in love with you? I knew it the minute I saw you together.”

  The Gen’s words made Zhag feel warm. The ravages of disjunction might not be erased with one good transfer, but—

  Suddenly, his mind and heart were flooded with melody. Tonyo’s field responded in harmony, and Zhag laughed in pure joy. They were about to create something unique—something he could never have composed alone. “Come on, Tonyo!” he urged, eager to have his instrument in his hands. “We have a new song to finish before showtime!”

  The Story Untold

  Music swirled through the saloon. Dust motes danced in the shaft of sunlight pouring through the roof where green wood had warped in the heat. Out here on the high plain, farther from home than he had ever been before, Zhag Paget clung to the familiarity of his shiltpron, plucking notes with practiced ease. His partner, Tonyo Logan, stood on the platform that passed for a stage, and vocalized for the gratification of the saloon owner, two Simes passed out at a table in the back, and a hound dog lolling in the patch of sunlight.

  Tonyo was exercising his voice for the evening’s performance, implementing nageric skills—his ability to project emotions via his field of life energy—only as required to guide his voice. The technique, suggested by Zhag in a long-ago moment of serendipitous frustration, had turned Tonyo from merely a very good singer into a great one.

  Zhag closed off his other senses, appreciating with hearing alone as the singer’s voice rose to a pitch no grown man of either larity should be able to reach, descended to his natural tenor for the verse, and then dipped easily into the baritone range. Zhag wondered if that was where his protégé’s voice would eventually settle—or would he maintain and even extend his incredible range and control?

  Not that it mattered: it was not Tonyo’s vocal pyrotechnics that charmed Simes. What moved the vast majority of their audience was the way his life energy field expressed emotions that Simes perceived directly, rather than filtered through the senses Simes like Zhag and Gens like Tonyo shared.

  The saloon owner shooed the hung-over Simes out of her establishment, along with the hound dog, who responded to the indignity by sitting outside the door and howling. “Critics everywhere!” Tonyo observed, pouring water from his canteen into a crude clay mug. The dry air out here was very different from the humidity they coped with back home in Gulf Territory.

  After draining the mug, Tonyo picked up his guitar, an instrument developed in Ancient times and a favorite of Gens, who had no tentacles on their wrists with which to play the multiple components of a shiltpron. Tonyo was not a virtuoso, as Zhag was on his instrument, but he was good enough to play accompaniment to his powerful vocal and nageric performance. He glanced at the thin walls, the insubstantial roof, and shrugged. “Our rehearsal’s a free show for anyone out there.”

  The hound dog nudged the ill-hung door open, plodded over to Tonyo, and leaned against the Gen’s knee until Tonyo scratched his ears. Zhag extended his lateral tentacles—the small sensing organs on either side of his wrists—and let his Sime perceptions roam beyond the walls. “Not many people in town,” he reported. “They’ll come later, for the concert.”

  He didn’t expect a crowd tonight, in this town so small that the Tecton Ambassadors, as Zhag and Tonyo were termed here in Pueblo Territory, were staying behind the saloon in rooms which they joked must usually rent by the hour.

  There was no hotel, but the hopefully named Dis Junction was the only good stopping place on their journey to Red Rocks. At that natural amphitheater, people from all over this newly-created Sime Territory would gather for what was billed as the most important concert of Zhag and Tonyo’s career. Their manager and the Tecton representatives, including Zhag’s wife, had gone ahead to make the final preparations.

  The hound dog turned around twice and settled to sleep at Tonyo’s feet. The Gen strummed his guitar and began to sing.

  “My brother, he turned out wrong,

  had to run for the border.

  I’ll never see his face again, never—”

  “No!” said Zhag. “We are not performing that song!”

  “But it’s the perfect—” Tonyo began the familiar protest.

  “It would be perfect for Pueblo Territory if you sang it the way you wrote it,” Zhag explained. “Tonyo, that song used to move everyone’s heart. But now—you go too far!�
� He recalled the near riot in Nivet’s Capital City.

  “If you wouldn’t fight me,” said Tonyo, “if you would work with me, we could create a catharsis.”

  “Create killmode, more likely,” Zhag told him flatly.

  “Zhag, killmode is a natural state.”

  “For juncts,” Zhag agreed.

  “For Simes,” Tonyo insisted. “You’re hung up on the word. Call it intil, and it’s perfectly acceptable.”

  “It’s not the same thing,” Zhag said, frustrated at the way his young singer thought he understood things no Gen could experience. “Intil is merely the commitment to draw selyn. Killmode is the quintessential junct emotion. Almost everyone in Pueblo Territory is junct...and will be until they die.”

  Tonyo held his energy field under tight control as he tried to make Zhag understand. “That’s why you and I are here: to show them that ‘junct’ doesn’t have to mean ‘killer’!”

  “You and I cannot control the number of Simes who could fit in this room, let alone the thousands at Red Rocks.”

  “We don’t have to,” said Tonyo. “They’ll control themselves.”

  “Are you crazy?” Zhag asked. “Everyone in this territory is in some phase of disjunction crisis!”

  “And every single one by free choice!” Tonyo reminded him. “The Tecton didn’t force it on them—they formed Pueblo Territory to separate themselves from the Kill.” The Gen’s blue eyes were bright with admiration. “They all have the same incentive you had, Zhag—or they wouldn’t be here!”

  That was true: Pueblo was formed out of land unclaimed for many years, belonging to neither Simes nor Gens when the Unity Treaty five years ago ended the threat of Zelerod’s Doom. Now the two forms of humanity had to overcome the harsh realities of the Sime~Gen mutation: Gens produced selyn, the very biologic energy of life itself, Simes needed that energy to live, and until recently there had been no way for Simes to survive except by killing Gens for their life force.

  It had taken the collapse of Northwest Territory five years ago to make most Simes understand that the threat the mathematician Zelerod had warned of was real. If both larities could not overcome their nature, eventually the Simes would kill all the Gens, and then the Simes would die of attrition. In order for the human race to survive, Gens were learning to give selyn to Simes freely, even joyously, as Tonyo did for Zhag...and Simes were breaking their addiction to the Kill.