Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Sime~Gen #6

RENSIME

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

All of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

When Jean Lorrah saw Raiders of the Lost Ark, she was inspired to write a book of nonstop, breathless action: Dragon Lord of the Savage Empire. She also insisted that I see the movie because I needed to use the same effect in this book. Well, I think I got the "breathless," not the "action." But that's not Jean's fault. She tried.

Thanks also go to the editors and publishers of the three Sime~Gen fanzines: Karen and Bruce Litman, who put out issues of Companion in Zeor despite financial and physical crises; Jean Airey, who edits Ambrov Zeor in Ohio, far from the Executive Editor, Anne Pinzow; and Katie Filipowicz, who hated the first two drafts of RenSime and made me work until I got it right. Katie has culled segments from the discarded drafts for printing in Zeor Forum and the other zines. (For information, send a business-size self-addressed stamped envelope to Ambrov Zeor, Dept. RN, Box 290, Monsey, N.Y. 10952.)

And thanks also go to all the Sime~Gen readers whose letters have helped to develop individual books, and the whole series. For this book, special thanks go to Howard Wilkins and Judith Segal, who read the final draft. My personal gratitude goes to anyone who will comment on RenSime or any other Sime~Gen story. Please write me through Ambrov Zeor, address above. I'm especially eager to know which book you would like to see next in the Sime~Gen Universe.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Spring Valley, New York

CHAPTER 1

PUBLIC DISPLAY

Even in the last moments before dawn, the flow of mourners did not slacken. The colonnaded rotunda echoed with the soft rustle of formal Householding capes, their bright colors picked out by the news-camera lights. The public filed by the open coffin to bid goodbye to an era in Sime~Gen history and to rededicate themselves to an idealistic dream.

Now, Laneff dared to hope she was about to make her own dream a part of the new era. At the private, guarded entrance to the rotunda, she presented her pass to the armed honor guard. "Laneff Farris ambrov Sat'htine," she said crisply. "Mairis Farris wishes to see me."

"He is standing vigil. He is not to be disturbed," claimed the Sime woman.

"The pass says immediately," argued Laneff, trying to keep the edge out of her voice. She was too close to need to allow herself the luxury of a temper. Nevertheless, she felt her tentacles knotting with the tension.

The guard couldn't help noticing Laneff's state, even as she examined the pass. Then she nodded. "I'll take this to him, but you'd better wait out here. The emotional nager in there is enough to take your breath away."

She turned smartly and marched between the columns, disappearing behind the inner ranks of columns. She was not in need, as Laneff was.

Laneff threw back the Sat'htine cloak she wore and fished a pair of attenuator rings from the pocket of her jacket. She slipped them on the ring finger of each hand, tuning them up to maximum intensity and bracing herself against the sickening surge as the tiny instruments cut the shimmering waves of emotion radiating from the building before her. It was worse than stuffing cotton in ears and nose. The attenuators damped her Sime senses, leaving her feeling drugged and disoriented but protecting her need-sensitized nerves. She was glad she'd had no breakfast. I'll never get used to these things.

Swallowing hard, she made her way up the steps and through the screen of columns to a vantage from which she could see the dais where Digen Farris ambrov Zeor lay in state. The bier was draped in

the blue of the House of Zeor, the white of the head of the House, and the black of the Farris mutation. Mairis Farris ambrov Zeor, Digen's heir and thus Sectuib-Apparent in the House of Zeor, stood vigil, also arrayed in full archaic heraldic splendor.

The honor guard was approaching the dais from the side where Shanlun ambrov Zeor stood next to Mairis, also decked in Zeor colors. He'd stationed himself close to Mairis, half turned to face him, rather than the crowd filing by the open coffin, as if he were already assuming the office of Mairis's Companion in Zeor. He seemed comfortable, as if he'd functioned at full-dress state occasions all his life, and not just since he'd pledged to Zeor to become Digen's Companion. This uncanny knack of blending into any background, such as Laneff’s laboratory, Digen's sickroom, or the midst of bizarre emergencies, had originally attracted Laneff to him.

The guard delivered the pass to Mairis, and the flow of mourners, four abreast in a line that snaked back across the polished-stone floor of the Unity Gate rotunda, paused. They had all entered on the Gen Territory side of the Gate building. The line looped around the document display case in the center of the rotunda, housing the first Unity Proposal, purportedly written by Klyd Farris ambrov Zeor, Mairis's five times great grandfather, more than two centuries ago. Each mourner was graphically reminded that the first effort to stop the Sime~Gen wars had been made by the Householdings, led by Zeor.

As the line halted, Laneff could make out a small knot of blond-haired, pale-skinned gypsies in their ethnic buff-and-beige costumes, reverently examining the Unity Proposal. Blond–like Shanlun.

Shanlun, tall as Mairis, with broad, Gen shoulders and well-sculpted muscles such as only a Gen could have, nevertheless moved with all the grace of a Sime. Against the vivid Zeor blue, Shanlun's pale-blond hair seemed even more bizarre—perhaps even akin to that of the gypsies. Ridiculous.

Mairis waved the waiting line into motion again and let the honor guard escort him out of the spotlights. Laneff could imagine the excited whispers of the reporters speculating on the cause of this interruption. Shanlun moved at Mairis's side as if they'd rehearsed that march hundreds of times.

"Laneff," said Mairis, waving the guards away from them. "I didn't expect you to get here until dawn."

"I couldn't sleep. I was watching the whole thing from my hotel room when your message came. I was hoping you'd made a decision."

"I have." He glanced at Shanlun. "You're right, Laneff. The time has come to make Digen's dream, the reunification of humanity, a reality. The wave of sentiment caused by his death—" He half turned

toward the crowd behind him. "Zlin that nager!" He gestured expansively.

Since he had approached, he had very smoothly taken control of the ambient nager in their vicinity. This was the channel's talent, and Mairis was known as one of the best channels in the world. As he dropped his blanketing of the crowd's emotions, Laneff felt the weight of collective grief wash over her anew, despite the attenuators.

Tears rushed to her eyes again, and she said, "I don't require them to remind me what a good man he was."

"No, that's not what I mean. Here, take those attenuators off, and really zlin them." As he spoke, he stepped closer, enveloping her in the deep silence of a channel's controlling nager.

She divested herself of the tiny machines and slipped them into a pocket. Then, gradually, Mairis let up on his grip of the fields, and she was zlinning the ambient with her own senses.

"Focus on those nearest the casket," said Mairis. "Zlin how the sense of bereavement and even fear for the future gives way to a vision of hope as they look at him. I've been watching this all night. They're ready, Laneff, as they've never been before. Look." He brought something from a pocket.