CHAPTER 5

COMPASSION

As she finished the story, Laneff couldn't suppress the tears she hadn't been able to shed at Digen's death. She grabbed a tissue from her lab coat pocket, and then Jarmi was hugging her, sniffling in sympathy. There was no reason to fight the upwelling emotions.

In seconds, Laneff was crying openly, her arms around the Gen woman's shoulders, her face cradled against her neck. She wasn't sure if she was crying for the valiant Sectuib of the last century, for the ineffable beauty his death had let her glimpse set forever beyond her reach this side of the grave, or for the cruel parting from Shanlun, who was as good as dead to her now because she could never—ever– return to the Tecton. The sobs renewed themselves when she thought it would be kinder for Shanlun if he thought her dead now, because in mere months she'd be dead anyway.

Jarmi cried with Laneff, resonating with the same texture of emotion. It wasn't at all like Yuan. He had been a tower of strength supporting her in weakness. Jarmi understood that weakness and shared it. Together, they overcame it.

At last, Jarmi searched out a box of tissues, and over a clenched wad of them she said, "No wonder Mairis accepted the alliance with us. Digen understood junctedness as a totally separate thing from the kill. In Digen's vision of Unity, any Sime could be junct and walk the streets safely because every Gen would understand what he was. Any Sime could have that experience you had when he died."

Laneff had only told her that they'd once discussed the theory of junctedness, not why it had been brought up. "Maybe it was that forbidden glimpse that weakened my conditioning. Maybe if I hadn't been in that room then, I wouldn't have killed."

She shrugged. "We can't do science on maybes. What I don't understand is why Digen died. If K/A controlled the aborts the first time, why not the second?"

"I never had a chance to discuss that with Mairis or Shanlun. They were caught up in the funeral arrangements, and the grand convocation of Zeor to elect Mairis Sectuib. Shanlun never got to give Digen that final transfer, which left Shanlun with so much selyn he couldn't really control his fields. Mairis wasn't quite due for transfer at the time, but they arranged it for just after the funeral. Then we were scheduled to have a meeting on the data I'd collected."

"Makes sense. Underdraw is hell on those higher-order Donors. It's a travesty, what the Tecton does to them and the channels." Before Laneff could object to the slur on the Tecton, Jarmi added, "Look at the time! No wonder I'm starved. Come on, Laneff. Let's go eat." Laneff had never shared a meal with the woman before, an odd omission considering the time they'd spent together. Laneff had been reluctant, after the first day, to go to the cafeteria, where it seemed each Sime ate paired with a Gen, shrouded in privacy. She felt people regarding her with an odd wariness as she sat alone, and thereafter took to skipping meals or grabbing a bite at the snack bar that was always open.

Jarmi was standing by the door, watching Laneff, who rose from her desk chair and shrugged. "All right."

But Jarmi stayed put, tilting her head to one side. "You don't know what I'm talking about, do you?"

"Dinner."

"No. I'm offering you a transfer date, Laneff. It's our custom around here to take meals only with a transfer partner."

Yuan had said they didn't assign for transfer here. "Jarmi, I could– kill—you."

"I doubt it. But, if it'll make you feel better, let's go to the infirmary and see a channel who can match us. Yuan was right. I do like you."

"I like you, too, Jarmi. But I've never known that to make a difference."

"Well—it does around here. Look, it's also our custom that you can refuse my offer, and no hard feelings. There's no accounting for a Sime's taste in nageric timbre. We could still be friends."

In a wild moment, Laneff imagined what it would be to take transfer from this Gen—not kill her. Yuan had felt nothing from her draw. Jarmi—might. For just a hint of what Digen had felt—for a fractional taste of the killbliss that would stave off disjunction crisis and her own death—no. "Jarmi, we have to be absolutely sure that it's safe. You don't know anything about me—"

"I know that Yuan promised you a chance to live without killing, without going mad for lack of killbliss. And I know I'm that chance. I didn't know how much I was going to want to do it."

Jarmi's sincerity loosened the tough binding of Tecton law on Laneff. "Let's go see your channel."

The Gen woman bounced cheerfully out the door and along the hall. "Oh, I'm so happy! I didn't know I could feel so happy!"

Laneff was buoyed on the Gen's flaring nager, surprised at how very good it felt. "Jarmi, this channel had better be awfully good

Jarmi sobered. "We don't have any First Order channels. They just don't seem to gravitate to our movement. But our Seconds have become keen judges of a good match. It's been years since a bad match caused a kill."

The infirmary was deserted except for the duty channel and her– Companion? The old Householding designation seemed more apt than the Tecton title Donor, because their relationship was so obviously personal. Jarmi explained what they wanted. The channel, a tall woman with curly brown hair, perhaps in her mid-twenties, had the look of a dedicated healer. Her Companion, a man with the body of a weight lifter, a silly mustache, and a nager that sparkled with pure good humor, exclaimed jovially, "So you're Laneff Farris! I'd never have guessed you were so small from your pictures!"

Laneff didn't consider herself overly sensitive about her height, but that rankled. She looked up at the bulging muscles, estimating his weight. "I could challenge you to two falls out of three. Don't worry, I'd be careful not to injure you."

He threw his head back and laughed. "No contest! You could easily tie me in a bow knot!"

As they bantered, the channel was scrutinizing Laneff. Now she ordered, "Come on over here so I can zlin you."

As Laneff moved over against the backdrop screen, standard equipment in any infirmary, she felt for the first time in her adult life as if there were no embarrassing stigma on her nager. She knew the channel zlinned the junct signature, a worse embarrassment than the disjunction scars had been, but this channel didn't regard it as a moral weakness.

"Jarmi," ordered the channel.

Jarmi stepped up against the screen to let the channel zlin them. "Laneff, I'm so nervous!"

"No you're not. You're riding a peak of hope. But from a peak, there's nowhere to go but down." Duoconscious, Laneff zlinned her. "But what are you hoping for?"

"There's a lot you don't know about me, yet. Like—I was rejected for Third Order Donor training by the Tecton. It nearly crushed me."

The girl's accent held overtones of a Sime territory somewhere to the northwest of Householding Invor—possibly Alberta Leaf Territory. She looked as if she might have some Indian blood. "You zlin like a Third, though . . ."

The channel answered. "She doesn't zlin like a Third to a channel, because she never Qualified Third. She was rejected by the Tecton because she has extremely high internal barriers, a very low yield of selyn, yet she delivers that selyn at what any Third Order channel would consider violent speed. She has the speed of a First, and there's no way to train her to deliver the capacity of a First, or at the speed of a Third. She'd make an ideal transfer mate for you, Laneff. May I make a contact examination?"

Jarmi held her breath to keep from cheering. Laneff simply nodded and extended her tentacles to twine them about the channel's tentacles. Then, the channel twined her laterals around Laneff’s laterals and made lip contact in full transfer position.