Carlana studied Rimon and Kadi, hope and despair fighting in her nager. "I shall pray, Kadi. Every day, when I pray for my children, I shall pray that you are right!"
Chapter Eight
WILD GEN RAID
That first summer on the homestead was a happy, carefree time. Their crops thrived, and they developed friendships at Fort Freedom. Not everyone was willing to accept them—especially the younger Simes who had been born this side of the border and had changed over here. Chief leader of the group was Jord Veritt.
Kadi and Rimon seemed to grow closer, if that were possible. Each transfer was as ecstatic as if it were the first time, and the lovemaking that followed as joyful and fulfilling. Rimon no longer had difficulty zlinning immediately after transfer, so they could indulge themselves as they pleased, with no fear of interruption without warning.
The talk of Fort Freedom was the successful rout of a small group of Freehand Raiders. Rimon and Kadi had been visiting Carlana when the alarm had rung, and Rimon had joined the men who rode out to challenge them. None of the women with small children had joined them.
"They escaped across the border," Rimon reported when he returned. "I suppose they'll find plenty of prey over there… but what could we do?"
Abel Veritt, who had ridden up beside him, said, "Nothing. We can't ride into Gen Territory, even after Raiders. People would shoot us on sight as quickly as they would the Raiders. I just hope they don't do much damage."
"I hope they're shot down at the border!" Rimon said. "For the first time in my life, I actually, wished today that I had a Gen gun and knew how to use it!"
"Rimon!" Kadi exclaimed, moving quickly to his side.
"Kadi, you haven't seen them in action," he said, remembering all too keenly the time he'd thought Kadi snared by such a band. "They don't just kill—they torture."
"He's right, Mrs. Farris," said Veritt. "The Freehand Raiders are an abomination upon the face of the Earth– and yet, we must not judge even them to be irredeemable. I speak from personal experience. I was once one of them." Rimon and Kadi were the only ones shocked by this statement Apparently, Veritt hid nothing about his past from his people.
"I lived that way for nearly six months," he told them, "if you can call it living. It was more a flight from life. We killed… people, self-aware Gens who understood what was happening. I didn't know there was any other way to live as a Sime. When our band fell upon hard times, we raided Pens, and I discovered that here there are soulless creatures in Gen bodies. They provide the selyn we must have to live, yet killing them is no more than slaughtering a steer for the meat."
Rimon felt Kadi's gorge rise at the thought. Then she controlled her disgust. Veritt continued as if he hadn't noticed.
With his "revelation," he had left the Freehand Raiders. Penniless and in poor health, he'd been fortunate to find a woman who owned a stable and gave him work, letting him sleep in one of the stalls. With her help, he regained his health, perfected his knowledge of Simelan, and discovered that most Simes were honest, hard-working people like those he'd grown up among.
As he learned to zlin subtleties, he perceived what to him seemed a second revelation: there was something in common in the nager of both Sime and Gen grown up as "people," the element that was missing in the nager of the Gens from the government Pens. Veritt perceived that element as the soul, and determined to return to the border and teach his new doctrine to other new Simes fleeing in despair into Sime Territory.
"He's saved most of us from suicide," Carlana said when Veritt had gone, "or maybe from joining the Raiders. Most of us killed a friend or relative in First Need, you know. But the marvelous thing is, we can all see for ourselves that what he teaches is the truth. There is such a difference between Kadi, or one of our own children who establishes, and one of the Gens raised for our need. They're just animals."
Rimon and Kadi said nothing. They were afraid to shake the faith of either Veritt or Carlana. It would be unnecessarily cruel to question beliefs that allowed these people to accept the necessities of their existence. So they quietly went home.
And then harvesting began around Fort Freedom, and every hand or tentacle was welcome. Rimon agreed to work in order to make the money to buy the things their homestead couldn't produce. And the tax on Kadi, he thought, anger clouding his mind every time he thought of it. Even out here where the government was no protection, the tax collector had come around—and the date on Kadi's tags told him how much Rimon owed—almost wiping out the little cash they had left.
He was working in the fields, happy at the sound of coins jingling in his pocket, when the alarm bell from Fort Freedom sounded. At first he didn't recognize it as an alarm, but by the second peal he was anxiously scanning the horizon for the source of the danger. The other Simes were frantically gathering the children, forming a phalanx. Then Rimon spotted a band of Simes riding from town toward the Fort and pointed.
As the field workers began to gather, running toward the Fort, Rimon sensed a massive Gen field closing in from another direction. He stopped, scanning the hills. Even as he was turning, it grew stronger, emerging from behind the insulating hills as a large band of Wild Gens galloped toward them.
"No, this way!" shouted Rimon, and simultaneously, the most sensitive Simes in the field were turning, yelling to their neighbors. The Simes closed ranks and, under full augmentation, charged at the Gen riders.
Shots rang out. The Wild Gens had rifles. The Simes ran zig-zag, weaving a complex pattern as they formed a crescent to engulf the Gens. To Rimon's left, one Sime fell, screaming in pain, but no one dared break formation to help him.
Sara Fenell and Herg Lol, who were approaching hard need, moved out in front, the Sime predator instinct roused to fever pitch by the high-field Gens. They selected their prey and grasped at the horses' reins. The Gen that Herg had chosen brought a shortened rifle around and fired. Herg Lol was caught full in the face, dead before he hit the ground. The Gen's horse reared, and two other Simes plucked the hapless Gen from the saddle, one wrestling the stump of a gun from his hands and bending the barrel so it would never shoot again.
The Gen screamed in utter panic, and Rimon, only six days fresh from a perfect transfer, felt his need awaken. On the other side of him, at the same time, Sara was pulling her frozen victim from his horse and killing with a savage glee. Then, all around them, Gens were unhorsed and killed.
Panic spread quickly among the Gens as every Sime past turnover was driven to a berserk lust for the kill. The Gen horsemen broke ranks. Then the Simes from town rode into the melee, laying about them with whips. Each Gen lashed by a Sime whip flared nagerically with a promise of exquisite delights.
Caught up against his will, Rimon helped to pull three Gens off their horses, only to have each snatched from his grasp and taken, as some feeble corner of his being fought to keep him from killing one himself. Augmentation was eating selyn, though he struggled to keep it to minimum, and the urge to kill grew stronger and stronger. Ifs only intil! he told himself. Can't be need! But it felt like need.
Later, he was never certain if self-restraint kept him from a kill, or if it was simply that all the Gens were dead before he managed to get one. With the death of the last Gen fighter, the provocative nager cooled, pain and panic faded beyond the power to disturb him, and, without having killed, he found himself coming down from augmentation to a still-life scene of carnage.