Fear and Courage, page 16
“They said they can be here within a couple hours,” she told him through the thick wooden door. “They said you should be all right until then. God help us, Garrett.” As far as he could recall, those were the last words she had ever spoken to him, or to anyone. His memories of what had happened next were distorted by fever and by new perceptions he hardly knew how to interpret.
The bolt on the door was sturdy enough, as was the door itself. It was the frame which had given way. Later, he saw the door lying intact and useless on the hall floor, hinges twisted and still fastened to part of the splintered frame. The dish that had been in his mother’s hands when he’d caught her had not fared as well, but lay shattered near her feet. She had begun preparing the evening meal, and a neat row of vegetables lay on the counter next to the metal token Garrett had given her. The expression on her face was unbearable.
He went into the front room where a shawl her own mother had knitted lay over the back of the sofa, concealing a rip that had been imperfectly mended. Behind the couch, of course, was the gun. It had been kept there ever since Garrett, the youngest child, had been old enough to understand that it was not a toy.
He could not understand why she had not kept it near her, brought it into the kitchen so that she would have a chance. Surely she had not given such absolute credence to what some faceless stranger had told her over the telephone. That would not be like her. He stood looking at the gun for several minutes, thinking that it might be simplest if he were to use it, now, on himself.
Instead, he took the shawl into the living room and covered her body. Then he sat down to wait, taking a place on the floor beside her. Had it been two hours? He didn’t think so. Not unless that strange, surrealistic sequence of events had taken much longer than it had seemed. He didn’t think so. It had all gone so much faster than it was supposed to. Not that it mattered, now.
If the Tecton came to get him before his father and brothers returned, let them do what they liked with him. And if they did not―well, he had little doubt as to how his father would see fit to handle a situation like this. Garrett could only hope that he would have the courage to stand his ground and take what was coming to him, as if it were nothing more than a switching. He thought briefly of running away; he knew the woods well enough to avoid capture for quite awhile. But to what end? If he stayed free long enough, he would only end up Killing again.
So he sat there until a sharp rap came at the front door, and then he went to answer it. Pulling open the door, he saw two men. The one in front held a clipboard, and was just in the process of lowering it, as if he’d used one corner of it to knock. “You’re too late,” Garrett told them, but before he could even complete his sentence he felt a sharp stab of dismay. It took him a moment to realize that it was not his own emotion, but came from the smaller of the two men, who stood behind and slightly to one side of the one with the clipboard. He didn’t fully understand the reasons behind this reaction until much later. Out-Territory response teams hated scenes like this, of course, arriving as quickly as they could only to find a dead Gen and a junct Sime and little they could do to remedy the situation. But it was worse when the Sime was a channel; one of their own. Channels had a significantly lower chance of successful disjunction, in comparison with renSimes. And even for those who made it, the damage was greater. Disjunct renSimes could usually do just about anything they’d be able to do if they were nonjunct. Whereas, a channel with the same history was forever barred by Tecton policy from doing most of the things nature had designed channels to do.
Garrett knew what Jamal thought of this policy, because he’d been subjected to an embittered tirade on his roommate’s last turnover day. Jamal thought there was nothing wrong with him that could not be cured by the Gen-transfer privileges enjoyed by working channels who would not be expected to take transfer from another channel except under unusual circumstances.
As far as Garrett knew, Jamal might well be right in his insistence that there was no good reason he should not be licensed as a working channel, as would have been permitted routinely in the days before Unity. But in his own case, Garrett did not need some phrase like severe and atypical symptoms to tell him there was still something inside him that could do harm, if it were allowed to get free. Call it DJS, or call it a demon. A demon that had been bound with chains and confined in some deep cavern, but could never be slain, like some immortal monster out of a dark fairy tale. He agreed with the Tecton’s position that an innocent, nonjunct renSime ought not to be exposed to such a thing in transfer, and did not see why they would want to run the risk of letting him touch one of their Gens.
It wasn’t as if they didn’t know what he required. Hajene Dunne knew. Not anything a Gen could give him, not without paying the ultimate price and completing Garrett’s damnation in the process.
Severe and atypical. Garrett wasn’t surprised that his symptoms were considered unusual, after comparing his changeover experience with the other disjunct channels at the Academy. He had told them things that he did not think he could ever tell his Supervising Channel, or any other nonjunct Sime.
His memories of Killing were clearer than he would have wished, and Hajene Dunne encouraged him to explore these memories and analyze them―even though she must have known he was not sharing all of his conclusions on the topic with her. If his disjunction was sound, she assured him, thinking about it would not reawaken anything more than a ghost of the desire to Kill. Hanging unspoken between them was the other half of that thought; that if he turned out to be one of the unfortunate few who were technically disjunct but too unstable to be permitted to walk free among vulnerable Gens, it was better to find that out early, while he was still in a supervised environment where his condition could be detected before it got out of control. Despite the looser security at the Academy, Garrett knew they were there for more than just vocational training.
Four hours had passed, and if he hadn’t been so acutely aware of the time already, he’d have been reminded by Hajene Dunne’s silent and momentary presence on the other side of the door. All the mercy she could show him, he decided, but still worth a great deal. It was a promise, an assurance that she had not forgotten about him. That she would not leave him to die here. He no longer entertained any thought of telling her to go away. As his father would have said, all the fight had been beat out of him, though nobody had raised a hand to him. All they’d done, in effect, was to send him to bed without his supper. It was more than enough.
Comparing his experiences to those of the other disjunct channels, Garrett had begun to realize how unusual his own changeover―and subsequent Kill―had been. Atypical, to use the phrase from his records. No wonder his symptoms were, because…
None of the others he’d talked to about it had found their Kills truly satisfying. Some had gone on to Kill more than once, and for those who had not, either great self-restraint or else lack or opportunity had played some role. Garrett had come out of the berserker mode in a state of shock, filled with guilt and despair―but he’d felt no urge to go looking for another Gen.
He’d learned part of the reason during his studies in the disjunction ward, in the process of learning basic facts that any in-Territory child knew long before the age where changeover became a danger. His mother must have been an unusually high-field Gen, the kind that would have been encouraged to train as a professional Donor if she had been born in Sime Territory. The very fact that she had been able to bring him to term, and survive giving birth to him, attested to that. But he didn’t think that was the whole explanation.
Because she hadn’t died right away. It was not only the most satisfying Kill that he’d heard any of the others describe, it had been the most prolonged experience. He believed now that she had tried to cooperate―had tried, without really even understanding what the word meant, to give him transfer. But of course she hadn’t really overcome her fear, just pushed it aside. He had been able to taste it, telling him there was something more, and he had gone after it. It was a moment of greed he had been paying for ever since, and would continue to pay for until the day of his own death.
He wasn’t quite sure what he had done that caused her nerve to break. But as good as it had been up until that point, it became immeasurably better. By far, the most intense pleasure he had ever known, before or since.
“Nothing so evil should feel like that,” he whispered aloud in the isolation room. He hadn’t meant to speak out loud, and was embarrassed. It would not surprise him to learn that the room was wired for sound, and the little he’d said was enough for them to figure out what he’d been thinking about. He was surprised to find his lips dry and cracked, though his mouth was watering to the point where he had to keep swallowing. His arms were seeping ronaplin, and there was nothing he could do about that besides wipe them occasionally on the tail of his shirt. He wasn’t as embarrassed about that as he was about the verbal slip. No one was likely to see him in this condition but other Simes―and Sosu Thorne, who was presumably used to this kind of thing.
As he approached his sixth hour of confinement, his resolve began to falter. He’d been so confident that, knowing when this torture was going to end, he could endure it. But it was too much. He tried to keep still on the padded bench, knowing it was foolish to waste selyn by pacing, but the urge to move around was strong. A couple of times he found himself on his feet and moving without having made any conscious decision to get up. Once on his feet, it was almost impossible to keep from augmenting. He made himself sit down, although the bench was starting to seem to him like some kind of trap, a grave above the ground that would spell his death if he remained there.
The fifth time he sensed Hajene Dunne outside the door it no longer seemed like a reassurance. Nothing but mockery, and it was only her superior nageric strength that kept him from zlinning the pleasure she was doubtlessly taking from his suffering. He projected his rage and his hatred at her, hoping to hurt her at least a little. She left after a pause of exactly the same duration as the other times, and he began to shake.
It had been stupid to make such a futile attack on her. What if she decided to extend his punishment? What if she came back at the end of the next hour and just zlinned him through the door again, instead of letting him out? He wouldn’t be able to stand that. He wasn’t sure he could even hold out until then. But he would not press the signal. He would sit here until he lost control altogether, and began battering at the door in a mindless attempt to get out. Unlike the door to his childhood bedroom, this one had been knowledgeably designed to withstand a Sime operating under high augmentation. He probably could not break through. But he had no doubt that he would reach the point where he would not know any better than to try, burning up the last reserves of his strength.
Far more efficient, and sensible, to exert a small pressure on the metal plate marked emergency signal with his hand. But he would not. For one thing, he was fairly certain that she would just examine him and conclude that he was not as bad off as he thought he was.
He lay down on the bench. Again the image of a coffin came to his mind, accompanied by a feeling of claustrophobia. He imagined, instead, that it was one of the narrow cots in the bedroom he’d shared with his two brothers. He remembered lying there during the winter nights that had started so early in the day, and when they had all gone to bed early not from fatigue but for lack of anything better to do―and to conserve energy. There was never quite enough food in the wintertime, not if they wanted to be sure and keep an adequate reserve against the possibility of a late spring. Often, he had lain there in the darkness, drowsing but unable to sleep, and thought about summer.
Summer was always better. There was no shortage of food then, and also no shortage of things to do, hard work that taxed his young muscles and left him exhausted from trying to keep up with his father and brothers. But even in summer, there had been times of leisure. After church he and his brothers had been free to spend the rest of the day as they pleased, for work was forbidden on that day. And it was the pond that he recalled the most clearly. Muddy and bug-infested, the cool water had been such a welcome balm on the hottest days. The time he and his brothers had spent there had a timeless quality, and it was the pond that had comforted him during those long winters. The same image came to him now, and it was as if he were there once again, beneath the shade of the willow tree, splashing in the shallow water.
That last hour passed as if in a dream. He felt feverish, as he had in changeover, but the water from the pond cooled him. He could feel it, smell it, and taste the hot sun on his skin. The isolation room became a thing of shadows, rising in his consciousness like the memory of a bad dream that he recalled only vaguely. The pond was far more real, and through his closed eyes he could see it, could perceive it with all five of the senses he’d possessed as a child. Only his newest sense told him he was still locked up in this other place, so very far from home.
When he sensed Hajene Dunne outside the door once again, he was almost reluctant to leave the safety of these memories behind. But she had the Gen with her, and was in the process of unlocking the door, so he sat up and wiped the excess ronaplin off his forearms, then tucked his shirt back in. It was the closest he could come to making himself look presentable.
Hajene Dunne came in first. She’d done something to make her nager dull and uninteresting. Branden Thorne followed, a blazing beacon of life and promise. It was something like a reenactment of his disjunction trial, only they had changed all the rules on him. He clung to the edge of the bench to keep himself from rushing at the Gen. For one thing, Hajene Dunne was standing in his way. He didn’t think he would be able to get past her unless she let him. And he could tell from the vibrations in her field that she was speaking, but could not tell what she was saying. Doubtlessly there were more formalities to be gone through before he could have what he Needed. With an effort, he pulled himself duoconscious.
“…up until now, but―ah, there he is. Hello, Garrett. How are you feeling?”
Surely she could zlin for herself how he felt―at the very edge of death. He did not doubt that the Gen could see that as well, with his eyes, and perhaps sense with that shadowy awareness of nager that he’d read the higher-order Gens often developed. He thought of making some breezy remark to the effect that he felt fine, but they’d both know he was lying, and he was terrified that she might leave again if he did. So he said nothing.
“Garrett? Talk to me, are you ready for your transfer appointment now?”
“Don’t be absurd, Martya, obviously he is.” Slowly, the Gen moved closer and laid a cool hand on Garrett’s arm, soothing the agonizing fire that ran the length of his lateral tentacles. Handling tentacles whipped around the Gen’s hand of their own accord, and Garrett was trembling with the effort it cost him not to reach out with the other hand as well. Instead, he continued to cling to the side of the bench. Abruptly, his mind flashed back to the pond, and it seemed that the water was over his head and he was choking on it, and one of his brothers reached out with a dead branch for him to hold onto, and used it to pull him from the water. A very early memory, if it was real at all, because the deepest part of the pond barely came up to the level of a man’s waist.
“Careful, Branden, he’s not entirely with us yet. He may attack. Be ready.”
He had the feeling she was speaking more for his benefit than for the Gen’s, and again he had the impulse to say something, but could not. It was all he could do not to attack, and he wondered if Hajene Dunne was at all impressed by the self-control that allowed him to hold short of actually doing so. More likely, she thought it was pathetic the way he was sitting there shaking, barely able to keep from springing at his assigned Donor like a berserker. He could read nothing in her field. It was almost impossible to tear his attention away from the Gen anyway.
He still held one of the Gen’s hands trapped against his arm, where one pair of laterals were in blissful but frustratingly incomplete contact. Thorne ran the other hand gently down Garrett’s forearm, bringing his intil down to a reasonable level and making it possible for him to remain duoconscious without a constant struggle. He projected gratitude, then remembered that the Gen could not read the nageric thank you in his field. But maybe he could pick up a little of it, or read the emotion in Garrett’s face.
Thorne sat beside him on the bench, and Garrett realized that he would not be expected to move into one of the transfer suites. Relief made his muscles turn weak as he zlinned that the Gen was as committed to this transfer as he was. He managed to relax his grip on the Gen’s hand so that a more suitable transfer position could be established.
“Good, now give me your other hand.” Garrett did, more than willingly. The Gen knew what he was doing, and was in firm control of the situation. This was not his mother; nobody was going to get hurt. The Gen’s lips touched his, completing the circuit.
The first, life-giving flow of selyn was better than any clean transfer Garrett had ever gotten from a channel. He drew greedily, the last vestiges of his self-control slipping away in the pure pleasure of the onslaught. But with this loss of control came terror, and he drew back, desperate to escape. The Gen tried to hold him, but Garrett came back to duoconsciousness curled into a fetal ball, face averted from his Donor but with his arms still trapped in a full transfer grip. He felt Hajene Dunne touch the base of his skull with one lateral, then she withdrew.
“Try again, Branden.”
It ended in much the same way. Just like all the times a channel had tried to give him a normal transfer, when what he Needed was the other kind.
Branden Thorne was radiating frustration―and physical pain. He had a headache to match the one Garrett could feel pounding at his own temples. Just as Garrett had always feared would happen if he tried to take transfer from a Gen. He’d hurt the Donor. Thorne was so focused on Garrett that he didn’t even seem to be aware of his own discomfort, but it magnified Garrett’s own pain. And it horrified him when he realized the significance of what he was zlinning. If he did succeed in taking transfer from Thorne now, when he was in pain―and if he enjoyed it…
