Jacqueline Lichtenberg [Sime_Gen_06]_ _Unto_Zeor,

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

one way for the Tecton to survive this. We must show that even the Sectuib in
Zeor is not above the law! Seize him!"
Drawing Ilyana with him, Digen evaded their encirclement and faced them
again, still not quite able to believe that this was happening. "You can see,"
said Digen, "I have not harmed anyone." His hands on Ilyana's shoulders,
displaying her glowing health and their indissoluble link, Digen said, "I
don't glory in Gen pain. I've not suddenly become evil."
Beccard turned to Mickland. "I'm sorry, I didn't believe you. But I'll back
you now. He'll have to be incarcerated and displayed to as many as can file
by so that people will not accuse us of any antihouseholding sentiment. If
they see it with their own senses, they'll know the Sectuib in Zeor is a
Distect outlaw!"
The other channels spread out again, trying to ensnare Digen in their fields,
neutralize him for capture. Digen skinned free, knowing that if they once got
a grip on him he would never get another transfer but would die on public
display in attrition his cries for mercy broadcast as an object lesson to
every part of the world.
"What is the matter with you?" shouted Digen. "Don't you realize what we've
done? At a price, sure, but it was worth it. We've saved Rindaleo Hayashi's
life, saved the Tecton with Gen surgical techniques. We can halve the death
rate in-Territory among Simesand Gens. It's a small step, but a real one to
eradicate the fear that keeps Sime and Gen apart, to reunite, mankind. What
else is Faith Day all about?"
"He's insane!" cried Beccard. "Get him before he hurts someone!"
Digen eluded them again and jumped up on the makeshift operating table to get
above their fields. All at once he saw the unbreachable wall in their minds,
their hearts, and, like comparing a picture with its negative, he saw through
the Tecton as it was today. If Klyd Farris could see this, he knew, his
esteemed ancestor would cry tears of blood for this perversion of his ideals
made in his name.
Page 136
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
The whole argument between Tecton and Distect had originally hinged on Hugh
Valleroy's prediction that just exactly this would come to pass that the
Tecton, which Klyd had designed and enacted into law, would come to victimize
the sincere channels and reward those who sought only personal glory and
power. And with the power of the channels inherent in the Tecton structure
concentrated among the glory seekers of humanity, the grip of the Tecton could
never be broken. No slavery in the history of mankind had ever been so
unbreakable.
Ilyana and all her people have been right all along! Klyd Farris himself was
wrong wrongwrongwrongt He meant well, but he was wrong!
On a rising crest of manic rage powered by the post-syndrome still in him,
Digen screamed, "The Tecton is dead! Your Tecton is nothing but a travesty of
the human spirit, and Zeor will have none of it!"
He ripped the double-crested ring from his hand and flung it down on the
marble bench top, stamping it flat with his heel. "The Tecton is dead! The
House of Zeor is dead! And may you all know what you have done before you
die!"
The anguished rage beating from Digen, powered by the selyn he had taken from
Ilyana, drove the channels to their knees. The nageric resonance between him
and Ilyana caught up the beating anguish and amplified it until the channels
were groaning helplessly on the floor.
Digen leaped down from the countertop, caught up Ilyana, and swept out of the
room without a backward glance.
Out on the streets of Westfield, Digen made Ilyana stop for a moment. "Where
can we go now? What are we going to do?"
She took his arm over her shoulder, giving him all the strength of her nager.
"You just leave that to me. The train station is right here. We're
going home."
"Rior?"
"Where else? Who else would have us now? At least there we can live in
peace."
PARTIII
THE RETURN
What is the Distect?
The Distect is an idea. You can not kill an idea by killing the people who
hold it.
"OUT OF DEATH WAS I BORN-UNTO ZEOR, FOREVER!"
Orim Farris Sectuib in Zeor
Chapter 14
SHILTPRON PARTY
It was a holiday in the Distect, the anniversary of the founding of the House
of Rior. The sky was scoured clean and the russet and gold leaves of fall were
Page 137
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
sprinkled among the evergreens of the high mountains.
Digen had been in Rior for six months.
Yet, on this day he could not join in the festive mood. Instead, he walked
the paths between the little fields of shoulder-high wheat that surrounded
each house of the mountain settlement, listening to the clink of utensils
against sinks and dishes as the holiday meals were prepared. He watched the
swarms of children playing tag up the mountainsides to the berry patches. He
savored the ambient nager of the whole settlement, steeped in a vibrant
contentment he could only envy from the outside.
Life here in the House of Rior was very different from anything he'd ever
known before. It seemed as if there were no rules governing transfer. People
did as they pleased, and they seemed happy, in a way Digen hadn't ever seen
before in a group of people. There was a deeply committed family life, usually
with four adults who were mated in transfer and separately in sex. And they
raised their children without regard to whose natural children they were.
Nobody seemed to care whether a child would become Sime or Gen. And changeover
or establishment was hardly even an occasion.
In fact, Digen hadn't seen a single case of pathology in changeover since
he'd arrived, though he knew they happened. Rior had no channels because Rior
had precious little use for channels. Overall, it was a tough life, a frontier
existence, but it was a healthy one.
In his own little house, surrounded by his own little field of ripe wheat,
which he'd planted so joyfully with his own hands, llyana was singing to
herself, putting the finishing touches on a new dress she would wear to the
party that night. She had made him a cape of Zeor blue adorned with the Rior
crest and he had rashly promised that to please her he would wear it to the
party.
But he dreaded the moment when the sun would set and he would have to put it
on.
He climbed a little hill and sat on a sun-warmed rock overlooking the small
settlement. He counted thirty little houses like his own and the huge main
hall at the center of the valley. To one side of that was the laboratory
building, with Roshi's lab, the one place Digen was forbidden to go. On the
other side of the settlement valley, over a ridge of hills, a cliff fell off
nearly a thousand feet straight down. In the hazy distance Digen could just [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Odnośniki