The Farris Channel (33 page)

He flicked Tuzhel an I-told-you-so look, then asked Bekka, “So what did Tuzhel do wrong?”

“You see!” crowed Alind. “He actually urges people to ignore the rulings of this Council!”

“What ruling?” asked Rimon.

“What ruling!” said Alind. “Is there anyone else here who does not know what ruling has been blatantly ignored?”

Zlinning behind him while watching Alind, Rimon noted that most of the channeling staffers were bewildered while the rest of the people had varying opinions.

Jor eyed his daughter and answered, “The only ruling this Council has come up with that shouldn’t be ignored, the prohibition against unions between ex-Raiders and non-juncts or Gens.”

What?

Rimon locked eyes with Bruce who was likewise bewildered. Jor was head of the Church of the Unity that had been founded by an ex-Raider. How could he think that way? And what business was it of the Fort Council anyway? What marriages would be safe and stable was a matter for channels to judge, not the Council.

Jor moved up to the Council table and challenged Alind, “So are you going to take that vote or not?”

“Of course we are. We’re not going to allow Rimon or any other
Farris
to disrupt these deliberations.”

Rimon expected Jor to object to Alind’s language. Jor said nothing. His wife said nothing. The other Church supporters expected no objection.

Alind went on, “According to the resolution passed by this Fort Council, though existing unions will not be disrupted, no future unions between disjuncts and non-juncts or Gens will be permitted. Now we must vote to prohibit sexual liaisons between juncts and non-juncts or Gens, with specific application to the Raider known as Tuzhel who hasn’t seen fit to confess his actual out-Territory name.”

The Church of the Unity members were of mixed opinion but Jor and Shaddyr watched with great satisfaction as the Council members each voted to pass the new ruling.

Tuzhel zlinned the reactions near him with a cold horror. Rimon remembered Bekka’s Establishment party. Her parents had already chosen her husband, probably for social position. If Rimon supported Bekka’s preference, Rimon no longer had Church support.

The vote progressed with only Rinda, the Fort Hope representative, dissenting. Tuzhel turned to Rimon with a silent plea to stop it. The desperate intensity reminded him of Clire’s last plea to him.

Those who had come to eat had gathered to watch, some aghast and some faintly approving, most bewildered.

Rimon stepped up to the Council table, “Before you finish voting, you should know one thing. If you attempt to enforce any ruling treating the juncts or disjuncts in my care differently from everyone else here, I will leave this Fort and never return.”

Bruce’s shock would have knocked the renSimes unconscious if he hadn’t just given Rimon transfer.

Shaddyr Esren said, “That would be a great loss, but we would survive.”

“It’s not my preference either,” said her husband, “but Rimon, you and Lexy have done nothing but cause trouble by ignoring the duly elected authority in this Fort. You seem to have lost the call to follow God’s Will.”

The Church members’ shock filled the room.

Jor explained, “The other Forts have failed and returned to us, so we must lead the way forward. We must become a non-junct community, leaving the Kill behind.” To Rimon he said, “The Council is right. There’s no place in a Fort for the disjunct. They must prove themselves elsewhere. Their children may join us if they can.”

The Church was a small but powerful minority throughout the Fort, a solid group that acted of one accord. The Church had members among all the Fort factions except Butte. All acknowledged Jor Esren as their leader. He no longer supported Rimon Farris. He supported this Council.

Rimon would not abandon Tuzhel as he had Clire.

“I will not live in a Fort where the Council builds walls between the people. Our disjuncts have paid the most dearly to uphold our principles, and they are the most honored among the exalted of this Fort. Abel Veritt who founded the Church of the Unity and nurtured the discovery of channeling had been a Freeband Raider. He died trying to disjunct before it was known to be impossible after First Year. Anyone who has succeeded in doing what Veritt yearned to accomplish will be accepted wherever I live.”

Rimon gathered Tuzhel and headed for the door, wrapping them in a nageric bubble. The stunned silence, audible and nageric, paralyzed everyone else.

Grimly, Aislinn muttered, “Let’s go Fengal. Last I saw Val’s schedule board, she’d have to assign Xanon to Tuzhel if he’s run away from BanSha.”

BanSha did an amazing job of hiding his hurt. Rimon reassured him nagerically. Fengal loped off leaving his Companion to skid through the muck after him. The snow banked beside the path was waist high on the Gen woman.

Rimon remembered how Tuzhel and BanSha had taken a turn shoveling around the infirmary after the last storm, working side by side with Rushi, Bekka and other young Gens, all of them laughing and teasing Tuzhel who teased right back. Rimon remembered noting how the youth felt completely accepted in the Fort. Now that feeling had been ripped away at his most vulnerable time.
What will he do?

“Fengal will take care of him,” Bruce offered. “Now tell me, when are we leaving and where are we going? Dayyel will want to know what to pack and there’s the baby to consider. Iriela’s fine, but that baby is a lot of work.”

The group around them now included Benart and the guards Lhazron, Kreg, Kimra and Jokim and a group of scouts led by Kaires. They were people Jhiti had come to rely on. They hung on Rimon’s answer. If they were going to leave and rebuild elsewhere, spring was the time to do it so there was not much time left to plan.

Rimon looked at the people who believed he would not mislead them. His mind went blank. Words flew out of his mouth. “We won’t have to leave because they will.”

Even these staunch supporters couldn’t quite accept that absurd prophecy.

Rimon projected the optimism that should be his in the grip of Postsyndrome. “I’ll look in on Tuzhel as soon as Val lets me back on duty. Let’s not decide anything until the Council tries to enforce that new rule of theirs.”

Bruce said, “Very little of what they’ve voted for has ever happened, so I’d say that’s a good strategy.”

Then Tuzhel took the decision out of their hands.

Just after midnight, BanSha pounded up to the door of the room where Rimon was sleeping, young nager slamming through the walls in a jangling alarm. Every channel snoozing in the on duty wing leaped out of bed.

Breathless from the shock, Rimon found himself standing over the bed where Eskalie had been sleeping. “What’s the matter?” she asked groping for the blankets Rimon had flung aside.

Rimon grabbed his pants. “BanSha, damp your nager!” Rimon was not sure if he was having one of those horrid nightmares. He grabbed the Starred Cross belt off the floor and slung it around his hips then reached for his shirt.

“BanSha’s overexcited,” he told Eskalie. “Go back to sleep. I’ll quiet him down.” He untangled his sweater from the last of the blankets. BanSha had run down the hall apologizing loudly to the channels he’d rousted. Rimon flipped the blanket over Eskalie, and headed for the hall still buttoning his shirt.

“Rimon!” called BanSha racing back to Rimon’s door. “Tuzhel’s gone! Fengal’s hurt. Aislinn’s hysterical. Rushi’s gone to the stable searching for Tuzhel. Lexy said to get you because she shouldn’t do this, but I don’t know what this is. I can’t find Bruce. Solamar and Kahleen are on duty and trying to treat Fengal.”

“We’re Post, BanSha. Bruce is home! Go get him and don’t wake the whole family.” Rimon took off down the hall toward the end of the building near the infirmary and galloped up the stairs three at a time.

The upper hall of the infirmary was frigid. Rimon followed the cold breeze to the end room, Tuzhel’s residence. Aislinn stood in the open doorway, so distraught she was useless as a Companion to Fengal. Rushi, hair and boots soaked, face rosy from the cold, gripped Aislinn’s shoulders with one arm. Both stared into the room, Rushi’s calm creating an interference pattern with Aislinn’s anguish over Fengal’s condition.

Rimon edged between them zlinning Fengal. Rushi panted out her report, “Nobody’s seen or zlinned Tuzhel. Oberin mounted search parties in and outside the Fort.”

The window shutters flapped open, icy rain sheeting off the roof and spraying into the room. Solamar and Kahleen knelt over Fengal, dim streaks rippling his nager.

Head injury,
diagnosed Rimon. He picked his way to the window and zlinned the darkness. Oberin’s searchers were saddling horses. A foot party dispersed around the yard. A Gen rounded the corner of the dining hall carrying a smoking torch, lending enough nageric glow for Rimon to zlin the snow heaped against the building below the window.

The pile almost reached the sill of the window below him. Rain had gathered in a deep hollow on top of the snow, draining where the lip of the hollow was depressed. He zlinned a trail of what might be footsteps along the wall of the building opposite, the Collectorium.

Someone about Tuzhel’s size had jumped from the window into the snow heap, slid to the ground, crept along the wall of the building opposite them toward the cemetery gate in the new wall. He’d either gone over the wall or through the gate and down the hill.

Tuzhel’s gone to Shifron! No! No!

Just then a great cry went up from the cemetery gate.
He’s taken out the guard at the gate, or maybe on the wall.

Rimon, stiff with dread, wrapped himself in a granite hard showfield, pulled the shutters tight, then built up the remains of the fire in the hearth. He kept his attention on what Solamar was doing, nagerically assisting his effort.

When Rimon approached, Solamar looked up, attention on Fengal. “Concussion. Skull fracture, not depressed.”

Rimon admired the high precision work Solamar and Kahleen were doing. He couldn’t have done better.

With one tentacle, Solamar indicated the blood on the corner of a counter. “Aislinn says she went to get them something to eat and returned to find this. Maybe it was an accident Fengal fell, then Tuzhel panicked when he thought Fengal was dead. He nearly was when I got here.”

Kahleen’s concentration was rock steady, even when Rimon strode to the door. “Don’t send Bruce after me. He hasn’t enough selyn to cope with a disjuncting renSime.”

He raced down the stairs, grabbed two wool cloaks and oiled cloth slickers. He raced out the infirmary door, rounded the dining hall and headed for the stables.

Scouts and guards were still organizing. Some horses were saddled. Rimon vaulted aboard a saddled horse with a big blanket roll and galloped toward the now opening gate. Augmenting wouldn’t help Tuzhel much slogging calf deep snow. Rimon could catch up with him before it was too late.

Behind him the Fort lit up with spreading ripples of alarm. Guiding the horse down the familiar path to the level valley floor, Rimon turned left, rounded the hill eastward, then angled north northeast, calculating where he’d cut Tuzhel’s trail if the youth was really heading for Shifron.

As he moved away from the Fort, the ambient dimmed. Soon both Rimon and his horse were nearly blind in the night. He kept going by dead reckoning and his innate sense of location, straining to zlin the ground through the snow and rain to guide the horse’s feet.

Behind him, a nageric disturbance signalled BanSha chased by Jhiti and several of his guards. Jhiti scolded BanSha, and the young channel blew the fields sky high, totally forgetting to use his showfield to shield others.

Surely BanSha zlinned Rimon though Jhiti probably couldn’t. The youth wasn’t slowing down for any adult’s order. Rimon’s horse stumbled. He snapped attention back to his horse’s footing. He had to stop Tuzhel before he hurled himself back into the Freeband Raider existence.

A pre-crisis disjunction candidate typically plunged into suicidal depression followed by an eruption of violence. No candidate had ever had a better reason to give up. From Tuzhel’s current point of view, after that Council vote, he had nothing to gain by disjuncting.