The Farris Channel (36 page)

Lexy said, “He surely would! If he were dead!”

“But,” added Solamar, “don’t over-schedule Lexy. I’ll make up the slack.”

“Don’t worry, Dakin and I will manage. You two are exhausted. Go rest.” She hurried off after her Companion.

Lexy sighed. “She should take her own advice.”

Benart had lingered, talking to Sian, and had overheard Val’s admonition. “Is Val as tired as I think she is? She’s been both channeling and covering the scheduling board for weeks. I don’t know where we’d get someone else as good at juggling details as she is.”

“She’s fraying around the edges. We all are, and we won’t rest until we get my father back.”

“I agree, Lexy,” said Benart. “We’ll do it. Just remember the scouts and guards will follow Jhiti. I talked to Oberin. She says she can’t ask anyone to risk their lives on such a mission without better information. I don’t know how to convince Jhiti to rely on BanSha’s zlinning ability. So somehow we have to change Jhiti’s mind.”

Lexy nodded to the Gen. “I’ll think of something. If you can keep tight control over our material resources so the Council doesn’t pull another shoe affair on us, I’ll handle the rest. My father will be back within a few days. I expect his new house to be ready for him. Is that practical?”

“Yes, I think so, and the new underground retreat is almost finished just the way he wanted it. I think everything will be finished before we have to pull all the labor for work on clearing the new fields.” He went to the rear door, threw his cloak’s hood over his head, tucked his notes under his cloak and dashed out.

Outside, it had started to rain again, and the temperature was rising, the white world turning brown.

Lexy said, “Let’s go talk to Jhiti. I expect he’s feeling he hasn’t a friend left in the world because he wasn’t able to save my father.”

Solamar followed Lexy out into the rain, and together they both zlinned Jhiti up on the walls talking to Oberin. She was pointing him toward the stairs, obviously arguing he was way too tired to be commanding a watch. They met him at the bottom of the stair next to the stables.

The new stable construction had added two wings onto that building, and the sheep shearing was still going on under a broad canopy between the two wings.

Jhiti tried to avoid them by veering off toward the laundry, but Lexy lengthened stride and cut him off.

Her showfield enfolded the renSime gently, supporting his fatigue. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said.

He stopped, head down, enduring.

“It really wasn’t your fault. My father had no business riding out like that. It was just something he felt he had to do, and it would have been all right if the Raiders hadn’t chosen that particular moment to ride.”

“I should have brought remounts with me. I’ve thought of a hundred things I should have done and didn’t.”

“And I’ve thought of a hundred things my father should have done and didn’t. You haven’t failed us. You rode out as fast as you could and left others to bring the remounts and supplies. They’d have been faster if the Companions hadn’t insisted on riding too, but if I were Bruce, I’d have insisted.”

He looked up, as unable to zlin through the Farris nager as anyone else. “You believe he’s alive.”

“I think there’s reason to doubt he’s dead.”

“I expect,” said Jhiti to Lexy while looking at Solamar, “you’d have gone in his place if you could have.”

“Of course. Tuzhel trusted us, and we let him down. He’s very near his crisis. Don’t take this as any kind of reflection on who he really is underneath it all. He’s going to be one of the finest people in this Fort. Next time he breaks, I’ll be there for him and he’ll find out what a channel really is.”

“I...I wish...I really wish I could have been there for Delri. Lexy, we have to face it square on and move ahead. He’s gone.”

She met this with silence both audible and nageric.

“You’re going to ask me to send my people out?”

“No. Just when you’re ready to do that, let me know.”

“You think I’ll change my mind.”

“I know you will.” The ambient rang with certainty.

“If you weren’t pregnant, you’d be at Shifron now.”

“There’d be nothing I could do once I got there.”

Privately, Solamar thought that a good contingent of the guard would follow her. They could do plenty.

“We can’t live with Freebanders for neighbors.”

“The new Council seems to think they can ignore the Raiders until they just leave.” Solamar watched Lexy work the fields, giving Jhiti a quiet space for thinking.

Jhiti said, “They will attack us again, and this time we’ll do a lot better at thinning their ranks. Our strength is Delri’s doing. Nobody’s forgotten that. We’ll destroy those who have destroyed Clire and Delri.”

“I don’t want revenge. I want my father back.”

“So do I.” They were in total accord until Jhiti added, “He might have been alive when they took him, but he’s dead by now. I can’t order my people into a battle they would likely lose in order to rescue a corpse.”

“Will you prevent them from going on their own?”

That stopped Jhiti cold.

Solamar said, “Lexy would never subvert your authority with your people. The security of this Fort is in your hands. You’re trusted.”

“Until now. I’ve lost one of our most valuable channels, and I know Aipensha’s death and Clire’s juncting were my fault too. That’s three of our most valuable channels lost because of me.”

Lexy said, “What matters is how well you do next time. Do you believe that?”

“Yes. I always have held my guards to that standard. Why not myself too?”

“Right. So we start our next attempt now. When you’re ready to send out a rescue party for my father, let me know. I promise, I won’t ride with them.”

She hugged Jhiti, wrapping her showfield around him like a warm blanket, supporting the renSime’s exhaustion and not letting him zlin her own. “Ask for me when you come in for transfer.”

She took off across the yard, picking her way between sheep turds and mud puddles. Solamar followed, his whole heart and soul caught up in pure revelation. Though he couldn’t zlin through that Farris mask, he knew in his bones that she was being perfectly honest with Jhiti. She couldn’t find it in herself to blame him for what he truly believed.

Solamar could barely contain the fountain of joyous love that had erupted within him during that conversation.

He followed her through gathering dusk to the door to the channels’ on-duty dormitory. She turned to scrutinize him with her eyes and her Sime senses as she kicked at the boot scraper by the door. “Yes, I know he’s not dead. And I know Jhiti will realize it soon. It’ll be soon enough. It will be!” She pulled the door open.

He held the door open for her as he kicked mud off his own boots. “Think about this. Clire is still pregnant. She wants Rimon alive, to deliver her baby. She may not care if he goes junct to survive, but she wants him alive.”

She ducked under his arm and entered the building. “I have to find Garen, look in on Tuzhel, and talk to Bruce.”

“The minute Garen lays eyes on you, he’ll sweep you off to the dining hall to eat then make sure you lie down.”

“I couldn’t sleep now.”

“Garen is one stubborn Gen.”

“And Kahleen isn’t?”

“Kahleen’s a tyrant, but so far she’s never been wrong. I’ve never had a better Companion.”

“Hmmm. I couldn’t imagine anyone better than Garen. All right, let’s go see Tuzhel before they catch up to us. If Val zlins us in the building, we’re cooked.”

Tuzhel was sleeping in the shallow napping pattern of the pre-crisis candidate. Both channels and Companions in the room were vigilant. Lexy zlinned the youth carefully, not waking him, and left instructions with his guardians.

Then the Gens caught up with them.

Bruce tried to insist that he would provide Lexy with her extra transfer to support the pregnancy, but she finally lost all control, screamed at him in the middle of the infirmary hallway, “He’s not dead!” then turned to run.

Solamar stopped her and the Gens closed around with Companion nagers, firm, insistent, irresistible. Lexy muttered, “I’m not hysterical,” and to prove it marched herself to her on-duty sleeping quarters. She started to close the door, then reached back and pulled Solamar in, leaving Garen outside. “So bring dinner up. I’m not going into that dining hall today.”

As she closed the door, Bruce said, “I don’t want him to be dead either, but he’d want you to take whatever you Need from me.”

“Later, Bruce,” gritted Lexy. She collapsed into Solamar’s arms and he felt her love of him spill out of the cracks in her showfield. He was irrationally certain it was her genuine feeling, not just another Farris perceptual trick.

“I love you,” he confessed aloud for the first time in just that special, unequivocal and matter of fact way. “I’ve known I was falling in love with you, but I hadn’t realized how much I already loved you before I fell in love.”

“I know. I felt it. It’s so insane. I think I’m falling in love with you, but there’s just so much grief in me, I can’t be sure. I’m numb with it all. I don’t know who I am anymore. I just have to rescue my father. I should have started that hours ago but I’ve failed.”

She pulled restlessly at him, but he hung on. “They’ll be back with food soon. Some hot soup with crusty hot bread. Things will look better after we eat.”

The thought sent her stomach roiling. He altered that, “Well, maybe some tea and flatbread.” He went to build up the fire so they could reheat whatever the Gens brought. “Want Garen in here instead of me?”

“No. I’m not in Need or sick. I’m just tired. Scared. Miserable. I’d rather Garen didn’t see me like this. You still love me if I’m incompetent, confused, scared?”

“Oh, yes. No doubt about that.” He set his showfield to project Gen, multi-layered like a Companion’s complex and deep fields and absurdly cheerful the way Gens usually seemed when a Sime was in Need.

She laughed. His pride surged at his success and his heart melted. Her laugh didn’t last long though before it transmuted to tears. She flung herself onto the bed, prone, bunched the pillow up and sobbed.

The room was well enough insulated that she could let go of her fields and just wash the place in her anguish. He pulled in on himself and let her ride it out while he put the wash pitcher on the hearth to warm and arrange the table for the food their Companions would bring.

When the ambient shifted slightly to the arrival of the Gens, she held her breath and he slipped outside to accept the trays and explain. As he spoke, a renSime came by to light the hall sconces. It was getting very late.

Garen said, “Take good care of her. I’ll be in the recovery room if she wants me later.” He started away then turned back. “And I mean
good
care!”

“I will. I think you should go home and get some sleep though.” He related what Val had said.

He nodded. “I’d just rather not participate in this farce funeral the Council is putting on. If that’s what Lexy wants, though, then that’s what we’ll do.”

“Maybe she’ll change her mind tomorrow,” said Solamar. “Right now she’s too exhausted to think straight and too keyed up to sleep.” The heat of the dishes was soaking through the heavily wrapped trays stacked in his arms. “Whatever happens, she’ll be depending on you to be rested. Take care of yourself.”

Kahleen opened the door for him and Bruce closed it behind him. The insulation was so good that even the three Companions nageric disturbance barely registered. He put the trays on the hearth. Lexy had dozed off, her body tense but her mind ceasing its whirling fury.

Even sleeping, she was Farris opaque. He was just minutes before Turnover himself, and knew his wan appetite would vanish after that point. So he set his wet boots by the fire, and propped his feet up to bask in the heat while he nibbled at the enormous repast on one of the trays.

As Lexy’s sleep deepened, he pulled her boots off, dried her feet and wrapped her in wool blankets, letting his nager sing her body a lullaby of Gen steadiness. He knew, even asleep, she was zlinning right through his showfield, but whatever she found inside him, it didn’t disturb her.

Then she was crying in her sleep. Her nager clearly indicated she was deeply asleep, beneath the level of out of body wandering or dreams. Her breath came in little gasps and her eyes overflowed with tears and she shivered uncontrollably.

He built up the fire again, but seeing and zlinning no pathology but the impossible weight of emotion, he didn’t know what to do. So he followed his heart. He stripped off his own clothes, wriggled under the covers with her and freed her icy body of her own damp clothing.

Skin to skin, in the now familiar embrace they’d shared right after transfer, she stopped shivering but it took longer for the hiccupping sobs to abate. Then he realized she was awake. His time sense told him it had been nearly three hours since she’d cried herself to sleep.

Her head was nestled on his shoulder, fitted right beneath his collarbone. Unbelievably, he was responding to the wondrous feel of her in his arms, of his tentacles caressing her back, of her legs bent around his. His response cultivated a welcoming reaction in her.