"Jacqueline Lichtenberg - Sime Gen 13 - Operation High Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lichtenberg Jacqueline)

OPERATION HIGH TIME
by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
I


Clad blissfully in my old shorts and sandals instead of the cover-every-inchcostume the Gens required at
their medical school, I headed outdoorsto soak up some Indian summer heat. I was glad nobody was
homewhen I got there. The privacy would let the resonant peace ofthe ranch heal my nerves before I
launched my attack on the RetainerLaws.
I paused in the kitchen, massaging my wrists and forearms, extendingand flexing all the tentacles and
trying to relieve the bruisedsoreness and tingling that still lingered twelve hours after sheddingmy retainers
at the Sime Territory border. At last, I'd receivedmy M.D. and was home, the place that had haunted my
dreams forthe last two years at New Harvard.
The ranch had always been our weekend retreat. We allowed nolife-powered services, preferring to use
mechanical door locks,a petro-chemical stove and heater, electrochemical lights, anda really ancient ice
box--no power just ice. We got along wellwithout hot running water and vigorously enforced our ban on
allpowered communications instruments, public and private.
It was a bubble of rustic isolation perfect for Noadron, thatvitally necessary Sime discipline that relieves
the tension ofconstant transfer denial demanded by life among the non-donorGens, and that's what I was
here for.
I went out the kitchen door onto the patio, letting the screendoor clatter lopsidedly shut behind me. The
single-floored, ramblingstructure was surrounded on two sides by the patio and its
roof-high,whitewashed wall. The third side was the garage; the whole backof the house was a glassed-in
sun porch with a view of an ancientpine forest.
I stood on the patio, luxuriating in the dry heat. Extendingmy grasping tentacles to the fullest, I jumped
and caught thebeam connecting the patio wall to the roof. I was shocked whenI had to support my
weight on my hands, the tentacles were soweakened by constant use of retainers.
Walking out into the yard, I looked back at the house with theperspective of years. It seemed to crouch
in the middle of ourten acres of rocky, virgin hills like some sort of invader, notreally a part of the
country.
With renewed purpose, I strode toward the back, bearing left awayfrom the pines, stepping carefully,
mindful of my bare toes. Five minutes later, lying among the summer-parched grasses ofmy favorite
hillside, I studied wisps of cloud roiling in stratosphericbreezes and relaxed into the vaulted infinity with no
field gradientother than my own to distract me.
Would it really be a good thing to walk among the Gen life-potentialfields unprotected by retainers? As a
QN-1 class channel, I wouldn'tbe bothered as much as a simple Q-class Sime, but still, I didrely on
retainers for comfort in the steep field potentials ofnon-Donors.
The Gens, the Generators, the normal humans, invented retainersabout four hundred years ago so that the
Sime mutants they capturedduring the Sime Wars could not attack and kill them by strippingthem of
life-energy. As contact developed into integration, anySime not wearing retainers was shot on sight.
Then the channels appeared. They were like the ordinary Simein every respect except that they could
take life-energy froma Gen without killing, and later transfer it to the ordinary Sime,satisfying his desire
for a kill.
Now many Gens donate life in return for the life-powered servicesonly Simes can provide, and the
penalty for not wearing retainersin Gen Territory is deportation to Sime Territory.
The time for change had arrived again.
I held up my right arm and extended the moist pink-gray laterals. Used only in life-transfer, but they loved
freedom and sunshine,not the confining and heavy retainers. I extended the two dorsaland two ventral
gripping tentacles, touching the tips of my fingers. By contrast, these were sinewy ropes with a smooth,
dry, ordinaryskin. Their strength and dexterity were the joy of Sime musiciansand artists everywhere