"Lichtenberg,.Jacqueline.-.Sime.Gen.01.-.First.Channel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lichtenberg Jacqueline)

Rimon stood back, letting himself become conscious of the complex fields surrounding the Gen, readings the hidden meanings behind the man's emotions. He wants to hurt me. He wants to use my need against me. He resents me more than I resent him. Why, when Father's saved his life?
When Rimon came back to normal consciousness, the Gen was flinching away from the raw need in Rimon, his fear almost too much to bear. Shaking, Rimon said, "Calm down. I wouldn't take youЧunless you goad me to it. We wereЧafter allЧfriends."
Rimon whirled and stalked back to his horse. But then, instead of following impulse and galloping away, he sat and watched until Nerob had rejoined the distant group of fieldhands. Here in the field, those Gens felt temporarily safe. Anyone coming to buy today would be shown first the Wild Gens in the compound, and then the Domestic Gens down around the big house. Good workers could count on being safe until after harvest. Most of them settled into unthinking routine, their selyn fields high but unresponsive.
Gradually, Rimon's breathing returned to normal. He wheeled his horse and trotted toward the next group of workers.
Relief washed through him. He usually avoided Nerob and the few other Gens he had known before they establishedЧbegan producing selyn. It was hard to remember that someone was not a person if you'd grown up with him. Gens looked like people, after all, seemed just like everybody else until the time of changeover when,

instead of becoming Sime, they began producing selyn, the biologic energy that Simes had to have to live. Clearly, nature intended Gens to produce selyn for Simes, for Simes were faster, stronger, and equipped with special organs to draw the selyn from a Gen's system.
Those organs, the delicate lateral tentacles that lay along either side of Rimon's forearms, protruded slightly from their sheaths under the combined influence of his need and the impinging Gen fields. Deliberately, he retracted them, but that put pressure on his ronaplin glands, swollen with the selyn-conducting fluid that moistened the laterals for transfer.
Extending his handling tentacles relieved some of the pressure, so he extended all four on each arm, curling the ventrals around the reins and letting the dorsals lie across the backs of his hands, along his fingers. The primary purpose of those tentacles was to immobilize the arms of a Gen so the smaller laterals would not be dislodged during the selyn draw. However, they served that purpose only once a month, on the average. The rest of the time the strong, resilient handling tentacles were extra fingersЧ even extra hands. Gen arms seemed pitifully naked and awkward without them.
As he rode to the next group of workers, the fresh air revived Rimon's spirits. There the supervisor was Sime, as were all the others that he checked that morning. The flat fields of the Gens and the undisturbing fields of the Simes were little problem compared to what Nerob had put him through. All was calm and normal. By the time he had circled the furthest field and started working his way back, Kadi met him under the trees by the reservoir, bringing a double-walled container of trin tea, fresh and hot. They sat down under a tree, where the shade was still cool in the late spring morning.
"You're feeling better," Kadi said after Rimon had had a long drink of tea.
"Yes, I'm fine for the moment but I'm having trouble controlling around the Gens." Her nager remained unlinked to his, her body consuming selyn only at the almost imperceptible rate of a child.
She took his hand and laid it in her lap. Two fingers

stroked along the ventral sheaths, causing the tentacles to emerge from the wrist orifices. They twined about her fingers, and she squeezed them gently, then began to play with them, trying to tie a bow. Rimon wriggled them just enough to frustrate her, laughing at her attempts. She could always make him laugh, even when he was feeling his worst.
Finally, she stopped teasing his tentacles, and twined her fingers with his. "What are you going to do, Rimon?"
"Ask for another Gen. Tonight."
"What will your father say?"
"What can he say? He can see I'm in need. It happens to him sometimes, tooЧlots of times he can't make it a full four weeks."
"But not every month," she pointed out. "I know how hard you're trying, Rimon. I wish I could do something to help."
"You can. Will you meet me tonight, after . . . ?" The image of Nerob, twisted in the rictus of fear, floated to the top of his mind again, and the world shimmered into pulsing selyn fields for an instant. No. It will be that big out-Territory buck. Not someone I know.
Kadi said, "I'll be there, like always, Rimon." She squeezed his hand reassuringly. "I just wish there was more I could do than sit it out with you."
He wrapped his handling tentacles about their two hands, joining them. "Soon, Kadi. Soon you'll grow up, and we'll have each other forever." SoonЧone day soon, he would be there to help her after her first time.
What would I do without her? he wondered as she left him to go back to her duties at the house. She was almost sixteen natal years oldЧfew who changed over after fifteen survived, and those who did were left weak, unable to withstand the first illness, the first bodily strain that came along. And he wanted Kadi to marry him, to bear his children.
Again he thrust morbid thoughts from his mind. Going about his work, though, he found need forcing itself into his consciousness again. The soothing effects of the trin tea and Kadi's company wore off as he repaired a broken

fence, instructed one of the Sime supervisors to take his Gens in early because he had driven them to exhaustion Чhis father would hear about thatЧand inspected several more groups that were working efficiently. That was the norm and the expectation on the Farris Genfarm; it was surprising that Rimon had found even one instance of poor work practices.
Toward late afternoon, though, Rimon was seeing everything as shifting field gradients, his Sime senses at their keenest peak. Fighting for self-control, he rode slowly up to the last work detail, supervised by an old friend, Del Erick.
As Rimon dismounted, Erick turned from watching two Gens open an irrigation gate. "Ah . . . Rimon!" Erick hesitated. "Shuven, Rimon, I know I said I'd repay you by yesterday, but I just couldn't get the money together . . . and . . . look, I'll have it by payday or you can take it out of my salary."
Rimon made a sweeping gesture, tentacles flying. Erick, poised on the balls of his feet, flicked back a step or two, startling his horse. As his friend brought the animal back under control, Rimon swore silently. Even my best friend is still afraid of me!
Rimon put a hand, tentacles carefully sheathed, to the bridle of Del's horse, and across the silken nose of the animal, said, "I know how hard it is sometimes, to raise cash. I can give you more time. I have all the money I can use."
Zlinning Rimon more closely, Del said, "You'reЧin need againЧearly."
"Dad has always been very generous with me. Don't worry about it. Pay me when you can. What are friends for, anyway?"
"I won't forget this."
"No obligation," said Rimon, holding up his closed fist, ventral tentacles extended. Del returned the gesture, twining his own ventrals around Rimon's for just an instantЧ aware how his high field struck through Rimon's aching body.
Rimon smiled, flicked a cursory glance at the working

Gens, and swung himself into his saddle. With an airy wave, he rode back to the big house and went straight to his father's office, determined to press his case. When even his closest friends were leery of him, it was time for something drastic.
Syrus Farris was an imposing man. He had the normal wiry Sime build, but stood unusually tallЧa good three inches taller than his son. There was no doubt of their relationship, though. Both had the same black eyes and straight black hair, the same mobile, expressive lips, and characteristic chin.
Farris was busy with accounts when his son approached him, so Rimon had to sit down and wait, as he had done so often in this familiar room. It was a room for working, with solid, businesslike furniture, and undisguised files and other paraphernalia. The only nonutilitarian object was the portrait of Rimon's mother over the fireplace. It was hard to imagine his father loving that ethereal woman with her halo of soft blond hair, blue eyes looking calmly out at the world. Rimon had never known his mother, for she had died giving birth to him. Occasionally, since he had grown up, he wondered if his father had ever completely forgiven him for that.
But no, his father had always seen to it that Rimon had everything he wanted. Marna often said his father spoiled him. If that were true, though, why was he so hesitant now to ask his father for something that he obviously had to have?
Farris looked up from his accounts at last. "Again, Rimon?"
"I am in need, Father.Ф
"I can tell that. The question is, why are you in need? Marna says you've been augmenting unnecessarily."
"I understand why Marna thinks so, but it's not true. I have not augmented once this month." Rimon made no effort to control his selyn fields, letting his father read the truth directly from them. His father was exceptionally sensitive about such things. Nobody ever got a lie by him.
Farris studied his son. "Yes," he said, "you are telling the truth. Now ... what can be done about it?"

"I don't know, Father. I seem to require more selyn than most people just to live. I will . . . simply have to work harder to afford the cost."
"It's not the cost that concerns me. Rimon, you're a grown man. Have you ever had a fully satisfactory kill? Have you everЧwanted to take a woman afterward?" "Kadi and I have an understanding." "No evasions, Son! Are you controlling the impulse, or is it that you've never felt it?" He paused at a new thought. "OrЧno. Kadi's just a child. You couldn't. . .."
"I wouldn't!" Rimon found himself on his feet, tensed. He made himself sit down again.