As the Gen left the tent, Yone wilted back onto his blankets andlay gasping, wracked with spasms that brought tears to his eyes. Livya found herself holding her breath, her heart pounding withapprehension at each seizure. Their channel, their only Sime,was deathly ill – and she suspected she was the cause.
For almost an hour, Livya watched Cheryl battle to keep the Simebreathing. Between compresses, she mixed a broth of powders andcrushed tablets and made Yone drink it between seizures. "Whatdid you put in that?" he asked after one sip, leery of her.
She told him, adding, "You'll feel great when it hits bottom." So he drank and after a bit the spasms relented. She massagedhis arms thoroughly from shoulder to wrist and the cramps weresoon gone leaving him looking wasted and withered against thesleeping bag.
"There," said Cheryl finishing off, "that shouldteach you not to go tossing trees around the forest without somuch as a warm-up exercise!"
"It wasn't all from that."
"I know. And you ought to be ashamed about that, too, gettingyourself caught in a hyperbolic situation with that irresponsible... excuse me ... non-Donor and right on top of a protracted tenth-levelAugmentation, too! Honestly, you could get yourself fired fromthat nice cushy Astrogator's berth for that."
"That's all right. Was my last run anyway. They were onlytransshipping me to a new Tecton Center. I'm a channel, not anAstrogator."
She chuckled, moving to kneel at his head and knead his shouldershard with a rocking motion as if giving artificial respiration. "There. You feel a lot better now."
"Great."
"Could you ever teach that little creep Alamain anythinglike this?"
"No. But don't expect me to praise your skills in public."
"That's all right. You're the only one around who needsthem."
He opened his eyes, tilting his head back on her knees to lookinto her eyes, upside down. "You were right, Cheryl. Itwould have been deadly serious if you hadn't come, I should havelet Brian finish the job this morning."
"Your instincts were sound, though. Brian's not Tecton trained,he couldn't have done it this way. And if he'd done it our way,well, you wouldn't be Tecton any more. He knew you wouldn't letthat happen, so that's why he sent me."
She smiled quickly then and bent down to kiss him. "Youknow, my first husband was a Tecton Farris channel. Do you thinkI'm qualified to finish this job?"
He looked up at her for a long time before answering. "Itold Livya Jeter that I'm utterly against prostitution."
"So am I. You know that. You know what I am."
"A very extraordinary Donor."
"No. Ordinary Distect."
"I find the Distect philosophy disgusting."
"I can't condemn you for an opinion founded on false information."
"As I couldn't condemn Livya for her ignorance."
"But I'm not ignorant. I used to be a Donor. I know whatI'm offering you and what it means. It is not a demeaning prostitutionfor me, not even by Distect custom, because I know myself andI know what you've chosen to be."
"Tecton. Your enemy. That's what I am by choice."
"Not my enemy. Myself operating on different postulates. I learned my error and changed; you would also. Knowing thatabout you, I can offer this without compromise, without any Distecttricks."
She kissed him again and he kissed back. Then she moved downto lie beside him, "I promise we'll do this Tecton style. If you want the truth about us, you'll have to come and ask laterwhen you're stronger."
She kissed him again and Livya blushed hotly but her eyes refusedto blink as she watched what Cheryl's free hand was doing. Justwhen Livya was about to turn away, embarrassed, Yone shudderedand rolled free.
Cheryl propped herself up on one hand. "Yone. I said Tectonstyle. Don't you trust me?"
"It's not that."
"Yone, you have to do this. I've seen Coital Deprivationeating away at your efficiency. In this condition, the next timeyou try to charge a battery, the cramps will start up all overagain. I might not be able to stop them with what we've got onhand. Get it over with ... with me!"
"I wish it were that simple," he said from his stancebefore the fire.
Something in his tone drew Cheryl to her feet and across the littleopen space. "Yone? Oh, no! No! You couldn't have!"
"She was the first woman near me after Valyu performed thatfirst donation on the hillside by the lifeboat. He didn't knowmuch about Imprintation and didn't take precautions."
"Oh, that incompetent fool!"
"It probably would have happened eventually anyway. It'sa permanent Imprintation."
"Yone, she's no match for you! A non-Donor, a –"
"The girl is not so bad, it's the mother. I'd lay odds Livyawould have been in here to donate two months ago if her motherwould have allowed it. But she's under age where she comes from,so it would be a violation of oath for me even to talk to herabout donating, let alone about ... this other problem. So youcan't help me, and there's nothing I can do about it either. You may as well go back and get some sleep before dawn. I'llcope with the battery-charging when and how I can."
"Damn the Tecton and its unholy rules!"
"Not in my hearing!"
"I'm sorry. Yone, what if I talk to her?"
Livya found her lips compressed, a frown scoring her smooth forehead,and her body tensed as if to jump in there and yell somethinglike, "You'll have to talk to me yourself, Mister Channel,if you want anything from me!" The protest roared so loudlyin her ears that she almost missed Yone's answer.
"I can't let you do that. If there's any talking to be done,I'll do it myself. Understood?"
"Yes, Hajene." Livya was sure she meant it. Cherylwas a woman who kept promises too, and that was so rare in Livya'ssheltered world she had learned to recognize the 'different ones.' She had walked and lived with these two for months not knowingthey existed. But now she felt a dawning kinship with them.
"Look, Cheryl, you don't seem to realize that the Jetersare genuine Sime-phobes." He paced up and down before thefire, his silhouette rippling across the shiny surface of theporta-tent, "Sime-phobia is a disease, like some people areterrified of house cats, and some people can't stand heights. You can't blame a blind man for not being able to see – andyou can't blame a Sime-phobe for not donating."
"Was Livya pathologically terrified when you had her in yourarms?" It was a rhetorical question.
Yone took a piece of firewood from the pile in the corner andstruck it a few times against the boulder, then tossed it ontothe flames, dusting off his hands. He faced her squarely, "No. She was frightened, but it was the ordinary Gen's fear, not theall-consuming terror of a Sime-phobe. But it doesn't matter,don't you see? It's her mother that counts."
"No, I don't see. It's not an inheritable disease, it'san acquired trait. Livya Jeter has lived with it, but not acquiredit. Doesn't that tell you something about her?"
"Yes, it does, almost more than I can stand to know!" His jaw muscles bunched visibly as he gritted between clenchedteeth. "But she's a minor!"
"By Sime tradition," said Cheryl, "she became anadult when her body started to produce selyn."
Livya's breath caught in her throat. Yes. I am old enough!
But Yone was shaking his head. "By the Tecton Principlesof Action to which I am bound by oath, I am forbidden to approachher because her mother is a Sime-phobe and she's a minor by thelaws of her planet of residence."