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have to try your miracle drug again.
Here s the analysis, she answered, handing over a long sheet of graph paper
on which a single tall peak was sketched with only a few tiny peaks to either
side of it. It s the same stuff, and pure.
Shanlun took the jar and rotated it while Mairis eyed the graph. Shanlun
nodded, and Laneff handed him a folded envelope of the compound. This is the
same dosage we used last time.
The Gen conferred with Mairis, and then introduced the entire contents of the
envelope into the intravenous bottle they had prepared, feeding into Digen s
ankle.
The old man now seemed frail and withered, unconscious against the smooth
linens. His skin was pale, and the animated presence had disappeared. But
still he breathed.
They waited while the drips rolled down the tubing. Mairis held the shape of
the selyn fields around Digen so steady that Laneff knew she could stay and
watch without danger of her causing another of Digen s fits. She leaned
against the medications cart, duoconscious, and waited.
Presently, Mairis said, Try it again. He s weakening.
I d rather wait for Yanine, said Shanlun. You said she d be right along.
I can work without my Companion, argued Mairis. We don t have time.
As if to verify that, Digen tossed restlessly as he came to partial
consciousness. He was in hard need, but Laneff couldn t tell how close to
attrition. A renSime couldn t zlin such detail in a channel s nager.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Shanlun captured Digen s hands in his own Gen
muscles straining even against the enfeebled old channel. Once again, the
Gen s field flowered into a peculiarly compelling gold blunted for Laneff by
Mairis.
As Shanlun made the fifth contact point, Laneff was sure it would work this
time. And then, with a surge of thrashing, Digen sent Shanlun flying across
the room to crash into the wall and slump senseless to the floor.
Mairis closed on his great grandfather, twisting and distorting the fields so
oddly that Laneff fled to hypoconsciousness to avoid it. Able only to see,
hear, feel, but not to zlin, she dashed across the room to Shanlun. What if
his neck is broken?
She had to go duoconscious to check for broken bones before moving him, and
the fields once more compelled her.
Digen, also a channel of supreme capacity, was fighting Mairis for control of
the field gradients. The effect was a stomach-wrenching distortion of space
about the two men. And then something changed.
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Mairis grew still. Digen sat up, arms reaching out, tentacles extended, even
the sensitive laterals out and searching. His face took on a glow of ecstasy,
sloughing off decades. His nager twanged with an odd killbliss?
Whatever it was Digen was experiencing, it spoke to Laneff. It was what she d
sought in the kill and never found. She d trade her soul for one moment of it.
One word escaped Digen s lips. Ilyana!
And then the selyn fields collapsed in on themselves to a pinpoint black
vortex.Attrition.
Transfixed by the gut-chilling horror, she stared as the limp old body sank
into Mairis s arms.
CHAPTER 5
COMPASSION
As she finished the story, Laneff couldn t suppress the tears she hadn t been
able to shed at Digen s death. She grabbed a tissue from her lab coat pocket,
and then Jarmi was hugging her, sniffling in sympathy. There was no reason to
fight the upwelling emotions.
In seconds, Laneff was crying openly, her arms around the Gen woman s
shoulders, her face cradled against her neck. She wasn t sure if she was
crying for the valiant Sectuib of the last century, for the ineffable beauty
his death had let her glimpse set forever beyond her reach this side of the
grave, or for the cruel parting from Shanlun, who was as good as dead to her
now because she could never ever return to the Tecton. The sobs renewed
themselves when she thought it would be kinder for Shanlun if he thought her
dead now, because in mere months she d be dead anyway.
Jarmi cried with Laneff, resonating with the same texture of emotion. It
wasn t at all like Yuan. He had been a tower of strength supporting her in
weakness. Jarmi understood that weakness and shared it. Together, they
overcame it.
At last, Jarmi searched out a box of tissues, and over a clenched wad of them
she said, No wonder Mairis accepted the alliance with us. Digen understood
junctedness as a totally separate thing from the kill. In Digen s vision of
Unity, any Sime could be junct and walk the streets safely becauseevery Gen
would understand what he was. Any Sime could have that experience you had when
he died.
Laneff had only told her that they d once discussed the theory of
junctedness, not why it had been brought up. Maybe it was that forbidden
glimpse that weakened my conditioning. Maybe if I hadn t been in that room
then, I wouldn t have killed.
She shrugged. We can t do science on maybes. What I don t understand is why
Digen died. If K/A controlled the aborts the first time, why not the second?
I never had a chance to discuss that with Mairis or Shanlun. They were
caught up in the funeral arrangements, and the grand convocation of Zeor to
elect Mairis Sectuib. Shanlun never got to give Digen that final transfer,
which left Shanlun with so much selyn he couldn t really control his fields.
Mairis wasn t quite due for transfer at the time, but they arranged it for
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just after the funeral. Then we were scheduled to have a meeting on the data
I d collected.
Makes sense.Underdraw is hell on those higher-order Donors. It s a travesty,
what the Tecton does to them and the channels. Before Laneff could object to
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