RenSime

"So I got you post, anyway." Between sobs, she gasped, "I've never had it like this."

Reaching into a drawer under the lounge, he produced a box of tissues. "Don't resist. Cry it out."

She could imagine him saying that to the cha

Laneff cried for Digen now, as she had not been able to before. And she wept for the life she had known when Digen was rallying strongly and all was well. But as she grieved over the death of that old self, buried that self in a tomb of false expectations, she found a new self emerging, fed on hope.

She wadded up the pile of soggy tissues. "I'm all right now." "You've always been all right."

She blinked burning eyes. "What a peculiar thing to say." "Laneff, nothing you've done has been pathological. Any one of the renSimes in that box would have gone for that Gen if they weren't wearing attenuators."

"And why wasn't I wearing mine?" She asked his unspoken question, but her voice crackled with a belligerence that shamed her.

"They told me only that you were suffering from prematurely raised intil, that you had a full five days until your transfer schedule. I assumed you'd taken them off because you felt better."

"No. I took them off to feel better." And she explained how the perfectly miraculous devices only made her feel sick. "I was afraid I'd actually vomit at the microphone."

"I know something about the Farris cha

He shook his head. "If I'd thought it through, I'd have stayed by you as I was charged to."

"Logically, it made better sense for you to get in close to the Gen and work with the cha

"But I was set to guard you, not 'everyone.' Mairis will undoubtedly bring charges against me if I ever show my nose in the Tecton again. Laneff, they were after you!"

"Why?"

"I could have stopped them if I'd– and because I didn't, they've wrecked Mairis's plans. Oh, I really blew it this time!"

He rested his forehead in his palm, a gesture so reminiscent of Mairis feeling the weight of his responsibilities that she had to ask again, "Yuan, just who are you?"

He froze. Then he jerked to his feet, paused a moment with his back to her, and turned, shoulders thrown back, head high. "Yuan Sirat Tiernan, First Order Donor in the Tecton's scale, and erstwhile Sosectu in Rior in the Distect."

"Rior!" she breathed. For months, the peripheral presses had been carrying rumors of a revived Distect movement headed by a self-styled Sosectu trying to reconstitute the House of Rior of legend, the Tecton's traditional adversary.

But within hours of Digen's death, Mairis had received a crisp document purporting to be from this elusive modern Distect, pledging to support him in any move he might make toward Unity. The legitimate press had plastered that news all over the world until rumors of Mairis's next move had begun to fling Laneff into the spotlight.

Laneff’s hand went to her mouth, scrubbing as if to erase the whisper of Yuan's touch. The Distect philosophy held that in any transfer situation, the Gen, not the Sime, was fully responsible for the results: the complete opposite of the Tecton attitude she had been raised to. It was said that one taste of Distect-style transfer was sure to lead any Sime into going junct.

What difference does it make? For me it's too late. But it did make a difference. She went to pick up her cloak from the chair where she'd tossed it. It was all she had left of Sat'htine, and all she believed in. "I can see why you didn't tell me that before—transfer."

"In the chopper, ru

She zli

"Laneff, I'm not the heroic type. I wasn't calculating odds, or even pla

Laneff dropped the cloak and rubbed the welts on her tentacle sheaths where the Diet's belt had lashed her arms together. If she'd struggled any harder against that confinement, she'd have injured her lateral tentacles and have been unable to take the finishing transfer from Yuan, which had left her more clearheaded than she'd been in days.

A pattern stood out starkly in her mind. She'd ended up in Yuan's care because she didn't want to risk exposure to Shanlun's overripe nager. She'd shed the attenuators because she didn't want to risk vomiting in public. And she'd killed—and then refused to risk injuring her laterals. Augmenting, I could have gotten away–and I'd probably have died before my laterals healed enough so they could get selyn into me.

Chuckling at the grotesque irony, she explained the sequence of her decisions to Yuan. "At each point I've done the right thing, and matters have gotten worse!"

He savored the irony, too, and said, "I've always thought that God has an intricate sense of humor. If we can just go along with the joke, we can often come out with the last laugh. You game to try it?"

"What do you mean?" His oddball point of view made a queer sense to her now.

"I promised you a lab and time enough to do some significant work. I don't pretend to understand neurochemistry or the big project you have to launch, but with us, you can expect eighteen months—"

"No!" she interrupted. "I told you I won't kill—"

He cut her off. "You didn't kill me, and you feel better. Laneff, in the Tecton, the most they've ever sustained a junct's life without permitting a kill is thirteen months. In the Neo-Distect, we have people who have lived three years after rejuncting, have lived without killing, and feel no real need to kill."

"They're the exception, not the rule, aren't they?"

"True. It seems to have a lot to do with finding the right transfer partner." He smiled ruefully. "I'm not the right one for you."

She couldn't deny that. All her daydreams had always centered on the most powerful Donors, trained to serve the Farris cha

"I do have someone in mind for you, Laneff. And there are others who can be asked. We don't assign donors. We let people choose each other."

"What if no one chooses me?"

"Someone will. You are—attractive."

And you're a very attractive man. She leashed back the surge of

pure sexual awareness that hit her then, knowing its power was a measure of how good a transfer she'd had from Yuan.

"Yuan, would I have access to the latest journals in your laboratory?"

"Your laboratory," he corrected, nodding. "Certainly."

"And if by some long-shot chance I produce a breakthrough, and I put into your hands the ability to distinguish Sime from Gen early in life, what would you do with that knowledge?"