Shortly after that, she dared to offer the old Sectuib a present. "I made this for your wall," she said, showing him a knotted yarn hanging in shades of deep orange, brown and yellow. "I thought it would cheer this place up. And you can take it home with you later."
Shanlun's nager melted into a tenderness toward her that made Laneff shiver. She hadn't done it to please Shanlun; she'd done it for Digen. But she suddenly realized she couldn't have found a more direct way to Shanlun's heart. Digen, suffering through the woes of turnover, hitched himself a bit higher in the bed and gestured with two dry, wrinkled tentacles. "Shanlun, see if it will go on the wall over there. Just what we ought to have to brighten this room!"
Shanlun hesitated, about to argue as second thoughts brought an odd tension to his nager. In this moment of alertness, Digen glanced from her to his Companion, and said, "Shanlun, you mustn't be too cautious—especially in matters of the heart."
With severe reluctance, Shanlun hung her creation, but she knew then that something was very wrong—very odd in that room. It wasn't until two weeks later that she found out what it was. That day, Digen had demanded that she join him and Shanlun for lunch, and she did, though she was at turnover and lacked appetite.
Digen was approaching need on a twenty-eight-day cycle, while they kept her on a twenty-five-day cycle like most renSimes, so that she'd never experience the true depths of hard need. And she was glad of that, for even at turnover, the first cold inklings of need brought reminders of her disjunction crisis. Shanlun had little patience with her now, for as Digen approached need, his nager became monumentally unwieldy and he experienced the high-order Donor's equivalent of need. His appetite fell off, and his interest in sex declined. With Digen's precarious condition, Shanlun's anxiety about his Sectuib grew to dominate his conversation again. It had become central to her life, too, and she was glad of the chance to observe him in person again.
When she arrived at Digen's room, Shanlun was bending over the bed, preparing to help the old Sectuib into the chair where he was lately permitted to sit up for meals. "No, wait," fretted Digen. "I don't feel right."
Immediately, Shanlun's fluorescent particolored confetti nager flared to an even, brilliant gold, fastened wholly on Digen. Laneff was drawn hyperconscious by that unexpectedly alluring promise of every pleasure her body now craved. Never before had she zlinned Shanlun working as a Donor, and never had she zlinned any Donor so enticing. Sternly, she shook herself out of it. She wasn't really in need. She only felt that way. But it scared her.
Duoconscious, she heard Shanlun mutter, "Tertiary entran, again, Digen." He added some even less intelligible instruction. Entran was a disorder of the channel's secondary selyn-storage system, the system used to draw selyn from untrained Gens at controlled speeds so they felt no pain or fear, and then to give that selyn to renSimes in need. She'd read in Digen's charts that he'd once experienced an episode of a bizarre malady dubbed primary entran, where his own personal selyn-using system had been involved. But there was no such thing as a tertiary selyn system.
Telling herself it was professional curiosity, she floated hyperconscious again, zlinning the blurring and shifting fields between the channel and his vibrant young Donor. Her scientific detachment vanished at the impact of Shanlun's fully unleashed field.
The Donor's concentration on his patient never wavered, but he produced a brown vial of medication from an inside pocket of his smock and coaxed Digen to swallow. Slowly, the golden aura of the Gen became brighter and paler, intensifying until Laneff was drawn despite herself.
She reached out to caress the core of the Gen promise, as it tugged at her memory of the one total satisfaction she'd ever had in her life —the kill in First Need.
Chaos erupted.
Tongues of flame seemed to shoot from Digen's inner fields, white-gold flame. A moment, and she thought she herself would be engulfed in jagged spikes of whirling selyn, solid selyn! It was as if zlinning and seeing had become one and the same thing, a nightmare vision. Unreal. Yet she knew the touch of that selyn bolt was death.
Suddenly, the lances of searing energies converged on a spot just past her right shoulder. She flung herself left, falling to the floor as she went duoconscious, the world fading into view solidly about her, her shoulder bruised where she hit the floor, and Shanlun's voice, deep and commanding, shouting, "Digen, no!"
The sound of his voice reverberated into that plane of nightmare where the flashing bolts of solid selyn lashed all around her, and she saw the voice etching cracks in the bolts.
Behind her, the wall hanging she'd made burst into flame, sending sparks flying outward in a shower of real flame, hot air searing her face.
Shanlun grabbed the yellow fire extinguisher off the wall beside the door and sprayed the flames, his whole manner bespeaking a routine bedside drill. His attitude seemed to be the same as hers might be at dropping a beaker and causing a fire in a lab. That, more than anything, convinced her that what had happened was in fact real.
When the loud rush of the extinguisher subsided, char-stained foam ran down the immaculate wall. Shanlun turned to Laneff. "Are you all right?"
She forced her muscles to gather her legs under her. "I'm not hurt."
Without another glance at her, he set the extinguisher aside and returned to his patient. She saw the dark-brown vial discarded on the white blanket. Digen was limp against the pillows, panting, an expression of anguish on his face to match the sore throb in his nager.
Pocketing the vial, Shanlun sat beside the channel. "It's over now, Digen. Let me—"
"No." His head rolled against the pillow as if he was trying to escape. "No, it'll just happen again—"
"No. I just didn't realize she was there—"
But Digen's eyes focused on Laneff. "I knew I shouldn't have accepted your gift—"
"Actually," contradicted Shanlun, "I think it saved her life. You had another target associated with her to—"
Digen turned back to his Companion. "Yes—go on. She has a right to know—now. And she is Farris."
Shanlun sighed, glancing from Digen to Laneff, his nager once again neutralized by the particolored effect. He went to snap a lock on the door and flip on the privacy light. "You're a Farris—and daughter of a Sectuib. All the others who know of this are First Order channels and Donors, all sworn by their Oath of Firsts not to reveal it to anyone not so sworn."
"The secret originated with my daughter," said Digen, "and I was the first one sworn. I'll accept your oath, Laneff, if you make it Unto Sat'htine." He glanced at Shanlun with a knowing significance as he added, "Her children may be involved. It's dangerous for her not to know."
Amid the firm nageric presence of the working Donor, Laneff could detect no response to that. But she knew Shanlun was thinking
of her children as his own, and at war with himself because Zeor does not marry out of Zeor. His commitment to Zeor gave him an understanding of her feeling for Sat'htine. He could not believe she could leave Sat'htine for him, any more than he could leave Zeor for her. Shanlun said, "In the last few weeks, I've come to know the strength she brings to her dedications. I would trust her with more than my life." From inside his shirt, he fished a tiny silver medallion in the form of a starred cross, which he wore on a gold chain. Looping the chain over his head, he held the medallion out to her. "Hold this, and remember the Monument to the Last Berserker, swear Unto Sat'htine, and I will accept that seal as binding as my own."