Azevedo's hand came to her arm, cradling the tentacles gently. "First, let's get some dinner into her."
Laneff went without protest, lost in thought. Interrogated over the meal, she said, "I'm just feeling so stupid. This has been staring me in the face for years. I couldn't see it!"
"But you didn't know anything about moondrop. You didn't know that your compound actually occurs in nature!"
"Well, it—or something awfully like it—occurs in the Sime body! You know we produce within ourselves all the pharmacopoeia we really require. Kerduvon isn't so much a drug as it is a vitamin! Maybe there are even traces of it in trin tea!" She held up her glass to look at it.
"You're exaggerating," said Jarmi. "This is going to be decades in the researching stage." She shoved her chair closer to Laneff. "She's in need, can't you zlin? Laneff, you'll have the strength to deal with this in a few days, when we've had our transfer."
"A week, you mean," said Laneff, realizing that she'd never discussed the problem of transfer with Jarmi. Time goes so fast!
Azevedo leaned across the table. "Not quite a week. Laneff, you're deeper into need than mere passage of time would indicate. Your transfer should be moved up a few days. Don't let depression swallow you whole. It's just part of life. Take it in stride."
Laneff zlinned the old channel next to Desha, who was for him a not-quite-adequate-but-best-there-was Donor. Azevedo knew whereof he spoke. But are Jarmi and I even that closely matched?
Without being asked, Azevedo zlinned Laneff and Jarmi, comparing, and pronounced, "Jarmi's selyn production is increasing slightly. She'll be ready for you when you are for her. But"—he probed them seriously—"Jarmi, you do realize that this may in fact be the last transfer you'll have with Laneff until after the baby is born? Your capacity is just not going to match hers when that channel fetus starts to draw selyn in earnest."
"I understand," replied Jarmi gravely.
"Azevedo," said Laneff, hesitant. He brought his attention to her, and she had to just blurt it out. "Maybe it'd be better if you give me transfer this time, too?"
"Laneff!" cried Jarmi, and the bereft tone sliced through Laneff’s heart.
Azevedo, studying her, zlinned Desha. "Are you still Tecton enough to accept a channel's judgment?"
"Yes."
"I think you'll do better on Gen transfer this time. And of all our bens, Jarmi really is your best match here. Her willingness is also a big factor in that. Now, it is up to you, Laneff. I know Tecton renSimes aren't trained to make these decisions for themselves, so I will advise; but here, it is ultimately up to you. At least it is until Shanlun gets back with your physician."
She studied Azevedo and Desha, seeing channel and Companion, but not the eager harmony Shanlun's nager made with Azevedo's. And even she could see his need now, the graven lines carved deeper around his eyes, the weary shuffle to his stride, the pallor that occasionally underlay his leathery tan. He just doesn't feel up to me, she concluded.
Later, when they were alone, Jarmi said, "I thought you were completely post after our transfer; I thought you were satisfied."
The tremulous fear of rejection in the Gen made Laneff reach out to her. "Oh, Jarmi, you were marvelous. I was as post as ever I've been!"
"But?"
"But," admitted Laneff. "But. It wasn't—exactly—what I'm going to be craving in a transfer."
"You mean—I didn't get the right tone of killbliss?"
How can I discuss this with a Gen! "Well—yes."
"Don't worry! I told you it takes practice. I'll learn. But you've got to be honest with me. I thought I had it right; you didn't let me know—"
"I'm sorry. . . '
Jarmi took Laneff’s hands, letting her fingertips rest near the wrist orifices. "This time we'll get it right!"
With Shanlun gone and Azevedo declining, it was Laneff’s best course. At least I know this time that I won't kill her!
For the next few days, they labored to clean up the lab and set up the new work. Laneff ran several large batches of K/B, having to purify it several times of the K/A that came with it. She couldn't seem to twist her mind around into the reversal of the formulas. But
she was determined to have enough of it on hand after her transfer to launch right into the new work.
This could be the big breakthrough! In the back of her mind was the nascent idea that she might separate the selyn-flow inhibitor, which was probably responsible for the abortifacient effect, from the disjunctive agent. It was the abortifacient, she was sure, that was what she was using to detect Sime fetuses. The Rathor statistics showed that kerduvon caused abortion in just the right proportions for it to be aborting Sime fetuses, the ones dependent on selyn from the mother. Her test would take a tissue specimen from the placenta and check its selyn conductivity with and without K/A. In Sime fetuses, the conductivity would drop markedly under K/A—and thus, K/A introduced into the womb would have killed the fetus!
It has to be the K/A fraction of kerduvon that's causing the abortifacient effect!
There were two possible approaches: remove K/A from the purified kerduvon mixture and see if the remainder still acted as a disjunctive, or produce purified K/B and see if it acted as the disjunctive.
She set Jarmi to work trying to coax their chromatographic technique to extract K/A from kerduvon while she worked at nursing higher and higher yields of K/B out of her synthesis. Meanwhile, she ordered cadaver brains, both Sime and Gen, through Azevedo's supplier, knowing it would take weeks to get them.
The bench work was tedious and draining. Time after time, she stopped herself from snapping at Jarmi or Azevedo—or the crippled old Sime man who came daily to clean the apartment. She tried telling herself it was just loneliness for Shanlun, but then came the nightmares.
The first shattering episode came as she stretched out on the lab cot to wait for a solvent to clean out one of her columns. Her feet hurt, and her back hurt, which was hardly surprising since she'd been at it for nearly fourteen hours without a break. So she gave herself a half hour to relax, knowing she couldn't sleep because of the need gnawing at her.
But she drifted just under the barrier of sleep, where half-waking she watched dream images of all the Gens she'd ever known flitting across the screen in her mind. Each nager had an individuality she'd have recognized through a closed door. She dwelled on each Gen nager, savoring the memory, entertaining the tactile fantasy she'd never let herself indulge in when she'd known them: tentacles around cool Gen arms, moist Gen lips on hers, rich fabric of nager penetrating—penetrating . . .
No! Shestarted awake, heart pounding, disgusted at herself for she
realized every last shred of her disjunction conditioning to seek a channel when in need had gone. She was vulnerable to almost any Gen now. And most of them were vulnerable to her.
She still had twenty minutes to wait. Fixing her thoughts firmly on Jarmi, she lay back, staring at the gray ceiling. She had to let her eyes close.
She was a child again, playing with channel dolls, fantasizing what it would be like to be a channel.
She was a channel, experiencing each month the full force of need that the Tecton protected renSimes from—because, tempted, any renSime would kill helplessly. And she was in need now, stretched out on the contour lounge in the transfer suite of a big city Sime Center. Her Donor would arrive any moment now. She could afford to savor the essence of need, to probe her fear of it. She could rely totally on this Donor.