Operation High Time (Story)

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Jan 1969
Date: 224 (After Unity)
Pivotal Event: Mairis Farris saves an important Senator's life and furthers his campaign to get Attenuators accepted as a substitute for Retainers.
Historical Background: At the time of OPERATION HIGH TIME, many out-Territory Gens still react with hatred and disown the child.
For full details in CHRONOLOGY OF THE SIME~GEN UNIVERSE: http://www.simegen.com/CHRONO1.html  This page is regularly updated.
(224 Unity) Mairis Farris saves an important Senator's life and furthers his campaign to get Attenuators accepted as a substitute for retainers.  http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/rimonslibrary/oht.html  This is the first story in the Sime~Gen Universe professionally published, and Jacqueline Lichtenberg's first sale.  (Published January 1969 in Worlds of If Magazine edited by Fred Pohl -- who later bought the non-fiction book Star Trek Lives! by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Sondra Marshak and Joan Winston when he was an editor at Bantam.  See the whole story of our WORLDS OF IF connection and all about Our Star Trek Connection page on simegen.com)
(Source:  Index card file.   Operation High Time http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/rimonslibrary/oht.html --- History)  Gens invented retainers at least 400 years before OPERATION HIGH TIME to protect themselves from captives taken in the Sime Wars.  Contact developed into integration, but any sime without retainers was shot on sight.  THEN out-Territory Gens became aware of the channels.  By 224 Unity many Gens donate "life" in return for life-powered services (selyn-powered devices).
Generation before, it was common for a Gen parent to murder his child during changeover.  At the time of OPERATION HIGH TIME, many out-Territory Gens still react with hatred and disown the child.
Simes always fed their prisoners well. 
(Source:  Index card file.  "Operation High Time" -- Summary)   Mairis Farris, newly graduated from med school, has invented two devices to replace retainers.  The damper and attenuator serve the purpose and provide comfort.  He entrusts the help of his great-grandfather, Digen, to get these produced for simes and accepted for use in Gen Territory.  Assisted by the Gen lobbyist Jon Izak, Mairis sets out on a round of lobbying in the Gen Senate in Washington, trying to convince a committee to bring out a Bill changing the Retainer Laws.  The committee chairman, Senator Fieldman, is opposed to the Bill, which would allow public establishments to set aside areas where simes could shed their retainers.  Feldman and his son Ronald are kidnapped by opponents of the Bill and held secretly in the Sime Reserve.  Mairis deduces where they are, at the abandoned copter port, goes there and is captured as well.  Ronald undergoes changeover and Mairis helps him through a bad time, bringing the Senator around to a more sympathetic position.  Mairis turns on the Reeves Projectors, which create an energy field that attracts rescuers.  After rescue, Senator Feldman helps get the Bill on to the floor of the Senate.