Channel's Destiny Part 16

Zeth looked at it and laughed. "Most of the time Owen acts more like he owns me!"

Just as he said it, a strange feeling came over hima"like stepping on a step that wasn't there. Only it went on and on. Owen, turning to retort to his joke, never got the words out. "Zetha"what's wrong?"

When Zeth couldn't answer, Abel said, "It's just turnover. Support him, Owen. The first time can be rough."

Turnover. Zeth had used up half the selyn in his systema" the first step down again into the chasm of need. Owen put his arm around Zeth's shoulder, an unspoken promise.

Zeth took two deep breaths, and summoned a brave smile as the room came back into focus. He could certainly manage as well as any other Sime. But then a new sensation spread from his chest into his arms in sharp cramps. One wave of pain followed another, each more severe than the last. Surely turnover isn't always like this!

But Abel was on his feet. "Get Jord or Uel!" he directed, and Margid ran out as her husband knelt beside Zeth and Owen. "Jord has such cramps," he said. "Rimon's had them since his injurya"but what could be causing them in you, Zeth? No, son, it's not normal turnover."

"Maybe if you balance your fieldsa"" Owen suggested. The two boys were facing one another when Jord arrived.

Zlinning them, he said, "That's right, Owena"let him rest on your field, but don't let him draw. Zeth, healing mode. Thena"oh, shen!" He looked around. "I have to have a Gen to demonstrate."

"Can I do it?" Maddok Bron asked instantly.

"Maddok!" gasped his sister, flaring fear.

"You wanted to learn, Sessly. So do I. If you can't control yourself, you'd better leave. Jord, can I do it?"

"Come on, then," said Jord. "I can't hurt you, doing this."

Bron stood, his wound giving a twinge of pain, but in a moment he found a comfortable stance and faced Jord, fighting apprehension as the channel held out his hands. "I'll have to touch you in transfer position," said Jord. "No matter how frightened you are, there will be no selyn flow. Owen has to be perfectly steady for Zeth, but I'm not in pain or need. I'm just demonstrating."

The Gen put his hands on Jord's arms, tensing as the handling tentacles lashed them together. When the hot, moist laterals touched him, Bron's field took on the same state Abel's did in prayer.

"Zeth," said Jord, "move selyn from your primary system to your secondary, and back again. Keep it up until the pain stops. Like this." There was a start from Sessly Bron when Jord's lips touched her brother's, but Maddok Bron held as steady as Owen. Zeth saw immediately how it was done, and took Owen into their transfer position. Instant relief poured through Zeth's ravaged nerves. It felt gooda"like a ma.s.sage to his nervous systema"but he was too curious to know what had caused the cramping to do more than relieve the spasms, and then return his primary system to normal.

"Thanks, Owen," he said, and turned to Jord, finding him and Bron side by side, watching him clinically. "Jord, Abel said you've had cramps, and Dad. What caused it?"

Jord moved in to zlin Zeth carefully. "When I'm so sick I can't work," he said, "I get cramps. Now Rimon is so sick he can't work. We've a.s.sumed the cramps were part of the sickness, but you're perfectly healthy. ..."

"He's never worked," said Owen, "not counting the fields."

"True, but Zetha"when you took first transfer, did it seem to come in two distinct parts?"

"Yes!" said Zeth and Owen in chorus.

"I'll bet you started using your secondary system then," said Jord. "It's been exercised, then immobilized."

"Like muscle spasms," Bron observed. "When a man works hard every day, and then cannot worka""

"Exactly!" said Jord. Then, after a pause, "I think."

So Zeth began daily exercise so his system would not go into spasms again, beginning with lessons in drawing selyn and transferring. That experience, though, he would not be allowed to tackle until after his second transfer.

With Rimon still a patient rather than a colleague, the channels' schedule was hectic, but at least there were no other cases requiring constant attention. Slina was rebuilding her pens as fast as the weather would permit, but she could not get enough replacement Gens to allow kills in any but the most extreme emergency.

The Simes from town understooda"but most could not face channel's transfer. First the ones without family drifted away . . . and then one morning, six crying children were discovered in one of the houses a.s.signed to the families from town. In the night, the adults had gone.

Abel told the children, "Your parents had to go away, but they loved you so much that they left you here, where you can grow up without worrying whether you'll be Sime or Gen."

Zeth, deep in the gloom of approaching need, thought cynically, The kids were too much bother to take along in hard times and bad weather. So they abandoned them. He thought of Jimmy Norton, hardly daring to hope his father wanted him back. Zeth had just begun to realize how lucky he was to be the first child born to a Sime and a Gen.

But Fort Freedom loved all children. By nightfall, Margid Veritt had placed all six where they would truly be loved.

That night Zeth fell into a fitful slumber, and dreamed he was a child again, abandoned by his parents. He knew they were out at the Old Homesteada"only he couldn't find it.

Then he saw them. His mother, her flaming hair a halo, her field a s.h.i.+ning glory. His father, pale, in need, holding out his arms, tentacles extended, pleading. She moved toward him, graceful, unafraida"but as she touched him, flame leaped, devouring Rimon! Zeth screamed as his father's form blazed. Kadi dropped Rimon, and turned toward Zeth, beckoninga"

Heart pounding, he sat up to hug his knees and convince himself it was only a dream. In the other bed, Owen murmured in his sleep, and Zeth zlinned fading anxiety in his friend's field. The uncanny way the Companions responded to Sime emotions, when they had no sense organs to tell them, disturbed him. Even Bron was starting to do ita"gleefully, it seemed. Owen and Hank and Trina and the others cared for the channels, but something in Bron's field seemed threatening.

He lay back, hands clasped under his head, ma.s.saging his temples with ventral tentacles as. he puzzled over exactly what he saw in Bron's field. Pity. Bron didn't hate Simes or want to hurt them ... he pitied them. That emotion never entered the fields of the Companionsa"certainly never Owen's. The Gen was deeply asleep again. Zeth let himself be drawn into sleep once morea"and drifted into another dream.

This time it was pleasant. Zeth and Owen were riding in the beautiful hills near Owen's home, carefree children, racing their horses and laughing together. Then, in the way dreams have, without transition, they were walking instead of riding, and Zeth was in changeover. The tentacles grew swiftly along his arms, emerging without effort, plunging him into deep need. Owen's nager was sweet with welcome; his hands held Zeth, steadied hima"he could feel warmth along his nerves as Owen held him with both hands ... both hands!

The realization screeched up Zeth's spine in a jolt of terror. Dream merged with reality as ,he woke up screaming, the real Owen before him as the dream Owen had beena"

"No! No!" he cried, fighting Owen off as his friend woke up enough to stop trying to restrain Zeth physically and use his field to soothe and calm.

As the terror abated, Zeth felt his Companion's arma"one arma"holding him steady. "It's only a dream, Zeth," Owen said. "It's not real. You're safe. Want to tell me about it?"

Another shudder rippled through Zeth as he remembered his abject terror at the feel of Owen's hands on his arms.

"To tell a dream makes it go away, remember?"

"You were giving me transfera"but you had both arms. I could feel both your hands on me. I don't know why I was so scared, Owen."

Lightly, Owen said, "Well, I always have both arms in my dreams, too." But Zeth didn't laugh, so he added, "You're not letting yourself be affected by superst.i.tion?"

Slina, after managing to accept transfer from Jord, had headed off to collect on long-owed favors, in the form of Gens. She returned full of stories. The tax collector had spread new rumors all along her route. It was true that the Simes of Fort Freedom could turn Simes into Gens. Hadn't the Freehand Raiders killed off most of their pen Gens? But hadn't the tax a.s.sessor found the place full of Gens? Not pen Gens, but conscious people, helping to repair the destruction wrought by the Raiders. Who could such Gens be, but some of the Simes of Fort Freedom turned Gen so they not only would not need to kill, but could provide selyn for the other Simes?

"Do you really think I'm a wer-Gen, Zeth? That I can change my shape, grow another arm at will?" But no matter how Owen tried, he could not coax a smile out of Zeth.

As his second transfer approached, Zeth spent much time at Rimon's bedside, trying to get his father interested in teaching him channeling. But Rimon had no interest in anything, responding even to Zeth or Abel with empty politeness. His burns were not healing; his body had no strength. The channels let him get deep into hard need before they let him take transfer from Hank. Instinct drove him; he drew swiftly enough to give Hank a nerve-burna"but then he closed off before transfer was complete, rejecting Hank and all the other Companions.

And Rimon was no better, the channels talking fearfully of his not feeling pain.

Abel came every day, trying to get Rimon to show some interest. Then he'd praya"and Zeth would zlin once more that dark cloud in his nager. Uel blamed himself when his transfer with Abel did not go well.

Hank said, "I think Abel's approaching crisis againa"not next month, but maybe the month after." Zeth caught the implied warning: I'llbe there for you next time, but be prepared to do without me when Abel needs me.

Zeth began to feel panic anytime Owen was distant enough that he had to zlin for him, and he s.h.i.+vered when he thought that eventually, he, too, would have to do without his Companion occasionally. As Abel went about his business, Zeth marveled at the old man's strength of will. Now Zeth could zlin how frail Abel was, his system precariously balanceda" yet his will power gave him twice the energy of anyone else in Fort Freedom. Jord had once said his father lived as much on faith as on selyn; Zeth could now believe it.

Abel's faith, though, was currently facing a test: Maddok Bron's latest revelation.

"We've been partly right all along," he told Abel excitedly one evening. "There is a demon threatening each new Sime, but the Sime is not a demon. Over many generations the words of the Holy Book have been distorted. We say that the sins of the parents are visited upon the child. Misinterpretation. If a Gen parent were simply to give transfer to his Sime child at changeover, the demon would be driven away."

"For a month," said Owen. "It's a natural cycle, not demonic possession."

"Owen," said Bron, "were you not raised in the Church of the Purity?"

"Abel's church here, yes. Not what you teach. I believe in G.o.da"probably more than a lot of out-Territory Gens."

"G.o.d doesn't punish us for ignorance. You were in a state of grace when you brought Zeth through changeover."

"I wasn't afraid."

"Exactly," said Bron. "G.o.d was with you, Owena"but you're not going to claim that if you had not been there, Zeth could have kept himself from killing?''

"Perhaps he could have," Abel put in. "Maddok, I witnessed Uel Whelan's changeover. We didn't know about channels, then. Uel thought his only choice was to kill or to diea"and he was prepared to die, until Hank persuaded him that he could give him transfer. And did."

"Yes," Bron agreed. "Your Companions. If every Gen were a Companion, the channels could devote themselves to healing."

"There are too many," said Owen, "who can't learn to give transfer."

Bron answered, "That is why G.o.d called me to Fort Freedom, made me stay to be healed, to see what you have done herea"and what I must do for you."

"Pride, Maddok," Abel said softly.

"I am but a vessel for G.o.d's will," Bron replied. "All the time I've been here, all I've heard is 'since Rimon came,' but you have said yourself that it was Kadi Farris who kept him from killing. A Gen started you on the road away from the kill. Gens keep your channels from killing even now."

"The situation is equitable," Abel replied. "The Companions care for the channels, and the channels for the rest of us."

"True, but you are overlooking the one fact that will explain your failure to disjunct."

Abel was pale, his nager tight against the guilt he refused to let cloud his judgment. "Tell us this truth you think you have discovered."

"Abel, you are a good man, strong in faith. I can no longer believe that you are a demon because you're Sime. But every month you enter a state during which a demon may possess youa"and will, if there is no one to prevent it. Once a Sime has been possessed, the weakness is there forever."

"It can be overcome," said Abel. "Rimon disjuncted. Dozens of others have done ita"Simes who no longer feel the desire to killa"to kill, as opposed to the need for selyn, Maddok. I don't know if it's possible to explain to a Gena""

"If he ever once gives transfer," said Owen, "he'll understand. Perhaps the compulsion is not so strong in a Gen, but the desire is."

"You add to my evidence, Owen," said Bron. "If it were not natural for Gens to provide transfer for Simes, those who do so would not feel it to be the privilege your Companions speak of. I pray that G.o.d grant me that privilege."

"Your prayers will be easily granted," said Abel. "I zlin the mark of the Companion in your field, Maddok. Zeth?"

"Yes," said Zeth, "but don't encourage him yet. Maddok, most of your selyn production is going to heal your wound. You're not back to full capacity, because your field is still increasinga" Oh!" Zeth suddenly realized that he was observing something he had only heard about before.

But Maddok Bron had been studying. "My field is increasing through proximity to Simes who have need of my selyn. That is also G.o.d's will. Abel, Gens are not granted this capacity so they can selfishly refuse to use it. You cannot drive out the demon alonea"but a Gen in a state of gracea""

"Maddok, if you preach any such thing to your congregation, you will be as much a killer as any Freehand Raider," Abel said firmly. "Do you want to be responsible for a parent's being killed by his own child, trying to prove he is in a state of grace?"

"It is the test," Bron answered with equal conviction. "No one should be required to attempt it. Doubt is a good reason not to. But I have no doubts. I shall prove the truth of my discovery when I free you of possession."

"When I next approach the crisis, I will not have you near me!" said Abel. He faced Bron squarely across the table. "I commend your good intentions, but your theory is devastating to the salvation of all our Simes. In need, a Sime does have the sensation that he is not in control of his own actions. I doubt you can imagine how tempting it would be to surrender all responsibility to the Gens."

"That is where it should be," Bron protested. "Why won't you let me help you?"

"Because no man can be responsible for another's salvation! Of all people, the man who has accepted the religious leaders.h.i.+p of a community must know that. Maddok, I have sworn an oath, I shall not die a killer. That vow is between G.o.d and mea"and I am responsible for keeping it. When I have achieved it, you will bear witnessa"but until that time, you will not interfere!"

Not since the day of Owen's mutilation had Zeth seen Abel so angry. He could zlin smoldering fury battling with comprehension of Maddok's total sincerity.

Abel got up and stalked out. Zeth started to follow, worried. Owen put his hand on his arm. "Let him go, Zeth. He'll go to the chapel to praya"and he'll find an answer that satisfies him."

Indeed, the next morning Abel was his usual controlled selfa"and the dark cloud was gone from his nager. But Zeth was too deep into need by now to give much thought to anyone else. Zlinning was no longer a novelty; it had become a necessity, as if he dared not use any other senses, lest he lose contact with the selyn fields that promised him life.

Zeth expected to have his second transfer in the chapel, with the people of Fort Freedom to witness. He was not comfortable with the thought, but the ritual was traditional for each new Sime. On his transfer day, though, Uel told him, "Abel thinks it would be better to postpone the witnessing, Zeth. People are too busy," But Zeth zlinned clearly that that was not the whole truth. Abel, who was not a channel, feared something might go wrong . . . and the channels concurred?

He could not hold his mind on the question. Some time later, Owen dragged him momentarily duoconscious as lord was saying, "Take him along and give him transfer, Owen. Be patienta"treat it like First Transfer and you'll both be fine."

By this time, Zeth craved privacy and Owen. They went to the Veritt house, into the insulated room where Abel had coached Marji Carson through changeover. Zeth sat down on the couch, and rested in the warm promise of his Companion's field.

There was no hurry. Need was again a peculiar pleasure now that Owen's attention was fixed on Zeth alone, his "need to give" soothing away all Zeth's nervous jangles.

As he zlinned Owen, he found it happening again: the field pattern of Owen's left arm was there, just as if it had never been cut off. Spurred by a weak echo of his nightmare terror, Zeth forced himself duoconsciousa"and found his eyes and his Sime senses in disagreement. "Your arm," he whispered.

Owen shrugged. "I still feel it sometimes. Now. It never went away, like your dad said it would. I forgota"you zlinned it last time, didn't you? You kept reachinga"well, don't worry." He took off his s.h.i.+rt. "There. You can find your grip whenever you're ready."

It had become habit now to find the rich nerves at the back of Owen's neck. It was as good as Zeth remembereda"maybe better. When it was over, he lay back, breathing deeply, letting his body reaccustom itself to full lifea"

And the world came cras.h.i.+ng down.

Mama! Dad! It was real for the first timea"raw, and new. Strangled sobs rose in his throata"he could not force a scream past his tears. In one moment of irresponsible curiosity, he had led his friends into the midst of a battle, creating the legend of the wer-Gen, which led to his mother's death. His father would never recover.

In nameless, shuddering fury, he grabbed blindly, his fingers closing on the marble candle holder on the table beside the couch, the lit candle falling to the floor. He felt Owen's alarmed dive to catch it only as a vague movement at the edge of awareness. Something inside him adjusted in a new way. He threw the star-shaped chunk of marble at the nearest wall, fully expecting it to clatter to the floor. Instead, it crashed through the wall and landed with a crack and a clatter in the adjacent bathroom.

At the shock of the noise in the empty house, he found himself staring at the hole in the wall by the light of the candle Owen held. His rage had evaporated.

"Margid's going to be upset," said Owen in a thin attempt at lightness. "You know the rulea"no augmenting within the gates."

"Is that whata"yes, I did!"

Owen groaned. "n.o.body's had time to teach you that!"

"It's not important," said Zeth dully.

"Zetha"what's wrong?"

"Mama!" he spat, annoyed at the Gen's denseness. "Mama's dead!" It turned into a sob that caught in his throat. "Owen, she's gone, and Dad is dying, and Abela"!" The rest dissolved into hysterical gasps. His once-secure home was in ruins. The Old Fort, with its volatile mixture of Simes and Gens, was in grave danger of not surviving the winter. But most of all, never again would his mother hold or comfort him, and he understood the emptiness in Rimon's field where Kadi had been. A major part of Rimon Farris had died with Kadia"and what was left would not survive for long.

Owen held Zeth, just as Del Erick had held Owen in the chapel the day of the memorial service. Owen said through his own tears, "I loved Kadi too, Zeth. We're all going to miss hera"your father most of all. But we'll pull Rimon through. Jord survived after Willa dieda""

"No!" Zeth shook his head vehemently. "You can't zlin him. Owen. It's as if he's dead already. And Abela"Abel's going to disjunct if it kills hima"and it will!"

"Come on, Zetha"don't imagine things. Cry for Kadi. Grieve for what's real, not what might be."