First Channel Part 12

"Certainly, if you can think of a way."

Jord looked Kadi up and down while Rimon fought for self-control. "Since you already know how not to kill, take one of the Gens from Slima's Pens this month-and let Mrs. Farris teach me."

"Why you-!" Rimon leaped for Jord's throat, tentacles spread for a killing grip, knocking the other man from his horse, the two of them rolling, struggling on the ground.

Abel Veritt dismounted in a flash of augmented motion, coming between the fighters, his wife at his side in an instant, pulling their son back while Veritt grasped Rimon. "Stop this!" he thundered. "Will you prove that Simes are no better than beasts?"

Kadi came up beside Rimon, trying to project calm. "Rimon, please!" she begged. "Jord doesn't understand!" Veritt relinquished Rimon into her care, turning to his son.

"Oh, he understands!" he said, advancing to where Jord stood. "You disgust me! Flesh of my flesh and child of my sin. You're the punishment G.o.d has meted out to me for being seduced into the Freehand Raiders when I first changed over. Your birth killed your mother, who had rescued me from a life of sin. Now you stand there, a disgrace to the woman who raised you as her own son."

"All I ask is for these people to do what they say they can do!"

Rimon felt the urge to leap at him again, but Kadi held him back as Veritt berated Jord. "Do you think we're all fools? Do you think we have not all experienced the l.u.s.t of the flesh which follows repletion of selyn? You l.u.s.t after another man's wife, Jord. Did you think to hide that shame beneath your garbled logic?" He took a breath, and said firmly, "You will go directly back to the chapel and spend the rest of this night on your knees, begging G.o.d's forgiveness. Perhaps tomorrow you'll be ready to beg forgiveness of Mr. and Mrs. Farris."

Veritt and Jord stared at one another fiercely. Then Jord dropped his gaze like a whipped animal. Kadi, standing with her arm around Rimon's shoulders, felt a surge of pity for Jord that brought Rimon to his senses.. Fighting like dogs in the street! A Farris! He took a deep, shuddering breath and gathered himself to face Abel on his own, his control still tenuous. "I must apologize, Abel-Jord-Mrs. Veritt. I overreacted. I'm not in need and have no excuse."

"You were provoked," said Veritt. "You're young-and Sime. In all the time you've been here, I've never seen you lose your temper. I was much older than you before I achieved sure control over my nature."

"Thank you," said Rimon, still wanting to protest.

"We'll go home now," said Veritt, "and leave you and Kadi to rest. I'll see that my son never again makes such an indecent suggestion."

Rimon and Kadi rode home in silence. As they prepared for bed, though, Rimon was thinking that they did indeed owe people some proof of what they promised. He said, "Jord was right."

"You-want to try his experiment?"

He turned on her, enraged at that idea. "Is that what you want? Is it, Kadi?"

"What do you mean, Rimon?"

"I noticed how you sympathized with him after he as much as called you a wh.o.r.e! If you were Sime, you'd know how enticing you are."

"Well, I'm not Sime! And I'm glad!" said Kadi.

Fists on his hips, Rimon looked her up and down. "What an uppity Gen! Choice kill, that's for sure. Small wonder Jord and his friends are after you. The very idea they could have you and not kill you, so that afterwards they could have that, too! It must surely be driving them crazy."

Her shock thrilled through him, her pain a pleasure to his overwrought nerves. She fought for control.

"Rimon, why don't you relax and let me make you feel better?"

"Oh yes-let you make me happy and carefree, so you can do as you please? You really have become a witch, haven't you? It's like Dad said-you can get a Sime in your power and control him completely! Well, you're not going to control me. I'm my own man, and you just keep your kill.u.s.ting field out of my nager!"

He reveled in the shock and pain that went through her at his vile gutter language. Then he turned and stalked out of the house, holding himself from zlinning lest she somehow reach out and affect him again.

He walked around the side of the hill, half-expecting Kadi to come running after him. But she didn't. Shen the wench anyway! He plunged on, fighting the desire to enter hunting mode, until he was beyond Kadi's influence. In the darkness, where the moonlight didn't penetrate, his left foot came up sharply against a small rock. Feeling like some stupid, stumbling Gen, he kicked spitefully at the rock.

Somehow, the pain cleared his head. He sat down, removing his boot and rubbing his foot as the pain subsided. No, he hadn't broken any bones-but why was he behaving like a Sime in hard need? What did he want from Kadi? When she tried to help him, he pushed her away-and when she held herself aloof, he resented that, too. He didn't understand her. How could a Sime understand a Gen? How could she help always doing the wrong thing? She was only a Gen.

Pulling on his boot, he limped back to the house. Kadi was asleep, her tear-stained face buried in Rimon's pillow, which she clutched against herself. He pitied her helplessness, zlinned her, and found that she was cold.

She woke as he drew the blanket over her, and reached for him. He drew back. "Not now, Kadi."

She sat up as he stripped off his clothing and pulled on pajamas. When he stretched out on the edge of the bed away from her, turning his back stiffly to her, she still sat there s.h.i.+vering a little. "Rimon. We've got to talk."

"I'm tired," he replied gruffly. "We'll talk tomorrow."

"No," said Kadi, firmly, "If you don't want me anymore, I'm leaving tomorrow."

He sat up, eyes wide. "What?"

"If I'm hurting you, controlling you, turning you into something unnatural, then I can't stay with you. I can speak the Gen language now; I know something of their customs. Carlana will give me some clothing that Gens think proper for a woman. If you can't give me a horse, Del will. I'll make out."

"Kadi-no!" His tentacles extended, gripping air in shock. "I can't let you go... I didn't mean what I said any of it. Not any of it, Kadi. Believe me, oh, please believe me." The tears were his own now, not an echo of hers.

"Then what's wrong with us to make you say those things?"

"It's not us, it's me. I don't know what's wrong with me. I just go crazy thinking of anyone laying a tentacle on you. And when I watch someone zlinning you, it's like a knife in my guts, twisting..."

She put her arms around him, bewildered. "But Rimon, I've never wanted anyone but you. I can't even stand the thought... Zlin me for the truth of it, Rimon-zlin me deeply," she said, pulling his hands into position and coaxing his laterals into contact with her arms. "I'd never give transfer to anyone else, certainly never let them have me afterwards. If I leave you, I go to live alone for the rest of my life. I know that-and I know my life wouldn't be very long. But I don't care, if it would make you well at last."

He disentangled the contact and drew her to his chest. "Kadi, you could survive without me-but I couldn't survive one month without you. I think that's what scares me so. I'm only beginning to realize how much stronger you are than I am. You can walk away from me-anytime you want."

"No, I can't," she said deliberately. "Unless you throw me out."

Oh, never! Holding her, he let her field penetrate into him. Then, puzzled, he held her away. "Lie down. I want to check something."

"What?" she asked as she lay flat and he extended his laterals again, spreading his hands over her chest, running them down to her abdomen, seeking the source of the faint anomaly he'd zlinned.

"Yes!" he said, brightening suddenly. "Yes, it is! It is, it is, Kadi, it is!"

"What!" she demanded, though he sensed she knew.

"Our b'aby! We're going to have a baby!" Then he sobered. "My baby. My heir. So soon. So soon."

Kadi beamed, completely missing the dread fear that threatened Rimon's happiness. He pushed it aside. They'd manage-hadn't they managed to survive everything so far? He let himself dissolve into Kadi's delight.

Chapter Ten.

TRAGEDY OF IGNORANCE.

In the days that followed the discovery that Kadi was pregnant, Rimon made a deliberate attempt to control his emotions. The way he'd lashed out at Jord Veritt-and then at Kadi-disturbed him more than he wanted Kadi to know. One night he wakened in a cold sweat, his laterals fully extended, convinced that he was savagely draining the selyn out of Jord. He hadn't been able to sleep for three nights after that, and when he did finally fall into a doze, it deepened into an episode of near coma, and he woke to Kadi's frantic efforts to rouse him.

He'd had need nightmares all his adult life until Kadi established, but never before turnover. He didn't dare tell her about them. She was so happy now, humming and singing as she prepared for the winter and made plans for the baby. For her, the fight had cleared the air, making everything fresh and new again. But Rimon kept remembering how he'd stormed out on her, with the killrage singing in his veins, wanting to hunt. That feeling wasn't gone after the fight. Every few days; in a dream or while riding within zlinning distance of Slina's Pens, or in the presence of a post-kill Sime, it would come back sharp and clear. And his resolve never to kill again, would be shaken, and that scared him more than anything. Never had he felt this way about the kill.

He couldn't discuss it with Kadi. How could a Sime discuss kill.u.s.t with a Gen? There was no Sime he could discuss it with either. Del had his own problems. Carlana and the people of Fort Freedom-no, they'd lose faith in him. He had to fight-and win-this battle alone. He couldn't lean on Kadi now.

Despite her age in natal years, she was still only six months a woman. However much he had yearned for their child, it was too soon. Her cycles had barely begun. His father never bred female Gens until they'd been established for a full year or their cycles stabilized completely. He wasn't even sure if she had stabilized. He had been so frantic to relieve himself, he hadn't even been aware of her fertility.

If anything goes wrong, it's my fault, my fault.

The next day, as they went about their work in the house. Kadi watched him warily, sticking close to his side. At midmorning, she straightened from spreading the straw they were using for warmth on the floor of their house. "Someone's corning."

As soon as she said it, he heard the hoofbeats-but he zlinned no one, either Sime or Gen. "Children?"

They went outside, as the horses started around the side of the hill. He did, indeed, zlin the faint nager of children.

"Mr. Farris? Mrs. Farris? Is anyone home?"

They walked down the hill to find two visitors from Fort Freedom dismounting: Drust Fenell and his girlfriend Rimon fumbled for her name-Vee, that was it. Vee La.s.siter. Both were on the brink of adolescence, and as inseparable as Rimon and Kadi had been at their age.

"Hi!" said Drust. "We've come to trespa.s.s on your land."

"No one from Fort Freedom trespa.s.ses here," said Kadi. "You're always welcome."

"Thank you," said the boy. "My ma sent you some wool." He untied a roll of heavy cloth and handed it to Kadi. "It was supposed to be a coat for me for the winter, but I'm not gonna be here to wear it."

"Why not?" asked Rimon.

Drust laughed. "Look at me! Even Mr. Veritt says it's not presumptuous to say I can't possibly become Sime, now."

It was true. The boy was not only already taller than Rimon, but filled out to a muscular Gen build. His hands were large and square, callused with hard work, yet he was gentle as he put an arm around the waist of the girl with him. "We're going up top of the pa.s.s to look over to Gen Territory and decide where we're going to meet."

"To meet?" asked Kadi.

"Drust will establish any day now," said Vee. "Later, if-"

"When," said Drust. "When Vee establishes, she'll come to me. I know where Elin Lol went, and others from Fort Freedom. It won't be so hard to go, knowing Vee will join me."

Rimon nodded silently. Drust rushed on, "Mr. Farris, my ma says you're awful sensitive. She can't zlin anything yet, but maybe you could..."

"Of course," said Rimon, awed to be consulted by this boy who so wanted to be Gen. He wondered-a boy like this, raised by Simes-could he learn to be unafraid, like Kadi?

He thrust the thought from his mind as he remembered Billy. No experiments with the children of friends!

"Come on," he said. "We'll have to get away from Kadi's field."

Need slid into his consciousness as they moved apart from Kadi and Vee, but it was not strong yet-just enough to sharpen his perception of Drust's field. He'd done this often enough with the whelps of his father's Gens, looking for the accidental Sime among them.

"Uh, Drust, I'll have to make lateral contact to be sure."

"It's all right, Mr. Farris. Jord Veritt's been screening me for weeks now. I'll be still."

As Rimon circled to put himself between Kadi and the boy, he said, "Can I ask a-personal question?"

"Sure."

"Did-uh-do your parents ever touch you with their tentacles?"

"Oh, yeah, of course." He reached for Rimon's hands confidently.

"All right, be still then for a moment." He concentrated, zlinning Drust right down to the cellular level. Nothing.

As he dismantled the contact, Drust started, but his nager had so little power that Rimon didn't even react. "What's the matter?"

"It's all over? You did it?" He looked at his arms. "You didn't even bruise me."

Rimon realized he had held the boy very loosely. "I trusted you not to move. You wouldn't have wanted to hurt me." Which was rather strange, he realized. He'd never trusted a child like that before. Was Kadi destroying all his reflexes?

"Oh," said Drust, with a trace of reverence Rimon wasn't sure he liked. Then, "What did you find?"

Rimon smiled, shaking his head. "Not yet. There's not the slightest sign of establishment-or changeover, either."

Drust shrugged. "I'm glad. I'm not ready to leave, but Ma thought maybe..." Drust was Sara Fenell's son. Rimon wondered if she feared that her kill-and enjoyment of it-on the day of the Wild Gen raid would condemn her son to life as a Sime.

"I'm glad, too," said Vee. "Maybe we'll both establish together."

Rimon zlinned her with senses sharpened by the exercise with Drust. Oh, no- "Vee," he said gently, "I think we'd better take you home. Both of you."

"Oh, but Drust and I are going to picnic up top of the pa.s.s! We have permission-honest."

"You're not going to feel like picnicking in an hour or two," Rimon said. "Come on. You'll be most comfortable at home.", "Should we take her in the wagon?" asked Kadi.

"No! There's nothing wrong with Vee!"

"It's not wrong," Kadi said. "It's just changeover."

Vee screamed. It was the agonized, despairing cry of a trapped animal.

When Vee caught her breath, she cried, "No! You're lying! I'm not a Sime-my parents are good!" The raw self-loathing took Rimon completely by surprise, though it shouldn't have.

Drust took her into his arms. "It's not true," he said. "Mr. Farris must be wrong. You're fine-Vee, you're not even feverish." He held a hand to her forehead, glaring at Rimon.

"Drust, you know I'm right."

"No one can tell before the fever starts!" He cradled Vee against him, as if Rimon were trying to curse her.

"Drust, you're not helping Vee by denying the truth," Kadi said. "She'll be more comfortable at home, with her family, and you can stay with her until it's over."

Vee turned tear-drenched eyes up to Kadi. "I don't want to be Sime! I'm not a monster!"

Kadi recoiled. "How could you possibly think you were? Your parents, Mr. Veritt, all the Simes at Fort Freedom are good people-and now you won't have to leave them."