Channel's Destiny Part 18

"I don't require you to keep the demons away," Zeth snapped.

"Come on, Zetha"you know that's superst.i.tion. It's like Abel said: you take care of other Simes, and I take care of you. It all works out equally between Simes and Gens."

"No, Owen. It leaves Gens running things because they control the channels. I don't want you controlling me!"

"I'm nota""

"Oh, yeah? Don't tell me you don't know what you're doing right now, trying to calm me down when I don't want to calm down! I want to think. Why don't you just run along and see Sue Norton? I'm going to visit my father."

The Nortons were back again, along with Glian Lodge, all staying with Del Erick. Del, however, was in Rimon's sickroom, high-fielda"the visit of his Gen guests was timed for thata"and therefore no irritation to Rimon. Zeth had noticed how carefully Del timed his visits, and how faithfully he came, despite Rimon's indifference.

"You should have zlinned Glian when Jana cut those horses out for him!" he was telling Rimon proudly. "He said he's never seen a girl ride like that. Of course she explained to him just how she selected the best stock." He chuckled. "He said he'd like to replace his wrangler with Jana." He looked up. "Hi, Zeth. Where's Owen?"

"Over at your house. I don't have to have a watchdog every minute!"

"Hey," said Del, "n.o.body said you did. I was just asking about my son. What's wrong, Zeth?"

Rimon seemed not to have noticed either Del's conversation or Zeth's entrance. Anni Steers was sitting on the other side of the bed, her attention focused on her knitting so as to be ,as un.o.btrusive as possible. Zeth recalled that she was pregnant againa"and Uel teasing Hank about how he had found time to accomplish that feat. It never seemed to bother Uel to rely on Hanka"in fact, now that he thought about it, even the way people referred to them was different. Rimon and Kadi. Zeth and Owen. Marji and Trina. Always the channel firsta"except Hank and Uel.

The silence stretched until Zeth blurted, "I'm tired of Owen pushing me around."

"Does he?" asked Del. "Just to exercise power?"

"No," Zeth admitted. "He thinks it's for my own good."

"Maybe he's a little tactless? Should I talk to him, Zeth? I can't fully understand the relationship between a channel and his Companion, but often an outsider can help when someone too closely involved can't."

But Zeth couldn't explain. Owen wasn't tactless. He was just supremely confident . . . and Zeth wasn't. He found himself saying exactly that to Del.

"And why do you think that is?" Del asked.

"Because Owen has faced death," Zeth realized, "and I haven't. I thought I had when I was trapped in the stable at Mountain Chapel but I didn't really come close to dying, because of Owen."

Del smiled. "And so you resent Owen's ability to take care of you. I can remember Rimon and Kadi arguing over the same problem." He looked hopefully toward Rimon, his field ringing with expectancy, but Zeth's father did not respond.

"Dad's getting worse," said Zeth.

"It's chronic need. Get one good transfer into hima""

"Who's going to do it?" Zeth demanded. "Owen's his only match!"

After a pause, Del said, "If you can face that, Zetha"if you can give up Owen, just once, you'll conquer the feeling that he's controlling you."

Zeth considered, automatically blending his nager into the room to ease his father's aching fields while at the same time choking down the panic Del's suggestion brought. Then, in desperation, he said, "I could match him now!"

In a very sad, quiet tone, Del said, "Rimona"needsa" killbliss. Kadi could let him have that."

"Well, Owen doesn't have it to give. But I could learn. I've got to learn!" He hoped he hid from Del the irrational panic that accompanied that resolve.

That evening, Zeth tackled Jord, convincing him to let Zeth watch him giving transfer to a junct. Dan Whelan, Uel's father, volunteered since he was .lord's last client of the day. "I guess," he said nervously, "this is the only way you can learn. And if it saves Rimona""

"Come on, Dan," prompted Jord. Zeth went hyperconscious, watching as Jord's show-field rose to entice Dan into transfer contact. Zeth concentrated, letting the fields soak through his system. Dan's draw was a savage ripping away of selyn, shallow and slow compared to the channels, but Jord put up a mock resistance laced with pain and fear. Dan reveled in pain which became its own pleasure, mocking the pleasure Zeth knew with Owen.

No! Without conscious intent, Zeth was duoconscious, his showfield dominating the room, damping down every shred of that mounting bliss he could not face. Dan Whelan wrenched away from Jord in a thudding agony of shen.

"Out!" Jord shouted at Zeth, and moved to grasp the older man's tentacles. When Zeth didn't move, Jord growled, "Out before I shen you!"

"I'm sorry," he whispered as he groped for the door. Afterwards, Uel found him on the steps of the chapel.

"Zeth, you'll freeze to death out here. Come on inside. I have an idea."

Reluctantly, Zeth went with him, knowing that Owen had put him up to this. And sure enough, Hank and Owen were waiting with Jord in the chapel. Both Jord and Zeth apologized, and Uel said, "None of us is qualified to teach Zeth. But we've got to improvise until Rimon gets better."

He went on to suggest how Zeth could partic.i.p.ate in a junct's transfer without over-controlling Jord, by emptying his secondary system into Uel's so that he couldn't grab the fields. It took all day to set it up, Zeth and Uel giving transfers without accepting donations, in order to empty their systems. Even so, Zeth's "small" amount of selyn nearly staggered Uel.

Margid Veritt was the next volunteer, over lord's objection. "You're too deep into need, Mother. Dan was earlya""

"There's no point in delaying then, is there?" she asked, and Zeth found his own throat tightening at the shrill tremor in her usually low-pitched voice. He could not seem to grow used to the trembling anxiety of need in the people who had been strong adults to him all his life.

Selyn flowed, and Margid's field erupted with pleasure as Jord provided resistance. Desire peaked into pain, reveling in pain, s.a.d.i.s.tic pleasure, pain as pleasurea"

The point where Zeth had shenned out was reached and pa.s.sed, as he hung on, determined not to hurt Margid. He shared the pain/pleasure killbliss growing in her and kindling something horrifying in himself; the knowledge of what it meant to be Sime. He wanted paina"he craved the ultimate agony of seared Gen nerves dying under his tentacles!

Roaring to a peak of satisfaction, Margid exulted. Then a new agony closed round like a black clouda"a"guilt. Zeth flinched away from it, ripped down into hypoconsciousness, the fields disappearing and the candle-lit killroom emerging. His hands were clamped about the joined arms of Jord and Margid, his tentacles lashing them all together. His convulsive grip flashed real pain through them all.

The next thing he knew he was on the floor, Owen flinging himself across the room and Uel dashing to Margid's side, while Jord bent over his own bruised arms.

Jord said, "You weren't supposed to touch us."

"I didn't know I had." He put his hand around Owen's neck and let the Gen help him up, then moved to Jord's side. He found where Jord's fields were disturbed and, using what little selyn there was in his secondary system, projected a soothing effect. Wik, acting as Jord's Companion today, did the same on the other side as Zeth instructed him, and soon Jord was feeling better.

"lord," said Uel, finishing with Margid, "this just proves what I was saying. None of us can teach Zeth anymore. He's got to teach himself, now."

Zeth went to Margid, apologizing. "But I think I did learn something," he offered. If I ever have the courage to use it! And if it doesn't destroy mea"as it has you.

For as he watched the woman who had been a second mother to him leave the transfer room, he was trying desperately to recapture the feeling he had always had for her. He felt again that hideous compulsion to derive pleasure from Gen pain. Her satisfied expression woke revulsion in him. And he couldn't make himself zlin Owen at all.

Each time Zeth tried to produce killbliss his own fear drove him out of rapport. Although Jord actually respected Zeth for the inability, Zeth faced the fact that his efforts to learn were destroying what channeling ability he did have. Furthermore, he had hurt Margid. He could feel her shame whenever she looked at him.

One morning, Zeth was trying to get several people acutely in need of a junct-satisfying transfer off his schedule and onto lord's. The schedule was kept on a chalkboard in the back hall of the chapel, and Zeth stood with chalk in his fingers and an eraser in his tentacles, raising a cloud of white dust and creating more problems than he was solving.

Bekka Trent came in, watched him for a few minutes, and said, "Zeth, why. are you wasting a channel's time on that? There are three people waiting for you."

"I'm coming," he muttered, continuing to scribble.

After a moment, Bekka said sharply, "Zeth! Here, let me take care of the schedule. You go do your work."

"You don't know how to match peoplea""

"Well, tell me." She stretched on tiptoe to lift the board down from its hook. "Why did you change Risko?"

"He's used to choice kills from Slina's pen and he's voluntarily not killing now, to help us through the winter. He deserves better than I can give him, Bekka.''

"Better!" She shuddered. "Noa"I understand. But if you move him to the afternoona"" To Zeth's amazement, Bekka soon created order from the chaos on the board.

By the time Zeth had finished the morning's work, Bekka had arranged a schedule that used the four channels more efficiently than Zeth had seen since he had begun working. Marji, who still tired easily, said to Zeth, "Thank you for putting Bekka in charge. I thought I was going to drop!" The schedule didn't last long, however. Just as Zeth and Owen were headed to their next appointment, Trina Morgan came running up. "Zetha"your father's calling for you!"

Zeth had to force himself not to augment as he dashed to the chapel, Owen right behind him. Rimon was thrashing on his bed, calling out, "Zeth! No, Zetha"NO!" His field was chaotic agony, and all Marji's efforts to restrain him served at most to keep him from flinging himself off the bed.

Zeth tried to mesh fields, knowing that Rimon was not hearing anything.

"Zeth, I didn't mean it! I didn't know it was you!" The words made no sense, but Zeth continued calming Rimon with his field, hoping recognition would bring his father out of the nightmare. Eventually his hysteria subsided, but Rimon sank from sharp anguish into bleak despair . . . and from there into the coma-like sleep that had claimed him lately.

Marji's round brown eyes were worried. "When he started calling for you, I thought maybe it was a good sign, buta""

"He's worried about you, Zeth," said Owen. "I think it is a good sign." But Owen couldn't know that Rimon had not shown the slightest recognition of Zeth's presence.

When they emerged from the sickroom, Bekka had rearranged the schedule, and they were able to go right on to another appointment without a conference. By the end of the day, the channels were wondering what they had ever done without Bekka, and she had found a full-time occupation.

The winter became a constant sequence of storms, and Fort Freedom battled snow and temperatures far below freezing. Maddok and Sessly Bron finally managed to go home between storms. Like his sister, Bron insisted on donating selyn before he left. It was clearly a part of his new belief that Gens had the obligation to give transfer, though it didn't go over well with his congregation.

Zeth heard the news about three weeks before year's turning. By now Zeth and Owen were automatically included in the council sessions around the kitchen table. This one was called when Glian Lodge, Eph Norton, and Lon Carson appeared one day, blown in on a storm swooping out of the west. The other channels were busy; Zeth, to his deep chagrin, was the one who could most easily be spared from the schedule.

Abel managed to be there, pale and drawn. Zeth wondered if with his more powerful field, had he only been able to use what he'd learned with Margid, he might have given Abel a normal transfer. Seeing his gaze, Abel whispered, "I'm all right, Zeth. Soon you will do for me what you did for Bekka."

The out-Territory Gens had brought coins to cover the tax money Fort Freedom had had to paya"but otherwise what they brought was bad news. "The ranches are in trouble," said Glian Lodge. "I lost three top hands in the battle, and others lost more. Two of the ranchers killed got no kids old enough to take over. Their wives are thinking of selling out . . . and this is no time to bring new people into our area. I don't even want to hire men on when we don't know how they'll accept these, uh, trips across the border."

"You mean they might set spies on us," Eph said angrily. "Tell them about the horses, Glian."

Lodge grimaced. "Remember those prime horses I bought from your pa, Owen? d.a.m.n government agent confiscated 'em!"

"What?" asked Zeth. "But why?"

"The ownership marks showed they're from Sime Territorya" but so what? Lots of people raid across the border for horses. I bought a couple a few years back that probably came from the same herd. But now the Border Patrol's roused, and they came along and took the horses as 'evidence' for an 'investigation.' I dunno what's gonna happen in the spring."

"I'm afraid I know how the government was alerted," said Lon Carson. "Maddok Bron caused a rift in the church when he started preaching that everybody had to give transfer to prove they're in a state of grace. Those of us from Fort Freedom are willing to learna"but you can imagine how most people feel. The elders didn't have quite enough votes to kick Bron outa"but only because removing the minister takes a two-thirds majority. Half the town has either packed up and left, or will as soon as the weather permits."

Abel sighed. "Why didn't I think to discuss practical aspects of his theory with Maddok? I was so angry at his foolishness . . . and wrath is a sin."

"Listen," said Carson, "he's coming back here the end of the montha"says he's got to give a real transfer. So you can talk with him then, Abela""

"No!" Abel's vehemence startled Zeth, but the old Sime calmed at once. "No, not until spring. He's not fully recov- ered from his wound, and should not attempt such a difficult journey in the middle of winter.

Zeth zlinned the apprehension under the old man's surface calm and felt a fierce protectiveness. If Bron so much as lays a finger on Abel, I'lla": Carson was saying, "I don't think there's any more stopping him than there is stopping you when you feel G.o.d's will, Abel. So we got real trouble. We thought we were going to be able to help Fort Freedom out. Now half our workers are planning to leave at spring thaw, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was someone from Mountain Chapel alerted the Border Patrol."

So the Freehand Raiders' strike had decimated all three communities. The fragments left, Zeth saw clearly, could not survive independently. "Simes could work your fields much more efficiently than Gens," he suggested.

"And how do we explain that to the Border Patrol?" Glian asked, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

"Now wait a minute," said Eph. "I sure would like to bring Jimmy home, once he's ... all right again. But, Zeth, just for being here talking to you, we're all liable to be executed and our property confiscated. I just don't knowa""

"What we've done here," said Zeth, "is change the law. A little bit, anyway. We still haven't managed to get Gens recognized as people, but eventually, we'll do that, too."

Abel put a hand over Zeth's. "It's good to plan for the future, Zetha"but right now we have to help one another survive this winter. I'm afraid," he added to the Gens, "you'll have to curtail your visits. The worst of the winter is yet to come. No one will travel much until springa"and then we'll have a single courier again. If you are too badly hara.s.sed, you are welcome here. Is there anything we can give you to help you through the winter?"

There was a flurry of letter writing. Eph insisted on donating before he left, "To help support my son," and Lon Carson donated as well. Glian shrugged, said, "Don't look as if it hurts none," and also gave selyn. Then he went with Zeth and Owen over to the house Del Erick was using for the duration. There they found Jana struggling with a recalcitrant flue in the kitchen stove.

"I hate cooking!" she declared when they had the stovepipe drawing properly and the smoke cleared away.

Glian Lodge laughed. "You keep on handling horses the way you do, and you'll never have to cook. Maybe in the spring you can come visit me, Jana."

"Surea"I'd like to go out-Territory before I change over. Zeth and Owen have. Boys always get to do the good things."

Jana's cooking certainly wasn't good enough to tempt a Sime, and even Owen's hearty appet.i.te rebelled after half a plate of her stew. Del arrived home from checking his stock while they were still at the table.

Zeth noticed how normal the family gathering seemed: two Simes, two Gens, and a child, all talking and laughing together comfortably. What he had been used to all his lifea" until the world had turned inside out. It wasn't right that families should be illegala"on either side of the border. At least it wasn't wholly forbidden herea"

What if we moved the border?

At Zeth's surge of excitement, Del smiled at him, but Glian Lodge was at that moment holding forth on some of the technicalities of ranching. Zeth subsided into shiversa"and had time to wonder why he should feel cold and locate the source: Jana. She had moved her chair close to the stove, and was huddled up in a big sweater. He zlinned hera"then got up and went over to her, Owen following.

He bent down, taking her freezing hands in his, and said softly, "I'm afraid you're not going out-Territory, after all, Jana."

She looked up at him out of the blue eyes that were her only claim to beauty. "But I don't feel bad," she said. "I'm just cold."

Although he had never zlinned a changeover victim before, Zeth said confidently, "Owen can tell you how cold I got."

Del came over. ' 'Changeover? Zeth, I can't zlin the slightest signa"but then, your father can always tell hours before the first symptoms."

Lodge's first response was "Oh, the poor kid." When that drew odd looks, he grinned sheepishly. "I guess you don't really mind, huh?" Luckily, his field was too low to bother any of them.

"I'll see her through it, Del," said Zeth. "Would you please let Bekka know where Owen and I are? There goes the schedule again!"

Bringing Owen's sister through changeover was the most pleasant duty Zeth had yet performed as a channel. Her breakout came late the next afternoon, and as he gave her transfer he felt as he had not felt in weeksa"competent, fulfilled.

When it was over, Jana kissed both Zeth and her brother, then sat back and examined her new tentacles dispa.s.sionately. "But I'm not a channel," she said.

"We can't all be," Owen reminded her. "Congratulations. Now you can really help Pa with the horses!"

She thought a moment. "Yeah, I guess that's what I wanted all along," she said with a smile.

In the excitement of Jana's changeover partya"a much appreciated excuse for a happy celebrationa"Zeth forgot all about moving the border.

From the emotional high of his first First Transfer, Zeth sank into worry about his father's strange hallucinations. Over and over he would call for Zetha"but never recognize his son when he came. Del solved the mystery when Zeth described one of the attacks to him. "It's not you, Zetha"it's the Zeth you were named for. Rimon's cousina"the Sime he killed in first Need. He's in chronic need just like before Kadi established, and he's reliving his First Kill." He sighed. "I wish I knew if it helps to visit him. He doesn't even look at me anymore."

"He knows you're there," Zeth half lied. Rimon's field responded to the ambient . . . but Zeth doubted that Rimon recognized anyone these days.

Nor could Zeth go to Abel with his troubles. The old man was declining toward crisis, and when he was capable of a few hours of alertness, he was most likely to spend them with Jimmy Norton, telling him how he had broken his ties with the Freeband Raiders, encouraging the boy to disjunct, As Abel fully intended to do.