First Channel

"This male came in today's shipment," Farris was explaining. "The raiders caught him at the border. It's not one you know, Rimon, but he's from in-Territory—and spirited. He's been waiting for you all afternoon. This should do it for you, Son."

"Thank you, Father," said Rimon quietly. As he left, he steeled himself inwardly. It wouldn't be Nerob. It was just another Gen, and he would do what he had to do before he disgraced himself by taking an unauthorized Gen—or worse.

He put it all aside. The boy who awaited him was perhaps fourteen years old, stocky, with bronze-colored hair and expressive hazel eyes. He wore only the yawal, the clean white smock of the killroom, and a collar and chain. The chain was fastened high on the wall, so that although his arms and legs were free he could not move very far from the couch on which he sat—crouched, rather, like a frightened animal.

His fear burned into Rimon's strained nerves. Ravenous need sang through every cell of Rimon's body as he approached. The boy cowered for a moment. Then determination sprang to his eyes as he sat up straight and watched Rimon come nearer, glancing from Rimon's face to his wrists, where the laterals were now beyond any control, extended, drinking in the Gen's blazing field, dripping ronaplin.

When Rimon put out a hand to release the chain from the boy's collar, the boy flinched, then held still, his nager flaring hope along with his deep fear as fingers and tentacles hit the eight points on each side of the collar to release the lock. When the chain fell free, the huge hazel eyes looked up at Rimon. "Are you letting me go?"

Simelan. He realized he had been hoping the boy would remain silent, making it possible to regard him as an animal, like the Wild Gens. Coherent speech was an unfair tactic. He jerked the boy to his feet. "You shut up!"

"Please, let me go. I'll do anything!" As the boy continued to plead, his words disappeared into the swirling selyn fields. Rimon's Sime senses took over. No longer did his strong hands hold a physical body, but a bright field of pulsing energy. His emptiness screamed to be filled.

He seized the boy's forearms with hands and handling tentacles, seating the hungry laterals. As he contacted Gen skin, Rimon felt the long-ignored ache in his chest loosen, and instinct drove him to seek the fifth contact point with his lips. The Gen was a writhing mass of energy, charged with the fear that made it impossible for Rimon to resist. Energy poured from the Gen to him, satisfying his need, pulsing new life into every nerve, driven by the ecstatic force of the Gen's fear, completing, fulfilling, to burst into a brilliant rapture and a blissful moment's loss of physical awareness.

Rimon was brought back to reality by the tug of a dead weight on his arms. The Gen's eyes were still open, staring up at him accusingly. Like Zeth's. With a strangled cry, he dropped the corpse—no different in death than a Sime. It crumpled to the floor, still staring at him. Those dead eyes glaring from fear-contorted features held him, hypnotized.

With a groan, Rimon knelt and closed them, then lifted the body onto the couch. It was still warm, as if pretending to life—but there was no life there now. Every spark had been transferred to Rimon, so that he could go on with his existence. Why? Why do I deserve to live?

Why did he have to die?

There was no trace of the post-kill syndrome his rather had predicted. He didn't want a woman, he wanted to vomit. With shaking hands, he pulled a coverlet over the body and yanked at the signal cord for the attendant.

This is what Gens are for. This is what Gens are for. It is what Gens are for!

He turned and fled from the killroom.

After his kill, sick and shaking, Rimon sought the only haven he had ever found since his changeover—Kadi's presence. Unaware of anything else, he headed out to where she had promised to wait for him, in the swing under the big tree in the back yard.

He dropped into the swing, staring at his arms. The tentacles were retracted tightly, painfully—but there was pleasure in the pain for a moment, until Kadi put one arm around his shoulders and the other hand over his clenched hands in his lap. In her soothing presence, he began to relax a little… almost to be a child again, one of the four Krazy Kids.

All within a three-year span in age, the four of them had shared adventures, projects, and pranks. Zeth had been the oldest, the leader until Rimon began to challenge him. Then the two had developed a spirited rivalry for Kadi's approval—and Yahn, the youngest, had entered in, even though he could never keep up with the older boys.

But the two Farrises could not help admiring the way both Yahn and Kadi refused to give up—hence the vow the four of them made never to separate. "And Kadi can be wife to all of us!" Zeth had joked—the only one of them at that moment old enough to comprehend the joke. Rimon, sensing that there was more to it than friendship, had had to conceal his jealousy under camaraderie—but soon there was to be no more rivalry for her affections. Time intervened to tear the Krazy Kids apart.

Ze.th had changed over three or four months before Rimon did, and soon drifted away from the group, outdistancing them as he took on a man's duties, learning to use his new abilities as a Sime. Nonetheless, Zeth had tried to keep up their lifelong ties, including their childish vow of loyalty. So, when Yahn Keslic established selyn production, Zeth told him and encouraged him to run for the border. Rimon had been away with his father that day, and when Zeth told him on his return, he was furious. "You call that friendship? Why didn't you take him to the border, Zeth? You're Sime—you could guide him. Come on—let's find him and help him across."

When Syrus Farris' son was willing to brave his wrath, his nephew became more willing to lend his aid. All night Rimon and Zeth searched for Yahn, but couldn't find him. Toward morning they decided it was useless, and started back toward home—only to have Rimon begin changeover. Zeth made a fire, tended Rimon until he'd stopped vomiting, and then decided the best thing to do, as Rimon was drifting in and out of consciousness, was to go home and bring back a Gen for Rimon's first kill.

An augmenting Sime should have had no trouble, but Zeth had not taken into account the fact that the first stages of Rimon's changeover had been exceptionally rapid, and so was the last. Within half an hour, Rimon's tentacles broke free, and he was a full-fledged Sime in first need—the hardest and most terrifying need most Simes ever know. He set out blindly after Zeth. With the speed of desperation, he overtook his cousin when they were still more than an hour's journey from home—from the nearest Gen. To Rimon, Zeth's field seemed the source of all salvation.

Reaching to cling to that field without thought, Rimon found his tentacles twining about Zeth's arms in sheer reflex. He seized Zeth's laterals with his own; even so, Zeth did not fear. Only when Rimon, driven, made lip contact, completing the circuit, drawing selyn voraciously from Zeth's body—only then did Zeth panic, driving Rimon into the vicious stripping draw of a full-blown kill-mode attack.

Rimon did not remember much of what happened after that. In torment, he had wandered for hours, until suddenly there were people around him, and he was taken over by someone who let him collapse into a wagon, drove him somewhere—and then his father was bending over him, his concern flowing to Rimon through the new, confusing senses, saying, "Rimon? What idiot moved my son while he's in changeover?"

"He's through it," insisted the driver. "He came into the Northwest unit on his own power, then collapsed. I don't know what's wrong, but he was conscious when I put him in the wagon."

Farris smiled reassuringly at Rimon, reaching toward him, extending his laterals to read his field. "It's all right. You just didn't get a very good first kill. In a little while, after you rest, we'll—"