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The Rider screamed, stiffening and dying even as she held him. She dropped him in a heap and moved on toward Rimon as the woman to his left suddenly slacked her grip on him and fell—dead, he zli

The remaining Raider pushed Rimon toward Kadi with a mighty heave and leaped onto his horse, riding for his life.

Rimon fell to the dirt at Kadi's feet. She went down with him, clutching frantically at him. "Rimon! Rimon!"

Rimon pushed himself up. "I'm all right, Kadi—"

"Quickly," she said. "To the horses. We've got to get away."

He looked at the corpses blankly, then assured her, "They're all dead, Kadi—there's no—"

"Dead! No! I only meant to stop them—only—only I killed!"

And Rimon understood. Kadi wasn't using the word "kill" carelessly as a child might. She meant precisely that: kill by selyn movement.

"Kadi—that woman died of a brain hemorrhage—her lifestyle did it to her. And the others were trying to kill you. You had every right—"

"No—I—didn't—" Kadi said through clenched teeth, backing away from him, her anger rising again.

Rimon reached out, flooded with the strangest emotion. I was supposed to protect her, and look what happened. What use can she possibly have for me after this?

Fear—that was the emotion raging in him—fear.

Chapter Twenty-Two

COMPARISONS

"Shenoni, Rimon, you of all people should understand!" But Kadi didn't reach for his outstretched hand. "I killed– just as viciously and reflexively as any killer Sime! I couldn't help it, Rimon!"

Rimon looked at the corpses about them. Slumped in grotesque positions, they were like the discarded Gen corpses Raiders left beside the road for others to take away.

Kadi—killed.

He brought his eyes to focus on her, reading her nager. A Gen who can turn our own weapon back on us. A Gen. A person. If Gens were indeed people, then if there was any rhyme or reason to the universe, surely they could kill, too.

A great spreading warmth thawed his fears. "Of course, Kadi. It's only natural—you killed in self-defense. A Sime kills in self-defense against a Gen who refuses to give selyn."

A faint smile came over her face as she met his eyes, and Rimon could feel the shock receding. "Oh, Rimon, I love you, too."

She looked around, taking stock. The Raiders' horses had stopped some distance away, and their own mounts were scattered off in another direction. There was no sign of the herd. "Only God knows where those animals went. They're still half-wild," said Kadi.

Rimon tried to get up. Kadi was right. They had to run down the horses and move off a ways to make camp before tending their wounds. But dizziness washed over him, and the next thing he knew he was bent over, retching violently. He hadn't felt anything like this since he stopped killing.

"Rimon?" Kadi's voice came through the roaring in his ears, her hands taking his arms as they always had after a kill. Her nager locked to his, firm and soothing.

"I'm all right, Kadi," he insisted, gathering himself to rise. That was the last thing he remembered for some hours. When he woke at twilight, there was a cheerful campfire burning near him. He was under a blanket. The horses were tethered to a line strung between two scrub bushes. And Kadi—

"I think you must have slept more than three hours!" she said when she saw he was awake.

She was calm, and Rimon felt the firm results of her ministrations. As he sat up slowly, his head stayed clear. "I guess I was in worse shape than I thought. I'm fine now —thanks to you."

She poured tea into a trail mug and brought it with a hard biscuit. "If this stays down, I'll believe you."

He took the mug, wanting to reject the biscuit, but decided not to fight her determination. There was no evidence of the Raiders' bodies. She couldn't have buried them. But he wasn't going to ask. "Kadi, you shouldn't have gone for the horses by yourself."

"Why not? I waited until you were sleeping naturally and then rode them down. No problem. Now drink."

He did, nibbling at the biscuit. Kadi ate with him, and that helped. He felt better by the moment. The bruise on his arm was visible now, and it still ached, but the worst of the shock was over. There was none of the blurring he had felt before he passed out.

Kadi asked, her field totally blank, "Should we take the bodies into the Capital and collect the bounty?" • "Kadi!" Is this my wife? And from somewhere a distant thought: She did kilt.

She nodded. "I do stand out. If that Raider who ran away has spread the story and we come in with the bodies, we might get into trouble."

"Nobody would believe him!"

She shrugged. "I think we dare take the horses and saddles—anyone can see they've been used by Raiders– and we can say we found them."

"Kadi, what's wrong with you?"

"I'm trying to think rationally so I won't fall apart. We can use the extra money—but I don't think it would be wise to let anyone examine those bodies, at least not with us there. I'm dangerous, Rimon. I don't even know how dangerous—but the important thing is not to let a city full of Simes at Summer Fair know that. I've gotten used to living free. I've forgotten how to act like a Gen, if I ever knew."

"You just act like my wife!" said Rimon, putting his arm around her. "All right, it's common sense not to attract the attention of the rabble at the Fair—but I never intended you to pretend to be my property, Kadi. We have to let people start to see Simes and Gens together."

She snuggled into his embrace and began to relax. As the fire danced against the sunset, she drifted slowly to sleep. Feeling her weariness, Rimon appreciated what she'd been through in the last hours—her first experience of the kind of uncontrollable reflex he had learned to take in stride. And then he had fainted dead away, leaving her to face it alone. And she pulled it off—better than I could have. My wife. Kadidid.

He bundled her up against the chill of evening, built up the fire, and checked their camp. He found the Raider corpses neatly stacked under a loose pile of rocks downwind of the camp. Then he settled down to mind the fire and rehearse his answers to the inevitable questions he would face in town. Would he be able to get them to register Kadi as a person, so she could inherit for Zeth if anything happened to him? Could he get all the Gens registered as people? Would anybody accept Kadi as his wife?

The Capital at Summer Fair was a madhouse in which Rimon and Kadi drew little attention simply because there was so much else to see, hear, and zlin. They were two weeks before the big Gen auction of the Fair, so it was still possible to find a room. The landlord didn't question Rimon's having a Gen with him, but Kadi shuddered at the cage in one corner of their room.

"They're in every hotel room," Rimon explained, "or else shackles are available. I'm. sorry, Kadi—I forgot you've never stayed in a hotel before." In fact, until his eyes lighted on the cage, he'd forgotten they existed.

That afternoon, he went out to sell the horses. It was easy to find bidders on Del's fine animals, although Rimon had to haggle some, finally throwing in the Raiders' horses to bring the sum up to what he thought it should have been. Then he sold the saddles, one of which was almost new. What he got for them was extra money Kadi had more than earned—so he decided to use it to take her out to di

Dressed in the good clothes they had brought for tomorrow's business dealings, they sought out a small, excellent but reasonably priced restaurant that Rimon remembered from having been here with his father three years before. As they entered, he had a startling thought: What if we run into him here?