First Channel

Swinging back to ordinary consciousness, he said, "Sorry, Del. I—"

Del shrugged. "You always fluctuate more than normal on your turnover day, but never like that!"

"I know. Kadi can stop it, though. I'll be okay as soon as I get home to her. Shen! Do you suppose my turnover symptoms would always build up to that if Kadi didn't stop them?"

"I don't know, but let's get you home to her!" Del climbed onto the seat and took the slack reins from Rimon, slapping them across the plodding horses' backs. "What I don't understand is how a kid like that can have any effect on a grown Sime. She's going to be one shendi-flamin' woman!"

"Yeah," said Rimon. "And she's mine."

Late that afternoon, Rimon and Del pulled the wagon up before the big house on the Farris Genfarm. Rimon's eager anticipation faded beneath a strange foreboding. The first thing to meet his eye was Kadi's dog, Wolf, tied to the porch railing. At the sight of Rimon, the animal set up a pitiful whimpering, punctuated with howls as Rimon, led by the muffled sound of angry voices inside the house, hurried past without stopping.

The door to his father's office stood open. Inside were his father and three members of the Morcot family: Ran, Mama, and Serri. In a frozen moment, he took in the black anger on his father's face, along with the confusion of anger, compassion, and guilt in his nager; the grief in the Morcots, along with an almost equal anger in the two adults; the fact that the family was dressed for travel; and that while the two adult faces were stained with dried tears, Serri was crying openly.

Then he became aware of the argument going on.

"I don't understand, Morcot," Farris was saying. "After sixteen years of working together, why did you do this? Why didn't you trust me?"

"It was Kadi's choice," replied Morcot. "I knew you couldn't understand that."

"Kadi had no choice!" Farris said furiously. "She was Gen!"

Gen? Kadi? WASH The world around Rimon swirled dizzily into selyn fields. Kadi—dead? Someone's kill? WHO??!

He had to come back to ordinary consciousness to find out. No one had yet noticed him, and the argument was continuing.

"—would have kept her as a breeder," his father was saying. "You know I can always use healthy females. She would have been perfectly safe."

Marna spoke up. "You promised her to Nerob. You would have made her the property of another Gen! When she told me that, do you think I could hand my daughter over to you? I raised your son, Syrus Farris—I loved him as my own. If he had established, I would not have let him go to you—no, not your own flesh would you take pity on!"

Pain sang in Farris' nager, overshadowed by the greater pain emanating from Kadi's parents. "A Gen is a Gen," he said harshly. "And the law is the law. She left my property. Ran, Marna—don't you know I loved your daughter, too? That I wanted her to be my daughter—my son's wife? Every family must face the possibility of a child's establishing—and being their child no longer. We must accept it just as we would have to accept it if she had died."

"Then she's not dead!" gasped Rimon. The others turned to him in surprise as he demanded, "Where is she?"

"There's nothing you can do for her, Rimon," said Farris.

"Where is she?" he repeated.

"The traders took her this morning," replied Morcot. "I think they're taking her to the Reloc Bazaar."

The Reloc Bazaar! The place that catered to all extremes of exotic—and perverted—Sime taste. If Kadi were sold there, she might be tortured first. She might be– Rimon didn't even know the possibilities, having heard the Reloc Bazaar spoken of all his life only in hushed whispers.

"Why?" he demanded. "Father, if you knew who had her, why didn't you go after her and buy her back?"

"Rimon, you know the law. She has family living here on my Farm; therefore, it would have been illegal for the traders who captured her to sell her to me. I tried, but they knew who she was."

"She has no family here any longer!" said Ran Morcot. "We are leaving. When Kadi told us about your promise to Nerob—"

Fury rose in Rimon. "You would have! Right in front of me, you would have handed her over to Nerob!"

Farris visibly struggled to keep from lashing out as angrily as his son. "Yes," he admitted. "Rimon, she is Gen. It is far better that she has been taken away. When you've calmed down, you'll see that things have worked out for the best."

"The best! I know what's best: I'm going to Reloc and buy her!"

"Rimon, you can't," said Farris. "What would you do with her?"

"Take her to the border! I'll buy her, all nice and legal with my own money—and then I'll escort her to the border myself, and see that.she has a chance at life!"

Rimon swept from the room and down the hall to his own room. Behind him, the raised voices faded to silence. Then, out the window, he saw the Morcot family leave, their meager belongings piled into a small wagon. Serri brought Wolf, dragging his feet and whimpering. She was trying to fasten him to the wagon when the rope came loose about his neck. He immediately took off at a dead run—in the direction the traders would take toward Reloc.

"Wolf!" Serri shouted after the dog. "Wolf, come back!"

"It's no use," her father told her. "He won't come back. He's Kadi's dog, honey. If he ever does come back to us– we'll know that Kadi's dead." He choked over the last words. Sobbing, Serri flung herself into her mother's arms. Ran climbed into the wagon seat, and the only family Rimon had ever known besides his father moved slowly but definitely out of his life.

It took him only a moment to pack a few things, including the leather bag containing all his ready cash, wishing he had the money Del owed him, too. He saddled two horses and mounted up, taking the road in the opposite direction from the way the Morcots had turned—took the road to Reloc.

It was a long journey to Reloc, Rimon reminded himself —a three-day ride. He wanted to gallop madly after the traders, but that would only tire his horses. Besides, leading the second horse made it difficult to gallop easily.

As he rode, the haze of anger and despair cleared from his mind and he began to plan. At first he had thought only of the bazaar, and had packed up all his savings. Now he realized that a single rider could easily catch up to the traders with their wagonload of Gens.

But the traders who visited the Farris Genfarm regularly all knew him. If they had refused to sell Kadi to his father, they would refuse to sell her to him. If he waited until she was on sale at the bazaar, he could buy her legally. No one there would know him. When she was tagged as his property, they could travel together—as long as no one caught him releasing her at the border, there would be no problems.

Except saying good-bye.

He drove that thought from his mind. It was replaced by bleak emptiness. There was no future now. Kadi—oh, Kadi—

If any Gen was able to be a person, a human being, it was Kadi. Gens had a culture out there—towns, it was said, roads, schools. She could live. He would see to it that she lived!

Meanwhile, he rode at a steady pace. The traders had eight or nine hours' start on him; he'd probably catch up with them tomorrow. He knew the way to Reloc, even though he'd never been there. About two hours out of town, he turned onto the less-traveled trail that co

The sun was just setting when he emerged from a narrow pass between rocky ledges into a scene of destruction.

Two bodies lay in the widened roadway, flies already buzzing around them. By the side of the road a trader's wagon was turned on its side, an axle broken. One of the bodies was Gen. A lump in his throat, Rimon peered closely at the face. It wasn't Kadi. The Sime was a trader Rimon had seen before; the dead man's throat was slit. Was this the trader who had taken Kadi?