First Channel

"Farris. Rimon Farris."

She looked up at that. "Oh—gettin' yer own place, eh? I'll get your file." She paused at the door. "That Gen's not drugged. It go

"I have no intention of causing a disturbance," said Kadi.

"You Farrises. Some new experiment?"

"You might call it that," Rimon replied.

The clerk soon returned with Rimon's file. "You picked an out-of-the-way spot, but I guess that's so you can expand, eh? Pla

"No."

"You cleared any more land since this report?"

"No."

The clerk checked her papers against Rimon's. "Description of property all seems in order. Purpose of the homestead?"

"Farming," said Rimon.

The woman looked up sharply. "Just—farming?" She leafed through a sheaf of forms showing taxes paid on Kadi, Willa, Jon—but then just two Gens after Willa married Jord—the spring assessment had been made a few days before Jon's death had brought the other two Gens to live with Rimon, and another girl, A

"Seems in order. Now, how many people in your household?"

"Six," replied Rimon.

"Adults or children?"

"Five adults, one child."

"Names of all the adults?"

"Myself; my wife, Kadi Morcot Farris; Len Deevan; Sordal Kent; A

"Hmmm? Three hired hands? You're doin' pretty well– at farming?"

"No, they're—more like boarders," said Rimon.

"Oh-ho. Income property!" The woman reached for another form. "That's different. What rent are you charging?"

"No rent." Rimon was in a fine tangle now.

The woman looked up. "It's not another of those communal things like that other place in your area—Fort Freedom? We figure that's some kind of tax dodge, but so far we haven't been able to prove they don't hold the property in common."

What would be the best thing to say? Rimon wanted his property in his own name and Kadi's, not held in common by everyone who lived there. "No; the land is mine. The kids staying with us work in return for room and board."

"Hmmm. You got a good deal till they wake up and start demanding a salary. Property to be listed in the name of?"

"My name and my wife's."

"Then you have to bring your wife in to sign the papers."

"This is my wife." This was the crux. He had to try to have Kadi recognized as a person. If anything happened to him before Zeth changed over, his wife and son could lose everything.

The woman stared blankly for a moment. Then, as she realized he meant Kadi, intense anger spread through her field. "What stunt are you trying to pull? You claim this Gen is your wife?"

"Yes. I claim it, she claims it, and she has borne me a child. Under the law, that fulfills all the requirements."

"Under the law, you bred a Gen—no more." She scratched Kadi's name off the form and altered the section on Rimon's marital status. He felt Kadi tense at that, but she remained quiet.

When the tax assessor ran her pen down the column and scratched out the notice of a child in the household, Rimon felt Kadi fight off tears combined with the desire to attack. Willing her to remain calm was the only thing that allowed him to retain his own control.

The woman finally balled up the form, pitched it into the wastebasket, and took a new one. "Now let's start this right. I'm not reporting for you tax fraud this time, N'vet Farris, but we'll be watching you from now on—believe me." She hastily scratched in the basic information, through Rimon's name. "Now—how many other adult Simes in your household?"

"None," Rimon admitted.

"So. What it adds up to is four Gens and one pre-Gen– and you. A Genfarm."

"No! I do not sell Gens!"

She rested one tentacle significantly on the tax forms for Jon and Willa, as if challenging him to explain their absence. "That is not the definition, as any Farris knows. You have more than three Gens per Sime on this property —and you're breeding the Gens. You've admitted that. It adds up to Genfarm, and if you'd care to protest that to my supervisor, I'll inform him that you tried to defraud the Nivet Territory of tax revenue by claiming Gens as adult humans."

What could he do? He could be denied the deed, assessed fines—yet he couldn't help protesting. "For all the taxes we pay, we get no protection out along the border."

Intent on a column of figures, the woman muttered, "So move."

"We might have to. A lot of our friends have been talking about trying another Territory, where the taxes aren't so high."

"You want government Pens, guaranteed kills, you got to support the tax system. You don't like it, get out." She finished the column of figures with a flourish and passed the paper to Rimon.

Looking over his shoulder, Kadi gasped, "We can't afford that!"

"I won't pay it," Rimon said grimly. "You can just send your notice to our local dealer to cut off my Pen privileges."

The woman snorted. "When you grow your own? And live where you can slip across the border anytime you want to? You pay up here and now—or we confiscate your Gens, starting with this one."

Rimon could think of no further argument. He checked the figures; they were correct for a Genfarm, the highest assessment rate. After the way he'd fumbled the begi

Numbly, Rimon finished his business in the building, and walked with Kadi out into the bright sunshine. She remained silently at his side, trying to support him despite her own cold despair. He steered her away from the grim display at the center of the plaza and headed up one of the radiating streets in the direction of the Pens, wondering what good it did to avoid the sight of an execution while heading toward the Pens full of condemned—and i

Their last order of business before they could leave town was the search for Henry Steers' son. Rimon moved automatically through the streets, afraid to think.

"Rimon," Kadi said at last, "there is a solution, you know."

"Solution?"

"Suppose we invite Jord and Willa to build a house on our property. Then there will be two Simes and five Gens —we can even accept another Gen before the ration will be more than three-to-one again."

Some of the tightness in Rimon's chest melted. "Kadi, you're right! We won't get this year's money back, but we can plan against next year. I'm glad somebody in this family is thinking straight!" And he kissed her, right there on the street, oblivious to the stares of the passers-by.

When they came out into the midway, Rimon looked around for a directory. The search took them along a row of tawdry displays, cheap thrills aping the permanent parlors they had passed last night. Instead of barkers, there were performances before tents, exhausted Gens goaded through obstacle courses, poorly proportioned paintings depicting luridly, "100 Kill Positions—All Demonstrated Inside! Improve Your Personal Satisfaction With the Secrets of the Mysterious East!"

One display, however, brought Rimon up short. In a cage was a very large male Wild Gen, ragged, dirty, bearded. He stared morosely out at the passers-by, not knowing why he had been placed there, and too tired to care. But both Rimon and Kadi stared incredulously at the freshly hand-lettered sign:

GIANT KILLER GEN

In smaller lettering, the gawking crowd was informed that the predatory Gen stalking the trails to the Summer Fair had been captured, and that for an exorbitant price they could buy one of the last few tickets left to see him killed the last day of the Fair.