Channel's Destiny

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 month—says he's got to give a real transfer. So you can talk with him then, Abel—"

"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 zli

Carson was saying, "I don't think there's any more stopping him than there is stopping you when you feel God'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 pla

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 know—"

"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, Zeth–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 spring—and then we'll have a single courier again. If you are too badly harassed, 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."

"Sure—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 appetite 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 life– until the world had turned inside out. It wasn't right that families should be illegal—on either side of the border. At least it wasn't wholly forbidden here—

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 shivers—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 zli

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 zli

Del came over. ' 'Changeover? Zeth, I can't zlin the slightest sign—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 gri

"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 cha

transfer he felt as he had not felt in weeks—competent, fulfilled.

When it was over, Jana kissed both Zeth and her brother, then sat back and examined her new tentacles dispassionately. "But I'm not a cha

"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 party—a much appreciated excuse for a happy celebration—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 Zeth—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, Zeth—it's the Zeth you were named for. Rimon's cousin—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.

Zeth reached turnover and began the grueling slide into need himself. Owen began dogging Zeth's steps, even going to the ridiculous length of dragging himself out of bed when Zeth had had enough sleep. Soon Owen's temper frayed from lack of sleep, making Zeth even more edgy.

The last straw was the arrival, in the brief interval between storms three days before Zeth's third transfer, of Maddok and Sessly Bron. When Abel forbid Bron his house, the Gen waylaid him in the chapel, the one place Abel made the effort to go these days. Abel's shouting brought Zeth, Owen, Marji, Trina, and Bekka ru

"... agent of the Devil, tempting me to kill!" Abel was raging when Zeth flung the door open.

Bron's field was pure temptation, ringing with the "need to give" of a Companion—but way too low from his last donation. He had spent the interval away from Simes, and was in no ma

"Owen—Trina—" directed Zeth softly. "Shield Abel. Marji—"

"Abel, God has sent me to dispossess you of the murderous spirit holding you in thrall," Bron insisted, holding his ground.

"Well, you can just do it for someone else!" Zeth said, grasping Bron's arm as firmly as he grasped the fields. "Shen you, you shidoni-doomed fool-, I'd like to toss you—"