Channel's Destiny

Chapter 11

Abel Veritt had left his affairs in perfect order, and he had left his community a legacy of ritual to get them through any crisis. The one thing Zeth could not cope with though, was that Abel's will left Fort Freedom's Gens to Zeth, not Rimon. It was a mere technicality—but Zeth could not bring himself to have Slina complete the paperwork.

The year's turning ceremony, only a few days away, became the memorial service.-Jord Veritt, who always carved the names of martyrs into the Monument in the chapel, began bringing it up to date. Sessly Bron spent hours watching him work—and one day Zeth, hoping that Jord had worked off his emotions in physical labor and could go back to the overcrowded schedule, found Sessly holding Jord while he shook with guilt and sorrow. The last name on the Monument– Abel's—was incomplete, the last letter he had been working on shaky.

Sessly frowned at Zeth over Jord's shoulder, and continued ' with what she was saying to him. "You'll do it, too, Jord– but you won't die. You're young, and you're a cha

Zeth went quietly away—and within the hour, Jord resumed his duties as a cha

Zeth was too deep into need to feel true grief—he wondered distantly whether he would collapse again as he had when his mother's death hit him after his second transfer. His need nightmares took the form of reliving Abel's death—but they ended in that transcendent joy Abel had known when he found his desire to kill gone. Zeth would wake, clinging to the ecstatic feeling, only to have it burned off by encroaching need.

His fear of the kill was not nearly so strong—knowing that

Abel had overcome it made it less the unconquerable creature that he dared not let touch him, lest he be forever contaminated. As a consequence, he began to approach Uel's ability to simulate killbliss.

His distaste at being around Margid also disappeared—but he didn't know how to let her know it. An apology would hurt her again, when she had enough grief to bear.

Then on the day he was to have transfer, Zeth woke hours before dawn. He zli

Pouring for Zeth and herself, she sat down, putting the tea container back on the table. "Abel brought me this from Summer Fair," she said, "the year he registered the deed on Fort Freedom. I was pregnant with Hope, we had very few people here, and the town Simes hated us. We could barely scrape together the taxes—and he spent money we couldn't afford to bring me something beautiful."

She gave Zeth a sad smile. "It was so ugly here. Oh, the hills were just as beautiful as now, but the Fort was a mud hole. The houses were unpainted—it was dreary, and so were we. I tried to accept Abel's teaching that I was still human in spite of being Sime—but I couldn't accept that anyone could really love me. Abel . . . well, he never was very good at saying that with words, no matter how eloquently he spoke about anything else."

She extended her handling tentacles, protecting the delicate container as she turned it over and over. "Then he brought me this . . . totally frivolous object. A way of saying, if you appreciate beauty, you're human." She sighed, got up, and emptied the tea into the wooden box. Then she carefully washed the china container, dried it, and replaced it on the shelf where it had always stood.

As Margid stood staring at the container, Zeth came to her, putting his arms around her. She turned, buried her face against his shoulder, and sobbed. "Oh, God, Zeth, I loved him so. What am I going to do?"

"You'll go on," he said numbly, wondering himself. "We all have to. It's what Abel always did, isn't it?" And he held her until she had let out her grief.

It was fortunate that Abel's family found other outlets for

their grief, for the memorial service could not be the healing time that Abel had always made it. When the snow clogged the passes once more, so Maddok Bron could not get home to conduct his own year's turning ceremony, everyone assumed that he would conduct the one in Fort Freedom. Bron himself certainly assumed it—until he let slip that he had not given up his demon theory.

It was Owen to whom he said it, obviously thinking a fellow Gen would understand. Zeth and Owen had had transfer that morning, and shared their own grief. Then Owen went to the chapel to pray—and encountered Bron.

Zeth was in Rimon's room, trying to get his father to understand that Abel was dead. If he would only grieve, and realize how much now depended on him, perhaps he would recover. But although Rimon's field made its automatic response to Zeth's, he remained suspended in emotionlessness. Owen entered, closed the door, and leaned against it. Even low-field, he projected a burning frustration too strong for Zeth to block.

"What's wrong?" asked Zeth.

"Maddok Bron," Owen replied. "Zeth, we can't let him conduct the year's turning. He's going to preach about demons again! Why did you ever let him give transfer?"

"You think I should have let him run around high-field, tempting the juncts?" Actually, that had not been Zeth's motivation at all. After Abel's death, by way of a combined apology for his threats in the chapel hallway and confirming lesson on what transfer really was, he had carefully chosen one of their nonjunct Simes and let Bron give transfer. The strictly supervised session had gone very well. Bron had not bothered Zeth again, and he had thought the problem solved.

Owen sighed. "No–but you should just have taken his field down. Now he's ready to start exorcising demons."

"How did he get back onto that again? Surely even a Gen could see that Abel died at peace."

Ignoring the implied slight, Owen said, "Oh, he saw that, all right. He agrees Abel is a martyr—but remember Abel wouldn't attempt transfer with Bron. Now Bron thinks Abel was still afraid of his demon, and had to die to dispossess himself of it! How many people are capable of making that sacrifice!"

"If it weren't so serious, it'd be ridiculous," said Zeth.

"Zeth—it's sacrilege!" objected Owen, and Zeth recalled his friend's deep faith.

"It's desecration of Abel's memory," Zeth agreed. "Stay with Dad, Owen—I'll put a stop to this."

Enlisting Uel's help, Zeth confronted Bron. There was no swaying him. "You know I'm right, Zeth. I saw even you almost succumb, remember? If Owen hadn't been there when you were in need, and worried and angry at the same time—"

"And I suppose," said Hank Steers, who had accompanied Uel, "that you have never regretted words spoken in anger? I'm Gen, too, and I certainly know I have!"

"I make no claim to perfection, Hank," Bron replied. "I simply act in accord with what God has revealed to me."

"Well, you're not going to do it at Abel's memorial service!" Zeth said, tears choking his voice.

"We won't have it," Uel took over. "Abel's wife, his son, his granddaughter will be there. All the people to whom he's been a father. You will not deny everything he stood for."

"Then I will not conduct the service," Bron said firmly. "I ca

That left them with no one to conduct the service. Dan Whelan suggested that Hank should be the speaker, but Hank demurred, saying, "I'd just burst into tears and my field would have every Sime in the building in hysterics."

Then Whelan looked to Owen. To Zeth's surprise, Owen said, "I think I could do it." He flashed Zeth a tight smile, and Zeth thought, I should have volunteered. But that form of leadership was not for him, just as it had not been for his father.