Channel's Destiny

The clatter startled Slina's Gen. He flared fear, stumbled back and tangled himself in his lead chain, cutting his ankle and sending a shrieking pain through the nager. Jord, already swamped in Jimmy's killmode, flipped over. Zeth had never zli

One or both Simes were going to kill. Instantly, Zeth saw the only choice: even if Jord killed the pen Gen, Jimmy could not be allowed to kill his father! He flung himself at Jimmy, letting his own field resonate to the pain and terror of the pen

Gen. His show-field was infinitely stronger than Eph Norton's. Jimmy dropped his father and lunged at Zeth, who met him with the first killmode transfer he had ever given, riding on the ambience of the room.

Jord began stalking the pen Gen, who cowered back against Slina. She gave the Gen a vicious shove in Jord's direction, just as Zeth fell back to duoconsciousness with Jimmy gasping in his arms. Sessly cried, "No! You can't make him kill!" and leaped to intervene, grasping Jord's arms and forcing herself against him.

The door to Rimon's room flung open, and Uel came ru

It's all right! Incredulous relief swelled Zeth's heart. Nobody killed–and now I know how to save Dad's life!

But at that very instant, through the open door of Rimon's room came a flare of killmode that paralyzed every Sime in the chapel except the two who had just dropped hypoconscious after transfer. Zeth was the first to recover, as Del's voice rang, "Rimon—no!" and Owen started to run through the crowd.

Zeth leaped past Owen, over and around the other Simes and Gens frozen in tableau, zli

Then Rimon was grasping Del, calling, "Zeth—help me! Zeth!"—and Del's fear flared as he saw Rimon fixed on him. He struggled to free himself as Rimon, with the strength of desperation, dragged him into kill position, drawing and drawing as pain scorched through Del's nerves, burning with the voracious, unfulfilled need—

In his desperate struggle to break the contact, Del thrust Rimon's arms away;—and Zeth's nerves vibrated to the screech of shock as Del's fingers clenched over the delicate nerves. But it was a deathgrip. As Zeth flung himself into the room, Del was falling, limp, from Rimon's grip.

And Rimon was in agony. "Kadi!" he screamed, thrashing in pain, still in hard need, for Del's selyn could not begin to fill his capacity. Moreover, his injured laterals began to void selyn—the precious little in his system draining away as his

son dashed to his side, shoving Del's body away to grasp Rimon in transfer grip. He forcefully entwined their laterals, for Rimon's were out of control, nerve-injured. Rimon continued to call out for Kadi in an agony of need, pain, and guilt.

Finally, Zeth secured his grip on Rimon, and found the fifth transfer point. Rimon drew—the aching void of his need filling and filling—but never reaching fulfillment. It was not the absence of a satisfactory emotion—Zeth was giving exactly what he had just learned, but there was no satisfying Rimon now. As fast as Zeth poured selyn into him, it leaked—. then poured—away through his injured nerves.

On the periphery of his awareness, he noticed Owen come in, and fall to his knees in horror over Del's body. Del's body! Dad killed!

That agony hit Zeth just at the moment .when Rimon had drained his secondary system and was ripping away at the natural barrier, making Zeth flinch away in self-preservation as his father's life ebbed away beneath his tentacles.

No–I won't kill. Ever!

He willed his system to flip over into primary mode and let his father drain and drain him. But there came a point of searing crescendo when he could hold it no longer, even to save his father's life, and Fort Freedom's dream. His body convulsed, ripping loose the contact points just as pain ceased in blackness.

Chapter 12

Zeth became slowly aware of Sime tentacles twining about his arms, pulling ... a ripe, insistent Gen nager throbbed expectantly before him, and suddenly the tentacles forced his laterals out and into contact with the Gen—Owen!

At first, selyn came through no volition of his own, trickling deep into his systems, dispelling the numbness of attrition and wakening him to a savage draw as he sought the shrieking delight of killbliss.

The speed slacked off short of pain, Owen's way of saying, No, I won't let you kill. Momentarily, he succumbed to his instinct to draw against that imposed discipline, and felt Owen's pain blossom. No! I won't kill! He surrendered control, and the flow came to an indrawn pause that relieved the screeching ache. When selyn came again, it was at his normal speed, flowing without effort. It ceased without his stopping, though he was relieved of every trace of need.

Hypoconscious, he stared up into Owen's worried blue eyes. Uel knelt behind Owen, holding Zeth's hands so his laterals could make contact at the back of Owen's neck. When he found Zeth conscious, he let go—and Zeth's hands fell limply. Owen caught his left arm, but his right hit the floor, nerve-burn surging through him.

Uel said, "Someone get the fosebine."

It was Jord who brought it, by which time Zeth was begi

He's better off dead, Zeth thought. Maybe we all would be. Thank God Abel didn't live to see Rimon kill.

No one said anything to Zeth except "You're all right" and "Here, drink this." Maybe they thought he didn't know

what had happened, and would be better off sleeping before he faced it. I've been making such judgments for other people for weeks now. What right did I have? The dream Fort Freedom had stood for was shattered. The numbness was wearing off the other people in the room. They must have worked-as a team to save his life without giving a thought to the implications of what Rimon had done . . . but now they had pulled Zeth through, and they were begi

Sorrow built like a slow tide. Hank let tears slide down his cheeks—less painful than trying to hold them back. Owen held his field steady, braced, not allowing grief to penetrate as he worked on Zeth, but it was a duty, not his usual spontaneous outpouring of help.

As the fosebine drew him toward sleep, Zeth realized that things could never be the same between him and Owen, either. My father killed his father.

Zeth woke in the room he shared with Owen in the Veritt house. As he wasn't disoriented, they had moved him sleeping, not unconscious. What woke him was Sessly Bron replacing the covers he had tossed off. She smiled at him. "Hello, Zeth. Feeling better?"

Jord Veritt, who had been sitting on Owen's neatly made bed, came over to zlin him, and Zeth automatically zli

lord's fields were in a healthy configuration for the first time in Zeth's experience. He looked years younger, too, his eyes begi