Maddok Bron was saying, "Jimmy, you must understand. I am here only because these Simes do not kill. Ever."
All this time, Eph Norton had been sitting silently, on the brink of tears. Now he said, "Jimmy—oh, son, please listen to these people!" He turned to Uel. "Can you teach him to be like you? Can you . . . make him my son again?"
Uel looked to Abel, who said cautiously, "We can try. But, Mr. Norton, we cannot do it to him. Only if he wants to stop killing can we help. It's a long, difficult process."
Jimmy was staring at his father. "Papa—you want me as your son?"
"Of course I do! If I'd known this place existed, I'd have brought you here myself."
Zeth understood the rarity of Norton's attitude from Jimmy's tremulous hope, a hope the boy didn't quite dare feel.
"Jimmy—" Norton looked around. "I can't be alone with him?"
"It's not safe," said Uel.
"No, Papa, it's not," said Jimmy. "I can't—trust myself. That's the worst part—you go crazy, and then you wake up and you've lulled someone—"
In answer to Eph Norton's flare of horror, Abel said, "The Freeband Raider pattern. He's never been through a normal need cycle. Mr. Norton, we're doing our best to protect all the Gens from out-Territory. You will go home safely if you'll observe one precaution: always take a Sime's word if he tells you nor to trust him."
But as father and son wanted badly to talk, Jord and Wik accompanied them out. As the others rose to leave, Abel said,
"Stay for a moment, please. Maddok, there is something you urgently have to know. Do you feel up to it now?"
"Tell me, Abel," said Bron, settling back into his chair. Zlinning, Zeth decided he could take perhaps ten minutes of sitting up.
Abel steepled his fingers, tentacles retracted. "Maddok, we have not lied to you. However, you do not know the whole truth.
"I gathered as much, from what you said to Mr. Norton." His eyes were fixed on Abel's hands. "God will not hold you responsible for what you did before you knew there was another way. The important thing is that you have stopped killing."
Pain swirled through Abel's nager, but he looked straight into Bron's eyes. "No," he said quietly, "I have not stopped."
The only emotion in Bron's field was disbelief.
Abel went on softly. "I have been trying for nine years to live entirely on channel's transfer . . . but at least once each year—"
"It's a physical problem," Uel interjected. "Mr. Bron, no one who had been Sime for over a year when Rimon discovered how to channel has been able to disjunct—to stop killing."
"Rimon had been killing for four years," Abel said dully. "It should be possible for anyone who really wants to."
"And we'll find out how," said Uel. "Zeth will be as good a channel as his father. Working together—''
Abel managed a weary smile. "You don't understand, Uel—and Zeth never will, either, thank God. Maddok," he continued, shaking off his depression, "you see here a community in transition. All our young Simes—those who changed over after Uel—have never killed. A few, who came to us from across the border, have killed once, and never again. In another generation, Fort Freedom will be in truth a community in which no Sime kills, ever."
Zeth watched Bron's nager with interest. His adjustment hardly seemed as radical as Zeth's when he'd first learned the dire secret. Bron began to ask searching, technical questions that Abel, the channels, and the Companions stretched their English to answer, for many of the words had just been invented in the last nine years, and they were all in Simelan.
Bron ran out of strength and shook his head wearily. "One thing is clear. Mountain Chapel must have people who can prevent a child from killing at changeover."
"I'm sure we'll find volunteers among our Gens," said Abel. "I wish we could send a channel, but a Sime on your side of the border—"
"Would bring down on us the same sort of raids you have been suffering," Bron agreed. "I must learn—and teach all my people—to give transfer."
"No!" It was a chorus from everyone else in the room.
Astonishment rang in Bron's field. He appealed to the Companions, "Hank—Owen—do you think yourselves better men than I am?"
"That's not it," said Uel. "It's not something you can do just because you want to!"
"Don't be dumb, Uel," said Hank. "That's exactly why I was able to do it for you—or are you getting so old you can't remember your changeover?"
"There's wanting, and then there's wanting," Uel muttered.
Bron smiled. "I know the difference. Owen—when Zeth was in changeover, didn't you say that you would not let him kill you? I have much to learn before I can be so confident. So I must start now. Abel—" Bron's eager smile turned him into a different man from the dour minister Zeth had first met. "Abel, if you refuse to kill—surely you will allow me the right to refuse to die?"
Fort Freedom also refused to die. Slina's emergency Gen shipment—technically top government priority after a raid– was delayed first by bureaucratic fumbling, and then by the weather, as the first snow filled the mountain passes. On the heels of the storm, however, the tax collector made her rounds—nothing ever seemed to stop her. Slina sneered, indicating the empty spot where the pens had stood—but managed to get Fort Freedom into a fine fix, as the inspector insisted on a house-by-house search. And Fort Freedom was full of out-Territory–untagged—Gens.
There were still a few wounded Gens who could not make the long journey home, and that same break in the weather had brought a caravan from Mountain Chapel, headed by Sessly Bron. Swearing balefully in two languages, Slina hurriedly made out papers and tags for all their guests, Zeth and Owen running them around to the various houses as Uel and Abel delayed the inspector lest she find a "Wild Gen" to confiscate.
The inspector became more and more nervous, until at last
she skipped the last four houses and rode away at a full gallop.
It would have been hilarious except for the tax bill she did not forget to present. "I know what spooked her," said Wik. "Gens doing real, useful work!"
Zeth sobered. "As long as it doesn't add to the wer-Gen legends!"
That evening, Maddok and Sessly Bron were sitting at the Veritt kitchen table along with Zeth, Owen, Abel, and Margid. Bron fingered the papers he had been given that afternoon, unable to read the Simelan. "Zeth tells me this paper says you own Sessly and me, Abel."
"A technicality. For tax purposes, I am the owner of all the Gens who live in Fort Freedom. Which reminds me– Owen, give me your papers." In the "assigned to" box, under Slina's scrawl, he wrote Zeth's name, and signed it. "I should have done that as soon as you two got back. Now you're all set, wherever you might go together."
Zeth looked at it and laughed. "Most of the time Owen acts more like he owns me!"
Just as he said it, a strange feeling came over him—like stepping on a step that wasn't there. Only it went on and on. Owen, turning to retort to his joke, never got the words out. "Zeth—what's wrong?"
When Zeth couldn't answer, Abel said, "It's just turnover. Support him, Owen. The first time can be rough."
Turnover. Zeth had used up half the selyn in his system– the first step down again into the chasm of need. Owen put his arm around Zeth's shoulder, an unspoken promise.
Zeth took two deep breaths, and summoned a brave smile as the room came back into focus. He could certainly manage as well as any other Sime. But then a new sensation spread from his chest into his arms in sharp cramps. One wave of pain followed another, each more severe than the last. Surely turnover isn't always like this!