After a pause, Del said, "If you can face that, Zeth—if you can give up Owen, just once, you'll conquer the feeling that he's controlling you."
Zeth considered, automatically blending his nager into the room to ease his father's aching fields while at the same time choking down the panic Del's suggestion brought. Then, in desperation, he said, "I could match him now!"
In a very sad, quiet tone, Del said, "Rimon—needs– killbliss. Kadi could let him have that."
"Well, Owen doesn't have it to give. But I could learn. I've got to learn!" He hoped he hid from Del the irrational panic that accompanied that resolve.
That evening, Zeth tackled Jord, convincing him to let Zeth watch him giving transfer to a junct. Dan Whelan, Uel's father, volunteered since he was .lord's last client of the day. "I guess," he said nervously, "this is the only way you can learn. And if it saves Rimon—"
"Come on, Dan," prompted Jord. Zeth went hyperconscious, watching as Jord's show-field rose to entice Dan into transfer contact. Zeth concentrated, letting the fields soak through his system. Dan's draw was a savage ripping away of selyn, shallow and slow compared to the channels, but Jord put up a mock resistance laced with pain and fear. Dan reveled in pain which became its own pleasure, mocking the pleasure Zeth knew with Owen.
No! Without conscious intent, Zeth was duoconscious, his showfield dominating the room, damping down every shred of that mounting bliss he could not face. Dan Whelan wrenched away from Jord in a thudding agony of shen.
"Out!" Jord shouted at Zeth, and moved to grasp the older man's tentacles. When Zeth didn't move, Jord growled, "Out before I shen you!"
"I'm sorry," he whispered as he groped for the door. Afterwards, Uel found him on the steps of the chapel.
"Zeth, you'll freeze to death out here. Come on inside. I have an idea."
Reluctantly, Zeth went with him, knowing that Owen had put him up to this. And sure enough, Hank and Owen were waiting with Jord in the chapel. Both Jord and Zeth apologized,
and Uel said, "None of us is qualified to teach Zeth. But we've got to improvise until Rimon gets better."
He went on to suggest how Zeth could participate in a junct's transfer without over-controlling Jord, by emptying his secondary system into Uel's so that he couldn't grab the fields. It took all day to set it up, Zeth and Uel giving transfers without accepting donations, in order to empty their systems. Even so, Zeth's "small" amount of selyn nearly staggered Uel.
Margid Veritt was the next volunteer, over lord's objection. "You're too deep into need, Mother. Dan was early—"
"There's no point in delaying then, is there?" she asked, and Zeth found his own throat tightening at the shrill tremor in her usually low-pitched voice. He could not seem to grow used to the trembling anxiety of need in the people who had been strong adults to him all his life.
Selyn flowed, and Margid's field erupted with pleasure as Jord provided resistance. Desire peaked into pain, reveling in pain, sadistic pleasure, pain as pleasure—
The point where Zeth had shenned out was reached and passed, as he hung on, determined not to hurt Margid. He shared the pain/pleasure killbliss growing in her and kindling something horrifying in himself; the knowledge of what it meant to be Sime. He wanted pain—he craved the ultimate agony of seared Gen nerves dying under his tentacles!
Roaring to a peak of satisfaction, Margid exulted. Then a new agony closed round like a black cloud—–guilt. Zeth flinched away from it, ripped down into hypoconsciousness, the fields disappearing and the candle-lit killroom emerging. His hands were clamped about the joined arms of Jord and Margid, his tentacles lashing them all together. His convulsive grip flashed real pain through them all.
The next thing he knew he was on the floor, Owen flinging himself across the room and Uel dashing to Margid's side, while Jord bent over his own bruised arms.
Jord said, "You weren't supposed to touch us."
"I didn't know I had." He put his hand around Owen's neck and let the Gen help him up, then moved to Jord's side. He found where Jord's fields were disturbed and, using what little selyn there was in his secondary system, projected a soothing effect. Wik, acting as Jord's Companion today, did the same on the other side as Zeth instructed him, and soon Jord was feeling better.
"lord," said Uel, finishing with Margid, "this just proves what I was saying. None of us can teach Zeth anymore. He's got to teach himself, now."
Zeth went to Margid, apologizing. "But I think I did learn something," he offered. If I ever have the courage to use it! And if it doesn't destroy me—as it has you.
For as he watched the woman who had been a second mother to him leave the transfer room, he was trying desperately to recapture the feeling he had always had for her. He felt again that hideous compulsion to derive pleasure from Gen pain. Her satisfied expression woke revulsion in him. And he couldn't make himself zlin Owen at all.
Each time Zeth tried to produce killbliss his own fear drove him out of rapport. Although Jord actually respected Zeth for the inability, Zeth faced the fact that his efforts to learn were destroying what channeling ability he did have. Furthermore, he had hurt Margid. He could feel her shame whenever she looked at him.
One morning, Zeth was trying to get several people acutely in need of a junct-satisfying transfer off his schedule and onto lord's. The schedule was kept on a chalkboard in the back hall of the chapel, and Zeth stood with chalk in his fingers and an eraser in his tentacles, raising a cloud of white dust and creating more problems than he was solving.
Bekka Trent came in, watched him for a few minutes, and said, "Zeth, why. are you wasting a channel's time on that? There are three people waiting for you."
"I'm coming," he muttered, continuing to scribble.
After a moment, Bekka said sharply, "Zeth! Here, let me take care of the schedule. You go do your work."
"You don't know how to match people—"
"Well, tell me." She stretched on tiptoe to lift the board down from its hook. "Why did you change Risko?"
"He's used to choice kills from Slina's pen and he's voluntarily not killing now, to help us through the winter. He deserves better than I can give him, Bekka.''
"Better!" She shuddered. "No—I understand. But if you move him to the afternoon—" To Zeth's amazement, Bekka soon created order from the chaos on the board.
By the time Zeth had finished the morning's work, Bekka had arranged a schedule that used the four channels more efficiently than Zeth had seen since he had begun working. Marji, who still tired easily, said to Zeth, "Thank you for
putting Bekka in charge. I thought I was going to drop!" The schedule didn't last long, however. Just as Zeth and Owen were headed to their next appointment, Trina Morgan came running up. "Zeth—your father's calling for you!"
Zeth had to force himself not to augment as he dashed to the chapel, Owen right behind him. Rimon was thrashing on his bed, calling out, "Zeth! No, Zeth—NO!" His field was chaotic agony, and all Marji's efforts to restrain him served at most to keep him from flinging himself off the bed.
Zeth tried to mesh fields, knowing that Rimon was not hearing anything.
"Zeth, I didn't mean it! I didn't know it was you!" The words made no sense, but Zeth continued calming Rimon with his field, hoping recognition would bring his father out of the nightmare. Eventually his hysteria subsided, but Rimon sank from sharp anguish into bleak despair . . . and from there into the coma-like sleep that had claimed him lately.
Marji's round brown eyes were worried. "When he started calling for you, I thought maybe it was a good sign, but—"