By now, the women in the chapel kitchen were getting ready to feed Slina's Gens. Sessly Bron walked out of the kitchen toward the back door, carrying a snow shovel. At once, Jimmy Norton got up, saying, "Let me help you, Miss Bron."
Eph Norton looked around, saying, "No, Jimmy, you're in need. I'll do it." He reached to push his son back down, as Jimmy raised his hand to ward off his father's touch. Their hands met—and Jimmy went hyperconscious, his tentacles lashing about his father's hand. Norton stared at their united hands, not comprehending. Hapen Young tried to influence Jimmy, but his field was as low as Norton's.
"Owen!" Zeth said, but his Companion was already in motion. Zeth moved to shield Jord, who had come up behind
Zeth, his channel's sense of duty outweighing his physical condition.
Just as Owen reached the Nortons, Eph looked up from his son's grip to his face, and saw the raw need in his eyes. His field flared a combination of revulsion and sympathy, throwing Jimmy into killmode. He struggled to fight it, Owen's field helping, but the situation merely stabilized. Owen could not bring Jimmy down to duoconsciousness, and so he did exactly what a high-field, experienced Companion ought to do—he placed his own hand over the joined hands of the participants—
The moment he touched them, Owen recognized killmode– the sign of disjunction crisis. He looked to Zeth, no words necessary—but Zeth realized, I can't seduce him away, anymore than Owen can! I can't produce pain and terror!
"Jord!" he said. "You'll have to—"
Jord pushed past him, his own discomfort forgotten—and at that moment Slina came in the back door, prodding before her the undrugged Gen they planned to use to provoke Rimon to take transfer. She zlinned the scene. Sessly was also watching, the shovel still clutched in her hands. As Jord approached the Nortons, Jimmy, sensing another Sime in need, turned with a snarl, gripping his father even tighter.
Zeth zlinned at once what was wrong—Jord's show-field couldn't mask his need—his secondary system was empty! I've got to do it! I've got to! But he remained frozen. When Zeth didn't take action, Sessly did: she threw the shovel between the two faced-off Simes. It had no effect—both Jimmy and Jord were hyperconscious; they didn't hear the noise, and the passing of an inanimate object was no shock at all.
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 zlinned it before—genuine unrepentant killmode possessing both Simes at the same time the pen Gen flared irrational terror and Eph Norton woke to perfectly rational but no less enticing fear.
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 running, Hank behind him—too late to do anything but witness Sessly pressing her lips to Jord's, shock and surprise at the pleasure of first-time transfer ringing through her field. No fear—determination turning to ecstasy.
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, zlinning the struggle in the sickroom, Del trying to hold Rimon down as his killmode was triggered by potent fields uncut by the curtains which had been flung aside by the curious.
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.