Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Jean Lorrah

Sime~Gen #5

CHANNEL'S DESTINY

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

All of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

To the economy, but for which this book would have been somewhat longer, and might have covered the actual founding of the House of Zeor.

Also to all the Sime~Gen fans who have read and commented on this book in manuscript and kept up the dialogue on the series background in the three Sime~Gen fanzines. (For information on the fanzines, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to AMBROV ZEOR, Box 290, Monsey, NY 10952.)

Thanks to Anne Golar for helpful medical research, and to Katie Filipowicz for many thankless tasks in putting this book together.

And to all our readers—if you would like to comment on this book or the Sime~Gen series, you may write to us in care of the publisher, or through the AMBROV ZEOR address, above.

Jean Lorrah, Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Murray, Kentucky Spring Valley, New York

Chapter 1

"No matter what happens," said Zeth Farris, trembling with an emotion he could not name, "when I grow up, I'm never going to kill."

"You can't say that for sure," challenged Jana Lodge Erick, tossing her braids back over her shoulders.

Her older brother Owen said, "Zeth's going to be a channel, like his father. And channels don't have to kill."

The three children were walking along behind their dogs, herding sheep into a sheltered pasture. Zeth, the youngest of the three, had to stretch to keep up. As he caught them, he saw a stern glare pass from Jana to Owen, the same kind of glare grownups used to swerve conversations away from topics not for children.

"No matter what your father says, there's no way to know if you'll be Sime or Gen," said Jana.

"It doesn't matter," replied Zeth, with the belligerence Jana always seemed to wake in him. "Even if I'm only a Sime, not a channel, I still won't kill. It's too hard to stop once you start."

"That's why I want to be a channel," said Owen. "To heal people. I want to be a healer."

Zeth had heard this argument many times, and knew there was nothing Jana could say to deter Owen. But Jana snorted at her brother's ambition. "I'd rather be Gen. A Sime is either a channel or he isn't. But a Gen can learn—''

"Hey, listen!" Zeth interrupted. "Is that the bell?"

"Can't be," said Owen. "Can't hear it from here!"

But the wind was carrying faint echoes. "Let's go see," said Jana. Instructing the dogs to mind the sheep, the children scrambled back along the trail toward the stockade of Old

Fort Freedom. As they emerged onto a rise of ground overlooking the neat community, the pealing of the bell became clearer and clearer—until the alarm pattern sounded danger across the landscape.

As far as the children could see, the land was part of the township of Fort Freedom. The original religious community still stood on one side of the creek, but on the other was a growing secular community, loosely incorporated with them and sharing their ideals.

•In the far distance, the hilly land on which Owen and Jana's father raised the finest horses in the Territory sloped down to join the New Farris Homestead. There, at his own home, Zeth spotted a column of black smoke. "It's a fire!" he shouted. "Come on!"

The three children ran pell-mell down the trail and across the newly sprouted fields just in time to catch the last riders from the Old Fort. Dan Whelan, the blacksmith, slowed his horse to catch Zeth up in front of him. "Hang on!"

"I'm all right," Zeth panted. "What's going on?"

"Raid. You kids get out of the way. I'll drop you, and you run on up to Mr. Brick's."

"But Dad and Mama—" started Zeth.

"They'll want you safe!"

Zeth was safe enough for the moment, Mr. Whelan holding one arm about the boy's waist, the other hand on the reins, handling tentacles out to steady them. His laterals lay quietly sheathed amid the rippling musculature of the smith's forearms. After one glance at those calm laterals, Zeth let his fear well up. His child's nager could not irritate Mr. Whelan.

"Dan!" called one of the other men. "Are they Freehand Raiders?" Such outlaw bands descended like locusts, stealing, looting, killing Gens, murdering Simes—but Fort Freedom had not seen a band of them in years.

Zeth had one clear memory of a group of Gens—his mother, Hank and Anni Steers, some others—advancing on the astonished Raiders, sending the scarecrow forms scurrying to their horses. Had he seen it, or been told about it? He recalled the nightmare image of a tattered, skeletal Raider grasping his mother, trying to kill her the way Simes used to kill Gens, by draining her life energy.

But Kadi Farris could not be killed. Her red hair was a halo of flame, her body surrounded by a glowing nimbus that drew

her attacker helplessly, hands and tentacles grasping her smooth, untentacled arms, lips pressed to hers—

And then a blinding flash, deafening thunder, and the Sime attacker lay dead at his mother's feet.

Zeth could not have seen it like that. He was a child; he couldn't zlin fields. He wasn't sure he had seen it at all, or if it was his father's vivid account engraved on his mind. The raid when he was four was the last Fort Freedom had seen of Freehand Raiders, because they'd developed a superstitious fear of Gens who could kill.

As they drew near, Zeth saw one of the barns burning. Mr. Whelan and the riders who had picked up Owen and Jana swerved off toward the hills, where Del Brick's land lay.

"You kids get on up to your father's place—Zeth, you stay with them till someone comes for you," Mr. Whelan instructed. "Head around to the east!" he called to the other riders. "Shen! Who'd have thought they'd attack Farris?"

"I'm going home!" Zeth said to the older children.

"But Mr. Whelan said—" Owen began.

"Zeth," interrupted Jana, "you come on home with us now."

"I don't have to listen to you! That's my house down there! Your pa's down there," added Zeth. "You know he would've gone to help."

"That's right!" Jana said. "We'll all go!"

The children scuttled down the hillside, through a stand of evergreens, to the edge of the fields. The attackers were not Freehand Raiders, but in-Territory Simes, fanners, sheep ranchers, tradespeople—a posse, not militia.

Nor did Zeth see any badge of authority. Vigilantes, then– but why attack the Farris Homestead? All they'd ever done was good!

Zeth couldn't see his father or mother. They'd be in the house, according to the attack plan. That plan had come out of the raid when Zeth was four, when Liz Carson, a Gen Companion, died not in the kill, but from a Raider's dagger. The loss of a companion was grave indeed, but the precarious balance of their lifestyle could be overturned by the loss of a channel. They had only three: three precious lives between Fort Freedom and the kill.

A cordon of Simes protected the main house. The channels would be inside, and all Fort Freedom's Gens. No—not all. Zeth saw Hank Steers gallop up, steady as any Sime, bursting

through the line of attackers as their horses reared and plunged. Zeth wished he could zlin. Mr. Steers must have hit the attacking Simes with a nageric shock. Steers, meanwhile, rode straight to the house, stood up on his saddle, and vaulted onto the porch roof. A window opened, and eager hands pulled him inside.

The torches thrown at the house could not catch in the slate roof or stone walls. People from the Old Fort and the town outnumbered the attackers, so the gang left their assault on the main house, throwing their torches at outbuildings. The three children crouched behind a wagon—until one of the attackers threw his torch onto the wooden bed. When Zeth thought the man had turned away, he jumped up to snatch the burning brand.