The ceremony was simple and quiet, a candlelit ritual spanning midnight on the longest night of the year. Owen made no attempt to reproduce Abel's year's turning ceremony. Instead, he spoke of the love he had had for Abel, and why. He told of Abel's inspired decisions—how Owen had been made Zeth's punishment for disobedience, and how the tension thus set up between them had led to his becoming responsible for his own life despite his handicap.

"Abel Veritt was a man so close to God that such inspirations were everyday occurrences. His steps were guided so that he could guide the steps of others—of Rimon Farris, for example. Abel knew him for what he was before Rimon did. Impossible as it might have seemed a year ago, we are now

friends with out-Territory Gens. Zeth went to them for help when his home was in danger, and because some instinct drove him to seek me for his changeover. That couldn't have happened without the bond Abel had forged between us.

"We no longer have Abel to guide us—but his spirit will be with us always. If we mourn now, we mourn for ourselves– for what we have lost with Abel's death. But let us not mourn for Abel Veritt. He taught us that our prayers are always answered, as was his most fervent prayer. All who were there will bear witness for the rest of their lives that Abel Veritt did not die a killer! More—I, a Gen, bear witness before you now that Abel Veritt died having left behind the need to kill!'

After that, Zeth felt certain that no one could accept Maddok Bron's claims—but apparently there were those, especially among the older, semi-junct Simes left without a religious leader, who found it comforting not to be held responsible for killing. As his parents had always done, Zeth avoided the theological arguments. He got enough of it secondhand from Owen, who was appalled at the growing response to Bron's teachings.

Furthermore, the junct Simes from town were coming up on their third and fourth transfers without killing—but those who had elected to stay had developed enough respect for Fort Freedom to shun the kill while guests there. They talked longingly of rebuilding their community—but when they came to the channels it would be "Oh, I can manage one more time."

When Uel, lord, and Marji consulted Zeth, he replied, "But what can we do? Force them to kill?"

"I don't know," said Jord, "but we'll have a cascade if one of them goes into disjunction crisis and sets off a bunch of the others."

"What would your father do?" asked Marji.

Zeth shrugged, and Uel answered, "Probably give them all the best transfers we can, and hope."

The channels were constantly on the run, their Companions with them, but when Owen would try to make him eat or rest, or use his field to affect Zeth's emotions, Zeth would rebel. "Sometimes I think you really do think you're warding off demons!"

"I'm only trying to make you take care of yourself," Owen would reply patiently, and Zeth would quell an angry retort. The fact was, only Bekka's artistic schedule juggling

kept the Gens safe and the Simes satisfied in the close proximity dictated by the unremitting winter.

The river that marked the border near Del Brick's property froze over for the first time in years—and in weather that in any other year would have kept people huddling in their homes, but was "mild" by this year's standards, Glian Lodge crossed the frozen river along with Eph Norton and his daughter Sue. "To see if we could do it," they explained. "The Border Patrol won't be watching that route and it'll be good for the rest of the winter."

Owen wanted to spend time with his uncle, and as Zeth dimly understood, with Sue Norton. But only when Owen was too tired to work with Zeth could he leave the grueling schedule. Watching Owen stumble off toward his father's house as Wik joined Zeth in a quick-march to the Deevan house at dawn one day, Zeth determined that one of the buildings that had to have top priority in the spring was a center for channels' functions, such as the New Homestead had been. Then the channels wouldn't have to drag their Companions out in all sorts of beastly weather, going to people's homes.

When Owen came down with a cold, Zeth mentioned his thoughts at one of the "council sessions," still held around the Veritt kitchen table.

There was immediate agreement. Zeth realized that he had been accepted as spokesman for the channels, so he continued, "I wish we could find a way now to centralize our work. Every house is full of people, though. We really can't ask people to crowd in the way they did for those few days after the battle, just so we can take a house and—"

"Zeth." Strangely enough, it was Slina who provided the solution. "Why don't you think what Abel would advise?"

"Huh?"

"Right now, he could be here, he'd be tellin' you—use the chapel. Abel'd never've stood for that big insulated room standin' empty all day, if it'd make it easier on people."

Owen sneezed, and that settled it.

Centralizing the channels' duties made life much easier. Zeth and Owen had time to spend with Del upon occasion, and Owen to be with Sue. He got over his cold quickly. One midnight, Owen was with Sue when Rimon had another of his hallucinatory seizures—the worst ever. Zeth, a week past turnover, had had to practically force Owen to leave him, and

now Owen cursed himself for going as he met Zeth at the back of the chapel, where the other channels would not let Zeth into Rimon's room without his Companion's protection. Del, much closer to need than Zeth, had gone right in, and Zeth was seething.

Hank and Uel had been with Rimon, who was approaching hard need again, but Bekka had had to pull them out, and so they had left Trina, who had been working all day, to sleep in the room. The practice of alternating channels working with him with Companions sitting with him had become part of Bekka's routine.

Trina had fallen so deeply asleep that she hadn't wakened until Rimon was out of bed and in the middle of the floor, where he had fallen, crying out for Zeth. By the time his son was allowed in, Uel had the attack under control, and he and Del were lifting Rimon onto the bed.

Zeth had been hoping that Rimon's getting out of bed was a sign of returning strength—but the moment he came into the room he had the shock of seeing, for the first time in months, his father's hideously burned legs. The wounds, which had showed blackened muscle oozing blood when Zeth had first seen them, now dripped pus and were lined with a webbing of yellow infected tissue. Here and there he could see glistening bone. The skin stretched tightly over the rest of his badly swollen legs appeared dry, and hung loosely ready to fall off around the spreading area of the wounds. The room stank with putrefaction.

Del carefully laid Rimon down, and helped Marji arrange clean bedclothes so they would not irritate him. "Uel, you've got to do something!"

"What else can we do? We can't get transfer into him—"

"When he was just through changeover, nobody could get him to kill, either. Shen it, he's fixated on that memory of killing his cousin! Try some of the techniques his father used on him then."

"We can't make him kill someone—" Uel began.

Hank put a hand on his arm. "Tell us, Del. Maybe we can rouse his intil so one of us can give him a good transfer."

Rimon's field started vibrating again—Uel meshed and tried to stop the fluctuations, but it took Zeth's strength to bring them into line, leaving him dizzy, leaning on Owen. Del winced, saying, "That's an old symptom. Turnover used to bring it on—before Kadi. Why don't you rouse one of

Slina's Gens to panic? I know that's cruel, but if it brings Rimon to intil and you can intercept—"

Uel clenched his jaw muscles, the idea clearly abhorrent to him. "Zeth," he said finally, "he's your father—"