If anything goes wrong, it's my fault, my fault.
The next day, as they went about their work in the house. Kadi watched him warily, sticking close to his side. At midmorning, she straightened from spreading the straw they were using for warmth on the floor of their house. "Someone's corning."
As soon as she said it, he heard the hoofbeats—but he zlinned no one, either Sime or Gen. "Children?"
They went outside, as the horses started around the side of the hill. He did, indeed, zlin the faint nager of children.
"Mr. Farris? Mrs. Farris? Is anyone home?"
They walked down the hill to find two visitors from Fort Freedom dismounting: Drust Fenell and his girlfriend– Rimon fumbled for her name—Vee, that was it. Vee Lassiter. Both were on the brink of adolescence, and as inseparable as Rimon and Kadi had been at their age.
"Hi!" said Drust. "We've come to trespass on your land."
"No one from Fort Freedom trespasses here," said Kadi. "You're always welcome."
"Thank you," said the boy. "My ma sent you some wool." He untied a roll of heavy cloth and handed it to Kadi. "It was supposed to be a coat for me for the winter, but I'm not gonna be here to wear it."
"Why not?" asked Rimon.
Drust laughed. "Look at me! Even Mr. Veritt says it's not presumptuous to say I can't possibly become Sime, now."
It was true. The boy was not only already taller than Rimon, but filled out to a muscular Gen build. His hands were large and square, callused with hard work, yet he was gentle as he put an arm around the waist of the girl with him. "We're going up top of the pass to look over to Gen Territory and decide where we're going to meet."
"To meet?" asked Kadi.
"Drust will establish any day now," said Vee. "Later, if—"
"When," said Drust. "When Vee establishes, she'll come to me. I know where Elin Lol went, and others from Fort Freedom. It won't be so hard to go, knowing Vee will join me."
Rimon nodded silently. Drust rushed on, "Mr. Farris, my ma says you're awful sensitive. She can't zlin anything yet, but maybe you could…"
"Of course," said Rimon, awed to be consulted by this boy who so wanted to be Gen. He wondered—a boy like this, raised by Simes—could he learn to be unafraid, like Kadi?
He thrust the thought from his mind as he remembered Billy. No experiments with the children of friends!
"Come on," he said. "We'll have to get away from Kadi's field."
Need slid into his consciousness as they moved apart from Kadi and Vee, but it was not strong yet—just enough to sharpen his perception of Drust's field. He'd done this often enough with the whelps of his father's Gens, looking for the accidental Sime among them.
"Uh, Drust, I'll have to make lateral contact to be sure."
"It's all right, Mr. Farris. Jord Veritt's been screening me for weeks now. I'll be still."
As Rimon circled to put himself between Kadi and the boy, he said, "Can I ask a—personal question?"
"Sure."
"Did—uh—do your parents ever touch you with their tentacles?"
"Oh, yeah, of course." He reached for Rimon's hands confidently.
"All right, be still then for a moment." He concentrated, zlinning Drust right down to the cellular level. Nothing.
As he dismantled the contact, Drust started, but his nager had so little power that Rimon didn't even react. "What's the matter?"
"It's all over? You did it?" He looked at his arms. "You didn't even bruise me."
Rimon realized he had held the boy very loosely. "I trusted you not to move. You wouldn't have wanted to hurt me." Which was rather strange, he realized. He'd never trusted a child like that before. Was Kadi destroying all his reflexes?
"Oh," said Drust, with a trace of reverence Rimon wasn't sure he liked. Then, "What did you find?"
Rimon smiled, shaking his head. "Not yet. There's not the slightest sign of establishment—or changeover, either."
Drust shrugged. "I'm glad. I'm not ready to leave, but Ma thought maybe…" Drust was Sara Fenell's son. Rimon wondered if she feared that her kill—and enjoyment of it—on the day of the Wild Gen raid would condemn her son to life as a Sime.
"I'm glad, too," said Vee. "Maybe we'll both establish together."
Rimon zlinned her with senses sharpened by the exercise with Drust. Oh, no—
"Vee," he said gently, "I think we'd better take you home. Both of you."
"Oh, but Drust and I are going to picnic up top of the pass! We have permission—honest."
"You're not going to feel like picnicking in an hour or two," Rimon said. "Come on. You'll be most comfortable at home.",
"Should we take her in the wagon?" asked Kadi.
"No! There's nothing wrong with Vee!"
"It's not wrong," Kadi said. "It's just changeover."
Vee screamed. It was the agonized, despairing cry of a trapped animal.
When Vee caught her breath, she cried, "No! You're lying! I'm not a Sime—my parents are good!" The raw self-loathing took Rimon completely by surprise, though it shouldn't have.
Drust took her into his arms. "It's not true," he said. "Mr. Farris must be wrong. You're fine—Vee, you're not even feverish." He held a hand to her forehead, glaring at Rimon.
"Drust, you know I'm right."
"No one can tell before the fever starts!" He cradled Vee against him, as if Rimon were trying to curse her.
"Drust, you're not helping Vee by denying the truth," Kadi said. "She'll be more comfortable at home, with her family, and you can stay with her until it's over."
Vee turned tear-drenched eyes up to Kadi. "I don't want to be Sime! I'm not a monster!"
Kadi recoiled. "How could you possibly think you were? Your parents, Mr. Veritt, all the Simes at Fort Freedom are good people—and now you won't have to leave them."
"Drust will have to leave—and now I can't go with him!"
"If you're Sime, I'll pray to become Sime, too," said Drust.
"Drust—you mustn't! You can't pray to be cursed!" said Vee.
"Won't that guarantee it? Vee, I'm not going to leave you."
Rimon met Kadi's eyes. Hadn't she said almost the same thing to him the day they brought him home on the flatbed wagon, the blood of breakout crusted on his hands, Zeth's selyn sustaining his life? He could see she was thinking the same thought. He gave her a let-it-be signal with one tentacle, and went to hitch up the wagon.
By the time they reached Fort Freedom—stopping only to ask Slina to send a Gen to the Lassiter home—Vee's fever had begun, and she was responding to Kadi's field. Her parents accepted their daughter and Rimon's diagnosis without complaint and took her to her room. But under the veneer of calm, Rimon sensed the father's shock, and his brief savage fight with denial, before he went out to get Abel Veritt.
"Please, Mrs. Lassiter," said Drust quietly, "I want to stay with her."
The woman nodded. "You can come in when I've put her to bed."
"I'll help you," said Kadi.
"Thank you," she replied. A tear slid down her face. "It's not her fault. Her father and I—we've tried, but—"
"It's no one's fault, Mrs. Lassiter," said Rimon. "Changeover is a perfectly natural process." He was furious at Abel Veritt's teachings. They might give hope to the newly escaped Simes from Gen Territory, but look what they did to the two thirds of their children who would change over!
Just then Veritt arrived with Vee's father. As Mr. Lassiter went into his daughter's room, Veritt said, "Rimon– you discovered this sad event?"