"You are closer to God than I. You should know."
"I don't share your theology. I haven't yet caught onto the trick of reasoning inside it. But I do think you've misjudged my place in the world."
Veritt sighed, as if shouldering a tremendous burden. "Drust and Vee are in love. I'm sure you can understand that. You and Kadi shared the same kind of young love. Their situation is no different than yours was—only they have you to guide them. Or they will have, after this month, when you've tried out your method on another Gen and know how you do what you do. Then you can teach us– through Vee and Drust."
"Abel! You haven't put that idea into the boy's head– have you?"
"No! But I think you'll find he has already thought of it for himself. One scarcely has to be a prophet to see it."
Rimon let out a long breath, surprised that he was shaking.
"It's a terrible responsibility God has placed on you, Rimon. I don't envy your place. But my job is not easy, either. I've had to speak to Drust and will again, to remind him that at the first sign of establishment, he will be escorted to the border with our love. And I will enforce our law, if I must. But while I was speaking, in my heart I was praying that even if he were to leave tomorrow, within the month we could call him back. Rimon, I dream of the day when we send our next established child into Gen Territory, not to exile, but to bring our other children home!"
Rimon had to seize the older man by the shoulders and zlin him deeply to offend him into sensibility. "What if I can't do it? What if I kill again? Abel—it's" bad enough if I kill a Gen this month. Must I be set up so that I kill your dream, too?"
"My dream?" asked Veritt mildly. "Isn't it yours, too?"
If they shared a dream, Veritt also insisted that they share the attempts to achieve it. He would not hear of Kadi accompanying Rimon to Slina's the next day, but came along himself. "You won't kill," he insisted, "and if you will allow me to zlin your transfer, perhaps I can learn how you do it."
What they both learned, though, was that Rimon was fixed on Kadi. He could not work up an interest in the Gen Slina gave him, even though he was in hard need and the boy was undrugged. Riding with the Gen before him on the way out toward the homestead, Rimon felt nothing but pity for the boy, who snuggled against him for warmth in the cold of early winter.
When Veritt reined in at a camping place along the road, Rimon pulled up, vaguely, wondering why the older man was stopping. Veritt got off his horse, saying, "No one else will stop here this time of day. Come on, son."
Unquestioning, Rimon dismounted, then lifted the boy down and walked him over to the ring of stones laid out as a fireplace. Veritt sat down carefully on the other side of the ring, and zlinned them. "I thought surely you'd fix on the Gen by now. It's still Kadi you want, isn't it?" At Rimon's helpless nod, he said, "Then you shouldn't be anywhere near her, or your desire for her could interfere with this transfer."
"Say it—I'll kill her, too!" Rimon flared.
"Easy," whispered Veritt. "That fear is all the more reason to do it here and now. Face the fear and end it."
"Yes," Rimon agreed listlessly. He faced the Gen. His body needed the boy's selyn, but he felt no real compulsion to attack. Taking the boy's hands, he looked into the empty eyes. When Rimon extended his handling tentacles, the boy looked down at the movement, and watched without fear.
Rimon slid his hands up the Gen's arms, settling his handling tentacles in transfer position. He let his laterals find the Gen skin, and slid effortlessly into hyperconsciousness, smoothly seeking the fifth contact point, still with no driving urge to kill. What would happen now? Would he simply hold contact, no selyn flowing?
But no, Rimon was low-field even compared to the dull Gen. Selyn began to flow into him. He let it come, neither satisfying nor enticing, warming a part of him.
It wasn't enough—Some subtle shift awakened true need, intil soaring, and he began to draw selyn. No pain, no fear—and no satisfaction. Craving the ecstatic pleasure he found with Kadi, Rimon increased his speed. The boy's nerves screamed with raw pain and Rimon basked in it until– No! No! I won't!
And suddenly it was as if he were healing someone. The shrieking drive to killbliss left him. Need was still there, but he was distant from it. By an act of will, he slowed his draw to a trickle. The boy's pain diminished. Rimon cut off the flow in that moment, severing his contact with the Gen in ripping agony.
Stomach heaving, he found himself hypoconscious, the limp Gen body on the ground before him.
I killed. I killed again. Oh, Kadi! Oh, no!
Off to one side, Veritt moved, disturbing the hairtrigger balance of the nager, and suddenly a burning pain spread in waves from some central point in Rimon's chest.
That was the last he knew as pain overtook him. "Kadi!"
"I'm here. It's all right, Rimon. You're all right."
Kadi was bending over him, her hands on his arms. He opened his eyes, and she was still there—trees—stones– it's real.
She pressed her lips to his, giving him the presence of her steady field to guide him in fighting the turmoil of his selyn system. There was a quiver of need within him at her touch, quickly silenced in the thick warm blanket of her nager.
Kadi and Abel Veritt put blankets over and under him. "Rest awhile," said Kadi. "Then we'll take you home."
"Kadi… I killed." Wretchedly, he forced out the confession, unable to look at her face.
She knelt and made him look at her. "No, Rimon—no, you didn't. The boy is alive, right here. See? Zlin him."
A few feet away, also wrapped in blankets, was a still form. But there was a faint Gen nager, fluttering.
"Bring him over here," said Rimon, struggling up to his elbows. "If I can't help, he'll die!"
Silently, Veritt brought the boy closer. The Gen's body temperature was way, way down. Veritt must have gone for Kadi, leaving them both here.
Rimon hesitated to touch the Gen. But even Kadi's field didn't entice him now. He brought himself into what had become known as his healing mode, reaching for nageric contact with the boy's cells. As he fumbled, the spark grew ever fainter until, quietly and without pain, the Gen body ceased producing selyn and in Rimon's loose grasp, gently died.
Veritt carefully took the boy away, saying, "You didn't kill him, Rimon."
"If I hadn't taken his selyn, he wouldn't be dead."
"But you didn't kilt."
"What difference does that make?"
"It makes a great deal of difference," insisted Veritt, bringing them tea he had brewed over the fire that now danced in the circle of stones. "I zlinned the whole thing. You fought down killbliss and then—there at the end, you came back into that same state you use to heal people. Your field joined with the Gen's. You almost had it. Rimon, what if you'd done the whole thing in—in your healing mode?"
"I don't know."
"Yes, you do," said Kadi. "Next time I'll be there to help you, and you'll use your healing mode."
"Kadi," said Veritt, "perhaps I should have let Rimon come home to you today. I'm sorry."
"Someone had to zlin what happened, Abel," she replied. "I couldn't. But next time we'll both be there for Rimon. And next time, the Gen won't die."
A few days later, the first heavy snow of the winter fell. It was only a few inches, but it drifted to block the trails. Rimon went out only to feed the horses and the goat; the rest of the time he worked at filling in the chinks around the windows, where the chill wind crept through, while Kadi sewed on the flannel shirts she was making for both of them.
They could not afford glass for the windows, and so Rimon had covered them for the winter with wooden shutters. That made it dark inside, even in the middle of the day. It didn't bother Rimon much, as he could zlin by Kadi's nager inside the house, and if necessary even through the shutters. But by the second day, Kadi had to get out, snow or no snow. Rimon joined her, and they became children again, pelting each other with snowballs and laughing as they floundered in the drifts.