Channel's Destiny s-5

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  Zeth fought down panic. Bron's field enveloped him in triumphant promise—but the man could never reach his capacity by the end of the month. Still he refused to ask Owen to stay.

  As Zeth didn't apologize, neither did Owen. He simply packed and traded rooms with Maddok. It was strange to have a different Gen nager in Zeth's room. Awake, Bron was adequate protection against encroaching need, and when he knelt to pray, the calm, meditative state soothed Zeth almost to the point of considering Owen's absence with equanimity. But the moment Bron fell asleep, his field would have kept any of the other channels comfortable, but not Zeth. What likelihood was there that an out-Territory child would change over into a channel of Zeth's power? Virtually none. If Owen makes any move to apologize in the morning, Zeth promised himself, I'll ask him to stay, and tell Bron he can handle any channel he's likely to encounter.

  But Owen didn't apologize. Zeth stood back, waiting on the chapel steps, refusing the urgings of his waning field to run to his friend and beg him to stay.

  Owen came over to him, leading Flash. When Zeth remained silent, Owen said, "I'll be back in ten days, Zeth."

  "Fine," Zeth forced himself to say casually. "See you then. Have a good time."

  Zeth felt Owen bite back a retort—then he mounted up, kicked Flash in the ribs, and was gone.

  Zeth's need nightmares inevitably took the form of searching madly for Owen, never being able to find him. It was a week before Maddok even started to wake up in response to Zeth's discomfort, unless he woke up shouting. Still, Bron never tried, as Owen did, to provoke Zeth to make his own decisions. He was content to order Zeth around, and Zeth was content to obey.

  The tenth day, though, relief flooded Zeth every time he remembered, Owen will be back today! But he wasn't. The

  day passed, and the night as well, with no sign of Owen. Zeth fought down panic. I can survive one month without Owen. I can take a healing-mode transfer from Bron and balance my fields and then I'll be in good enough shape to go out-Territory and bring Owen home. Never did he let himself fear that Owen was not to be brought home. He's not dead. I'd know.

  That afternoon, a mud-covered figure rode through the gates of Fort Freedom, radiating alarm. Eph Norton—announcing as he slid down from his horse, ".It's not an investigation—it's a takeover! Owen's been arrested!"

  Zeth's panic spiked so high that Bron put his arms about him, as if to hold him from attack—but there was nothing to attack. Where is he? Who's got him?

  Only when Norton had collapsed into a chair in the Veritt kitchen, a cup of tea in his hands and Margid busy making him a meal, did the story come out.

  "They send out soldiers from the garrison to collect the taxes in the spring—but two or three together, not twenty or thirty! They come onto my place demanding tax money. I had it, but then they wanted a head count—and Owen happened to be there. Yesterday—no, day before. He was headed back here. Damn—if he'd've left just an hour earlier—I couldn't pass him off as a hired hand, him with only one arm, so I said he was my nephew—but seems they'd met Owen before and he claimed to live in Mountain Chapel. They decided to search the house, sayin' they heard we was harboring Simes, sellin' 'em Gens! I been hangin' these damn tags over my gun by the door, so's I'll remember to put 'em on before I ride over here. They found 'em, and then they ransacked the house, found my papers in Simelan—searched Owen and found his tags and papers, and that was enough to arrest him."

  Norton's eyes met Zeth's. "Nothin' I could do, unless I wanted to be arrested along with him. They told me to stay put, they were gonna send out more troops to put us under martial law. We all knew what that meant! My men took out the guard they left on my place easy enough, and I rode right out here. By now, I figure they got reinforcements headin' for my place, and all the others, too."

  "And maybe in Mountain Chapel," said Bron. "The law says they can execute Sime collaborators or Genrunners, and

  Whitby would love some action to show he's doing his job! Zeth– "

  "I came to you for help, and you gave it. You don't think we'll refuse to help in return?"

  "I'm goin'," said Slina. "None of my people're gonna miss this."

  "We can be ready to ride by sundown," said Dan.

  Zeth was ready to go right that minute—but preparations had to be made to cover his absence, and the absence of Uel and Marji and their Companions. Most of the Simes would go, so most of the channels had to go as well. Marji, raised in Mountain Chapel's traditions, was astonished that she should be expected to go on a military campaign while Jord, a man, was to be left behind—but Jord was the least stable channel and therefore best not exposed to battle.

  Zeth felt Sessly's resentment that Jord should be called unstable while he was in her care, but he also felt her relief that he would not have to risk his life in battle—and that kept her silent. Not that the channels were supposed to fight; they were the medical team. Zeth chafed as Dan deployed the people of Fort Freedom, the channels and Companions at the rear of the line of march. Zeth's inclination was to lead the charge—but of course he knew intellectually that Fort Freedom could not allow him to take such a risk.

  Slina left one of her old faithful hands, Flieg, in charge of the new pens. The town Simes formed a separate line. There was no time to practice together, so it seemed best to leave each to its own tactic and leadership in battle.

  They decided to head straight for Mountain Chapel, where they could pick up additional manpower to liberate the ranches. Slogging their way across the highest pass, they met another messenger on his way to Fort Freedom: Lon Carson. He was on foot and exhausted.

  "I had to sneak out," he explained. "They sent a whole troop of men in, confiscated our weapons and set up martial law. Now there's only about twenty men guarding the town– but they have guns and we don't. The troops from the garrison are trying to keep everyone put while they round up reinforcements. Then they plan prejudged trials, and mass executions for Genrunning."

  "Twenty men," said Slina. "Dan, Zeth, you let me and my men go in there and clean 'em out for you."

  "We want to avoid killing—" began Bron.

  Slina gave him a look that said her opinion of him had just dropped several notches below its previous rock-bottom position. "That's the idea," she said with exaggerated patience. "My people are professionals. They can handle Wild Gens without hurtin' 'em, so's no one's provoked to a kill. Put 'em up for sale later."

  "Slina's right," said Dan Whelan. "All right—you bring your people around us—''

  Zeth chafed at not being in on the action. It's just the first step in rescuing Owen, he reminded himself. He's not in Mountain Chapel.

  The Gens took the easier but longer wagon trail toward Mountain' Chapel, Simes and the Companions riding with channels the shorter but narrower way that Zeth had first come to the town. As the sun rose, both troops approached the bridge. Glinting flashes told them spyglasses were turned on them—Simes and Gens, meeting and joining to progress inexorably in the direction of the town.

  The Gen troops headed out to defend the bridge. Slina and her party rode forward, whips at the ready. Shots rang out– but none reached its mark. In the second volley, when the Simes were upon them, one townswoman went down, dead, caught full in the face. Otherwise, flesh wounds, but nothing serious—and the Simes were riding straight over the soldiers. On the other side of the bridge they turned, cracked their whips, and began herding the terrified Gen soldiers back across the bridge.

  In the town, people came running out, cheering. Half the soldiers dropped their guns in panic, and the others' were quickly wrenched out of their hands.

  Slina dismounted, coiling her whip, and strode briskly toward the captives. "Prime Wild Gens," she said in English. "Keb, Bree, Taris—you take 'em on back to my pen—tell Flieg to tag 'em and make out papers. And tell him to sell the two that give you the most trouble on the way back as Choice Kills, to pay the taxes on the rest!"

  The tensed alarm in the captives put an edge on
Zeth's need, and he almost objected until he recalled that Slina's pen was the only structure that could possibly contain the prisoners—and her threat would assure they went docilely with their escort. None must get away to warn the others!

  Beside him, Bron called, "Take those uniforms, and let

  them travel in their underwear, Slina. They won't give you any trouble."

  Slina squinted back at him, zlinning him oddly, and then issued the orders.

  Soon the soldiers were on their way back to Fort Freedom. In the town, the people were liberating their guns from where the soldiers had put them, inside the chapel—but no one seemed certain of their next move. "Now what do we do? There'll be more troops on the way here, tomorrow at the latest, with orders to hold executions!" said Lon Carson in the Brons' main room.

  "Not if this were Sime Territory," said Zeth. It seemed so obvious he couldn't imagine why Bron was staring at him. "I saw it months ago—before Abel died. There aren't enough people in any of our communities to survive alone now. We've got to unify."

  Maddok said, "Zeth, I'm calling everyone into the chapel. Your idea will have to be considered."

  After everyone had been calmed by prayer, Bron announced, "We're not safe here anymore. We have to help the ranchers oust the military from their property—but that isn't enough. Once word gets out, we'll be the target of the whole territorial army. Fortunately, Zeth Farris has a suggestion."

  Zeth made his way to the lectern and faced the overcrowded chapel, noting the way the Simes had arranged themselves to protect those in need. It was the first time he had faced them thus, but he knew this was the only way he'd get to Owen in time, and so he found his voice.

  "We are four communities united in a mutual struggle for survival—ranchers, Mountain Chapel, Fort Freedom, and Freedom Township. A law which decrees a parent must be executed for saving a child's life is an abomination of the human spirit. If we are to continue as human beings, we must remove the border that divides us. If we move it so that your communities lie in-Territory, it will not be illegal for you to love your parents—or your children."

  "I'm for that!" cried a Gen. Another spoke up, "But how can we?" A Sime called, "If we can do it, we'll have autonomous control of the new land for a decade. We can write our own laws!" And a portly man from the back added the clincher, "We won't have to pay taxes on both sides of the border anymore!"

  Enthusiasm for Zeth's idea was growing. Eph Norton ex-

  pressed it for them all. "Hell—we got nothin' to lose. If we don't move the border, our government's gonna execute every last one of us." He pointed to Jimmy, sitting across the aisle with other Simes. "I got a boy there can't be my son under Gen law. He hasn't killed five months. There's nothing wrong with him now. No reason he shouldn't inherit the ranch I built!"

  Soon a plan was formulated: they'd ride out and take the Gen garrison. Zeth breathed a sigh of relief. That's where Owen is!

  Had it been up to Zeth, everyone would have gone straight out to their horses. However, there was an immense amount of preparation first. Horses had to be shod and shells loaded, and men discussed how best to deploy the new, fast-loading guns with the older type. Women packed food and medical supplies.. Meanwhile, arguments erupted as to exactly where they meant to move the border.

  The arguments, the preparations—all seemed to Zeth a deliberate waste of time. "The reinforcements will reach the garrison while we're fooling around here!" he protested. "They'll have a full force."

  "And if we're unprepared," said Cord Ashley, one of the secular leaders of Mountain Chapel, "they'll put us to rout. I've served in the army, son. It'll take them time to gather their men—and we have to decide exactly what we're going to do. What we can do."

  Bron agreed. "We have no right to try to take other communities into Sime Territory—perhaps one day we'll encourage others, but we must not force them."

  "Look at it practically," said Ashley. "What we take we gotta hold. Chances are, if we attempt to hold only land that's ours anyway, they'll think twice about trying to move the border back—'specially if the Sime government will help us hold it?"

  He looked questioningly at Zeth, but it was Slina who answered. "Rimon an' Abel an' me—we been playin' games with the government the past ten years—an' I ain't forgot how it's done. You worry 'bout takin' the land, and we'll worry 'bout holdin' it."

  Bron assured Cord, "You can trust Slina to know the ins and outs of Sime Government. And you just saw the way the people she commands handle themselves in battle."

  Finally they got to what interested Zeth; the garrison. It lay

  in a plateau beneath a cliff that made a natural barrier across that section of Gen Territory. "If we can take the garrison," said Ashley, "that cliff makes a natural border. There are only two passes through it, three days' ride apart. It won't take many people to guard those passes. We put the border there, we can defend it! Now—how do we take the fort?"

  Bron had an answer obvious to the Gens—a solution no Sime would think of. Find twenty men, Sime and Gen, who fit the uniforms they had taken from the captured soldiers. Send them in as returning troops. By the time they were close enough for Gens to realize that they didn't recognize them, they'd be close enough to charge the gate while the force from Fort Freedom and Mountain Chapel swept down out of the hills. Those who entered the fort would also be armed with a Gen innovation, powder kegs with fuses.

  Maddok Bron had further plans. "As a safety measure, and to be certain the Simes fighting with us can tell which Gens are which in the heat of battle, the channels ought to take down the fields of all our Gens—even those staying behind. You'll have to have that selyn for healing, Zeth."

  Much as he itched to be off, Zeth had to agree. As a large number of Mountain Chapel Gens had never donated before, the three channels had to work slowly the next few hours. By the time they were finished, it was finally time to ride for the garrison.

  They rode through the night, reaching the hills overlooking the garrison at midmorning. Scouts moved forward—Zeth was called up front, as he was the most sensitive of them all. Eagerly, he ran to the top of the rocks and peered over. Small bands of soldiers were leaving the fort on horseback, scattering in all directions. "What the bloodyshen hell is going on?" demanded Slina, now dressed in a Gen officer's uniform that hung shapelessly on her spare frame.

  "I can't tell," Zeth whispered back, and extended his laterals. All he could read was a bustle of Gen activity spiked with anger, dismay, annoyance, and apprehension. What he did not read kept him frozen in icy horror until Slina shook him.

  "Owen's not there!" he gasped. "Slina—he's dead!"

  "He ain't there don't mean he's dead. I'd stake Owen against them lorshes any day." Zeth remembered his mother saying the same thing, and took heart. Maybe he'd escaped.

  Quickly, before the Gen soldiers stumbled on the massed

  attack force, their little troop of counterfeit soldiers broke up into small groups and infiltrated the others. Without appearing to be bucking the tide, they worked their way toward the fort—and when they were close enough, the charge began.

  Gen fear and astonishment permeated the plateau as the force of Simes and Gens appeared. Shots rang out, horns sounded, and the troops wheeled their horses and galloped back toward the gates, which were moving ponderously shut. Zeth could zlin Gens manning the walls, and saw puffs of smoke as they began firing. But some of their planted soldiers were inside by the time the gates closed.

  Knowing Owen was not in the garrison made it easier for Zeth to do what he was supposed to: set up a field hospital outside range of those firing from the fort walls. Jimmy Norton, assigned to help Zeth, led up a pack horse and began unloading medical supplies as Hank and Uel set up the standard to mark the location of the channels for the Gens. Ironically, the flag they flew was one of the brand-new vivid green pennants from Slina's pens.

  Already wounded were being brought in—mostly Gen soldiers who hadn't made it back inside the fo
rt.

  Then, even through the raging battle, Zeth caught the pain of the inevitable—the first kill. It came from inside the fort—one of the town Simes, then. Within seconds there was another—and then a roar of shock as the garrison exploded, shards of wood flying high into the air on a roiling black cloud. They'd blown the powder depot! With it went one side of the wall. Zeth could barely zlin through the shrieking Gen pain as men were torn to pieces or burned. Instantly, every Sime past turnover was shocked to intil, and the high-field Gen soldiers were plucked up and killed on every side.

  Soldiers came billowing out of the fort, on horseback and on foot, their only chance now to attack swiftly and powerfully. At close range, their shots connected, and the hospital was suddenly busier than Zeth had yet seen. He worked, not allowing himself to think or he would sink into total despair. The kill raged around and through him, his heritage, his destiny. There was no way out. Owen was gone.

  He worked numbly, glad now for the selyn the Mountain Chapel Gens had donated. He could heal a few more before he killed. Maddok, praying as he worked, was a rock Zeth could lean on—provided he didn't lean too hard.

  Simultaneously, Zeth became aware of two facts. The first

  was the fighting arrowing steadily toward the hospital. Bron said, "Dear God! They think the banner marks the command post!"

  At the same time, a familiar nager approached from another direction, flickering as it moved between the rocky outcroppings. Owen!

  Maddok started for the banner—obviously to tear it down. Zeth grabbed him. "No! Owen has to see it to find me!"

  Bron stared at him as if Zeth had gone out of his head. "Owen's not here, Zeth—but I am—"

  "No—he's coming. There!" He pointed to where Owen's bright hair could be seen shining in the sun as he dashed between two rocks, making his way down to the plateau. "And," added Zeth, "all the Gens have to be able to see where the channels are!