Valleroy saw Klyd stiffen at that, but the Sime covered it with a laugh. "Don't be ridiculous! Have I ever hurt anyone?"

"I didn't say you burned him. I said you're acting as if you had. You can't even hear straight any more. You ought to go."

Klyd rose as if aching in every joint. "Charnye, I feel responsible because it happened inside the borders of Zeor. Our situation is precarious enough as is. I don't want to lose this Gen. He could be the key to preventing Gen raids from across the river. But if he dies..."

"He's not in danger any more... though it is a miracle." "True."

"So, go. You're responsible for the rest of us, too, remember. We'll need your strength tomorrow." He glanced at the window. "Today, I mean."

"Evahnee," called Klyd. "Take good care of our guest." To Valleroy, he smiled and said in English, "She is not a channel, but she is trustworthy. You will be very low-field during the next month, which means you couldn't entice a Sime to attack you if you wanted to. Rest with us securely." He strode away without a backward glance, obviously in a hurry now that he was free to go.

So thought Valleroy, a bit surprised at his ability to follow the conversation, Klyd had been in need last night! No wonder he'd seemed nervous! Even the channels who could take selyn from a Gen without killing and then "channel" it to an ordinary Sime so that the Sime didn't feel the need to kill... even a channel experienced a personal need for selyn, the energy of life that only the Gen body produced. And when in need, the channel was even more dangerous than the ordinary Sime-to everyone except the highly trained Companions. Valleroy felt lucky to be alive!

On the third morning, they removed the safety rails and, for the first time, he took an interest in his surroundings.

The room was about fifteen feet square, with ample closets and a private bath. In the corner near the window was a small, friendly radiator that worked night and day to keep the early autumn chill out of the air. The walls were lavishly adorned with hand-crafted needlework, some pieces large enough to be called tapestries. One, in particular, pheasants in an autumn meadow with the buildings of Zeor in the background, spoke to the artist in Valleroy.

He read in it a deeply abiding reverence for Zeor's place in nature's scheme, and his eye returned to it again and again, searching deeper into its meaning. It seemed to Valleroy that the artist had loved Zeor with an intensity far too great to express... painfully great When he asked about it, Evahnee told him that it was a picture of Zeor done by a woman who was dying of an incurable disease. Comparing the picture with the map Evahnee provided, Valleroy decided Zeor had grown since that artist's time.

On the fourth morning, he woke feeling strong enough to swing his legs off the bed, totter to the window, and peek out between the drapes. He was on the second floor of a four-storied building that overlooked a courtyard. On the far side of the court, a Gen was sweeping leaves into a pile while a Sime scooped them into a large sack.

A group of children erupted from the doorway and scattered across the court, disappearing through other doorways. Some of them lugged musical instrument cases half their own size with an earnest determination. They bore these burdens as if they were illustrious status symbols untouchable by lesser mortals. The scene evoked memories of other autumns spent peering from other windows at well-scrubbed schoolchildren. The lucky ones. The silence that bloomed in their wake echoed louder and louder in Valleroy's ears. And, suddenly, he knew he was going to faint

As his knees buckled, Evahnee's arms took his weight. A moment later, he found himself back in bed, where he lay too exhausted to wonder how she happened to be there at just that moment.

The next morning, the children's voice drew him irresistibly to the window, but he made it back to bed under his own power. For reward, he was allowed to sit up in a chair for an hour after lunch.

By the fifth day, he was making regular trips to the bathroom without any trouble as long as he took his medicine on time. And on the sixth morning, he woke feeling perfectly normal, but ravenously hungry. His door was ajar as usual, so he poked his head out into the corridor.

The rich mosaic floor sparkled as if freshly scrubbed. A chemical tang hung in the air. At intervals between book-lined alcoves, showcases displayed everything from pre-Sime artifacts to models made by the schoolchildren. But there was nobody in sight.

Valleroy slipped into the robe they'd given him and padded down the hallway. At the end, it widened into a turquoise-floored reception area facing a high wrought-iron gate very like the entrance to a mental ward. To his right, another corridor branched off, while to his left, tall deep-set window slits filtered sunlight onto the cheerful-looking mosaic floor.

Halfway down the branching corridor, a door slid open. A wheeled stretcher surrounded by attendants emerged and glided past Valleroy. As the attendants opened the wrought-iron gate, Valleroy caught a glimpse of that patient: pale, semiconscious face, Sime arms carefully laced into restraining devices along the sides of the stretcher, pungent reek of a multitude of medications. Then the procession passed through the gate, and was gone.

"Hugh!"

"Evahnee!" In one glance, Valleroy took in the stained smock and disheveled hair. She must have been up all night with that poor fellow.

"I apologize," she said softly. "I know it's late, but Hrel has had such a hard night."

"That's all right. I've been fine." There was so much more he wanted to say-to ask-but he just couldn't find the words!

"Go back to your room, and I'll bring breakfast."

"Can I help?"

"You can permit me to eat with you."

"Yes, please do." Valleroy mulled that over. He'd meant could he help to prepare the food. He went back to his room and checked the notes he kept of their language sessions. By the time she arrived with the trays, he had found his error and constructed a speech that he rehearsed nervously while they ate.

For some strange reason, he found himself acutely self-conscious before the girl. For the first time, he was aware of her as a woman, not just a nurse. It made him feel gross and clumsy next to her delicate, Si me grace.

It was a new feeling for Valleroy, who was neither large nor awkward. He stood nearly six feet tall, weighing a hundred eighty pounds, mostly well-conditioned muscle. His skin was weathered to a light brown that almost matched his hair. He knew he was handsome in a rugged sort of way, and he could pass for a rancher or a Border Guard as long as he kept his long-fingered tapering hands out of sight.

It was those hands that usually attracted more attention than his rather common features. They appeared to be grafted onto the heavy-boned, square wrists, and were really better suited to a Sime body. One of the first things Valleroy had noticed about the nurses and attendants who cared for him in Zeor was that neither the Simes nor the Gens ever stared at his hands.

Even now, as they ate together, Evahnee watched his face, not his hands. This somehow gave him courage to try out his speech. "Evahnee, I am well now. I would like to see-Sectuib Farris-and find some way to repay all of you."

"No, you are not well yet. You must stay at least another week. You still require medicine."

"I have no money. I could never repay such a debt."

"You owe us nothing. We are obligated to you because you were injured on our land."

In spite of her simplified wording, Valleroy was forced to say, "I don't understand." It. had become his most useful stock phrase.

She repeated her sentence more slowly, emphasizing each word with graceful gestures of her tentacles. Somehow, Valleroy discovered the sinuous amplifications no longer repelled or frightened him but seemed to add meaning to the words.

"I meant," he interjected, "I do not understand why you are still obligated to me when I have received food, shelter, and constant care for almost a week. I work for my bread."

"But you are not fully recovered."

"I feel recovered."

"Only while you take the fosebine." She pushed a glass of the opalescent liquid toward him, and he downed it obediently.

"But if I feel well, isn't there something I can do to earn..."

"Sectuib has called you guest"

"But that was when I was..." He indicated the bed, not knowing how to say "flat on my back."

"He seemed like a very nice man." Inwardly, Valleroy groaned. He sounded like a five-year-old! "If I could talk to him again, perhaps we could agree on some payment."

"Hugh, Sectuib is a very very busy person... all the time. You can't just walk into his office and expect to claim his attention. You must have an appointment."

Valleroy gnashed his teeth in frustration. He had to see Klyd and get started on the search for Aisha. "How can I get an appointment?"

Evahnee gave him a "Don't be ridiculous" look that stung him into blurting indignantly, "If I am guest, who is host?"

"Sectuib, of course."

"Out there," he said, gesturing toward Gen Territory in unconscious imitation of the Sime idiom, "a host usually sees his guests occasionally."

She peered at him closely for a moment, and then drew back, stifling a giggle. "I shall try to attract your host's attention. Such a joke just might succeed. But, remember, Sectuib is"-she groped in the air as if seeking the words-"well, he's... Sectuib! In many other Houses, the lesser channels carry much of the routine burden. But Klyd works dispensary every day so that each of us gets a turn with him every few months. And his touch is like..." She trailed off, enraptured by a distant vision of paradise.

Valleroy prompted, "Like what?"