"Channels are born, not merely trained. And they are very rare."

"Well, then a vigorous recruitment program is what you need. One designed to attract more channels than nonchannels."

"Most channels don't even know they are channels unless they disjunct very shortly after maturation. Disjunction is much harder for a channel than for an ordinary Sime."

"Are channels really all that different?"

"Oh, yes. Anatomically and psychologically. A separate mutation. Some say a more perfect one since if all Simes were channels, Zelerod's Doom wouldn't be descending upon us."

"I've never understood that Why the apocalyptic vision?"

"Think a moment... a junct takes between twelve and thirteen kills a year. Every year of his adult life. A hundred years ago, that averaged only twenty years. Most Simes died during changeover from pathological complications. Today, we have an eighty per cent survival rate and the Sime life expectancy has increased. The ordinary Sime may live to be sixty or seventy. Do you know how old Grandfather is?"

"No."

"A hundred and five years. And all that time, he's never killed. That's more than one thousand Gens that he hasn't killed."

"Now I see what you mean." Valleroy thought a moment, lining up the factors in his head. Each one served to increase the number of Gens killed per year. "What will Simes do when all the Gens are gone?"

"Die." The channel whispered the word quietly into the night. Valleroy could feel the shivering fear in that single word. The crickets' chattering rose to a crescendo and then fell into a momentary silence like the guests at a party embarrassed by some too-frank remark.

It made Valleroy hold his breath as if afraid the crickets were reacting to that sentence of doom... as if mere insects knew and understood. Then they picked up their chirping song, and Valleroy sighed the bizarre impression away. "Then the Tecton ought to be recruiting... high-powered professional campaign... mass psychology... the works."

Stretching his long legs out and half reclining on the steps, Klyd inspected the stars. "Not only is that illegal in-Territory, but it's also unheard of. Gen society has retained a high level of accomplishment in areas that arc total blanks here. We have photography, fertility drugs, some rudimentary electronics, and a certain expertise in chemistry. You have industries based on mass production, mathematical sociology, and assorted fundamental attitudes totally lacking with us."

"A perfect situation for an alliance?"

"A situation demanding an alliance. There's no choice. It's only a question of whether the race will survive long enough for it to begin."

Valleroy pitched his apple core in a soaring arc toward the moon. "With the channels to stand between the ordinary Sime and the Gen, we just might have a chance."

"But only the barest beginning of a chance," Klyd gathered his legs and turned toward the Gen, an earnest excitement written in every line of his taut body. "The Sime-Gen Union will be based, at first, on trust in the channels. But eventually, all Gens will be trained as Companions. There will be no need for any Gens to fear any Sime. Channels will become just people then... not slaves to a talent we never asked to inherit." He gestured. "Look at the stars and tell me what you see."

"Thousands of dots."

"In the old books, it says they are suns... many of them just like ours and probably with planets very much like ours. Maybe even people like us, who knows? The Ancients had only just begun to explore when the mutations began."

"Explore the sky?" Valleroy couldn't quite believe it, but the powerful vision that Klyd held seemed terribly important in that quiet evening.

"Hugh, they actually walked on the moon and on Mars! They sent probes farther than that." Klyd took Valleroy's hand, gripping his large-boned wrist to show the contrast between the bare simplicity of the Gen arm and the complex harmony of the Sime contours. "Look at our hands and tell me they don't belong together! Reunited, mankind will go to the stars... and beyond... There's no limit to what we can do when we stop killing each other and learn to use each other's strengths and weaknesses."

Beside the Sime hand, Valleroy's own fingers seemed more like Gen fingers than they ever had before. With an effort, he pulled his eyes away from the Sime tentacles and looked at the moon. His mother had told him stories about walking on the moon. He'd always thought they were only fairy tales. Now, suddenly, the grandeur of the vision brought tears to his eyes. His voice was a husky whisper as he said, "Yesss... together we could do it" He felt as if he'd pledged his life to a cause far greater than his own existence... and it was a wondrously good feeling.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

Flight

BUT IN THE HARSH REALITY OF MORNING, THE Idealistic vision faded into a childish fantasy ranking next to secret blood brotherhoods and code messages left in hollow tree trunks... and secret temples built among Ancient ruins.

The pragmatic fact was that, for Valleroy, there'd be no future at all unless he found Aisha. He no longer wanted to live if he couldn't paint-and he couldn't paint if he had to work for a living. Aisha was the key to both land of his own and a decent retirement income. His stay at Zeor had changed his outlook. He was no longer certain he wanted her to be a part of that life... unless she could come to see the Simes as he did, to understand Zelerod's Doom...

Gradually, he became aware of awakening. He felt himself lying on the cot across from a dim window. The thoughts faded back into dreams as he opened his eyes.

Dawn was seeping through the cracks in the shutters... a gloomy, gray dawn with the sharp bite of winter once more in the air. Beside him, Klyd suddenly erupted into motion, rolling to his feet.

In three quick strides, the channel dashed to the window, throwing it open as if expecting to see hordes of attacking raiders surrounding the tiny shelter.

Worried, Valleroy joined him. They peered out at the lowering black clouds and a deserted landscape. Far out across the valley, there was a barely discernible movement. Valleroy said, "What's that... ?"

"We're cut off," snapped Klyd. "Let's get out of here... quickly!"

Without waiting for agreement, the Sime snatched up their few belongings and fled as if escaping a deadly trap. Valleroy took a moment to gulp some icy water from a pitcher. Then he pounded after Klyd, rounding the building and skidding to a stop at the tackle bar.

They saddled up with grim speed, Klyd finishing first and turning to help Valleroy. Moments later, they were racing east, away from Zeor and into the mountains. Flattening himself behind the sorrel's long neck, Valleroy tried to protect his face from the icy wind. Between slitted eyelids, he managed to keep the channel in view despite the other's faster mount.

They flashed eastward through the early dawn as if pursued by nightmare monsters. Their horses blew frosty steam clouds into the sudden winter's promise of snow. It wasn't long before the horses were lathered into gray-white ghosts nearly lost among wisps of ground fog.

When the animals could go no farther, Klyd reined in. He leaped down and stripped canteen and bedroll from the saddle. "Hurry. We might make it yet."

"Wait a minute!" said Valleroy, loosening his saddlebags. "Whatever we're running from, we're running in the wrong direction! Zeor's back..."

"I know that! But so's an entire Runzi contingent"

"Between us and Zeor?"

"Right. Hurry! I'll help you make a backpack out of that, here..." The channel took the lashings of the bedroll and secured the bundle across Valleroy's shoulders. "You'll need both hands to climb. We'll send the horses back to Imil. If they make it, this ought to tell the story." Using the crest of his ring, he scratched a pattern of lines into the saddle of each mount Then, pointing them toward the north, he gave each weary animal a slap on the rump, starting them off in the general direction of Imil. "Let's go."

Valleroy's will to argue was paralyzed by a growing horror at being chased afoot through the Sime Territory mountains during a blizzard. The prospect was overshadowed only by the terror of being a helpless captive of killer Simes. He followed Klyd up the hillside.

They had dismounted onto rocky ground. Now they climbed almost straight up a jumbled pile of boulders at the bottom of one of the numberless ridges that stretched out from the range of foothills ahead of them.

Valleroy held his own for the first few hundred yards, but then the superior endurance of the Sime became apparent. Gradually, he lost ground. However, one glance out across the valley lent new strength to trembling knees.

There was indeed a line of dust motes forming a cordon between them and Zeor... riding straight across the checkerboard fields and seemingly aimed right at them I

Together, they scrambled over weather-beaten boulders, slipping in loose gravel, yet striving to leave no sign of their passage. Minute by minute, the clouds banked lower into a black, ominous mass relieved by an occasional glimpse of white. It was going to be quite a storm!

Raising his collar, Valleroy fixed his eyes on Klyd's boots and concentrated on climbing. The quilted jacket of the Zeor livery that had seemed too light to be worth wearing now provided a surprising amount of protection. He was too tired to question this new miracle, though. His legs were still weak from his long stay in bed. It was all he could do to keep moving.

By noon it was snowing so hard they could no longer see the top of the ridge they were climbing. The large wet flakes swirled downward, melting on contact Exhausted, Valleroy let the channel haul him up one more precipitous rock face, and then collapsed against a boulder. "I've got to rest."

Klyd placed one foot on a rock and peered upward along their path. "We must find shelter before it becomes too slippery to climb."

But Valleroy had other things on his benumbed mind. "How did you know they were coming?".

"The Runzi?"

"Yes. And how did you know they were Runzi?"