"The victim," said Aisha, "remembers all too much! I think if they threaten me with that again, I'll die of fright on the spot."

"Here's another "what if,'" said Valleroy. "Suppose he drugs her and puts her in there with you. What would happen?"

Klyd took time for a long, deep sigh before he answered. "Without the drug, I probably could manage to avoid killing her. Just barely. But with it, I doubt if I would have any control at all." He shuddered. "It would certainly please him to watch the pride of Zeor so stained. But I don't think he'd do it."

"Why not? I called him a coward. He wants to get me for that."

"If he made me kill Aisha, I'd still be alive. He requires me dead, preferably this month, in order to make the charge of high treason stick. If he can show that I died of attrition when my so-called Companion was taken by an ordinary Sime in the kill, the entire Tecton will come under official investigation. Our way of life would probably be outlawed. Then where would we go? Gen Territory?"

Shaking her head bewilderedly, Aisha said, "How is it that the Householdings were ever allowed to organize legally?"

"Before the channels, nobody thought of making such a law against us. After all, do Gens have a law forbidding them to breathe water instead of air?"

Aisha laughed. It was a delicate, bell-like sound that aroused memories for Valleroy. He'd forgotten how good her laugh made him feel. She said, "I see what you mean. All Simes kill, so why make a law against not killing? A good question."

"And by the time somebody thought of it, we had too many friends in high places."

"Couldn't those friends squash the treason charges?"

"Not any more. Our sympathy with the Gen Government is an open secret. Sentiment has been running very much against us for several years. Andle's faction has been waiting for a test case, and now they've got it. Even if they have to invent the evidence."

"And you can't fight it," said Valleroy, "because the manufactured evidence happens to be real."

"None of this is real for me," said Aisha, slumping back against the bars.

"It will be," answered Valleroy, "when he gets his tentacles on you. And that will be your moment to strike... for us, for Zeor, and for the whole human race."

"That sounds so melodramatic. How can a Gen do anything once a Sime gets hold of him? And how could / do anything that would save the world?"

"With Andle gone, his movement will collapse," said Valleroy, "at least for a while. That will give the Tecton time to consolidate. Public opinion is anti-channel right now, but it's changing, isn't it, Klyd?"

"Slowly. Andle's death won't win peace. But his continued existence is all that holds his movement together. He's been careful to expunge every leader of ability from his organization. There's nobody to take his place. His death would stave off Zelerod's Doom for a few more years perhaps."

After they'd explained the Sime mathematician's forecast to her, Aisha said, "I see. Then I'll have to kill Andle. But I've never killed anybody before. I wouldn't know how. Do you have a knife or a gun hidden on you somewhere?"

"No," said Valleroy, pulling the starred-cross from the neck of his jacket. "All we have is this."

"It doesn't look very sharp. I could scratch his eyes out more efficiently with my fingers. Not that he'd give me the chance."

"No," said Valleroy. "The power of this lies in the faith you have in it."

"But I don't have faith... I'm not even sure I believe in God any more. I've prayed, oh how I've prayed!"

"Well," said Valleroy, fingering the talisman, "it worked, didn't it? You prayed, and here we are."

"With all due respect to the... uh... Sectuib... some rescue party!"

"Not rescue party," corrected Valleroy, "strike force. We're going to put Andle's whole operation on the scrap heap. Or rather you are."

"You haven't told me how yet."

Valleroy switched to Simelan. "Klyd, you pointed out that she reacted as a typical Gen... kill all the Simes and solve the problem. Is she too typical to be trusted with the secret of how to kill Simes?"

Pursing his lips in consideration, Klyd shifted his weight. Restively, he massaged his laterals in that peculiar mannerism that so disturbed Valleroy. "Aisha," said the channel slowly, "tell me what would happen if all the Simes now alive suddenly dropped dead."

She frowned in concentration, sensing there was more to the question than showed on the surface. "Well, it would certainly take a long time to get all the bodies buried. There'd probably be plague from that."

"Hmmm," agreed Klyd. "And after that? Would the world be a better place to live?"

"Oh, no! Simes would continue to go through changeover. But there would be no adult Simes to teach them. They'd have no language, no culture, no technology... no way to live except killing and raiding and no place to live except the wilds. Before long, we'd be right back where we were eight hundred years ago. We'd have to start all over. And we might not be lucky enough to get channels the second time."

"What would you do if you could teach your Gen friends how to kill Simes?"

"You mean all at once, in a massacre?"

"No. One at a time."

"Well, I don't know. Take Ginnie Simms, for example. She's the kind of fanatic who'd jump at the chance to make all Simes drop dead at once. She'd never think about plague and future Simes. I don't think I'd tell her even to save her life. But Mildred is different. She thinks Simes are evil people, but she's content to let the Lord take care of them. The only trouble is, Mildred is a gossip. Tell her, and Ginnie will know by sundown." She thought a moment. "I can't imagine anybody I -would trust... except... Hugh."

"Now," said Valleroy, "you understand why we hesitate to show you. And there's another factor. The method is even more cruel than what they're doing to Klyd. The victim suffers... terribly."

"And," put in Klyd, "if he happens to survive for a while, he develops what amounts to a phobia against taking selyn. I had the misfortune to attend the death vigil of such a victim. Can you visualize an armless man dying of thirst within reach of a water faucet?"

"Horrible. Most ordinary people wouldn't deserve it, but someone like Andle... I think I would like to do unto him as he's done unto others. Besides, when somebody is killing you, you don't worry about hitting back painlessly."

"If you'll promise you won't be unnecessarily cruel... even to Andle... I'll teach you what I can."

Aisha pondered that. "I wouldn't go out of my way to torture even the likes of him. But I won't promise to be careful either."

It was Klyd's turn to consider carefully. Because of her high-field and his growing need, he couldn't read her anger accurately. He decided to gamble. "Naztehr," he said in Simelan, "I think she can be trusted."

"All right. You explain it to her, then I'll give her the starred-cross."

The three of them worked through the afternoon, pausing only for meals or when Raiders passed by to see if Klyd had broken down yet. The jeering taunts of the Simes served only to reinforce the captives' determination.

It was after dark when the sorely abused girl had fallen into exhausted slumber that Klyd said, "I'm beginning to hope she might be able to do it, if he doesn't drug her."

"I just don't think he'll drug her... not after the way I called him a coward for it right in front of his men."

"You did that perfectly, Naztehr. They knew what he'd been doing, but they never thought of such a novel explanation."

"You think I might be right about him?"

"Partially, perhaps. I've never known an ordinary Sime to develop a fixation on Sime-Sime transfer before disjunction. True, there might be some variant strain of Simes that might react that way... but I doubt it."

"It was just a shot in the dark."

"You did hit him where it hurt, Naztehr. Close, but not close enough to make him order your execution."