"I'm glad of that!"

"From what you've said, his followers may figure out the truth."

"Which is?"

"I have observed that channels who are junct often develop just such characteristics... a near inability to kill... after one exposure to a Companion."

"You think Andle is really a juncted channel?"

"It's possible that he isn't aware of it himself. But he'd never be able to function as a channel. He's been junct far too long. What worries me is what he'll do to you for exposing him like that."

"If Aisha is successful, he won't have a chance to do anything to me."

"And if she isn't? I've never known a Gen not to panic at first experience of a lateral contact."

Valleroy thought of the little nameless refugee girl the Raiders had killed before their eyes. She'd been brought up among Simes. She even had the starred-cross. Yet she had panicked. And he couldn't blame her. He'd panicked, too, the first time... and also when Enam had come at him. There was something about Simes that was just inherently terrifying.

"Well, if she doesn't make it," said Valleroy, "we'll just have to devise a new stratagem."

"It's Andle who'll be devising the stratagem. I'm afraid I won't be good for much by morning. You'll be more or less on your own."

"The crudest thing he could do would be to have me killed right before your eyes. But suppose, just suppose, I survive it."

"That would be just about the worst eventuality. You would be alive, but unable to serve."

"No, not the worst. Because if I survive, it proves I'm a Companion. His treason case will be thrown out of court."

"Sorry, I'm not thinking clearly."

"That's all right. I understand. I just wish I could help."

"Your desire to help is comforting."

"But you require more than comfort."

"Yes."

Valleroy shook the bars of the cage, hissing through his teeth. "There's got to be a way!"

Klyd recoiled from that blast of frustration, massaging his laterals ruefully. The night lights of the camp showed Valleroy the ronaplin fluid oozing from the lateral offices. The swollen glands were visible lumps, stretching the skin halfway up the forearms. Valleroy said, "Need must be... painful."

"Oh," said Klyd, seeing Valleroy eyeing his tentacles, "it's not just the laterals, it's the whole body. Metabolic rate increases, sensitivity up fifty per cent, the entire system primed and yearning to function. The Sime is a predator by nature, and need is the hunting mode. Even the personality changes. We become insufferably aggressive, inconsiderate..."

"I hadn't noticed."

"Thank you. Channels pride themselves on controlling it."

"If you've read Andle right, things may start to break early tomorrow. Try to hang together that much longer. Zeor requires your leadership."

The channel rose and moved carefully to the farthest corner of his cage, where he sat down again, carefully, as if any sudden movement would dislodge his control. Valleroy, too, moved to the far corner of his cage, afraid to allow himself to feel a frustration that would only add to Klyd's misery.

He knew he couldn't sleep, so he was surprised when he awoke with bright sunlight in his eyes and a mob of Simes crowded around the cage bars. But the visitors weren't interested in him. It was the channel that drew them, and they showed their appreciation with taunts and jeers half of which Valleroy couldn't understand except for the intent

Klyd was standing at the corner bars, clutching them with whitened knuckles, handling tentacles lashing about in unrestrained futility. Every few moments, an inarticulate snarl issued from the channel's lips. His body went rigid with strain. He was augmenting, trying to break the bars! But they didn't even bend under his fiercest assault.

The only results of the channel's berserk effort was an increase in the number of Simes laughing at him. But after a fairly large contingent of new onlookers arrived from the barracks, another more disciplined group marched up from the other direction. They placed a ladder to the top of Aisha's cage. Three of them mounted to the roof, and one of those three called out to the crowd below him. "Break it up! Orders are posted for Ten, Twelve, and Eighteen to move out on sweeps today. Better check the rosters!"

Every man there scrambled for running room and within a minute there wasn't a Raider in sight except the guards who were hauling Aisha up in a sling. Valleroy shouted, "Where are you taking her?"

They didn't answer until they'd carried her, biting and kicking uselessly, down the ladder. Then one of the guards came around the cage to inspect the channel's efforts with the bars. Satisfied that the pervert couldn't get loose, he paused near Valleroy and said, "Runzi always delivers merchandise cleaned and inspected... and at the appointed moment. Well be back for you... later." He cocked his head toward the raving channel. "You can tell him so if he'll listen. I hope he doesn't suicide before we can have our turn with him."

That worried Valleroy. He'd never heard of it before, but he supposed that a channel could void selyn thoroughly enough so that it would amount to suicide. But he was helpless to affect Klyd now. The mere desire to do so only attracted the Sime to the bars between their cages. But there was no recognition in his eyes.

It was at once both pitiful and frightening to watch what had been a rational human being behaving like an orangutan run amok. Safe behind three layers of un-bendable bars, Valleroy wondered if he could face the channel's madness without flinching. He looked into those feral eyes that no longer seemed human, and he was almost glad he wasn't going to get the chance to try.

Valleroy left his breakfast untouched.

Several times during the hours that he sat and watched what had been Sectuib Klyd Farris, the pride of Zeor, he heard the thunder of departing riders. In the back of his mind, the part of himself he'd programmed to collect every detail of their prison noted the departures and recorded the fact that he camp was now nearly empty. But Valleroy himself was too emotionally involved with the immediate agony of his friend to absorb the fact and interpret it as opportunity. He vacillated between a firm res9lve to help Klyd and a bone-chilling horror that seemed not part of himself at all, but rather a sort of primeval racial memory.

When this primitive part of himself arose, it chased all rational thought from his mind. He had to begin from scratch and rebuild all the reasons why the service of the Companions was necessary, and why his service to this particular channel was both imperative and possible. In the end, it wasn't the cold, logical objective of saving Zeor, the Tecton, and the human race that brought Valleroy back into the safe frame of mind. It was the memory of the warmth he'd felt when Feleho had called him Naztehr.

With that memory came a flood of associated moments. The instant praise his work had earned at Hrel's disjunction party. The unparalleled satisfaction of finding a part of himself that responded to Zeor and pouring that vision into his Arensti design. The thrill of having that design accepted and understood by so many whose praise he'd come to value. The look on Sectuib Nashmar's face when he saw the sketch of Enam and Zinter. And finally the great, overwhelming joy that he felt whenever someone at Imil took his achievements for granted because of his association with Zeor... synonymous with the best in everything.

All of this had occurred within the space of four weeks, while nothing at all similar had happened in nearly thirty years of his life. He knew where he belonged. To Zeor. But Zeor depended on Klyd's skills both as a channel and as an unusually adept administrator. And, Valleroy realized, Klyd's life now depended on Valleroy's own ability as a Companion.

Time and time again, he reached the decision. Klyd's life was more important than Valleroy's own, since without Klyd there would be no Zeor and nothing to go home to. Therefore, let Klyd try to kill him, and if he died, at least Klyd would live. It was an emotional decision that agreed with the more rational factors he had to consider. But every time he was secure in that decision, he pictured himself actually reaching out to touch the mindlessly raging channel with no bars between them... and the primeval terror rose again to choke him.

He fought it down only by reminding himself that he was in a cage and it wasn't his decision to make.

Finally they brought Valleroy a lifting harness and hauled him out of his cage. It was the opportunity he'd been waiting for, but the cyclical thoughts of the morning left him too numb for triumph. A part of his mind recorded the number painted on the trap door of Klyd's cage, but he knew of no use for the datum. Even though free of the cage, he was not free to act.

The straps that bound him were stronger than rawhide. All the thongs joined at a point in the center of his back where a lock mechanism secured them. The four Sime guards that escorted him allowed not the slightest chance for action. So he went peacefully. He hated to admit, even to himself, how glad he was to get away from the raving channel and the dilemma he caused.

Determined to make the most of this break, however, Valleroy lashed his mind back to Aisha and her fate. The guards wouldn't answer his questions, so he kept busy exploring all the possibilities and what he could do about them. They marched him between barracks buildings, around the stables, and into the administration complex by the back door. At the far end of the building, they entered a side corridor that led to a shower room. Two guards unstrapped him, roughly undressed him, scrubbed him down with the efficiency of harried stable boys, and shoved him into a knee-length, white tunic... standard pen issue.

To all of this, Valleroy submitted docilely, since he didn't mind getting clean. But when they started to strap him back into the harness without his pants, he balked.

With a sudden, twisting lunge, he ripped the harness right out of the guard's hands. Two seconds later, he had one of the straps looped around the leader's tentacles. He twisted the Sime's arm in a modified hammerlock that applied cruel pressure to the laterals. The other Simes froze, ready to leap but unable to risk that particular injury to their comrade.

Knowing that he had no advantage save that of surprise, Valleroy spoke fast "I don't mind the white tunic. Especially if you're sending me to Klyd. But I don't go anywhere without my pants, cloak, and shoes... and my ring. Get them now, or you'll have to get a new squad leader!" He tightened his grip and watched them all wince at his hostage's pain.

Decisively, one of them went to the corner where they'd tossed Valleroy's things and brought back the items mentioned.

After one last, brutal squeeze, Valleroy shoved the hostage into the arms of his fellows. While two of the Simes examined the injuries, the third moved toward Valleroy with the harness.

Stretching a sock between his hands, Valleroy crouched low, balancing on the balls of his feet. "You want a turn, too?"

It was evident from his confusion that the Sime had never faced a Gen who didn't fear him. The Sime had the physical advantage, and his indecision was only momentary. But Valleroy took full advantage of that moment to slip into his mud-encrusted clothing. By the time reinforcements arrived, he once more wore the Zeor crest ring proudly on his right hand.