Rual, unlike any changeover victims Valleroy had ever seen before, seemed in perfect control of himself. With only a little help from Denrau's steadying hand, he walked toward the arbor, head high, but legs trembling. Klyd paused beside Valleroy to say, "You ought to sleep."

"What about Aisha? Can she sleep peacefully?"

"No word yet. I'm doing everything that can be done, so there's no reason you shouldn't sleep."

"How would you feel if it were Yenava out there?"

Klyd raked him with a glance that seemed to strip his brain of its very memories. Then the channel did an odd thing. He shot out a hand, one lateral tentacle probing along Valleroy's neck, behind the ear. At the same time, Valleroy felt a strange buzzing in his ears.

Before he had time to move, the tentacle was gone, leaving in its wake only a hot streak on the Gen skin. Klyd dropped his hand self-consciously. "I'm sorry. But I had to know. It's comforting to have one's guesses confirmed."

As if retreating from a dreadful embarrassment, Klyd took off for the arbor at a brisk walk. Valleroy couldn't catch up without running, so he let the channel go. It was time he went to bed, at least for a few hours.

He paced back along the tree-lined path, but the spell of the autumn leaves was broken. It wasn't until well after sundown that he got back to work.

As the days passed, he decided his design would capture the essence of Householding Zeor. He struggled to define that essence. There was pride, yes, but a fluorescent pride masking a self-righteous defiance of Sime society's rejection of the channels and their way of life. Valleroy depicted this with sharp, bright colors.

The people of Zeor had built a wall around their thoughts, accepting members of other Householdings but not Simes who killed or Gens who refused to donate.

This was not, Valleroy discovered, without justification. Most Sime farmers wouldn't sell a Householding fresh produce or grain. Therefore, much of the Householding's effort went into farming, which forced them to turn their backs on Gens they could save because there was no way to feed them.

Valleroy depicted this conflict of the channels against prevailing Sime society with geometric lines forming a rigid pattern of three-dimensional hexagons very like a honeycomb. Here and there he allowed one hexagon to have bulging sides, as if stressed almost beyond endurance.

The detail work within each hexagon consisted of flows of color, some sharp, some pastel, and some brilliant but overlaid with pastel veils that blended the sharp differences into one another, denoting the unquestioning way Zeor had accepted him.

As he put the finishing touches on his final sketch, he wondered just how long that acceptance would last. He was still low-field. His body stored very little selyn to arose any passing Sime. But, he was a Gen, a generator of selyn, the essential energy of life. With each passing day his body produced and stored more selyn, increasing his selyn potential field. Two weeks more, and he would have to donate through Klyd or some other channel of the Householding who would then be able to transfer that selyn to an ordinary Sime whose body could not produce it.

Would he, Valleroy asked himself, be able to suppress his panic long enough to do it? He sat back to admire his design while one hand sought the starred-cross beneath his shirt. When facing a Sime, his mother had told him, you have nothing to fear but fear itself. The starred-cross will keep you safe, if you have faith in it.

Valleroy wasn't sure he had enough faith in the starred-cross, but he knew his design was a winner. It had a soothing depth, almost as if viewing fog-smeared city lights through a mesh fence, and was sure to please the eye of Sime and Gen alike whether they sought deeper meanings or not

He placed the stiff paper-board into a folio case, tied it with a flourish, and set out for Klyd's office. It was only just dawn, but the channel would probably be at work.

Valleroy strode out of the factory complex, crossed the small orchard on a brick pathway, and took a long hall passage through the buildings of the court. Frost crunched underfoot in mid-October chill, and he was glad to pass into the warmth of the main buildings.

He threaded his way through the maze of corridors expertly. He'd come this way many times. Often he found Klyd and Denrau followed by a swirling retinue. It was the pride of Zeor that here the Sectuib himself visited the aged, supervised, administrated, and settled quarrels. Yet this required him always to move in haste to get back to his main duties of collecting selyn from Gens and dispensing it to Simes who didn't have the channel's ability to draw slowly enough not to kill.

Yet, somehow, Klyd always managed to convey the illusion of unhurried concentration on each person he dealt with. For that moment, each suppliant became the most important person in all existence receiving the full attention of a Sectuib. It was, Valleroy learned, an exhilarating experience. Together with his skill at delegating authority, Klyd's knack with individuals was indeed what made Zeor great among the Householdings.

Valleroy couldn't deny that Sectuib Farris of House-holding Zeor was a personage, capable, efficient, and busy. But today was Valleroy's day of reckoning. He'd been off medication for one whole day now, and still he felt as fit as ever. Today, he was going after Aisha... personally.

His steps echoed in the deserted corridors. Only the farmers working the harvest were up so early, and they had long since gone to the fields. Valleroy broke through the huge double doors that gave onto the courtyard he'd watched from his infirmary window. To his right, another door gave entrance to the building where Klyd worked... to his left, the infirmary and residences... straight ahead, the huge barred gates separating Zeor from the Sime city of Valzor. On this side of that high stone wall, the Householders were free to do as they chose. On the other side, any Gen not wearing collar chain and tags was fair game for a quick kill or to be sold to the pens. And out there, somewhere, on the other side of that wall-Aisha.

Valleroy breasted the wave of frigid air and plunged across the deserted court. Halfway to his goal, he heard a faint tapping sound. He stopped in his tracks, holding his breath. There was no wind to stir tree branches. But the tattoo came again, hardly more than a flutter.

Head cocked in concentration, Valleroy moved a few steps toward the outer wall and paused. Again it came, louder now. He moved toward the small postern gate at the left of the big gates. Again that pattering knock, but this time he detected deliberate urgency behind it, as if the knocker now perceived some one coming.

Propping his folio against the wall, Valleroy lifted the formidable bar that secured the outside door against Berserkers or Sime Raiders. Then he yanked the door open, half afraid of what he'd find there.

The bloody scarecrow that staggered, into his arms was less shocking than the scenes he'd imagined. Valleroy eased the limp figure onto the cobblestones, almost losing his grip in the slippery blood. Around the man's waist coiled one of the Sime Raider's whips complete with inlaid handle. It seemed to Valleroy a grotesque contrast to the tattered, Zeor-blue coverall.

The man's face and torso were covered with hundreds of lacerations, as if he'd tumbled down a gravel embankment. But, Valleroy saw, most of the blood was coming from his forearms. He peeled back the sleeves to find deeply slashed tentacle sheaths from which the blood spurted rhythmically, but not as profusely as it had. It slowed visibly as Valleroy watched.

"I'll get Sectuib Farris," said Valleroy in his most assuring voice, though he knew this man wouldn't see another dawn.

"Stay, Naztehr!" husked the Sime, marshaling all his strength.

Valleroy paused, transfixed by an odd thrill at the man's use of the most intimate Householding term of membership... the one thing he'd never been called before. He had to bend close to hear the faint whisper of dying breath. "Tell Klyd... Hrel spies for Andle... Aisha... with Runzi..."

The blood-soaked form went limp, eyes glazed, and Valleroy knew the blood ceased its rhythmic spurting even before he looked. He stood, repeating those strange words... Andle, Runzi... over and over to himself, fearful of forgetting the message from the edge of the grave.

A door squeaked open behind him; boots clattered, and Valleroy turned to see Klyd running toward him across the court... the incredibly swift charge of a Sime in a hurry.

The channel slid to his knees beside the still form, anguish written in every muscle of his back, and a strangled groan escaped his sensitive lips.

Heedless of the caked and congealing blood, the channel took the slashed arms in his hands, tentacles exploring the wounds gently before he swore. "The filthy perverted sub-men! Feleho! I shouldn't have sent you. It was my fault... mine..."

Valleroy watched helplessly as Klyd collapsed across the body, sobs wracking him from head to foot, tentacles still twined about the dead man's arms. Even a channel couldn't bring the dead to life.

Stepping around the channel, Valleroy closed the outer door, sliding the bar into place with a resounding thud. It gave him no feeling of safety.

He turned just in time to see Klyd stumbling toward a sewer grating where he retched violently. Recalling the first time he'd seen a bloody corpse, Valleroy went to his aid.

"No," said Klyd, pulling himself erect. "I'm all right."

"I've seen uglier corpses," said Valleroy.

"So have I, but didn't you see what they did to him?"

"Cut a few arteries..."

"Arteries! That he could have survived. But the laterals, the selyn transport nerves..." He turned away as if to retch again, but regained command quickly. "Anil they say we are perverts! If I ever get my hands on the person who did this... !"

"Andle," said Valleroy, beginning to realize the magnitude of the atrocity.

"What?"

"Andle. Feleho said it. His dying words were... tell Klyd, Hrel spies for Andle... Aisha with Runzi."

"Andle! So that's it! Do you realize what this means?"

"That Aisha is with Runzi... who or whatever Runzi is."

"The Runzi Raiders," said Klyd with exaggerated patience, "are led by Andle's cousin. If they have Aisha, and if Andle finds out who she is... he could use her to smash the Tecton, and without the Tecton to bind us together... well, no House-holding could stand alone!"

"The Tecton is the central organization of the channels?"

"More than that. Much more. But it's just barely legal. If Andle can prove that I've been trying to find Aisha for Stacy... he could cast doubt on the integrity of all channels... and the Tecton."