Frevven was just going down the stairs to a reluctant breakfast in the cafeteria when he heard church bells ringing. Had another Sunday morning come already?

Thinking sadly of Lem Cabrell and his abortive attempt to counter Richt's teachings, Frevven hesitated by the window on the landing. He pushed the drape aside to look out at Lem's erstwhile chapel. A cold fog swirled along the street, almost hiding the building from sight. It appeared dark and deserted.

He was about to let the curtain fall back into place when he zlinned a faint glow in the fog. No, the chapel wasn't entirely deserted. Wasn't that Mrs. Rodrick standing in the doorway?

Even as he watched, several other folks approached, gathering in an uncertain knot before the door. One or two drifted away, but a few stayed.

Well, what are you waiting for? Go on inside, Frevven thought impatiently. Then he realized they didn't have a key to the door.

He did, downstairs in his office. Lem had entrusted the spare key to him, for safekeeping.

He hurried to his office, plucked the key out of a drawer. Now what? Should he send one of the Gens on his staff across the street with it?

No, he'd bring it himself. In fact, he'd even attend the service, if they'd have him. Frevven smiled smugly. Chaynek would think him a fool for such a gesture, but it appealed to him.

He went casually across the hall, took his cape from the closet, and ducked back into his office. Carefully, he zlinned the interior of the Center. Anieva came from the stairway and headed out the back door to the pier, then one of the Gens went into the library. Chaynek seemed to be upstairs, in the cafeteria. Good. If he were eating breakfast, the Donor would be occupied for a time.

He really should have an Escort to leave the Center, but Chaynek was sure to give him an argument and Kurt was sound asleep in his room. By the time he'd gotten either of them to go with him, the small party of would-be worshippers might well have given up and gone home.

As soon as he knew the hallway and reception room were empty, Frevven donned his retainers and hurried out the front door.

Fear and uncertainty washed over him, colder even than the fog drifting along the street. One of the Gens standing in front of the makeshift chapel glanced back over her shoulder, catching sight of Frevven crossing the street.

No, not a Gen­-a child. Flora Veara. The others noticed the channel, drew back several steps. Flora went forward to greet him, smiling without her usual attempt to hide her crooked teeth. Her cheeks were pink with cold.

Frevven surveyed the dozen or so people gathered on the sidewalk. He held out the key in one hand, holding it gingerly by an edge so anyone wishing to take it wouldn't actually have to touch him.

"Lem ain't here to lead the service," one of the men said, not meeting Frevven's eyes.

"Lem isn't necessary. Surely someone else can do it," Frevven suggested.

Heads turned away, eyes shifted uncomfortably.

"Ain't none of us know how."

The channel frowned at this unexpected complication. What was he to do now? He knew it was irrational, but it seemed somehow very important that Lem's little group of believers not fall apart.

"Mrs. Rodrick­-?"

The old lady shook her head. "Never been much of a churchgoer, Mr. Aylmeer." She made a wry face. "'Cept for Lem's ideas, none of that much appealed to me."

Who else? There had to be someone who knew the service.

There was.

"I can do it," Frevven suggested, hoping he sounded confident but not overbearing.

The ambient lurched as someone reacted with violent revulsion. The feeling was quickly smothered, but Frevven pinpointed its source as a man at the edge of the crowd.

Mrs. Rodrick gestured to the door with her cane. "Well, what're we waitin' for? Let's get in out of the cold." She reached out a hand for the key and unlocked the door, a broad smile lighting up her face.

Flora rushed over to lay a fire in the fireplace, as the others straggled uncertainly into the small room. A woman started arranging the chairs into a circle.

Frevven picked up one of the prayerbooks. It was old and battered, but it was the standard Church of the Purity text. He flipped through the pages. Someone had made changes by hand in many of the prayers and songs. He didn't have time to do more than glance at the book, but it was coming back to him now. All he had to do was watch for the changes they had made in the liturgy.

Mrs. Rodrick had taken a seat, leaning regally on her cane planted on the floor between her feet and looking a challenge at her neighbors. Frevven sat next to her, and Flora quickly sat down at his other side. Chairs scraped and scratched at the rough wooden floor as the dozen or so people took their places. Nervous anxiety pervaded the ambient.

Frevven scanned the room, his eyes still on the prayerbook in his hands. What was he doing here, anyway? This was a harebrained scheme if ever there was one. How dare he pray at all, much less attempt to lead a service? All of a sudden, he wanted to run from the room. Flora gave him a trusting smile, opened her book, and pointed to a page number.

Suppressing his misgivings, Frevven flipped to the correct page. "Friends, let us pray," he began quietly.

It was easier than he'd anticipated. Once he'd gotten into the swing of things, he hardly had to think of what he was saying. He even stumbled over some of the new words, when his lips automatically wanted to recite the old ones.

They sang a hymn. An entire verse had been crossed out and a new one scribbled in. References to a hoped-for future, instead of being about the total absence of Sime demons, stressed a vision of Sime and Gen working together to redeem the world.

Frevven smothered an urge to laugh out loud. Hadn't that been the very same hymn he had heard Richt's congregation singing when he had gone to the Salvation Church service several months ago? If only the preacher could hear it now!

He went on to lead the responsive readings with enthusiasm. This was a vast improvement. Surprisingly enough, not all that much had had to be altered in order to change the meaning considerably.

Sometimes the words hadn't even been changed, but the meaning had shifted subtly. A psalm of petition asking that one might be delivered from the clutches of the evil ones, for instance. In the church of Frevven's childhood, it had always been clear who those evil ones were. Here, in this context, it was equally clear that the phrase did not automatically refer to Simes. The special emphasis in Mrs. Rodrick's voice, the way Flora glanced up at him side-wise, the defiant flare in the ambient, the quick flicker of a woman's eyes in the direction of Richt's church, all told Frevven the verse was not directed at him.

And a tremble of hidden resentment from across the room told him at least one person, the man he had noticed once already, did indeed mean it for him. Why was he here, if he felt that way? A spy, reporting back to Richt?

No matter. Frevven read the next line, calling for a time of silent meditation. He could almost hear the way the organ would have sounded, playing softly in the background in his home parish during this part of the service. He closed his eyes, imagining he could feel Jozanna beside him, as always.

The bittersweet memory faded into the realization that he was supposed to be praying. But how could he pray? The only God Frevven knew was Gen, and that Gen God represented the standard, the norm for all human beings. How could a Sime pray to such a Deity? What meaning could it possibly have for him?

No, he thought, watching the circle of his fellow worshippers from lowered eyes. This is still not quite right. You are still limiting the very concept of Deity with your words. Open your ears and hear what you have said. Open your eyes and see what you have done. You have taken Divinity and made it one of you. But what of me, created also in that Image? How can you ever accept me, when your God is only Gen? What else may I be but devil, demon, other?

The words cried out in his heart, but he knew he must not say them, not now, in this place. They had made such strides already. He couldn't risk incurring their enmity by demanding they go one step further.

Flora nudged him with her elbow. People shifted uncomfortably in their chairs. The silent meditation had gone on long enough. He looked down at the prayerbook again and cleared his throat.

"Protect us with Your mighty arms and keep us safe in Your hands," Frevven continued. "Shed Your light upon us, that we might know and love You in truth. Bless us, for Your Name's sake, that we may ever bless You, so long as the world shall last.

"Protect us and teach us, that we might live together in peace and justice, Sime and Gen together."

Frevven tripped on the unfamiliar closing phrase, remembering how that prayer had asked for the destruction of the Sime devils in the church at Chilton Lake.

"Merciful One, hold Your protecting hand over us, and grant us peace."

Flora shifted uncomfortably at his side.

He was about to go on with the next prayer when the girl spoke up, softly and hesitantly. "Maybe­-maybe we're missing something here. Maybe it should say `Hold Your protecting hand over us and encircle us with Your mighty tentacles.'"

Frevven stared at her. She had said what he had hardly dared to think. Despite the official theology that God was not a material being and therefore could no more have hands than handling tentacles, had that image ever occurred to him before?

At the far end of the room, a man flared outrage as he got to his feet and ran out the door.

"Good riddance," Mrs. Rodrick muttered. "He weren't one of us anyway. Don't know what he wanted here."

"Mrs. Rodrick, perhaps you will read this week's portion from the Holy Book?" Frevven asked, trying to smooth over the brief disturbance.

Flattered, she did as he requested, her thin voice filling the respectful silence in the small room. Frevven didn't hear her words. He was too busy thinking over what Flora had suggested.

Maybe his own image of God was wrong? Maybe he was seeing something that wasn't there? Perhaps there were other possibilities, and he hadn't even considered them?

Charity finished the passage and Frevven began the closing prayers, only half his mind on what he was saying.

How do you picture a Being who is neither Sime nor Gen? His mind balked at the thought. An Ancient? Who knew for certain what they were like? A child? That seemed grossly inappropriate.

How do you search for that which you can barely imagine? Where do you start?

In your own mind, in your own heart, where Sime and Gen have neither meaning nor reality. Start there and seek outward. But be warned: the search will not be easy.

Frevven stopped in the middle of a sentence, halted dead in his tracks by the unbidden thought. Where had that come from?

The congregation had gone on reading without him. Shaken, he scanned the page, trying to find his place before anyone noticed his lapse. But there was something in the ambient now that he didn't like. He concentrated, zlinning despite the distortion of his retainers. Something threatening seemed to be gathering outside.

Before he could get a clear reading, a rock crashed through the front window, and the Watchkeepers crashed through the front door.

Much to Frevven's relief, Clarendon Richt was not among them. Robed and hooded, they spread out to surround the half dozen people in the room. A man rose to his feet, fists clenched, but Mrs. Rodrick remained seated, glaring at the intruders.

"What do you want here?" Flora piped up. "Go away and leave us in peace."

"There can be no peace for heretics."

"Leave this place of false worship and return with us to the true faith. Beg forgiveness of Almighty God for your sins."

"We have committed no sins," Mrs. Rodrick stated definitely.

"Purge the evil from your midst. You consort with demons."

Even in Richt's absence, the Watchkeepers were able to hold a sort of nageric resistance in the ambient. Any fear they might have felt of the channel was walled up and smothered by a blank wall of faith. It was an odd thing to zlin.

Amidst the babble of excited voices and the strangeness of the ambient, Frevven could discern the peculiar, hard nager of Farika Snow. She seemed to be leading the Watchkeepers, in Richt's absence. She kept her voice artificially deep and strained, but Frevven recognized her regardless.

"Lem Cabrell died for his heresy. Isn't that proof enough for you?" one of the Watchkeepers shouted.

And Farika's glinting nager twitched. Just a slight waver, a small jerk of uneasiness.

It was enough to ignite a thought in Frevven's mind. He stood up, facing Farika directly. "Lem Cabrell isn't dead, is he?" he said, playing his hunch.

The woman's nager drew in and tightened, an impenetrable shiny shell encasing her body. Frevven went fully hyperconscious, struggling to read it through his retainers.

"He's dead," she stated. Behind that hard wall, something shifted almost imperceptibly. Frevven could hardly be sure he felt it, but it was enough. If she were telling the truth, nothing would have come through.

"You're lying. He's alive. Where is he?" And for that matter, where was Richt? Why wasn't he here? Janni was on Westerly. Lem had been headed there. What if he'd made it, after all?

Farika stared at him coldly, offering no answer.

Frevven took a step closer, wanting to zlin her better. "Lem is on Westerly, isn't he? And so is Reverend Richt. What is he doing there?"

She retreated, the ice-cold shell developing weak spots. "Sorcerer! Stop reading my mind!"

"You tell your so-called Master Watchkeeper that we want Lem and Janni back. I can't file charges for kidnapping Janni, since your laws don't apply to Simes, but I can damn well file a complaint about Lem Cabrell, if he's being held against his will." Frevven continued to stare at Farika as he made the threat.

"He's dead, I tell you." But the ambient didn't bear her out. Two of the other Watchkeepers also knew the truth.

Farika focussed her hatred on the channel, in a pale imitation of Richt's peculiar style of nageric manipulation. "Lem's dead," she repeated, more positively this time. "As dead as that sister of yours, and that other Gen that you killed. Deny it if you can, you cursed demon! The likes of you can never claim to have the Almighty's blessing. Killer! Foul killer!"

The blood drained from Frevven's face at the mention of Jozanna. He wanted to say something, but the words stuck in his throat. How could he defend himself against the truth?

Suddenly, the Watchkeepers all had good-sized rocks in their hands. "Stone them! Stone the heretics!" Farika shouted in triumph, seeing Frevven's hesitation.

Frevven knocked a rock out of the air before it could hit Mrs. Rodrick, wrenching one lateral painfully against his retainer as he did so. But he couldn't protect everyone. Already, people were running for the door. Flora helped Mrs. Rodrick to her feet. Frevven covered their retreat as best he could, dodging well-aimed stones or deflecting them before they could reach their targets. Even so, some of the Gens were cut and bleeding before they reached the relative safety of the street.

Some of the Watchkeepers began wrecking the store, but others followed them into the road, still lobbing stones. Mrs. Rodrick crumpled to the pavement with a sharp cry. Frevven stood over her, trying to shield her from further harm. Flora tugged on her arm, begging her to get up. People tried to run, but there was nowhere to go. Nearby shops were closed and locked.

The front door to the Sime Center swung open and Chaynek appeared. "In here," he shouted in English. "Quickly!" He ran out into the rain of stones and lifted Mrs. Rodrick to her feet. A man hesitated, then grabbed his wife's arm and raced for the open door. The rest of Lem's small congregation followed, with Frevven bringing up the rear.

Eventually, the Watchkeepers gave up throwing stones and went away. The wounded were treated, while the others were brought to the cafeteria for tea and a hot meal. No one felt like venturing into the street again, so Frevven invited them to remain at the Center until things quieted down.

He had barely finished tending to Mrs. Rodrick's bruised ribs and wrenched shoulder when Chaynek indicated he wanted to see Frevven in his office.

The Donor had stood quietly by, supporting Frevven as he examined and worked at healing the wounded. But he had been far from happy with the situation. He kept those feelings sternly under control, but every so often Frevven had been able to pick up a hint of Chaynek's disapproval, on the rare occasions when the Gen's attention lapsed.

Frevven sat down at his desk, unwilling to face a confrontation but with no real choice in the matter. Their transfer was scheduled for tomorrow morning.

Chaynek came over in front of Frevven's chair and squatted down. He ran one finger appraisingly along the Sime's forearms, and Frevven knew there was no way he could fail to notice the trembling laterals and swollen ronaplin glands. Nevertheless, he pulled away from Chaynek and stood up, clasping his hands uneasily behind his back. "Damn it, I'm all right," he muttered. "Leave me alone."

Chaynek raised one eyebrow and looked at Frevven with thinly veiled amusement. "Oh, sure, you're perfectly all right," he said ironically, "and I'm the Sectuib in Zeor." Turning suddenly serious, Chaynek continued, "Enough nonsense. What the bloody shen do you think you were doing out there? Did you deliberately try to start a riot, or did you do it by accident?"

"I wanted Lem's church to have its service, that's all. The damned Watchkeepers­-"

"One day before your transfer, you went amongst out-Territory Gens without an Escort? To lead a prayer service?!" Chaynek exclaimed incredulously. "Are you totally out of your mind? Do you know what could have happened?"

"Yes. Lem's church could have crumbled."

"That's not what I mean, and you know it. A disjunct channel in the midst of a melee like that­­" Chaynek shook his head "­-anything could have happened."

Then it dawned on Frevven that Chaynek thought he might have been tempted to kill one of those Gens. "Shenshid, you don't really think­-"

"I think you are a very foolhardy person. A channel has to know his limits. You obviously don't."

"Chaynek, I wouldn't have­-"

"No? Such things have happened before, especially where disjuncts are involved. Why do you think you're required to have an Escort, after all?"

"If I'd taken the time to inform you of my plans, we'd have had this same argument. By the time I'd have gotten to the chapel­-if I got there at all­-everyone would have gone home."

"Of course. And there wouldn't have been a riot, would there?"

Frevven didn't quite know what to say to that. Chaynek was right, but he was also wrong. "Avoiding trouble at all costs isn't always the proper thing to do," he said cautiously.

"Truly, it beats starting trouble all the time, especially out-Territory. Thanks to everything you've done, the town wants the Center closed down. Does that indicate to you that you've been following the proper course of action?"

Beaten down by the thinly veiled contempt in Chaynek's glowing field, Frevven had no answer to that. Maybe he had been wrong. Maybe it was all his fault.

"I'm sending in an official recommendation to Controller Shagoury that you be relieved, effective as soon as she can send someone to replace you," Chaynek said formally. "I have a feeling it won't take her very long."

"Chaynek, please don't do this to me. It isn't necessary. I can handle the Center. You'll see. After our transfer, when I feel better, I'll file a complaint against Richt, force him to release Lem­­"

Chaynek just stared, his big brown eyes growing wider. Frevven sighed, and explained how he had come to believe Lem was alive and being held prisoner.

Chaynek was not impressed.

"In an ambient as confused as that, you zlinned one of the Watchkeepers­-through retainers­-so clearly you could tell she was lying? Come on now, Frevven. It would take the sensitivity of a First to do that, especially if Mrs. Snow has the sort of nager you describe."

"You don't believe me?"

"You zlinned what you wanted to zlin. Simes do that sometimes. You just don't want to have to admit your friend is dead, that's all."

"Lem's alive, and I'm going to get him back, one way or another," Frevven proclaimed defiantly. "And Janni too."

" You're going to do no such thing, my friend. Perhaps the channel who replaces you will be able to extradite Janni, but you're going to sit tight and keep out of trouble for the next few days. And that's all you're going to do, unless you want my official report to call for your forced retirement from working as a channel, in addition to everything else."

Retire from working? At worst, that could be a death sentence, since entran and entran complications were often fatal. At best, it would mean the end of everything Frevven had fought to achieve for the past ten years, the end of his only real desire: to be a functioning channel, to prevent the Kill in the only way he knew how, to make up for what he had done to his sister and to Tomithy Marston. To atone for his past, and to help others never to kill.

If the Tecton took that away from him, they might as well take his life also. It amounted to the same thing.

He stared at Chaynek in dismay. Disapproval and doubt rang through the Gen's nager, the same as it had all during Frevven's time of training. Chaynek would never trust him. Never.

In cold despair, Frevven hid his face in his hands and capitulated.

"Whatever you say, Chaynek. Whatever you say."

After Chaynek left, Frevven sat behind his desk, staring numbly at the familiar piles of paper waiting to be sorted, read, and signed. He scanned a requisition for supplies, signed it mechanically. Picking up last week's selyn accounting sheet, he filled in the final totals and put it with the stack of reports waiting to go to the mainland. He wanted to have the paperwork all caught up, so his replacement wouldn't have to figure out what was going on. It was important that he leave things neat and tidy. It was­-

Shen and shid, who cared?! They were going to replace him, maybe close the Center entirely. What difference did it make that his records were in order?

Damn Chaynek. This was all his fault.

Frevven pushed the stacks of paper off his desk with an angry sweep of his hands, regarding the resulting mess with numb detachment.

He'd made so much progress on Innsfrey, done so much.

Yes, and caused so much trouble with Richt.

Was it all for nothing then? All the struggle, all the times he'd forced himself to hope, rather than despair? All the times he'd kept on going, when it would have been easier to admit defeat?

If disgrace and censure were all it had gotten him, he shouldn't have bothered, he thought bitterly. In a far corner of his mind, Frevven knew a lot of his depression was caused by his being in need. Everything always seemed worse then. If he'd had the least shred of hope left, he'd have been able to discount his feelings, tell himself things would surely be better after this transfer.

This transfer. With Chaynek. He shook his head. It wasn't a prospect he looked forward to.

Oh, he'd wanted Chaynek as long as he'd known him. But not under these circumstances. The Donor was already convinced he had cracked up under the strain. If any least little thing went wrong during the transfer, Chaynek would simply see it as one more evidence of Frevven's loss of control. And it couldn't possibly go smoothly, with Frevven so worried about it.

He glanced over at the fire on the hearth. How do you convince yourself not to worry? And what was happening to Janni and Lem? And was V'lissia well? What would he do when she had her baby? He'd be a terrible father, he was certain.

Face it, he was a failure.

Unable to stand being in his office any longer, Frevven fled up the stairs to his own room. He threw himself down on his bed.

The battle is over, Frevven. Give up and go home. Chaynek is right. You're a mediocre Second Order channel, and that's all you'll ever be. You're no hero, no match for someone like Clarendon Richt. You're no Klyd Farris, able to change the world.

Frevven's eye fell on Klyd's portrait, in its place on the mantelpiece. He went over and picked it up, glaring at the man who was probably the most famous Sectuib the House of Zeor had ever had. Zeor, whose very name meant "excellence" in Simelan.

"You," he muttered fiercely at Klyd, "it's all your fault. Excellence. Unity. Striving for perfection. Ha! What nonsense! All your fine ideals have brought me nothing but frustration and grief. Curse you, and all those like you, who hold up impossible ideals to the world, just so people can fail to live up to them!"

He couldn't stand to look at Klyd's face anymore. The sharp nose and dark hair, the pained look about his eyes, all seemed to be accusing Frevven of failure. There was no sympathy there for weakness, no compassion for those who couldn't make the grade.

With a strangled sob, Frevven drew back his hand to toss the portrait into the fire on the hearth. Get rid of it. Forget the ideals, forget the dreams. Just get by, that's all. You can't make the world better. Give up.

Then his eyes fell on the elaborately calligraphed inscription in the corner of the picture, next to a miniature version of the Householding's pointy, dagger-shaped crest. OUT OF DEATH WAS I BORN, UNTO ZEOR, FOREVER!

He froze, remembering another time when he had read that brief inscription.

Confused and hurting after Chaynek had made him witness the semi-junct Kill, Frevven sought the one place he'd never had the courage to go before. Zeor's Memorial to the One Billion was in the basement under the main building. He didn't know exactly what was in the secluded room, but he wanted to be alone with his thoughts and this seemed somehow to be the appropriate place.

He didn't remember going down the steps, but he remembered how relieved he was to find no one else there. The room wasn't large, but it was intensely quiet, and so well insulated that he felt strange when the door clicked shut and the rest of the world ceased to exist.

A single oil lamp illuminated the room, and shadows flickered weirdly in the dim recesses of the corners. On a stand near the lamp there was a large, ornately bound blue book.

Curious, Frevven picked up the book, sat down on the floor, and started flipping through it. All he found was page after page of names. Here and there, he picked one out.

Feleho ambrov Zeor. He'd heard that one before, but couldn't quite recall who it was.

Sharette ambrov Zeor.

Wait a minute, that name sounded familiar. Hadn't he just read about Sharette in one of those books he'd gotten from the library? Yes, she was a Companion who'd been captured and brutally murdered by McNairn's Raiders.

Then a few of the other names began sounding familiar also.

Martyrs. This was a book of martyrs. These people had all died for Zeor, that its hopes and ideals might live.

Frevven almost let the book slide off his lap onto the floor. Then he turned back to the beginning and looked through it again. There were no details, no clues to who these people had been or to the circumstances under which they had died. There wasn't even any way of telling the Simes from the Gens.

The most recent entries were in Muryin Farris' elaborate but distinctively sloppy script. The rest of the pages were blank, waiting for more names.

He shivered, then closed the book and stared at the blue cover. This was a lot of people, but surely nowhere near one billion. The Memorial to the One Billion had another meaning also, he knew. The number was only a symbol for the uncounted and uncountable numbers of nameless, faceless Gens killed down through history, that Simes might live.

Martyrs he could deal with, but the panorama of such a vast slaughter was something else again. No one had given them a choice; no one had asked if they were willing to die.

In the cold silence of the Memorial, Frevven felt a world of guilt pressing down on him. How could anyone even hope to make up for all that death and suffering? There were too many lives on his conscience; had been even before he had been born. The two people he himself had killed were as nothing compared to this huge wave of horror spread across the centuries.

How could he possibly not have seen it before? There was so much guilt that he could never hope to get free of it, never. His very existence had been made possible only by these deaths. He didn't deserve life at this price; no Sime did.

But it didn't happen like that anymore. Channels stood between Gen and renSime, preventing the Kill. It was over. It would never be like that again.

Over? After what he'd seen just a few hours ago?

No, it wasn't over yet.

Frevven pushed the book aside and stretched out full length on the floor, burying his head in his hands and trying to hide from the horde of ghosts surrounding him. His mind was besieged by images of Gens dying in the Kill. His sister's face was there, but it was one among many. Young Tomithy Marston. And the Gen who had died before his eyes this very afternoon.

Too many! There were just too many!

At first he thought he'd go mad. He tried to turn off the pictures, silence the screams in his head. Hordes of Pen Gens, bred and raised like animals, distributed each month to every tax-paying Sime as his or her due. Adolescents barely past establishment, drugged and semiconscious. What had they known of life, beyond the certainty of their own imminent death?

Wild Gens, captured out-Territory by Raiders and sold at auction to the highest bidder, precious because they were conscious and aware, their capacity for terror enhancing killbliss for the lucky buyer. Children claimed as Choice Kills by their Sime parents, as soon as they showed the first signs of selyn production instead of changeover.

When Frevven realized it was impossible to stop the images, he just watched, wondering if he were already crazy.

And the worst thing was that a part of him enjoyed that horror, was fascinated by it, wanted more. He tried to hate that part of himself, but that didn't make it go away. When the images shifted to show a band of Raiders galloping down on a sleeping Gen town, he couldn't stand it anymore. He didn't want to see the rest of that particular scene, precisely because he knew he did want to see it.

No, I won't! I won't! he moaned, banging his head against the stone floor. Stop it! Please stop it!

The next thing he remembered was becoming aware of the cold floor underneath him and the raw skin on fingers and tentacles where he'd grasped at the unyielding stone.

Exhausted and drained, Frevven pushed himself up off the ground, the entire side of his face numb with the cold. His nose was running and his eyes were wet with tears, but the images had stopped.

He retrieved his glasses, found the book and held it up in shaking hands.

"These people are all dead," he whispered defiantly to the shadows, "long dead. And I didn't do it. I'm not responsible for all this. It isn't my fault."

There was only silence to answer him, but he heard the answer very clearly nevertheless. "You are responsible for two deaths, and you must accept that. But you only continue to be guilty, for those two and for all the rest, if you condone it. If you approve it. If you make no effort to stop it. If you continue to kill."

"No," Frevven murmured. "Oh, no."

"Yes," came the relentless echo. "Oh, yes."

"I didn't ask to be Sime. I can't deal with this sort of guilt. No one can. And I can't disjunct. I'll die if I try. I know it," he protested.

No answer came from the shadows. The lamplight flickered on an inscribed plaque. Frevven took a few steps closer and squinted at the letters through the smeared lenses of his glasses.

OUT OF DEATH WAS I BORN, UNTO ZEOR, FOREVER!

Nonsense. Nothing is born from death, except decay and despair.

Nothing? This Householding, and everything it came to stand for, was built upon the deaths of those who had loved it more than they loved their own lives. It was begun as an effort to bring life, where before there had been only the Kill. And it had worked. The Householdings had made it possible for Simes to live without killing Gens. This had been born from death.

Other Simes had refused to be crushed under the burden of this awful guilt. And the very existence of this Memorial proved that they acknowledged and accepted what those like them had done in the past. Accepted it, not ignored it or denied it. And remembered it, that it might not happen again.

That meant there were people who could understand the torment in Frevven's heart, because they felt it themselves. And some of them had ended up in the Householding's cemetery, beneath the trefoil markers designating those who had died for Zeor.

He placed the Book of Martyrs carefully back in its place, but one hand lingered on the cover.

"For their sakes, then," he proclaimed defiantly to the shadows and silences. "There's not one other blessed thing I can do for them that would have any kind of meaning, is there?" He extended one lateral and carefully touched the cover of the book. It was that same brilliant shade of blue they seemed so fond of in this place, like the clear blue sky at the top of a mountain when you looked straight up.

"You are my witnesses. I swear that I'll never forget. I'll devote my life to accomplishing the task that they began. And I'll die myself before I'll ever kill again!"

Frevven Aylmeer squared his narrow shoulders and strode out the door of the Memorial. He didn't look back. He was afraid if he did he would see the ghosts of those to whom he had just promised his future.

Very gently, Frevven set Klyd's portrait once again in its accustomed place on the mantelpiece. Impossible ideals? Against all odds, he had successfully disjuncted. Against considerable opposition, he had insisted that he be trained as a channel and allowed to function. He'd qualified as a Second, when no one expected him ever to do better than Third. How far would he have gotten, without the dreams, without the example of others who had also tried to achieve impossible ideals?

All right, he had failed on Innsfrey, failed miserably. But he had tried. And he'd just have to go on trying, regardless. Maybe someday he'd even be good enough for Zeor.

He rose and trudged dismally back down the stairs and into his office. With a resigned shrug of his shoulders, he began retrieving the papers scattered around the floor. Not everyone could be Klyd Farris, esteemed hero.

"What does it cost to be a hero, Frevven? Are you willing to pay that price?"

Frevven straightened up and turned abruptly, almost as if he'd heard a voice behind him. No, there was only the window. It had been merely a stray thought­-strange, but inside his own head. He was imagining things again. Maybe Chaynek was right. Maybe he had gone around the bend.

Outside the window, Frevven caught a flash of light. He was about to sweep the drape aside when Tilla jerked his door open, her nager flaring concern.

"Frevven, Anieva wants you in the lookout tower right away. Something strange is going on," she announced tensely.

Proceed to chapter twelve