Channel's Destiny by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Author:Jacqueline Lichtenberg [Lichtenberg, Jacqueline]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9780879978846
Publisher: Daw Books
Published: 1983-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

"No, Mama, it's me—Zeth."

She turned to look at him. Her eyes were normally deep blue, but now pain had drained the color from them until they seemed almost gray. Her hair was dull with smoke and soot—she was faded, not the flaming-haired angel he remembered. Then she smiled, and was his mother again.

"Zeth.My baby.They told me—"

"Don't try to talk, Mama. Yes, I'm all right, and I'm a channel, like Dad."

"You feel like your father," she murmured. Zeth didn't know what to make of that, but didn't ask because he could see how it hurt her to talk. "... so proud of you," she whispered, and then could not stay awake any longer.

"She must be getting stronger," said Marji. "She could hardly talk to Rimon." Zeth lethimself become duoconscious again, but could comprehend nothing more from Kadi's field. As he turned to go, he passed Lon Carson, who was projecting a savage pride as he watched Marji. His nager didn't interfere with her work. Probably Rimon had decided making Lon go would create a greater disturbance.

Owen held the hangings aside. "Zeth, can you hear me?"

"Sure."

"Well,listen! Stay with me and let me shield you—you can't go drifting off in a hospital!"

"All right, Owen," said Zeth with absolute intent as he followed along in Owen's wake . . . until the flow-pattern of the ambient nager became an irresistible lure. He turned around, caught in the intensity of ebbing and flowing energy.

This time Owen shook him impatiently. "Come on, Zeth, the channels will throw us out of here!" He led Zeth on to where, heavily shielded with many layers of drapery, the channels were treating the critically wounded patients. Zeth jolted back to hypoconsciousness when he zlinned that the body being carried out by Dan Whelan and Del Erick was dead. The bodies out in the field had not bothered him—but this one meant the channels had failed to save someone.Bron?

No, Maddok Bron had been laid on a table, still unconscious. Duoconscious again, Zeth perceived the fighting strength that denied Bron's state of depletion.

Two Mountain Chapel Gens with guns had accompanied

theparty into the chapel. Their fields thrummed with suspicion as Rimon bent over the still form of their leader. "You gotta take the bullet out," one of the Gens insisted.

Zeth's surprise and revulsion were reflected in his father's field, and Rimon fought irritation, fatigue, and pain before he answered calmly, "Then he would surely die. Prying about inside the wound would start the bleeding again, just when I've managed to stop it."

"Whad'yamean , you stopped it?You didn't do nothin'. We watched you the whole time."

Page 87

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