Kahleen, Clire’s Companion, used her Gen body’s field strength to make a protective wall around Clire.
Clire’s eyes held a bitter warning. She was a proud woman, a mostly self-trained channel, with no inherent loyalty to Fort Rimon. “What could the identity of the father have to do with whether the child and I will be allowed to live?”
Chaos erupted again, and Rimon sighed, exchanged glances with Bruce and settled to wait it out again.
Del Rimon wanted to use all the authority of his hereditary position in the Fort to rule in Clire’s favor. However, to the majority of Fort Rimon’s current residents, that would prove that Farrises made decisions by personal whim and favoritism.
We can’t survive the coming battle with this ripping my channeling staff apart.
Before he opened his mouth, Clire knew his decision.
Her eyes declared him enemy while her nager turned to stone. He had promised to protect her and he was about to break that promise. I won’t break that promise, not really. I’ll save her somehow.
Cramming his emotions down inside where none of the non-Farris channels in the room could zlin them, Rimon said, “Then let’s put it to a vote as Xanon has asked.”
They had just about the entire channeling staff in the office. They could settle it right now.
He stood up and addressed the room. “Here is what we will vote on. The Fort Council has levied a non-lethal penalty against Clire Farris. However, the Farris channels agree that penalty might result in the death of her and her unborn child. The Farris channels agree the penalty should be deferred until her child is born and weaned. Meanwhile, she should start taking early transfers now to protect the development of her child.
“The question: does the consensus of the Farris channels overrule the decree of the Fort Council in channeling matters as has always been the custom in Fort Rimon?
“Benart, call the roll and record the vote. I will then take the result to the Fort Council for a final decision.”
Benart reached down for a clean slate from the pile by his foot, and started the roll call.
As Del Rimon expected, all the Fort Rimon natives voted to abide by the Farris perceptions. He saw the newcomers counting as each vote was announced, not trusting Benart.
To Rimon’s surprise two of the newcomers abstained. Benart announced the result. The resentment against Rimon had produced a death sentence for Clire and her child. He knew that the newly elected Fort Council, composed mostly of refugees from Forts with no Farrises, would not overrule the channeling staff vote against the Farrises.
How will they feel when we bury Clire and her child? I won’t let this happen. When it became obvious Clire was indeed pregnant, they’d say she became pregnant after the Fort Council’s decree in order to duck the penalty, knowing the other Farrises would protect her.
He gathered himself up to accept the regrets of his people before they went back to work side by side with the guests who had taken over Fort Rimon and made it their home. “Clire, I will not let this happen. Know that. Believe it. Kahleen and I will not allow this.”
“I need transfer now, Rimon. Don’t do this to me. I’ve already waited too long.”
“You have a few hours yet. I’m calling an emergency meeting of the....”
Raid alarm drums thundered and outside cries of “Wagons approaching!” rose as the ambient stirred into a practiced defense drill.
Wagons? Freeband Raiders don’t attack with wagons!
CHAPTER TWO
FORT TANHARA
Solamar Grant was first to spot the riders coming toward their wagons from the Fort gate. The Fort ahead of them was so close he could zlin its ambient nager. It had to be Fort Rimon, it just had to, and the Fort had sent riders to help them.
Grant was riding beside the lead horses of Fort Tanhara’s lead wagon, filled with their sick and injured. He was alternately zlinning the fraying harness of the right lead mare in the four-up, and dropping back to help herd the two cows and eight sheep that had survived the five months of travel from the remains of Fort Tanhara.
He kept flicking his attention toward the Freeband Raiders who were gaining on them.
The Freebander riders chasing them had come across a low hill that masked something big burning, a town maybe. Now they were gaining steadily, gaining much too fast. Must have stolen the town’s horses. Freeband Raiders’ horses were always in bad condition, except right after they’d been stolen. RenSimes who had turned Raider stole what they wanted, used it and discarded it, never giving a thought to upkeep.
The wagons couldn’t go any faster. They weren’t on a trail or even a beaten path across this mountain valley. Every rock, hole, and hummock twisted and strained the tack, the wagon wheels, the wagon chassis. The drivers were zlinning the ground ahead to pick the best course for the wagons. They couldn’t go one bit faster, and it was too slow.
If we don’t make it, everything I’ve worked for is lost. All these people will die. Maybe Fort Rimon will die too. Mentally, he told the harness to hold, the horses not to founder, the Gens in the wagons not to panic. We have to make it. We have to or the world may be lost.
His father would have scoffed at him for being melodramatic. His father had never grasped the scope of the Farris channel issue the way his grandfather had. He repeated it out loud. “We have to or the world may be lost.”
One of the young Gen women rode up beside him and shouted over the din of rattling wagons and pounding hooves, “Sol, can you zlin them yet? Is that Fort Rimon up ahead? Are those riders coming at us juncts?”
“Can’t tell for sure yet!”
“But you’re our best channel!”
I’m no kind of channel, were the words that leaped to his mind and pushed at his lips but he swallowed them back. He knew she meant he was the most sensitive Sime with the Tanhara refugees, which was true. With luck, they’ll never have to know more than that about me.
He focused and zlinned again now the riders ahead were closer. “Those riders are renSime, nonjunct, so that has to be Fort Rimon.” It just absolutely has to be!
“Get the Gens mounted and ride for the Fort—that’ll lighten the wagons. Get all our Gens behind that line of Fort riders and don’t look back. Don’t do anything to distract those Fort renSimes. They’re here to deal with the Raiders for us.”
He felt her protest ignite her nager. She was no Companion, but when her attention alighted on him, he felt it. With two tentacles, he gestured her to caution.
In response, she put her attention on the horizon beyond the Fort. Then, like the Fort Gen she was, she obediently pulled her horse up and dropped to the rear wagons, calling for their remounts which were already saddled and strung behind the wagons.
Soon everyone was shouting for the Gens in the wagons to mount up. In small groups, they began to ride for their lives, and for the life of the Fort. Both Forts.
Solamar did the one thing that might betray him to the Forters as an outsider. Without
