"My new roommate, Sorel, says that when she first came here, somebody was tested as a Farris and there was all kinds of a ruckus, only it turned out to be totally mistaken." Betta grinned impishly.
        The short blond girl and several of the other new students had inexplicably attached themselves to Deah. Through several hours of testing, evaluations and orientation, they had kept popping up to say hi. Now they were following her back to her dorm room.
        "There were two completely brand new, unheard of mutations discovered on my roommate's first day," reported Ladlo. "The Controller hit the 'discoverers' with a two hour transfer delay. One hour for each mutation, I guess."
        Deah gave in. "OK, OK. There was a little bit of that," she admitted. "I guess they must have learned their lessons, though, because they only speculated I might represent a mutation."
        The others convulsed in giggles.
        Not only were they following her, they were treating her like a hero because her nager was large. To be honest, Deah hadn't realized herself how big it was until somebody had told her. They were all very -- and to Deah's mind overly -- impressed by her nager's size.
        "Oh no, she's a 'suspected mutant'."
        "I think they should be transfer delayed at least five or ten minutes for that."
        "And somebody said that Arat Audnes might be a fair - but didn't finish before the other woman smacked her. I wonder if she was going to say 'Farris'?"
        They whooped with laughter around her.
        "Arat Farris! Oh god! No, it's too good."
        "'Excuse me, Sectuib Zeor, we have a relative of yours here, I'm afraid he's in retainers, would you take him off our hands for us please?'"
        "Oh come on, they wouldn't use retainers."
        "He was in retainers when they brought him here. Didn't you see those red marks on his arms?"
        "Talk about humiliating. No wonder he was being such a jerk when we were waiting."
        "Uh... I hate to disillusion you, Ramy, but Arat is pretty much a jerk all the time."
        Deah was glad they weren't talking about her anymore, but talking about Arat was just as ridiculous. First of all, he too had the big nager the teachers called First Order. On top of that, he was famous. Deah was sure at least half of her own unwanted fame was due to her having called Arat spoiled and self-pitying earlier.
        "I think he's handsome." Ramy looked and zlinned rather starry-eyed, especially now that her heartthrob's orneriness had been given a suitably romantic explanation.
        "Ewww!" The others broke into laughter.
        "No way! That nose."
        "Yeah, he has that humongo schnozz."
        "He has that humongous ego. I am so sure, like anybody cares."
        "And that nager. They must have been furious when they discovered he already does that Audnes effect with his nager."
        "No kidding. There isn't a renSime from here to the border who wouldn't recognise that."
        "Wouldn't recognize what?" Deah cut in.
        "When you zlinned Arat, didn't you notice kind of a, it's like, when you look at the sand under the water, and you see all the light patterns on it, from the sun?"
        "More like the sun reflections on top of the water. Like at sunset," suggested Phylissa.
        "It's not like that at all. It's like a tingling sensation, like a sparkling you can feel," interjected Betta.
        Deah rolled her eyes. "Never mind, I'll wait and ask again when we've all had a few adult vocabulary lessons."
        "Well, anyway, it would happen when one of them would go up and speak, at a rally or a demonstration or something. So thousands of people have zlinned it."
        "Yeah it's stronger when they get upset. Like when that Pico Waik guy started pushing Arat's buttons." Betta giggled. "The role of the sheep! The Insulator's Apprentice!"
        They all dissolved into giggles once again. This bunch of kids got the giggles more than anybody Deah had ever known. She was pretty sure they were letting themselves feed back on each other nagerically.
        Finally they reached Deah's assigned dorm room. "OK you guys, this is it. Thanks for walking me back, I'll see y -"
        Deah stopped dead at her first sight of the tiny room: unfinished concrete floor, white-splotched unpainted walls, one bed still covered with a protective wrapping and the other leaning mattressless and only half-attached to the wall. A dusty window overlooked several more buildings under construction.
        Betta plucked Deah's bag mischievously out of her grip. "You aren't going to get rid of us that easily. We have to help you unpack!"

        "Help" was not exactly the word for what they had in mind.
        "Oh. My. God. Look at this color."
        "Look at this hat."
        "Ewwww, I would hate to live in Nivet." They burst into giggles.
        It was a good thing Deah didn't take much pride in clothing - and that they'd all be wearing uniforms from now on.
        "All right you guys, - hey! Be careful, that's fragile." Deah swooped in and rescued a miniature porcelain horse from Betta's grasp.
        "It's pretty."
        "Give them all to me, I'll put them up here where they'll be safe."
        The horse, a pert, prancing bay, went up onto the shelf over the bed.
        All of the students except for Deah sat clustered on the floor like children. The closeness made a mess of their nageric interactions, but they didn't seem to notice, or maybe they just didn't care. Somebody passed Deah a second horse.
        "So Ladlo," said one of the girls, "someone told me your dad was on the raid that busted Arat's parents."
        "No way, really?" The others were instantly intrigued.
        "Come on, Ladlo, tell all," encouraged Betta.
        The young channel blushed, but grinned, pleased to be at the center of attention.
        "My dad is with the Border Patrol," he explained, ostensibly for Deah's benefit.
        Deah plucked a third horse from a fold of discarded clothing, and inspected it for damage.
        "Yes, yes. Get to the good part," Betta squirmed. The others laughed.
        "Yeah, Ladlo, don't make us twist your arm."
        "All right, already." Ladlo's nager was pretty muddled by the tight quarters, but it was still possible to zlin his glee. "So the night Arat disappeared, there was all kinds of a ruckus, because he'd told a school counsellor he was certain he was going to change over, and he swore he even knew when, down to the minute.
        "Jedya and Leese Mason were the ones who had him at the time, they came down to Children's Services just before dawn and said his parents had been by and snatched him."
        Deah frowned as she collected two more of the horses. Pico Waik had implied Arat had lived with his parents, but now it sounded as if he were being fostered.
        "Turns out a number of people had seen them leaving town on the North road, and not just them. His uncles were there, and their servants, everybody. The whole clan, and packed for long distance travel. Obviously something was up."
        Now the others were squirming with impatience too. He was playing them like a champ. Betta made meaningful twisting motions with her hands and tentacles. Although they looked like they were meant for a neck rather than an arm, Ladlo took the hint.
        "The posse caught up to them two days later, in the mountains. They were probably running to the same place where they waited out the Wars."
        "Ooh... was it total surprise?"
        "Did they have a watch set?"
        "Oh yeah, it was total surprise. They were all fast asleep. There were twice as many troops and volunteers as there were Audnes to capture, too."
        Finally all of the horses were in their row, the bay #2 in the lead and a yellow pony, #12, bringing up the rear. There was supposed to be one more, but she hadn't bought it yet. Deah had spent her entire childhood saving for these ones, one penny at a time. It was odd to think she'd be able to afford the missing #1 within a week of coming here. Her Tecton channel's salary, even her student stipend, was more money than her parents had ever seen.
        "Busted up the camp, arrested everybody... the Gens were illegal, they were unlicensed Donors. Threw everybody in handcuffs and retainers and all, and brought them back down the mountain to throw in prison. Forever."
        Deah picked up the tiny catalog from where it lay on the floor. She traced a tentacle over the picture of the twelfth, final, horse. It was a stallion, pure black, rearing with his forelegs lashing out. #1, Thoroughbred Stallion, it said underneath.
        "But what about Arat?"
        "Yeah, what about him? What about the kill?"
        Ladlo grinned, and played the last of his hand. "Well, Arat was Sime, it turns out he'd changed over exactly as predicted. And there's a fresh grave; he'd killed one of these unlicensed Donors."
        "Arat is junct?" cried Deah, spinning to stare at Ladlo. She hadn't believed her ears, but the others confirmed it with their nods and nagers.
        "Yeah. So are his parents and his uncles," said Betta. "Not repentant juncts, eager ones. They say his folks kill every chance they get."
        Living in the heart of Nivet, Deah had never seen anything of this phenomenon close-up. Indeed, the stories had seemed unreal to her, the sort of thing her parents and their friends would whisper about at night after the children had gone to bed.
        Deah struggled to keep horror and nausea out of her field. "Is that what makes Arat so... so...." Her nager expressed the shudder there were no words for.
        "Nah, that's just Arat," laughed Phylissa. "He's been like that since he was a little kid. You should have seen the first time a teacher laid hands on him in the schoolyard."
        "But... those people are criminals! They deserve to be in prison. I hope they all die horribly."
        Some of the students seemed taken aback by her vehemence, but most of them zlinned of titillation.
        "Boy, you really know how to say it plain," said Betta. "Can I be your friend?"

        Just then, a new a new nager burst through the doorway.
        She was a big, bold girl, just beginning to show evidence of the kind of woman she'd become. Oddly enough, though, her nager was small - the smallest channel nager Deah had yet zlinned. The girl stared and zlinned around the room, as if searching for somebody. "Who's the one who told Arat Audnes he has his head up his ass? I want to shake your hand!"
        Deah rolled her eyes. Her impulsive speech earlier was sure turning out to be a Big Deal.
        "I suppose that would be me," she said reluctantly.
        'I want to shake your hand' was one of those expressions, like 'Well, I'll be jiggered!' and 'It takes two to tango' which most people knew the spirit of, but had no idea what the literal meaning had once been. Deah was startled when the big girl jumped toward her and seized her right hand and elbow, then pumped her forearm vigorously.
        "I'm very, very pleased to meet you," she enthused. "I'm Sorel Leaver, I changed over in Gen Territory, can you tell?"
        "Uh?" said Deah dizzily, as she extracted her hand from the others' grip and hid it behind her back. "No, I couldn't tell at all."
        "Diplomatic, aren't you? Well, you'll lose that within a few days here, if you follow the usual pattern. Welcome aboard! By the way folks, it's Assembly time." Sorel surveyed their confused expressions. "Don't know about Assembly yet? Shendoni, was I ever this wet behind the ears? OK, here's how it works. This is the best year of your life. You'll make your longest lasting friendships and connections right here at Othwol. It's called networking. And don't think that drivel they foist off in lecture is going to do you a lick of good if you don't make a good showing among your fellow students."
        Deah was beginning to realize that along with the smallest nager in New Othwol Sorel also had the biggest mouth.
        "Just a minute, kids," Sorel told the others. She took Deah aside. "Zlin this?" She moved the tentacles of one hand into a complex interwoven gesture Deah couldn't even comprehend, much less memorize. "This is the sign we use to call an Assembly. You should teach all your people that."
        "My people?" repeated Deah, in disbelief. "I don't have any --"
        "Think again," said Sorel. She gestured at the others, who were yearning in their direction radiating curiosity. "When you pulled that 'hogwash' stunt you made friends for life. Including me!"
        Exasperated, Deah began, "I wasn't trying to make a big statement or anything, I just -"
        "Well whether you wanted it or not, you did. Hey. I'm not from New Othwol, I came into it just like you, a few weeks ago. But I've been here long enough to know one thing for sure -- not a kid grows up in this town who doesn't either worship the ground Arat Audnes walks on or hate his guts. And he scares every last one of them completely silly. Do you know how long it's been since anybody Arat's own age stood up to him?"
        "No...?"
        "It's been thirteen years. And before that he didn't even exist. You are the first, and that gives you instant status with everybody who's heard about it. I aim to help you keep that status." Sorel beamed. "Show you the ropes, how to build that into some real power!"
        Deah almost protested that she was sixteen, and therefore hardly Arat's age, but that would risk prolonging the already ridiculous conversation. Instead she asked, "Is everybody here as obsessive about hierarchy as you are?"
        Sorel clamped a comradely hand around the back of Deah's neck and steered her toward the door. "Welcome to the world of adult Simehood, kid."

        The Assembly-place was an unfinished auditorium, the stage of which was a natural shortcut from the dorms to the main body of the school. It might hold twelve hundred people when it was finished; now it held about eighty students, along with assorted pallets of construction materials, cranes, ladders, buckets, tools, crates, and heaps of the ubiquitous white plaster dust.

        The instant Deah stepped onto the crowded stage, she knew Arat was there. She recognized his effect on the ambient. Her attention darted to the stage right wing, where he was surrounded by followers new and previous. Like the rest of them, he now wore the dull Tecton trainees' uniform. Unlike the rest of them, he actually looked good in it. She tried to zlin the junctness in him, but there were too many others in the way.
        This was the largest group of people she'd been in since changing over, except at the train station where there had been an experienced Tecton Donor to protect her from the others' fields.
        "Who are all these students?" she whispered to Sorel.
        "They're all here to see the big matchup."
        "What matchup?"
        Sorel grinned with relish. "You versus Arat in a game of selyn chicken, of course."
        Deah was familiar with "chicken", a contest in which two wagons were driven hard at each other down a narrow lane. The driver who "chickened out" of a collision and ended up in the ditch was the loser. It was supposed to be a contest of nerve, although skill with horses and blind luck played major roles too. Needless to say, intoxicants were generally involved.
        "Selyn chicken? That sounds...."
        "Dangerous?" Sorel grinned wickedly. "You bet it is! Well, nobody's actually been seriously injured yet, but it sure separates out the Simes from the children."
        "I don't remember volunteering for this."
        "Get real, Deah!" Betta overheard and joined in, enthusiastic to show off knowledge she'd picked up sooner than Deah. "You don't volunteer, people dare you. Then you have to do it, or you'll lose face big time."
        "This goes on all the time?" Deah was appalled. She should have known; only the physical part of adulthood came instantly. Mentally, these people were still kids, and anywhere from a year to five years younger than her. She'd hoped....
        "Not all the time. Usually it's different things. Like the time somebody dared Ladlo to put earthworms in that Gen bricklayer's sandwich. Hoo boy! If you could have zlinned his -"
        "Sorel, fun is fun, but I can't be involved in -"
        "Whoops. Excuse me, Sorel. I have to talk to her for a minute." Betta took Deah's elbow firmly and took her aside.
        "Betta, this is ridiculous."
        "Deah, don't be a sissy. You don't want people to call you a coward, do you?"
        "I don't care enough to risk getting thrown out of school on my first day."
        "They can't throw you out, you're a channel. Where else would you go?" Betta was exasperated. "Look, you've already been with his nager anyway. Are you scared of it or not?"
        Deah shielded her true feelings on the matter. "Of course I'm not, but it's the principle of the...."
        "Do you know who that is?" Betta turned Deah around again and pointed at a big young channel who was one of several people arguing earnestly with Arat. At Arat, rather, since he seemed to be ignoring them.
        Deah did a double take, and squinted closer. "It's Mepig III." She was surprised.
        The boy was relatively famous. His father, Kahrl Mepig II, had been a Nivet Territory elected official before Unity and had managed to remain in office by submitting completely to the will of the Tecton. The Tecton had permitted it so that the family would stand as an example to the thousands of other renSimes who found themselves suddenly living under the Tecton. When Mepig III had changed over last month, and turned out to be a channel, his acceptance into training as a minion of the Tecton had been made very public. "It is Mepig. I knew he was sent to New Othwol, but I wouldn't have thought...."
        "You wouldn't have thought you'd ever see him?" Betta's mouth twisted wryly. "Deah, it's not as if you've died and gone to heaven. Channel's school won't be that different from children's school. They aren't going to give Mepig any special treatment just because of who he is, because of who he is."
        "No, I meant, I wouldn't have thought he'd be involved in this... this...." Deah gestured at the rowdy Assembly.
        "Well, there he is. See him sweet talking Arat? Those two are the fame and fortune of this school. If you don't go to Assemblies, you're just a - a nobody. And if you don't play chicken with Arat, you're a double nobody!"
        That stung. Deah glared at Betta, then looked back at Mepig despite herself. He was bright, smooth, larger than life. He seemed perfectly comfortable with Arat, or at least noticeably so compared to everybody else. He leaned close to Arat's ear, gesturing casually as if ticking off points in an argument. Arat himself appeared tired and annoyed, as if he'd found the entire day - or perhaps his entire adulthood - a trial, and Mepig was only making it worse.
        Then Arat's and Deah's eyes met, by accident, and it was as if a path had opened up between them. She caught a zlin of his nager, cold and transparent and charged with that queer terrible strength, and her neck hairs stood on end.
        Like magic, Sorel was there at her other side.
        "That's it, Deah, good girl," said the Gen-Territory born channel. "You'll do great, I know you will."
        Others quickly surrounded Deah, encouraging with voices and nagers. Deah shook her head, trying to clear it, then realized the sensation of hackles-raised defensive aggression was being deliberately perpetuated by the nagers of those around her. They led her over in Arat's direction. The crowd closed in around them, pushing and shoving for the best view.

        But it seemed that Arat wanted no part of the contest. As several people laid hands on him to bring him nearer her, he went rigid and his nager went cold and fierce. Those people shrank away, but more just pushed them out of the way and took hold.
        Arat's dark eyes burned with a helpless fury. His nager was chopped into an unzlinnable crazy quilt by the others'. Deah steeled herself as the crowd ambient was wrested out of Arat's control, and accordingly, became a thorough mess.
        "Shen, this is crazy," said Sorel. "They'll never talk him into it that way."
        Mepig was not part of the mob immediately surrounding Arat. Instead, he remained somewhat to the side, watching. His expression was anticipatory, speculative. Finally, Arat turned his head, met Mepig's eyes over the heads of the others. A communication passed between them. What was it? Somehow, silently, Arat had conceded leadership of that half of the students to Mepig.
        Deah did not have time to think about how he'd done it or why she'd understood it, however. Mepig was pushing through the others, pulling them away from him. "Come on, get off. He'll do it, give him some space." Miraculously they obeyed. Why? It wasn't his nager they obeyed, his just wasn't that impressive. But children were impressed by who a person's parents are, and that was what they obeyed in him.
        In a few moments, the way between them was clear. Mepig and Arat exchanged some quiet words, and Deah took advantage of Arat's availability and distraction to engage his field, testing. Deah pushed experimentally; Arat's field gave like a cat refusing to be stroked. When she pulled instead, his field bent as readily toward hers, like the arms of a willow with the breeze. Deah remembered what had happened during their first confrontation - the brittleness with which his control had fragmented under her sudden assault. It had happened again when the others mobbed him. She suspected much the same thing would happen during their contest. Arat's nager, for all its other strengths, would appear to be ill suited to a direct clash.
        Deah smiled.
        Arat turned and cast an unreadable look at her. A hesitation, and then he ignored Mepig and turned to the people behind him, taking a commanding attitude. "You're interfering with my field. Go stand over there." Mepig turned to stare at him in amazement. So did Sorel, who had stepped forward to instruct the combatants. Pointing and complaining in his haughty voice, Arat proceeded to rearrange Mepig's people, making them widen their ring. He snapped at them not to move within six inches of where he told them.
        Deah decided that he had come to the same conclusions she had during her brief initial examination, and was making all the fuss to postpone the inevitable. Her new friends picked up the dawning contempt in her nager and amplified it.
        "What's the matter with you guys, are you "chicken"?" jeered Sorel finally. "You're full of big talk, Mepig, but when it comes time to really rough-and-tumble, you're just a coward!"
        "Yeah!" piped up Betta, emboldened by Sorel's rudeness. "Didn't they teach you how to fight in pretty-boy school?"
        Deah noticed that nobody dared actually insult Arat directly, and Mepig only grinned in response as his "people" came to their defense.
        "Oh, Sorel, if you're so tough, why don't you come face Arat yourself?"
        "Yeah, when are you going to tell your friend she's about to get slaughtered for our amusement?"
        But when Arat gave Mepig's people a frosty stare, they shut up. And when he turned to face Deah again, everybody else shut up too.
        Excitement trembled in the ambient.

        Arat was much taller than she remembered, his aristocratic features and long, elegant hands and tentacles like an illustration of a fairy king.
        Now Deah could zlin exactly what they meant by "fire on water". Nageric stress not permitted to manifest in the ambient spent itself internally in an almost-rhythmic strobe or beat, nagerically bright. The dancing points seemed to veil a titanic force, dark, ominous, like sun disguising water's depth.
        For a single moment, Deah felt doubt.
        He held out his hands to her. She told herself it was nothing, as meaningless as the teachers' examinations. But it wasn't. Somebody had died in those arms only two weeks before. Arat was, like his parents, a killer.

        But the others were supporting her, pouring their bravery and excitement and strength into her. Unlike Arat, she had no space around her. She had her friends.
        All bullies were scared inside, and Arat's fine upbringing - and his being junct - made him no different. Plus, it now occurred to her, it seemed unlikely that a pampered rich boy would have had much experience with the other version of "chicken", which she did. Psychology was everything in that game. You had to force yourself to be less scared than your opponent.
        As her eyes locked with Arat's, she could see there was a faint sheen of sweat on his brow. His expression revealed the truth: he was afraid.
        Yes, you coward, come get what's coming to you.
        She reached decisively for his arms -

        - and Arat's shielding dropped away, assaulting her with a ravening Need.
        Deah jerked back, reflexively.
        In the next instant, he leaped at her, augmenting, in an all-out junct killmode attack.

        ---

        "I am so humiliated! You guys set me up to look like a total idiot!"
        "We didn't know that was going to happen," exclaimed Betta.
        "We really didn't," said Sorel. "Honestly, who would have thought Arat of all people would be packing a bazooka in his handbag?
        "But I didn't zlin what was coming at all."
        "Nobody did," soothed Sorel.
        Deah blushed as she recalled the shrieks of mixed terror and excitement that had filled the halls as she fled.
        "I'll never be able to show my face in public again."
        "Actually, what you did was shenned brave. There isn't another student in this entire school who would have gone one-on-one with Arat at all. You marched up there like a champ."
        "Yeah... you're a hero. When you walk out in public, people will look at you with respect."
        "Really?" She looked from one to the other.
        "Honest."
        "Really, Deah."
        Deah zlinned them, and thought that - at least to her inexperienced senses - they zlinned of the truth. Anyway, they certainly looked sincere.
        "Well... okay. It's still embarrassing, though."
        "You'll get over it," said Sorel. "Now, let's get out of here. We'll be in major trouble if they find us snooping around back in this area."
        Deah didn't recognize their surroundings. It was a part of the construction site that was still very much under construction. Instead of walls, rows of studs marched forestlike into the darkness. Copper pipes branched upward here and there like rogue saplings. Her internal location sense informed her that she was nearly a quarter mile from where the Assembly had been held.
        "Um... where are we?"
        "This is the back end of the City Sime Center. Not finished yet, as you can see. Don't look so shocked! You should have seen what the place looked like two months ago."
        Deah couldn't remember much of her headlong flight. "Er... how far did he actually chase me?"
        "About two steps." Sorel quirked a smile, and Betta giggled. "You think Arat would do something as undignified as chase someone down a hallway? Besides, it would be too much work. Kid was raised with a silver spoon in his mouth."
        "Oh."
       
        They made their way through the construction area until they reached a series of corridors more nearly complete. At least there were walls. There was also a floor of sorts, upon which tile glue had been applied in a grooved pattern and allowed to dry untiled.
        A bunch of others - Sorel's people - were waiting, zlinning intently at something farther into the hallways.
        "What is it?" Sorel asked.
        "Shhh!"
        "Someone's coming."
        "It's Jeniard. Arat's new roomie."
        "He started around the same time I did," Sorel told Deah.
        "What's he doing here?" asked Deah uneasily.
        "He's on his way to the Collectorium probably. For a shift."
        From around the corner came a short, rumpled-looking kid of a channel. He wore thick glasses, and had been fat as a child and not lost it all yet. He flared fear and uncertainty when he saw them.
        The others whispered and tittered, and Sorel said, "Let's have some fun with him."
        "I don't think -"
        Deah's words came too late. Sorel had already moved to block Jeniard's path.
        "How do you like your new roommate so far, Jeniard?" Her nager oozed amused contempt; however, Deah zlinned other, more private emotions underneath. Fear? Jealousy? Inadequacy? It was hidden again before she could be sure.
        Jeniard stared at them nervously. "I haven't met him yet." His voice, like Sorel's, carried the Gen Territory accent. His expression and nager made it clear he'd heard all about Arat and lived in fear of the moment they met.
        "He's going to tear you to pieces," said Ladlo, clearly relishing the thought. "Why'd they give him a roommate at all? It's just cruel."
        "Maybe they figure Jeniard's going to fail anyway, and they wanted to see what would happen. My grandpa Benicks used to do that with a sick goat... put it in with the fighting dogs. He said why not, it's a goner anyway, right?"
        "Your grandpa Benicks was a junct, Sorel."
        "Yeah, well, so is Arat!" Sorel did something with her nager that made Jeniard jump forward as if goosed. The others laughed at his yelp of surprise. When he turned around to face Sorel reproachfully, somebody else did the same thing from behind and he jumped again.
        "Better hope he doesn't like your bed better, or you'll be moving all your stuff," teased Betta.
        "Probably moving all his stuff too," Ladlo laughed, "unless Arat has suddenly become big on menial labor since he changed over."
        They all began to do it, closing in around Jeniard, teasing his nager with little darts and fits of their showfields.

        In her hometown, Deah had always been the one to protect the smaller kids from the bullies. She stepped forward on impulse, ready to stop it before it went any further.
        But then, she hesitated. They were no longer children, and she no longer had any idea what would happen if she stepped in. Twice already she had been humiliated when she went up against a Sime she thought she could handle. Unless she wanted to make the same mistake again, she had better stop and pay attention, make sure she understood what she was getting into and what influence she could have.
       
        "Hey Jeniard, at least you won't be alone in Doem's class anymore. Now you've got 13 new friends... for a little while."
        "Wait til Arat finds out they made him roommates with the slooooowwwwwwest kid in the entire school."
        "Jeniard isn't stupid, he's just... just... 'nagerically challenged'."
        "Hey... Ow!" Jeniard was beginning to sound distinctly upset. "What are you - hey, stop it." He kept turning around as they flanked him like wild dogs on a deer.

        Deah zlinned more carefully. Jeniard was a First, his field more comparable to her own or Arat's than those of Sorel and her gang. There should be no reason why he could not defend himself against their teasing - but it was becoming increasingly clear that he was unable to do so.
        Then she remembered how easy it had been to disrupt Arat's concentration. It was the same with Jeniard, she realized. He had strength, but it could be sabotaged by the other students' interference. They were weaker than him, but he was hopelessly outnumbered. Suddenly the wild dog analogy seemed even more apropos.
        And Deah knew she dared not try to break it up, because this pack had already proven they could overwhelm her, too. They'd done it when they pushed her into the dare against Arat. That time, they had been on her side and supporting her. It didn't take much imagination to see what it'd be like if the attention turned negative.
        Now she finally understood the reason for the Assemblies, for the dares. It was the only way a young person could learn what they could expect of their bodies and nagers in response to others - and Deah, brand new to both Simehood and adult interactions, did not know any of it yet.
        In fact, after changeover, four days' travel by train, sixteen hours of testing and evaluation, and one abortive round of "selyn chicken", Deah was ready to admit that nothing about adulthood was what she'd expected.
        Or... no, the real problem was, she hadn't had clear expectations about any of this. All her life she'd dreamed of becoming a channel and serving the Tecton, but she'd never in her wildest moments thought it might actually happen. It was as if the book of her life had written into it, "and having achieved her dreams, our heroine lived happily ever after" - as if, after changing over, she'd no longer exist.
        "Well, that's just foolish," she said to herself.
        Because here she was.

[chapter 3: the awakening]
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[B.S.]