Skinner's fist clenched in impotent rage around the bars of his cage.  Zinah's body drooped in the tentacles of the predatory Sime who had just drained her of selyn.

       She was an artist, you shendi-cursed lackwits, Skinner raged.  Not an animal.  The pen raised Gens that shared his prison milled and wailed, pressing against the bars as far away from the kill as they could get.

       Garrett, the only other Domestic in the pen, simply stood, eyes dull and arms hanging limply.  He had tried to escape once, weeks ago, when he found out the Gendealer to whom they had been sold was travelling along the border town route, and not to any major cities.

       Small border towns had no use for artisans or skilled craftsmen.  There was only one use that Simes in such a place would have for a Gen.

       It was only because Garrett was so valuable as a prime kill that the Gendealer hadn't had him killed as an object lesson.  Instead, he had taken Rymi, a young woman with whom Garrett had developed a friendship of sorts.  At least as much as you could have with a pen-bred.  They had used whips on her, and knives, and then stripped her of selyn.

       Rule number one of surviving in the pens.  Nobody is your friend.

       After torturing and killing Rymi in front of him, the Simes had held Garrett down and forced drugged genslop down his throat.

       Yesterday, the twins, Sun and Moon, had been purchased as a wedding gift by a wealthy trader.  Matching kills.  That left just him and Garrett as the only two Domestics left in the caravan.

       Skinner knew that the only reason he was still alive was that nobody had yet been able to meet the steep price the Gendealer was asking for him.  It was less than Skinner would have fetched in a large city, where his skills as a tanner and herbalist would have been highly prized.

       One of the Gendealer's hired hands dragged Zinah's body off to the side and tossed a blanket over it.

       Perhaps Zinah was the most fortunate of the three of them.  At least her ordeal was over.  Skinner shifted his position, trying to find a spot that offered him better protection from the hot sun.

       It was only a matter of time.  Skinner gazed longingly out at the far distant mountains.  For days, the caravan has been travelling near the border between In-territory and out.  It was so close, so tantalyzingly close.  A day or two at the most and he could be free.

       Small shendi-flecking chance of that, he thought bitterly.

       The pen raised Gens had already forgotten that that they were frightened.  They wandered about the cage, occasionally bumping into the bars and each other.  Those who weren't too drugged grunted and fought over shade and what few resources they possessed.  Clothing, such as it was.  Hoarded food.

       Two days to freedom.  Skinner let his forehead fall against the bars, feeling the heat of them radiating into his flesh.  It might as well be two hundred.  Two days in the blazing heat with no food or water.  Two days in territory swarming with Freeband Raiders, marauding Simes who killed any Gen they could find, usually in a way calculated to maximize the Gen's pain and fear.

       Killbliss, they called it.  Simes fed off Gens' fear as much as off their selyn.

       As he watched, a man rode into camp, trailed by a cloud of yellow dust.  Richly dressed, for a border dweller.  Fancy buckles and expensive boots.  Silver rings.  Well bred horse and finely tooled tack.

       One of the Gendealer's overseers helped the man dismount, while another hurried off to find the dealer.  The man strolled toward the pens, his eyes already fixed on Skinner.

       There were tricks Skinner could have used to make himself less tempting as a kill, but they'd just have whipped him for using them.  Any Sime could zlin what he was doing, and how.  Shen them...there was no hiding from something that could zlin through walls, could read your nager.

       Of course, a whipping would be prefereble to what the approaching Sime had in mind.  Skinner visualized a snake, slithering over the ground.  Back and forth, back and forth.  Sometimes it almost seemed he could actually feel what was happening to his nager, but he knew that just wasn't possible.  Gens couldn't zlin.  He only knew about the effects from what he had been told by Olbin, his first master.  He saw the Sime wince as the fluctuations in Skinner's nager whipped him out of his targeting focus.

       Skinner let his face relax into the bland stupid look worn by the pen Gens.  If the Sime knew he was causing the wobbles on purpose he'd realize that Skinner was a Domestic, and that all he had to do was break Skinner's concentration to get to the selyn that he needed.  Careful.  Keep it subtle.

       The Sime shook his head as if to clear it, and then his expression turned suddenly feral.  Tentacles lashed out and he lunged with blurring speed for the cage.  Skinner threw himself backward, falling aginst another Gen.  If he'd been after me I never would have made it.

       The large male Gen who was the target of the Sime's attack screamed and struggled.  Because of the bars separating them, the Sime was unable to do more than just grip his intended victim with dorsals.  Even in hard need the Sime wasn't stupid enough to risk his delicate laterals.

       The gendealer and his men came racing around the corner.  One of them uncoiled a whip.  The others circled the attacking Sime, handling tentacles weaving, waiting for an order from their boss.

       Taking in the fact that the man was wealthy and in hard need, the Gendealer said "You kill 'em, you buy em."

       "I'll pay!" the man snarled.  "I have money."

       "Let's see it, then."

       The man fumbled at his belt with a ventral tentacle, ripping a bag free and flinging it at the Gendealer.

       After a quick glance into the bag, the Gendealer said "Give 'im the kill."

       Skillfully, his men coaxed the kill-fixed Sime into releasing the sobbing Gen long enough to get him out of the cage.  In a matter of moments, it was over.

       Chuckling, the Gendealer hefted his money and went back to his wagon.

       "Hey.  That was no Domestic.  You took twice what it was worth," complained the man.  Post, his complaint was little more than a grumble.

       "I took what you gave me," the gendealer snorted.  "Next time pay before you grab."

       The man mounted his horse, tore the reins free of the overseer's tentacles and kicked his horse into a gallop, barely missing another man as he swept by.

       When his disgruntled high field customer had left, the gendealer had his men drag Skinner out of the cage.  He knew better than to struggle; any augmenting Sime could outmuscle a Gen.  Besides, struggle could lead to injury, and Gen pain was an irresistible enticement to any Sime who wasn’t high field.

       He pushed down a stab of panic when they bound him upright to a display rack.  Face out, it was a kill position, not for punishment.

       One of the men whistled.  “Zlin that nager.  It was masked in the cage with all the others.  He’s full to bursting.  And he knows how to use it, I’ll wager.”

       The gendealer stood in front of him, hands on hips.  “That thing you did with your nager, boy.  That trick.  Do it again.”

       “I didn’t do anything.” Skinner tried to look as confused and simple as a pen bred would have looked in his place.  They knew he was a Domestic, but most Simes didn’t distinguish.

       “Mik.  Take one of his testicles off,” the gendealer ordered.

       White sparks of panic roared in Skinner’s head.  One of the Simes yanked his threadbare breeches down, and unsheathed a short knife.

       The gendealer was watching him closely, an anticipatory smile hovering on his lips.

       Have to focus…  It took all of Skinner’s concentration to picture himself back in Olbin’s tidy visiting room.  There was an odd glass sculpture there, blue and white, all irregular wavy lines.  He used to stare at it when he wanted to shut out the world around him.  That’s how he learned that he could influence his nager.

       A hand fumbled roughly between his legs and he lost his concentration for one panicky moment, then he regained it.  Pack of lorsh.  I’ll give you a demonstration.  He pictured himself surrounded by a wall of lashing whips, snapping and crackling all around him.  Flay the flesh from their bones, slice open their laterals, how he hated them all, the shendi flecking Simes.  All of them.  If he could exterminate them all with a word, he would have spoken it, eagerly.

       He opened his eyes.  One of the Simes was on the ground, crawling away.  The other had dropped his knife and was retching into the dirt.  Only the gendealer remained on his feet, ruddy face gone pale, but still baring his teeth in that malicious grin that spoke of unpleasantness to come.

       He kicked the retching Sime.  “Mik.  Don’t be a dirt-pup.  You ain’t even close to need yet.  Now get up.  I want a good solid set of chains for this one.  Welded on.  No locks.  He can wear ‘em til he’s got no more use.”  The gendealer chuckled.  “This boy’s gonna make me a lot of money.”

       Mik spat to clear vomit from his mouth.  “How is he going to do that?” he asked sullenly.

       “You see how eager that mark was, earlier?  Paid choice price for a pen bred.  They come in, we wave this boy with his fat juicy nager under their noses, we negotiate and take their money, then the boy whips ‘em into hard need and we toss a pen bred into reach and let nature take its course.”

       “What if the Gen won’t cooperate?” Mik stared at Skinner with open hatred.

       The gendealer shrugged.  “He’ll change his mind.  Losing a few fingers and toes won’t drop his nager none.”

       Skinner’s stomach lurched.  I won’t do it, he wanted to scream at them, but he knew the gendealer would carry out his threat.  Losing an arm would make him useless for the kill, but fingers and toes were peripheral, for a Sime’s purpose.  He hung limply in the ropes, feeling hopelessness overwhelm him.  At least I know they won’t be drugging me.  Beside, why should I care what the murderous, shendi-flecking Simes did to each other?

       He looked over at the Gen cage and saw Garrett, staring dully at him through the bars.

       I was right, he thought bitterly.  Zinah had been the most fortunate of the three of us.