Channel's Destiny

Zeth Farris's father had been the first channel - the first Sime to extract selyn, the elixir of life, from a Gen without killing, and Zeth's life-long ambition had been to emulate his father - to help form a new breed whose special powers would redress the perverse mutation of humanity which had set man against man in a millennium of strife. If he was to achieve his destiny his road would not be an easy one. But the greatest danger would be in the struggle with this own nature: to resist the kill. For once a Sime killed he sought the same sensation every time - an unabating crescendo of bloodlust from which his own mother, a Gen, would not be safe! (from the back cover of the DAW Books first paperback printing)