Simultaneously Allel came out of her stupor. Her children were threatened. She gave a piercing cry and leapt at the animal, almost knocking it and herself over the side of the sled. But the thing recovered, cried out again, and swatted Allel so hard, she was pitched through the air to land hard on the flat ground.
Shorwh screeched and ran to his mother. Krinata watched in horror as the creature captured both the smaller children, who were screaming piteously. Without even knowing what she was doing, she reached, as she had during the sandstorm, and found the triad accommodating around her.
For an instant she saw the battle through Jindigar’s eyes: a hive-ripper, challenged by a hive-swarm passing through his territory, was simply demonstrating his authority, while incidentally picking up a meal.
Jindigar’s hand came down firmly on her shoulder. “No!” She felt Frey, nerves screaming, straggling to be free of her. Stricken, she tried to tell Jindigar, / don’t know how to get out!
“Let me!” His bulging, swirling indigo eyes loomed, and she felt the wall intruding between them again. She curled in on herself and tried to shut off the horrible sounds, the seductive awareness.
As Frey and the Lehiroh gathered, Jindigar wound his fingers into the sled’s guy ropes and shook mightily, his voice going up in a perfect rendition of the creature’s howl. The thing hugged the two children to its chest, shook off the piols, and leapt down directly between Jindigar and the still form of .AIM. Shorwh flung himself over his mother.
The animal kicked Shorwh aside, shifted the two small children to one arm, and grabbed up the unconscious Allel. Her stiff-jointed exoskeleton made her an awkward burden.
Jindigar retreated, drawing the animal away from Shorwh and toward Frey, emitting low llooollooo sounds. The thing followed Jindigar as if hypnotized, though showing no signs of letting his prizes go. Viradel tackled the creature, as if to pull its feet out from under it.
Surprised, the hive-ripper swiveled in midair and mumped to the ground in a sitting position, still almost as tall as Krinata, and maddened. Viradel rained blows about the creature’s head, screaming, “Let ‘em loose!”
The hive-ripper leaned back on his tail, kicked Viradel, and used Allel as a ram to knock Viradel backward. Then he was on his feet and heading for the largest tree in sight.
Only then did he realize he couldn’t climb with both hands full. Casually he tossed the two children aside and flung Allel over his shoulder. In a flash of brown and green he disappeared.
Jindigar attacked Krinata’s sled cargo with both hands, loosing the guy ropes and the tarp to flip open the sides of a crate, revealing slender stunner rods, which he seized and tossed to the Lehiroh. Without a word, the four Lehiroh and Frey took off after the creature.
Dusk was gathering swiftly now, and Jindigar announced, “We can’t camp here. It would only invite another attack. We can find a flat spot behind that ridge over there, and it should be safe for the night. But there must be no foraging, and no fire to disturb the animals.”
“We need fire for safety,” protested Gibson, and there was a murmur of agreement.
“We need darkness for safety,” corrected Jindigar. “Anything that glows will be savagely attacked in this part of the wood, and we can’t make it beyond in the remaining light. I think you’ve all seen how important it is for us to humor the locals. Viradel’s mistake in picking that fruit may have cost us dearly.” He never referred to the incident again, but later Krinata overheard Viradel confessing to Gibson that she did feel guilty, though she blamed Jindigar for not explaining his reasons for proscribing foraging.
Krinata jumped into the overheard conversation, to defend Jindigar: “Because he didn’t know why we shouldn’t forage! He’s only got Frey to help him, not an Oliat. He didn’t know about the hive-ripper until he actually saw it.”
“And how do you know?” challenged Adina, the woman
Krinata had never exchanged a word with.
“She’s just making that up,” claimed Gibson. “Jindigar was practically talking its own language to it. He’s been on this planet before!”
“Jindigar was just imitating the creature’s call. He’s expert at that—it’s an Oliat skill, Emulator!”
“If Viradel hadn’t o’ hit it,” said Fenwick, “maybe—”
“Viradel was very courageous,” Krinata interrupted him. “She did her best to save the children.”
“If anyone, blame Jindigar,” suggested Fenwick. “If I had my way, we wouldn’t even be in this woods.”
She turned and left them to their wrangling. The exchange had left a bad taste in her mouth and a guilt in the pit of her stomach. Perhaps if she hadn’t gotten Viradel all upset over Jindigar’s leadership, she wouldn’t have taken the fruit from the hive-ripper’s tree and challenged it.
When she brought the last sled up to the circle of sleds, Jindigar guided it into place, leaving a slender gap for a door. Then he stepped out to stare in the direction the hive-ripper had taken. Krinata leashed back an impulse to seek for that ineffable contact again. Then she squelched an impulse to ask if he could sense Prey. The duad locked her out as firmly as ever, and it was better to leave it that way. But the temptation welled up.
Strangling a sob, she slid down the wall of cargo and huddled with her forehead on her knees, willing herself to be strong until Jindigar went about his business. But he didn’t leave. He hunkered down beside her and let the tip of one velvety finger stroke the back of one of her fingers. It was the tiniest gesture, but it undid her. The suppressed tears came. “I’m sorry,” she gasped, ashamed.
“We’re all very tired—and frightened. Can I help?”
“No.” After a time he rose to go. “Jindigar—”
He knelt beside her. “Let me help, as you’ve helped me so many tunes.”
They don’t make good friends, huh? “Jindigar, I—I’m not sure I can make myself stay out. I’m so afraid—of
Desdinda, of hurting Frey, but—I could hardly help it!” / He hugged her to his chest as if he could shelter and protect her. “Oh, Krinata, what have I done to you!”
Before she had herself well in hand again, the Lehiroh arrived with Frey—and Allel’s body.
FOUR
Imperial Wrath
The funeral was held in the last light, then the Dushau guided everyone back to the circle of sleds. After the children were sedated and put to sleep, the adults talked bleakly about this world and their future on it.
Jindigar admitted, “I’ve been here before, yes, as Outreach to Raichmat’s Oliat, nearly two thousand years ago. I can’t farfetch those memories now. Most of what I know, I’m learning in duad with Frey.”
Everyone accepted that excuse for not warning them of the onnoolloo, but Krinata thought, If he can’t farfetch two thousand years, he’s in worse shape than he lets on. She rolled up in her sleeping bag, dwelling on how he’d shut her out of the triad by shaking her rather than imposing his stone wall between them. She catalogued the signs of fatigue he tried to hide, the worried glances, the increasingly distracted air as he struggled with Prey’s skittishness.
She woke in the dark, slim shafts of moonlight lacing the camp. Jindigar was sitting guard duty beside the “door,” drawing on the ground in total absorption. It was long before dawn, but she was wide-awake. She opened her bag into a cloak and picked her way through sleepers to him. He’d been sketching weary and bedraggled piols. She touched his arm. “Jindigar, you’re not solely responsible for our situation. We all chose to come with you. And now I’m convinced this world is ‘marginally livable,’ as you said.”
“Maybe too marginally. We’ve lost two people and a sled and are functioning on a crippled duad. We’re almost out of water, and the Squadron can’t be far behind us now.”
“The losses can’t be replaced,” said Krinata, sitting beside him. “But if we all knew more of this world, perhaps we wouldn’t lean on the duad so much.”
“I doubt it would be helpful for everyone to
know more.”
“Keep us in ignorance and Viradel will have good reason for her attitude.” And she told him what Viradel had said before picking the fruit. “I wonder what she’d make of that official record I found for this world, which you claimed never existed.” She had meant to cheer him up, but suddenly all the unanswered questions swarmed into her mind. The Emperor had accused the Dushau of withholding information on planets to control Allegiancy expansion and prosperity.
He sighed. “It started nearly two thousand years ago, just after humans came onto the galactic scene, and the Allegiancy was founded—” He rubbed out his drawing. “I told you Phanphihy had not been reported–and that was true. The Lehiroh and Treptian Outriders with Raichmat’s on that expedition perceived a very different environment than we did. That report was based on their perceptions, not ours, and the planet was labeled with their name, not ours.”
“Why?”
“If we’d reported our perceptions, the others would have thought we were lying. Raichmat saw the way the Allegiancy was headed. Dushau needed another home besides Dushaun. But the idea of planting a multispecies colony here governed by a King was not popular on Dushaun, so Phanphihy has been forgotten except among Raichmat’s zunre.”
The zunre of an Oliat—all who’ve been members, and their relatives—formed a more tight-knit group than most families. “You could have applied for it. Surely the Emperor would have granted Raichmat’s a world.”
“If the idea had been more popular, we might have,” agreed Jindigar. “But this world is far from ideal for Dushau—and—we tend to be rather conservative.”
“But why did other species see it as unlivable?”
“Raichmat’s was one of the first Oliats to work for the Allegiancy. We didn’t choose our Outriders with such wisdom then. They worked by the book and antagonized the hives, which defend themselves by casting a veil of perceptual distortion—to make enemies see menace where mere isn’t much. Our Outriders saw hideous menace everywhere—three quit the profession, one had a nervous breakdown.”
She raked her eyes over the black forest around them. “Then this is a very dangerous world! You didn’t tell—”
He shook her shoulders. “No! Respect the hives, and they’ll be good neighbors. I didn’t mention the hives’ defense before because we mustn’t cripple ourselves with imagined horrors, and your imagination can be very powerful.”
She drew a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I should know better.” He was right, it wouldn’t help if everyone knew that. “Well, if we must rely on the duad, then we’ve got to heal the damage I’ve done you and Frey.”
“Frey is—mending.”
“He’s still sleeping under sedation.”
“You are observant.”
“Frustrated,” she corrected. “Jindigar, what is wrong with Frey?” When Jindigar was silent, she added, “You don’t want to talk about it to me?”
“Krinata, his fear of Desdinda is nearly a phobia. Your touch on us when we’re working seems like her touch. It happened again this afternoon with the onnoolloo, which is why I ordered the sedative.”
“But not for yourself?”
“I’m more experienced—”
“Nonsense! You’re suffering as much as he is, but you’re afraid if you’re both unconscious, I’ll take over—like I did with the sandstorm! I’m a walking menace! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You’re human. The Loop is functioning in you very much as it would in a Dushau, but there’s been no time for tests. A human could react unexpectedly—I can’t risk hurting you.”
They’d endured Desdinda’s death agony, and it had nearly killed them. Frey was right: Jindigar accepted her as zunre and therefore couldn’t tolerate hurting her. “Tell me what has to be done. I’ll decide what risks I take.”
“Of course,’he agreed. “And I’ll decide which ones I take. My decisions limit your options; yours limit mine. That’s what Grisnilter wanted me to avoid with ephemerals.”
Grisnilter, the elderly Dushau Historian whose Archive Jindigar carried, had objected to Jindigar’s policy of befriending ephemerals, just as Frey did. “Jindigar, how would a group of Dushau deal with a Loop? What is the cure?”
“To convene an Aliom grieving-with to grieve Desdinda,” he answered as if it were obvious. “But, it’s not my area of expertise. I’d have to farfetch for what else I might know, and I don’t dare attempt that.”
“For fear of being caught in the Archive?”
“Or worse.”
The Aliom science behind the Oliat practices was a mystery to her, but—“I’d be willing to try it, but I can’t find it in myself to be sorry Desdinda died. I do feel a personal sense of horror that my hand killed her. I still have nightmares about it.”
“We all do, but we dare not attempt anything involving you and Desdinda until we’ve a stable base camp and the duad can be spared. Also, there’s the problem of the Archive to solve first, or we all might be lost in it before the Desdinda Loop could be integrated into your personality.” “Integrated into—oh, no, she’s not part of me—” He said, as if grasping why they weren’t communicating, “Desdinda had dedicated her life to murdering me because I, an Aliom Priest turned Invert, had custody of Grisnilter’s Archive. She’d been taught how Inversion distorts an Archive—altering the recorded history of our species. When she saw she was to die, she already felt so soiled, she had no use for life except to kill me. Her outrage became the core of her insanity, and I believe it grounded into a part of your personality that harbored similar feelings.” “You mean—like a—a ghost? Possessing me?” “No. There’s never been a Dushau ghost—can’t be. Desdinda is gone to dissolution/death. She’s left us a legacy of compressed anger and hatred lodged in you because I had no time to train you to protect yourself or to prove the Archive had come through our triad Inversion unscathed.” Three times since their escape she’d Inverted the triad. “Have—have I damaged the Archive?”
“I don’t think so. But I hardly dare touch the duad now, and Frey knows it. With his limited training he knows he might accidentally damage the Archive, and now that he carries the Invert stigma, too, delivering the Archive unaltered means as much to him as to me.”
“It should have meant as much to Desdinda too.” “She wasn’t rational. Yet we’re bound by her pain—and won’t be free until we can grieve it. We must each feel how she felt, and why she felt so, finding the resonances of those feelings within ourselves and integrating them. But we can’t try it now because we’ve no idea what complications your humanity might cause. The Squadron will find Truth soon, and we’re still too close for safety.”
Krinata had to accept that. Jindigar could do nothing to help her expunge Desdinda, yet it had to be done. So, she’d have to do it herself, in her human way. She probed him mercilessly on the characteristics of a Loop, learning that it took very little resonance to provide a rooting point—as it took very little to attract lightning. She didn’t hate Jindigar, not even unconsciously. But there had to be something Desdinda’s hatred had touched. If she could rid herself of it, the Loop would dissipate—or so theory said. In practice, Dushau never attempted such things alone. But then, humans didn’t practice group telepathy, either!
At dawn they were up and in harness, Jindigar moving among them as his normal self, twittering to the children and the piols, summoning joy in a piece of fruit, or casually hanging by his toes to inspect the underside of a sled. But she saw the weary depression he masked from the others. He hasn’t grieved for his friends yet. I must see that he does soon or he’ll collapse. It could be centuries until a Historian arrives to take the Archive from him. There was nothing she could do about that, but Desdinda—
As they marched she mulled over the problem and became ever more determined to vanquish Desdinda herself.
They skirted dense thickets and plowed through sparser ones, tromping up and down the ever-rising hills. Krinata was paired with Shorwh, his two brothers riding atop her sle
d, clutching the piols in an unnatural silence. Shorwh was now the only one, except Jindigar, who could speak to the children. While they seemed to be in shock, Shorwh was withdrawn the way an adult might be. But he ate, fed his brothers, and pulled his load without slacking.
During the first rest break she tried to take her mind off her troubles by tending the children. Terab, huge, six-limbed, warm and furry, also tried to mother them. But neither soft-skinned human nor furred Holot could begin to replace a mother’s smooth chitin for the Cassrian children. When Shorwh said, fretting, “Why don’t you both just leave us alone?” Terab withdrew, but Krinata went after her.
“I don’t think he really means that,” she said to Terab.
“Neither do I. A Holot wouldn’t. But I thought perhaps Irnils might try to get through to him, male to male.”
“It’s worth a try,” agreed Krinata.
Irnils, Terab’s mate, had lost his parents early in life, and when he sat down among the orphaned Cassrians, somehow, gradually, the atmosphere lightened. The four Lehiroh, as usual, spent the rest break sitting in a close circle, talking softly about then– lost bride. Krinata left them to their grieving. The four humans provoked heated political conversations among the Holot and Cassrians, seeming innocent enough until one time Terab came on them cornering Shorwh with a diatribe against Jindigar.
Seeing her, they turned to go, but she commanded, “Hold orbit there!” Even weaponless, she intimidated them. “You never knew Jindigar before you boarded Truth, but surely you’ve measured him by now. He got us across that desert, which could have been a challenge to a full Oliat. Riding the water sled, he damn near got killed, but he saved our water. He’s told us how to keep out of trouble, and even when one of your women stupidly ignored him, he didn’t hold a trial—so the children wouldn’t blame her.
“Jindigar never shirks a risk or stints on compassion for Dushau or ephemeral. He’s loyal beyond reason, generous in soul and goods, a Prince of his people—”
Farfetch tdt-2 Page 6
