She knew he believed the worst when he offered to take a turn around the perimeter—out in the rain. When he’d gone, Darllanyu prompted, “Tell me more of what Jindigar had you doing in triad. He’s known as a thorough trainer—”
“Oh, he never intended—” She cut off, assembled her thoughts in defense of Jindigar, and related how he’d used her talent to escape the Emperor’s brig. “So, you see, we figured we’d all be killed in the attempt, but we couldn’t just sit there and let the Emperor use us to force Jindigar to confess that all Dushau were conspirators in treason!”
“He used you in an Inverted triad!” She shook her head, astonishment turning to acceptance. “I admit I’m dismayed, but one learns to expect that where Jindigar’s involved. Tell me, how did you feel when you discovered that the Emperor’s accusation against Dushau was partly true?”
“Betrayed,” she said truthfully, then explained about the Desdinda Loop. “It was mostly her attitude and seems to be gone now. You’d only withheld one planet, not dozens, and I think the report was correct—the natives make this place uncolonizable. Better the Dukes never get their hands on these natives!” She looked at the Dushau woman in a new light. Frey had not wanted to know anything about how an ephemeral felt. “May I ask a personal question?”
“Certainly, though I might not answer.”
“Are you Invert too?”
She chuckled. “I see why Jindigar likes you!” Sobering, she added, “Jindigar’s survival indicates he hasn’t abused Inversion—though if he dies now, it’d seem otherwise. I respect him for that, but I’d rather have nothing to do with Inversion or, no offense, ephemerals.”
“No offense. I’m beginning to see it’s not healthy for Dushau to associate too closely with ephemerals.” Or perhaps vice versa! But she noted Darllanyu’s phrase, “with Inversion,” not “Inverts.” Was she being tolerant because she wanted Jindigar as a mate this Renewal? Krinata turned as Cy, cloak dripping, reaming water off his face, came back to the fire, and Darllanyu asked, “All secure?”
“Every line’s tight. No sign of prowling animals.”
“Nor likely to be,” said Darllanyu. Thunder growled in the distance. “But there could be tornadoes,” she added.
“Should I wake everyone?” asked Cy.
Darllanyu seemed to consider, eyes unfocused, communing in triad with her zunre at the settlement. Then, rising, she shook her head. “Not yet. The worst of the disturbance is over the Squadron’s base camp. We should be in the clear, at least for a while. I’m going to sleep.” She went to where Jindigar lay cocooned among extra bedrolls and, after checking on him, slid into her own sleeping bag, fending off the two restless piols, and seemed to be instantly asleep.
“It’s almost my watch,” said Krinata, intently feeding the fire. “Why don’t you go get some sleep too?”
“What’s the matter? Have I offended you?”
“I only offered to take part of your watch. Is that unfriendly?”
He settled at the fire, countering, “It’s noble.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked defensively.
He stood again and gave a courtly bow. “May I introduce myself again, more correctly. Cyrus Benwilliam Lord Kulain.” He sat again, “I inherited the title when my two older brothers died mysteriously after refusing to institute some of the Emperor’s harsher edicts, but I don’t use it because it puts people off. I prefer being just Senior Outrider.”
“I’m just a Programming Ecologist. But Zinzik ruined everything, resurrecting the old titles.”
He glanced toward the Dushau. “Jindigar’s a Prince, isn’t he? That’s what they have against you two.”
“They?” she asked, automatically pretending not to know who he meant. Then she had to confess what she’d heard Adina telling him. “But they know Jindigar’s only—a friend.”
“He sounds like the kind of friend I’d like to have.”
They talked on for a while, Krinata relieved at his attitude, then checked on the lashings as the wind picked up, and on Jindigar, whose condition remained unchanged. Then Cyrus went to sleep, telling her, “Watch that west guyline.”
She tended the fire and made rounds, pausing at intervals to stare out at the dark sky etched with the branched trees of lightning that grew, hung for a moment, and flickered to darkness again. She saw it with Takora’s eyes, a symbol of life’s energies flowing into manifestation driven by such power that it could scorch and burn if not guided to ground by the trained will.
As she repeatedly lashed down flaps of tarp loosened by the wind, she peeked out again and again, ever more drawn by Takora’s view of the lightning. It was as vital as being caught up in the triad, offering insights for which her whole being hungered. An Oliat was a group bound by the agreement to observe reality, to discover how everything connected to everything else. But they knew, however penetrating their perception, that they could not possibly grasp it all.
To Invert an Oliat, or a subform, and use that imperfect understanding to act directly on the fabric of reality was to risk doing more damage than the group could possibly repair. That was why Inversion so terrified Dushau; it was like reaching out to grasp a lightning flash with bare hands.
If, however, that imperfect understanding was used to guide hand tools to affect environment, it was possible to correct accidental imbalances with other hand tools, to survive and learn from mistakes.
Either hand or mind was controlled by the trained will. Part of that training was to select goals and find where and how to apply the will to achieve those ends.
Peeking between tarps, face drenched in cold rain, she consumed each lightning flash, hypnotized, seduced by promise of further understanding. Mind blanked, worded thoughts silenced, she understood why an Oliat didn’t have to Invert to deflect tornadoes or any disaster. The tight, knotted storms that were striking all around them were as much a part of the fabric of nature as they, themselves, were. They had only to perceive then” correct place, and be there, and the storms would miss them.
A phrase floated into her consciousness and hung, as if written in advertiser’s glowgas: Efficacious Helplessness. That was an Oliat goal: to observe the proper place to be, and be there. But if you were wrong and disaster rolled over you, you couldn’t mend things, as Desdinda had tried, by striking back in fury at that which was in its correct place when you were not.
All the Aliom disciplines were aimed at perceiving what was connected to what, what caused what, so one could know one’s niche in the scheme. Knowing, one could “strike”—act, as Jindigar said, without thinking—and be right. She’d done it, so some deep part of her knew, but only inadvertently, in fragmented moments of unthinking reaction. What would it be like to know constantly?
An indeterminate time later she noticed that the lightning had stopped, and she was staring into opaque blackness. Even the rain and wind had stopped, leaving the night freakishly silent. Exalted vision fading, she felt silly. Mopping her face dry, she built up the fire to reheat some soup. Every sound she made echoed against the quiet blanketing the land.
She’d only finished half her soup when a sudden gust hit the tarps like a solid blow. Startled, she dropped the cup in the fire and yelped as the scalding liquid burned her hand. But before she could even be sorry for waking people, the wind redoubled its efforts to demolish their shelter. There was an increasing roar, like fate approaching on the winds of eternity, accompanied by lightning sizzle-crack strikes ever nearer them. In moments the children were yelling, the piols running around, and everyone was fighting to hold the shelter together.
Darllanyu announced calmly, “There’s a tornado touching down west of us—we think it will miss us.”
Cyrus kicked dirt over the fire while Storm broke out the lightsticks. They couldn’t risk anyone being blown into the fire and hurt.
A fist-size hailstone fell through the smoke hole and sputtered in the embers. The tarps bounced, and one mooring broke, the two Holot usin
g their weight to tie down the loose flap. Frightened, all trace of her transcendent insights gone, Krinata went to tuck another sleeping bag around Jindigar, against the suddenly frigid wind. His body was still flaccid, his breathing barely perceptible.
Darllanyu called from where she was coaxing the children to huddle under a pile of bedding, “It’s going to be close!”
At any moment the tornado could lift the sleds and smash the camp, dispersing their pitiful physical selves to a thin film over the plain. Did the triad call this one correctly?
Then she couldn’t think at all. The tornado roared down on them. The world turned into a shuddering, moaning monster, pelting them with debris, ripping one of the tarps. She thought they were all doomed as she ran to help Fenwick hold a sled that was sliding toward the fire.
Suddenly, over the low-pitched roar, there was a loud crack, like an explosion. What? Not lightning… Turning, she saw the pile of cargo that formed the wall behind Jindigar sliding inward, tilting toward the ground where he lay, no longer restrained by the guyline. She tore across the camp, but Darllanyu was there first, her emaciated body not having the strength to budge Jindigar.
Krinata grabbed a hunk of bedding and put her whole weight into it, and he began to slide—but not fast enough. She scrambled around to dislodge his shoulders and push while Darllanyu pulled, knowing the crates were going to hit before they were clear. “Faster!”
With one supreme lunge-she shoved Jindigar’s head clear and fell prone. And Cyrus was there, astride her hips as he belayed the collapsing wall of crates. “Crawl!” he commanded, wet clothes plastered to bulging muscles.
She wormed forward, and Darllanyu grabbed her hands and pulled, scraping her chest raw against the ground. “Clear!”
She never saw how he did it, but Cy jumped free, letting the crates smash down behind him.
And then there was total silence. An odd smell permeated the air—turned earth, pulverized vegetation, dead animals splattered against their shelter, and the fear odors of their several species. Krinata lay where she was, panting, her heart pounding, sobbing her relief shamelessly. The funnel had missed them, and they’d all survived.
EIGHT
Multicolony
Nine days later they arrived at the river gorge. The tall, rusty grass of the plain gave way near the river to a shorter dark green grass, dotted with scrub and tall trees. Backpacks and equipment were scattered where the settlement’s expedition had been ambushed. A few broken native spears lay among the well-scoured bones of the offworlders. An insect hive rose in a hump off to their right, and Krinata could not suppress the image of ants carrying away lumps of flesh.
Darllanyu’s grief was reignited at the gruesome scene, so it was Cyrus who gathered the Dushau bones and organized a hasty grave-digging detail, saying, “The hive’s hunters found us here once. We don’t dare camp on this side tonight.”
By the time the graves had been spoken over and well disguised from snoopers, the Lehiroh had rigged two parallel cables across the gorge, with a third cable strung above them. The river below was swollen to a raging torrent at mis, the narrowest spot.
Everyone pitched in to unload one of the sleds, and then Cyrus rode it out onto the cables, which fit like rails under each side of the sled, the third cable being used to pull the rig across. First they used the empty sled to transport half the people, including Jindigar, then they unloaded the malfunctioning sled and placed it atop the other one. With Cy handling the controls of the bad sled and Darllanyu sprawled where she could reach those on the good sled, Storm pulled them across.
He brought the good sled back, and they began tediously ferrying cargo across, cautious in the erratic springtime winds scouring the gorge. They finished just before sunset, and Cy brought one sled back to get Krinata while the others made camp. She admitted to herself that she’d volunteered to stay behind because the crossing frightened her.
“Hop on,” called Cy to Krinata as he steadied the sled. At her hesitation he jumped back to solid ground and took her hand. There was no solicitousness in the gesture, nor even courtesy. He was just professional and might have done the same for one of the Lehiroh who could have walked across on the bare cable in a high wind.
His attitude toward her had changed markedly since the tornado. He seemed to consider her an Outrider of rank equal to his own. There was no hint of sexual innuendo, either, for that was strictly forbidden to Outriders on duty. She took his hand and tried to seem as courageous and skilled as he expected her to be.
Numbed by hours of hard labor, she was too tired to battle the agoraphobia that struck the moment her foot was over open air. In her mind, being suspended like this was no different from falling into the limitless void of space. Cy rigged the safety line around her waist to a line fixed to the sled. There was no way she could fall off, and if the sled should capsize, she could jettison the safety line with a flick of a finger over the grommet and let the sled tumble into the water or sail off into the air, while she clung to the cable by her hands.
But if all three cables should break? The picture leapt to her mind, intense, vivid with the power of fear, which she fought down only by remembering mat Jindigar was on the other side and there was no time to waste getting him to the settlement. Fear clutched at her throat, and terror mounted as Cy and Storm moved the sled out over the abyss. It rocked and swayed under them, the cables giving with each move.
I’ve got to look down. This can’t go on.
She forced her eyes to look ahead, then off to the side. The white cables, the gleaming sled, the white, churning rapids beneath them, the brown, russet, gold, and dark green grasses on each side of the gorge came to her as dual perception—her own, and the now familiar Takora, to whom it wasn’t at all threatening. She cloaked herself in that calm, and forced herself to look down at the frothy torrent.
Suddenly, with a loud snap, one of the cable moorings came loose, and in graceful slow motion its cable subsided into the gorge. The sled tipped and wobbled, its mechanism feeling for the correct height above the ever-shifting water’s surface. Cy scrambled to the edge controls and lay prone to make an adjustment while Storm worked at the front end.
Krinata clung to her safety line, paralyzed by phobic terror. There was nothing holding them up. Nothing!
“Krinata, I said grab those rear controls and level that end.” It was Cy, yelling over the roar.
/ can’t! She twisted in place, looking at the control box. The platform tilted, and her hands clamped onto the safety harness with new strength.
“Hurry!” urged Cy, not even looking at her.
I’ve got to. Only this time she wasn’t reacting to protect Jindigar, all fears held in abeyance. Nightmare terror froze her in place as death loomed. Refusing to give up, she struggled against the terror, reaching toward the control box at the very edge of the platform.
Gradually her muscles began to cooperate, and she slid along her safety tether, her hands closing on the controls. Her eyes slid past the control box to the frothing water below, but her hands moved steadily over the controls they knew intimately from so many emergencies, night and day. As the sled righted and began to move again, she breathed easier. The stark terror gave way to mere trembling, which dissolved to ordinary fear. And by the time they’d reached the safety of the bank, even that was gone.
She realized the terror she’d felt this time hadn’t been the phobic panic at all but only the fear of panic. The phobia itself was gone. She hadn’t had a falling nightmare since she’d banished the Desdinda Loop. Nor had she, since the tornado, wanted to reach for Darllanyu’s triad and Invert just because she was afraid.
Happy, but shaking in adrenalin reaction, Krinata stepped off the sled to be greeted by Terab and Viradel.
“Nice work there!” complimented Terab, then, oblivious to Krinata’s pale face and trembling hands, said, “Cy, do what you can to retrieve these lines. Storm, Darllanyu’s finished with Jindigar and ready to go foraging. Krinata, help dig
the latrine pit, then join the firewood detail.”
Krinata wiped her clammy palms on her trousers, nodded, and went to find a pit-digger. She hadn’t pulled latrine detail before, and it never occurred to her to argue. It was only an hour later when she was hauling a sack of degradant to the pit, that she saw Viradel looking at her—thoughtful rather than gloating at an aristocrat doing the duty work.
It was after dark when Krinata brought in her last load of firewood, on a rack Cy had built from bent stems. She was carrying almost half her weight and had to have Shorwh unload her as he did the other gatherers. But Viradel was watching, again with a neutral expression, considering.
Supper was root soup, and roast bird, on edible leaf plates. As tired as she was, she didn’t dare sit very long before she went to wash her hair, then tend Jindigar as she did every evening, often quietly reciting her adventures of the day, hoping to lure him back to reality.
Once, Darllanyu had found her slumped into a doze over the unchanging body and had asked, sympathetically, “Why do you sit here? He doesn’t know—”
“I think he does. And—I’d hate myself if I gave up.” Then she’d confessed that she’d heard Darllanyu talking to him. “Why do you do it?”
“Guilt, I suppose,” admitted the Dushau. “We shouldn’t have been ambushed—we should’ve made friends with that hive before you got there. When an Oliat fails—not that we were so much of an Oliat…”
“Don’t be too harsh on yourself. As Jindigar says, if your decisions limit our options, ours limit yours. There were any number of things we might have done differently.”
“So he was teaching you!”
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