In Krinata’s mind, she was now on another plane of existence, as in a dream, holding on to her link while high pressure fluid spewed out, battering her mercilessly. She hung on with all her courage, unable to absorb even the relatively small amount of data she was getting from the Receptor. Jindigar wanted to cut down the amplitude to her, but knew he could help only by making this brief. The Oliat operations which lost touch with contiguous reality often turned to nightmare for her, for she did not yet grasp where the Oliat existed and worked.
With them barely stabilized, he told her, //All right, Krinata, go.//
She turned, Cyrus at her right, and went to the Holot mother, hands out to take the infant. Jindigar braced to soak up the shock for Eithlarin, reminding her, //Protector, this is not a breakin. We need to read the child.//
Ill know!// she snapped, then apologized, adding, //The poor little thing is starving.//
//Don’t think about it,// advised Jindigar, //focus on how well Holot protect themselves.// He turned to Llistyien for her Emulation of Holot characteristics. Grasping the essence of Holot motherhood, Jindigar did his best to bring those elements up in Krinata, despite her lack of Emulator’s experience. Handling the Holot infant, whose sharp claws and teeth could rend human flesh and whose xenophobia was irritated by hunger, Krinata now welcomed every clue Jindigar could give her.
She touched the infant in just the right places, soothed with the right strokes, reassured with the right sounds, ignoring the raw throat the gutturals gave her. Lacking a second pair of arms, she did her best to cradle the small body against her. Soon the infant quieted.
Now came the dangerous part, for through Krinata’s nurturing touch, the awareness of infant, small striving potential of life, was throbbing through the Oliat. Definitely not the operation to hand an Oliat on the brink of Renewal. Swallowing the taste of his own fear, Jindigar prompted Krinata, //Now Venlagar must touch her too.//
Venlagar shivered—even Venlagar, the farthest from Renewal. But they couldn’t afford to stop now. //You must open to her, Receptor.//
Venlagar’s deep indigo eyes searched Jindigar while his Receptor’s sense examined the Oliat’s balance, but a Receptor didn’t judge the Oliat’s internal condition. It was his business to keep the Oliat sensitive to the environment.
Venlagar cupped his arms around the squirming, fretting form in Krinata’s embrace. The feel of four supporting arms calmed the infant even as the Receptor focused on the voracious hunger within.
Krinata kept her own grip firm, having no trouble now concentrating on the baby. Jindigar got the distinct impression that this was the first time she’d ever held such a young child, and for her, the enhancing Emulation of motherhood was a journey of self-discovery. For Darllanyu it was no first. Her arms ached to hold the young thing, and memories fought to claim her attention. //Steady, Dar. I’ll make this quick.//
Jindigar let Venlagar’s Reception of the infant’s incessant hunger flood through them. Her needs, her burgeoning growth, her striving for life became a part of them. Through the baby’s senses her mother’s love and growing fright for her child’s life also became a part of them. The pressure of the life force, binding them all, surged through the open Receptor and possessed the Oliat.
Jindigar signaled Zannesu. //Now—to Llistyien.//
Together they reorganized the pattern of energy flows so Llistyien was as wide-open a channel as Venlagar, and Krinata was again isolated from the full power of Oliat multiawareness. Jindigar stole a second to reassure Krinata, //Well done!// and Darllanyu: //I’m not trying for precision. It won’t be much longer now.//
Then he caught up the linkages from Zannesu and turned the Oliat out, toward the world of Phanphihy, seeking the shaleiliu between the Holot hunger and the world’s abundance.
It was the simplest of Oliat exercises. Out there, the life forces surged with determination equal to that of the Holot. The spring had brought renewal to this world, but the Holot were not of a piece with it.
The Oliat subforms, strive as they had throughout the winter, had not brought the offworld settlement into tune with this ecology. The colonists and Phanphihy had only one thing in common—the propagation of new life, the raw enthusiasm for survival, the upsurge of the cycle of renewal.
Reaching for the point of shaleiliu, Jindigar traced that commonality, absorbed now in a Center’s task and momentarily oblivious to the dangers, gratefully accepting one last gratification before Renewal forced him to reorder his priorities. He surrendered to the infant’s hunger and frantic need for the safety of home, casting about for the fulfillment of that need.
All at once Darllanyu echoed that need, her concentration disrupted by a burst of Renewal hormones. She lost attunement with Phanphihy, alien and unreal. Reflexively, she raked the Oliat linkages for the one secure anchor, the wellspring of life, the core energies of Dushaun itself, home. Jindigar, tied to her at depths beyond fathoming, was swept along, his perceptions shifting. The spring lifetide of Phanphihy akin to home, but yet alien, became a looming menace.
He could not separate his perception from Darllanyu’s.
Through him, her convulsive rejection of this world suffused the Oliat. In a whirl they all lost the attunement with Phanphihy, the shaleiliu hum deserted them, and the Oliat balance disintegrated.
Fighting panic, Jindigar forced his eyes open but saw only darkness fraught with sinister gleams of dark red against black– rocks, vats, beings—alien beings. The Oliat multiawareness brought him insane fragments of images through his officers’ eyes and an overwhelming sense of revulsion.
Old, basic drills taking hold, Jindigar sought his Outreach’s linkage and opened to it, reinforcing his Oliat’s baseline. Her human vision showed the cave walls, gray with glints of white and blue. The vats shone bronze. The fire spread a radiance by which he could see Venlagar holding the Holot baby—and he could feel Krinata’s arms cradling the infant’s warm softness, her innermost being melting into a nearly orgasmic yearning for a child of her own, something she had never been interested in before.
Venlagar, under the confusing onslaught of the disintegrated balance, staggered backward. Krinata caught the baby up from Venlagar’s grip and whirled to stare at Jindigar, eyes glittering, mouth open showing pale white teeth and blazing fury, as if he’d violated her most sacred being. //How dare you! Get out of my head!//
Around them, officers reeled, sagging to the ground, caught by their Outriders, whose touch would not be felt as too intrusive. Darllanyu, gravitating toward the child, got her hands onto the infant, blasting the linkages with a Formulator’s perception of the baby’s need. Krinata pulled back possessively. Jindigar, all his being wanting only to touch the worldcircle energies of Dushaun, nevertheless drove himself toward the infant, wondering briefly if he was Center enough to save them from this.
Krinata wrenched the baby from Darllanyu’s grasp, heedless of the infant’s slashing claws, but she pulled too hard. She staggered back, stepped on Cyrus’s foot, overcorrected, and lunged forward into Jindigar. Clutching the baby to her to protect its fragile body, she twisted aside as they all fell, toppling Storm with them.
Despite Cyrus’s effort, Krinata’s head hit the floor. The human vision dimmed, as if Krinata were losing consciousness. Then everything went wild.
Fighting panic, Jindigar found himself isolated outside the Oliat linkages, detached as if surveying his own Oliat from some astral vantage, connected to them only by a slim thread. And Krinata was at their Center now.
His officers, thrashing in panic themselves, clutched at the artificial Center as if she were their own.
She knew little of that. Her whole attention was on Jindigar floating bodilessly in some other dimension. There was an urge in her to snap that tenuous link to Jindigar and send him to Incompletion-death. As I once sent Takora.
Will paralyzed by that thought, he was unable to plead with her. In all of his dealings with Ontarrah/Krinata he always ended up at her mercy, help
less, seriously wondering if he had . earned Incompletion-death by virtue of stupidity. All his fear of this entity burgeoned upward, and it seemed an insanely rational fear.
Then, with a mind-wrenching twist, without time to think that this was death, he fell into the familiar Office of Outreach. In that moment the shaleiliu hum surged through the Oliat– Krinata’s Oliat—with a brash new power, zooming their awareness in on the single point of harmony between Phanphihy and the Holot’s hunger, restoring a shaky attunement to the planet.
The locus was on the plain above the cliff—a hive of pollen-gatherers whose main staple was the sticky pollen now being produced by the abundant grasses. From this, a certain tree sap, and their own saliva, they made a syrupy suspension of nutrients for their own use—and as a gift to make allies. The Gifter hive, alive with spring’s furious activities, was bound, as all Phanphihy hives, through a sensitive group consciousness. As the Oliat browsed over their identity, the hive paused– as if on one held breath.
In that instant of precise clarity the Oliat found the syrup compatible with the Holot infant’s needs—but without Jindigar at Center to judge the matter.
Krinata’s will drove them, her bottomless compassion for the baby, her nurturing impulse that would not let anything or anyone go hungry, her emotions, wakened by Emulation, and fueled by her human metabolism’s eternal state of quasi-Renewal. The Oliat’s response reverberated. The young must be cared for. The purpose of life is within the young.
Dimly, Jindigar noticed the committee onlookers near the cave mouth murmuring among themselves, nerving themselves to intervene while the Dushau there hastened to restrain them.
Then the soundless tone that bound Krinata’s Oliat dopplered away, the Oliat’s balance wobbling in Krinata’s grip before she could finish the evaluation. Worse, she lost the distinct identity of each of the Offices, the discreet links connecting them swelling and blurring, almost as if about to Dissolve, but instead leaving them aswim in a miasma of wild energies.
But it was Jindigar’s Oliat. Summoning all his will, he opened a clear, firm link to Zannesu, assigning him to Inreach again and, by that act, taking Center. //Zannesu, can you tolerate the link to Krinata at Outreach?//
A surge of horror came back through the link, but Zannesu replied, //Since I must, I can.//
Jindigar turned his attention to his other officers, and one by one, called them. //Outreach. Inreach. Receptor. Emulator. Protector. Formulator.// Shaping and holding the balance, relying on the vague attunement to Phanphihy that Krinata had brought them, he told them, //We have a job to finish. We must tell the Holot about the Gifter hive and negotiate with the Gifters for the colony.//
Krinata’s touch on the Outreach link came in strong, commanding, competent—the touch that had held them with a towering strength from Center. As Jindigar set their goal before them, human perceptions faded back into the Oliat awareness, and all the surprising strength disintegrated. Suddenly helpless, she cried out, rolled away from Jindigar, and curled around the now-struggling baby. Cyrus scrambled around in front of her.
Not daring to think how close they had come to annihilation, Jindigar shut down the linkages to the merest whisper. He was afraid to attempt an adjournment when they all needed the stability of the open links.
Turning into Cyrus’s embrace, Krinata buried herself as if scrabbling for protection. Cyrus pried the frantic infant from Krinata’s grip, ignoring the bloody gashes it inflicted on both of them, and rose to return her to her mother’s arms. The instant the baby was out of touch with the Oliat, everything shifted. Krinata, overloaded beyond tolerance, could only clutch at Cyrus and sob uncontrollably.
Torn between duty and compassion, Cyrus emitted a low groan and enfolded her in his arms, knowing he couldn’t protect her from what assailed her, but unable to withhold that small comfort. He stroked her head with trembling fingers.
Jindigar, oddly bereft at Krinata’s turning from him, could not blame the Outrider for being human. And somehow Cyrus’s touch came to them through Krinata as balm for raw nerves, which soothed Jindigar’s sense of loss. Mindful of Eithlarin’s irrational sensitivity to breakins, and feeling Darllanyu’s response as he reacted to Krinata, he explained, III must recapture Krinata’s attention, or we are all lost.// Even an Outrider’s valid touch could be disruptive. And with his mate warm in his arms, how long could Cyrus remain only comforting?
//Go ahead,// Darllanyu told him tightly.
Jindigar widened the link to Krinata, demanding her attention, trying not to feel justified in it. //Krinata! Listen! You didn’t do that. Takora did.//
//??// She turned to him, eyes widening.
Her sobs quieted, and he added the only reassurance he had.
//You haven’t the skill to grab Center like that—and then do– what you did. Takora did. She was a Center. If she’d balanced with another Oliat, she wouldn’t be able to do anything else but grab for Center at the first chance.//
For a moment Jindigar thought he was getting through to her, for she muttered, “//Takora… //” Then, more strongly, //What do I have to do to prove to you I was Takora!// Her eyes went out of focus, her face went slack, and an unnatural stillness settled over her.
Jindigar sat back on his heels in shock. She still believes she was Takora? But Dushau simply did not reincarnate. He and Krinata had put the Takora personality to rest a year ago. She had seemed to accept all her Dushau-like manifestations, from playing the whule to functioning in Oliat subforms, as part of the Takora memory-nexus she’d absorbed from his mind by accident. She hadn’t manifested anything but the most rudimentary Outreach skills since then.
But when they’d first landed on Phanphihy, Krinata had been carrying a memory-loop seared into her mind at the insanity-crazed death of Desdinda. To Krinata it had been like being possessed by a devil bent on killing Jindigar. Desdinda had been laid to rest permanently, but Krinata didn’t have the strength to face anything like that again.
And now, in a moment of paralyzing panic, Takora had taken total control of Krinata—as if she were more than just an acquired memory-nexus and would have to be excised.
Jindigar squatted down next to Krinata and touched her cheek. //It’s not like Desdinda.. You only have some of my memories of Takora from when I was her Protector.// Jindigar had broken Aliom law when he had Inverted Takora’s Oliat, to Dissolve it. But he’d done that because Takora was already at the verge of death and was too weak to Dissolve her own Oliat. She would have taken them all with her to Incompletion-death had Jindigar not acted. But that one act had branded him Invert for life, and many Aliom practitioners had not forgiven him, even though as Center he had kept his pledge not to Invert this Oliat. //Krinata—it’s all right now,// he pleaded, hoping it was so, trying not to think of the feeling he’d had as he’d floated above his Oliat, watching her at Center with the power to send him to oblivion. But she didn’t.
As Krinata stared fixedly off into space the rest of his officers began to collect themselves. Zannesu hunkered down opposite Jindigar and passed a hand in front of Krinata’s eyes. The entire Oliat should have felt her avoidance reflex, but there was nothing. Zannesu met Jindigar’s eyes, seeing only by Oliat awareness. //She’s—not there.//
But the link was still there. //She’s alive.//
Zannesu came around and pulled Jindigar to his feet. //This is just another reason we shouldn’t have taken her as Outreach, Jindigar. No human—//
Darllanyu interrupted. //We can’t blame her. I should have taken pensone. I told you I couldn’t do without it.//
//But we’ve all survived, and we learned a lot about ourselves and about humans we’d never have experienced otherwise,// noted Eithlarin. //Which makes us all that much closer to Completion.//
Venlagar rose with the help of his Outrider and did what Jindigar had not dared. With both hands on Krinata’s shoulders, he coaxed her away from Cyrus and brought her back into the group. //Whatever we may do next, Krinata is part of us
now. I admit she gave me the horrors—but we knew she’d be our weak point. Considering that, she’s done remarkably well. We’re all alive, aren’t we? And that’s because she, as a human, was able to attune to this planet when we weren’t.//
That should have been Jindigar’s speech, but he was pulling himself away from another dread. Suppose I can’t capture enough of her attention to Dissolve? If her mind had snapped, they could all die, sucked into her madness.
Just then, the stirring and muttering among the onlookers at the front of the cave gave way to a cry of alarm voiced by some human or Lehiroh man, and suddenly the cave was filled with the strident buzz of myriads of tiny wings.
Venlagar, Receiving, gave them the picture. High up on the plateau above them, the overmind of the hive Krinata had contacted had—in true Phanphihy fashion—adopted the pseudo-hive below and decided to feed the neighboring young. The hive workers were now transporting—bead by tiny bead– a quantity of their syrup to the stores of the pseudo-hive.
The hive consciousness was aware of huge lumbering creatures just within the cave mouth, thrashing about and flailing at the stream of laden transporters it had sent. It commanded the warriors and workers to avoid the slow creatures. Before long, the huge animals had lumbered out of the cave, fleeing as if afraid of attack. Strange.
Indeed, as had come to the hive’s awareness, the food cells were empty—the young must be starving. This would be a true alliance, good for the hive, for these creatures could spread and nurture the seeds of the pollen plants.
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