Outreach tdt-3 Read online

  Outreach

  ( The Dushau Trilogy - 3 )

  Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  JACQUELINE LICHTENBERG

  The Dushau Trilogy #3

  OUTREACH

  Acknowledgments

  To Mary Brice.

  May She Rest in Peace.

  Never has a mother been more deeply loved.

  My deepest gratitude goes to the large number of friends who have supported me and my family throughout the adversities of this very difficult year when unexpected trips added to scheduled trips put me on the road for more than half the year, and behind schedule the rest of the time.

  If it weren’t for Katie Filipowicz, former editor of Zeor Forum, and her incredible dedication in proofreading without her reading glasses, this book would not be finished yet.

  I need to thank Kerry Schaefer for taking over editing and distributing the Sime/Gen fanzine Ambrov Zeor, and Cheryl Gloger for taking on the Sime/Gen fanzine Zeor Forum, and Karen Litman, editor of the Sime/Gen fanzine Companion in Zeor for keeping the mail from stacking up over my head this year.

  Those who read and commented on this manuscript deserve battle ribbons and decorations: Anne Pinzow, executive editor of Ambrov Zeor, heroic taper of Doctor Who–the television program which inspired this trilogy along with Andre Norton’s Star Rangers—and staunch personal friend of my family; Kerry Schaefer, a writer of considerable insight; my daughter Gail, a stringent critic; and Katie Filipowicz, who sacrificed the chance to read the whole novel at once in order to comment chapter by chapter.

  And then there are all those who supplied the support necessary to keep going through the most frustrating of times: my husband Salomon, who definitely wins the Purple Heart and several awards of valor; my daughters, Gail and Debbie, who have had to get along without “Ma!” for long periods through some of their toughest high-school years; my father, who accepts me when I need accepting; and my dearest friends, Anne Pinzow, Katie Filipowicz, and Roberta Mendelson. Roberta has read and commented on the Dushau to good effect. She, Anne, and Katie have all pitched in to teach my daughters the graces and skills, spending many hours doing what I could not when I could not.

  Yet another invaluable group has been the dear friends scattered about the country, who have written or called me with news of new vampire novels or other items of good cheer, or who have shown me their manuscripts. Sometimes I really need a “good read.” I expect some of these gems to turn up on the’ stands soon.

  There is one other source of inspiration for this trilogy that I’d like to recommend you read: John Brunner’s novel titled Polymath, which is about the ecology of colonizing planets.

  I learned about kinesiology from Kelly and Polly Freas at Maplecon, in Ottawa, Canada, in 1984. I do hope readers of this book will look up this technique and try it out. It’s real.

  And, of course, I must acknowledge the contribution that John Nathan Turner and all the other creators of the television show, Doctor Who, have inadvertently made to this project. The use of Zen and other philosophies within an adventure format, the confrontation with such issues as what holds the universe together, the difference between good and evil, and the essence of companionship make this apparently trivial children’s show into a literary classic.

  I’d like to offer my gratitude to James Frost, my editor at Questar, for his patience and faith.

  And there is no way to repay such wonderful people as Andre Norton, who wrote Star Rangers; Katherine Kurtz, who didn’t really intend to read DUSHAU at all, but did, Jean Lorrah my sometimes co-author, who never does less than her best and won’t let me slack off, either; Jean Airey, who showed me depths of The Doctor I’d never have found by myself, and Marion Zimmer Bradley—who is just plain magic.

  These and many other sources of energy, including the Ineffable, have made this book possible.

  To comment on this or any of my other novels (I do read and ponder every comment) or for information about current availability of novels in my Dushau, Kren, or Sime/Gen Universes, and/or information on the various Sime/Gen fanzines, send a self-addressed stamped envelop with your specific request to:

  AMBROV ZEOR

  Dept. D-3

  Box 290

  Monsey, NY, 10952

  LAWS OF SYMMETRY, PARITY, AND POLARITY

  TENTH OBSERVATION OF SHOSHUNRI

  “The Law of Parity requires that some energies, when Inverted, remain symmetrically unchanged. Others, however, change sign. It is incumbent upon the Incarnate to assess this property correctly for each energy dealt with.”

  SECOND OBSERVATION OF SHOSHUNRI

  “Polarization is the Law of Nature which reveals the essence of Completion, for as the positive pole generates the negative, or as victory generates defeat, and the profane generates the sacred, or the group generates the individual, so does identity, the sum of many generations, generate its own adversary, and so does the Observed generate the Observer. Destroy one pole, and the remaining one will regenerate its opposite, to complete itself.”

  THIRD OBSERVATION OF SHOSHUNRI

  “The Laws of Nature are .symmetric around a central axis of reflection. He who travels that axis reaches Completion.”

  From: Purpose and Method by: Shoshunri, Observing Priest of Aliom

  JINDIGAR’S OLIAT

  Protector Receptor

  femalemale Venlagar

  Eithlarin(Zannesu)

  (Trinarvil)

  Center Jindigar

  Formulator Inreach Emulator

  femalemale Zannesufemale

  Darllanyu(Venlagar) Llistyien

  Outreach Krinata

  FUNCTIONS OF OLIAT OFFICES

  Inreach: holds the pattern of intensities of the linkages.

  Protector: resonates to all factors balancing an ecology and understands the protective strategies appropriate in a particular environment and uses them to protect the Oliat.

  Formulator: perceives the underlying patterns that connect the balanced forces; can extrapolate results of an imbalance. Relates data to formulate patterns and find meaning.

  Emulator: grasps the inwardness of a species or system while the Protector deals with the outwardnesses. The Emulator can bring a species’ self-perception inside the Oliat so that understanding is on an unconscious level.

  Receptor: reacts to incoming signals, thus causing the whole Oliat to respond to changes in the balances around them.

  Outreach: the output portal for the Oliat as a whole or for the Center. The Outreach is the only Officer able to speak aloud.

  The Outreach may speak for the whole Oliat as if it were one mind, or for the Center alone.

  Center: synthesizes all data into a clear picture of the environment, the individuals, and all the relationships between them. It is the Center’s responsibility to bring the Officers of the Oliat closer to Completion through the exercise of accurate observation.

  ONE

  Wedding Trial

  The Aliom Temple was already set up for the weddings. Jindigar, at nearly seven thousand years of age, had been married at all four of his previous Renewals. But even so, a tense awe and shivering anticipation were settling over him, as if he’d never known a woman’s urgent touch.

  But he was remarrying his first wife, the most deeply satisfying. He should be serene and confident, leading the others, as was expected of a Priest of Aliom.

  Restless, he paced the length of the Temple hall, keenly aware of the smell from the freshly polished wood paneling. The gleaming walls reflected the ceremonial fire in the circular hearth at the end of the room near the entry.

  The door was open on this early spring morning, mixing , the alien scent of the reviving world with the strange perfumes of native wood smoke, but little lig
ht filtered around the interlocking, curved walls of the entry tunnel.

  At the opposite end of the windowless hall, on what the humans called a staircase that went nowhere, four hooded marriage flames danced in their smoked-glass containers amid the symbols of Aliom, displayed on the steps one above the other. At midnight Jindigar had kindled the wedding flame for Darllanyu just as the three other men had for their mates. And she, with the other women, had concealed the flame. That had been his moment of commitment to the remarriage. Why was he so agitated now?

  He paused at the edge of the marriage circle, below the skylight. The rays of the morning sun were focused by the slanted panes above him to set the crushed white gravel of the marriage circle to glowing visually, even for Dushau eyes, so ill adjusted to this world’s sun.

  But to his other senses, from below the crushed white gravel, from deep in the center of the planet, a fountain of pure white energy, the energy of the planet itself, erupted upward, flowing out through the skylight and dissipating in the air above the Temple. The marriage circle was laid over the worldcircle, at the point where the energy of sun and planet met, the condition necessary to create life.

  At noon he would reveal the marriage flame and carry it into that circle, where Darllanyu would extinguish it. If the nonvisible light from the worldcircle increased, it would show that they were close enough in harmony, in shaleiliu, to transform physical light to spiritual light, and they would be married. He knew it would happen. Just gazing into the circle made him eager to get it over with.

  But before he dared think of success at his marriage trial, he had to Dissolve his Oliat, releasing the seven of them from the psychic bonds linking them into one mind and enabling them to interpret the complex ecology of this world.

  To bring them safely through Dissolution, he must remain unmoved even though the gonads at the base of his neck throbbed insistently at any thought of Darllanyu. He told himself sternly that he wasn’t near being fertile yet. His fingers were still nailless, and the nail beds didn’t even itch.

  But when I’m fertile and an Active Priest again, the His torians will stop trying to lure me away from Aliom. Jindigar discarded that thought instantly. His Priesthood was intact. He had no reason to fear temptation. They couldn’t force him to become a Historian. He wouldn’t court Renewal and sacrifice his Oliat to avoid confrontations.

  He paced around the circle. Am I running from my personal problems by Dissolving my Oliat now? The colony still needed an Oliat’s ecological advice, but things were stable now. They’d manage until he could train a new group. His Oliat, however, had been trembling on the brink of Renewal all winter. To continue would be irresponsible.

  An astonishing sense of relief washed through him as he reaffirmed that decision. But it was quickly replaced by needles of anxiety as he resolved to surrender to Renewal, and suddenly everything in him wanted to clutch at the Oliat. Maybe it’s just that if I quit now, I’ll have failed at Center? His Oliat had never achieved a precision balance.

  If he was running from his personal problems, he didn’t know which way to run. But such strident panic was a primary symptom of Renewal onset, which made him very dangerous as Oliat Center, an Office requiring precision judgment. The only way to bring it under control was to marry Darllanyu and raise children. And that settled it.

  The sound of a door opening startled him. He turned to see five of his Oliat’s Officers enter the Temple from the temporary living quarters the Oliat shared off to one side of the Temple. They came in, men circling one way and women the other. They wore the Aliom ceremonial vestments woven from native fibers, bleached and dyed to symbolize the brightness of lightning, the Oliat signature. Jindigar, as Center of the Oliat, wore white, symbol of origins and endings, for white light was composed of all wavelengths.

  A warmth stole through him. These people had become his zunre—closer than blood relatives—for they had shared the Oliat bond. They saw with each other’s eyes, heard with each others’ ears, knew with each others’ hearts. Dissolution would leave them separate but could not sever that bond.

  His gaze was drawn to Darllanyu as she led the other two women to seat cushions around the fire. She glided as if carried on air. The floor reflected her costume, so she seemed to float at the tip of a flame. Jindigar feasted on the rich indigo of her skin coloring. She seemed like a creature out of legend, an apparition passing through the world but not of it. How could I merit such a wife?

  But he needed her. He dared not dwell on how much he needed her. Then he saw that she wore the gold arm band he had once given her. His heart swelled with a flutter both familiar and strange until he had to look away.

  When they had all settled around the hearth, Darllanyu strummed random chords on the whule she had made from native woods. He joined them. His own whule, left to him by his teacher, Lelwatha, was on his seat, next to Darllanyu. He cradled it in his lap, the feel of the satiny finish of the antique urwood sending thrills up his arms.

  Struggling to subdue his hypersensitivity, Jindigar fought to ignore Darllanyu’s faintly suggestive aroma and not to think about the activities that would be theirs later today. With the inward communication of the Oliat, Jindigar assured her, //Krinata will be here in a moment. Then we can begin the Dissolution.//

  His Oliat wasn’t fully convened—for the past year Jindigar had kept the seven of them divided into two duos and a trio for training. But the linkages were well enough activated that they all received the conversation. //You know I don’t want her at our wedding. It’s bad enough that none of our former mates are here to officiate—//

  Something of Jindigar’s hurt must have reached her. She broke off, curbed a soothing gesture, and explained, //What she does to you frightens me. She’s an ephemeral. I don’t want to get any closer to her. We’re so vulnerable now!//

  Feeling her fear for him through the link, Jindigar knew she couldn’t bear to see him hurt any more than he could bear her pain. And she had good reason to fear. At his last Renewal he had taken an ephemeral woman, Ontarrah, into his home, and on four occasions even into his bed, because he could not bear to part from her. His wife and their children had accepted Ontarrah—even loved her—and had grieved deeply at her death, taking disabling mental scars. For that he had been exiled from Dushaun until this Renewal—and now he could not go home.

  //Dar, because Krinata is Ontarrah reincarnated, we are both determined not to repeat that mistake.//

  At that moment Krinata Zavaronne walked through the front entry. She was wearing the same lightning-flash vestment the others wore but cut to fit the human female form, somehow making her diminutive frame seem statuesque. Overall, she projected the impression of the Lady Zavaronne attending Prince Jindigar’s wedding. If any of them noticed, though, she’d be deeply offended. The Allegiancy Empire was dead, and with it Krinata had buried her title—but try as she might, she had not been able to bury her heritage.

  She took her seat opposite Jindigar. Her black eyes, danced in the firelight. Her short black hair hid the human ear paps, and she sat facing him so he couldn’t see the jutting profile of her chest. If it weren’t for her hair and pinkish-white skin, she could almost pass for Dushau.

  //I plan,// she said, unable to hide her hurt in the silent medium, //to leave right after the Dissolution. I do have my own wedding to prepare for, and Cy will be anxious.//

  Cyrus Benwilliam Lord Kulain had been courting Krinata circumspectly since they’d met. As a professional Oliat Outrider, he” knew his job was to protect the Oliat, which meant to protect Krinata from any hint of sexual arousal. Unfortunately, with humans in love, that wasn’t possible. Cyrus’s feelings and Krinata’s unsuppressibte responses had been a major factor in destabilizing Jindigar’s Oliat.

  //Custom,// argued Zannesu, Jindigar’s Inreach, //is for marriage to be witnessed by one’s zunre. You are zunre to us, Krinata.// He was to marry Eithlarin, Jindigar’s Protector, and the most sensitive of his officers.

  Yet Ei
thlarin was not a weak person. She challenged Darllanyu. //Perhaps Zannesu and I will marry first, so we may enjoy the company of our zunre.//

  //I understand Darllanyu’s feelings,// Krinata put in quickly. //I’d welcome you all at my wedding, but it wouldn’t be healthy for you. If I were Dushau, I wouldn’t associate with ephemerals, either. So I’ll leave as soon as I can.// Her words were brave, but her heart was torn.

  //Ephemerals grieve too,// commented Jindigar, needing to tell her he knew how she felt. //It hurts them just as much as it does us, to lose a friend.// That similarity was one reason Dushau feared association with ephemerals—especially during the openness of Renewal onset when new friendships went so deep they could last a lifetime. But ephemerals rarely lived a hundredth of a lifetime. No Dushau could survive such a high frequency of loss and remain sane.

  He felt her reaching for him through the link, as if trying to console him while facing her own bereavement. For the first time in nearly two years, she’d face the world stripped of the Oliat’s global awareness. She’d feel naked, alone, cold—shattered to her core. But she didn’t flinch. She added, levelly, //Cy will be waiting with the medics, in case I need treatment for Dissolution shock. Trinarvil is outside with the other wedding guests. She’ll escort me to the gate—afterward. So let’s get on with it.//

  Trinarvil, Dushaun’s Ambassador to the Allegiancy, had turned out to be their most proficient medic. Jindigar knew he could trust her to treat Krinata if necessary. And he also knew that humans preferred swift partings.

  He nodded human-fashion and activated the duo linkage that unified himself and Krinata, preparing to convene the Oliat for Dissolution. But he stole a moment of privacy in their duo, to tell her, //I would have stayed with you the rest of your life—if I could have. But none of us can be trusted anymore. If we don’t Dissolve now—//