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  They had come to the spaceship graveyard, and to the bottom of the ramp leading into the ship they had powered with salvaged parts. As they climbed that ramp, Jindigar turned to survey the colony. More than two thousand had survived the winter. Dushau had brought them to Phanphihy to fulfill the grand vision of Raichmat’s Oliat—the first offworlders to explore this planet.

  Jindigar had been Raichmat’s Outreach, his first exploring Oliat Office. Finding the Native hive-dwellers building a civilization from their multispecies hives and knowing how the hives’ psychic gift would be exploited by the fledgling Empire, Raichmat’s had decided that, to protect them, they must establish a Dushau colony on Phanphihy. From that idea had grown the vision of the Dushau-dominant multicolony. Though the multispecies colony form had been successful on many worlds, if one species was present in larger numbers, Dushaun had never colonized. Here, however, it was apparent that the multicolony was the only form that could work. And it was time for Dushaun to establish a colony.

  But of the seven Raichmat’s Officers who had pledged to come here, only Jindigar, the youngest of them, had made it.

  No point dwelling on that. Ducking into the open hatch, Jindigar led the way to the medical lab. The room was divided by a counter behind which lab benches were strewn with equipment. He would have preferred to do the specimen processing himself, but there were several competent Cassrians and Lehiroh at work. Storm explained their mission to a white-smocked Cassrian whose carapace decorations showed his military service rank.

  The Cassrian’s face, though immobile, revealed much to Jindigar’s awareness. There was awe for the Oliat and a measure of fear of Cyrus, who had faced down the Cassrian Guard Commander. Nevertheless, the technician extracted a specimen of Jindigar’s blood expertly, without the slightest squeamish-ness at handling an endoskeletal arm, then vanished into an adjacent lab to process the specimen for human use.

  Jindigar was feeling fine now, so his antibodies for this disease were high enough that there would be no mistake, even though they had no Sentient computer to oversee the process. Waiting in the clean, mechanized environment, Jindigar felt a peculiar relaxation stealing over him, a rush of nostalgia strong enough to take his breath away.

  Onset’ instability again! But he admitted that the rustic life had already begun to wear on him. He wanted to go home. Very soon now this lab would be gone, and for centuries to come, they would have nothing like it. This is what it meant to be a colonist—not just exile, but exile from the very roots of being.

  He shook himself and paced, ignoring the concerned glances of his Outriders as he worked to suppress the Renewal-based alienation. It was the main reason Dushau had no colonies. Deepest consciousness rejected any world but Dushaun itself during Renewal.

  After a time, the Cassrian returned with an injector loaded with a vial of colorless fluid, “This should do it if she’s fighting any relative of whatever you picked up.”

  “It’s a good guess,” assured Storm. “Krinata has spent most of her time with Jindigar.”

  The Cassrian supplied them with a human-care kit, one of the few left. “If she doesn’t rally, try this. But—”

  “We know,” said Cyrus. “There aren’t many kits left.”

  After the off world supplies were gone, they would have to rely on what they’d learned to gather and process from the countryside. They had quite a sophisticated pharmacopoeia already, but without an Oliat to develop native medicines, the death rate would soar.

  The trip back to the Dushau compound was made in an increasing downpour. As they passed through the outer gate, they found a Holot wrapped in a formless slicker pacing back and forth on the porch of the Outriders’ quarters. The Holot • was reared up on the hindmost pair of limbs, the upper pair clutching the drenched slicker tight about the head, the middle pair fastidiously hidden beneath the cape.

  “Ah, there you are!” called the Holot, and Jindigar recognized her voice—the chief executive of the colony’s ephemeral government.

  “Terab!” called Storm, preceding them.

  By the time Jindigar and Cyrus reached the porch, Storm had briefed her. She pushed her slicker aside with her two middle limbs. The steamy odor of her wet fur around her barrel body assailed them all. The damp bothered the Holot, but the day would seem warm enough to her. “There’s a meeting this afternoon in the big barn—and the committees want the Oliat to attend.”

  Terab was nominally head of the colony’s government, but power was spread through committees elected by each species. In designing the structure they had blended ideas from all five species while trying to avoid the dead Empire’s mistakes. The result, Jindigar felt sure, would not last long—but it didn’t bother ephemerals that things they built didn’t last.

  “The Outreach is very sick,” answered Cyrus for Jindigar. “The Oliat is adjourned, but I really—”

  Jindigar stayed him with a hand. “We cannot attend.”

  Terab made the Holot grimace that bespoke satisfaction. Her snouted face was mobile and expressively beautiful for those who could read it. “I told them as much, but they insisted I come—”

  “I’m glad.” Jindigar summoned the effort—less now than it had been—to tell her, “I cannot speak to them, but afterward—we must talk.”

  “There’s to be an investigation—why the clickerhive picked on us—why we were caught unprepared—what we can do to prevent it happening again—and most of all, what we can do now to feed our children. There will be more births soon. And Jindigar, half the colony is having nightmares again—of the attack by all the animals of the plains. They wanted me to ask the Oliat if Chinchee and that hivebinder of his are about anywhere, putting ideas in our heads. People have been seeing that ugly gray dome over us.”;

  “Chinchee is not near—” answered Jindigar, wanting to claim full responsibility. They had re-evoked the hive-dome image. But even with Terab, an old and trusted friend, he could not summon the words.

  Storm interrupted. “You’ll have to wait for their report on the clickerhive until Krinata can deliver it”

  As if it only now penetrated, Terab asked, “What’s wrong with Krinata?” They had fought then– way across a continent together, bandaging each other’s hurts, calming each other’s terrors. Terab was as much Krinata’s friend as Jindigar’s.

  Storm launched into an explanation, shouting a little against the sound of another downpour. Cyrus handed Jindigar the medical kit, saying, “Go–we’ll be here when you want us– unless a flood washes us away.”

  In the Aliom Temple, the fire was still burning in the hearth by the door. Jindigar hung his slicker to dry and cut across toward the door of the Oliat quarters before he noticed

  Darllanyu, wearing rough-worn field clothes, standing at the edge of the marriage circle, her indigo skin like a black shadow against the white gravel. She tossed gravel back into the circle and dusted off her hands. Jindigar paused, suspended between the urgency of Krinata’s illness and the aching hurt tearing at his mate.

  Darllanyu turned, and her eyes drew him forward.

  “Dar—no. Not now.” Suddenly he hated the Priest’s disciplines that gave him the strength to deny her.

  “You must Dissolve—or Dismiss me, at least. Perhaps Trinarvil can take my place. I can’t do it, Jindigar.”

  She was closer to the critical point than he. He had counted on that to pull him into active Renewal quickly, the swift rush of hormones forcing them both over the threshold into acceptance of this alien world. But—“Trinarvil is still too ill. If I let anyone go, it’s Dissolution—and the Holot children will starve.”

  “Zannesu convinced us of that—after you left. I thought– I thought I could—but—I can’t. Wisdom is to know your limits. I’m a danger—to all of us.”

  / can’t, wasn’t usually in Darllanyu’s vocabulary. He recalled how she’d looked when they’d found her outside the hive up on the plateau. She and Cyrus had been the only survivors of Avelor’s Oliat. She’d b
een emaciated, too weak to walk, but she had recovered her spirits before her strength. Within a few weeks she had joined another Oliat, of Jindigar’s fabrication—and lost two of her fellow officers to death-trauma during the battle against the Imperial troops who had chased him and Krinata to this world. And then the pentad remaining had accepted Jindigar and Krinata to become Jindigar’s Oliat. Darllanyu had endured more than anyone could expect, and that had catapulted her into Renewal. If she said she couldn’t, she couldn’t.

  Jindigar tore his eyes from the white circle and gestured his acceptance of her evaluation. He had to go on, with or without an Oliat. He could not reach Completion if he abandoned his responsibilities. So she would have to find another mate—this time. “I want you, Dar, more than I’ve ever wanted anyone. But I’ll arrange a Dismissal.”

  The loss heavy in him, he turned to the Oliat room where Krinata lay. Zannesu was wiping Krinata’s face with a cold towel while Eithlarin massaged her feet to stimulate her natural disease defenses.

  “She’s worse. Did you get it?” asked Zannesu.

  Jindigar produced the injector and the medical kit and let Eithlarin administer the injection. “Dar is resigning.”

  That created a stir. The barricades Jindigar had erected to partition the Oliat were holding—almost too well. Venlagar wilted onto his bed. Of them all, he was the farthest from active Renewal, which was why Jindigar had placed him as Receptor. “Then we can’t go on,” sighed Venlagar.

  “Not as an Oliat,” replied Jindigar.

  “You going to try to hold a hexad?” asked Llistyien, her incredulity leaking through the barriers to Jindigar.

  “It does sound absurd,” agreed Jindigar.

  “How long can a Center work so unbalanced?” asked Venlagar.

  “Ordinarily, quite a while,” supplied Zannesu. “But not under these circumstances.”

  Jindigar watched him but didn’t ask if that meant he’d not stay with a Center who was trying it.

  Venlagar asked, “Can we find a Holot infant food that won’t attract clickerswarms fast enough so you can rejoin Dar?”

  “I doubt it. A hexad isn’t as fast as an Oliat.”

  From the doorway Darllanyu spoke, lips compressed. “Using pensone, I can make it–at least to find them some food.”

  Jindigar let the shock wash through him, hardly daring to let himself shudder. Pensone would suppress Renewal, and they did have some. But the side effects—Dar might be rendered permanently sterile. She’d surely have trouble conceiving or carrying to term this Renewal, for pensone would leave her less able to absorb nutrients and could cut centuries off her lifespan, if she survived the withdrawal of the drug. Psychotic or suicidal behavior was not unusual when going off pensone. And those were the mild effects. “That stuff is poison!” Somebody whose life was Complete might dare it, but… Jindigar admitted to himself that he’d waited six thousand years for a child of hers—he could wait another thousand if he had to, but the idea of losing the chance altogether hurt too much.

  Venlagar intervened in a level tone, knowing, as they all did, why Jindigar was not reacting as a Center. “Naturally Jindigar feels threatened by your suggestion, Dar.” He turned to Jindigar. “But I think we all know that this mess is our responsibility. It isn’t as difficult for me to say this as for the rest of you—so I’ll say it first. So long as I can hold so much as a duad, I’ll continue.”

  Zannesu looked into Eithlarin’s eyes over Krinata’s flushed, freckled face. But Eithlarin spoke for them. “What if we continue to make mistakes?”

  “We probably will.” Jindigar told them everything Terab had said, finishing with the nightmares resurfacing among the ephemerals. “With the fine balance you gave me yesterday, I should have known that would happen, and I should have found another way. This Oliat at its best is not trustworthy. Trying to rectify the error that brought the clickcrhive may only make matters worse.” He wondered what Terab would say when he reported that the Oliat was the source of their trouble. He doubted if any ephemeral hail ever heard of an untrustworthy Oliat.

  Krinata’s eyes drifted open and focused. Disoriented by the adjournment, feverish, she accepted the cup Eithlarin held for her but asked vaguely, “What happened?”

  Jindigar sighed as they all launched into different explanations. In the end, it would be up to Krinata. After a taste of what Oliat balance had done to her health, she might not be able to face it again. But if she withdraws–Dar won’t have any reason to destroy herself with pensone.

  THREE

  A Simple Job

  The Holot infant was fretting miserably with hunger, her six limbs thrashing against her mother’s body despite the blanket muffling her downy form.

  Jindigar had assembled his Oliat in the Holot cave for this operation. The vats for making the slurry of curdled herbivore milk to feed the Holot infants were clean now; all the putrefaction caused by clickerhive beast droppings had been steam-cleaned away.

  Under no circumstances would the committees of the other species allow the Holot to continue making their baby food. Jindigar had reported, through Krinata, just how and why the clickerhive had descended on them. They had accepted that the Holot food had lured the animals, but they discounted the Oliat’s role in the original error. Ephemerals regarded such fallibility as a norm, refusing to take it as a sign that the Oliat had gone as far as it could.

  “Jindigar,” Terab had said, “people resent the Oliat for quitting just when you’re needed most. They’re beginning to distrust Dushau altogether.”

  Terab had recounted the acrimonious interspecies rivalry at the joint committee meeting, declaring that if the Oliat couldn’t find a solution to the Holot problem, the colony would surely split. She was Holot, and emotionally involved, but even so, Jindigar believed her. He had brought his Oliat into the field once more, knowing this would only convince some ephemerals that they were quitting by choice, but also knowing that, as Krinata had insisted, “If the colony falls apart, we may as well not bother to survive Dissolution—because we won’t live long.”

  Terab came over to Krinata and addressed the now-reconvened Oliat through her. “Everything is ready as Jindigar’s requested.”

  Cyrus maintained his vigilance beside Krinata, having seen that she was wrapped in an extra cloak for work in the chilly cave. Jindigar felt the human male’s protectiveness and barriered himself against the sexual overtones Cyrus couldn’t suppress.

  Surveying the cave one last time, Jindigar used Oliat perceptions, not vision, for the only lighting was a yellow flame. The committees’ representatives were clustered around the sun-bright cave mouth—upper-class Cassrians with carapaces engraved and inlaid with precious gems and a few Lehiroh, humans, and Holot who might once have been aristocrats or tradesmen.

  Apart from them stood a group of Dushau who had volunteered to interact with the colony’s government. Trinarvil, their head of medical services, was not among them. Her health was too fragile for her to become involved. But Threntisn, their chief Archivist, was there recording the event into the great memory pattern passed from Historian to Historian down the ages from the dawn of Dushau history. Jindigar himself had carried that particular Archive, sealed and entrusted to Jindigar at death by Grisnilter. The seal had broken, but Jindigar had delivered the Archive intact to Threntisn, who was trained to handle it safely.

  Threntisn and the other non-Oliat Dushau wore photo-multiplier filters to see by firelight. Jindigar felt the Historian’s recording gaze settle upon him as he responded to Terab’s report through his Outreach. “//Thank you, Terab. Cy, you may close access now.//”

  They had all seen the Oliat or its subforms working in the settlement. They knew that during this operation there could be no information exchange with the Oliat. The Outriders would see that the officers remained undisturbed.

  Cyrus signaled, and the other Outriders came to attention. Before reconvening and balancing, Jindigar had explained to the Outriders that they were now more vu
lnerable to distractions. He had not told them of Eithlarin’s episode or that Darllanyu had wanted to use pensone on herself while Krinata had flatly refused to be a party to it. The others had supported their human zunre, saying that if Darllanyu felt she couldn’t do this undrugged, then they’d better Dissolve.

  As the intensity of her current hormonal surge had abated, Darllanyu had agreed to work drugless, but Jindigar had resolved to keep his attention away from Krinata as much as possible while timing this operation for the natural trough in Dar’s cycle. They had all agreed, knowing the risks, for he had explained it, telling them plainly, “If we ever reestablish contact with Dushaun, I’ll be brought up on charges for allowing this.”

  So Jindigar was not surprised when the Oliat trembled nervously in his grasp, balance among them and attunement with the world around them eluding him. He felt Krinata’s heart leap with apprehension and shut down the open channel to her awareness lest it upset everyone else. Krinata turned to him, alarmed. //Jindigar– don’t. I can do it.//

  //Relax,// advised Jindigar. //Only the Outreach can do this first part of the operation. But let me set it up for you.// He focused on Zannesu, his Inrecach, whose job it was to hold the balance among the linkages once Jindigar had set it. //Do you want to try to reinforce Center’s pattern?//

  Zannesu had never done this maneuver before, but he tackled it with a calm professionalism. Jindigar felt his strength supporting his own and gradually developing the pattern they had chosen, wide-open to Krinata and the Receptor, Venlagar, but closed to the others, protecting their most vulnerable officers. Jindigar was prepared to proceed without seeking the shaleiliu hum, but it came as he and Zannesu worked together.

  He wasted not a moment basking in it but, rather, turned directly to Krinata.

  With the link to her wide-open, Jindigar caught her oddly human conception of the linkages—transparent tubes that connected the officers to Jindigar and among themselves. The tubes carried colored fluid from one to the other, representing the information flow. Sometimes the fluids glowed brightly in wide tubes, and sometimes the tubes were constricted, the fluids diffuse or bubbling with turbulence. At the moment, the links from Center to Inreach, and through Inreach to Outreach, as well as the Center-Receptor link, glowed bright rainbows, while the others were dulled.