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 ephem-erals 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 vulnerable 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.
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 break-in. 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, helpless, 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 break-ins, 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.
This was an Emulation level dangerous even for a fully balanced and secure Oliat. Jindigar pulled them back from being immersed in the hive mentality of the insectoids. The committee representatives were shouting at each other as they fled.
The Oliat was isolated without an Outreach. But they had done their day's work. The Holot would be fed—if he could only find a way of telling them so.
He scooped Krinata's tiny body up in his arms and felt a moment of fear as Cyrus blocked his way, locking eyes with him, his unspoken fear for Krinata like a wall between them. But then Storm intervened, taking Cyrus by the shoulders and turning him away. "Listen to me! You can't help Krinata. She's one of them now. They don't dare let a human medic touch her. Jindigar will know what to do."
Jindigar was aware of the bunching of Cyrus's muscles against Storm's Lehiroh strength, but it was the fierce conflict of friends with a deep caring that was, in its way, so purely male, it bridged the species gap and united them. At last Cyrus yielded and turned his face away while Jindigar carried Krinata out of the cave, the other Outriders closing around the moving Oliat, ignoring the flight of insects overhead because the Oliat did.
Outside, daylight was waning in a cloud-speckled sky, but there was enough light to see the path down the cliff face. Ruff, Storm's co-husband, insisted on edging past Jindigar and taking the path first, clearing off every bit of gravel Jindigar might slip on.
The Outriders left them at the outer court of the Dushau compound, and Jindigar forged through the inner gate and on down the residential streets to the central plaza. The plaza was defined by the Aliom Temple, the Historians' Temple, the administration building and the medical services center. All about, people paused among the saplings and new grass to gaze after the Oliat with grave concern or total lack of surprise that it was the human who had collapsed.
Jindigar carried Krinata on through the hospital and right into Trinarvil's office where he laid his Outreach on a bench and turned to peer up at Trinarvil, who was standing in the middle of the floor between the bench and her desk.
Trinarvil had always seemed old to Jindigar, but in these past months, she had become worn and haggard as well. Catapulted into premature Renewal, her body was rejecting most of the nutrients of this world, regardless of what native foods she ate, a common result of loss of attunement. Her sleep was fraught with nightmares, her days haunted with a sickness only those who had known exile from Dushaun could guess at.
She was much too ill, yet the Oliat needed her, needed an Outreach they could trust—if only for a very short while. And Trinarvil was an experienced Oliat Officer. If she could only accept this world—even if just as superficially as the rest of them had—they could use her for the brief while it would take to Dissolve.
Kneeling beside Krinata, who simply stared catatonically at the ceiling, Jindigar looked up at Trinarvil, knowing she would understand his plea.
And she did. But she only shook her head, the sadness in the etched lines in her face growing to a bleak hopelessness as she gazed upon Krinata. Then she went to the door, weaving her way through Jindigar's other officers, and called some orders to those outside.
Blankets and hot water were brought for Krinata. Trinarvil let them know implicitly by her movements rather than by attempting speech, that she wanted Llistyien to Emulate Krinata into the Oliat—to evoke within the Oliat the closed mental loop the human was trapped in.
Jindigar's first impulse was to reject that utterly, but then he saw what she was pulling out of a storage cabinet behind her desk. Trundling the heavy battery pack behind it, she deployed the only vibration therapy machine still fully operating. It was a long, silvery box with four tall poles that telescoped out of it in various directions. Two of them were color projectors and two were sound projectors.
Jindigar had no idea how a human might respond to such a standard -health-adjusting procedure. But could it really be harmful? Especially in link with six Dushau? Yet what else could they try? Before long, the committee people would have the army up at that cave, spraying it with fire or smoke to rid it of the insects trying to help them.
Trinarvil's people brought in cots for the other six Oliat Officers and strapped them down so they wouldn't hurt themselves.
Jindigar signaled Zannesu, and they opened the linkages just enough to let Llistyien attune to Krinata and Emulate. It took her three tries to overcome the fear of the darkness possessing Krinata's mind, Jindigar insisting that what was happening to Krinata didn't resemble the Dushau malady of being lost in the episodes of memory. Then Jindigar, with all his Oliat, went down into Krinata's darkness, a depth of stillness where thought locked against thought and paralyzed the mind.
Jindigar never knew what happened. They told him later that it had taken nearly an hour for them to come out of it.
But it seemed to him like the very next thing he knew, the room came swimming into focus, and residual scraps of thought evaporating from the edges of consciousness seemed cast in the piquant human symbolism whereby Oliat linkages became tubes, information came in colors, and almost anything could have phallic import or monetary value.
Strength was pouring into him like a tangible fluid, and he was glad to be strapped down, for everything whirled crazily. He applied himself to balancing the linkages, vanquishing every shred of Krinata's private memories that might have leaked into his memory, and synthesizing the multiawareness into coherent meaning. He'd never noticed how much mental effort it took to do that. But as he grew stronger he rolled his head over and found Krinata's eyes staring into his own.