While word of the new crisis spread through the Dushau community and delegates went out to confer with ephemerals, Jindigar and Krinata spent the evening studying the lab work on the pond infestation and the fungus. Even without a Sentient computer the ephemerals had taken only a few hours after discovering the pond invaders to mutate and produce the fungus from a stock fungus used for pest control purposes on many Cassrian worlds. It should have been safe. But something had gone wrong.
Phanphihy just doesn't want us here?
When Jindigar found his thoughts drifting in such a perilous direction—as if the Phanphihy delusion were taking hold of him as it had the Imperial troopers—he laid the study aside and went to talk to Trinarvil. He found her in her office with Zannesu and Eithlarin, discussing the side effects of pensone.
As Jindigar entered, Trinarvil broke off and looked up. "You're determined to take them into the field again?"
Jindigar replied by reciting his findings. "We must consider our options very carefully," he said. He spoke directly to Zannesu, who had prudently taken a seat as far from Eithlarin as he could. Both of them now had inflamed fingertips, just as Jindigar did. He put his hands behind his back. "I won't demand this of anyone."
"One dissent and we don't go?" asked Zannesu.
"That's right," answered Jindigar.
Trinarvil closed the folders before her. "Blood chemistries show that pensone will increase Eithlarin's break-in phobia. She's unstable, Jindigar, and Zannesu is such a close shaleiliu with her that he resonates to it."
"But Zannesu also stabilizes her," Jindigar pointed out. "We must rest before deciding. Trinarvil, could you run blood chemistries on all of us tonight?"
She pushed to her feet and leaned over the desk. "Certainly, but I can tell you the results right now. Inconclusive."
He knew she was right but didn't know what else to do. The next morning, they discussed it all again and voted unanimously to work. Jindigar sent word to Threntisn that he wouldn't be searching the Archive and took his Oliat into the Temple where he presented them with Trinarvil's estimates of their individual need for pensone according to then– blood hormone levels—notoriously unreliable in early onset because the glands produced surges of hormone at irregular intervals. It was just such a surge that had conquered Darllanyu in the Holot cave.
Darllanyu looked at the slip with her results on it, then folded it. "I told you before. I won't go into the field without pensone. I almost killed us all last time."
Jindigar sagged. People who had used pensone usually gave up engendering their own children. And he'd so wanted Darllanyu's children. A barren first mating such as they had shared in their First Renewals often left that nagging, unfulfilled feeling they had both endured for more than five thousand years.
On the other hand, their lives depended on each others' stability. And they would have to deal with the Cassrian reproductive process this time.
The morning sun beaming through the skylight illuminated the far end of the Temple where the Hand of Fire stood—a carving made of Phanphihy wood. It was a Dushau hand, where each of the seven digits began as a bolt of lightning striking out of thin air, converging to form the palm of the hand in which nestled a bowl of water—with a live fish swimming in it. On the table beside it was a small plate of Phanphihy glass with the tiny pensone capsules arrayed on it. Next to that was a stack of empty glass plates, none any bigger than the palm of a hand.
"I think," said Jindigar, "that we should test ourselves for dosage. Anyone who merits a two-capsule dose both by kinesiology and blood test will take it. Reasonable?"
No one objected. Jindigar went first, taking an empty plate and putting one capsule on it. He took it to the worldcircle under the skylight.
The white gravel of the wedding circle had been cleared away, revealing the large wood carving of the Oliat symbol inlaid into the floor, an X balanced on the point of an arrow. When the officers took their places on the symbol, they stood within the worldcircle.
His Oliat's first official function had been the opening of the worldcircle, thus consecrating the Temple. Jindigar remembered how they had arranged themselves on the symbol that day. All Aliom practitioners qualified to help had surrounded the circle. Unsure how Krinata would affect the process, he had focused the Aliom community into one single mind-entity and sealed the world-energy leakage oozing up through the Temple floor in a foglike haze.
Then, with the Temple floor sealed away from the world, Jindigar had made himself a gateway for the world's energy, letting it erupt upward through him and sending it on up through the skylight and up into the life sphere of the planet. Much to his surprise, when they stepped out of the new worldcircle, it continued to spume energies skyward, and the rest of the floor remained clean of any static.
His gaze rested on Krinata now. Either Krinata is Takora, and Dushau do sometimes reincarnate, or a worldcircle does not always dissipate when stepped on by someone not trained in Aliom. He wasn't prepared to choose between these basic tenets right now. Perhaps he should ignite a testing circle to see if other humans could walk on it.
He stepped into his place on the center of the Aliom symbol, feeling the tingle all over his skin nap, like bathing in an electric field. Only it had a deeper, healing effect very disturbing on the threshold of Renewal.
Jindigar held the dish cupped in the palm of his hand, cradled against his waist, and held his other arm straight out in front of him, palm down. "Ready, Zannesu."
Zannesu touched Jindigar's outstretched hand and applied a measured force. Slowly Jindigar's arm sank toward the floor. By sheer willpower he was able to stop it at about a forty-five-degree angle. Adding a second capsule made Jindigar's arm collapse instantly. Two capsules would be a poisonous dose for him right now.
Jindigar tested Zannesu, then Zannesu and Llistyien tested everyone else—except Krinata. Darllanyu's arm was strengthened to rock steadiness by three capsules and collapsed by four—the only one of them to exceed Jindigar's standard.
"Before you take it," said Venlagar, "let's test the Oliat with it."
"But that puts Krinata in it," objected Zannesu. "Of course, it's poison to her. We'll have no strength."
"It'll test our collective balance," said Jindigar, though such principles didn't always transpose neatly to other species.
The Oliat joined in a line, arms circling one another's waists, Dar at one end and Krinata at the other, Jindigar in the middle. Dar put the pensone down while Jindigar coached Krinata to heft a fire shovel, holding it at arm's length.
The shovel barely cleared the floor. "I can't lift it!"
"Good," replied Jindigar, and let up on the adjournment seals as he suggested, "Now, see if you can lift it."
She strained, and the shovel wobbled up waist-high. They were not in good balance. //Dar? You can go ahead.//
She held the pensone to her, and Jindigar signaled Krinata, who raised the shovel again, exclaiming, //My God!// Her arm rose to shoulder height, supporting the shovel easily.;
Zannesu observed, //Maybe we can do this after all.// .;
As Darllanyu took the drug and waited for it to take effect, it Jindigar busied himself with Zannesu and Krinata, setting the foundation linkages. //Now, Krinata, I'm going to set the choke– link to you, so you won't have to carry the brunt of this. You'll be Outreach, completing the Oliat balance and allowing us to function, but you won't be able to speak for us, and you'll hardly feel what we're doing.// If we were a glorified heptad before, now we're a crippled one!'
Earlier Krinata had agreed to the choke-link, a training device that was essentially a demotion for her. Jindigar felt tears stinging behind her eyes. Krinata, Lady Zavaronne, regarded fidelity as Aliom did—another meaning of shaleiliu, the congruence between what one said and what one did, what one alleged and what was fact. But she knew her word wasn't strong enough to bind her actions. //Krinata, I know you won't ever willingly take Center again. But you have the trained reflexes of a Center, and those reflexes will act. It would be the same for me.//
She nodded. //Let's get on with it.//
Momentarily Jindigar wondered why he'd ever considered Krinata their weakest officer. He had to exert himself to keep any pace she set. He turned to watch Darllanyu seated cross-legged in the center of the worldcircle, shivering a little as the drug took effect.
He felt the pressure abating even as he watched, producing in them both a sickening emptiness. It was a measure of how deeply they had linked themselves—even without the wedding. Her eyes met his, and he wasn't sure he could compete in her league, either. But, oh, there was an exhilaration in the idea of showing her how easily he performed the greatest feats. And therein lay a danger, for adolescent bravado could not be permitted in a Center.
Zannesu put a hand on Jindigar's elbow. //Eithlarin says if we get out of this unscathed, she'll offer to bear children for you two.//
Touched to his core, Jindigar had to turn away, bury his face in his hands, and hold his breath against the keening wail of pain that rose in him. He forced it aside and turned back to his zunre. Krinata was right. They should get this over with quickly.
Accompanied by their seven Dushau Outriders plus Storm's whole crew, the Oliat arrived at the pond just before noon. The sun was bright in a clear sky, the breeze softened with the breath of summer. The pond had been dug out deeply, the dirt stacked all around to form a protective embankment. Water from an underground stream fed the pond, then drained into the river beyond. Wooden stairs led to the flat top of the embankment where a crowd had already gathered.
As they climbed the outside stair mating calls of flyers filled the ah-. Young piols chased around in circles, their primary mating game. Parent piols with litters were well established in nesting holes on the inside of the embankment above the pond. There were eight of them now, and two gravid females, all of them fat on the fish appropriated from the Cassrians' pond. Nobody minded, for they cherished the Cassrian eggs more than the Cassrians did.
Jindigar put the animals out of his mind. Leaving the ephemeral Outriders with the crowd at the top of the embankment, the Oliat descended the two flights of wooden stairs and the winding trail down into the bowl holding the pond. The odor of putrefaction trapped in the deep cup holding the pond was overwhelming.
At the bottom of the trail a large wooden platform had been built out over the placid water on piles, while an end section of it floated like a raft. At irregular intervals around the floating platform there were small weather-tight sheds. The Cassrian officials were gathered on the solid platform. Together with the representatives of the various Councils, they made quite a crowd.
On the floating platform Trinarvil and her medics had set up a first-aid station for the Oliat in one of the sheds. Its door • now stood open, revealing a stack of Cassrian furniture shoved into one corner near a hole in the floor. Water sloshed through the hole as people moved about. Trinarvil's crew had jigsawed seven cots into the shed, barely leaving room for themselves and some of the irradiating equipment and battery packs.
Next to the shed's open door, Threntisn sat in a chair, surrounded by four of his apprentice Historians who were fussing over him while he irritably pushed them aside. His teeth were too pale, and he looked shaky enough to be confined to bed. I'd no idea I'd put that much stress on him. If I hurt the Archive– Jindigar quelled that pang of fear and guilt. He couldn't afford distractions now. Besides, if it were that bad, Threntisn wouldn't be so determined to record this event that he had to be carried to the scene.
As he made his way out onto the floating platform, Jindigar glanced back up at the spectators on the top of the embankment. Storm's Outriders mingled with the Cassrians and the handful of others but remained vigilant.
Jindigar had chosen to work under Dushau guard this time, because with the Outreach nonfunctional, they needed the Aliom-trained Dushau. Storm's crew, as expert as they were, could not perceive the linkages directly, nor feel the Oliat attunement. And as well trained as the ephemerals were in field first aid for an Oliat, his own people under Trinarvil would be faster, surer, and more accurate. With Eithlarin's increasing break-in sensitivity seconds could count.
When it had been explained to Storm—"This Oliat would never ordinarily be convened off Dushaun"—he had readily agreed to keep his crew out of the way—but he had refused to wait in the barracks, saying, "Jindigar, there are reasons you've always chosen ephemeral Outriders for work off Dushaun. And this isn't Dushaun."
Touched by the loyalty, Jindigar hadn't argued.
Gathering his officers at the floating end of the platform, Jindigar cautioned, //Mind your footing. With Krinata choked off it's easy to become dizzy.// But they needed the space, and it helped to be in closer contact with the water they had to attune to. Jindigar, though, noted how their weight—so much more than fourteen Cassrians would weigh—sank the platform. But if they didn't move much, they wouldn't get their boots wet.
//Venlagar?// prompted Jindigar when they were all set.
The Receptor had been eyeing the scummy water with distaste, and as soon as Jindigar called in the link, the entire Oliat felt why. The natural steady state here had been thoroughly disrupted. All higher life forms in the water had died, and now the microlife proliferated unchecked, feasting on the flesh of more evolved beings—on the fish floating belly-lip on the surface, bloated or already disintegrating into a gelatinous scum, and on the Cassrian eggs that would never hatch to bring joy to their parents.
Resolutely Jindigar steered them away from that thought. //Llistyien, have you noticed that the Cassrians are not very upset?//
His Emulator answered, //Cassrians form no parental bond until they claim a hatchling. I never Emulated Cassrians before.// The Cassrian attitude toward their eggs engulfed the Oliat. The pond was the future of the community, nothing more. They did not feel as Dushau would about a nursery.
The Cassrian eggs had not been the only higher life in the pond—in addition to the Gifters' eggs, there had been swimmers and shelled bottom crawlers, amphibians and plant life in a carefully constructed balance, designed to support the emerging Cassrian hatchlings. Darllanyu, Llistyien and Zannesu had been the Oliat trio that created that design, but being only a trio, they'd been unable to anticipate the arrival of the Gifters.
//Watch now, and you will learn how a full Oliat foresees the disruption of an ecology by peripheral forces.// Jindigar guided the focus lower, narrowing on the microprocesses of the putrefying pond, letting his trio discern how the pond had been irresistible to the Gifters and how an Oliat would have thus become instantly aware of the Gifters' existence. Routine extrapolation showed how the Gifter eggs had to intrude, and the ecosystem, which included the colonists, had to respond, creating the fungus.
Having learned in the Holot cave how precarious his Oliat balance was, Jindigar had not intended to open the Oliat into lull attunement with Phanphihy. But as they grasped the inner mechanics of the pond life, Phanphihy seeped into the Oliat gestalt consciousness, so that the relationships binding colony and world evoked an exquisite shaleiliu.
Everyone took the perception in stride except Eithlarin, who confused it with Vistral, the devastated world of her nightmares, and saw the mad proliferation of microlife in the pond as an ugly, revolting, and disgusting menace, far beyond the Oliat's ability to cope with.
For one second, as the Protector saw herself as the victim of overwhelming natural forces, the Oliat became the dead eggs eaten by myriads of tiny creatures, being invaded and consumed, degraded.
As if they'd done the drill a thousand times, Jindigar and Zannesu functioned in perfect concert, closing the link to Eithlarin as her Outrider caught a whisper of what had happened and—as no ephemeral Outrider would dare—shook her hard to break her fixation while Jindigar and Zannesu reestablished the balance of the Oliat. Jindigar felt Krinata tense to go to Eithlarin's aid, surely expecting Eithlarin's shock to slam through the Oliat as if it were a break-in.
But the Outrider's touch was sure, and Eithlarin mastered her panic, turning wide eyes to Jindigar in apology.
Simultaneously, up among the spectators, a scattering of grim newcomers worked their way through the crowd and came clattering down the stairs. Storm, gathering his crew with shouts, wormed his way through the press and started down the stairs after the others.
Ignoring them, Jindigar opened the linkage to Eithlarin, letting Krinata *share their awareness for a moment. //Easy. Steady now. No harm done.// He sent Krinata a human smile and choked her link down again before she could react, trying not to think how frightened he was of her. //Now, Receptor, let's scan, placing the pond in its proper perspective.//
They flashed into a wider, but more superficial, focus and Received the Gifter hive on the plain above, shaleiliu to the pond's system, for the Gifters had lovingly deposited their eggs in the hatchery of their new allies. The pond was also shaleiliu to the syrupy substance so industriously made by the Gifters to feed their own young—ah!
One of the serious puzzles) of Phanphihy fell into place. The Gifters were dimorphic, alternating their generations between flyer and amphibian. Flyer eggs hatched into amphibians whose young would be flyers. The amphibians were loners who did not form a hive and thus had no protection unless some other hive would take them in—paid by Gifter syrup.
At the end of summer, when the amphibians were ready to reproduce, the Gifters expected the host hive to gather the eggs and return them to the Gifter hive for hatching. It was so simple, just another one of Phanphihy's symbiotic chains. It should have been apparent to the Oliat when they first contacted the Gifters.
On the plain above them, the plains grasses were almost tall enough to hide the hive now. But the Oliat awareness caught the gleaming damp surface where the Gifter builders had enlarged the hive. Above the gray hump of the structure, little flyer warriors churned angrily in cone formations, waiting for the signal to attack an enemy. Gravid layers were already crawling over the surface of the large hive, thwarted instincts creating confusion. Unless something were done soon, the hive would send out its warriors.
Feeling their urgency driving like the beat of his own heart, , Jindigar found the need for a functional Outreach overwhelming. He had to tell them, //The Holot must build the Gifters a pond up on the plain and stock it with river fish for them in return for the syrup.//
But Zannesu kept the choke-link to Krinata tight, so she barely felt Jindigar's message. She turned to eye the Center questioningly, compelled to speak, but having no idea what had to be said.
Jindigar curbed frustration. They would report to the community later. Now they must discover how to control the fungus. There was no way to avoid it. He would have to take them out of time-sync. Reluctantly he announced, //We're going up-perspective. Eithlarin, brace yourself—//
He directed Venlagar's attention deep into the pond's microlife to anchor them in the now, then brought his Formulator and Emulator into the time-sync configuration. He felt Darllanyu's support holding rock-steady now that her concentration wasn't riven by hormonal surges. She was the only one except himself who had done this in the field before. And she had actually done it as Formulator, while he had never tried it as Center.
Gently he raised the perspective until past, present, and future formed a unified whole, just as the interlocked bio-systems had been clear to the Oliat gestalt.
The first hatchlings of the Gifter eggs had eaten some Cassrian eggs by dissolving a hole in the shell. The tailored mutant fungus, invading swiftly, had infected the Gifter-amphibian hatchlings. It took root on the tender young skin and grew until it covered the tadpole, and the skin sloughed off, leaving the tadpole to die in agony.
There was nothing like it on Phanphihy. The native beings had no defense. The fungus not only killed Gifter amphibians, it devoured all the native pond swimmers.
The Oliat saw the seething death-pond as joined in a single system to the withering cornfield where a new, landborne secondary imitation of the fungus covered the plants. In the corn– field the sprouts peeked up from the dark soil in rows of light green. Rusty dots of fungoid growth covered the shoots. Jindigar guided the Oliat focus deeper, observing from the three-time perspective of past, present, and future, as the native and offworld life forms fought to coexist. Tuning carefully to both the parent pond-fungus and the plant-fungus, he addressed his
Oliat. //We need to find how to eradicate the fungus—without turning Phanphihy against all outsiders.//
In response Llistyien Emulated the hive structure—the huge gray dome that covered the offworld colony and declared to all Phanphihy's collective consciousness that here was a hive sheltering a multispecies cooperative, living just as the dominant sentient species of Phanphihy lived.
Eithlarin joined the Protector's function to the Emulator's, and the dome took on substance—for it was protection and protective coloration.
//This should keep the hives from turning against the colony,// suggested Eithlarin. Ill can hold it now, so you can search.//
Cautiously Jindigar tested their attunement to the planet. The Oliat was still accepting the planet as comprehensible, the hives of flying creatures, land herbivores, hunting carnivores, tree dwellers, and burrowing kinds as friendly to the colony-hive.
Satisfied that they were solidly grounded in a benign world and that Venlagar had them firmly anchored in time, Jindigar opened the linkages among the six of them, still keeping the Outreach link choked off. He let the total attunement steal over them, observing with a wistful satisfaction that the great tone, the carrier wave of the universe, was there for them again, louder, firmer, surer than it had been in the Holot cave. They were truly an Oliat.
His joy was echoed by his other five officers—and he wished Krinata were part of this moment. Jindigar's Oliat. It felt much as he imagined Completion would feel.
They became one with the entire pattern, which was the biosphere around them, and with the world force—the intangible spiritual force of this planet that sustained them. Jindigar kept their window into time only a few days wide, their geographical range no larger than a day's walk in every direction. He focused Venlagar on Receiving the development of the fungus.
In clear images generated by Receptor and Formulator working in perfect tandem, Jindigar saw the lab on the ship where the fungus was redesigned. Two Lehiroh and a Holot worked in protective coveralls over the micro equipment. A simple workaday job—gone awry. For within the potion they presented to the committees some of the fungus starter wasn't properly stabilized.
Simultaneously the Oliat was aware of how the fungus-choked pond had lain dead and rotting in the sun with flying scavengers plucking the floating carcasses up and making off with them—landing in the cornfield to feast, leaving their fungus-loaded droppings behind at the end of the day. And in the moist, sun-warmed soil the unstable fungus had mutated, producing the variety that could—and did—live on corn.
Darllanyu Formulated an image shaleiliu to that. In one of the barns the Lehiroh had built a nut press to extract oil. They had found the pungent oil from a tree nut to be a spice that made native foods palatable to Lehiroh and enhanced their ability to absorb nutrients from Phanphihy's produce.
Darllanyu's forward-time image showed Cassrians and humans bent over the corn plants, dobbing that oil onto the leaves of the plants and soaking the ground around them with it. As if in time-lapse display, they saw the fungus dying, the corn growing strong and healthy and bearing huge ears of beadlike seeds the humans fed on gladly.
Jindigar took in the awarenesses of his Oliat, then cast their perceptions wide again—checking and double-checking as he had not been able to do in the Holot cave. He had to see what would happen if all three solutions were implemented at once.
Darllanyu Formulated the image of the Holot tending a Gifter hatching pond on the plain above, while below, the Cassrians covered their pond with the Lehiroh's spice oil to kill the fungus. Meanwhile the cornfield likewise was saturated in the oil.
The Oliat found instantly that the Lehiroh, lacking their supply of the oil, would suffer an increasing vitamin shortage until the next nut harvest. And with so many of the men lactating, they couldn't afford even temporary anemia.
Jindigar widened the time perspective to several months. Instantly it became clear that the ripening fruits of spring would solve the Lehiroh nutrition problem. It was not as good as the nut oil, but the Lehiroh infants were sturdy enough even at birth to survive well.
Still hesitant, thinking of the disasters his work had inflicted on the colony so far, Jindigar checked again, then verified it all one more time. At length Zannesu commented, //This is a beautiful world, Jindigar. But it seems it's the beauty of your Oliat's balance that fascinates you.//
Abashed, Jindigar noticed that Eithlarin and Zannesu were feeling the strain—for Jindigar, stabilized by Darllanyu's having taken the drug, had been able to ignore all the truly glorious springtide forces abroad in the world, while Eithlarin and Zannesu were all too aware of them.
Llistyien, likewise more interested in the renewing lifetides, was tiring under the strain of holding the hive-dome image she held with Eithlarin.
Jindigar admitted, //Our previous failures have shaken my confidence. But—//
Then it happened.
One moment, they were in perfect attunement, anchored in the now of the pond waters and the myriad events occurring there but aware of the past and the future all around the colony. The next moment, images flashed wildly through consciousness, shattering their clear pictorial impression of the world, one distorted image overlaying another forming menacing patterns that ripped at sanity. Jindigar caught one sharp view of a horridly distorted Holot face peering into his eyes—no– into Krinata's eyes—snarling.
Clutching at his link to his Outrider, Jindigar felt the Holot's upper hands crushing her shoulders as he shook her. Her head wobbled on her shoulders, her visual field pitching about insanely. The wildly distorted view out of human eyes fought with the Oliat awareness now fragmented, incoherent, invaded. Even through the choke-link Krinata's terror flooded the Oliat.
//It's a break-in!// Jindigar told them, wishing that were reassuring. With fourteen Outriders in the field how could anyone have been allowed to touch one of his officers?
He groped toward Zannesu's awareness, trying to regain command of the linkages and bring them back into now-sync.
Zannesu responded sluggishly. Jindigar barely had hold of the linkages when Eithlarin's Protector reflexes engaged.
She threw a picture of the Holot shaking Krinata onto the inside of the dome image above them. The rest of the Oliat saw the distorted horror of snarling, sharp-toothed, predatory Holot smeared across the gray dome. It was feral, raging at them. Its emotions-reverberated through the Oliat, intensified somehow by being squeezed through the narrow channel from the Outreach: distrust, fear, fury.
Eithlarin's awareness collapsed into a maelstrom of terror pressing in from outside the Oliat. Space and time distorted. Phanphihy turned into a seething pit eating away at the colony.
Eithlarin gave one convulsive shudder, trying to reject the invading malevolence, and then suddenly she pitched them all into nightmare. Above them the dome image split open like the tree log on Vistral, and a gray, hairy, clawed hand reached in to grab at them.
//She's episodic and hallucinating!// Jindigar told them, lighting to wrench free of her power.
But he could only gape helplessly as the hand closed around Eithlarin's neck.
Zannesu cried, //Jindigar! Help her!// just as Eithlarin screamed.