EIGHT

Multicolony

Nine days later they arrived at the river gorge. The tall, rusty grass of the plain gave way near the river to a shorter dark green grass, dotted with scrub and tall trees. Backpacks and equipment were scattered where the settlement's expedition had been ambushed. A few broken native spears lay among the well-scoured bones of the offworlders. An insect hive rose in a hump off to their right, and Krinata could not suppress the image of ants carrying away lumps of flesh.

Darllanyu's grief was reignited at the gruesome scene, so it was Cyrus who gathered the Dushau bones and organized a hasty grave-digging detail, saying, "The hive's hunters found us here once. We don't dare camp on this side tonight."

By the time the graves had been spoken over and well disguised from snoopers, the Lehiroh had rigged two parallel cables across the gorge, with a third cable strung above them. The river below was swollen to a raging torrent at mis, the narrowest spot.

Everyone pitched in to unload one of the sleds, and then Cyrus rode it out onto the cables, which fit like rails under each side of the sled, the third cable being used to pull the rig across. First they used the empty sled to transport half the people, including Jindigar, then they unloaded the malfunctioning sled and placed it atop the other one. With Cy handling the controls of the bad sled and Darllanyu sprawled where she could reach those on the good sled, Storm pulled them across.

He brought the good sled back, and they began tediously ferrying cargo across, cautious in the erratic springtime winds scouring the gorge. They finished just before sunset, and Cy brought one sled back to get Krinata while the others made camp. She admitted to herself that she'd volunteered to stay behind because the crossing frightened her.

"Hop on," called Cy to Krinata as he steadied the sled. At her hesitation he jumped back to solid ground and took her hand. There was no solicitousness in the gesture, nor even courtesy. He was just professional and might have done the same for one of the Lehiroh who could have walked across on the bare cable in a high wind.

His attitude toward her had changed markedly since the tornado. He seemed to consider her an Outrider of rank equal to his own. There was no hint of sexual innuendo, either, for that was strictly forbidden to Outriders on duty. She took his hand and tried to seem as courageous and skilled as he expected her to be.

Numbed by hours of hard labor, she was too tired to battle the agoraphobia that struck the moment her foot was over open air. In her mind, being suspended like this was no different from falling into the limitless void of space. Cy rigged the safety line around her waist to a line fixed to the sled. There was no way she could fall off, and if the sled should capsize, she could jettison the safety line with a flick of a finger over the grommet and let the sled tumble into the water or sail off into the air, while she clung to the cable by her hands.

But if all three cables should break? The picture leapt to her mind, intense, vivid with the power of fear, which she fought down only by remembering mat Jindigar was on the other side and there was no time to waste getting him to the settlement. Fear clutched at her throat, and terror mounted as Cy and Storm moved the sled out over the abyss. It rocked and swayed under them, the cables giving with each move.

I've got to look down. This can't go on.

She forced her eyes to look ahead, then off to the side. The white cables, the gleaming sled, the white, churning rapids beneath them, the brown, russet, gold, and dark green grasses on each side of the gorge came to her as dual perception—her own, and the now familiar Takora, to whom it wasn't at all threatening. She cloaked herself in that calm, and forced herself to look down at the frothy torrent.

Suddenly, with a loud snap, one of the cable moorings came loose, and in graceful slow motion its cable subsided into the gorge. The sled tipped and wobbled, its mechanism feeling for the correct height above the ever-shifting water's surface. Cy scrambled to the edge controls and lay prone to make an adjustment while Storm worked at the front end.

Krinata clung to her safety line, paralyzed by phobic terror. There was nothing holding them up. Nothing!

"Krinata, I said grab those rear controls and level that end." It was Cy, yelling over the roar.

/ can't! She twisted in place, looking at the control box. The platform tilted, and her hands clamped onto the safety harness with new strength.

"Hurry!" urged Cy, not even looking at her.

I've got to. Only this time she wasn't reacting to protect Jindigar, all fears held in abeyance. Nightmare terror froze her in place as death loomed. Refusing to give up, she struggled against the terror, reaching toward the control box at the very edge of the platform.

Gradually her muscles began to cooperate, and she slid along her safety tether, her hands closing on the controls. Her eyes slid past the control box to the frothing water below, but her hands moved steadily over the controls they knew intimately from so many emergencies, night and day. As the sled righted and began to move again, she breathed easier. The stark terror gave way to mere trembling, which dissolved to ordinary fear. And by the time they'd reached the safety of the bank, even that was gone.

She realized the terror she'd felt this time hadn't been the phobic panic at all but only the fear of panic. The phobia itself was gone. She hadn't had a falling nightmare since she'd banished the Desdinda Loop. Nor had she, since the tornado, wanted to reach for Darllanyu's triad and Invert just because she was afraid.

Happy, but shaking in adrenalin reaction, Krinata stepped off the sled to be greeted by Terab and Viradel.

"Nice work there!" complimented Terab, then, oblivious to Krinata's pale face and trembling hands, said, "Cy, do what you can to retrieve these lines. Storm, Darllanyu's finished with Jindigar and ready to go foraging. Krinata, help dig the latrine pit, then join the firewood detail."

Krinata wiped her clammy palms on her trousers, nodded, and went to find a pit-digger. She hadn't pulled latrine detail before, and it never occurred to her to argue. It was only an hour later when she was hauling a sack of degradant to the pit, that she saw Viradel looking at her—thoughtful rather than gloating at an aristocrat doing the duty work.

It was after dark when Krinata brought in her last load of firewood, on a rack Cy had built from bent stems. She was carrying almost half her weight and had to have Shorwh unload her as he did the other gatherers. But Viradel was watching, again with a neutral expression, considering.

Supper was root soup, and roast bird, on edible leaf plates. As tired as she was, she didn't dare sit very long before she went to wash her hair, then tend Jindigar as she did every evening, often quietly reciting her adventures of the day, hoping to lure him back to reality.

Once, Darllanyu had found her slumped into a doze over the unchanging body and had asked, sympathetically, "Why do you sit here? He doesn't know—"

"I think he does. And—I'd hate myself if I gave up." Then she'd confessed that she'd heard Darllanyu talking to him. "Why do you do it?"

"Guilt, I suppose," admitted the Dushau. "We shouldn't have been ambushed—we should've made friends with that hive before you got there. When an Oliat fails—not that we were so much of an Oliat..."

"Don't be too harsh on yourself. As Jindigar says, if your decisions limit our options, ours limit yours. There were any number of things we might have done differently."

"So he was teaching you!"

"I wouldn't call it that." But–she thought at Jindigar– if you recover, maybe we can renegotiate? She hardly noticed Darllanyu's parting glance, weighing her. She was busy taming the wild hope thundering in her breast. She'd whipped Desdinda. If Jindigar survived, maybe...