Deeply relieved, Jindigar marshaled his full concentration, mastering another Center function. He hardly noticed when Threntisn segued into questions about the search for a new food source, and Krinata and Venlagar once more held the Holot infant in their arms.
The Historian led them through the search. Jindigar carefully separated the knowledge they had gained of the Holot and the Gifters from the Oliat's inner experience. He noted the point where he and Zannesu had shifted the linkage patterns to Llistyien, insulating Krinata from the data flow.
Only this time, of course, she wasn't insulated. She had to handle the outflow to the debriefer, grip the linkage balances, and relive it all with them—discovering now what had been going on outside her awareness. Jindigar could not spare her a moment's thought, though, as he sifted and sorted, assigning levels.
//Not long now. Brace yourselves, here it comes, Dar,// he managed as Threntisn's final question echoed through them.
And why did you collapse?
Jindigar had told him to finish with that one, but now he regretted it. They were all exhausted, and he heard Darllanyu whimper softly as the memory of her loss of attunement swept through the Oliat, their current reactions worsened by three more days of increasing sensitivity.
The optical membrane showed the cave seen through human eyes as Jindigar had sought orientation in his Outreach. The inner level recorded the feel of her body against him as they fell, Krinata holding the squirming Holot baby as they and Storm toppled together to the hard floor of the cave.
Then the membrane went black—optical membranes in service never did that. Jindigar thought the instruments had jammed at the shock of a Center being displaced, but then, with the memory of Krinata's takeover, Jindigar floating above them, came a twisted, distorted image lit in dull shades—Krinata's visualization of the Gifters' hive on the plain above the cliff. . Jindigar didn't know if Threntisn had ever dealt with human I vision, and he was sure it would give the Historian a headache, l| but there was nothing he could do. That had been the Oliat's perception.
Her vision took over the data flows, as if she again usurped his position. The Oliat relived that moment of stark panic when Krinata took Center. Jindigar's touch on the data flow into the Archive froze, tangling the data feeds, but he lived the confrontation with the Takora-image. Held fast by linkages, by duty, by nameless terror, Jindigar stared into human eyes that held Dushau vistas.
For a moment it seemed that he could recarve history and reach out to accept her as Takora, his Center, a profoundly attractive woman. He could fall into her Office of Outreach, and they could pick up where her death had left them. She could Dissolve, and then they could discuss mating according to the proverb, How good it is for zunre to mate together!
With a frightful shock memory resumed, and Jindigar snapped into the Office of Outreach. The membrane image shimmered and became Jindigar's remembered glimpse of the committee onlookers clustered near the mouth of the cave. Then the Oliat linkages disintegrated in Krinata's grip and the membrane went black again.
They relived Jindigar's struggle to re-form the Oliat linkages around himself. Eithlarin, fatigued, tried to thrust aside those memories and live secure in the now of Jindigar's full control. Zannesu and Darllanyu also fought off the memories, but Jindigar summoned his last strength and held them to it a moment longer, hoping to record Krinata's inner processes as she realized what she had done—and perhaps how and why she'd done it. He prompted her by sending—as he had warned her he would—his impossibly cruel words that had triggered her breakdown. //Krinata! Listen! You didn't do that. Takora did.//
Krinata twisted on her couch to look back at him—and he saw himself through her eyes, a dark indigo form, earless head, a wide grimace showing pale blue teeth—too pale—large, wide-set eyes marbled and unreadable. She saw the seven long fingers of each of his hands, fingertips swollen provocatively with the developing nails. Overlaid was the image of himself in the cave, pulling her attention back to him, his lips parted to show the pale white teeth of a corpse.
Abruptly Krinata thrust aside her hand grips and flung herself sideways out of the headset's field, sprawling half off the couch and onto the rough brick floor.
But Jindigar was ready. He had prepared them all, and now he moved with a swiftness that taxed his inexperienced officers. Before Krinata's shoulders had struck the floor, he slammed the seals shut, forcing them into adjournment.
Darllanyu and Zannesu stiffened but did not cry out. Venlagar and Eithlarin struggled loose to tend the others as Jindigar scrambled to Krinata's side. He arrived just as one of the Historians admitted Trinarvil through the bead curtain, and another pushed her equipment—already set up and humming—from behind a screen.
Threntisn, couch and all, was whisked away through an inner door, contact lines clattering to the floor after him. Jindigar extricated Krinata from the contacts. He gathered her to him, saying aloud, "Come on now, you can do it. It's not the same as the first time. You didn't actually take Center. It was only a memory—like having an episode. Krinata? Come on."
Her eyes opened, and she gazed up at him. He had to remind himself sternly that the whiteness of her teeth was permanent, and natural, even in health. Her circular pupils were wide-open, but there was intelligence in her expression. The pulse at the base of her jaw was strong, her breathing deep. "Krinata, it was an Oliat debriefing."
She nodded, but on the next breath, as Jindigar signaled Trinarvil to cut the lights, Krinata began to sob. The convulsive breathing and copious flow of lubricating fluids was, in humans, tied to the production of pain dampers in the central nervous system. As alarming as the process was, it was hardly ever fatal. He found himself emitting the sound that would begin the analogous process for him, and it wasn't long before they all followed suit. They had survived one last supreme test.
An hour later, not even having taken time for a meal, Jindigar had Threntisn begin the replay work. The Historian had come without hesitation when Jindigar sent for him, knowing that the Oliat was desperate. But his teeth were not a healthy blue, and even adjourned, Jindigar could sense the headache pounding through his nervous system. Exposure to the human senses was hard enough on the Oliat-trained. A Historian had no experience of aliens.
Jindigar worked at the optical membrane nonstop for hours, cuing up ever more narrow time segments of that crisis point, asking for any and all cross-references from the Archive– sifting every obtuse theory ever proposed to explain Oliat functions. He used skills he hadn't touched in three Renewals and wished for his Sentient computer, Arlai.
He went over and over the ground, then covered it again, but could find no way at all for an Oliat with two Centers to survive Dissolution.
They gave up at midnight, met again at dawn, and drove themselves all the next day. Never had two minutes of history been analyzed with more care. Yet there was no answer. Jindigar, desperate now, thought hard about the Aliom-keyed areas of the Archive. If the answer wasn't in the two minutes they'd recorded, then it had to be in the reserved area. This was perhaps the oldest and, largest Archive still active. If anyone had ever stumbled on a way, it had to be here.
He told Threntisn's apprentice, "I'm going to evoke some of the deeper keyed areas and search by association to our primary recording." He pointed to the optical display before him. "According to this, there's a lot of material there. Tell Threntisn this may take awhile."