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.