But he knew he could never do such a cruel thing. No! Never again! To save them all he had to—just as he had once released Takora from her panicked clutch on the Office of Center, consigning her to Incompletion-death. / can't!
He could still hear Takora's despairing cry of terror. He still felt his own stark hopelessness when Krinata had displaced him to float out there helplessly. How can I do that to Eithlarin?
But she was dragging his Oliat to an ugly death. Maybe I can hold her, he told himself, and before he could think more about it, he throttled down the link to his Protector to a thread, a line with no diameter but maybe strong enough to hold her. Simultaneously he opened wide to all the others.
Eithlarin spun free, drifting into the void of her own memories—into the chaos of untime.
Jindigar called the others to their Offices. //Krinata, Zannesu, Darllanyu, Llistyien, Venlagar!// Oh, steady Venlagar, please, be our strength now!
With Krinata came the full blast of the Holot's perception of Phanphihy. Suddenly Eithlarin's hold on the hive-dome image above them shattered. The dome cracked and fell toward them. The chunks of dome melted into an oily ichor that coated them with putrescent goo.
Jindigar gagged. But he held on, refusing to sever the line to Eithlarin and shatter his Oliat. //Venlagar! The dome was never material—this isn't real! Venlagar, we must not Receive Eithlarin or the Holot!//
Venlagar gave them one clear view of the bird training field, Llistyien dressed in wisps of summer clothing, running with the ultimate feminine grace, beguiling the fledgling birds with the glowing beauty of a pure spirit so that battalions of them held the starving monsters of Vistral off at the horizon, keeping the meadow safe. Neither Jindigar nor Zannesu could have turned from such a scene where their mate was in danger. Venlagar wrapped it in fog. Perception shifted. The platform shimmered into view around them, filled with knots of battling forms—and no birds.
Zannesu fought like a wild thing—refusing reality, determined to go after Eithlarin. //Inreach!// demanded Jindigar.
//No! Jindigar, no!// begged Zannesu. //Let me go!//
But Darllanyu and Llistyien began to recover. Dragging themselves to their feet, they teamed to sort the images clogging the links, rejecting the Holot's distorted view of Phanphihy and the remaining echoes of Eithlarin's nightmare. They brought into focus the platform, the stinking water swirling around them, coating them all with real filth, and Krinata's red-tinged vision of snarling Holot. But under it all a thrumming distortion of reality beat through the links.
Zannesu collapsed, keening out a wail of unresolvable pain. A Lehiroh saw him go down and aimed a vicious kick at him. His Outrider threw his own body over Zannesu's, taking the full force of the kick, ribs giving way. The two human Outrider trainees moved in on the Lehiroh attacker.
Cyrus and Storm teamed up and threw one last Lehiroh Imperial trooper into the pond, then leapt onto the back of the Holot who had Krinata. Krinata's Dushau Outrider seized the chance and wrenched her free. Wrapping himself around her, he rolled with her toward the middle of the platform, cradling her vulnerable head and neck in his hand.
The rest of the Oliat felt the pressure on their necks let up and, with Krinata, drew a long, delicious breath. The Holot's break-in ended. The reverberating horror died away.
As the ephemeral Outriders fought, most of those on the platform joined their defense of the Oliat against the few attackers. Quickly a space cleared around the Oliat.
Almost all the attackers, Jindigar noted, had once been of the Imperial force that had chased them to Phanphihy and attempted to annihilate them. They were the only ones who, had once succumbed to the Natives' psychic attack, the hive's ability to induce psychotic terrors in their enemies.
Had the Oliat's mistakes caused enough despair to trigger the psychotic cycle in them again? He noted that the attacking ex-Imperials were largely Cassrian and Holot, the two species most affected by the recent disasters, flow could I have missed anticipating this?
The ex-Imperials were outnumbered, but they were combat-trained and driven by desperation. The battle raged, friend against friend, ally against ally.
A Cassrian, arms and legs flailing, arced over Jindigar's head and splashed into the slimy water. All around the platform swimmers were thrashing about or trying to climb back into the fight. They stirred up such a stench that some people lay writhing in the throes of acute nausea. Jindigar saw one Holot in the water, fur matted with muck, towing an unconscious human toward the edge of the pond where others waited to haul them out.*
In their protected space Jindigar recaptured the attention of his officers. //Zannesu, we can't save Eithlarin this way. Can you help me command the linkages?//
He tore his gaze from Eithlarin and turned haunted eyes on Jindigar, but a measure of acceptance was there now. //I'm sorry. I'll try.//
Zannesu steadied down. Jindigar reorganized the links to the other officers, screening Krinata again but not reinstituting the choke-link. They were still in the high perspective, scanning past and future as well as present, microscopic as well as macro. As he cut the data flow to her Krinata began to stir, kneading her throat and coughing. //Jindigar?//
//Eithlarin's episodic. Can you speak for us?// He had never exposed her to a five-axis spread before. Every time she tried to move, dizziness assailed her. She saw everything through a haze of other images overlaid and couldn't tell micro from macro, or past from future.
//Cam you make it stop, Jindigar?//
//In a moment–but I'll have to cut you off again. Can you do it, Krinata? Just for a minute?//
She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and groped her way into the Outreach's function. //Go ahead.//
"//Trinarvil!//" Krinata's voice croaked. She tried again. "//Trinarvil!//" It came out as shrill as a Cassrian's voice, but this time it penetrated the noise.
Trinarvil's medics had been working their way toward the Oliat, clucking in and out of the battle with uncommon courage. At Krinata's call they dashed across the last space to surround her. Jindigar briefed Trinarvil in rapid jargon that Krinata's throat strained to articulate.
As the Outreach's voice was heard people turned to listen, .mil the last of the lighting subsided. Her final words fell into a silence broken only by the splashing of swimmers and the sloshing of water over the platform.
Trinarvil turned to the crowd and announced, "The Oliat has been gravely injured. We need more space here."
The ephemeral Outriders, Storm in the lead, moved into a flying wedge, their stances belligerent, their attention on the crowd as they opened a corridor to Trinarvil's shed. Jindigar helped Eithlarin’s Outriders get her into the medic's station. She was quivering in every muscle, her whole body trying to curl in on itself. But he still had the whisper of contact through the wire-thin link. They were still an Oliat.
Inside the shed Jindigar noted that Threntisn's chair had been moved to place him just inside the door—out of the action hut able to view it all. They edged past him and deposited Eithlarin on one of the couches. Then they told Trinarvil, "//We must report before attending to Eithlarin—if anything can be done for her.//" //Krinata, can you make it that long?//
//If I keep my eyes closed, maybe. What is that stuff, Jindigar—uck!// lie tried to dim the micro and past-time data feeds and sharpen the present/macro for her as he explained that she was seeing the microlife of the pond churned up now by all the swimmers. Meanwhile Trinarvil told the Oliat, "No—the report can wait." She examined Eithlarin's eyes. "She's critical."