Between them and the fire at the far end of the room was the silhouette of a Dushau woman, and Jindigar knew instantly that it was Darllanyu. As she moved toward them he also knew that she'd heard the melody of lovers plucked by Krinata's fingers in tandem with his own unmistakable touch on the strings.

Sharing music on that level was a very great intimacy that he had not yet permitted Dar. And she had certainly noticed that he'd cloaked himself and Krinata in privacy from the rest of the Oliat. He rearranged the linkages to include Dar, bracing, for he knew she was now almost free of the drug. The languid comfort Krinata had evoked in his body evaporated before the sharp heat of Dar's presence.

He stood up to confront her, gathering the poise of the Center around himself, but feeling more like an Active Priest than anyone competent to work Oliat.

Darllanyu announced, //Trinarvil says she'll be here before midnight to give Eithlarin the stimulant—and then we'll try our plan.// Then she shifted her gaze to Krinata.

Darllanyu could only be seeing a shadowy hint of Krinata, but through Oliat awareness she knew what they'd felt. The strain was evident as she asked, //Jindigar, is there any reason for me to wait for you after Dissolution?//

Unexpectedly Jindigar was paralyzed by a rush of alarm, as if he stood in a ship that had suddenly lost internal gravity. Krinata answered in the tone and cadence of Takora, //Only that you are his mate. It's gone too far, Darllanyu. If you leave him now, he won't mate this time. Don't do that to him– please don't.// She gathered her jacket around her and cut across the Temple to the front door.

Darllanyu turned to stare after her, astonishment suffusing the now open linkages. Several moments later, as Jindigar was still frantically searching for something to say, Darllanyu observed, //If she really is Takora, she knows that since I can no longer have children, you may as well choose the mate best suited to you.//

His heart pounded wildly at the mere thought that she might leave him. But then, what of her, if Krinata had to kill him? //That mate is still you, Dar.//

//Do you regret that?//

//No. I thought you understood that I'd learned that lesson

when she was Ontarrah.//, . .

//Then why does she attract you so? Why is this happening? I'm not going to be even semirational about it much longer. Explain it to me, Jindigar.//

//I can't. I don't understand it. But as soon as we Dissolve, she'll be out of our lives. Just let me have the chance to prove that to you.//

//Why me, Jindigar?//

//Because you're so beautiful and you do things to me that no one else has the power to do. Krinata's right—I've chosen you. There won't be anyone else this time. I thought it was mutual.//

//It was. Or, at least I thought so, until I saw what Krinata is to you. Jindigar, if you'd chosen me, it wouldn't be possible to respond to Krinata like that.//

//It isn't the same!// he insisted.

//Maybe not biologically, but psychologically it is. Otherwise, why did you choose to cut Eithlarin off when Krinata was the actual source of the disruption? You could have cut Krinata off. Even if Krinata had died, it wouldn't have hurt her—she'd only reincarnate again. But Eithlarin has lost her chance at Completion!//

//She's not dead yet,// argued Jindigar doggedly while his mind gnawed at the insidious question Dar had posed. Even if prompted by onset-induced jealousy, it was a good question. Krinata/Takora approved of his choice, but that was no evidence that he'd been right.

//Dar, much of what a Center has to do is done on perception of shaleiliu, using the Aliom "strike." Maybe I was wrong– maybe I can't risk Krinata just because, on some level, I do believe she was Takora—and I can't do that to her twice. I almost couldn't do it to Eithlarin. It was a "strike," Dar. There's no reasoning behind it. No way to judge it this soon.//

//You're not really answering me.//

//When you've been Center, maybe we can discuss it.//

//Why do I get the impression that you've discussed it with Krinata?//

//Because I have. Center to Center.//

//Jindigar!//*

She felt that a part of him did not belong exclusively to her, which, in Onset as she was, seemed an intolerable threat. Jindigar already felt the same about her. Dwelling on it would only make it worse. He tried again to explain in terms a non-Center could grasp. Ill set a close, tight link to Eithlarin. She chose to go—wherever she is-.// He turned to Eithlarin, opening the linkages so Dar would feel the gaping void and the whispering static of the link. //We all had a part in what's happened. An Oliat, more than any other bound entity, is an integrated singularity. The Center can't do anything the Oliat as a whole doesn't do. No officer's needs prevail, and no officer is free of the consequences.//

Darllanyu shuddered and turned away, as if wishing she could control the linkages and close off her awareness of Eithlarin. //All right. You've made your point. I did beg you to stop Eithlarin. I shouldn't have done that, any more than you should have allowed what—you just allowed with Krinata.

But I'm not qualified to Center. I didn't know what would happen to Eithlarin if you shut her away enough to protect the rest of us. I didn't mean her any harm.//

//Neither did I. But I knew what might happen.//

//I'm ashamed to admit,// she confessed, transfixed by the input of Eithlarin, //that I'm glad it's her, not me.// She hugged herself, her inflamed fingertips absently scratching at the gold armlet Jindigar had given her. //If it had been a choice of me or Krinata—who would it have been?//

lie clamped off all the linkages, isolating his groan within himself. That was the question he had not dared ask.

//A Center has to make choices, Jindigar,// she reminded him gravely. //You're going to have to decide which of us lives and which of us dies. If—because of what you once did to Takora, you can't or won't sacrifice any of us, then just like Takora you're going to take your whole Oliat to Incompletion-death with you.//

//No!// he answered without thinking. //Krinata, at least,

must live through this.//

Darllanyu concluded, //So, you would have cut me off to save Krinata. That's honest, anyway. Jindigar, has it occurred to you that you're behaving this way because you've spent too much time among ephemerals—too much time Emulating ephemerals? You don't know what it is to be Dushau anymore. Maybe you'd better use that phenomenal ability of yours to Emulate a Dushau and find out what it's really like!//

With that she gathered herself and almost ran out the front door, taking the path inward toward the Renewal park, where she'd be sure not to encounter Krinata.

EIGHT

Swarm

Watching Dar go, Jindigar shut down his link to her, making sure she knew she had privacy now. And then he was totally alone except for the wisp of Eithlarin's presence.

He'd often been told that to be Center meant to stand alone, but he'd never suspected what it would be like.

He sank down on the periphery of the worldcircle and stared up at the white blur that was Eithlarin. Had he been wrong to do this to her? There was no one to ask. It would be more than a thousand years until he might ask a Complete Priest from Dushaun. //Oh, Eithlarin—come back to us!//

As if Eithlarin's return would make everything as it had been! That was a kind of fallacy typical of ephemeral thought.

Was Darllanyu right? Could his very thinking have been warped by too much time among ephemerals? Had he adopted the short-term outlook, forgetting how a small error propagates through time to become a major disaster? The harm to Eithlarin was already permanent and would propagate through all her zunre, all her community. As an Inactive Priest, he should serve that group, not harm them like this. Had he decided to cut Eithlarin off only because he was becoming Active and interested only in the personal, or had he lost his priesthood?