NINE

Chinchee Returns

The hive-mind noticed that the strangers' hive-dome was invisible. Panic seized the hive's warriors. Outside the Dushau's will led compound, the stream of hive-dwellers reversed in their tracks and poured north, along the base of the cliff. But here and there individual Natives regarded the illusion-dome as a perfectly ordinary thing, apparently aware of the colony's right to it.

Gradually the hive-mind accepted that pragmatism, and the

rout became an orderly retreat to regroup around the spaceships

parked at the northern edge of the colony's territory.w

The Oliat, still numb with shock compounded by Zannesu's ringing denial of his loss, watched in growing horror as the advance warriors stormed the open hatches of the ships, showing every sign of taking permanent possession.

Flatly, tonelessly, Zannesu warned, //Ineed to hate them. She didn't deserve that. Why—why, Jindigar? Why did it happen like that? Ten minutes—just ten minutes more and she'd //

Incompletion-death is always senseless. It is failure, pure and simple. Or so Aliom seemed to imply. Maybe he hadn't understood. Or maybe Aliom was wrong. //Idon't know if I'll ever find an answer for you, my zunre. But as long as I live, I will try. One thing I am sure of, though–to hate the Natives is to throw oneself after Eithlarin.//

//It was my fault. I couldn't hold her.//

Something in Zannesu's tone hit a nerve. Eithlarin's inexorable retreat, the sudden, shocking loss, the excruciating need to act—If I had been faster, held harder, thought more clearly– she'd be alive.

Guilt. He feels guilty–but there was nothing he could have done. It came to Jindigar with a sense of creeping horror. / have held that kind of guilt about Takora–all these years it's been in me, and I never knew it. / thought that, because I did the best thing, that I had to consider it the right thing. But the truth is, I don't. He could not tell Zannesu what he had been told—that he need not feel guilty because no one could have saved her.

Surprisingly Krinata added the comment that lightened Zannesu's anguish. //Look at it this way. Eithlarin gave us one invaluable parting gift. By truly heroic effort, so very typical of her, she returned to us when we needed her. She loved us and knew we loved her. Even if it was in her—–fate, maybe—to die Incomplete, she wanted us to know it wasn't our fault. Personally I don't see how such a selfless act could earn her anything but good from the universe.//*

It was the strangest thought ever planted in Jindigar's mind. He wasn't sure he wanted it to germinate. It could lead to suicide in misguided causes. Yet he could find no flaw in Krinata's reasoning. He knew why. The carefully constructed epistemology he'd relied on for judgment had suddenly been wiped out. Everything had to be rethought from scratch, and at the moment that was all he wanted to do. Onset symptoms! I'm in no condition to be a Center.

But for the moment Zannesu stabilized. Jindigar called them to work and, with Krinata's permission, choked down her link again, invoking their normal multiawareness. //Receptor, Protector, Emulator—we must expand the dome image over the whole colony—including the ships. The hive must not settle among the ships!//

As his Oliat responded the shaleiliu hum returned, all trace of static gone. But, after what they'd done to themselves, how long would it take for hormonal surges to build again?

Jindigar lifted the linkages and refocused the Oliat's attention outside themselves, hoping for the best.

Despite the recent acrimony, the colonists formed up to defend their homes against this new menace. Trinarvil, so much nearer Completion than Jindigar, Observed the shaleiliu engulfing the ephemerals. She should be Center.

Jindigar followed her lead, focusing the Oliat on the shaleiliu generated among the colonists, and his Protector gratefully seized upon it and used it to spread the dome image out over houses, barns and fields, and the Cassrians' pond, everywhere that men and women stood shoulder to shoulder to claim their homes.

In Trinarvil's hands Eithlarin's worn, aged, and spotted dome of uninspired gray blocks became a wondrous miracle whose beauty flashed directly to the soul's very core, like the Aliom lightning. To experience that immanent beauty directly, not filtered by life's accumulated emotional barriers, was more than the younger officers could bear.

//Protector!// called Jindigar, breathless with excruciating joy, //We're not ready—not ready for this!// Have to extend that dome over the ships!

But Trinarvil was lost in rapt contemplation of the glory of existence and the adoration of home life. Jindigar sensed that she was carried into it by a Renewal hormone surge set off when she finally touched Phanphihy and found it welcoming her. Knowing that her mature ability to find every faint hint of shaleiliu was what his Oliat had lacked, that Trinarvil could have been to his Oliat as Lelwatha had been to Kamminth's– Jindigar still had to stop it.

He had to fight the seductive lure of her vision—for that was what life should always be. Three times he tried to bring himself to act. Finally, knowing that he simply could not match Trinarvil's mature strength, he resorted to slamming the Pro-lector's link down to a narrow band.

Everyone protested the sudden loss of the ineffable.

//What?// asked Trinarvil, bewildered. Then, //Oh, sorry. I guess I'm out of practice.// The dome image solidified over the colony, a lovely thing, freshly scrubbed and sound enough to last a generation, but no longer divine, and not yet covering the ships.

Suddenly lightning flashes of human vision pounded into the Oliat consciousness like shards of broken mirror rammed through the choked-down Outreach link.

A lone Native warrior leapt high into the air before Dar. He snarled his battle cry. Two hands gripped the neck of Lelwatha’s whule. Two muscle-knotted arms held it cocked at full backswing. The heavy sounding chamber swung directly at Dar's head.

Dar's face froze in horror.

The whule hurtled toward her eyes. The Oliat watched it through Krinata's human eyes, the antique urwood glittering in the first rosy light of dawn. The linkages carried Dar's view of her own face reflected in the distorting roundness of the wood, looming larger, paralyzed with fright.

Jindigar saw that the impact would come before the warrior even touched ground again.

And there was no Outrider on station to guard his Formulator, his mate. On a wave of explosive primitive rage Jindigar leapt to deflect the blow.

The massive whule glanced off his open hands, sending paralyzing pain up his arms. The strings rang discordantly. Then the whule smacked into the side of Dar's head, sending flint shards of pain through the Oliat. She hit the ground in a third burst of shocking pain that propagated through the linkages.

Zannesu Received their pain. Llistyien Emulated pain. Venlagar, as Inreach, was unable to reset the linkages alone. He could only hold them wide so the pain bounced back and forth, redoubling with each circuit. //Jindigar!//

Jindigar felt his knees buckle but didn't feel the sharp gravel under his hands because of the smarting pain growing ever louder as it seared up his arms again and again, amplified and echoed by the Oliat. His head hit the ground in one last numbing shock, adding to the pain of the blow Darllanyu had taken. Wildly growing pulses of pain shot through his skull. Only Krinata remained on her feet.

Dimly Jindigar sensed Dushau struggling toward them across the stream of retreating warriors—Dushau Outriders. Another Dushau hurtled through the air, tackling the warrior who had stolen Lelwatha's whule. The Dushau landed asprawl in front of Jindigar, scrabbling desperately for the whule. Jindigar saw a dark turban worn with a deep purple shut and trousers. Threntisn!