The warrior rolled over supine and clubbed Threntisn with the whule. Then he used the instrument as a staff to climb to his feet. He gave a bloodcurdling yell and charged through the approaching wall of Dushau, sweeping the whule before him in vicious arcs. Two large piols that had joined the chasing around as if it were a mating dance got into the warrior's way.

He stumbled, jabbed at the animals with the whule, and elbowed a Dushau out of his way.

The last thing Jindigar saw before vision failed was Krinata taking off after the warrior at a dead run. Her voice rose in an ululating shriek of predatory fury that barely reached them through the constricted Outreach linkage.

Ever-increasing pain drowned Jindigar, and he knew it would not stop until the energy was grounded. With his last strength he reached for the link to Trinarvil.

//Protector!// he called.

//Center!// she gasped.

//Inreach!//

//Center,// replied Venlagar weakly.

Jindigar finished the roll call, announcing, //On my signal each of you must channel all the pain to me.//

The pain was transformed kinetic energy—the blows from the whule, and their falling to the ground. Trapped and amplified by the magnification function he had set into the linkages to enlarge the dome, the energy now made it impossible for

Jindigar to reset and damp it out. And it grew with no theoretical limit, for it drew now, not just on their physical bodies, but also on the shaleiliu hum.

This would not just Dissolve the Oliat, as when he drew on the hum deliberately, but it would soon topple the Oliat into an Inversion. They would be set to affect the environment, not just Observe it. The Inverted Oliat would remanifest the energy in kinetic form. But the energy had been so vastly amplified, it would explode out from the Oliat like a bomb and would kill hundreds as well as the Oliat, Threntisn, and the Archive.

Jindigar set himself to prevent that. He had seen this done only once, in a demonstration. He told himself it was possible, therefore he could do it. Theoretically any energy could be grounded into a planet core.

Without considering what a slight error might do to his nervous system, he summoned a visual memory of the inside of the Temple and the inlaid Oliat symbol, which was all that was left of the worldcircle.

Theoretically a skilled Priest should never need to step into a worldcircle to contact the life matrix of the planetary energies. Once ignited, a circle always existed, at least in potential. He sought for it, and the very instant when he thought he felt it, he called in the energies. //To Center!//

A flooding rush of unendurable agony cascaded through his nerves, and he was sure he couldn't do it. Despair weakened ' him, magnifying the pain. He had no choice. Feebly at first, then with increasing will, he grounded the raw energy into the very soil of the planet, into the mantle, and down into the molten core where it would be stored and used to produce life, not death. He sank in molten liquid, churned by magnetic energy. His soul shrank, compressed to a dimensionless point. But the pain was gone.

Outside his body, apart from all physical concerns, he melted into the heart of/ the planet, falling inward to a point that encompassed the universe, encompassed Dushaun. The vibration of home called to the elemental stuff of his soul, gathering the scattered wisps together into the colorful, complex identity that was a Jindigar.

Welcome. Bright, comfortable light. Beauty—constant beauty. And there–right there, beckoning, was The Jindigar—a few short steps and he'd be Complete, able to join The Jindigar. It was all his now—he had only—

But what will happen to my Oliat if I leave now?

It had been drilled into him for centuries: Centers cannot die Complete without Dissolving; Observing Priests cannot die Complete without Observing their personal truths to transmit them to others; Seniors cannot die Complete without forsaking Completion; and the Complete cannot die Complete without initiating the cycle.

He had never understood it before, but he knew now that no stage could be skipped. There was no easy way, no single feat, to earn Completion.

Gathering himself from the ends of the universe, he shrouded himself in the soothing energies of Dushaun. How can I leave this? Clinging to the precious feeling of home, he nevertheless forged his way back to the center of Phanphihy and struck upward toward his Oliat, like a diver surfacing from the depths of the ocean into sparkling sunshine.

Whiteness spewed upward around him into a fountain that erupted skyward and sent him tumbling, falling, falling faster and faster, until he landed back in his body with a shock that forced a grunt from his lungs.

He sat up.

He was among his Oliat. Morning sunshine spilled over the nearby roofs to warm his toes while his head was still in the shadow of the Aliom Temple. The greensward around them was churned into raw muck. Some of the young trees had been pulled over despite their mooring lines, and young piols were swarming over them curiously.

All the warriors were gone j and so were most of the Dushau. Black smoke rose from several buildings where fires were being put out. Underlying that was the Oliat's global awareness of the immediate surroundings dominated by the brilliant plume of the re-ignited worldcircle within the Temple.

But that plume of white energy was different. There were definite overtones of Dushaun among the distinctive patterns of Phanphihy. This time it wasn't just a fading tinge but strong pulses that formed the character of the circle.

Alarmed that the new circle might attract the Natives again, Jindigar drew the Oliat attention outward, searching for the hive-dwellers.

They were digging a circular trench around the spaceships. Already a circular mound of dirt guarded the ground they claimed as their own. Unlike animal hives where specialization reigned, the Natives had turned out all hands to erect their defense line. Warriors labored beside the intellectual rustlemen while the tall, white-skinned species that were the craftsmen and heralds directed the efforts. The tiny, exoskeletal hive-binders were grouped in the middle of the array of ships telepathically weaving the shattered remnants of then– hive-mind back into a cohesive whole. Already that hive-mind was able to send waves of psychotic horror at the colony.

As the Oliat's attention swept the hive some Natives glanced south, toward the Aliom Temple, shrinking from the pluming energies and the impulses it evoked, determined not to make the same mistake again. The hive-mind was fighting a last-ditch battle for survival, confused that the huge hive-dome they had found was not openly welcoming.

Jindigar was astonished that the dome illusion had held.

The hive, however, seemed to consider it just another part of this alien place where they'd had to claim ground. The hive had scoured their new home clean of all invaders—the lab technicians in one of the ships had been slaughtered, leaving equipment running—and the hive would not—could not– flee again. Too many had died. The rest were wounded or too exhausted to go any farther. And still the colonists grouped around the symbolic bulwark of the hive's trench. The fields were littered with dead Natives, killed by the openly hostile colonists.

Why hasn't the hive unleashed its psychic weapon?

Sluggishly the Oliat responded to the Center's curiosity, following the connections to the plain above the cliff where a few scattered Natives lay dying, and a few of the badly wounded still dragged themselves toward the cliff edge, knowing they could never make it down.

Ignoring the wounded Natives, the hive-bleeders that had driven the Natives across the plain were now bunched for an all-out assault on the Gifter hive. The Gifters were so small, the hive-bleeders did not just suck them dry—they ate them whole. The Gifter hive, however, had not yet been breached.