//Brace yourselves!// warned Llistyien in tandem with Darllanyu.

Understanding didn't help. The alien rhythm beat through them in ever-increasing waves as the little beings poured all their frustration into it.

Jindigar frantically ran through a desensitizing procedure he'd never had a chance to teach his Oliat. He wrapped them in a cocoon spun of their own linkages, a tangle worse than he'd built to filter the hallucinations. As fast as he worked, the fullsong eroded his efforts, seeping into their nerves, hitting reflexes that triggered vital glands deadened by the drug.

The Dushau felt sick, but Krinata, unprotected by drugs and unable to benefit from Jindigar's complex cocoon of linkages because her brain couldn't handle the data flow, could not resist the song. She turned toward Cyrus.

Muttering deliriously, her mate fought free of the blanket he was wrapped in. Driven by her human response to the forces of Renewal, she drifted to her mate's side and bent to tuck the blanket around him. Before Jindigar knew what she intended, she blotted Cyrus's damp forehead with one corner, seeking with all her heart to ease his suffering and heal him.

//Jindigar—// warned Trinarvil, trembling with a sudden need to support Krinata's effort through Oliat function.

Krinata's intent in her action, to affect the outcome of an illness, was perilously close to a kind of symbolic Inversion of the Oliat. But, lost in the grip of the fullsong, she had all but forgotten that the Oliat was balanced and working and that she could draw the rest of them after her.

With a sudden, determined effort Jindigar snapped them all to attention. //Krinata, we must warn Threntisn of the hive-heart's function. Then we've got to get out of here.//

Krinata glanced at Trinarvil, then at the hivebinders, and the fog cleared from her eyes. Shuddering a little, she tore herself from Cyrus and with more than one backward glance went to the lab door. Just as she arrived the door opened, revealing Threntisn holding a loaded injector. "I've got it," he announced in Cassrian, then searched for Chinchee, puzzled when the Herald wasn't visible.

Al Threntisn’s first words the fullsong cut off on a note of bewilderment. All around the room, tangled piles of Natives, twined together in mutual enjoyment, ceased their activities, stunned b the sudden interruption. In one far corner Chinchee struggled up among u group of his own species, his harnesses and wishes of rank discarded, his white skin smudged with the dirt from the floor. Threntisn recognized him, anyway, and called out, "Tell them I am ready now to show them why they must leave this ship to us."

Jindigar could hardly believe that the Historian was oblivious to what had been going on in this room. But Threntisn wasn't in Renewal. And he was intent on the miracle he was about to demonstrate. He cut straight across to the treatment room and administered the dose to Cyrus while Chinchee self-consciously attempted to recoup his dignity.

Satisfied with Cyrus's condition, Threntisn turned, saying, us if expecting Chinchee to be standing right behind him, "Tell the Rustlemother here that it will take a while before she sees a change, but – " Surprised that neither Chinchee nor the Rustlemother was looking over his shoulder, the Historian cut off. Helooked down to find many hivebinders gathered in the doorway, observing his every move, reporting to the hivemind. His gaze lilted, searching for the Rustlemother, who was slumped by her fire, apparently asleep.

am he watched, the elderly female toppled to the floor, the platelets that made up her skin rustling audibly and the myriad accoutrements of her office clattering against the floor as she fell

Two warriors and several of the white-skinned craftsmen dashed to her side while Threntisn darted a look at Krinata. "Jindigar’s, you should have told me the leader was sick too! 'This could be our chance!" Looking neither left nor right, he went to a locked cabinet, found a blood specimen extractor, and strode directly to the Rustlemother's side, edging out some of her attendants as he called to Chinchee, "Tell them I am a friend. I will help her."

Jindigar had his Oliat nearly paralyzed in the net of their own linkages, and as swiftly as he worked, he could not disentangle them quickly enough to shout a warning.

The hivebinders could move as fast as a Cassrian when they chose. The entire complement of them in the room, seeing the giant alien using his sting on their Mothering-one, swarmed all over Threntisn and stung him first.

While the Dushau system could handle most toxins with dispatch, the sheer volume of poison brought Threntisn to his hands and knees. The hive-mind, seeing it as an attack by peace-heralds who came to get help—help that was freely given—recoiled in shock.

Chinchee let out an ululating wail of protest and dashed forward, throwing his body into the strenuous contortions of

Herald's speech, begging the hive to halt the attack on Threntisn. But it was too late. Threntisn slid down and lay prone, unmoving"

Jindigar finally unlocked the last crosslink and addressed his Receptor. //We need to monitor Threntisn's life functions– if he still lives.//

Zannesu, understandably off-stride, gave them too much amplitude. Threntisn's vital functions flashed through the Oliat, dominating their own united heart and respiration rhythm. As Llistyien was overwhelmed by the Reception, her Emulation of the effect of the toxin on the Historian's nervous system awakened similar responses in the Oliat.

Jindigar was as helpless in the grip of the toxin Emulation as if he'd been stung himself. Spontaneously the contact with Threntisn became a link. Aghast, Jindigar watched the link transform and deepen of its own accord into a meta-Oliat link, as if Threntisn were the Center of an allied Oliat.

It's the toxin, thought Jindigar, repelling panic. It's just an illusion. Threntisn would not touch Oliat functions for anything in all creation. Me was Historian, through and through, set on guarding and maintaining his Archive. Unless my meddling has damaged something! Jindigar recalled all the times he'd struggled to sift the data properly during the debriefing and how he'd gone too deep into territory he wasn't authorized to tap, when he'd searched the Aliom files for a way to Dissolve– and found a meta-Oliat function.

But there was no time to think. In a flash the new meta-link Fastened into Jindigar, as if attracted to him. The link opened into Threntisn and beyond Threntisn into the rest of the Archive, as if the Archive were Threntisn's Oliat.

A familiar terror gripped Jindigar as he thrashed against the forces that swept him up out of his body and into the intangible regions where Archives and Oliat linkages existed. The thick darkness flowed inexorably, carrying him and his Oliat toward a glowing aperture, an Archive Gate.

Breasting that current in an effort to belay their fall, Jindigar glimpsed the structure around the aperture, a glistening network of colored jewels defining a tesseract that warped away into unimaginable dimensions. Windows on its faceted sides showed scenes that enticed the unwary, for they were traps that protected the Archive from unauthorized entry. They had to stay away from those windows.

Not only had Jindigar once carried this very Archive, he also had worked with its reserved Aliom sections, and he'd debriefed to it in link with his Outreach, who had once been lost in it with him, and, who had, together with him, been rescued by Threntisn.

Now the new link that bound them to Threntisn quickened the Archive with welcome, as if it recognized them. / wouldn't put it past Grisnilter to have taught it to recognize me!

The Gate dilated, inviting Jindigar to enter, to travel the pathways and chambers to the core, to the Archive's Eye, the origin of the Archive, and the point at which all Archives joined, the point at Infinity where all existence touched non-existence, the Historians' fabled Gateway to Completion.