"What's changed your mind?" asked Jindigar.
"That storm frightens me more than Krinata does. I've never been in a sandstorm before."
"That's not it. That storm frightens me too." As Jindigar compared Krinata and Frey, then gazed into the sunset, she wondered what she'd said to win Frey's confidence. Then Jindigar muttered, "Perhaps we should attempt a triad, though it may incapacitate Krinata."
"Jindigar," she pled, "just try it for a second or two. We have to get a glimpse of what's really out there. And I'm not as fragile as you think!"
The Lehiroh were coaxing the water sled back into the air and turning it so the rear end would now lead. Jindigar glanced down, then fixed his back to the scene, agreeing reluctantly. "Just for a second or two." He issued technical instructions to Frey, then gathered Krinata's eyes.
Presently she felt a wall enclosing the two Dushau, shutting her out. It dissolved and re-formed behind her, and then she lost touch with the sand dune, and the people below.
Boiling, raging, churning storm, a billion particles seething skyward, organized as a living being; the helpless, abandoned sliver of metal half swallowed by a dune; scattering of stickfigures, glittering against the sand in artificial desert cloaks; line of massive lumps floating beside a long ridge; and beyond, slightly north of their course, the rising ground broken, scraggly bushes, a fan shape of dead bushes leading to the mouth of a dry wash whose sides were cave-riddled.
She was the sand, the wind, the struggling life, and it was all one, its oneness a painful beauty. She was also the storm, her anger rising at the escape of the sparkling parts of the sliver she needed to bury, to destroy. She looked out of the whirling chaos of storm, and she also watched herself looking out, undisturbed by four loci of perception. She saw her face, as if in a mirror, indigo against dirty magenta, bridgeless Dushau nose, hate-filled indigo eyes, sickly white teeth–Desdinda's face. She was herself and hated Desdinda, and was Desdinda and hated the human intruder and Jindigar, the Aliom priest who had befouled an Archive with his Inversions. Destroy!
Krinata felt the ravening madness reaching out to shake the very sky, and everything in her defied it. Then, another presence was attracted by the turmoil, a sevenfold presence that stretched her brain and distorted her mind as if to rip her identity apart. She didn't hear herself scream.
A wide, meandering river approached a sheer cliff, and between its bend and the cliff, dirt roads cut across an area strewn with half-finished foundations and piles of logs. On one side a stockade was going up, on the other, orbital landers were parked.
A subaudible hum shimmered through the scene, a growing vibration. She could feel everything in that settlement beginning to thrum to a complex rhythm, linking and affecting everything and everyone else. Her teeth, her bones, every nerve vibrated with increasing energy. She was being shaken apart from within as another Dushau woman's face formed. She was lovely, about the same coloring as Jindigar. As the vibration increased, her serene pleasure turned to recognition, shock, and then alarm.
Krinata, her heart stuttering as if she hadn't breathed in minutes, her bones aching with inaudible hot sound, saw through a screen of black dots Jindigar's face suffused with a naked pleasure that was embarrassing. Then everything went black. She never felt herself hit the sand.
When she came to, the sun had barely moved, and Storm was bending over Jindigar, who was muttering, "Darllanyu, darllanyu..." while Frey knelt over him arguing, "No, it's sunset, not dawn. Jindigar!"
She sat up, holding her breath, remembering Frey had been afraid that Jindigar could become lost in the Archive, episodic, disoriented beyond cure. That settlement they'd seen must have been from the Archive. If he thought it was now dawn—
Storm saw her clutching her pounding head. "Krinata!" He came to her. "What happened?"
"Not sure—some—ooohhh!" She hurt all over.
Jindigar, on his knees, shaking his head to clear it, saw her. "You—" he started. "Desdinda!"
"She's dead," Krinata reminded him insistently.
He got to his feet, drawing Frey with him, reassuring them both. "I know. Frey, don't you remember now?"
Bewildered, the younger Dushau said, "Remember what?"
"What Krinata did while we were unconscious after the crash!" He looked to Krinata as if normal people always remembered what they'd been doing while unconscious, and at her denial, prompted, "You linked us in triad, and Desdinda Inverted us and brought the storm down on Truth."
"Jindigar," repeated Krinata through the buzzing ache in her skull, "Desdinda is dead."
"Yes! I should have realized!" He gazed down at the three Lehiroh who were testing the water sled brake, but he wasn't seeing them. He was abstracted as pieces of a puzzle fell into place. "It's a Loop, of course."
Frey exclaimed, "You mean Desdinda is looping in Krinata!" He turned to her. "Oh, Krinata, I'm sorry!"
"It's only apparent," continued Jindigar, "when we link triad. I knew we never should have tried it!"
"Now wait a minute," protested Krinata, getting up despite the explosion of pain. "I seem to recall an image of a dry wash—and caves—a bit off our course to the north. Wouldn't it be a shorter trek to head—"
"I remember!" said Frey. "Jindigar, we can make it!"
"Yes, but, Krinata, you must understand. This Loop is dangerous. A fragment of Desdinda's hatred resides in your mind like a flight of electrons trapped in a superconducting torus, or an endless-loop recording. Whenever we tap you in triad, it's activated, Inverts us, and uses us to destroy ourselves."
She felt soiled. "Well, it didn't win this time. And it won't—ever—I promise."
He put one hand on her shoulder. "No, it won't win, zunre. / promise."
Then, in a whirl, they were pulling out, racing the storm again. They found their sleds drifting lazily, and Jindigar swiftly made the assignments, giving one to Shorwh, the eldest of the Cassrian children, when he insisted he was strong enough to spell his father at the chore.
She trudged behind Jindigar's sled, contemplating this alien thing inside her, wondering what the cure would be. Revolted by the idea of being dominated by a malevolent spirit, she had to force herself to think about it, to formulate questions to ask Jindigar at the first chance. Knowing what it was, she could surely control it.
As the hours wore on she spent most of her energy ignoting the rough chafing of the straps of her harness where grit had sifted through her clothing. She'd bound her hair tightly on top of her head, but wisps escaped and plastered themselves to her sweating face. The explorer-issue hiking boots she wore were full of sand again and seemed to weigh more than she did. There was a blister on her right heel that screamed with every step.
Angling north, Jindigar set a faster pace now that the cruel sun was down. He walked with his desert cloak thrown back and his head high, as if sniffing the wind, no sign in his stride that he was nearly blind and using the duad perceptions to guide them.