Earlier Krinata had agreed to the choke-link, a training device that was essentially a demotion for her. Jindigar felt tears stinging behind her eyes. Krinata, Lady Zavaronne, regarded fidelity as Aliom did—another meaning of shaleiliu, the congruence between what one said and what one did, what one alleged and what was fact. But she knew her word wasn't strong enough to bind her actions. //Krinata, I know you won't ever willingly take Center again. But you have the trained reflexes of a Center, and those reflexes will act. It would be the same for me.//
She nodded. //Let's get on with it.//
Momentarily Jindigar wondered why he'd ever considered Krinata their weakest officer. He had to exert himself to keep any pace she set. He turned to watch Darllanyu seated cross-legged in the center of the worldcircle, shivering a little as the drug took effect.
He felt the pressure abating even as he watched, producing in them both a sickening emptiness. It was a measure of how deeply they had linked themselves—even without the wedding. Her eyes met his, and he wasn't sure he could compete in her league, either. But, oh, there was an exhilaration in the idea of showing her how easily he performed the greatest feats. And therein lay a danger, for adolescent bravado could not be permitted in a Center.
Zannesu put a hand on Jindigar's elbow. //Eithlarin says if we get out of this unscathed, she'll offer to bear children for you two.//
Touched to his core, Jindigar had to turn away, bury his face in his hands, and hold his breath against the keening wail of pain that rose in him. He forced it aside and turned back to his zunre. Krinata was right. They should get this over with quickly.
Accompanied by their seven Dushau Outriders plus Storm's whole crew, the Oliat arrived at the pond just before noon. The sun was bright in a clear sky, the breeze softened with the breath of summer. The pond had been dug out deeply, the dirt stacked all around to form a protective embankment. Water from an underground stream fed the pond, then drained into the river beyond. Wooden stairs led to the flat top of the embankment where a crowd had already gathered.
As they climbed the outside stair mating calls of flyers filled the ah-. Young piols chased around in circles, their primary mating game. Parent piols with litters were well established in nesting holes on the inside of the embankment above the pond. There were eight of them now, and two gravid females, all of them fat on the fish appropriated from the Cassrians' pond. Nobody minded, for they cherished the Cassrian eggs more than the Cassrians did.
Jindigar put the animals out of his mind. Leaving the ephemeral Outriders with the crowd at the top of the embankment, the Oliat descended the two flights of wooden stairs and the winding trail down into the bowl holding the pond. The odor of putrefaction trapped in the deep cup holding the pond was overwhelming.
At the bottom of the trail a large wooden platform had been built out over the placid water on piles, while an end section of it floated like a raft. At irregular intervals around the floating platform there were small weather-tight sheds. The Cassrian officials were gathered on the solid platform. Together with the representatives of the various Councils, they made quite a crowd.
On the floating platform Trinarvil and her medics had set up a first-aid station for the Oliat in one of the sheds. Its door • now stood open, revealing a stack of Cassrian furniture shoved into one corner near a hole in the floor. Water sloshed through the hole as people moved about. Trinarvil's crew had jigsawed seven cots into the shed, barely leaving room for themselves and some of the irradiating equipment and battery packs.
Next to the shed's open door, Threntisn sat in a chair, surrounded by four of his apprentice Historians who were fussing over him while he irritably pushed them aside. His teeth were too pale, and he looked shaky enough to be confined to bed. I'd no idea I'd put that much stress on him. If I hurt the Archive– Jindigar quelled that pang of fear and guilt. He couldn't afford distractions now. Besides, if it were that bad, Threntisn wouldn't be so determined to record this event that he had to be carried to the scene.
As he made his way out onto the floating platform, Jindigar glanced back up at the spectators on the top of the embankment. Storm's Outriders mingled with the Cassrians and the handful of others but remained vigilant.
Jindigar had chosen to work under Dushau guard this time, because with the Outreach nonfunctional, they needed the Aliom-trained Dushau. Storm's crew, as expert as they were, could not perceive the linkages directly, nor feel the Oliat attunement. And as well trained as the ephemerals were in field first aid for an Oliat, his own people under Trinarvil would be faster, surer, and more accurate. With Eithlarin's increasing break-in sensitivity seconds could count.
When it had been explained to Storm—"This Oliat would never ordinarily be convened off Dushaun"—he had readily agreed to keep his crew out of the way—but he had refused to wait in the barracks, saying, "Jindigar, there are reasons you've always chosen ephemeral Outriders for work off Dushaun. And this isn't Dushaun."
Touched by the loyalty, Jindigar hadn't argued.
Gathering his officers at the floating end of the platform, Jindigar cautioned, //Mind your footing. With Krinata choked off it's easy to become dizzy.// But they needed the space, and it helped to be in closer contact with the water they had to attune to. Jindigar, though, noted how their weight—so much more than fourteen Cassrians would weigh—sank the platform. But if they didn't move much, they wouldn't get their boots wet.
//Venlagar?// prompted Jindigar when they were all set.
The Receptor had been eyeing the scummy water with distaste, and as soon as Jindigar called in the link, the entire Oliat felt why. The natural steady state here had been thoroughly disrupted. All higher life forms in the water had died, and now the microlife proliferated unchecked, feasting on the flesh of more evolved beings—on the fish floating belly-lip on the surface, bloated or already disintegrating into a gelatinous scum, and on the Cassrian eggs that would never hatch to bring joy to their parents.
Resolutely Jindigar steered them away from that thought. //Llistyien, have you noticed that the Cassrians are not very upset?//
His Emulator answered, //Cassrians form no parental bond until they claim a hatchling. I never Emulated Cassrians before.// The Cassrian attitude toward their eggs engulfed the Oliat. The pond was the future of the community, nothing more. They did not feel as Dushau would about a nursery.
The Cassrian eggs had not been the only higher life in the pond—in addition to the Gifters' eggs, there had been swimmers and shelled bottom crawlers, amphibians and plant life in a carefully constructed balance, designed to support the emerging Cassrian hatchlings. Darllanyu, Llistyien and Zannesu had been the Oliat trio that created that design, but being only a trio, they'd been unable to anticipate the arrival of the Gifters.
//Watch now, and you will learn how a full Oliat foresees the disruption of an ecology by peripheral forces.// Jindigar guided the focus lower, narrowing on the microprocesses of the putrefying pond, letting his trio discern how the pond had been irresistible to the Gifters and how an Oliat would have thus become instantly aware of the Gifters' existence. Routine extrapolation showed how the Gifter eggs had to intrude, and the ecosystem, which included the colonists, had to respond, creating the fungus.
Having learned in the Holot cave how precarious his Oliat balance was, Jindigar had not intended to open the Oliat into lull attunement with Phanphihy. But as they grasped the inner mechanics of the pond life, Phanphihy seeped into the Oliat gestalt consciousness, so that the relationships binding colony and world evoked an exquisite shaleiliu.