Everyone took the perception in stride except Eithlarin, who confused it with Vistral, the devastated world of her nightmares, and saw the mad proliferation of microlife in the pond as an ugly, revolting, and disgusting menace, far beyond the Oliat's ability to cope with.
For one second, as the Protector saw herself as the victim of overwhelming natural forces, the Oliat became the dead eggs eaten by myriads of tiny creatures, being invaded and consumed, degraded.
As if they'd done the drill a thousand times, Jindigar and Zannesu functioned in perfect concert, closing the link to Eithlarin as her Outrider caught a whisper of what had happened and—as no ephemeral Outrider would dare—shook her hard to break her fixation while Jindigar and Zannesu reestablished the balance of the Oliat. Jindigar felt Krinata tense to go to Eithlarin's aid, surely expecting Eithlarin's shock to slam through the Oliat as if it were a break-in.
But the Outrider's touch was sure, and Eithlarin mastered her panic, turning wide eyes to Jindigar in apology.
Simultaneously, up among the spectators, a scattering of grim newcomers worked their way through the crowd and came clattering down the stairs. Storm, gathering his crew with shouts, wormed his way through the press and started down the stairs after the others.
Ignoring them, Jindigar opened the linkage to Eithlarin, letting Krinata *share their awareness for a moment. //Easy. Steady now. No harm done.// He sent Krinata a human smile and choked her link down again before she could react, trying not to think how frightened he was of her. //Now, Receptor, let's scan, placing the pond in its proper perspective.//
They flashed into a wider, but more superficial, focus and Received the Gifter hive on the plain above, shaleiliu to the pond's system, for the Gifters had lovingly deposited their eggs in the hatchery of their new allies. The pond was also shaleiliu to the syrupy substance so industriously made by the Gifters to feed their own young—ah!
One of the serious puzzles) of Phanphihy fell into place. The Gifters were dimorphic, alternating their generations between flyer and amphibian. Flyer eggs hatched into amphibians whose young would be flyers. The amphibians were loners who did not form a hive and thus had no protection unless some other hive would take them in—paid by Gifter syrup.
At the end of summer, when the amphibians were ready to reproduce, the Gifters expected the host hive to gather the eggs and return them to the Gifter hive for hatching. It was so simple, just another one of Phanphihy's symbiotic chains. It should have been apparent to the Oliat when they first contacted the Gifters.
On the plain above them, the plains grasses were almost tall enough to hide the hive now. But the Oliat awareness caught the gleaming damp surface where the Gifter builders had enlarged the hive. Above the gray hump of the structure, little flyer warriors churned angrily in cone formations, waiting for the signal to attack an enemy. Gravid layers were already crawling over the surface of the large hive, thwarted instincts creating confusion. Unless something were done soon, the hive would send out its warriors.
Feeling their urgency driving like the beat of his own heart, , Jindigar found the need for a functional Outreach overwhelming. He had to tell them, //The Holot must build the Gifters a pond up on the plain and stock it with river fish for them in return for the syrup.//
But Zannesu kept the choke-link to Krinata tight, so she barely felt Jindigar's message. She turned to eye the Center questioningly, compelled to speak, but having no idea what had to be said.
Jindigar curbed frustration. They would report to the community later. Now they must discover how to control the fungus. There was no way to avoid it. He would have to take them out of time-sync. Reluctantly he announced, //We're going up-perspective. Eithlarin, brace yourself—//
He directed Venlagar's attention deep into the pond's microlife to anchor them in the now, then brought his Formulator and Emulator into the time-sync configuration. He felt Darllanyu's support holding rock-steady now that her concentration wasn't riven by hormonal surges. She was the only one except himself who had done this in the field before. And she had actually done it as Formulator, while he had never tried it as Center.
Gently he raised the perspective until past, present, and future formed a unified whole, just as the interlocked bio-systems had been clear to the Oliat gestalt.
The first hatchlings of the Gifter eggs had eaten some Cassrian eggs by dissolving a hole in the shell. The tailored mutant fungus, invading swiftly, had infected the Gifter-amphibian hatchlings. It took root on the tender young skin and grew until it covered the tadpole, and the skin sloughed off, leaving the tadpole to die in agony.
There was nothing like it on Phanphihy. The native beings had no defense. The fungus not only killed Gifter amphibians, it devoured all the native pond swimmers.
The Oliat saw the seething death-pond as joined in a single system to the withering cornfield where a new, landborne secondary imitation of the fungus covered the plants. In the corn– field the sprouts peeked up from the dark soil in rows of light green. Rusty dots of fungoid growth covered the shoots. Jindigar guided the Oliat focus deeper, observing from the three-time perspective of past, present, and future, as the native and offworld life forms fought to coexist. Tuning carefully to both the parent pond-fungus and the plant-fungus, he addressed his
Oliat. //We need to find how to eradicate the fungus—without turning Phanphihy against all outsiders.//
In response Llistyien Emulated the hive structure—the huge gray dome that covered the offworld colony and declared to all Phanphihy's collective consciousness that here was a hive sheltering a multispecies cooperative, living just as the dominant sentient species of Phanphihy lived.
Eithlarin joined the Protector's function to the Emulator's, and the dome took on substance—for it was protection and protective coloration.
//This should keep the hives from turning against the colony,// suggested Eithlarin. Ill can hold it now, so you can search.//
Cautiously Jindigar tested their attunement to the planet. The Oliat was still accepting the planet as comprehensible, the hives of flying creatures, land herbivores, hunting carnivores, tree dwellers, and burrowing kinds as friendly to the colony-hive.
Satisfied that they were solidly grounded in a benign world and that Venlagar had them firmly anchored in time, Jindigar opened the linkages among the six of them, still keeping the Outreach link choked off. He let the total attunement steal over them, observing with a wistful satisfaction that the great tone, the carrier wave of the universe, was there for them again, louder, firmer, surer than it had been in the Holot cave. They were truly an Oliat.
His joy was echoed by his other five officers—and he wished Krinata were part of this moment. Jindigar's Oliat. It felt much as he imagined Completion would feel.
They became one with the entire pattern, which was the biosphere around them, and with the world force—the intangible spiritual force of this planet that sustained them. Jindigar kept their window into time only a few days wide, their geographical range no larger than a day's walk in every direction. He focused Venlagar on Receiving the development of the fungus.
In clear images generated by Receptor and Formulator working in perfect tandem, Jindigar saw the lab on the ship where the fungus was redesigned. Two Lehiroh and a Holot worked in protective coveralls over the micro equipment. A simple workaday job—gone awry. For within the potion they presented to the committees some of the fungus starter wasn't properly stabilized.