In their protected space Jindigar recaptured the attention of his officers. //Zannesu, we can't save Eithlarin this way. Can you help me command the linkages?//
He tore his gaze from Eithlarin and turned haunted eyes on Jindigar, but a measure of acceptance was there now. //I'm sorry. I'll try.//
Zannesu steadied down. Jindigar reorganized the links to the other officers, screening Krinata again but not reinstituting the choke-link. They were still in the high perspective, scanning past and future as well as present, microscopic as well as macro. As he cut the data flow to her Krinata began to stir, kneading her throat and coughing. //Jindigar?//
//Eithlarin's episodic. Can you speak for us?// He had never exposed her to a five-axis spread before. Every time she tried to move, dizziness assailed her. She saw everything through a haze of other images overlaid and couldn't tell micro from macro, or past from future.
//Cam you make it stop, Jindigar?//
//In a moment–but I'll have to cut you off again. Can you do it, Krinata? Just for a minute?//
She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and groped her way into the Outreach's function. //Go ahead.//
"//Trinarvil!//" Krinata's voice croaked. She tried again. "//Trinarvil!//" It came out as shrill as a Cassrian's voice, but this time it penetrated the noise.
Trinarvil's medics had been working their way toward the Oliat, clucking in and out of the battle with uncommon courage. At Krinata's call they dashed across the last space to surround her. Jindigar briefed Trinarvil in rapid jargon that Krinata's throat strained to articulate.
As the Outreach's voice was heard people turned to listen, .mil the last of the lighting subsided. Her final words fell into a silence broken only by the splashing of swimmers and the sloshing of water over the platform.
Trinarvil turned to the crowd and announced, "The Oliat has been gravely injured. We need more space here."
The ephemeral Outriders, Storm in the lead, moved into a flying wedge, their stances belligerent, their attention on the crowd as they opened a corridor to Trinarvil's shed. Jindigar helped Eithlarin’s Outriders get her into the medic's station. She was quivering in every muscle, her whole body trying to curl in on itself. But he still had the whisper of contact through the wire-thin link. They were still an Oliat.
Inside the shed Jindigar noted that Threntisn's chair had been moved to place him just inside the door—out of the action hut able to view it all. They edged past him and deposited Eithlarin on one of the couches. Then they told Trinarvil, "//We must report before attending to Eithlarin—if anything can be done for her.//" //Krinata, can you make it that long?//
//If I keep my eyes closed, maybe. What is that stuff, Jindigar—uck!// lie tried to dim the micro and past-time data feeds and sharpen the present/macro for her as he explained that she was seeing the microlife of the pond churned up now by all the swimmers. Meanwhile Trinarvil told the Oliat, "No—the report can wait." She examined Eithlarin's eyes. "She's critical."
Jindigar looked to Zannesu. Shaking all over, the Inreach gathered all his remaining strength. //My behavior shames me. I will not obstruct my Center further. If Eithlarin dies before we can report, she—and all of us—will have died for nothing.//
Jindigar replied warmly, //You have nothing to apologize for—I'd have done the same had it been Darllanyu.//
He said through Krinata, "//We must report before the Gifters attack.//" Hearing the words she spoke, Krinata twisted to look at Jindigar—saw him covered with crawling amoebas and quickly closed her eyes. //Attack?!//
//I'll explain.// Jindigar gathered them back toward the doorway where Storm's crew formed a living barricade in front of the Dushau Outriders.
He sent Krinata up beside Cyrus, who was nursing a hand bloodied as if he'd smashed it into Cassrian chitin. //Krinata, I must stay open to Eithlarin's condition. If you sense any change, pull back. I may have to act suddenly. Can you handle it?//
// Yes. If that stuff is just Venlagar making like a microscope, I can ignore it. It's not nearly as bad as a Holot with bad breath trying to choke me.// It was pure bravado. Her stomach was in knots, her head swimming, her knees weakening, and her neck was aching like fire. But he wasn't going to let her know he saw, for she valued her image of competence, if not in front of him so much, then in front of the others.
He scanned the crowd gathered tightly beyond the Outriders. People were tending their injuries and peering into the shed to see what was happening.
Zannesu had a firm grip on the linkages, while Venlagar anchored them to reality. The Oliat became aware of the buzz of the Gifter hive up on the plain growing ominously, while the corn blight festered rapidly in the warm sun. There wasn't much time.
Jindigar addressed the crowd in Krinata's voice, describing what they'd discovered about the Gifters and how the Holot must pay them. "//As soon as they see you preparing a pond for them, they will understand. The hive-mind is primitive. It sees its interaction with us as a kind of mating dance. As long as our moves are of that dance, they will respond without hostility. We teased them with a pond and took it away. Now we must provide them another.//"
A burly Holot male Jindigar recognized as one of the ex-Imperials pushed through to the front and called, "Why should we take your advice? We took your advice before, and look what happened Why did you bring us to this crazy world? To starve our children and torture us to death?"
There was a rising growl of agreement—not all Holot, either. "//This is not an insane world. It holds no grudges, knows no vendettas. But we are guests here and must abide by our host's customs. The Oliat is learning those customs. We havemade errors for which our lives may already have I men forfeited. Would you ask that of us?//"
A Cassrian voice, double-toned and reedy, untrained in Standard speech, called, "We demand it! You've destroyed us!"
"And they've saved us!" answered a gruff Holot male. It was Irnils, Terab's mate. A general wave of agreement supported him, especially among the Lehiroh community.
Terab on me forward and roared them to silence. "We can't afford civil war! Last night we voted to go with the Oliat's advice one more time. I say we get to work on it right now!"
Terab began to lead an exodus toward the stairs, to retarget the energies of the crowd, but the Oliat called, "//Terab, wait! We also know how to stop the blight.//"
The Holot soldier edged away from Irnils. "Don't listen. We can't trust the Oliat. They wouldn't answer me the first time I asked! It took them this long to think up a lie!" It was the Holot who had choked Krinata, his fur torn out in patches, a bloody gash showing on his cheek.
The past-time axis played back what the Holot had been yelling at Krinata, when she couldn't hear him. He had demanded a cure for the blight and a way to keep it from spreading to the Holot crops. That's all.
//Easy, Krinata. He's no monster. Just scared.//
Ill know,// answered Krinata, swallowing hard and facing the real Holot before her, not the distorted horror that had attacked her from the depths of the Oliat gestalt, part Holot, part gray-furred ape.
Terab commanded the crowd's attention. "The Oliat couldn't answer because they were working—and never has any Oliat taken on a harder job! Have you ever heard of an Oliat working with double-guard before? Have you ever seen an Oliat with Dushau Outriders before?"
Jindigar glanced at Storm. Obviously his Outriders had taken it on themselves to instruct Terab.
The soldier outshouted her. "They just wanted to put o» a good show after getting us into this mess. You can't trust a Dushau;—they don't care how long things take. And what kind of Oliat has a human in it?"