As the door closed behind Zannesu, Krinata rose and circled Eithlarin. Jindigar picked up her view of Eithlarin's form– the dark indigo skin almost invisible in the twilight, making it seem as if the soft white robe floated empty over the white circle.
Jindigar lifted the linkages from Venlagar, aware of Krinata's bizarre human conception of the process—the two of them playing cat's cradle with a loop of string. He damped the pattern to prevent his perception of Krinata leaking through to Darllanyu, or anyone else, then passed the links back to his new Inreach, who fumbled a bit.
Then he let himself watch Krinata moving around the circle. She was so well attuned to Phanphihy and the Oliat mat her step left no trace where she passed over the worldcircle. He let the daring thought surface. Could his Oliat have lasted so long and accomplished so much if it hadn't been for Krinata being a solid anchor, as no Dushau could have been on this alien world?
Krinata folded herself gracefully down beside him and commented, //If Eithlarin dies, she'll probably reincarnate—just like I did. Maybe she can be my child.// She reached familiarly for the whule that lay across Jindigar's lap. As he surrendered il she insisted, III didn't just lift Takora's memories from you– and I didn't learn the whule just from your tutoring, either. Jindigar, I remember being Takora. I know what it's like being Center. 1 know what you went through, saving my Oliat– Takora’s Oliat. I know what you're facing now with Eithlarin. I want to help.//
Clumsily she plucked out a melody, her nails rattling lewdly against the strings. She grunted and silenced the sound. //Well, knowing how to do it doesn't mean being able to do it with hands of a totally different design, no more than knowing the Center's job makes me able to Center. Jindigar, please accept that. I was Takora. Or tell me what will convince you.//
Her being the real Takora returned would surely explain the way she evoked a peculiar fear and impossible fascination in him. But most of that could come from her having been Ontarrah. //The simple, obvious explanation isn't always the correct one.//
//Don't quote the Observing Priests at me! I'm trying to tell you that I know you handled Eithlarin correctly. You were slow—and you were clumsy—but that's just lack of experience. Your judgment was sound. And when you could finally make yourself do it—you did the right thing.//
//I didn't know you were aware of what I did. I had the Outreach link choked down pretty tight.//
She sighed and strummed a perfect chord progression. It sent a crawling sensation up his spine, for it was one that Takora had practiced incessantly. //Jindigar—it's awfully hard to explain. Consciously all I remember is that Holot face distorted by an overlay of Dushau perception—your eyes see in so many directions at once, but humans have only one retina per eye. My memories of being Dushau have images that seem normal to my human memory—:but when the Oliat lets me see through Dushau eyes, my brain feels split—and my eyes feel like they've come uncoupled and are looking in opposite directions at the same time—like Dushau eyes.
//Even after you choked down my link to nothing, I still saw him as a devil from hell because I was seeing him from six other points of view—and all of them Dushau. I think that's because / am a Center too. You see, your link to your Outreach was shut down—but / seem to have forged links to the other officers of my own—as a Center. Maybe it happened when I tried to take over from you—but, anyway, they are there. I can feel them, even if you can't.//
//You can feel// That would certainly explain why he
hadn't been able to control the distortion for Krinata, or to shut down the feedback between her image of the Holot and Eithlarin’s image of the beast that had killed her zunre. The second set of links, operating out of sync with his and uncontrolled, would explain why Llistyien retreated to running with animals, a vague shaleiliu. Her innate optimism had turned flight from terrifying predator into training predator birds to defend her from nightmare.
A second set of links might even have contributed to driving Eithlarin episodic. Not that it's Krinata's fault. I should have known those links wouldn't just disappear after the cave. Yet Krinata could be just imagining her own links. Imagination was her primary talent.
//Well,// she continued, strumming firm chords, //I know you did the right thing because even after you opened the choke-link, I had no impulse whatever to take over your Oliat. Takora's experience is in me—far more experience than you'll ever have as Center—and her experience says you did right.//
//Krinata—if you really were Takora, you'd never have let yourself be caught up in the Oliat linkages, and you'd certainly never have become Outreach to my Oliat. Never in the memory of anyone alive today has a Center been foolish enough to rejoin an Oliat.//
//Not even as Center,// she agreed, //for that would be the attempt to recapture past peak experiences—to create stagnation. The result would be a falling out of the Office of Center into another office—and the Oliat would perish.//
Fie had never told her that. //Where did you learn that?//
//Takora learned it—from Nushitan, her teacher. And Takora taught you—on the planet Riish, in the middle of a torrential rainstorm. I don't remember any more than that. Where's Riish? I've never heard of it.//
//I don't know offhand where it is,// he answered absently. //I'd have to ask Arlai.// But the Sentient computer was dormant, inactivated, nothing more than a metal box among Jindigar's most precious possessions.
//Jindigar, what would it take to convince you?//
Ill think,// he admitted as it slowly came to him in chilling waves, //I think I am convinced. I just don't want to admit it. But there's no way you could have grabbed Center that one time if you didn't have both Takora's knowledge and her experience. And you didn't get her experience from me—because 1 don't have it.//
Ill didn't have it, either, at first. I think you were right when you said I'd just picked up some of Takora's memories from you. But somehow those acquired memories wakened more. And now it's different, Jindigar. Sometimes—only sometimes—I am Takora.//
//Do you feel these—extra—linkages into the Oliat even now?//
// Not really. They're only there when there's a crisis.//
//If I see you command those linkages, exhibiting Takora's style, I think I'd have to admit you are Takora.// But it doesn't matter. There's no way on Phanphihy to Dissolve an Oliat with two Centers, and whether she was Takora or not, we are an Oliat with two Centers.
When Dar was ready, they'd make their try for Eithlarin. They had all agreed on that. And he had promised Zannesu that if he could get the full pattern of linkages operating, he'd try for Dissolution. He had been thinking he might still save them all. But if Krinata really had been Takora, or even just had Takora's Center experience, at least some of them would die.
He had to accept that. The time had come when he had to deliberately sacrifice some lives that others might survive to Completion. Yet everything in him shrank from it. Even the chance that some of them might reincarnate as ephemerals didn't help. / will not choose who lives and who dies, but I will not survive if Krinata dies.
//Look—// offered Krinata, //I shouldn't have said anything. I—the human in me–thought it might make you fed better to know that someone understands. Jindigar—you're carrying too much of a load for all of us. It's not right.//