The warriors milled about, as if bewildered, stomping repeatedly at the place where the worldcircle had been, as if infuriated at being cheated.
The cacophony outside rose. Energy weapons fired over the roar of voices. The settlement's defenses had mobilized. Death permeated the Oliat perceptions.
//Zannesu!// The Receptor still bent over Eithlarin's body, rocking back and forth. //Zannesu! Receptor! We have to stop this!//
With incredible effort Zannesu dragged part of his attention back to his Office. Jindigar focused the Oliat's awareness outward toward the cliff, setting Zannesu to Receive what was happening, carefully gentling Trinarvil into Protector.
On the upper cliff edge, the last of the hive-dweller Natives were climbing down the ropes of the lift onto the settlement below. And the reason for their panicked flight was now evident to the Oliat. Right behind them came a pack of ravenous carnivores such as Jindigar had never encountered before. They were wiry-pelted and went on all fours, but they had long, snouted heads that ended in a suction appendage. The forepaws appeared to be nearly as dextrous as hands. As the Oliat focused on them one of them grabbed one of the small, exoskeletal hivebinders, cracked the carapace, and sucked the shell dry-without bothering to kill the Native first.
Briefly perception blurred. The tiny telepath's agony blanketed the hive-mind and the settlement with a spasm of distorted horror and creeping dread. Then it was gone. The settlement's militia, drawn mostly from the ex-Imperial troops, went wild. They fired indiscriminately into the hordes of Natives now streaming toward the Dushau compound.
Within the compound itself, people ran in every direction. Some fled the encroaching predators. Others dashed to rescue mates or restrain those in the irrationality of Renewal onset from mindless, suicidal attacks on the invaders. A few, desperate, set fire to buildings in the Natives' path, hoping the primitives would stop out of fear. At least there aren't any children yet!
//Darllanyu, can you Formulate the dome image around the Temple?//
She sat up, dashing blood from a cut on her mouth, struggling for self-possession. She didn't answer him, but the dome image wavered hazily over them.
//Protector, see if you can pick that up and use it.//
Trinarvil had not been on the planet when the colony had used that image to repel the all-out attack of the hives, but she had heard the story. Llistyien brought Emulation into play behind her efforts, and soon the gray blocks of a Native hive-dome were almost tangible above the Temple.
It took longer than Jindigar had expected for the invading hive to react. Their hive-mind was in chaos, convulsing with deaths. But finally it penetrated: the dome above them was not their dome. They were in someone else's hive.
The hivebinders riding the rustlemen's shoulders reacted first, twittering and nipping at their partners. A profound disturbance ran through the invaders, and within moments the commands of the rustlemen had triggered a mass exodus.
As the last of the Natives squeezed through the doorway, Jindigar got to his feet. //We've got to expand the hive-dome to enclose the entire compound.// He helped Zannesu up, cradling the Receptor away from the sight of Eithlarin's limp body, urging, //Come, Receptor.//
Outside, chaos reigned in the lanes of the compound. Several buildings were on fire, lending an eerie flicker to the growing dawn light. A military flare went up, burst, and shed white light over all. The Oliat wove that radiance into the image of the dome, expanding it, adding details of aging, stains of droppings, scars of old battles won. With every detail of realism the invading hive's retreat hastened.
NINE
Chinchee Returns
The hive-mind noticed that the strangers' hive-dome was invisible. Panic seized the hive's warriors. Outside the Dushau's will led compound, the stream of hive-dwellers reversed in their tracks and poured north, along the base of the cliff. But here and there individual Natives regarded the illusion-dome as a perfectly ordinary thing, apparently aware of the colony's right to it.
Gradually the hive-mind accepted that pragmatism, and the
rout became an orderly retreat to regroup around the spaceships
parked at the northern edge of the colony's territory.w
The Oliat, still numb with shock compounded by Zannesu's ringing denial of his loss, watched in growing horror as the advance warriors stormed the open hatches of the ships, showing every sign of taking permanent possession.
Flatly, tonelessly, Zannesu warned, //Ineed to hate them. She didn't deserve that. Why—why, Jindigar? Why did it happen like that? Ten minutes—just ten minutes more and she'd //
Incompletion-death is always senseless. It is failure, pure and simple. Or so Aliom seemed to imply. Maybe he hadn't understood. Or maybe Aliom was wrong. //Idon't know if I'll ever find an answer for you, my zunre. But as long as I live, I will try. One thing I am sure of, though–to hate the Natives is to throw oneself after Eithlarin.//
//It was my fault. I couldn't hold her.//
Something in Zannesu's tone hit a nerve. Eithlarin's inexorable retreat, the sudden, shocking loss, the excruciating need to act—If I had been faster, held harder, thought more clearly– she'd be alive.
Guilt. He feels guilty–but there was nothing he could have done. It came to Jindigar with a sense of creeping horror. / have held that kind of guilt about Takora–all these years it's been in me, and I never knew it. / thought that, because I did the best thing, that I had to consider it the right thing. But the truth is, I don't. He could not tell Zannesu what he had been told—that he need not feel guilty because no one could have saved her.
Surprisingly Krinata added the comment that lightened Zannesu's anguish. //Look at it this way. Eithlarin gave us one invaluable parting gift. By truly heroic effort, so very typical of her, she returned to us when we needed her. She loved us and knew we loved her. Even if it was in her—–fate, maybe—to die Incomplete, she wanted us to know it wasn't our fault. Personally I don't see how such a selfless act could earn her anything but good from the universe.//*
It was the strangest thought ever planted in Jindigar's mind. He wasn't sure he wanted it to germinate. It could lead to suicide in misguided causes. Yet he could find no flaw in Krinata's reasoning. He knew why. The carefully constructed epistemology he'd relied on for judgment had suddenly been wiped out. Everything had to be rethought from scratch, and at the moment that was all he wanted to do. Onset symptoms! I'm in no condition to be a Center.
But for the moment Zannesu stabilized. Jindigar called them to work and, with Krinata's permission, choked down her link again, invoking their normal multiawareness. //Receptor, Protector, Emulator—we must expand the dome image over the whole colony—including the ships. The hive must not settle among the ships!//
As his Oliat responded the shaleiliu hum returned, all trace of static gone. But, after what they'd done to themselves, how long would it take for hormonal surges to build again?
Jindigar lifted the linkages and refocused the Oliat's attention outside themselves, hoping for the best.
Despite the recent acrimony, the colonists formed up to defend their homes against this new menace. Trinarvil, so much nearer Completion than Jindigar, Observed the shaleiliu engulfing the ephemerals. She should be Center.