Only Krinata still felt the warped reality eating at the edges of her mind. //I'm sorry, Krinata,// Jindigar apologized, //but if I opened any further to you, the data flow would be more confusing to you than the distortion.//
She shoved her hair back from her face and shook as if to divest herself of something wet and unpleasant. //It's all right– as long as I know it's not really real.//
Venlagar asked, working hard to hold the unique pattern Jindigar had set, //Can you manipulate the Oliat like this?//
Observing what he had created, Jindigar didn't give himself time to think but merely took up the linkages and called, //Receptor, we must find out what has happened.//
Zannesu fumbled about until he focused on the hive again. The last dirt clods spattered down. All the ex-Imperials kept their heads down until it stopped, but a few colonists looked up too soon and were hit with rocks and dirt. As if out of nowhere, water coursed into the channels the colonists had dug. It tunneled through the hole the explosion had ripped in the hive's dome foundation and spread out among the ships» The ground, already saturated from spring rains, soaked up very little, and most of the water formed a puddle around the base of the lab ship.
Soon water backed up in the channel. An innocent-seeming piece of wood began to float in that water– It lifted a lever and set off a chain reaction. Ultimately the catapult fired.
The Cassrian and the end of the cable went flying toward the lab ship—the only ship powered up to supply heat and light within, the one ship likely to contain the most vulnerable members of the hive.
Now everything depended on the Cassrian.
But this one must have been an acrobat or a stuntman. He landed square on the sloping hull and anchored himself with fittings taken from a vacuum suit. His task was extremely simple—clamp the electrical contacts into place. But when he did, he would be the first to die.
Several times, as they watched, it seemed he would abandon the task to chase phantasms of horror that opposed him while the real adversary, six warriors and two rustlemen, closed in from below, climbing handholds on the ship's skin. The Cassrian battled with rapidly weakening movements, as if his initial feat had taken up all his remaining strength. But, with only seconds to spare, the Cassrian overcame his personal demons and plunged the cubic home.
Instantly he stiffened, then tumbled down the polished hull.
Below him, the eight Natives screamed and died.
Those who ran to help them were caught in the current and died. Those inside the ship, not knowing they were insulated from the danger, rushed out to see what was happening, touched the hull and died. The entire hive was gravitating toward the charged puddle. Three hivebinders cautiously advanced toward the stricken and died. At the same instant the horror broadcast flicked off, and reality settled in around them.
The hive-mind stopped the headlong rush to the rescue of its dead it ml dying. Natives danced around the edges of the puddle, feeling the tingle of electrical charge through the damp ground. Then the generator at the waterfall blew.
A column of black smoke rose from the generator shed, but the Natives didn't connect that with the cessation of deaths. They circled the puddle, sniffing and babbling at each other.
The colonists picked themselves up and congratulated each other as they gathered their dead.
// Why?// It was Krinata, scrubbing at her face with her hands as if to dispel the last nightmare. //Why did Terab let them do that? Jindigar, two people killed themselves to deliver a relatively minor blow to the hive. Why?//
Jindigar plucked his cross-check linkage pattern apart and reassembled it into a standard global search. It wasn't an Out-reach's function to Formulate such questions, but Darllanyu was only a split instant behind her with the correct formulation.
It didn't lake long. In the houses and in one barn that had been designated a hospital, people lay tossing helplessly in the grip of Krinata's Fever. In less than two days, while the Oliat had struggled to recover, fully a quarter of the colony had come down with it—and a dozen bodies of all four ephemeral species had been laid out for burial.
Several were infants.
But no Dushau. Some ephemerals must feel the Oliat has deserted them because we don't care–the fever hardly touches Dushau.
Krinata's thoughts flew toward Cyrus and the Outriders. //Krinata, take care. Outreach must retain exterior contact.//
//I'm sorry. I've got to know!// She got to her feet again, making for the door. Then she stopped. //Jindigar, please!//
It took every bit of discipline Jindigar had to keep from flickering the Oliat awareness into a search for the Outriders. //Of course, Krinata. Take your place.// He waited for her to resume her position as Outreach, feeling what it cost her. His Oliat might be doomed, but Jindigar wasn't going to throw their lives away by laxness in the most basic safety rules separating officers' functions.
At the very instant she reached her position he broke, and opened the linkages wide in a full global search for Cyrus and the Outriders.
He found them together, in Storm's cabin in the outer courtyard of the compound. Storm was seated on the bed, knees gathered to his chin, arms tightly binding himself together as if he might fly apart from grief.
In the crib beside the bed the Lehiroh's baby lay, unbreathing, a flush of fever still suffusing the skin, though the features were slack in death.
Cyrus leaned weakly against the doorjamb, blocking the door into the adjacent room. His upper lip was damp with beads of sweat, and his shirt showed dark stains. "Maybe this doesn't help," he said, "but I'm glad his mother didn't have to live to see him die. It would have killed her, Storm. Ruff, you tell him."
Ruff was bent over the tiny body, tenderly composing it for the burial. Only the slight trembling of his hands showed the tightly coiled emotion within him. But as Cyrus spoke he glanced up at his human colleague, left his job to one of the other co-fathers, and went across the room lo him. "Cy! You shouldn't he out of bed! We can't afford to lose you too. Think of Krinata – -think of the Oliat."
Storm roused himself to gaze at the two, and as Ruff eased himself under Cyrus's free arm to help him back into the other room, the front door rattled to an insistent touch. One of the other humans opened it, then stepped back, asking, "Threntisn?" His eyes shitted. "Isn't that—"
"Chinchee. Yes. May we enter?"
"We're quarantined," called Storm.
"I have had the disease," announced Threntisn, "and Chinchee is unlikely to acquire it until it mutates again."
Storm waved them inside, saying to Ruff over his shoulder, "Put Cy to bed and see that he drinks more of that concoction that brings the fever down."
Threntisn glimpsed Cyrus and stopped them. "This concerns you, most especially Cyrus. When I heard that you had contracted the fever, I knew it would endanger the Oliat. They have not Dissolved yet, but when they prepare for the effort, they will become aware of your condition. Krinata will be affected—the Oliat could be endangered."
"We've told him that, but he won't stay in bed," explained Storm, casting a frustrated look at his human colleague but paying no attention to Chinchee.
The Native, with his hivebinder on his shoulder, crept closer to the infant's bed to look down on the stillness there. He watched the Lehiroh who was wrapping the body. Solemnly the Native gestured in the air over the baby, then relaxed as if a grave but necessary chore had been completed. Finally he turned to study Cyrus, comparing him to the infant, comprehending at last that the adult human had the disease that had killed the infant Lehiroh.