Satisfied with Cyrus's condition, Threntisn turned, saying, us if expecting Chinchee to be standing right behind him, "Tell the Rustlemother here that it will take a while before she sees a change, but – " Surprised that neither Chinchee nor the Rustlemother was looking over his shoulder, the Historian cut off. Helooked down to find many hivebinders gathered in the doorway, observing his every move, reporting to the hivemind. His gaze lilted, searching for the Rustlemother, who was slumped by her fire, apparently asleep.
am he watched, the elderly female toppled to the floor, the platelets that made up her skin rustling audibly and the myriad accoutrements of her office clattering against the floor as she fell
Two warriors and several of the white-skinned craftsmen dashed to her side while Threntisn darted a look at Krinata. "Jindigar’s, you should have told me the leader was sick too! 'This could be our chance!" Looking neither left nor right, he went to a locked cabinet, found a blood specimen extractor, and strode directly to the Rustlemother's side, edging out some of her attendants as he called to Chinchee, "Tell them I am a friend. I will help her."
Jindigar had his Oliat nearly paralyzed in the net of their own linkages, and as swiftly as he worked, he could not disentangle them quickly enough to shout a warning.
The hivebinders could move as fast as a Cassrian when they chose. The entire complement of them in the room, seeing the giant alien using his sting on their Mothering-one, swarmed all over Threntisn and stung him first.
While the Dushau system could handle most toxins with dispatch, the sheer volume of poison brought Threntisn to his hands and knees. The hive-mind, seeing it as an attack by peace-heralds who came to get help—help that was freely given—recoiled in shock.
Chinchee let out an ululating wail of protest and dashed forward, throwing his body into the strenuous contortions of
Herald's speech, begging the hive to halt the attack on Threntisn. But it was too late. Threntisn slid down and lay prone, unmoving"
Jindigar finally unlocked the last crosslink and addressed his Receptor. //We need to monitor Threntisn's life functions– if he still lives.//
Zannesu, understandably off-stride, gave them too much amplitude. Threntisn's vital functions flashed through the Oliat, dominating their own united heart and respiration rhythm. As Llistyien was overwhelmed by the Reception, her Emulation of the effect of the toxin on the Historian's nervous system awakened similar responses in the Oliat.
Jindigar was as helpless in the grip of the toxin Emulation as if he'd been stung himself. Spontaneously the contact with Threntisn became a link. Aghast, Jindigar watched the link transform and deepen of its own accord into a meta-Oliat link, as if Threntisn were the Center of an allied Oliat.
It's the toxin, thought Jindigar, repelling panic. It's just an illusion. Threntisn would not touch Oliat functions for anything in all creation. Me was Historian, through and through, set on guarding and maintaining his Archive. Unless my meddling has damaged something! Jindigar recalled all the times he'd struggled to sift the data properly during the debriefing and how he'd gone too deep into territory he wasn't authorized to tap, when he'd searched the Aliom files for a way to Dissolve– and found a meta-Oliat function.
But there was no time to think. In a flash the new meta-link Fastened into Jindigar, as if attracted to him. The link opened into Threntisn and beyond Threntisn into the rest of the Archive, as if the Archive were Threntisn's Oliat.
A familiar terror gripped Jindigar as he thrashed against the forces that swept him up out of his body and into the intangible regions where Archives and Oliat linkages existed. The thick darkness flowed inexorably, carrying him and his Oliat toward a glowing aperture, an Archive Gate.
Breasting that current in an effort to belay their fall, Jindigar glimpsed the structure around the aperture, a glistening network of colored jewels defining a tesseract that warped away into unimaginable dimensions. Windows on its faceted sides showed scenes that enticed the unwary, for they were traps that protected the Archive from unauthorized entry. They had to stay away from those windows.
Not only had Jindigar once carried this very Archive, he also had worked with its reserved Aliom sections, and he'd debriefed to it in link with his Outreach, who had once been lost in it with him, and, who had, together with him, been rescued by Threntisn.
Now the new link that bound them to Threntisn quickened the Archive with welcome, as if it recognized them. / wouldn't put it past Grisnilter to have taught it to recognize me!
The Gate dilated, inviting Jindigar to enter, to travel the pathways and chambers to the core, to the Archive's Eye, the origin of the Archive, and the point at which all Archives joined, the point at Infinity where all existence touched non-existence, the Historians' fabled Gateway to Completion.
As dangerous as he knew it was, as forbidden as it was to an Aliom Priest, Jindigar was drawn forward by a gripping pang of nostalgia, a need he'd never known was in him. Concurrently he was aware of Krinata paralyzed in the grip of remembered terrors, wanting to break away from the Oliat and flee but refusing to yield to Dushau instinct, which would be human cowardice.
I am Center, he told himself, in Office and working to a purpose. He groped for that solid anchor, struggling to find reality again. And as he found it their headlong rush toward infinity slowed. 11 Must reset Receptor's focus.11
He lifted the Oliat linkages, but before he could reset them, a vaguely familiar disturbance loomed out of nowhere, permeating the linkages. //The hive-mind!// identified Trinarvil.
Simultaneously the hive-mind snatched the linkages out of
Jindigar's grasp, the sudden distortion cutting off the shaleiliu hum, leaving Jindigar stunned.,
The moment Jindigar's resistance slackened, the Archive pulled them in faster. Shocked by the loss of the linkages, Jindigar was unable to check their uncontrolled fall into the Archive Gate. He and his Oliat were swept into the voracious maw of the Archive as if they were just another datum to be recorded, classified, and stored. But, behind him, attached by the nebulous tissue of the Oliat linkages, came the hive-mind, as bewildered as it had been when its members had been electrocuted.
Reflexively Jindigar fought to regain his linkages, acutely aware of the alarming overload of data pouring into Krinata from the hive-mind and of the acute shock overcoming his officers at a strange touch on the links. But the hive-mind was bigger than the Oliat, stronger, older, and determined to survive.
Suddenly it all made sense. The Dushau had come here to protect the Natives, but this planet would tolerate no intruders, just as an Archive would not, just as an Oliat would not. They could not protect the Natives unless they became Natives. Then Jindigar saw the answer. The two Archives, hive and Dushau, must be joined.
He didn't stop to reason it through but acted in the manner of Aliom's "strike," and for the first time it was totally effortless.
Dimly Jindigar was aware that he was using skills he'd garnered from the Observers' level of the Archive, skills beyond him despite his millennia of Oliat experience. He reached out to reinforce the meta-link with Threntisn while at the same lime he offered the same sort of meta-link to the hive-mind, luring it closer until he could repossess his own linkages in exchange for the meta-link, setting that link into the central core of the hive-mind—with a sure, fearless touch. As if he knew what he was doing.