Jindigar confessed, "I was thinking how very, very beautiful your woman is. But, Cyrus, I was thinking your woman."
He turned to walk Darllanyu toward the door, more eager by the moment to reach the Renewal compound to rekindle their marriage flame. But Dar pulled back toward the human couple. "Wait–1 want to say good-bye."
As she stepped back toward them she pulled her gold armlet off. Handing it to Krinata, she said, "I want you to have this. It's been very precious to me for a very long time. Takora– understands."
Krinata held it as if it were a fragile egg. "Oh, no–Dar– you it isn't—isn't it the First Renewal gift Jindigar...?" Her eyes went to Jindigar, and he nodded, wondering how she knew. She shoved it back at Dar. "I can't, really...."
Dar put her hands behind her back. "It's yours, because you have given me another First Renewal—a gift too precious to even speak of." She turned away, then hesitated, adding, "Krinata, you've got to explain it to Cyrus—all of it. He really has a right to understand. And don't forget—my zunre are always welcome in my home." Then she came toward Jindigar, and his relief at that movement was incredible.
Threntisn covered the Rustlemother with a blanket and rose to follow Dar to the door. "Jindigar—wait. There's something something about you—Darllanyu, may 1?" He gestured imperatively, signaling Jindigar to move aside as if he were tin apprentice caught doing something naughty.
Jindigar, feeling too mellow to protest, went, grateful that at last he seemed lo be over the emotional turbulence of onset. Perhaps now he could get on with the business of being their Active Priest and putting the Temple in order for the training of new Oliat. And soon there would be children to teach.
Threntisn cupped his palms around the edges of Jindigar's eyes and peered into them. Out of nowhere there came a peculiar response that made Jindigar flinch.
"Hold still!" demanded Threntisn, his voice sounding doubled.
And it came again, raw, discordant, Jindigar wrenched his gaze aside and turned away, protesting, "Don't—what are you doing?"
Threntisn stared at Jindigar, awe on his face and wonder in his voice. "Are you hearing and seeing double?"
"So what? After what we've been through I'm not surprised."
"Close your eyes."
Trinarvil pulled Zannesu over to watch Threntisn's examination, medical interest overcoming Renewal momentarily.
Exasperated but humoring the Historian, Jindigar closed his eyes.
"Do you sense a bright dot or a spot of light floating off behind your vision somewhere?"
"Well, yes—Threntisn, it may be centuries before we under-' stand what happened to us—it violated all kinds of theory. If we suffer a few nervous aberrations for a while, that's a small price to pay for our lives. Renewal will heal it all. Don't worry."
"Renewal won't heal this," returned the Historian ominously. "Jindigar, that light is a new Archive's Eye, just opened and not properly sealed and structured yet. That's why you're seeing and hearing double—you don't have the training to handle it."
"Archive's Eye..." repeated Jindigar.
"I don't think you appreciate how rare an event this is," Threntisn went on. "It happens spontaneously maybe once in a hundred generations, and then only to trained Historians who have just given up an Archive. It usually happens only when there's been some great pivotal event to—oh." He looked around at the Natives who were gathering to watch the knot of colonists.
Jindigar put in, "I conic from a Historian family. I know what you're saying"
"Can you hear them?" Threntisn’s eyes flicked back to Jindigar, "Does your Archive pick up any of that?"
"No," denied Jindigar, wanting to deny the whole concept. All he was interested in was Dar and raising a family.
"They're saying that this is not a Historical event at all but an evolutionary one. The longest Whole Memory doesn't reach back to when the last species was added to the hive. Now they've added five new species all at once. We are a new thing—a completely new thing on the face of this planet, a nine-species hive. A new Whole Memory—a really big Whole Memory is required."
Dismay crept over Jindigar as he began to believe. "Threntisn, I can't—I'm a Priest, not a Historian. I told you that once before."
"Yes—but as I recall, you also told me that you would become a Historian when I became a Priest. And according to you, I have."
"Apparently. But I don't have the gift of prophecy. That's Trinarvil's—"
He traded glances with the Healer. "You did predict this, Jindigar. We've all heard you say it any number of times when the Historians' persistence annoyed you."
"I'll train you to erect the Archive around your Eye," offered Threntisn, "if you'll train me to handle this duad."
Jindigar surveyed the Natives silently watching them. Through Threntisn's link to the hive-mind they all understood what was going on in their hiveheart. Jindigar agreed to the exchange, adding, "It seems that's the nature of this planet, combining disparate types to mutual benefit. If we wish to live here, we must learn the local ordinances of the Laws of Nature."
But no matter what, I am an Aliom Priest.
About the author
Jacqueline Lichtenberg was born in 1942, three months after Pearl Harbor. She grew up in the fifties with all the potentials of nuclear power and all the sf novels of the horrors of mutation. With a degree in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley, she worked abroad for a while, then got. married and settled down to raise children and write sf novels.
She won early acclaim for her Star Trek fan fiction, the Kraith Series, with a nomination for the Best Fan Writer Hugo, and was primary author of the Bantam paperback, Star Trek Lives! as well as the founder of the Star Trek Welcommittee.
At the same time she was selling stories in an sf universe of her own, Sime/Gen. The second novel to be published, Unto Zeor, Forever, won the 1978 Galaxy Award for spirituality in science fiction. In addition to the three fan-originated amateur magazines dedicated to Sime/Gen, there are now eight novels in the universe, three co-authored with Jean Lorrah, and one Jean Lorrah original. Jacqueline plans many more books in this universe.
Her FIRST LIFEWAVE universe was the result of editorial interest in something other than Sime/Gen, as was the current DUSHAU TRILOGY, and she would like to work in several other universes, as well as trying her hand at television writing.
She is the winner of the 1985 Romantic Times Award for Best Science Fiction Writer and says, "I enjoy blending romance with a touch of the occult and a strong science motif to ask hard questions about life's most basic relationships."
Currently, she runs the Science Fiction Writers of America Speakers' Bureau, and is the one to contact to hire an sf writer to lecture to a group. In her spare time she gives tarot and writing workshops, attends Star Trek and sf conventions, and pursues studies in subjects such as vampires, Arthurian legend, astrology, Star Trek, and Doctor Who. She serves on the Board of Directors of the North American Time Festivals, Inc., which put on Doctor Who conventions, but she has had to put aside many fan activities in order to keep up with her book contracts.