"Not until Krinata's well. We understand."
"No—the Holot infants."
"True—they are already very hungry. But nobody expects you to—everyone knows you can't go on."
"We must—only without experienced Outriders...."
Cyrus had paced along behind Jindigar, knowing that his straggle to revive his speech faculty would be easier with someone he'd known longer. Now Cyrus put in, "I won't quit until Krinata can."
Jindigar was pleased with himself when he was able to turn and acknowledge that. To Storm he added, "Your child needs you. I will accept other Outriders you may train."
"No," said Storm. "One careless step by an Outrider and you might all die. There are others willing to nurse the baby. We'll see this through."
Jindigar knew the others who would take the baby were not of Storm's religion, and it would pain him to give the child up. But Storm generally spoke for his co-husbands, as Jindigar did for the Oliat. Jindigar added, "It should only be a day or two until we find a food for the Holot infants that won't attract another clickerhive."
They had come to the spaceship graveyard, and to the bottom of the ramp leading into the ship they had powered with salvaged parts. As they climbed that ramp, Jindigar turned to survey the colony. More than two thousand had survived the winter. Dushau had brought them to Phanphihy to fulfill the grand vision of Raichmat's Oliat—the first offworlders to explore this planet.
Jindigar had been Raichmat's Outreach, his first exploring Oliat Office. Finding the Native hive-dwellers building a civilization from their multispecies hives and knowing how the hives' psychic gift would be exploited by the fledgling Empire, Raichmat's had decided that, to protect them, they must establish a Dushau colony on Phanphihy. From that idea had grown the vision of the Dushau-dominant multicolony. Though the multispecies colony form had been successful on many worlds, if one species was present in larger numbers, Dushaun had never colonized. Here, however, it was apparent that the multicolony was the only form that could work. And it was time for Dushaun to establish a colony.
But of the seven Raichmat's Officers who had pledged to come here, only Jindigar, the youngest of them, had made it.
No point dwelling on that. Ducking into the open hatch, Jindigar led the way to the medical lab. The room was divided by a counter behind which lab benches were strewn with equipment. He would have preferred to do the specimen processing himself, but there were several competent Cassrians and Lehiroh at work. Storm explained their mission to a white-smocked Cassrian whose carapace decorations showed his military service rank.
The Cassrian's face, though immobile, revealed much to Jindigar's awareness. There was awe for the Oliat and a measure of fear of Cyrus, who had faced down the Cassrian Guard Commander. Nevertheless, the technician extracted a specimen of Jindigar's blood expertly, without the slightest squeamish-ness at handling an endoskeletal arm, then vanished into an adjacent lab to process the specimen for human use.
Jindigar was feeling fine now, so his antibodies for this disease were high enough that there would be no mistake, even though they had no Sentient computer to oversee the process. Waiting in the clean, mechanized environment, Jindigar felt a peculiar relaxation stealing over him, a rush of nostalgia strong enough to take his breath away.
Onset' instability again! But he admitted that the rustic life had already begun to wear on him. He wanted to go home. Very soon now this lab would be gone, and for centuries to come, they would have nothing like it. This is what it meant to be a colonist—not just exile, but exile from the very roots of being.
He shook himself and paced, ignoring the concerned glances of his Outriders as he worked to suppress the Renewal-based alienation. It was the main reason Dushau had no colonies. Deepest consciousness rejected any world but Dushaun itself during Renewal.
After a time, the Cassrian returned with an injector loaded with a vial of colorless fluid, "This should do it if she's fighting any relative of whatever you picked up."
"It's a good guess," assured Storm. "Krinata has spent most of her time with Jindigar."
The Cassrian supplied them with a human-care kit, one of the few left. "If she doesn't rally, try this. But—"
"We know," said Cyrus. "There aren't many kits left."
After the off world supplies were gone, they would have to rely on what they'd learned to gather and process from the countryside. They had quite a sophisticated pharmacopoeia already, but without an Oliat to develop native medicines, the death rate would soar.
The trip back to the Dushau compound was made in an increasing downpour. As they passed through the outer gate, they found a Holot wrapped in a formless slicker pacing back and forth on the porch of the Outriders' quarters. The Holot • was reared up on the hindmost pair of limbs, the upper pair clutching the drenched slicker tight about the head, the middle pair fastidiously hidden beneath the cape.
"Ah, there you are!" called the Holot, and Jindigar recognized her voice—the chief executive of the colony's ephemeral government.
"Terab!" called Storm, preceding them.
By the time Jindigar and Cyrus reached the porch, Storm had briefed her. She pushed her slicker aside with her two middle limbs. The steamy odor of her wet fur around her barrel body assailed them all. The damp bothered the Holot, but the day would seem warm enough to her. "There's a meeting this afternoon in the big barn—and the committees want the Oliat to attend."
Terab was nominally head of the colony's government, but power was spread through committees elected by each species. In designing the structure they had blended ideas from all five species while trying to avoid the dead Empire's mistakes. The result, Jindigar felt sure, would not last long—but it didn't bother ephemerals that things they built didn't last.
"The Outreach is very sick," answered Cyrus for Jindigar. "The Oliat is adjourned, but I really—"
Jindigar stayed him with a hand. "We cannot attend."
Terab made the Holot grimace that bespoke satisfaction. Her snouted face was mobile and expressively beautiful for those who could read it. "I told them as much, but they insisted I come—"
"I'm glad." Jindigar summoned the effort—less now than it had been—to tell her, "I cannot speak to them, but afterward—we must talk."
"There's to be an investigation—why the clickerhive picked on us—why we were caught unprepared—what we can do to prevent it happening again—and most of all, what we can do now to feed our children. There will be more births soon. And Jindigar, half the colony is having nightmares again—of the attack by all the animals of the plains. They wanted me to ask the Oliat if Chinchee and that hivebinder of his are about anywhere, putting ideas in our heads. People have been seeing that ugly gray dome over us.";
"Chinchee is not near—" answered Jindigar, wanting to claim full responsibility. They had re-evoked the hive-dome image. But even with Terab, an old and trusted friend, he could not summon the words.
Storm interrupted. "You'll have to wait for their report on the clickerhive until Krinata can deliver it"
As if it only now penetrated, Terab asked, "What's wrong with Krinata?" They had fought then– way across a continent together, bandaging each other's hurts, calming each other's terrors. Terab was as much Krinata's friend as Jindigar's.
Storm launched into an explanation, shouting a little against the sound of another downpour. Cyrus handed Jindigar the medical kit, saying, "Go–we'll be here when you want us– unless a flood washes us away."