In the Aliom Temple, the fire was still burning in the hearth by the door. Jindigar hung his slicker to dry and cut across toward the door of the Oliat quarters before he noticed
Darllanyu, wearing rough-worn field clothes, standing at the edge of the marriage circle, her indigo skin like a black shadow against the white gravel. She tossed gravel back into the circle and dusted off her hands. Jindigar paused, suspended between the urgency of Krinata's illness and the aching hurt tearing at his mate.
Darllanyu turned, and her eyes drew him forward.
"Dar—no. Not now." Suddenly he hated the Priest's disciplines that gave him the strength to deny her.
"You must Dissolve—or Dismiss me, at least. Perhaps Trinarvil can take my place. I can't do it, Jindigar."
She was closer to the critical point than he. He had counted on that to pull him into active Renewal quickly, the swift rush of hormones forcing them both over the threshold into acceptance of this alien world. But—"Trinarvil is still too ill. If I let anyone go, it's Dissolution—and the Holot children will starve."
"Zannesu convinced us of that—after you left. I thought– I thought I could—but—I can't. Wisdom is to know your limits. I'm a danger—to all of us."
/ can't, wasn't usually in Darllanyu's vocabulary. He recalled how she'd looked when they'd found her outside the hive up on the plateau. She and Cyrus had been the only survivors of Avelor's Oliat. She'd been emaciated, too weak to walk, but she had recovered her spirits before her strength. Within a few weeks she had joined another Oliat, of Jindigar's fabrication—and lost two of her fellow officers to death-trauma during the battle against the Imperial troops who had chased him and Krinata to this world. And then the pentad remaining had accepted Jindigar and Krinata to become Jindigar's Oliat. Darllanyu had endured more than anyone could expect, and that had catapulted her into Renewal. If she said she couldn't, she couldn't.
Jindigar tore his eyes from the white circle and gestured his acceptance of her evaluation. He had to go on, with or without an Oliat. He could not reach Completion if he abandoned his responsibilities. So she would have to find another mate—this time. "I want you, Dar, more than I've ever wanted anyone. But I'll arrange a Dismissal."
The loss heavy in him, he turned to the Oliat room where Krinata lay. Zannesu was wiping Krinata's face with a cold towel while Eithlarin massaged her feet to stimulate her natural disease defenses.
"She's worse. Did you get it?" asked Zannesu.
Jindigar produced the injector and the medical kit and let Eithlarin administer the injection. "Dar is resigning."
That created a stir. The barricades Jindigar had erected to partition the Oliat were holding—almost too well. Venlagar wilted onto his bed. Of them all, he was the farthest from active Renewal, which was why Jindigar had placed him as Receptor. "Then we can't go on," sighed Venlagar.
"Not as an Oliat," replied Jindigar.
"You going to try to hold a hexad?" asked Llistyien, her incredulity leaking through the barriers to Jindigar.
"It does sound absurd," agreed Jindigar.
"How long can a Center work so unbalanced?" asked Venlagar.
"Ordinarily, quite a while," supplied Zannesu. "But not under these circumstances."
Jindigar watched him but didn't ask if that meant he'd not stay with a Center who was trying it.
Venlagar asked, "Can we find a Holot infant food that won't attract clickerswarms fast enough so you can rejoin Dar?"
"I doubt it. A hexad isn't as fast as an Oliat."
From the doorway Darllanyu spoke, lips compressed. "Using pensone, I can make it–at least to find them some food."
Jindigar let the shock wash through him, hardly daring to let himself shudder. Pensone would suppress Renewal, and they did have some. But the side effects—Dar might be rendered permanently sterile. She'd surely have trouble conceiving or carrying to term this Renewal, for pensone would leave her less able to absorb nutrients and could cut centuries off her lifespan, if she survived the withdrawal of the drug. Psychotic or suicidal behavior was not unusual when going off pensone. And those were the mild effects. "That stuff is poison!" Somebody whose life was Complete might dare it, but... Jindigar admitted to himself that he'd waited six thousand years for a child of hers—he could wait another thousand if he had to, but the idea of losing the chance altogether hurt too much.
Venlagar intervened in a level tone, knowing, as they all did, why Jindigar was not reacting as a Center. "Naturally Jindigar feels threatened by your suggestion, Dar." He turned to Jindigar. "But I think we all know that this mess is our responsibility. It isn't as difficult for me to say this as for the rest of you—so I'll say it first. So long as I can hold so much as a duad, I'll continue."
Zannesu looked into Eithlarin’s eyes over Krinata's flushed, freckled face. But Eithlarin spoke for them. "What if we continue to make mistakes?"
"We probably will." Jindigar told them everything Terab had said, finishing with the nightmares resurfacing among the ephemerals. "With the fine balance you gave me yesterday, I should have known that would happen, and I should have found another way. This Oliat at its best is not trustworthy. Trying to rectify the error that brought the clickcrhive may only make matters worse." He wondered what Terab would say when he reported that the Oliat was the source of their trouble. He doubted if any ephemeral hail ever heard of an untrustworthy Oliat.
Krinata's eyes drifted open and focused. Disoriented by the adjournment, feverish, she accepted the cup Eithlarin held for her but asked vaguely, "What happened?"
Jindigar sighed as they all launched into different explanations. In the end, it would be up to Krinata. After a taste of what Oliat balance had done to her health, she might not be able to face it again. But if she withdraws–Dar won't have any reason to destroy herself with pensone.
THREE
A Simple Job
The Holot infant was fretting miserably with hunger, her six limbs thrashing against her mother's body despite the blanket muffling her downy form.
Jindigar had assembled his Oliat in the Holot cave for this operation. The vats for making the slurry of curdled herbivore milk to feed the Holot infants were clean now; all the putrefaction caused by clickerhive beast droppings had been steam-cleaned away.
Under no circumstances would the committees of the other species allow the Holot to continue making their baby food. Jindigar had reported, through Krinata, just how and why the clickerhive had descended on them. They had accepted that the Holot food had lured the animals, but they discounted the Oliat's role in the original error. Ephemerals regarded such fallibility as a norm, refusing to take it as a sign that the Oliat had gone as far as it could.
"Jindigar," Terab had said, "people resent the Oliat for quitting just when you're needed most. They're beginning to distrust Dushau altogether."
Terab had recounted the acrimonious interspecies rivalry at the joint committee meeting, declaring that if the Oliat couldn't find a solution to the Holot problem, the colony would surely split. She was Holot, and emotionally involved, but even so, Jindigar believed her. He had brought his Oliat into the field once more, knowing this would only convince some ephem-erals that they were quitting by choice, but also knowing that, as Krinata had insisted, "If the colony falls apart, we may as well not bother to survive Dissolution—because we won't live long."