Here the roar of the falls was muted. They piled soft foliage into seats around their fire, and he played.
The whule was a simple stringed, resonating chambered instrument, not amplified. Yet he drew such shapes of sound out of it, weaving them with silences flooded with waterfall and the echoes of the small canyon, that the darkness had texture and the firelight danced in eternal rhythms.
Spellbound, she dismissed the nagging thought that Frey had warned her to keep away from Jindigar, She forgot being a Zavaronne, forgot her short, ephemeral life, and became one with Dushau eternity as if it were native to her identity.
Gradually his music changed, not to a dirge but to a paean to life, acknowledging pain of loss as an essential part of what made things real. He poured his deferred grieving for Rinperee and the other Dushau who’d died in the crash, for Arlai, and Truth, and all they’d known together into his music, and she cried with him, opening depths of herself she’d never suspected, finding pain she’d never known she harbored, hearing within his music the chattering voices of all those lost to them.
The music, familiar yet strange, cathartic, intimate, personal, took her on a journey through soul to confront her God at the gates of death-and-life, to confess weakness and secret failures, and to be accepted, anyway. Hours passed as she sat huddled in her cloak, oblivious to the dying fire, experiencing and wanting only to experience.
As the sun was rising she became aware of a lightness, an inner healing. The grayness of predawn revealed the small waterfall of their alcove filling her vision. The music described every plume, every eddy, every lacy spume tracing rainbows that hadn’t been born yet.
To her the waterfall was the power of life, of all creation. Tingling currents of power swept down through her own body. She could not stop it. She dared not try, for it was eternal and infinite. She was caught within it, and was of it, for all time—as if she’d achieved Dushau Completion.
Once before she’d glimpsed this infinitude where all was lashing energies—once before when Jindigar, summoning his role as Aliom Priest, had shown her the symbol of Aliom—a branched lighting flash, power whipping up and down along carved channels faster than the mind could comprehend—she had known but had been unable to encompass. Now she saw the lightning and the waterfall, and knew them for the same power. It was the power that carried her to a decision-action so fast that she didn’t think or feel. It was what Aliom called a “strike” and Jindigar admired in her.
She could feel his admiration, as if she were Center of an Oliat and he merely an Outreach trainee impressed with her feats of Aliom art. She gathered him in close, and with the illogic of dream, they became a duad, sharing deep resonances of the peace of Completion at the brink of death.
Into the placid euphoria billowed black clouds of fear. Suddenly she was falling, out of control, bewildered by the forces acting on her. No! she screamed out with every shred of her being. But it had no effect. Cruelly battered and buffeted, she careened into emptiness.
No. Jindigar was there—within her and without. His arms circled her, his eyes filled her vision, his perception echoed in her: the granite cliffs, the hives of native life, the networks of plants like protohives, and in the distance, the intruders’ camp like a sore on the land, but over all, the smooth human warmth; tangy odor; silky strands of hair; inefficient ears; hidden, secret eyes.
“No!”
The familiar brick wall shimmered between them. She could almost count the stones mat formed it. “No,” she gasped. “Not the stones, not a wall. No, don’t…”
He pushed away, large hands swallowing her shoulders as he shook her, and the wall solidified. His voice echoed off it, bat it was a groan ripped from him: “Stop!”
The penetrating awareness faded. She fought double vision and disorientation as be pulled his hands away. Just as his fingers trailed over the back of her hand, his soft nap sending shivers through her, she glimpsed the ecstasy evaporating from his expression, as if he’d firmly closed a sensory door. As she caught her breath, he sat back on his heels, chest heaving. His voice made her throat ache as he said, “Such a precious gift—how could a human—no, of course, you’re closer than I, and I—I’m sorry, Krinata, but sometimes it happens. It doesn’t mean anything.”
She had no idea what he meant, merely felt his gratitude for something she’d given him, and shame he hadn’t responded properly. The duad resonance faded even as he spoke, the wall becoming so huge, she couldn’t even sense it. “I could live with anything you do except that wall!”
“Wall?” He cocked his head aside, Emulating human body language like a cloaking disguise.
“When you cut me off,” she explained, recounting how her whole being had clutched at the euphoria his music brought, “I’d have done anything to get back there, because I thought for a minute I’d begun to understand what you are. But I guess I overstepped somehow and touched your duad, evoking Desdinda—the wall is better than Desdinda, Jindigar. For a moment, I felt–clean—of her. But I guess I’m not.”
He listened intently, then commented, “Frey was not involved. I doubt he could have survived that. But he and I perceive our duad barrier as a gulf, not a wall. I don’t understand. The Loop is stronger than ever, yet I’m sure you grieved with me. Didn’t you?”
“I thought that’s what it might have been.” If so, perhaps she now knew how to rid herself of the Loop, though the experience was already fading to a memory of a memory. “You grieved Desdinda?”
“I began when we slipped into duad. It was a strike,
Krinata. I wasn’t thinking. If I had, I’d have known better, for all I managed was to evoke Desdinda while I was too—” There was that flicker of ecstasy. “That’s not a good state to approach a tricky plexus like this Loop, though I don’t usually strike wild. I don’t understand. Tell me again about this wall.”
She described how it built, sounded, looked, felt.
“And when Desdinda threw us into the Archive?”
She described the void, panic, falling, and he was amazed at the processes of the human mind. “When I see a walled structure, you see a void, when I see void, you see a wall. You fear void and Desdinda, and equate them? But Desdinda isn’t the Archive, and she’s not the void.”
She shuddered, awareness of the dead woman heightened. “Jindigar, what did you mean, there are no Dushau ghosts?” If ever anyone was haunted–
“Ephemerals reincarnate, but we do not. If we die before completing a life, we simply dissolve. But if we succeed before death, we exist eternally without need to reincarnate. Madness such as Desdinda suffered can only end in dissolution, as she did. That is a true void.”
She’d read that theory in Arlai’s library but had passed over it without interest. Now it suddenly seemed like the fallacy underlying Aliom philosophy. “But, if she’s really gone, why is she still here?” Not that I really believe in ghosts.
“I don’t know, but the clue must lie in your void. Perhaps if I’d ever served as Center in Oliat, I’d see it.”
“Frey said you’d been qualified to be Center since he was born, and I know even Dushau consider that unusual.” It was a personal question she’d never dared ask before, but she needed to get away from talk of Desdinda.
“One can be Center only once. For the many who’ve not chosen priesthood, it’s the end of Oliat training, and they then seek other paths to Completion. For a vowed priest, dedicated to achieving Completion only via the Aliom path, it’s a supreme test. Those who succeed become Observing Priests; those who fail go to dissolution/death. Success often means remaining Center for centuries, so a Priest takes an Oliat only just after Renewal, for Renewal terminates Oliat. Twice now I’ve avoided taking Center because events during Renewal rendered me unstable. Now I’m facing Renewal again. Perhaps that’s Desdinda’s hold on me, for her death could so easily be mine.” He looked at her bleakly. “I feel panic when she clutches at you.”
For a moment it seemed obvious that Jindigar’s f
ear of dissolution/death would be triggered by Desdinda’s attack on her. But the insight faded, leaving her puzzled but deeply touched, vowing silently to rid herself of the demon for his sake, if not her own. Even if there’s no such thing as dissolution/death. Yet, to her, all death had always been dissolution. Now, amid the echoing residue of the night’s experience, she couldn’t think of it that way anymore.
Life–pervades.
The rising sun had crowned the waterfall with morning rainbows, and the camp fire was dead. Suddenly there was a splash in the pond, and Imp scrambled out of the water with a fish in his mouth. He swarmed up Jindigar’s pant leg, presenting the wriggling creature. Jindigar rose with the dripping piol under one arm, the whule in his other hand. “He says it’s time for breakfast!”
“I’m starved!” she agreed, unsurprised and unfooled by his swift change of mood.
When they arrived back at the camp, they found everyone gathered around the main camp fire inside the ring of sleds. The moment he saw them, Shorwh leapt up from where he was helping Frey gut fish and ran to Krinata. “They let me cast three votes, one for me and one for each of my brothers. And I voted to do what Jindigar wants, and we won!”
Everyone looked to Jindigar. “In that case, we’ll forage, gathering supplies, so you can all learn what’s good to eat and what’s dangerous. Day after tomorrow—”
At that moment the sky lit with a flash that eclipsed the rising sun, and Jindigar yelled, “Down! Take cover!”
The piols screamed, and everyone dived under the cliff. Long moments later, the thunderous roar reached them. Pebbles rattled loose and showered down on them, but their cliff held while something ominous blotted out the sunshine.
When it was over, Jindigar stood and dusted himself off. “Ephemeral Truth has been destroyed—”
FIVE
Hive Massacre
Two days they foraged and learned the idiosyncrasies of the ecology while casting anxious glances at the sky. But it was time well invested, for during the next seven days of hard marching to the end of the river canyon, they barely disturbed the ecology as they passed. Once, Jindigar remarked wistfully that an Oliat might have convinced the local hives to eradicate all trace of their passage.
Jindigar and Frey quested for signs of the Squadron during rest breaks, sure that searchers expected the blowing of their ship to flush them out. As Jindigar explained, “I think they’re searching the trail we would have taken logically. But we’re cutting a circle, treading respectfully among the interlaced network of hives. If we move swiftly, we’ll stay ahead of them until they conclude we’ve all died.”
“But if they pick up our trail—” started Irnils.
“Once they’re on the ground, the hives will probably convince them we could not have survived,” answered Jindigar.
Despite the time he spent isolated with Frey within the duad, Jindigar found time to begin language lessons for the young Cassrians, encouraging Shorwh to help train their voices and leaving Krinata to referee the inevitable squabbles. She didn’t mind. The children refreshed Jindigar so much, and they kept her mind off the ominous nightmares.
Nightly, now, she was having repeating dreams. Usually it started with Jindigar playing the whule near the little waterfall, then, lulled, she’d drift into becoming Desdinda, believing she was the only sane one left able to protect all Dushau by destroying Jindigar and the Archive he’d sullied. But she’d fail and fall into a ruined Archive with scenes of bombed and burned-out cities, cindered worlds, drifting hulks of dead spaceships, scenes from their flight across the galaxy reeling before her eyes as if the pristine beauty recorded in the Archive had been blasted to rubble. If she fought out of that horror, she’d fall back in a terrifying swoop until she was Center of an Oliat, with Jindigar as an Officer, and treacherously he’d turn on her, ripping away her power of decision, rendering her helpless.
Sometimes she woke, fist to her mouth, stifling a scream, then lay awake dredging the evaporating dream for any clue of how it symbolized Desdinda’s hold on her.
They emerged from the valley over a series of rolling hills. Where the river turned west to cut deep canyons with foaming rapids, they filled every container with water, then angled to the southeast.
The duad identified many medicinal herbs, but all too often Jindigar would shake his head, admitting the limits of-a mere duad. Once, Terab became ill on a root-and-leaf soup she’d improvised, and Jindigar halted the column for the day, saying, “This is my fault. I should have noticed that combination would prove to be a strong laxative.”
They used the day to forage. Eggs were plentiful, but Jindigar instructed, ‘Take only unfertilized or abandoned eggs, or a few from large clutches.”
Gibson scoffed, “Dushau may be evolved scavengers, but humans ain’t. There’s nothing wrong with taking what we can find. It’s not like we’re overpopulating this world!”
That afternoon he returned to camp limping, one hand bound up in his shirt. He was swearing luridly. “Frissin snakethings near killed me!” While they were bandaging his wounds he complained to Jindigar, “Why didn’t you tell me them blue wormthings were dangerous?”
“They aren’t,” answered the Dushau mildly, “if you don’t steal their last egg of the season.” Gibson had assumed Jindigar’s motives were human, thought Krinata. A human might impose his morals on others, but Jindigar wouldn’t. He just seemed human because he was a good Emulator.
The next day they emerged from a crease between two hills onto a russet-and-gold grassland dotted with stands of the dark green trees, liberally sprinkled with purple and white flowers. Breathtaking! I could live here! She romped up the hillside with the children and piols, gathering the purple wild flowers with exultation until Terab, climbing to the summit of the hill ahead of Krinata, found another native plaque and called Jindigar.
He summoned Frey, and together they pored over the inscriptions. Just when it seemed they couldn’t decipher it, Jindigar saw the bouquet in Krinata’s hands. “May I?” He took the flowers, savoring their fragrance with a blissful smile. Then, analytically, he held the flowers next to the crude carving declaring that they were of the species drawn there. “This tablet describes the surface water availability by seasons, and gives the water table depths, too. I don’t know the animals, but I’ll recognize them when I see them.”
“It means,” said Frey, “there’re natives on the plain’;”
Jindigar scrambled down the hillside. “Yes, their habitat has spread. It would probably be most efficient if the group camps here tomorrow while Frey and I explore.”
“I’d be happier,” said Terab, the ex-Captain, casting an eye upward, “if we had a less exposed position.”
“Deactivated, the sleds shouldn’t register on orbital sensors. Cast an irregular pattern, and I doubt even atmosphere observation would notice us,” answered Jindigar.
Late the next night, in a driving downpour, Frey and
Jindigar returned with a sketch of the terrain. Gathered around a lightstick under a tarp, they all heard the bad news.
“The natives’ hives are clustered near the hills, in the section just ahead of us and to our left. That’s the area of the most abundant surface and ground water.” Jindigar smoothed the paper and pointed with a damp finger. “Our first idea was to bear south, away from all habitation.” He looked up at them. “But we found an old camp of a Squadron’s ground unit. They were headed east. We could circle west and go around behind them—if there aren’t any more sweeping in from the west.”
Mentally Krinata added, Which a mere duad can’t tell. Storm asked, “Which is worse, to invade the natives’ territory or risk being spotted by the Squadron?”
“There might be no avoiding both,” said Jindigar. “The unit was heading toward a concentration of natives’ hives.”
Viradel challenged, “What danger can a bunch of primitive naties be? We got stunners–”
Krinata answered, “It’s not what danger they are to us, i
t’s what danger we, and our stunners, are to them and their culture. We shouldn’t be on this world.”
“But we’re here,” said Terab heavily. “Unless we decide to commit suicide, we can’t help harming the natives. We just have to do as little damage as possible, because—well, I’m glad we’re here, not dead.”
Viradel agreed. “We were run off Plinshet ‘cause we run a open hostelry—even let in Dushau. We’d be dead now if Jindigar hadn’ta taken us into Truth.” Krinata would never forget the harrowing rescue in deep space when one of the two refugee ships they’d rescued from Imperial pursuit had blown up. She’d never known she had agoraphobia until she’d lost her moorings and drifted away from the scooter, helpless.
Jindigar drew a dry blanket around himself and sat back on his haunches. “This is what we know about the natives. They live in multispecies hives in symbiosis with other hives. One of the species binds all the species in the hive into a single group mind, quick, adaptable, intelligent, sometimes centrally controlled, sometimes not.
“Outsiders attacking a native hive are made to perceive hideous distortions of reality, sufficient to scare off any local predator. But offworlders are harder hit, often experiencing a genuine, personal hell.
“Raichmat’s Oliat was not so affected, we believe, because we were a group mind. Our civilian staff was severely affected, and so this world is judged uncolonizable, though a hive is not aggressive and won’t bother us if we don’t attack them. Frey and I believe the Imperials have attacked some hives, and the others in this region are already gathering forces against the intruders. It’s only a matter of time, and they’ll be forced off Phanphihy.”
“Empty-handed?” asked Krinata. “No* our dead bodies are their ticket into the aristocracy of the new Emperor– or at least to the favor of a powerful Duke.”
“That’s a point,” Terab conceded. “Perhaps we can retreat back up the valley, at least until they’re convinced we’re not here and move on.”
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