Before huge, carved seawood doors—bathed by a falling sheet of water—she was stopped by guards unawed by her.

They were a pair of Holot: six-limbed, heavily furred, formidable. "Public viewing of the robing chamber," said one, rolling his 'r's and gazing disdainfully over her head, "will recommence in the morning."

She fingered the jeweled wand and her belt. "I'm the Kamminth Oliat debriefing officer."

"Third rank enter the audience chamber from the blue doors, that way." He'd seen her three-circle badge.

"Thank you," she said, turning away while taking the leptolizer from her belt, "but I have business within." Before the Holot could block her move, she spun and flashed the beam of the leptolizer at the sensor plate on the doors. She wasn't sure it had been keyed to that high a security clearance, and if it hadn't she'd be in real trouble.

But the doors opened. She darted between the hulking guards. Furry arms grabbed her about the waist and shoulders, and she hung suspended, gazing into the opulent backstage robing chamber.

Three male Dushau huddled protectively around a single female seated in an all-form chair before an open fireplace where green flames danced welcomingly. On the spiral pattern of the rug before them, Jindigar sat playing delightedly with a piol pup, wholly absorbed in the baby animal's discovery of the world. Sternly, he commanded it to sit up, and it lay down. The other Dushau laughed, but Jindigar shot them a quick glance, they quieted, and he repeated the command patiently. The pup sat, and Jindigar laughed, plucked it up and cuddled it.

Jindigar, like the other Dushau, was dressed in the shapeless white shirt and pants of the infirmary while against one wall stood a rack of archaic Dushau formal wear.

The guards started to creep backward and close the doors on the scene. Krinata squirmed. "Put me down!"

As the piol licked his face, Jindigar turned to the doors. He rose smoothly, striding forward. In unmistakable welcome, he called, "Krinata!" His eyes, set wide and high on his head without protecting ridges, lit with hope.

The guards paused. One of them muttered, "That's the first he's spoken to anyone."'

The other answered, "Our hides if we abort him!"

They hastily set Krinata down, and she offered her hands to Jindigar, in formal ritual. But he scooped her up with one arm, the other protecting the rooting and snuffling baby piol, and buried his face in her hair, holding her as if from desperate physical need.

He was shaking, and the dense indigo nap that formed his skin was cold and damp, not warm and dry as usual. She'd never been on such terms with a Dushau; never expected to be. But after her initial startlement, she felt his bone-deep fear and hugged him in reassurance, trying to imagine what Kamminth's had been through to bring the always self-possessed Dushau to such straits.

And an odd thing happened. Behind her closed eyelids, she saw the chamber as it had once been: newly gilded fretwork, plush new upholstery, too-bright colors. It was as if she were looking into an infinite stack of transparencies of the room, each one only slightly different from the one adjacent to it. But as she watched, the top one of the stack slid aside, and the others followed, fanning out like a deck of cards. Then images scattered chaotically in every direction. Her head swam, her stomach rebelled, and raw terror blossomed as an infinite chasm opened within her.

She gasped, forced her eyes open, and focused on an odd stain on the wall beside a chipped bent grille. I'm here; U is now. She clung to that thought desperately, and her heart slowed.

Within seconds, Jindigar's fit abated and he withdrew, offering his hand formally. "I'm sorry. I'll explain." He glanced at the Holot, and his indigo features changed.

Turning she said to the guards, "That will be all. Thank you." She was amazed her voice didn't tremble.

They hesitated, then retreated and closed the door.

But Jindigar didn't offer his explanations. Instead, with that distant—frightened—look on his face, he pleaded, "Krinata, what has happened here?"

She gazed at the instrument in her hand, at her scarlet tunic, bloused black pants, black boots. Oh, yes, things had changed since Kamminth's had departed for the unknown,

"Just after you left, food riots devastated the Vincent and the Shashi Route Interchange Stations which made the Tri-Species Combine threaten to secede from the Allegiancy. Rantan Lord Zinzik took charge with all the legendary dazzle and charm of his several-times-great-uncle, Emperor Turminor, and put down the riots, provided food supplies from nowhere, and convinced the Tri-Species Combine not to secede."

Krinata met his eyes, trying not to inject her personal bias into the news. "People compared him to Turminor. Since Turminor was the last Emperor before the throne was vacated, they said Rantan was his obvious successor. After all, Rantan was doing as miraculous a job as Turminor had—and Turminor brought eight decades of prosperity.

"After three hundred years of doing without an Emperor, people were saying the Allegiancy needed a new Emperor. Suddenly, Rantan was crowned. He reinstated aristocratic privilege, and even I got promoted without earning it first. Nobody seemed to understand."

As she spoke, Jindigar's expression lightened to comprehension and the underglow of fear dissipated. "Of course! It's so obvious!" He set the piol on top of Ms head where it perched, happily grooming itself. Then he said something Dushauni to the others of his Oliat who relaxed along with him. To Krinata, he added, "I'd have grasped it sooner but for Dissolution and having to..."

To spare him, she offered, "Finemar told me why you had to go back to being Outreach." Jindigar had been the first Oliat Outreach she'd ever debriefed. It was only after her third debriefing of him that he'd shifted to being Receptor of his Oliat, and she'd thought she'd never speak to him again. Only the Outreach of the team could bear the stress of talking to outsiders. Right now, the other three survivors of Kamminth's were withdrawn around Kamminth herself, their Center. And Jindigar had maneuvered Krinata so her back was to them. In essence, she and Jindigar were alone.

"Do you understand Dissolution? You haven't been a programming ecologist very long."

It wasn't an insult. Her ten years seniority was but the blink of an eyelash to a Dushau who could expect to live ten thousand years and had already lived over six. "I suppose I do, as well as any non-Oliat." She named the books she'd read on Oliat function, and courses she'd taken. She didn't confess how, since girlhood, she'd lulled herself to sleep at night fantasizing that she was in an Oliat, exploring a new planet, the ends of her nerves humming with the living vibrations of a thousand life forms, instinctively understanding their interrelationships. Her current job was the closest a human could ever come to that.

"An impressive list of credentials. I'd no idea..."

"I told you I was serious about getting an appointment to a new colony. I want to work as an Oliat liaison."

"You have my vote," he said cutting her off, "if you can learn to handle traumatic Dissolution in the field."

Her heart leaped. Vistas of hope for her career opened where there had been only a dead-end job. "I know I can."

He watched her intently, one hand straying to her cheek for a moment before he yanked it back. "I'm sorry," he said again, then, "Krinata, I can talk to you. Do you understand what that means? Do you know why?"

"Because you knew me when you were Kamminth's Outreach?"

He nodded. "Partly." He turned away, taking the piol off his head and setting it on the floor, as he perched on the divan on the other side of the hearth and motioned her to join him,