Jindigar looked to Zannesu. Shaking all over, the Inreach gathered all his remaining strength. //My behavior shames me. I will not obstruct my Center further. If Eithlarin dies before we can report, she—and all of us—will have died for nothing.//

Jindigar replied warmly, //You have nothing to apologize for—I'd have done the same had it been Darllanyu.//

He said through Krinata, "//We must report before the Gifters attack.//" Hearing the words she spoke, Krinata twisted to look at Jindigar—saw him covered with crawling amoebas and quickly closed her eyes. //Attack?!//

//I'll explain.// Jindigar gathered them back toward the doorway where Storm's crew formed a living barricade in front of the Dushau Outriders.

He sent Krinata up beside Cyrus, who was nursing a hand bloodied as if he'd smashed it into Cassrian chitin. //Krinata, I must stay open to Eithlarin's condition. If you sense any change, pull back. I may have to act suddenly. Can you handle it?//

// Yes. If that stuff is just Venlagar making like a microscope, I can ignore it. It's not nearly as bad as a Holot with bad breath trying to choke me.// It was pure bravado. Her stomach was in knots, her head swimming, her knees weakening, and her neck was aching like fire. But he wasn't going to let her know he saw, for she valued her image of competence, if not in front of him so much, then in front of the others.

He scanned the crowd gathered tightly beyond the Outriders. People were tending their injuries and peering into the shed to see what was happening.

Zannesu had a firm grip on the linkages, while Venlagar anchored them to reality. The Oliat became aware of the buzz of the Gifter hive up on the plain growing ominously, while the corn blight festered rapidly in the warm sun. There wasn't much time.

Jindigar addressed the crowd in Krinata's voice, describing what they'd discovered about the Gifters and how the Holot must pay them. "//As soon as they see you preparing a pond for them, they will understand. The hive-mind is primitive. It sees its interaction with us as a kind of mating dance. As long as our moves are of that dance, they will respond without hostility. We teased them with a pond and took it away. Now we must provide them another.//"

A burly Holot male Jindigar recognized as one of the ex-Imperials pushed through to the front and called, "Why should we take your advice? We took your advice before, and look what happened Why did you bring us to this crazy world? To starve our children and torture us to death?"

There was a rising growl of agreement—not all Holot, either. "//This is not an insane world. It holds no grudges, knows no vendettas. But we are guests here and must abide by our host's customs. The Oliat is learning those customs. We havemade errors for which our lives may already have I men forfeited. Would you ask that of us?//"

A Cassrian voice, double-toned and reedy, untrained in Standard speech, called, "We demand it! You've destroyed us!"

"And they've saved us!" answered a gruff Holot male. It was Irnils, Terab's mate. A general wave of agreement supported him, especially among the Lehiroh community.

Terab on me forward and roared them to silence. "We can't afford civil war! Last night we voted to go with the Oliat's advice one more time. I say we get to work on it right now!"

Terab began to lead an exodus toward the stairs, to retarget the energies of the crowd, but the Oliat called, "//Terab, wait! We also know how to stop the blight.//"

The Holot soldier edged away from Irnils. "Don't listen. We can't trust the Oliat. They wouldn't answer me the first time I asked! It took them this long to think up a lie!" It was the Holot who had choked Krinata, his fur torn out in patches, a bloody gash showing on his cheek.

The past-time axis played back what the Holot had been yelling at Krinata, when she couldn't hear him. He had demanded a cure for the blight and a way to keep it from spreading to the Holot crops. That's all.

//Easy, Krinata. He's no monster. Just scared.//

Ill know,// answered Krinata, swallowing hard and facing the real Holot before her, not the distorted horror that had attacked her from the depths of the Oliat gestalt, part Holot, part gray-furred ape.

Terab commanded the crowd's attention. "The Oliat couldn't answer because they were working—and never has any Oliat taken on a harder job! Have you ever heard of an Oliat working with double-guard before? Have you ever seen an Oliat with Dushau Outriders before?"

Jindigar glanced at Storm. Obviously his Outriders had taken it on themselves to instruct Terab.

The soldier outshouted her. "They just wanted to put o» a good show after getting us into this mess. You can't trust a Dushau;—they don't care how long things take. And what kind of Oliat has a human in it?"

Argument erupted everywhere. The crowd, now swollen by those who had dragged themselves out of the pond, was about evenly split between doubters and supporters of the Dushau. Jindigar took that moment to say softly to Terab, "//We don't have time for this. Terab, listen. You must commandeer the Lehiroh cooking oil.//" And he told her how it must be applied to destroy the com blight, and how to supplement the Lehiroh diet until the next oil-nut harvest.

By then the shouting match showed signs of new violence.

Inside the shed, Trinarvil called, "Jindigar's, you've got to refocus! Now!"

But it was too late. Without warning the wiry link to Eithlarin stretched, then thinned to gossamer. That which was the essence of Eithlarin hurtled off around a dimensional corner.

The Oliat's sevenfold balance leaned askew–as if the Oliat would pour through the hole in space left where Eithlarin had been.

Zannesu cried, //No!// and dove once more into the void after his mate, dragging the Oliat faster into oblivion.

//Venlagar!// called Jindigar, //You must transform to In-reach – let Zannesu take Receptor to hold her! Krinata, you must not interfere!//

Dimly Jindigar was aware of the Dushau Outriders moving them back into the shed. Storm's crew jostled the crowd away from the entry to close the doors. He felt Zannesu grasp the plan to transform Offices and acquiesce as Venlagar took up the linkages—for Zannesu was already half into the Receptor's Office, straining to Receive his mate. As the transform took effect Venlagar gripped the link to the Receptor and kept Zannesu from following Eithlarin.

As the link to Hillarie became more elusive, and the two officers flipped their links end for end in the dance of-transformation, Jindigar—wholly inexperienced at doing this from Center fought to keep his Oliat from shattering, certain that the strain would pull his very body apart.

He was hardly aware of his Outrider pushing him down onto a cot. He heard a smothered whimper from Krinata on the adjacent cot. He rolled over and reached for her, feeling her bewilderment. //Steady. We're going to be all right.// The human skin was clammy, and she was trembling—a different sort of nervous reaction in a human but still dire enough: plunging blood pressure. Shock.

He gathered her to him, reinforcing their link, opening to her as if her skewed sensory impressions were no threat to his precarious grip on sanity. Then he groped for his new Inreach. It was a peculiar sensation, rippling unsteadily through the contacts. The transposition hadn't been properly done, nor was il yet wholly complete.

And the five-axis perspective in time and magnification confused things even more, threatening Krinata's sanity. //Yen– lagar, Zannesu!// He called them to their new Offices and threw everything wide-open to reach for Eithlarin, using that barest whisper of a linkage to complete the Oliat pattern. He ignored the shimmering static that came down his Protector's link, drowning out the last trace of the shaleiliu hum. Krinata's strength was fading. In three desperate, rough maneuvers he slammed them back down to groundstate awareness—here and now, macro-conscious.