//You can't fall in while we're meta-linked,// he assured her, knowing that logic had nothing to do with phobia. But he carefully explained his plan.

Krinata glowed with skepticism, but she moved out into the vaguely defined space between Oliat and hive-mind. Jindigar sent Threntisn out with her, coaxing him into the meta-link with Krinata, urging him, //Now go ahead and explain to the hive-mind what you were trying to get Chinchee to tell them when you were taking the Rustlemother's blood specimen.//

Krinata approached barely close enough for her projection to reach the hivemaster, then, glancing nervously at Threntisn, she squirmed as the other meta-Center spoke through her, "// I —we—want to be your friend, Hivemaster. As I have healed one of our sick, I—we—can heal your Rustlemother and save your Whole Memory.//"

Threntisn twisted to gape at Jindigar. //Save the Whole Memory? Jindigar—how could I follow—be understanding—//

//You're reading Oliat data,// explained Jindigar confidently while he quailed inwardly. He's a Historian! Bemusedly Threntisn accepted that, perhaps still affected by the toxin or maybe absorbing Krinata's unquestioning attitude. As if it were all routine, the Historian formulated a method Jindigar could never have imagined. //Let us show you what is wrong with Rustle-mother, how it was our doing, and how we can cure her.//

With a dramatic gesture Threntisn reshaped the Archive chambers about them, confronting the hivemaster with a panorama of scenes recorded in the Archive, scenes explaining the concepts of communicable diseases, scenes of the development of immunology, scenes explaining the rapid mutation of certain microorganisms so they could cross species lines, and the rapid and efficient control methods available in the ship's lab.

It was a virtuoso performance by a true Archive Master, and Jindigar was about to heave a sigh of relief and turn his attention to how to get them all out of this when the hivemaster rumbled ominously, sending only confusion down the meta-link.

//Llistyien, can you Emulate the hive-mind?//

Jindigar felt her trembling at the very idea, still clenched up tight around herself, expecting annihilation momentarily. But, with Krinata performing her Office as if nothing unusual had happened, Llistyien straightened and brought the hive-master's rumble to the Oliat as a clear expression of bewilderment. As elementary as Threntisn's presentation had been, the hive simply didn't comprehend.

//Dai, are you with us?// asked Jindigar tentatively.

//I'm trying,// she answered, and Jindigar felt the linkage waken. He suppressed a surge of alarm at the clear tinge of Renewal she had been suppressing. If the pensone is wearing off, we've been in here for hours!

//Formulator and Emulator, in tandem,// called Jindigar, resetting the linkages and handing the pattern over to Venlagar. //We have to translate the Archive data Threntisn is presenting into terms the hive can comprehend.//

They had no idea what those terms might be, but Jindigar ignored that and set to work. His Oliat would discover the right casting. Hastily trained beginners, they had nevertheless developed into a fine-tuned instrument. The shaleiliu roar that surrounded them attested to that. This entire trinary Oliat was in lime with some universal force.

//Steady now, and we can handle this,// Jindigar coaxed. Then he blended his Oliat linkage pattern into Threntisn's meta-link. //Show us how the display is evoked. We must translate for the hive-mind.// The Historian hesitated—control of the Archive functions was strictly Historians' responsibility. But then he overcame the trained reflex and allowed them access to the imaging mechanism.

Jindigar worked through Threntisn's touch, schooling himself not to yearn to take control from the Historian. But he couldn't deny it was a long-sought thrill—all that data at his personal command. There was nothing like it in Aliom. And there was something else—some vast, profound insight that beckoned just beyond the tantalizing horizon. It was something Threntisn and all Historians seemed to share, something Jindigar wanted with all his heart and soul. But it was not for an Aliom Priest.

Keeping his distance, Jindigar used Krinata to Outreach the Oliat's translation directly to the Historian, not through linear vocalizing but through a direct, multidimensional interface.

//Jindigar, don't—I can't.// Krinata winced away from the contact, as if it were a deeply personal violation.

Jindigar stanched the flow of data. //Krinata—// But, feeling her reaction, he couldn't ask it of her.

Threntisn shuddered. //I'm sorry, Krinata. I never realized, a human—I mean—//

Jindigar interrupted, III don't think I can adjust that sort of full spectrum meta-link to a narrower channel, but I'll try.//

//We have to do it, don't we?// Krinata asked. When no one answered, because not one of them could ask it of her, she told Threntisn, //I'm game if you are. Afterward we'll just pretend it never happened.//

He looked to the hivemaster, squirming impatiently. The Rustlemother was dying. //Jindigar, I want you to know that a Historian carries just as strict a confidentiality code as the Aliom Priests do. I won't even know that I know anything I get about you from her, until you tell me.//

/ didn't realize–oh. Krinata! But they had to. He worked to narrow the channel, excluding the personal, but it wasn't effective because so much of the understanding of the universe is based on the personal. And how much confidentiality can one expect from a hive that barely comprehends individuality?

Jindigar barely found the strength to continue recasting the images, substituting hive Natives for the people in Threntisn's story, showing which were workers, craftsmen, scholars, and explorers or Heralds. They showed planetary civilizations as hives and microbe species as hiveless marauders. The concept of microscopic life was remarkably easy to get across—the concept of independent individuals simply could not be translated. So Jindigar let the developing science pass as the work of a communion of hive-minds. But he meticulously cast the closing scene in the ship's lab, dirt-smeared floor, campfire, and all just as it was now, with Threntisn in the role of technician, dressed in the belts, headdress, and sigils of a master craftsman.

When they were done, the hivemaster's rumble had turned thoughtful. Jindigar dispelled the crosslink between Krinata and Threntisn, sensing Krinata's relief as his own. He felt almost as if he'd forced her into an intimate act. He needed to break down and beg her forgiveness, pledging to protect her body and mind from any such invasion. The very idea of her pliant body clasped in his arms set him to trembling. Time's running out. I'd better not even look at Dar.

The hivemaster finally stirred, seeming at last to have comprehended their plan to help the Rustlemother. The long cornucopia that was Krinata's image of the hive-mind squirmed about, as if searching for the exit from the Archive.

How does one Dissolve a meta-Oliat? Jindigar had only the vaguest idea, but the standard procedure wouldn't work in this case. Neither of the other two entities were truly in Oliat. If they did "Dissolve," they would totally self-destruct.

Before Jindigar could work up a plan, the hivemaster turned and dived down the throat of his own tunnel-memory, turning it inside out, swallowing himself to turn end over end, lunging toward the Gate at which they had entered, dragging the Oliat behind.

Reacting faster than Jindigar, Threntisn closed the Gate ahead of the behemoth, telling the Oliat, as it drew him along in its wake,//That's not an exit!// He shook at the meta-link joining them as if it were a noisome animal stuck to his flesh by sucker pads. //Let me go! If he breaks out, he could pull the Archive inside out.//