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But she rushed on. "Terab, we misjudged the Gifters for the same reason we
have no business trying to balance at all. Too many of us just aren't well
enough to do this work." She tossed a defiant glance at Jindigar, as if to say
he should be ashamed for doubting her discretion.
But Jindigar was just as unhappy to cite physical illness as an excuse for the
inexcusable. Many another Oliat had performed at and beyond the brink of
death. Besides, none of them were really ill. Yet he would not contradict his
Outreach. "The fact remains, we did bring the Gifters, and they have killed
Cassrian eggs." He recalled the moment when they had grasped the solution to
the Holot's problem, and that had somehow communicated to the Gifters'
hive-mind. Krinata's grip on the Oliat failed before they could deep-check
that decision. That was no excuse. He had sent word not to molest the Gifters
bringing baby food for the Holot. He was Center. He was responsible. He
sighed. "It is reasonable to expect the Oliat to rectify the mess we've made."
"Terab, if we have to convene again," said Krinata, "the Dushau too near
Renewal will have to take a drug which may impair fertility or worse. If
they'd used it before, maybe we wouldn't have fumbled that reading of the
Gifters, but they didn't because the damn drag can destroy them."
Terab swore a spaceman's oath. Staring, she muttered, "I didn't know a drug
could delay Renewal."
"Side effects make it useful only in a life-or-death situation," Jindigar
volunteered. "This seems to be one."
"Jindigar," said Terab seriously. "Don't let them do it. We'll cope with this
somehow."
"How?" challenged Jindigar flatly.
"I don't know, but if people knew "
"Would they believe?" asked Jindigar.
"The problem," said Krinata, "is that people don't take Renewal seriously.
They think the Dushau just take a long vacation and expect the rest of us to
support them while they indulge their whims. It isn't like that, Terab. Almost
half the Dushau are deathly ill right now, and even so, they are working
double-shift days, driving themselves mercilessly."
Solemnly Terab commented, "You're the only one who's ever seen any evidence of
that. All we see are the fine products that come out of the Compound, the
Dushau who come to teach us crafts we've never heard of, or the Oliat silently
performing miracles behind the wall of Outrider guards." She fixed Jindigar
with a stare. "If this colony is going to work, I think those walls have to
become permeable people have to see that you're putting as much into this as
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we are, that you take equal risks. Then maybe I can get them to pull together
and solve this blight problem."
Jindigar couldn't imagine what more they'd care to see than they'd seen in the
cave an Oliat collapsing in the middle of a task. That wasn't a rare enough
sight for them? Of course, it seemed to them that the Oliat had survived. "Do
they have to see someone die, Terab?"
"Don't go getting ideas! I'll not be having any sacrifices around here!"
But what else could reconvening his Oliat be but a sacrifice?
Someone would die this time, and when it happened, perhaps he, unlike Takora,
would be quick enough to cut the links and free his officers to their own
fates.
There was surely no other answer to be had. He had plumbed the depths of the
Archive tracing and found nothing. He couldn't just sit and review the same
two minutes of history over and over while the colony starved and worse,
loosed into this innocent world a microlife construct unsuited to the world,
perhaps uncontrollable within this ecology perhaps creating another disaster
such as Eithlarin had witnessed on Vistral.
He took a deep breath and let it out, then said, "I'll need the lab specs on
that fungus, then we'll want to view the Cassrian hatching pond -and does
anyone have specimens of that blighted corn?" He swung around to meet the
gazes of Llistyien and Venlagar. They knew, as well as he did, that they had
no choice.
SIX
Break-in
While word of the new crisis spread through the Dushau community and delegates
went out to confer with ephemerals, Jindigar and Krinata spent the evening
studying the lab work on the pond infestation and the fungus. Even without a
Sentient computer the ephemerals had taken only a few hours after discovering
the pond invaders to mutate and produce the fungus from a stock fungus used
for pest control purposes on many Cassrian worlds. It should have been safe.
But something had gone wrong.
Phanphihy just doesn't want us here?
When Jindigar found his thoughts drifting in such a perilous direction as if
the Phanphihy delusion were taking hold of him as it had the Imperial
troopers he laid the study aside and went to talk to Trinarvil. He found her
in her office with Zannesu and Eithlarin, discussing the side effects of
pensone.
As Jindigar entered, Trinarvil broke off and looked up. "You're determined to
take them into the field again?"
Jindigar replied by reciting his findings. "We must consider our options very
carefully," he said. He spoke directly to Zannesu, who had prudently taken a
seat as far from Eithlarin as he could. Both of them now had inflamed
fingertips, just as Jindigar did. He put his hands behind his back. "I won't
demand this of anyone."
"One dissent and we don't go?" asked Zannesu.
"That's right," answered Jindigar.
Trinarvil closed the folders before her. "Blood chemistries show that pensone
will increase Eithlarin's break-in phobia. She's unstable, Jindigar, and
Zannesu is such a close shaleiliu with her that he resonates to it."
"But Zannesu also stabilizes her," Jindigar pointed out. "We must rest before
deciding. Trinarvil, could you run blood chemistries on all of us tonight?"
She pushed to her feet and leaned over the desk. "Certainly, but I can tell
you the results right now. Inconclusive."
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