"Jacqueline Lichtenberg - Dushau Trilogy 03 - Outreach" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lichtenberg Jacqueline)

That sent a discomforting prickle through Jindigar, and he distracted them back to the job.

Enraged by their dead dropping all around them, the flyers suddenly discovered that their opponents had
become defenseless. As one, they bent to furious destruction.

//How can we attract their attention?// Darllanyu, in the Office of Formulator, had the answer. He opened
to her and let her create within their field of observation an image that was both there and not there. It
was not illusion, for it had been there, and had been real, a year ago and was still part of the colony's
identity, an image lurking in the back of everyone's mind.

Over their perception of the colony, Darllanyu Formulated the dome of a giant hive, a dome of gray
blocks, the dwelling of the dominant intelligence of this plane! they called Phanphihy. Eithlarin, Jindigar's
Protector, added her strength to that projectionтАФfor the hive's dome was its means of protection, and
this image had been a gift of the Natives to be the colony's protection.

Gradually, the fury of the swarm's attack abated, and one section at a time, the flying wave broke off and
swept around in a circle, their instincts confused. Their primitive vision showed nothing changed. Scent
and sound showed nothing changed. Yet somehow the group mind controlling them finally sensed a
wrongness. Their species did not coexist with the dominating intelligence.

The formation swept around and around, clicking loudly, their wings slapping the wind. They formed a
vertical cone with its point right over Jindigar's head. He shifted now, to bring Venlagar's Reception into
play.

Venlagar Received the bloodied corpses and the fierce rage of the offworlder warriors. A clickerhive did
not belong here. Life here would mean destruction.

Jindigar reflected that only on Phanphihy, a planet that was virtually an Oliat itself, could his amateurish
Oliat close the circuit between observer and observed without Inverting the Oliat function. Here even the
lowest of beasts could read other species' perceptions.

Seeking another cave suitable to the clickerhive, Jindigar, directed Venlagar's attention north along the
cliff face. At the extreme edge of their range of perception, a good three days' walk to the north, they
found a deep cave high up on the cliff. Jindigar observed that cave as if they were being tested for an
Aliom Degree, stretching their newly enlarged range to the utmost.

He forgot their problems with impending Renewal, forgot the awkwardness of using a human Outreach,
forgot the pre.-carious condition of the colony, brushed aside the very concept of self-defense, paid no
attention to how this mess was his responsibility, and observed that cave's perfection as a clickerhive
home.

None of them noticed the intensifying of the noon sun beating down on them, none of them shivered when
the cliff shadow engulfed them, and none of them felt the chill spring rain sluicing down at sunset. Around
them, Storm and Cy kept everyone away as the colony resumed cautious movement, tending the
wounded, collecting the dead from under the shadow of the circling cone of death, and retiring under
their roofs to watch from their windows.

The last daylight was fading when the cone of hive warriors flattened, then lifted and began floating
northward, filling the sky with their patterned dance, letting instinct draw them toward a suitable home.