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


Old, basic drills taking hold, Jindigar sought his Outreach's linkage and opened to it, reinforcing his Oliat's
baseline. Her human vision showed the cave walls, gray with glints of white and blue. The vats shone
bronze. The fire spread a radiance by which he could see Venlagar holding the Holot babyтАФand he
could feel Krinata's arms cradling the infant's warm softness, her innermost being melting into a nearly
orgasmic yearning for a child of her own, something she had never been interested in before.

Venlagar, under the confusing onslaught of the disintegrated balance, staggered backward. Krinata
caught the baby up from Venlagar's grip and whirled to stare at Jindigar, eyes glittering, mouth open
showing pale white teeth and blazing fury, as if he'd violated her most sacred being. //How dare you! Get
out of my head!//

Around them, officers reeled, sagging to the ground, caught by their Outriders, whose touch would not
be felt as too intrusive. Darllanyu, gravitating toward the child, got her hands onto the infant, blasting the
linkages with a Formulator's perception of the baby's need. Krinata pulled back possessively. Jindigar, all
his being wanting only to touch the worldcircle energies of Dushaun, nevertheless drove himself toward
the infant, wondering briefly if he was Center enough to save them from this.

Krinata wrenched the baby from Darllanyu's grasp, heedless of the infant's slashing claws, but she pulled
too hard. She staggered back, stepped on Cyrus's foot, overcorrected, and lunged forward into Jindigar.
Clutching the baby to her to protect its fragile body, she twisted aside as they all fell, toppling Storm with
them.

Despite Cyrus's effort, Krinata's head hit the floor. The human vision dimmed, as if Krinata were losing
consciousness. Then everything went wild.

Fighting panic, Jindigar found himself isolated outside the Oliat linkages, detached as if surveying his own
Oliat from some astral vantage, connected to them only by a slim thread. And Krinata was at their Center
now.
His officers, thrashing in panic themselves, clutched at the artificial Center as if she were their own.

She knew little of that. Her whole attention was on Jindigar floating bodilessly in some other dimension.
There was an urge in her to snap that tenuous link to Jindigar and send him to Incompletion-death. As I
once sent Takora.

Will paralyzed by that thought, he was unable to plead with her. In all of his dealings with
Ontarrah/Krinata he always ended up at her mercy, helpless, seriously wondering if he had . earned
Incompletion-death by virtue of stupidity. All his fear of this entity burgeoned upward, and it seemed an
insanely rational fear.

Then, with a mind-wrenching twist, without time to think that this was death, he fell into the familiar Office
of Outreach. In that moment the shaleiliu hum surged through the OliatтАФ Krinata's OliatтАФwith a brash
new power, zooming their awareness in on the single point of harmony between Phanphihy and the
Holot's hunger, restoring a shaky attunement to the planet.

The locus was on the plain above the cliffтАФa hive of pollen-gatherers whose main staple was the sticky
pollen now being produced by the abundant grasses. From this, a certain tree sap, and their own saliva,
they made a syrupy suspension of nutrients for their own useтАФand as a gift to make allies. The Gifter
hive, alive with spring's furious activities, was bound, as all Phanphihy hives, through a sensitive group
conscious-