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

wanted to clutch at the Oliat. Maybe it's just that if I quit now, I'll have failed at Center? His Oliat
had never achieved a precision balance.

If he was running from his personal problems, he didn't know which way to run. But such strident panic
was a primary symptom of Renewal onset, which made him very dangerous as Oliat Center, an Office
requiring precision judgment. The only way to bring it under control was to marry Darllanyu and raise
children. And that settled it.

The sound of a door opening startled him. He turned to see five of his Oliat's Officers enter the Temple
from the temporary living quarters the Oliat shared off to one side of the Temple. They came in, men
circling one way and women the other. They wore the Aliom ceremonial vestments woven from native
fibers, bleached and dyed to symbolize the brightness of lightning, the Oliat signature. Jindigar, as Center
of the Oliat, wore white, symbol of origins and endings, for white light was composed of all wavelengths.

A warmth stole through him. These people had become his zunreтАФcloser than blood relativesтАФfor they
had shared the Oliat bond. They saw with each other's eyes, heard with each others' ears, knew with
each others' hearts. Dissolution would leave them separate but could not sever that bond.

His gaze was drawn to Darllanyu as she led the other two women to seat cushions around the fire. She
glided as if carried on air. The floor reflected her costume, so she seemed to float at the tip of a flame.
Jindigar feasted on the rich indigo of her skin coloring. She seemed like a creature out of legend, an
apparition passing through the world but not of it. How could I merit such a wife?

But he needed her. He dared not dwell on how much he needed her. Then he saw that she wore the gold
arm band he had once given her. His heart swelled with a flutter both familiar and strange until he had to
look away.

When they had all settled around the hearth, Darllanyu strummed random chords on the whule she had
made from native woods. He joined them. His own whule, left to him by his teacher, Lelwatha, was on
his seat, next to Darllanyu. He cradled it in his lap, the feel of the satiny finish of the antique urwood
sending thrills up his arms.

Struggling to subdue his hypersensitivity, Jindigar fought to ignore Darllanyu's faintly suggestive aroma and
not to think about the activities that would be theirs later today. With the inward communication of the
Oliat, Jindigar assured her, //Krinata will be here in a moment. Then we can begin the Dissolution.//

His Oliat wasn't fully convenedтАФfor the past year Jindigar had kept the seven of them divided into two
duos and a trio for training. But the linkages were well enough activated that they all received the
conversation. //You know I don't want her at our wedding. It's bad enough that none of our former mates
are here to officiateтАФ//

Something of Jindigar's hurt must have reached her. She broke off, curbed a soothing gesture, and
explained, //What she does to you frightens me. She's an ephemeral. I don't want to get any closer to her.
We're so vulnerable now!//

Feeling her fear for him through the link, Jindigar knew she couldn't bear to see him hurt any more than he
could bear her pain. And she had good reason to fear. At his last Renewal he had taken an ephemeral
woman, Ontarrah, into his home, and on four occasions even into his bed, because he could not bear to
part from her. His wife and their children had accepted OntarrahтАФeven loved herтАФand had grieved
deeply at her death, taking disabling mental scars. For that he had been exiled from Dushaun until this