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

Now he used the whule sound to adjust the tensions of the linkages, as if he were tuning whule strings.
For the first time he felt each of his officers actively reaching out toward one another, hungrily seeking the
full precision awareness. The harmonics grew stronger than they had ever experienced. Frustrated, he
knew that if they had another year, they might make a real Oliat out of the half-trained pentad that had
grudgingly accepted Krinata and himself to form this shaky heptad calling itself an Oliat.

As the whule sound died off, the soundless subsuming chord remained and grew to permeate their
awareness. It was the first time that had happened for his Oliat, and Jindigar marveled at the new
sensations claiming him. His Oliat was in perfect harmony with the universal carrier wave, and in that first,
very precious, moment he experienced the very definition of shaleiliu: not jut congruent or harmonious,
but a precision attune-ment to life itself.

His eyes met Krinata's, and they shared a memory: the day he had struggled for hours to define shaleiliu
for her and had finally reminded her of the time she had questioned him about the purpose of life, the
nature of death, the spiritual and material structure of reality, the origin and end of existence, and his
identity within that structure and process, and he had responded by showing her a hologram of a lightning
flash accompanied by the whule chord. "That sound is the shaleiliu hum and expresses the relationship
among all those concepts.

It is the sound lightning makes when it propagates through air. It is the carrier wave that indicates that the
universe is constantly being created and sustained." He had told her, but she hadn't grasped it.

Now tears of joy stung her eyes as she discovered what he had meant. He had served in many Oliats, so
the chord was familiar to him, but from Center it was far more intense, for only the Center was aware of
all the forces they observed and how each was a perfect harmonic of the shaleiliu hum.
Fully possessing his Oliat at last, feeling very much closer to Completion, he let his awareness spread.
Outside the Aliom Temple, many Dushau waited for the signal for the weddings. They occupied a
grassed area within a circle of saplings that separated the Historians' Temple from their own. The crude
log buildings had survived the winter admirably, but they planned to build more permanent stone
structures as soon as possible.

Beyond the temple square, spread the Dushau compound. Close by was housing for those not in
Renewal and an embryonic business and manufacturing district. Off to one side an interior wall protected
the Renewal compound where housing was already being built with children, schools, and attendant
services in mind. The entire Dushau area was now enclosed by a palisade of logs overhung by tall shade
trees.

On the other side of the Aliom Temple, at the far north corner of the Dushau compound, was the inner
gate, and beyond it, the enclosed area where they traded With ephemerals. From the outer gate of the
trade area, .two graveled paths led to the houses where the other four species of the colony dwelled.
Farther to the north were the fields, barns, and corrals. Today, smoke rose from the kiln as pottery was
fired, and the moisture-laden air carried the scent of the tannery from across the river.

The Oliat's perspective showed them all this at once, while they were peripherally aware of the cliff rising
over the colony's west side and the river winding by at the eastern border. The river came so near the
Dushau back gate that they could hear its rain-swollen current as well as the raging waterfall that
cascaded over the cliff nearby, turning their one electrical generator, then feeding the river.

Beyond the northwest edge of the colony, an area at the base of the cliff was packed with the skeletons