"Lichtenberg,.Jacqueline.-.Dushau.Trilogy.02.-.Farfetch.(V1.0)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lichtenberg Jacqueline)

"It'll hit in less than an hour. I'm going back down as soon as Gibson gets here. Can you help him with the lines?"
"I'll do my best."
He sprawled prone at the edge of the cliff and pulled Gibson up. A quick exchange and the Dushau was over and down the rope as if it were a staircase. She used all her weight and all her remaining strength to help belay the rope as Viradel made the climb. The human woman lay panting, limp with exhaustion, until the male Holot joined them. Krinata couldn't imagine how the six-limbed Holot had climbed a rope, but he had. And he was strong enough to help others up and over the edge. So Krinata retreated to look for the cave. They were on a rocky slope dotted with scrub and small trees.
The bushes had stalks as thick around as her thigh, polished to a gleaming dark red surface. Picking her way beyond the bush, she confronted a solid wall of darkness. A few more strides and the dim lights and cries of the group were swallowed by the roaring dark. An irrational terror rose to a scream clogging her throat, and she turned and stumbled back through the wildly lashing branches to the edge of the cliff where the others worked.
Feeling like a silly child scared of the dark, she clung to the puddle of light where everyone leaned over the edge to watch the Lehiroh begin raising the sleds.
Krinata joined them. The four Lehiroh had stationed themselves along the rope at intervals, one foot braced against

the cliff, the other wound into the rope, one hand free, With much shouting they got the first one into the air. Prey rode atop it, piloting it neatly.
He was on the edge of the sled nearest the cliff, so he could work the controls. A mooring line was looped around the taut vertical rope and passed from Lehiroh to Lehiroh as the sled rose. The ferocious wind pulled the sled this way and that, but Frey compensated while the Lehiroh played the sled like a large fish on a line. In minutes the sled landed a good distance from the edge, the only damage a loose tarp.
Fourteen times they repeated this performance, with much shouting, cheering, and congratulating, making it look easy. Frey and Jindigar took turns riding the sleds, Frey piloting the second-to-last sled with Trassle and Allel aboard. Jindigar, after some argument with Frey about risking his life and thus the Archive, had descended to bring up the sled with the malfunctioning controls, then- water sled, insisting it was vital and that he was the best at this sort of maneuver.
Krinata couldn't tear herself from the cliff edge as the process began, even though her vantage point was downwind of the rope and she had to squint into the dense hail of sand just to make out the vague glow of the lightsticks.
The Lehiroh who had shouted confidently through the whole operation were now as calm and quiet as a medical team in the midst of the most delicate part of an operation.
The sled, with Jindigar clinging to the long side, turned to the cliff, finally rose from the murk like a marine creature surfacing into the light. It was moving much slower than the others had and had drifted to the end of its tether downwind. Clinging with one hand, Jindigar was working the controls with singular concentration. Krinata fought that battle with him, her whole will focused on bringing him and the sled safely to them. She could see it there already

in her imagination. Her yearning made the vision so real, she couldn't quite believe what she was watching.
Storm, stationed near the top of the rope, called authoritative directions to the Dushau, but his words were suddenly torn away by a roar as a wall of wind hit the river channel. As darkness engulfed them Krinata glimpsed the sled capsizing, the cargo dangling by the restraining ropes, Jindigar hanging from the side by one arm, the whole sled straining upward, pulling the mooring rope, the climbing rope, the four Lehiroh, and the tree to which the lines were secured upward and toward Krinata.
Then she was left in utter darkness, wind pressuring her like a giant wave, devouring her. Without thinking she reached out in a way she'd never been taught, groping for wider awareness. The triune consciousness she'd learned to treasure as well as fear bloomed within her, and instantly it lit with the vividness of her imagined visionЧjust as Jindigar had taught her to do when they'd Inverted their triad to escape from the Emperor's flagshipЧand she saw Jindigar on top of the sled, and the sled right side up on the ground.
For long-drawn moments her image was the palest ghost of the reality she sensed, and time after time, a rush of despair weakened her. But each time, she caught herself up and redoubled the effort, her whole will behind it. They couldn't afford to lose JindigarЧthey'd all die here. She was not going to let Desdinda's ghost rob her of Jindigar, or Jindigar of the good life he'd earned.
Suddenly resistance weakened, and she commanded the triad, forcing Frey to channel her vision and make it real. Her vision etched over reality and was solidifying when her guts churned with a gloating triumph, gratified by power at last. Desdinda!
In a fit of unthinking panic she flung all her strength

against the menace. To no avail. Frey, nerves afire, screaming pain, squirmed and fought the grip on him, reflexes slamming against her invasion. Krinata, determined, reached for Jindigar. Abruptly, something flipped inside out.
She tumbled into a black abyss, bright points streaming past, out of control, terror vanishing into numbness, just like the time she'd spun away from her tether in deep space. Phobic paralysis gripped her.

THREE
Scars
There was a warm weight on her chest, and a rough tongue licked her face. She smelled the odor of piol fur and felt the sharp prick of claws kneading her chest.
She was in a cool enclosure, a cave, lit only by the dancing orange flame of a camp fire. The air was pungently moist with the aroma of soup. The roof was low. There was barely room for all the people curled, huddled, or sprawled on the sandy floor amid piles of cargo. Dim beige light filtered through cracks around the cargo piled at the entrance, but fingers of dry wind pried into the cave. Gusts produced an eerie, whining howl, above the constant dull roar.
Krinata's head hurt. The rest of her body seemed to have been chewed on by something with sharp teeth.
At last she gathered the strength to shove Imp aside. He promptly curled up by her left ear and began grooming her hair. She discovered she was lying on a sleeping bag. Then it all came back to her, and she levered herself up on one elbow, trying to sift reality from nightmare.
Jindigar was propped against the wall beside her right shoulder, a white bandage wrapped around his forehead like the turban he often wore, and his napped skin was mottled with darker indigo patches, bruises and abrasions. He assured her, "Yes, you're alive."
Relief was followed by awareness of a lonely, single feeling she'd suffered after the triad had been dissolved the

first time, not the walled-away feeling that had come when Jindigar and Prey had joined to read this planet. So even the duad was gone. "Where's Frey? What happened?"
"He's finally asleep." He gestured to the other side of the fire. "I think he'll live."
His tone bespoke an ordeal she didn't dare ask about. Raising her head a bit, she could just see Prey's indigo head outlined against a bright sleeping-bag liner. He was curled in a near-fetal position, shuddering with each breath.
She looked back at Jindigar. "You're all right?"
"Banged my head when they finally fished the sled down."
"The triadЧI shouldn't haveЧI nearly killed us. OrЧ Desdinda did. I only meantЧ"
"To help? I thought you understood that every time you balance triad, you evoke the Loop, and Desdinda died wanting nothing but to kill us all." He hugged his knees and looked over them. "What do you remember after Desdinda hurled you into the Archive?"
"Is mat what happened?" How could a ghost do that? She remembered the sled capsizing, a surge of heightened awareness as the triad bonded them, and a chance to right the sledЧpain, Prey's pain, then horror. "I dreamed I was out in space again, falling away from Truth into the galaxy." There was a stray image, a pond and a huge, improbable figure.
"The ephemeral mind is amazing." There was a thread of his normal delight in that, but a pall hung over his spirit.
She tried to raise herself, but her vision blurred and pain seized her. Against the noise of the storm, and in the semi-privacy of the heaps of goods, their voices had gone unnoticed. But when Krinata's head poked up, Shorwh, the oldest of the Cassrian children, whistled. "She's awake!"
There was a stirring on the other side of the fire, and

Storm came around, saying reproachfully, "Jindigar, you promised to call me when she woke."
"How's Terab?" asked Jindigar, starting to get up.
"She's fine. Sleeping," answered Storm, pushing him back down. "Sometimes I envy the Holot constitution more than the Dushau! Arlai would have you under sedation, you know." He turned to inspect Krinata's head.
She realized her skull was swathed in bandages and explored them with a finger. "What happened to my head?"
"You hit it when you fell."