Dushau

The pouncer attacked. The fisher abandoned its kill and flew at the pouncer. The fight raged back and forth across the meadow, Krinata living each side simultaneously. The fisher won, finally gutting and pecking at the pouncer's entrails. She cut off the pain/triumph and focused on the animal species population statistics on her screen.

"What would happen to this land with both these species exterminated?"

The grasses withered, the streams and lakes expanded, eroding the soil. She felt an inward searing desolation.

"Could we build a city here?"

A city sprang up—as the Oliat knew it must look if built here. Shiny buildings repelled the oppressive summer heat, vehicles swarmed through the air and on the ground, surface transports roared in with produce and provisions for the thriving metropolis. A canal was dug to cha

"Show me how this city fits onto the world map. Let's see what this world would look like fully developed."

Years flew before her eyes as the Oliat extrapolated how habitation would spread and shift the planet ecology. She felt the ideal site for the spaceport, and how building it there would turn a swamp into a desert within a century. She saw how they'd have to fight the sand to keep the ships moving, how slender a thread the economy of that planet would hang from as agricultural export was their only means of buying the technology of the galaxy.

But it was no worse than anyplace else.

"Show me the life a typical settler can expect ten years from Opening." An instant before it appeared on her screen, an image of a hillside farm etched through her mind and she was there. A prefab house flanked by standard outbuildings stood in the center, shaded by the remains of a grove of trees. The blue and mint leaves were falling; they had a peculiar but lovely odor. In the distance, she could hear the buzz of a reaper harvesting a field of noddies—grass with heavy seed pods. Fruit trees stood about the house. A small kitchen garden thrived behind the barn. There were already three silos for the harvest. Tamed native animals romped with some human or Lehiroh children while a couple of men and a woman labored over an outdoor grill to prepare a supper for the fieldhands. Peace soaked her nerves.

The area seen from above revealed a community of farms which pooled their resources to buy and run harvest and planting equipment. A good life; Krinata revelled in the deep personal satisfaction, the peace and joy never found on an urbanized, industrialized planet.

Oliat perceptions extended, she walked toward the farmhouse. A part of her mind complained she was sinking too deeply into the dream state, and searched out a question: What dangers lurked here in the wilderness?

Suddenly, the sky was swept with darkness. Purple, black and yellow clouds boiled up from the horizon. A fu

A roof beam landed amid the children, smashing one of them, spattering Lehiroh blood on the others who were swept away in the wind to be deposited grotesquely on the porch, battered but still alive.

"No!" yelled Krinata.

But dream had turned to nightmare. The roaring, battering monster corkscrewed toward her, sucked her up and tried to tear her limb from limb, and then dashed her indigo body into hard, infinite pain.

She woke to see in the holoimage before her, a stalwart Dushau female she knew immediately as Taaryesh, Kamminth's Outreach, sprawled brokenly against a tree.

"No!" she shouted again, ripping the contacts from her skin, trying to get to Jindigar. "Tully!"

Jindigar groaned, arched backward in a spasm, then curled on his side, moaning in long, shuddering sobs. He was wailing in a keen voice by the time Krinata got to him. The other two Dushau were clutching each other helplessly,

Damn my imagination! Just let him be all right, and I'll never let it loose again!

The doors burst open and the Holot guards converged on the Dushau.

FOUR

Mistake

"What's going on!" demanded a deep male voice.

It wasn't the Cassrian guard leader. It was Arlai, superimposed over the data on Krinata's screen. She spared him only a glance, struggling to haul Jindigar's shaking body back from the edge of the recliner.

As the Holot guards formed up around the Dushau, Krinata ignored them and called to Arlai, "We were extrapolating Margo's planet. A tornado ripped through a farm, killing..."

Arlai interrupted. "They've relived Taaryesh's death, projecting it into your extrapolation?"

"Yes," said Krinata, shuddering at the memory of the twisted Dushau female's body. "That must be it."

"Jindigar is in Taaryesh's Office, so he's experienced her death and her loss. Hold him still, Krinata."

Thus warned, she was braced when Arlai used the telemband still around Jindigar's arm to inject something which caused Jindigar to convulse once more. If she hadn't been holding him, he'd have fallen off the recliner.

His breathing normalized, and his eyes opened to fix on hers. His bewilderment gradually cleared, and he whispered, "Krinata. I'm sorry... I'm sorry."

She pressed him back onto the recliner. "It was my fault." The other two Dushau were recovering, a horrible tension graven into their indigo forms, faces buried in then" hands. She stood, one knee resting on Jindigar's recliner, and twisted to ask Arlai, "Are they all right now?"

The Dushau Sentient nodded, but the Cassrian broke in. "I have my orders. This debriefing is declared finished. Wipe that Sentient out of your terminal, Lady Zavaro

She drew breath, offended to her bone marrow. She was on her professional turf, and she was not going to yield this time. But Arlai discreetly withdrew, murmuring apologies for intruding on an ultimate privacy. She stood straight and confronted the Cassrian. "I say when a session is completed." She had no intention of asking these three for more, but she wanted the intruders out of her domain.

"You have enough to complete a prospectus, omitting the final ugly incident of course. These Dushau have just committed an act of sabotage, falsifying imperial records, just as we were warned to expect. We have our orders to carry out, now. Lady Zavaro

"I haven't finished the Raichmat report the Emperor wanted," countered Jindigar, raising himself but suppressing a groan. He rolled to his feet, putting one hand on Krinata's shoulder. "Perhaps I might be allowed another day? And with time, I could complete this debriefing properly."

Krinata fully expected the Cassrian to bow and say he'd relay these wishes to the Emperor. Instead, he motioned to his Holot. They pointed their leptolizers at the Dushau. The wands were emitting the gray haze and high-pitched whine that warned of active weapons' functions. "My orders are explicit. You will come with us."

Jindigar sca

Krinata stood in the middle of the floor and stared at the closed door, all thought paralyzed. None of this should be happening. It couldn't be. Just couldn't.