Farfetch

"He understands this discomforts you and apologizes," said Jindigar. "You can get dressed now."

But at that moment the attack began.

Alarm ripped through the hive, furred warriors scrambling through the central chamber. Then there was a low hum and a whump that shook the air. Chinchee crumpled, screaming in shock. He'd seen one hive destroyed starting just this way and had barely overcome the horror. She moved to comfort him—then the fire went out.

Jindigar's voice cut over the general racket. "They've closed the ventilation cha

That was the last Krinata heard, for everyone began screaming. The children, who had gravitated to her when darkness fell, now squirmed and kicked with their sharp chain-edged hands, forcing Krinata to let them go. She stood, sweeping her arms about, calling, "Shorwh! Find your brothers! Shorwh!" She nudged a piol with her foot, and it bit her shoe, howled, and scratched at her bare leg.

A sudden image flashed across her eyes—a wild beast eating her leg while she still lived. Revolted, she kicked free and ran, smashed into a sled's cargo, slid around it, and ran into the dark, smashing at whatever touched her.

It was one of her worst nightmares come true. Images screamed into her mind, seared her i

Scrubbing at her eyes, she peered through the mental images, as if fighting off a drug, seeing double, swallowing panic, and finding reality more horrible than nightmare. She lay prone at the head of the down ramp. Beyond, the door closing the entry tu

But these marvels of technology were not wi

Such victims were writhing and screaming on the floor when Krinata first saw them. As she watched, their comrades broke ranks and turned their weapons on each other. The tu

A trooper fell close to her, wrenching off his helmet, which had been eaten through. She was riveted in place.

Before her lay Desdinda, face twisted in madness—unmistakable in her hatred. No. It's a hallucination.

The knowledge didn't help, even when another tortured, dead trooper turned into Desdinda before her eyes and seemed to rise, an animated corpse closing on her. No!

In panic, she lost control, and the images roiling at the bottom of her mind swamped her reason. She was sur– rounded by Desdinda, chased by Desdinda, possessed by Desdinda, and worse yet, Desdinda was perfectly correct.

How could she have missed this obvious truth? She ran, blinded by the searing light, into blackest dark, pursued by grotesque horror, and became the very horror that pursued her. No! part of her screamed, but was swamped by the power of focused nightmare made real.

Then, before her loomed the huge indigo shadow-form she knew so well. He thought he was such a righteous priest of Aliom, but he was just a dirty Invert. That hadn't mattered until he tricked Grisnilter into surrendering his Archive to him. Now she knew he was out to destroy the Dushau species.

Jindigar! Madman! Predator! Fiend!

For all that was good and clean in life, for her children and their children, she attacked, willing to expend her life, her very existence, to remove this ultimate threat. Enraged, she fought with all her strength.

But all of her strength was as nothing before his might. He held her at bay easily, toying with her. She was no threat to him. She was helpless in his grasp.

Helpless. Falling helpless into void. Desdinda's snarling face spun before her eyes, an ethereal mask depicting the gutted ruin of a soul, a reflection of her own visage. She clawed at her face. It's not me! Not me! The helplessness! The helplessness! / hate it!

Krinata squirmed and turned to beat at the Desdinda image, bent on destroying it, but feeling every blow on her own face and body—as if she were both of them.

"Krinata!" Jindigar's voice.

A spear of bright sanity lanced through her. Her eyes saw Jindigar standing before her, clutching her arms in his big hands, holding her bloody fingernails away from herself. His bulging eyes were glistening in the white floodlights from behind her. His lips were moving, but it was a while until she heard his words, as if his voice came from lightyears away. "Form in triad with us! It's the hive doing this to you. Form with us! They won't touch another group-mind!"

She fought that seductive lure, knowing he meant only to destroy. Then she thrust aside that absurdity and reached for the fulfillment of triad. Oh, yes, it's been so long!

The familiar triune consciousness blossomed, and for a moment, the multiple images of Desdinda, whirling about her head and chattering in madness, faded away.

Peripherally she felt Frey shivering under multiple stresses, Jindigar calming him, while the war was fought in the tu

"We can't—"

"Traitor!" Desdinda rose. "We can too!" Sick to death of helplessness, ignoring Frey's keening wail of pain, she possessed the triad and Inverted. ,«

Frey screamed, voice and mind echoing hollowly as she used him to cha

Krinata, no! Jindigar shattered her focus. Again he'd rendered her helpless. How could you strike back at someone who gutted you of all power over your own life? You could only hate—and deny. This isn't me. It's Desdinda!

Frey's ragged, tortured scream seared through her mind and body, flowers of his pain blossoming within like sonic bombs. / can't, I can't! Let me go! I can't! But she couldn't let him go. His scream lasted forever, and when it was over, there was only blackness. Void. Falling. Out of control. Beyond help. Hopeless. Dissolution/death.

Down and down, world spi

The whirlwind took them. It stretched their bodies to a transparent blur, wrapping them around and around its own core, smearing them until their substance mixed and became Desdinda. They'd been triad, one had died, and still they were triad. Mad, warped, dying amid Jindigar's terrified screams. "No! Oh, no! I can't. No! I won't!"

She came to, snug and warm, cozy, happy, safe in the infirmary bed Arlai always allotted to her aboard Truth. So many times now she'd succeeded in saving Jindigar's life but nearly killed herself, and Arlai healed her. Those were always the best times, and she looked forward to it now.