Farfetch

Cyrus took Krinata to the dancing on the fifth night, after her hands had healed. They had to wait for the six-legged Holot to finish before two-legged rhythms were played, the dancing becoming a competition among species, in strength and endurance as much as grace and warrior spirit. But it also seemed to bind the community, for every night a few Dushau joined in as musicians and dancers.

Studying the indigo figures, almost invisible in the dark firelight, Krinata noticed how they eluded all direct confrontation, not flaunting their strength as the Holot did, nor displaying their grace and speed, as the Lehiroh did. Dance was not to them, as to the humans and others, the quasi-sexual ritual of female preening to waken male prowess and lead to sensuous intimacy.

No, there was another energy the Dushau were raising, another way of living symbolized by their dance. They moved among the aggressive shouting and stomping dancers like wraiths, near but not touching, apparently in danger of collision but escaping unhurriedly. They understood the pattern of the dance and wove themselves through it without disturbing it—without leaving a trace. And when they left, the dance was over.

Krinata dreamed of that dance, and what it might become when danced during Renewal, and woke chasing the memory with a tantalizing sense of near understanding. Later that morning, the seventh since they'd arrived, Darllanyu sought her out where she was helping weed a field.

By this time Krinata didn't even notice the curious stares that followed the Dushau visits. Those who accepted her odd co

"You look as if you've already done a day's work," said Darllanyu as Krinata leaned on her hoe, stripping off gloves.

It was only mid-morning, but Krinata had been out since before dawn. "It's almost quitting time. Too hot for humans to work. The Lehiroh crew will be out in a bit." She was supposed to go with Cyrus later, to gather medicinal herbs for the field hospital, in case they survived the battle.

"The roof on the temple is finished, and it's cool inside," offered Darllanyu. Krinata raised her eyebrows, and Darllanyu interpreted that correctly. "Jindigar is going to try the constitution now, and he says with the duad link, it's distracting if you're focusing on this ecology while he's trying to pull an Oliat out of thin air."

She was speaking colloquial Dushauni, and though Krinata didn't follow it all, she asked, "What duad link?"

"The one you're holding with Jindigar."

"Oh," said Krinata, some things coming clear. "Duad."

"Will you come?"

All morning she'd been suppressing an urge to go to the Dushau compound to see Jindigar—knowing she'd be brusquely turned away at the gate. "Duad," she repeated, hacking her hoe into the ground to mark her place. "Can I shower first?"

"Don't take long," Darllanyu admonished, and started back along the furrow. "I'll send Za

The Aliom temple was indeed cool inside, and they even had a fire going. They had plugged all the windows with some fine, dry moss and trickled water into it from a cistern on the roof. The air that came through the windows was several degrees cooler than that outside.

A new ceiling was in place, forming an insulating attic space above rough hewn roof beams, and the giant Oliat symbol had been finished, an X supported at its crux by an arrow point. It stood away from the back wall, taller than a man and twice as broad. Piles of debris still littered the floor, and heaps of lumber for furniture were stacked near the walls. The astringent smell of sawdust from Phanphihy's woods filled the air.

As she came in with Za

Then he saw Krinata and rose to come toward her. He moved like an old man, carefully on top of his feet. She was shocked at how he seemed to have aged. His nap even seemed darker. "I'm glad you decided to come," he said. "I should have come out to see you—"

"No," she denied. "It's all right. If I can help—"

"Well, I don't know. But let's get started and see what happens." He turned to look around the room and gathered attention by calling out the first line of a chant, which everyone answered. The groups coalesced into one, a form that changed constantly, Dushau dance without the structure of the aggressive species, yet bursting with triumph, vigor, and the joy of celebration. Her feet wanted to move in the patterns, but she held back, for they were doing more than dancing. They were presenting themselves to Jindigar for his judgment, displaying skills, a

At the base of the huge symbol was a larger-than-life wood carving of a Dushau hand, the end of each of the seven fingers tapering into a stylized flame while the palm, cupped upward, became a bowl filled with water in which a tiny fish swam. The carved hand was set on a stone tray filled with dirt, and planted as a miniature garden. On another tray hewn from a gorgeous pink stone from a local quarry was an array of local fruits. She'd heard mat the Dushau eventually pla

Jindigar gazed at the ensemble of symbols. "Well, pioneering does require improvisation. The test is whether it works." He motioned to Krinata to stand to one side, asking, "Can you focus your whole attention on these symbols?"

"I can try," she said without much hope. She was much too interested in what was going on, but he was attempting a job he wasn't qualified for, and she wanted to help.

"Do your best," he replied, and turned and went into the space between the carved X and the wall. Singly, the others went behind the symbol to face him. Sometimes their low voices could be heard, but she was more fascinated by the hand growing from the tiny garden, turning to flame. The duad link vibrated, tantalizing her with near insights from time to time, a pattern trying to form, delicate, unstable, guided by that symbolic hand beneath the balanced X which formed the shape of the Oliat array:

ProtectorReceptor

Center

FormulatorEmulator

At one point it seemed that the carved hand had turned from wood to polished indigo agate, and now real flames rose from the fingertips, casting light and warmth on the world cupped in the palm and growing in the soil that nurtured the hand. The plants around the hand had matured, become vines twining around the fingers, shading the pond. Each of the seven flame jets emitted a single musical note, forming a chord.

She had just begun to see how the flames both rose from the fingertips of the hand and descended from the X, tracing out a branched path like a lightning strike, depicting the way all things were of one fabric, when the last of the candidates emerged, followed by Jindigar, and the whole vision shimmered back to reality—a wooden hand, no flames, no obvious significance.

As the candidates had returned they'd divided themselves into two groups. There were six in the smaller group, everyone else in the larger, as the last man came around to the front. He looked from one group to the other as a total hush fell. He turned to the array of symbols and chose and ate a piece of fruit. Then he picked up the platter of fruit, offering it to the group of six, who had drawn closer together. Krinata had learned to .recognize fear in a Dushau, and she saw it now as the last man faced them.