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Chapter 41

The decision-body was in a state of frantic activity. The binding was nearly out of Moramaharta's control now. So much coming in, so many facts and revelations to assimilate and judge: first the discovery of the Outsider stronghold, then the thought-link with the Outsiders on their homeworld, and finally the shocking message from Or!ge at the Hope Star: (Peril, peril . . . Lost Ell found . . . mission lost . . . hope lost . . .)

(Cannot be,) Lenteffier murmured. (Cannot be. A misunderstanding.)

(The image is clear.) Gwyndhellum said. (Binder, replay.)

And Moramaharta summoned back the image from Or!ge. It came relayed through a seeker aboard a rescue-lander: Senslaaevor's dying thoughts as he and his crew were torn apart by a bewildering, demonic force, and his shocked realization that it was the Lost Ell that were killing him—surely not the ancestors they sought, but a twisted and mutated race driven by an almost inconceivable hatred. Senslaaevor's knowledge had come only moments before his death, and the same followed true of the seeker. An instant after he'd relayed the image to Or!ge, the rescuers themselves fell under attack. The image in the end was of chaos, the crew losing all center and purpose, and destroying not only their (ship) but themselves.

If one fact had emerged from the ruins of the image, it was that the quest was imperiled, not just by the Outsiders, but by the Lost Ell themselves.

The meditation was awash with confusion . . .

(Whoever they are, whatever they are, they are brethren no longer!) Gwyndhellum's declaration rang through the Circle with startling force.

Something reverberated in the back of Moramaharta's thoughts, and he knew that a truth was emerging, a terrible truth; he had suspected it before but had not known how to prove it, had almost hoped it to be false. And that truth was that it was all a mistake: the Hope Star mission, the war with the Outsiders, the quest. What the Ell had hoped to find would not be found among the Lost Ell, certainly not among those hideous forms that were a mockery of the very memory. And yet . . .

Something in that contact had reverberated in his mind, something in the very fury of their attack. He couldn't quite pinpoint it.

He felt Dououraym's thoughts flicker toward him. (They are . . . there is in them . . . such . . . evil.) Dououraym said. (Where could such malice come from?)

(Can the memory be so wrong?) another asked.

(Perhaps it is not the memory . . . perhaps we were not the only ones to suffer a tar'dyenda, a Change.)

Unsure what he was doing, Moramaharta guided the meditation toward the notion that echoed in his thoughts and would not be stilled: (The rage, the hostility, must be felt to be understood.) He sensed Dououraym's hesitance, but it had to be done; and from the binding, he wrought:

 

*

Seek out the rage and feel it.

*

Feel it as Or!ge felt it.

*

As the seeker felt it.

*

As Senslaaevor felt it.

*

Seek the rage and make it your own.

*

Seek the rage and know it.

*

 

Dououraym whispered a warning. (You will break the binding.)

(A binding can be remade. Hope cannot.)

As Moramaharta channeled the Circle back into the fury of those images, he felt Dououraym's inner gaze following him.

 

* * *

 

It was like nothing the *Ell* had ever felt. Even diminished through the relay of several minds, the savagery of the Lost Ell was incomprehensible. What words could describe the malice, the envy, the lust to destroy? And yet this power, so un-Ell, had cut with such devastating precision through the Ell defenses, had sliced to the center of Senslaaevor's mind and the seeker's as though it had always belonged there. As though it knew its way.

And it was not just the cunning, but the congruence, the terrible resonant undertones that betrayed them as relatives, torn asunder by the centuries and by the Change . . . and there, in the center of the fury, the question spun as though suspended in space:

 

*

Is this a part

*

of what we were?

*

 

Before an answer could emerge, there was a tremor, and a vortex spiraled into existence in the center of the binding. It was from Lingrhetta and Alert Outpost—and in its center there shimmered a connection to the Outsider world, to this race that called itself Human.

(I must share,) Lingrhetta called. (There is danger to the quest.)

Danger? To a quest that had already failed?

An unexpected image coalesced: a battle in space, Ell forces attacking a Human outpost. A thrill passed through the Circle, a lust for battle rising as they witnessed !!Ghint and his (fleet) evading the Human defenses and striking . . .

(Good!) . . . (It is good!) cried the members of the Circle . . . Until Moramaharta whispered sharply, (We are feeling these emotions?) A shock wave of reaction rippled through the Circle. These were not Ell emotions, even in battle.

Lingrhetta showed them the one through whom they were viewing the conflict—a Human whose mind was filled with fear, fear such as Senslaaevor had felt before his life was torn from him. They saw the Human fear, smelled it, and when Lingrhetta opened the channel, it thundered into the Circle like the sea into a tidal bore.

The Circle struggled, gasping—and rose up out of the fear—but to another surprise. There was not just one Human in the connection, but several, and something else: not exactly Human, but faster and more agile, maintaining the connection. And . . . there was an El in the connection, through the Human link, a prisoner in the outpost that was being attacked . . . and from him there was quiet expectancy, a readiness to die.

(Still there is more.) Lingrhetta whispered. He shifted the channel, and what exploded into the Circle was something for which they had no name. (Muzik,) they heard. (And dants.) Humans creating tonal sounds and moving their bodies in rhythmic patterns, in what appeared to be a strangely chaotic form of meditation. Dououraym started to ask, but Lingrhetta simply opened the floodgates and let images and feelings of the Humans, and one Human in particular, swirl through the thought-vortex and into the minds of the Circle:

A Human named Ramo . . . leaping and spinning, carried by an energy that was more than his own, more than that of ten Humans, or twenty . . . he was aware of the Ell, but the spirit of the musicians and the other dancers swelled in his heart, crowding out all else . . .

 

* * *

 

The binding disintegrated with the overload; the meditation slipped away, but not before Moramaharta had felt an inexplicable change at his center, a sensation that surely had meaning, if only . . .

But he had no time to ponder, because he found himself staring across the circle into Dououraym's eyes. "Would you confer?" he asked; and as the other members looked on, he rose and followed Dououraym to one of the side alcoves. They sat facing each other, Dououraym, eyes shadowed by jutting brows, studied him.

"It is," Dououraym said, "a far more critical situation—"

"Indeed."

"—than we imagined. I speak not of the loss of the mission—"

Moramaharta lidded his eyes, opened them.

"—but of what was felt. During. After. In the connection with the Outsiders. With the Humans." Dououraym fell silent. Moramaharta was on the verge of offering a meditation-link—since they had, after all, certain unfinished business between them—when Dououraym spoke again. "There was something in what we felt . . . in the Human meditation . . . that seemed to resonate with what the memory says we seek. Do you agree?"

Moramaharta considered, longer than he needed to. "Yes."

"And did you direct the binding so?"

"What was shown to us was shown. I knew no more than you, or the others."

"And yet you suspected."

Moramaharta brought his nails together silently. "I suspected only . . ." He paused and restructured his thoughts. "Something in us was touched by what we felt. Something I . . . suspected . . . but did not know." He angled his gaze toward Dououraym. "Earlier, you questioned my belief. My direction. What now?"

Dououraym gazed out to where the other members of the Circle were waiting. "You are the binder. Can you create a new binding?"

"Of course. When the Circle is ready."

"Now?"

Moramaharta puffed his membranes. He was exceedingly tired. "Yes," he answered finally.

"Reach Lingrhetta again. We must know more." There was an urgency to Dououraym's voice. "This activity of the Humans . . ." He paused, as though his thoughts were shifting track. "And there is—"

"!!Ghint?"

Dououraym's nails rasped along the smooth wood of the alcove railing, leaving a scar. "We are attacking an outpost . . ."

"And !!Ghint is out of contact until the battle has run its course . . ."

"He cannot even receive a thought-vortex until he regroups to focus his energies . . ."

"And we may be about to destroy," Moramaharta said, "the very thing that we seek."

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Framed