Apparently they could.
But no sooner had she sensed their agreement than Krinata felt the hivebinder reaching through Jindigar to her, to the pentad, and into the Cassrian Commander, then out into the troops: war, destruction, honed reflexes, betrayal by faulty equipment, horror rising out of the innocent plains grass; Chinchee's marveling curiosity, images of the armored troopers invading sanctuary hives spouting fire and destruction. All this spun away in every direction into tunnels of hive-memory. It was too much.
Darllanyu crumpled. Krinata nearly retched with sudden vertigo. Jindigar plucked the hivebinder off his shoulder and shrilled a piercing whistle at him.
The whole mental assault cut off, leaving Krinata's mind a black field that was almost worse than the sensory overload. The troopers were staggering about, hands to their heads, moaning and in some cases screaming. Jindigar bent over Darllanyu as Zannesu wavered over to her. Over his shoulder Jindigar mumbled to Krinata, "They'd better leave."
To Krinata it seemed that the scene in the cargo bay was painted into a screen, unreal, two-dimensional. Her voice sounded recorded, and it seemed she only remembered speaking the words she heard. "Commander, it may not be healthy for your troops to stay here while we work."
He spoke the order to withdraw, his voice warbling into the supersonic. As the troopers picked each other up and straggled toward the hatch, Krinata followed the Commander, saying, "Leave the hatch unlocked, and we'll send word."
"How can we survive, trapped on this insane world?"
"It will become a wonderful place to live," she answered. She'd seen the beauty of the planet, but right now she'd rather be back in her nice safe office with only Sentient computers and mad Emperors to deal with.
The Cassrian was still skeptical as the hatch closed behind t him, and Krinata turned to see people recovering, standing or sitting around the natives. Jindigar stroked the hivebinder on his shoulder and spoke softly to Darllanyu in Dushauni while intermittently gabbling to the native.
Krinata joined them, sitting beside Jindigar, as he explained to everyone, "The only way the hivebinder can deal with this situation is to create a boundmind from all of us– all of us—and use that binding to convince the hives we're not mavericks but controllable neighbors." He speared Threntisn with a glance. "He refused to exclude me. He's intrigued by the Archive; can't believe it's a threat."
Darllanyu said in Dushauni, "We'll all be sucked through the Eye! I'd rather go down to the settlement and be eaten alive."
Krinata squirmed, wondering what she'd do if it came to that, but Threntisn answered, also in Dushauni's technical vocabulary, "No, when Jindigar goes, the Archive will implode after him."
"Jindigar won't go!" said Krinata, also in Dushauni, forgetting the others listening. "You're going to take the Archive and Seal it!"
"I told you—"
'"You can't achieve fidelity,'" quoted Krinata, '"by forsaking Completion.' Nobody here is going to achieve Completion by getting trampled or eaten, so what sort of fidelity can you achieve by refusing to risk taking the Archive?"
Threntisn started to object, but she talked him down, suddenly seeing what the Dushau hand growing out of the little garden, harboring a fish bowl, fingers turning to lightning flashes really meant. Certainly, if she could understand, a Historian could. "Listen to me. What is it you're trying to Complete? Your Identity! What is an identity? It's the sum of all experiences. Nobody, not even a Dushau, can live long enough to have every experience! Identities can grow and become complete only by drawing on other organized systems, absorbing them as a plant absorbs nourishment from the soil, integrating even—or especially– your antagonists.
"Threntisn, this Archive is your antagonist because you're the one who's most frightened of it. Do you seek Completion, or do we all die incomplete?"
Jindigar looked at her, as delighted as if she'd solved a Cassrian puzzle-cube using only her soft-fleshed hands. Then he turned a proprietary smile on Threntisn, showing pale teeth. "I only saw it last night, at the river, and here she has the whole solution without even studying the Seven Schools of Aliom. Threntisn, we've been trying to practice Efficacious Helplessness by knowing only our own Identities. But to be successfully helpless, one must integrate others' Identities as well. I failed to validate your fear; you failed to validate my fidelity. How could we possibly help each other? Reciprocity is a Policy behind all Laws of Nature."
The Historian nodded slowly. "You're right. You've found a truth despite your skewed Aliom approach." He pushed himself to his feet, regarding Krinata with an odd intensity. Then he nodded. "I wonder if Raichmat's knew what they were doing when they suggested a Dushau multicolony?"
Jindigar answered, "No, we didn't. But being right doesn't require foresight; it requires insight."
Threntisn grunted, then offered Jindigar a hand up. "Come, there can't be much time left."
Jindigar set the shellperson on Chinchee's shoulder with a few trills of explanation and accepted the Historian's hand. But as Threntisn turned to lead the way off into the red shadows, Jindigar bent to whisper to Krinata, "I apologize for saying you needed to develop an epistemology. Lelwatha couldn't have done better."
Bewildered, she watched him follow the Historian to the other end of the cargo bay. When they'd first met, he'd said she needed an epistemology, but she'd never followed his advice.
Darllanyu interrupted her. "We must attempt not to interfere. Do you know how to outfocus from a duad?"
She shook her head.
Darllanyu sighed. "The pentad can't accept you, or we'll drag Jindigar—and the Archive—in." Her eye lit upon a box of ration bars, and she seized it. "Here! Eat." She shoved the box into Krinata's hands, adding, "Get everyone to eat. Talk to them—"-And she turned back to the pentad grouping, taking them away into the gloom.
Krinata felt the constant distraction of images from outside the fortress subside, and almost simultaneously the duad link shut down tight, leaving her with a sudden emptiness– a hole where she hadn't been aware of substance. She knew it took Jindigar a great effort to produce that effect, different from dissolving the link. Determined to cooperate even though she wasn't hungry, she took a ration bar and passed the box around, saying, "We may not get another chance to eat." She didn't want to tangle with that Archive again.
There was a stiff silence, then Viradel passed around a water bag, saying, "She's right."
Then the others were all asking questions about what had been said, and Krinata found it so much of a challenge to translate the concepts that she munched the bar and washed it down with the tepid, sterile water and never gave a thought to what was going on out in the cargo bay's shadows until the shock hit like a toothache that spread through all the nerves behind her face.
Gasping, she clawed at the pain, fending off queries until it subsided as suddenly as it had come on. Her nose was running, tears streaming from her eyes, her heart racing, and she wasn't sure if it was from the physical pain or the sudden overwhelming flood of bereavement that came in the wake of the pain: death, loss, endings, every parting she'd ever experienced. That, too, ebbed away just as quickly, to be replaced by an equally inexplicable joy, ecstasy beyond endurance. She was ready to prefer the grief when that burbling intoxication faded to be replaced only by darkness, void, emptiness, silence.