"What do we do?" I asked. "We need to replace this energy pattern?"
"Yes. Like energy waves which by their measure augment, dissipate, or are lost inside other waves when they meet the reinsertion of the pattern into the portion which remains within the Progenitor should restore normal brain rhythms and allow her to heal from the shock of the blast. There will be no healing without restoration 1st. She will stay as she is, to my knowledge."
"What do I need to do, rider?" I asked.
She looked at me and I could find noting in her eyes but a certain cold brightness. "You cannot do anything."
"Will you, then?"
"I cannot."
I
wanted to accuse her of meaning won't, not can't, but I could not rush
her, I could not force her, and she did choose her words. She might indeed
mean that she could not. "Who can, rider? If this is possibly a way to
restore the Progenitor there must be a means. Who can help?"
"Only a rider who possesses the pattern offlift. If it had been deposited on me I might have been able to do it. It's never certain. Deterioration sometimes sets in. No 1 has yet resolved why. If Fion had not been there at the edge of the arena when the explosion occurred the offlift would have remained within the lines."
"Could you then have detected it and retrieved it?"
"Perhaps. It's far more likely it would have been set on me by the lines. The pattern would have been more attracted to my field than to the lines, as it was to Fion's field."
"Can you extract it from Fion in order to reinsert?"
"I think not. My opinion is that it would disintegrate. It is fragile. Any movement will endanger it but if it is moving back to its complement it can endure. It can be strengthened in the final moments by that proximity."
"Ince,"
Vryyh spoke. She could not help it. She took several steps toward us. "Help
us," she said simply. Again her hand reached out to Ince and fell as Ince
stepped back quickly to avoid being touched by her.