It was Darya's turn to jerk upright in her seat. A suggestion of existing Builder artifacts—even from such a known unreliable source as the Chism Polyphemes . . .
Graves went on, "Furthermore—"
He was interrupted by a quiet voice from Darya's left. "May I speak?"
With those words came instant recognition. Darya said to the dark-haired man sitting next to Hans Rebka, "Why, you're Tally! But you are in a different body."
"Yes, indeed. I am E. Crimson Tally." The embodied computer grinned horribly at Darya. "I perceive that you did not know me until I spoke. That is because, one month ago, it was necessary to place me within a new setting. For some reason, the bodies into which I have been placed suffer an abnormally high failure rate."
Darya could imagine—the embodied computer had a disregard for danger that only a being with a totally replaceable body could match. And the installers still hadn't managed to get that ghastly smile right.
E.C. Tally said again to Julian Graves, "Councilor, may I speak?"
"I have in the past found no way to prevent you. Go ahead."
"I merely wish to point out that the evidence of Builder artifacts in the Sag Arm is not new. Extra capabilities were added to my newly embodied brain, plus improved data access channels to my body. Last night I downloaded everything in the general data banks. Information there about the Sagittarius Arm indicates the presence of Builder artifacts."
"That is true. Do you know where that information came from?"
"No sources were quoted. The information has perhaps been in the data banks for thousands of years. I do not know its derivation."
"But we do." J'merlia raised a stick-thin limb. "Atvar H'sial offers apologies for this interruption, but the matter is important. She says, long ago, members of the Cecropia Federation interested in Builder artifacts did a complete survey of all knowledge of the Sag Arm relating to possible Builder activity there. The conclusion was that everything originated in statements made by Chism Polyphemes."
"Which means it's all a load of crappo." Louis Nenda swiveled in his seat and looked along the row to Tally. "E.C., didn't you spend time with Dulcimer?"
"Indeed I did."
"Well, Dulcimer was a Chism Polypheme, an' didn't he give you all that garbage about Polytope, an' how it was a world built by the free-space Manticore?"
"Garbage? I thought it was all true."
Julian Graves said firmly, "E.C. Tally, what a Chism Polypheme tells you is almost certainly not true. More important, I will not have this meeting turned into an irrelevant series of digressions."
"May I speak?"
"You may speak as much as you like—after I have finished. The facts are these: we have no absolute proof that there are Builder artifacts in the Sagittarius Arm. However, a strong possibility exists that there are. This alone would be enough to encourage some investigators to make a trip to the inward arm. However, there are other and more compelling reasons for an interest in the Sag Arm. When the ship of the Chism Polypheme was thoroughly explored, a group of other alien beings was discovered within their own sealed living quarters. There were eighteen of them. They were of a species unknown to us—and every one was dead. Like the Chism Polypheme, their bodies were outwardly undamaged. But like the Polypheme, all their body cells had been burst open by some unknown force."
Graves waited for the murmur to die down before he continued, "With considerable difficulty, we have been able to decipher their records. They came here to seek our advice and our assistance, although there is no suggestion that they ever thought the trip would prove fatal to them. They call themselves by a name which our translation machines offer as Marglotta. Their home world is in the Sag Arm, and it translates as Marglot. It is somewhere in here."
Graves again gestured, and the Gulf with its pattern of Bose nodes vanished. It was replaced in the 3-D display by a long, twisting volume of space, dotted with the beacons of supergiant stars and great obscuring clouds of dust and gas.
"The Sag Arm, in detail. Here"—a blinking point of blue appeared—"is our best estimate for the location of the Marglot system. Either we are misunderstanding their records, or the Marglotta come from a strange world indeed. There seem to be four poles, defined as North, South, Hot, and Cold. No explanation is offered for this. The Marglotta apparently did not feel it necessary to keep in their files descriptive details of their own home world. However, you will have plenty of time to puzzle out the significance of the four planetary poles later."
Later? But if no one else asked the question, Darya was not about to interrupt. The councilor's big, domed head, with its powerful mnemonic twin memory and misty blue eyes, still had the power to intimidate her.
Graves went on, "Now for a question which you may already have asked yourselves. Why was I, a member of the inter-clade Ethical Council, called in? I have perhaps had more contact than other councilors with Builder artifacts, but I am by no means an expert on the subject. How are ethics involved? I can give you a simple answer. We may be dealing with attempted genocide. The Marglotta say that their world is changing. Some great destructive force is at work in the Sag Arm. It has spread steadily for many millennia, possibly for millions of years. The Marglotta suspect the influence of the Builders. I cannot speak as to the truth of that conjecture, but we have made our own observations of the Sag Arm. We find a region utterly lacking in light and life. Observe."
The chamber dimmed. The new 3-D display seemed to grin back at Darya. It was as though something had taken a bite out of the spiral arm and left a small sphere of black nothing where stars should be.
"Scary picture." Louis Nenda spoke softly, as much to himself as to Darya. "And hard luck on Marglotta and friends."
She whispered back, "Scary, and strange. Anything on that scale has to be Builder activity. But no Builder artifact in our arm ever destroyed whole stellar systems."
Julian Graves was staring at them. Louis Nenda said, more loudly, "Somethin's doing a number on the Sag Arm. But Councilor, it's a zillion lightyears away. We're safe enough."
"I do not share your confidence on the latter point." Julian Graves's deep voice filled the hall. "Our own clades—all our own clades—could be in danger. We went back to observations of the Sag Arm made millennia ago. The dark sphere is growing, and as it spreads, its outer boundary will come closer to an edge of the Sag Arm—to the place, in fact, where nodes of the Bose network stretch across the Gulf toward our own spiral arm."
Darya could sense Hans Rebka moving restlessly at her side. He said, "I see what you're getting at. But what are we talking about here? We sure don't need to worry about next week, or next year. How long do we have?"
"Precisely?" The lights came on, and Graves was frowning. "I do not know. E. Crimson Tally? An estimate?"
"From the data available, the affected area could reach the far edge of the Gulf somewhere between twenty-nine and thirty-two thousand years from now."
Graves nodded. "There's your answer, Captain Rebka. But I wonder why you ask."
Rebka stood up restlessly, although squeezed between Darya and E.C. Tally he had no place to go. "Because of who I am, and what I've done all my life. I can see why Darya might get excited when there are signs that the Builders are busy in the next arm over. I can see why you are involved, because the immediate danger to the Marglotta is an ethical question. But me, I'm strictly short-term. Get in a fix today, maybe I can get you out of it by tomorrow. At least I'll try. But when you talk thousands and tens of thousands of years, I'm as much use as feathers on a fish."
"Which goes doubled for At an' me." Louis Nenda stood up, too, leaving Darya sitting sandwiched tightly between him and Rebka. "An' our slaves, J'merlia an' Kallik—"
"They are not your slaves, Mr. Nenda. I object strongly to the use of that word. They are free beings."
"Try tellin' that to them, Councilor—maybe you'll have more luck than I've had. But don't get me off the point. Me an' At don't specialize in ethics."
&nb
sp; "I am not unaware of that point. In fact, I am relying upon it."
"Eh? What kind of crack is that? Anyway, not only ethics. I've been mixed up with Builder stuff ever since Summertide, but nobody in their right mind would call me an expert on them."
"This also is a fact well-known to me."
"So why am I here? Why is At here? Why is that"—Nenda seemed ready to use something insulting, but finally he just jerked a thumb toward Hans Rebka—"why is he here? Hell, why is any one of us here? We were forced to come, you know—we didn't want to."
Graves nodded. "That also is no surprise. Mr. Nenda, and Captain Rebka also, I am afraid that one element of this whole affair has apparently escaped you. I should have been clearer at the outset. You were not brought to Miranda Port simply to be provided with information concerning the new Bose nodes that lead to the Sag Arm. You were not brought here to learn about the Marglotta, or the destructive force at work in the Sagittarius Arm. Nor were you brought here to offer your advice, valuable as that may be. You were brought here because you, and I, and everyone present in this chamber, have a more active role to perform."
"Like what?"
"Like, Mr. Nenda, to discover what threatens to destroy Marglot, and what one day may destroy us." Graves bowed his head, so that light gleamed on his bald dome with its pattern of radiation scars that for some reason he had never bothered to have removed. "Miranda Port represents no more than a point of embarkation. As soon as possible, we will all be on our way to the Sagittarius Arm."
CHAPTER SIX
Through the Gulf.
Darya, even though she was from one of the richest worlds in the Fourth Alliance, had never dreamed that ships like the Pride of Orion existed. It was a miracle of compact structure. Although it was not especially large, and although it looked like and operated as one perfectly integrated body, the ship could divide into six self-contained vessels. Each had its own drive and its own Bose transfer capability. The ship had been renamed before they set out from Upside Miranda Port. Darya suspected that was a Council act. The Pride of Orion and everyone within it would be the first representatives of the local arm to visit its inward neighbor.
Or not quite the first. The Pride of Orion was about to pass through yet another Bose transition. Just ahead, a mere pulsating speck on the screen, flew a much smaller ship. Even as Darya watched and wondered, the Have-It-All entered the node and the signal beacon vanished.
Its presence on the expedition was the result of a terrific argument with Julian Graves on the eve of their departure; an argument, moreover, in which the unheard-of took place: Hans Rebka and Louis Nenda had agreed with each other completely.
"The Pride of Orion is effectively indestructible." That was Julian Graves.
"I don't care if the Pride of Orion is made of solid neutronium and could fly up the wazoo of a Bolingbroke giant and come out in one piece." Nenda stood arms akimbo, glaring at the councilor. "Smart people don't do things that way, an' I can't believe you don't know it."
"Nenda's right." Hans Rebka poked an accusing finger at Graves. "You saw it for yourself during Summertide and on Genizee. No matter how secure you feel, you don't travel without a backup. Especially when you're heading beyond known space."
"We have a back-up ship, for Heaven's sake. We have six back-up ships, right on the Pride of Orion. If you want to inspect them, you have my permission to visit every one."
"Yeah, an' that's real easy to do." Nenda looked around as though seeking a good place to spit. "You know why? Because they are right there on board the Pride of Orion. It gets zapped, they get zapped."
"What could possibly, as you put it, 'zap' the Pride of Orion?"
"If we knew the answer to that, we'd be a lot less worried." This time Rebka's outstretched finger actually touched the councilor's chest. "I don't understand your logic here. Taking an extra ship along will cost the Council a negligible amount."
"Cost nothin', you mean." Nenda jerked a thumb toward the silent Cecropian. "At an' me, we'll fly the Have-It-All in scout position for free."
"Even better. Councilor, are you listening? You have somebody willing to fly on ahead of the Pride of Orion, to make sure that there are no problems waiting. "Hans Rebka gave Nenda a quick sideways glance at that point—the offer to lead the way into possible danger sounded a little too good to be true—but he went on, "A lead scout is in everyone's best interests."
"It would not be right to ask Mr. Nenda and Atvar H'sial to expose themselves to risks not borne by the rest of us. In any case, we will have a special group of humans on board the Pride of Orion, with unique training in survival techniques. The inter-clade council insists on it."
"Oh yeah? Training acquired where? Sitting on their asses on one of the cushy worlds of the Fourth Alliance? If you took 'em to Karelia—"
"—or to Teufel."
Nenda glared at Hans Rebka. "Hey, Captain, we're not competin' on this one." He turned back to Graves. "Take 'em to Karelia or Teufel, an' the locals'd eat 'em for supper an' spit 'em out with the pits."
"I have no reason to question the survival team's competence. They were trained under the direct supervision of Arabella Lund, whom I happen to know personally. And I do not want you to take unnecessary risks."
"Fine. You're not askin' me an At to do that. We're askin' you. An' we're not offering miracles. If there's trouble on the way, all we'll give you will be a few minutes of warning."
The argument went on and on. But Hans and Louis had finally won. The proof of that was the presence on the expedition of the Have-It-All, which had already made its next Bose transition. Darya stared hard at the screen, seeing nothing but knowing that the node entry point for the Pride of Orion could be no more than a few minutes away. One advantage of this ship's curious structure was the existence within its hull of scores of private chambers where a person could retire with her thoughts and hide away from others. Each room had access to the Pride of Orion's external viewing sensors, and what Darya wanted to see on the display was the reassuring beacon of the Have-It-All as soon as their own ship completed its transition.
Crossing the Gulf was nothing like normal interstellar travel, where you were always comforted by the sight of nearby stars that might send help if your superluminal travel modes failed. Around the Pride of Orion lay only a vast sea of emptiness. The spiral arm from which they had come lay far behind. Ahead the Great Unknown of the Sag Arm sprawled across half the sky.
And within that unknown, perhaps, lay completely new Builder artifacts. Darya had not been able to focus on anything else since Julian Graves mentioned the possibility. She had rejected from Louis Nenda a suggestion that they compare notes on what they knew about the Sag Arm—"I'll show you mine an' you show me yours." She had also been unable to return to her previous intimacy with Hans Rebka, and it had little to do with the fact that they had been apart for two years.
Even the delivery of what Councilor Graves clearly thought of as a warning seemed to lack reality.
That had come in answer to Hans's protest, at the end of the first meeting. "You're crazy if you think a handful of us can run off and in a few weeks sort out the problems of a region as big as all our territories put together."
Graves's forehead added a few more worry lines. "Captain Rebka, I have never suggested any such thing. Our goal is the exploration of what is happening on Marglot, and possibly an attempt to help the Marglotta. We do not expect to understand the mystery of dying worlds, or to determine the fate and future of the whole Sag Arm. However, I would be remiss if I failed to inform you of another important point concerning our journey. As you remark, we are small in numbers, even if large in experience of the Builders and their artifacts. But our expedition is as small as it is because this is viewed by the Council as a high-risk endeavor."
In other words they don't want to send too many of us, just in case we don't come back. But even that thought hadn't had as much effect on Darya as it should. Artifacts! What wouldn't she give to see new Buil
der artifacts? She realized now how boring it had been for the past couple of years, sitting in her office at the Institute on Sentinel Gate and methodically recording every element of the disappearance of Builder presence. It had been like making notes on your own death.
With that thought, Darya felt within her the near-imperceptible quiver that told of impending passage into and through a Bose node. She peered at the screen, seeking that other dot of light.
And there it was, a signal beacon blinking its message. The Have-It-All was safely through, with the Pride of Orion following close behind. But the thing that made Darya catch her breath lay beyond the two ships. They had attained the far side of the Gulf. A final and short Bose transition should take them to the Marglot system. However, even before that there might be evidence of Builder artifacts.
Darya eagerly scanned the glittering starscape that filled the sky ahead. Many years of experience told her that she was probably wasting her time. Builder artifacts were infinitely varied in appearance. They ranged from apparently normal structures, like the Umbilical that ran between Opal and Quake, to the near-unfathomable space-time convolutions of the Torvil Anfract. An artifact could look like anything or nothing.
She looked anyway, swinging a high-resolution scanner across the sky. Stars and to spare—they seemed more thickly clustered than in the home Orion Arm—but nothing to hint at Builder presence.
She jumped as a voice behind her said, "Too soon, I fear."
She turned to see E.C. Tally standing there.
"How did you know what I was looking for? And how did you know where I was?"
"The latter question is easily answered. The Pride of Orion's central data bank contains a complete occupation directory for every chamber at all times."
"So you know where the survival team is housed?" For whatever reason, Julian Graves had kept his team of survival specialists in seclusion.
"Of course."
"Do you know how many of them there are?"
"There are five, all of human form. None, alas, appears to be an embodied computer. As to what you were seeking as you scanned the sky, I assume that it is what all others seem to be seeking: a first look at the Marglot system."
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