Transvergence (48 page)

Everything was stored in the computer onboard the
Myosotis
. The journey to Labyrinth, even with Kallik's superior travel strategy, would take days. And with J'merlia having quietly taken over all the piloting functions, Darya had nothing to do.

Nothing except
real
work, the work she had trained for all her adult life. The cramped cabin of the ship lacked the pleasant surroundings of an office on Sentinel Gate, but when Darya was concentrating she never noticed her surroundings. As an opportunity to study, the trip out to Labyrinth could hardly be beat.

She made herself a nook in the ship's cabin and settled in. First came Quintus Bloom's description and discussion of the "old" artifacts. Darya knew every one like an old friend. She expected to learn little new about them, but perhaps a good deal about the real Quintus Bloom, the man behind the affable, self-confident, seemingly omniscient authority onstage at the institute.

Universal Artifact Catalog, Entry #1: Cocoon.

Form: Cocoon is a system of forty-eight basal stalks. They connect a free-space structure of four hundred and thirty-two thousand filaments to the surface of the planet, Savalle . . .

Bloom was following the order that Darya had established in her own catalog of the artifacts. She read through his description of Cocoon. There was nothing new, but she formed a grudging admiration of his writing style. It was spare and exact. The only thing that brought a frown to her face was his final sentence:

Classification: Transportation system, for movement of materials to and from the surface of Savalle.

It was quite a leap from the physical fact of Cocoon's form and structure, to that unequivocal statement of its intended purpose.

Darya went to
Calliope
, the second artifact in the list. Then to the baffling singularities of
Zirkelloch
, the third, which Quintus Bloom classified as
Anomalous
—meaning that his classification system could not handle it! Then to
Numen
, the fourth, which had been worshipped by the Varnians long before humans came on the scene with their own ideas of divinity. Darya nodded. Who knows, maybe the Varnians saw something that humans didn't.

The task was absorbing, almost soothing—a carry back in time to the days when research meant the study of objects remote in time and space, the analysis of places where Darya never expected to go. And it was time-consuming. Hunger at last drove her back to the outside world, to discover that most of a day had passed. She had ground her way through about half of the artifact descriptions. She also realized that an idea was sitting inside her head, without her being aware of how or when it had arrived.

Darya peered out from the depths of her hideaway. J'merlia was at the ship's controls, while Kallik lay in an easy sprawl of legs at his side. The Hymenopt might be asleep, but just as likely she was bored. And a second opinion would be useful.

"Kallik? Will you take a look at something?"

Darya copied the file to a workstation convenient for Kallik's use and went down to the galley to find something to eat. Maybe Kallik would read what Darya had read, and draw a different conclusion. Maybe there was no conclusion to be made. Or maybe the second half of the description of the artifacts contradicted the impression that she had formed from the first half.

That thought made Darya grab her food as soon as it was ready and hurry back to work.
Lens
,
Scrimshaw
,
Paradox
,
Maelstrom
,
Godstooth
. . . Whatever the Builders were, or would be, they had prized diversity. No two artifacts had more than a superficial resemblance. But Quintus Bloom had somehow grouped them all into six basic classes.
Forced
them in. No one else had ever produced a satisfactory taxonomy of the artifacts. Was this one satisfactory?

Darya awoke from her own spell of concentration to find Kallik standing patiently at her side.

"Finished already?" That would be amazing, even allowing for the speed and efficiency of a Hymenopt's central nervous system.

Kallik blinked both rows of eyes. "No. I apologize for my slowness, but the list is long. I interrupt your important thoughts only to point out that J'merlia needs a flight option to be defined. Should he take us direct to Labyrinth, or should we go by way of Jerome's World?"

Darya had postponed making that decision, then forgotten all about it. The question was, had Quintus Bloom told the full story about Labyrinth's difficulties and possible dangers? The direct path was more economical, but there was that small voice talking again in her ear. The voice was a nuisance, but Darya had learned not to ignore it.

"How far are you in the description of the artifacts?"

"I am studying the hundred and thirty-third."

"Do you have any overall comment?"

It was an unfair question. Darya had not reached even a tentative conclusion until she had reviewed five times that number of Bloom's artifact summaries.

Kallik's exoskeleton permitted no facial mobility. But she did jitter a pair of forelimbs, which showed that she was not quite at ease. "I have an impression. It is too unformed to be termed an analysis."

"Say it anyway."

"The distinguished Quintus Bloom is a most accomplished writer. His descriptions are always clear, and they contain no redundancies. The taxonomy of artifacts that he offers is unlike anything that I have ever seen before."

Kallik paused. Darya waited. So far, the comments matched her own feelings exactly. Was there more? Kallik seemed to be paralyzed, not even her eyes moving.

"I have only one concern." This time the pause was even longer. "In assigning an artifact to one of his defined classes, Quintus Bloom never misuses or misinterprets any part of an artifact description. Occasionally, however, it seems to me that he does neglect to mention some relevant aspect of an artifact. And those omitted elements tend to be ones that would argue against assignment of an artifact to the class he chooses."

Jackpot! Darya could have hugged Kallik, only you didn't take liberties like that with a Hymenopt.

What Kallik had said agreed precisely with Darya's own growing conviction. Quintus Bloom was smart, he was creative, he was plausible. He had done an excellent job in summarizing the artifacts, and displayed great originality in devising his system of artifact classes. His sin was something that scientists had done for thousands of years. Scientists didn't usually
change
data, not unless they were outright charlatans. But when facts didn't agree with theory, there was an awful temptation to find reasons for rejecting the offending data and hanging on to the theory. Ptolemy had done it. Newton had done it. Darwin had done it. Einstein had done so
explicitly
. And now Quintus Bloom was at it. The big question was, had he done it just this once, or was this a pattern than ran through all his work including his description of Labyrinth? Did that artifact have some unmentioned hidden property, one that might kill unwary explorers?

"I hope that my premature thoughts are of some use to you." Kallik was still standing in front of Darya, but not looking at her.

"They were
exactly
what I needed." Darya followed the rows of watching eyes, and saw to her surprise that half a sandwich lay soggy and forgotten on the console. Even though she was starving, she had been too absorbed to eat. She picked up her food and took a huge bite. "That makes the decision for us," she said, through a mouthful of bread and salad. "Thank you. Tell J'merlia that we have to visit Jerome's World before we go to Labyrinth. We have to find out more about Quintus Bloom. I want to know what he was doing
before
he started work on Builder artifacts."

The sun was setting on Sentinel Gate, and Louis Nenda was watching it.

Amazing. No outpouring of poisonous gases, which you had to look forward to when the sun went down on Styx. No screaming gale, which marked sunrise and sunset on Teufel. No torrents of boiling rain, like Scaldworld, where anyone outside at the wrong time was brought back in medium-well-done. No mosquitoes the size of your hand, like those on Peppermill, dive-bombers that zoomed in and sank their three-inch probe into any square centimeter of exposed flesh.

Just people laughing in the distance, and bird song, and flowers that faded in the dusk and reserved their most delicate and subtle perfumes for the evening hours.

And, any minute now, Glenna Omar.

Atvar H'sial could think what she liked, but Louis was not looking forward to this. At least, not all that much.

He had protested, perhaps rather more than was justified, in an earlier discussion with Atvar H'sial.

"I do all the work, while you sit here loafing."

"Are you suggesting that I am a plausible substitute for you in this activity? That my body is an acceptable alternative to yours, in your bizarre human mating rituals?"

"You'd drive her screaming up the wall. But what about
me
? Am I supposed to be offered up as a sort of human sacrifice to Glenna Omar, on the off-chance that we'll learn from her where J'merlia went? You just want your interpreter back, that's all, so you can communicate easily with humans."

"I am working on alternative communication methods. And if I locate J'merlia, you also locate Kallik,
and
"—Atvar H'sial's speech took on sly pheromonal insinuations—"you locate the human female, Darya Lang. I need to discuss with her the changes in the Builder artifacts, but I wonder if your implied rejection of the female Glenna Omar derives from some prior commitment on your part to the Lang person. I wonder if
that
is the primary cause of your reluctance to meet with Glenna Omar."

"Did I say I wouldn't meet with Glenna? Of course I'll meet with her. Tonight. We already arranged that." And if a few hectic hours with Glenna Omar was what it took to banish Atvar H'sial's suspicions about Louis and Darya Lang, it was a small price to pay.

Louis was prepared to pay it now. At sunset, in the third arbor down the hill from where Hans Rebka had been staying.

It was sunset, it was the third arbor, he was here. But where was Glenna?

He heard a woman's laughter from higher on the hill. Half-blinded by the setting sun, he squinted in that direction. He heard a braying male laugh in reply.

Glenna was approaching; and she was not alone.

Relief and disappointment both seemed premature. Louis stood up and walked toward the couple. Glenna came undulating along the path, her hand laid possessively on the arm of the tall man at her side. She was wearing a long-sleeved, high-necked gown of pale green that left a minimum of exposed skin and made her appear positively virginal.

"Hello, Louis." She smiled at him warmly. "I hoped we'd find you here. There's been a change of plans. I was in the middle of a discussion with Professor Bloom—"

"Quintus."

"Quintus." Glenna snuggled close to her companion. "And we hadn't finished talking. So he invited me to continue through dinner. And naturally . . ."

"No problem." Louis meant it. He admired real nerve, and there was no hint of apology in Glenna's manner. "Hello, Professor. I'm Louis Nenda."

"Indeed?" Bloom removed his arm from Glenna's grasp and offered a limp-fingered wave of the hand. He regarded Louis with the enthusiasm of a man meeting a Karelian head louse, the sort that popped out of a hole in the rock and nipped your head off with one snip of the mandibles. "And what do you do?"

"Businessman, mostly, for exploration projects. Last trip I was out at the Torvil Anfract, came back via the Mandel system."

"Indeed?" Bloom had turned to look back up the hill even before Louis answered the question.

Glenna lingered a moment, her fingers on Louis's bare arm.

"He's an absolute
genius
," she whispered. "I do hope you understand, but given a chance like this . . ."

"I said, no problem." I know that game, sweetheart. You take the one you want right now, but be sure to put the other one in cold storage in case you need him later. "Go and enjoy your dinner."

"Some other time, though, you and me?"

"You bet."

Glenna squeezed his arm happily. But Quintus Bloom had turned, and was sauntering back with a frown on his face.

"I say. Something you said just now. Did you mention the Torvil Anfract?"

"Sure did. I just came back from there, way out in the Zardalu Communion."

"That's the name that the Lang woman mentioned the other evening at dinner." Bloom was explaining to Glenna, while managing to ignore Louis. "She said that it was a
Builder artifact
, but of course as Professor Merada pointed out, there is no evidence of that. If it
were
an artifact, however, that could be a finding of enormous significance." Bloom at last turned directly to Louis. "Do you know Darya Lang?"

"Certainly."

"Was she at the Anfract with you, by any chance?"

"At it, and in it. Right in it."

"Three days ago, after our dinner, she left the institute." Bloom lifted his gaze above Louis's head, and stood staring at nothing. "She told no one where she was going. So almost certainly . . ."

Quintus Bloom didn't spell out his thought processes to Louis. He didn't need to. Louis had the answer to the next question ready, even before Bloom asked it.

"If I were to provide you with a ship, could you fly me to the Torvil Anfract?"

"Could, and would. I even have the ship. If the price is right, I mean."

The last sentence had come out without thinking, but Louis didn't try to kid himself. The 'right' price? Even if Bloom didn't have more than two cents, it would be enough.

Daybreak on Sentinel Gate was, if anything, more spectacular than sunset. The air was magically clear, the flowers and shrubs touched with fragrant dew. The birds, awake but not yet in motion, sang a dawn chorus from within their hidden roosts.

Glenna, strolling back to her house, noticed none of this. She was frequently heading home in the early daylight hours, and the charms of daybreak's plant and animal life left her unmoved. She was, in fact, feeling faintly disappointed. Quintus seemed to
like
her well enough, and to enjoy their long hours together. They had talked, and laughed, eaten and drunk, and talked again. They had wandered arm-in-arm around the Institute, inside and out. They had watched the romantic setting of Sentinel Gate. The touch of his hand on Glenna's shoulder had set all her juices flowing. And then, when everything seemed ready to go full speed ahead,
he
had gone back to his own quarters instead.