Resurgence (46 page)

"No, no, no." Claudius was sitting as far away from Archimedes as he could get. The
Have-It-All
had been stripped of spare reactor capacity, along with everything else, but somewhere on the ship the Chism Polypheme had managed to find a source of enough hard radiation to turn his corkscrew body a pleasant pale green. "No, no, no," his croaking voice repeated, while his single slate-gray eye rolled to survey everyone in the room. "That's not the way the real world wags. I don't know about the Orion Arm, but in the Sagittarius Arm you don't bring people a long way to warn
them
. You bring them a long way only if
they
can help
you
."

Louis, about to agree vigorously, decided it was wiser to keep quiet. Let Claudius be blamed for a suggestion that anybody in his right mind would think reasonable.

As the storm of criticism of Claudius's skepticism arose—with Hans Rebka, Louis noticed, abstaining—Julian Graves interrupted.

"We can debate reasons later. Regardless of motive, the fact remains that we
were
brought to the Sag Arm. We
have
been warned of tremendous danger. This expedition is going home with more information—and worse news—than I thought possible. I knew before we left that a second visit might be inevitable, but I did not dream that it would have such urgency. Tally, do you have more warnings to offer?"

"Not yet. May I speak? If I may be allowed to continue with the description of beetleback physiology—"

"You may not. You may listen. Immediately upon our arrival at the Orion Arm, a much larger and better-equipped party must be formed. With what we have seen and learned and now conjecture, inter-clade council approval and funding can be guaranteed. Our prompt return to the Sag Arm, and to those parts of it in particular affected by—infested by—the Masters of Cold, cannot be delayed for a moment."

This time the wisdom of silence could not compete with the sense of outrage. Louis said, "The hell with that. Councilor, you're forgettin' a bunch of stuff. First, we were damn near killed, every one of us. We escaped because Ben Blesh risked his skin, an' he nearly lost it. Look at him! You could use his face for wallpaper patterns. An we're crawlin' home in a ship—
my
ship, let me remind you—that's been gutted an' bashed an' beaten 'til it's hardly fit to be sold for scrap. An' now you up an' tell us we're goin' right back to the place that did all this."

"My apologies. My terminology was confusing. When I spoke of
our
return to the Sag Arm, I was referring to the combined clades of the Orion Arm. I did not intend to imply that all those here would be included in a second expedition. In fact, I myself will not be going."

Darya said, "But some of us will."

"That is a true statement." Julian Graves coughed. "I must confess that I have been less than totally forthcoming with all of you. But it was not from choice. My actions were forced on me by the instructions by the inter-clade council." He surveyed the grimy and weary group, examining each one in turn. "We jointly possess, without a doubt, more knowledge and experience of the Builders than any similar-sized assembly of humans and aliens drawn from the whole Orion Arm. And yet we also, without a doubt, form a curiously ill-matched team. For instance, my own presence in the Dobelle system, where I first met most of you, was pure coincidence. My task at that time had nothing to do with the Builders. The next expedition to the Sag Arm will be different. It will be designed from the outset to provide complementary skills and experience."

Darya Lang said, "But I will be going, right? I mean, this is the
Builders
. I've spend my whole life studying them."

"You have indeed. Developments in the Sag Arm, however, seem to involve less the Builders than the Builders' own creations."

"But you said
experience
," Darya persisted. "We have experience in the Sag Arm. Nobody else does, in any of the clades."

"That also is a true statement. Professor Lang, perhaps you may have misinterpreted my earlier words. I said that not all this group would return to the Sag Arm. That was a perfectly accurate statement. I did not, however, assert that
no members
of this group would be on the second expedition."

"If not me, then who?" Darya watched in apparent disbelief as Julian Graves nodded his head toward the end of the room, where the four survival specialists sat like a row of zombies. "You can't mean
them
."

"I am sorry, my dear professor, but that is exactly what I mean. The inter-clade council made the decision before ever we set out, that new blood might be needed. That is exactly why the initial expedition included young survival specialists. You, Captain Rebka, Atvar H'sial, Louis Nenda . . . " Julian Graves's wave of the hand took in most of those present in the chamber. "Yes, and me, too. We are, in the council's view, too fixed in our perceptions. New problems, they argue, call for new ways of thought."

It was the best news to come Louis's way for a long time—the best news, in fact, since that long-ago moment when he and Atvar H'sial had arrived on Xerarchos and discovered how easy it was to milk the natives. But apparently Darya did not agree.

"The inter-clade council members are imbeciles."

"Professor Lang, many of the council are friends of mine."

"That doesn't surprise me one bit. You tell them, if they want information about anything that happened on this expedition, they'll have to be ready to
negotiate
." Darya stood up and stared around at the others in the room. "We have to be united about this. No second expedition
for
us, no cooperation
from
us."

She swept out of the room. Hans Rebka followed at once. Louis could not tell from his expression if he was leaving in support of Darya, or intended to try to talk her out of her anger. E.C. Tally said, "Councilor Graves, when the inter-clade council decreed that
new blood
would be needed, how will that affect my own situation? I can if necessary obtain both new blood and a new body."

"E.C., I do not believe that the inter-clade council's words are intended to be interpreted too literally." Julian Graves rubbed his hand wearily over his bald and bulging cranium. "I did not anticipate so extreme a reaction from Professor Lang. Do any of you share her response?"

Graves seemed to be staring right at him. Louis shook his head. "We're law-abidin' people. Whatever the Council says, we gotta live with it."

"Good for you, Louis Nenda. I value your sound judgment and support. Were there to be any exception to the Council's rule, I would argue that it should be you. But now I must try to persuade Professor Lang to adopt your rational point of view."

Graves hurried out, as Nenda picked up a gust of pheromonal laughter from Atvar H'sial. "Louis, J'merlia translated for me your exchange with Julian Graves. You almost overdid the fine art of hypocrisy." 

"Yeah, yeah. Laugh if you like. But At, now I've got Graves solid on my side. We're goin' home to the Orion Arm, an' we're stayin' there. Let's get out of here. Tally looks about ready to start in again about his beetleback." 
 

Louis, accompanied by Atvar H'sial and the three slaves, started out along the upper corridor that led to the control cabin. He was almost there when Darya Lang popped out of a side chamber and stood smack in front of him, so that he was forced to stop or run into her.

"Darya, Julian Graves is looking for you."

"I know he is. He's a spineless traitor, and I'm avoiding him."

"Where's Hans Rebka?"

"I don't know, and I don't care. Let's not talk about him at all." And then, "Do you know what Rebka told me? He said that the inter-clade council might have a point, and he needed to think about it. I mean, what is there to think about?" Darya grabbed Louis's arm and stared into his eyes. "I can count on you, I feel sure of that without having to ask. You and I have always had this mental bond between us. Physical, too, even though we haven't ever . . . well, you know. But on a long trip, like to the Sag Arm, I feel sure we would. You'll help me, won't you?"

"Of course I will."

"I knew it. Louis, you're an angel." Darya put her arms around him and kissed him on the lips. "We have to make plans as to how we're going to arrange this. It may not be easy to persuade the Council that we need to go, but I'm sure we can do it."

"It won't be easy, an' it will take time. But it can't be this minute. I have to arrange to put us through another Bose node."

"We'll meet later?"

"You bet."

Louis disentangled himself and went through into the control cabin. Its door had been sacrificed on Marglot to the cause of reduced mass, but Atvar H'sial moved to stand at the entrance and prevent anyone else from entering.

"Louis, I feel that I will never understand humans."

"Join the club."

"First, consider the survival specialist, Sinara Bellstock. She could not wait to mate with you on several earlier occasions. But in the conference chamber, her chemical messengers gave off no trace of interest in you. Instead they revealed great interest in Ben Blesh."

"You don't need pheromones to read that. Sinara has found herself a new hero. Now she's hot for Ben." Louis sat down in the control chair and stared at the Bose coordinates. A few more minutes would do it. "An' you know what? I'm relieved. You've no idea how rotten it makes me feel when somebody expects me to be a hero."

"I am not surprised. It is a role for which by both temperament and history you are unsuited. However, the puzzle does not end with Sinara Bellstock. When humans are in an unwashed condition, their pheromonal products are particularly easy to read. Darya Lang was offering you her body in the corridor. True?"

"Some of her body. An' I don't think she was expectin' it to happen right there in the corridor. But more or less."

"And you were giving off conflicting signals. On the one hand, you sympathize with and desire her. On the other hand, you have absolutely no intention of returning to the Sagittarius Arm under any circumstances whatsoever."

"So? Any trip to the Sag Arm might be six months away. Darya could be tomorrow night. You gonna give me a lecture on morals?"

"I would not dream of doing so. Were you to observe Cecropian mating habits they would, I suspect, render you nauseated."

"Some human ones don't make me feel any too good." Louis had his eyes fixed on the countdown. Another minute and they would enter another Bose node. One more step on the long journey to the Orion Arm, and from this point on it ought to be plain sailing. The
Have-It-All
was doing no more than retracing its outward path. "So maybe Darya an' me decide to play around on the way home. Don't you agree I've earned it?"

"Indeed you have. However, I want to point out one more complication that does not seem to have occurred to you."

"Go on. Screw things up for me when they're goin' great."

"Darya Lang is from Sentinel Gate, and she will doubtless wish to return there. Waiting for you on Sentinel Gate is the faithful Glenna Omar. Do you not see what a difficult choice lies ahead of you?"

Twenty seconds to go to the Bose node. Louis stared around him at the ruined cabin. He could visualize the rest of the ship. Where once had been the most luxurious of beds there were now bare metal floors. The finest robochef in the Orion Arm floated somewhere in the sea of debris that had been Marglot. Showers, once able to provide subtle combinations of perfumed essences, offered at best a trickle of cold water. Whole closets, once filled with Glenna Omar's lingerie and furs and gowns and shoes and jewelry, stood empty.

"Yeah." Louis entered the final transfer sequence. "There's a choice ahead. Only it's not mine to make, an' I doubt it'll be all that difficult once she sees this ship. You don't know Glenna as well as I do."

Space around the
Have-It-All
flickered. The vessel, such as was left of it, entered the Bose node.

From notes dictated by Darya Lang just prior to the arrival of the
Have-It-All
at Upside Miranda Port:

This is a proposed addendum to the volume
A SURFEIT OF NOTIONS: Theories of Builder origins, activities, nature, and artifacts.
Begin
.

It is difficult for an author when she discovers that a major work, over which she has labored for years and which is shortly to be published, contains basic errors. This unfortunately appears to be the case with this volume. The theories presented in the body of the text, concerning the nature of the Builders, are certainly numerous and diverse. Recent events in the Sagittarius Arm reveal that all those theories may also be at best incomplete, and at worst deeply flawed. Every theory offered to date has adopted a central dogma, implicit although never stated. It is as follows: Builder actions, past and possibly present, have had a profound effect on species development within the local spiral arm, and perhaps beyond. The actions of those developing species, however, have had no effect on the Builders and their plans. Influences flow in one direction only. 
 

There is a corollary to the central dogma: The Builders operate at such vast levels of thought and technology that assistance from our clades to the Builders will never be necessary. The contrary hypothesis, namely, that the Builders lack total control over their own works and may require help from clades whom we have previously considered so far beneath them, is close to heretical. 
 

Let us be willing to consider heresy. From recent experience, we can speculate as to the possible nature of such assistance. All Builder activities seem designed to operate over vast lengths of time. Conceivably, Builder actions and reactions are obliged to function in a long-extended mode. Humans, like all species that develop on planetary surfaces, have perforce evolved to respond rapidly to any threat. We are short-lived, but we are fast. Could our speedy reactions be of value to the Builders? Could our ultimate relationship be not the subservience of one to the other, but some form of symbiosis? Facing great dangers, will we perhaps help and support each other?