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.”
Chapter Eleven
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.