“You want to know what’s happening with Darya? All right, I’ll tell you. But let’s go to the dining-room.”

“Why not do it here?”

“Because we’ll need a drink and somewhere comfortable to sit. This is going to take a while.”

Nenda’s own sense of time suddenly cut in. “How long?”

“Depends how many stupid questions you keep interrupting me with. What’s it matter how long it takes?”

“Give me two minutes, and it won’t matter.” Louis Nenda headed for the door. “I’ll be right back. There’s someone else has to hear this.”

The introduction of an adult Cecropian into the small faculty dining-room at the Artifact Research Institute had one desirable effect. A little group of loungers, seated snacking at a couple of tables and chatting about their work, took one look at Atvar H’sial and hurried out.

Score one for Karelia, Louis Nenda thought with some satisfaction, as he arranged chairs to make room for the Cecropian. You’d never have separated inhabitants of his home world from their food that easily. They’d have stayed, and fought Atvar H’sial or a dozen other monsters for their meal if they had to.

Hans Rebka hadn’t been overjoyed at the sight of her, either, although he knew her well.

“I didn’t say anything about including your partner-in-crime in this conversation,” he had said, when Louis appeared with Atvar H’sial in tow.

“She’s no more a criminal than I am.” Louis saw Rebka’s reaction to that, and hurried on before it could start another argument. “Soon as we get settled in, I’ll summarize At’s thinking for you. Then you’ll know just why we’re here on Sentinel Gate.”

But that explanation, when Nenda hung his muscular arms over the back of a dining-room chair and talked to Hans Rebka, sounded thin and feeble. Builder constructions inside Genizee fading and vanishing before your eyes. Builder artifacts, stable for millions of years, suddenly gone. Massive and inexplicable changes to the geometry of the spiral arm. Suspicions that the Bose Network itself, the keystone of galactic travel and commerce, might be affected. It was none too persuasive, not when all around Nenda the serene world of the Artifact Research Institute — the very place where such changes ought to have drawn most attention — went quietly about its usual business.

“Pretty far-out, eh?” Nenda said defensively, as he came to his final comment, of the need to consult with Darya Lang. Then he saw Hans Rebka’s face. The other man was not looking skeptical, far from it. He was watching and listening open-mouthed.

Had Louis said something he shouldn’t have? If so, he couldn’t think what. He straightened up, gripping the back of the chair in his muscular hands. “Anyway, that’s why we’re here. So now, tell us what’s goin’ on at your end.”

Rebka shook his head. “I told you it would take a while to explain. But after what you’ve said…”

“It gets shorter? You’ve been hearing the same things?”

“No. It gets longer. Make yourselves comfortable, and sit tight. I’m going to have to start in on this from the very beginning.”

The high that Darya experienced on her return to Sentinel Gate had to end. She knew that. She just hadn’t expected to come down so far and so fast.

It was not that she was hoping for a big parade, or cheering crowds at the spaceport. What she had accomplished was hot stuff, but only to the scattered specialists for whom the Lang Universal Artifact Catalog (Fourth Edition) had become a kind of bible.

What had she done? Well, she had confirmed all new Catalog references, and verified their sources. With the fifth edition ready to go to press, Professor Merada should be ecstatic.

Her group had also returned from Genizee with an infant Zardalu in their possession, proving to the whole spiral arm that the old menace was back and breeding. That was important, but she claimed little credit for it — less than she gave to Hans Rebka and Louis Nenda. They had done all the work. And the little Zardalu would never come to Sentinel Gate. It had been taken to Miranda, for careful inspection.

Her personal ego-boost would come at the institute, and only at the institute. But there, at least, she was bursting to tell her story; and they should be bursting to hear it.

“Calm down, Darya.” That was Hans, sitting by her side on the final leg of the journey. “Relax, or you’ll blow a circuit.”

Sound words. It wouldn’t be good to let Professor Merada or Carmina Gold or any of the other institute heavies know how excited she felt. They prized calm, cool logic — or claimed to. You would never know it by listening to the screaming arguments at faculty meetings.

Darya did her best to follow Hans Rebka’s advice. E. Crimson Tally, the embodied computer sitting in front of her, had turned questioningly at Rebka’s final words. She smiled at him reassuringly. “ ‘Blow a circuit’ is just a figure of speech, E.C. I don’t have circuits to blow — a blood vessel, maybe. But really, I’m fine.”

And she was — or would be, as soon as she was inside and had Merada’s ear. Darya jumped out of the hovercraft before it stopped moving. She hurried into the building, up a flight of stairs, and along the corridor to the Administrator’s office.

Something odd about the corridor itself? She was too full of ideas and suppressed excitement to pay attention.

Professor Merada was not in his office. Nor was Carmina Gold, two doors farther down, in hers. Nor — now Darya knew what was wrong with the corridor — was anyone, although at this time of the morning the whole faculty would normally be present.

Darya ran the length of the corridor, and back downstairs. No one on the first floor, either. The building was deserted. She hurried outside, in time to catch sight of Hans Rebka vanishing around the corner of another building. A tall blond woman in a white silk dress swayed at his side.

“Hans!” But he was gone. Darya turned to E. Crimson Tally, still standing patiently by the side of the hovercraft. “E.C., the place is empty. Where is everybody?”

“They are presumably in the main lecture hall.” Tally pointed to the notice board at the entrance to the building. “As you will see, it is described as a two-day event.”

Darya stared at the board. The announcement was certainly big enough. You could only miss it if you were obsessed by something else.

“ ‘The nature and origin of the Builders.’ E.C., I’ve devoted my whole damned life to that subject. But I’ve never heard of Quintus Bloom. Who is he? And where did Hans go?”

“I do not know. But if you are aware of the location of the main institute lecture hall, it should be easy to find an answer to your first question.”

Tally pointed again at the board. Darya read the rest of the announcement. In the main lecture hall — the way Hans Rebka had been heading. And it had started yesterday.

Darya ran, without another word to E.C. Tally. She had missed day one. Unless she moved fast she would miss most of day two.

Darya knew every research member of the institute. Quintus Bloom was not one of them. So who the devil was he?

Her first impression of the man was indirect — the lecture hall was packed as she had never seen it, to the doors and beyond. As she tried to eel her way inside she heard a roar of audience laughter.

She grasped the loose vest of a man who was leaving. “Jaime, what’s going on in there?”