Convergence hu-4 Page 6

  Darya thought back. Genizee, not in the Catalog. Serenity, not in the Catalog. The Eye of Gargantua, not in the Catalog. Glister, not in the Catalog.

  “About half a year ago. The Umbilical, between Quake and Opal.”

  “But the greatest changes to the artifacts have taken place within that time! Half a year, in which you have not seen a single artifact. Half a year, in which—”

  Bloom paused. He lost his smile, turned, and stared to his right along the table. The voice of a puzzled embodied computer was steadily becoming louder.

  “If the Builders are not in the future, then they can’t come back and change the present so that the Builders are in the future, because they are not there to do it.” E. Crimson Tally was staring down at the table top. “But if they are in the future, then the present didn’t need the artifacts to become that future, so then the future they make if they send the artifacts back is a different future—”

  He paused and froze, his eyes blank and his mouth hanging open far enough to reveal his bottom teeth.

  “There!” Darya pointed accusingly at Quintus Bloom. “Now you’ve done it. You’ve put E.C. into a loop. That’ll be hell to fix. I told you it was a logical contradiction, the idea that the Builders might have come from the future.”

  She seemed to be the only one who cared. Half-a-dozen conversations were starting up along the table.

  Professor Merada leaned over and patted her hand. “We are all good scientists here, Professor Lang, and it is as good scientists that we must behave. We all have our cherished theories, on which we have worked for many days and months and years. Although it is hard to abandon beloved ideas, if a new and better theory comes along it is our duty as good scientists to accept it. Even to embrace it.”

  Darya bristled. The man was trying to soothe her. And Carmina Gold was nodding agreement. So were half a dozen others at the table. Darya couldn’t believe it. They had been here for less than a quarter of an hour. The first course of the meal was still to arrive, and she had said only a tenth of what she had to say — and badly, at that. But minds along the table were already closing. Darya had lost the argument. Quintus Bloom had won it.

  Darya stood up and blundered towards the door. She was quite sure that she was right, but without evidence she would never convince anyone. Quintus Bloom was too confident, too smooth and charismatic, too well-armed with recent facts.

  Well, there was only one way to deal with that. She had to find more facts of her own. And she would not do it sitting in an office on Sentinel Gate.

  Chapter Seven

  Darya would need facts, but at the moment she wanted something a good deal more personal.

  She had not seen Hans Rebka since the beginning of the seminar. For all she knew he had left after the first few minutes, because she had been too preoccupied to notice. However, it was easy enough to find out which guest accommodation in the institute was assigned to any visitor. Darya checked the central listing. Hans had a single-story building to himself, a bungalow that lay in a wooded area behind the main complex of the institute.

  Although it was raining outside and already dark, Darya didn’t want to waste time going back for more clothing. The night was chilly, but she welcomed the brisk breeze as a force to blow away her worries. She walked slowly, face tilted up to catch the raindrops. It would be hard to know what to say to Hans without sounding like a whiner and a loser. Had he been there himself, to see and hear exactly what had happened? She didn’t know.

  Darya felt a touch of guilt. Chasing down her old notes after the seminar, then losing her temper at Merada’s crazy dinner before the food even appeared — she had been too busy to give any thought to what Hans was doing. Maybe she could make up for that now.

  When she was fifty yards from the bungalow, the shower quickened to a downpour. Darya sprinted for the porch and stood panting beneath it for a few moments, listening to the hiss of rain and the gurgle of runoff through gutters and downspouts.

  The door was not locked, and it was — unusual for Hans — slightly ajar. The inside of the house was dark, but guest quarters were on a standard plan and Darya knew the layout well. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark. She did not turn on any light as she went quietly through the open livingroom and on into the bedroom. She could make out the bed and a white sheet covering it, with a bare foot sticking out past the end.

  She gripped the big toe and tugged it gently, then ran her fingers along to the ankle. “Hans? I need to talk to you. I think I just made an ass of myself.”

  There was a gasp from the other end of the bed, at the same moment as Darya realized that something was wrong. Hans Rebka had hard, bony feet. The foot and ankle she was holding were smooth and soft.

  “Who’s that?” said a woman’s voice. The foot jerked free of Darya’s grasp. The pale blur of a face appeared at the other end of the bed, as the woman sat upright. “What the devil are you doing?”

  A light snapped on. Darya found herself face to face with Glenna Omar. “I’m sorry. I thought these were Hans Rebka’s quarters.”

  “They are.” Glenna pulled up the sheet, to cover her naked breasts and shoulders. “Didn’t you ever hear of privacy?”

  “What are you doing here?” It seemed to Darya that the other woman looked more pleased than annoyed. “And where’s Hans?”

  She knew the answer to the first question, even before Glenna jerked her tousled blond head to the right and said, “In there. In the bathroom.”

  Darya heard the sound of running water. She had taken it for the sound of rain outside. She walked across to the bathroom door and went in.

  Hans stood at the sink in profile to Darya, drying his hands on a towel. He was naked and he did not look around, but he must have heard her come in because he said, “Ten more seconds, and I’ll be there. Don’t worry, I haven’t run away.”

  He turned around, with a grin that changed at once to a grimace. “Oh, no.”

  “Oh yes. You bastard.” She glared at him, from his scarred, concerned face to his bony knees and over-sized feet. All signs of sexual excitement faded as she watched. “I should have known. What they say about men from the Phemus Circle is true. Callous, faithless, sex-mad — I thought you and I meant something to each other.”

  “We do. Darya” — she had turned, to walk back through the bedroom, and he was ignoring Glenna to hurry after her — “where are you going?”

  “Leaving. Leaving you, and this lousy institute, and this rotten planet. Don’t try to follow me. Go back to your — your strumpet in there.”

  “But where are you going?” They were outside in the teeming rain. The night was turning colder, and Hans stumbled bare-footed on slippery turf and fell flat in the mud. He couldn’t see a thing. “Wait a minute, and I’ll come with you.”

  “You will not. I don’t want you anywhere near me. I don’t want to be on the same world as you.”

  “Who’ll look after you — who’ll keep you out of trouble?”

  “I’m perfectly able to look after myself. Bug off, and leave me alone!”

  Darya began to run. Hans took a couple of steps after her. This time he tripped over a bush and fell again to the ground. When he got up he couldn’t see her or even the path.

  He limped back to the bungalow. The door was wide open. Had it been open when Darya came? He felt sure that he had closed and locked it. He headed through into the bedroom, rubbing a bruise on his thigh. Glenna was still snuggled down comfortably in bed, the sheet pulled up to her eyes. She giggled.

  “You ought to just see yourself. Your hair is soaked, and you have mud all over your chest and arms. You look like a Phemus Circle wild man.”

  “Yeah. I’m a real comedy act.” Hans sat down on the end of the bed. “Hell and damnation.”

  “What was all that about?”

  “You know quite well what it was about.”

  “I can guess. And it’s all naughty little Glenna’s fault, isn’t it? I bet you told Professor Lang that you
had nothing to do with it.” A foot eased clear of the sheet, and bare toes wriggled along Hans’s leg.

  “I didn’t tell her anything. She wouldn’t listen. Right now she hates my guts.” Hans frowned at Glenna as the toes crept higher on his thigh. “Quit that. What are you, some kind of animal?”

  “Maybe. Try me and find out. But at least I understand men. And I’m not angry with you, not in the slightest. Come to bed.”

  Hans stood up. Glenna’s expression changed from intimate to anxious. She pushed back the sheet as Hans headed for the livingroom. “Where are you going?”

  “I have to make a call. Just a quick one.”

  “To Darya Lang?”

  “No. Not to Darya Lang. She wouldn’t talk to me if I did. Relax. This will only take a minute.”

  “All right. One minute, and no more.” Glenna’s voice changed to a complacent purr, and she snuggled back down in the bed. “I do not know how such things are handled in the worlds of the Phemus Circle, but in our society it is not considered polite to leave a lady alone with her motor running.”

  * * *

  Hans had not lied about the need to make a call, but what he needed more than that was time to think — think without Glenna coiling herself around him and scrambling his brains.

  How had he put himself into this situation? It wasn’t enough to say that Glenna was as sexy, luscious, and willing a woman as you could hope to meet. Before he left the Phemus Circle that would have been quite sufficient, but not any more.

  Why hadn’t he waited around the institute, then, until Darya’s work with Quintus Bloom and Professor Merada was finished?

  He had one explanation, but it wasn’t anything to make him happy. He had been feeling horny even before he met Glenna, undeniably. But that wasn’t the reason they had finished up in his bedroom. It was because he had also been peeved — at Darya.

  He had been quite good enough for her while they were chasing around the wilds of the Phemus Circle or Serenity, or trying to escape from the Zardalu or the Torvil Anfract; but as soon as she got back to her homeworld of Sentinel Gate it was a different story. He had been pushed out of the way and ignored. She preferred her snobbish and intellectual friends — people he was apparently not civilized enough to be introduced to, still less to converse with.

  During the seminar he had decided, even if unconsciously, that he would get his own back. He would show her. There were other women, sophisticated and attractive ones, who found him acceptable even by the upscale standards of a world like Sentinel Gate. He had known, from the first moment that he met Glenna Omar, that she found him intriguing. It was time that Darya learned it, too.

  Unfortunately, she had done exactly that, but not at all in the circumstances of his choosing.

  Had Glenna left the door open on purpose? Was she someone who was excited by the chance of discovery, just as danger always excited him?

  Hans stared out through the still-open door at the teeming rain. He wanted to tell Darya what a fool he had been and how sorry he was, but in that dark cloudburst he had no idea how to find her. At least, though, he had to look. He would dress, and tell Glenna that she must leave.

  He turned toward the bedroom, and found her standing silent in the doorway. She had taken a sheet from his bed and draped it modestly around her.

  He sighed. He was angry, but it ought to be with himself and not with Glenna Omar. “How long have you been there?”

  “Just a minute or two.” She glided forward to his side. “I didn’t want to disturb you. You looked so upset.”

  “I am. I think you’d better put your clothes on and get out of here.”

  “I know.” She held out her dress and shoes. “If you don’t mind, I’ll borrow the sheet and just carry these with me. They’ll get soaked anyway, even if I’m wearing them.”

  Her voice was as dreary as the driving rain outside. A cold draft blew in through the open door, and she shivered. She stepped forward to the threshold and hesitated there.

  “Are you all right?” Hans moved to her side. “That sheet won’t be enough. I think we ought to find you something waterproof. And I’ll look for an umbrella, too.”

  “It’s not that. Not the cold, I mean, or the rain.”

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  “It’s me. Hans, I’m really sorry. This is all my fault. When we met today I was feeling lonely and awful down, and you were kind to me. You’re a very attractive and sexy man, but what I wanted more than anything was company. I needed someone to talk to, someone to hold me and tell me that I haven’t made a total mess of my life…”

  Hans was horrified to see tears filling Glenna’s eyes. He felt better equipped to handle an attacking Zardalu than a weeping woman. He tried to put his arm around her, tentatively, but she pulled away.

  “No. I’ll go now. It’s not your problem, it’s mine.”

  “You’ll freeze if you go out dressed like that. You’re already shivering.” He put his arm around her again, and tried to lead her away from the door. “At least have a hot drink, to warm you up before you go.”

  “I don’t think I ought to. Professor Lang—”

  “She won’t be coming back.” That was sure enough, he thought bitterly. “And even if she did, we’ll be doing nothing wrong.”

  “We-e-ell.” Glenna allowed herself to be steered through the living room. “I don’t want a drink, though.”

  “Something to eat?” Hans’s guilt toward Darya was mysteriously turning into guilt toward Glenna, too.

  “No. What I’d really like is just to be held for a few minutes, until I don’t feel so chilled. Then I’ll go. Would you do that for me? I mean, you don’t have to, and I really have no right to ask you.”

  “It’s all right. Let’s sit down until you feel better.”

  Hans had in mind that they would sit in the livingroom, but Glenna walked him into the dimlit bedroom. She put her hand on his cheek, and then to his chest.

  “But you’re freezing! And I’ve been the one complaining about feeling cold. Come on.” She threw back the bedclothes. “Lie down next to me. We’ll both warm up, and then I’ll leave.”

  He was bare, sore, and muddy, and his hair was still wet. He ought to go and take a hot shower, but Glenna stood waiting by the bed.

  “It’s quite all right,” she said. “All I want is a tiny hug. You’ll be quite safe.”

  Hans was not so sure. He climbed into bed reluctantly, and heard Glenna squeak as his chilled bare foot touched her leg. She didn’t seem cold at all. He could feel the heat radiating from her body to his. She pulled the covers over them and moved closer.

  “That’s better, isn’t it?” She sighed contentedly. “You know, I feel quite exhausted. But we’d better not nod off. Would you put your arms around me, just for a little while? Then I’ll get up and go.”

  After another couple of minutes Hans did as she had asked. Somewhere in the process of getting into bed, the sheet had vanished from around Glenna’s body. He eased away from her, about to explain why he was doing it. Then he noticed that her eyes had closed, and her lips were slightly parted. She was breathing evenly and deeply.

  After a moment of hesitation he reached out and turned off the little bedside light. It didn’t seem right to disturb her. A few minutes of rest, while both their chilled bodies became warmer, could do neither of them any harm. In a little while the rain would stop and Glenna could leave.

  Hans sighed, and closed his own eyes.

  Chapter Eight

  The Bose Network permits passage between its nodes, many light-years apart, in no time at all. Its use frees the beings of the spiral arm from the tyranny of slow-speed travel. Few people realize that it produces a mind-set of its own, in which all “significant” travel must be over interstellar distances.

  Thus, Hans Rebka, told by Darya that she was leaving Sentinel Gate, assumed that she would head far-off through interstellar space, perhaps to the remote reaches of the Zardalu Communion, or the most dista
nt territories of the Fourth Alliance. The truth never occurred to him as he stepped, bleary-eyed, weary, and guilty, into the balmy morning air. Inside, Glenna snored her happy head off. (If she had been exhausted last night, he wouldn’t like to meet her when she felt fresh and rested.)

  The truth was that Darya was still practically within sight. Using the biggest telescope on Sentinel Gate and the right adaptive optics, Hans could have actually seen her ship.

  Darya was heading for Sentinel, the artifact that sat a mere couple of hundred million kilometers from Sentinel Gate. From the planet’s surface it showed as a shining and striated ball, an undersized fixed moon in the evening sky.

  She needed evidence to disprove Quintus Bloom’s theories, and no one in the universe knew Sentinel better than Darya. The sight of it had first roused her interest, as a child growing up on Sentinel Gate, in the Builders and their artifacts. Heading for it now was like a return to the simple days of childhood.

  Of course, there were differences from the old days. Some of them were hard to ignore. One of them was crouched beside her, staring at the screen where Sentinel filled the field of view ahead. The Hymenopt at Darya’s side was eight-legged, with a chubby barrel-shaped body covered with short black fur. Its small, smooth head bore rings of bright black eyes all around the perimeter. At the other end, the tubby Hymenopt abdomen carried a lethal yellow sting, now safely retracted and out of sight.

  There had been nothing remotely like Hymenopts, or any other aliens, in Darya’s childhood. But she did not give this one a second thought. She and Kallik had been through so many difficult and dangerous times together, from Quake to Genizee, that she felt closer to the Hymenopt than to most humans.

  And Kallik was smart. She knew as much as Darya about many artifacts in Fourth Alliance territory, and more about everything in the Zardalu Communion. It had been a big surprise to Darya to meet Kallik and the Lo’tfian, J’merlia, at the Sentinel Gate spaceport, but a welcome one. The two little aliens and former slaves were just what she needed: someone to talk to — and someone who wouldn’t deceive and betray you.