High stakes, indeed.
There was less question about Darya’s hand. It was herself, with all she knew about Builders and artifacts, and two aliens. Smart aliens, no doubt of that, but aliens so used to being slaves that it was hard for them to take an initiative.
There was one other thing, an asset which so far Darya had found no opportunity to evaluate. She had brought with her a complete copy of a file about Labyrinth, bestowed as a gift to the institute by Quintus Bloom. It had all his recent written work, data analysis and theory, and Darya would certainly study that; far more significant, however, were the raw data: the exact chronology of the discovery and exploration of the new artifact, all the physical measurements, and the images taken both outside and inside Labyrinth.
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?