Darya felt a spasm of movement on either side of her. Hans Rebka and Louis Nenda were hard to shock, but they were shocked now. So was she. The Sag Arm was thousands of lightyears away. Only a vastly long-lived species, like the Polyphemes, would face the prospect of a Gulf crossing from one spiral arm to the next. As for one dying, she had never heard of such a thing. By human standards, a Chism Polypheme was immortal.
Julian Graves went on, “Normally, the interior of a ship arriving at Miranda Port is considered private property and off-limits. However, in this case there were exceptional circumstances. The port authority felt a need to know what event, be it natural or unnatural, had killed the Polypheme. To ensure that suitable procedures and propriety were observed, they called in a member of the Ethical Council to be present when the ship was entered. Upon an initial investigation she was unable to determine the cause of death. The body appeared quite intact, although a closer examination revealed that almost every cell within it had been ruptured and burst by some unknown agent. Soon afterwards, the councilor called for my assistance. She had, as a move to determine if there might be some danger of contamination, examined the ship’s log. And what she found was almost beyond belief. The Chism Polyphemes, astonishing as it may seem, have perhaps been lying to the species of our spiral arm—and for thousands of years.”
Louis Nenda said, “It’s like I told you—”
“There is therefore no need to tell me again. The ship’s log contained a complete listing of Bose transition points visited. The coordinates of the most recent transition nodes were in the Gulf.”
Darya felt the tingle all the way up her spine. No one in the Fourth Alliance, or in the Cecropia Federation whose boundary lay much closer to the Gulf, knew that those Bose nodes were there. Did it mean . . . ?
It did. Julian Graves was continuing, “A chain of Bose nodes exists, forming a link between this spiral arm and the Sag Arm. The Chism Polyphemes certainly did not create such a chain, but obviously they have been making use of it for millennia. The notion that the Polyphemes endured enormously long crossings of the Gulf is a myth of their own devising. The Polypheme’s ship log showed that it had crossed the Gulf using exactly eleven Bose nodes. The total travel time to Miranda was a matter of weeks.”
Julian Graves made a gesture with his right hand, and the display of the principal clades and neighboring Gulf that Darya had seen the day before appeared. “As you see, the Bose nodes begin at a location easily reached from here, and they continue to points deep within the Sag Arm. A new and easy path exists from this arm to the neighboring one.
“That, however, was not the main reason why the councilor called me, nor the reason why I called this meeting. The ship contained other information within its data banks. The councilor concluded—and I agree with her conclusion—that there is evidence of Builder artifacts in the Sagittarius Arm.”
It was Darya’s turn to jerk upright in her seat. A suggestion of existing Builder artifacts—even from such a known unreliable source as the Chism Polyphemes . . .
Graves went on, “Furthermore—”
He was interrupted by a quiet voice from Darya’s left. “May I speak?”
With those words came instant recognition. Darya said to the dark-haired man sitting next to Hans Rebka, “Why, you’re Tally! But you are in a different body.”
“Yes, indeed. I am E. Crimson Tally.” The embodied computer grinned horribly at Darya. “I perceive that you did not know me until I spoke. That is because, one month ago, it was necessary to place me within a new setting. For some reason, the bodies into which I have been placed suffer an abnormally high failure rate.”
Darya could imagine—the embodied computer had a disregard for danger that only a being with a totally replaceable body could match. And the installers still hadn’t managed to get that ghastly smile right.
E.C. Tally said again to Julian Graves, “Councilor, may I speak?”
“I have in the past found no way to prevent you. Go ahead.”
“I merely wish to point out that the evidence of Builder artifacts in the Sag Arm is not new. Extra capabilities were added to my newly embodied brain, plus improved data access channels to my body. Last night I downloaded everything in the general data banks. Information there about the Sagittarius Arm indicates the presence of Builder artifacts.”
“That is true. Do you know where that information came from?”
“No sources were quoted. The information has perhaps been in the data banks for thousands of years. I do not know its derivation.”
“But we do.” J’merlia raised a stick-thin limb. “Atvar H’sial offers apologies for this interruption, but the matter is important. She says, long ago, members of the Cecropia Federation interested in Builder artifacts did a complete survey of all knowledge of the Sag Arm relating to possible Builder activity there. The conclusion was that everything originated in statements made by Chism Polyphemes.”
“Which means it’s all a load of crappo.” Louis Nenda swiveled in his seat and looked along the row to Tally. “E.C., didn’t you spend time with Dulcimer?”
“Indeed I did.”
“Well, Dulcimer was a Chism Polypheme, an’ didn’t he give you all that garbage about Polytope, an’ how it was a world built by the free-space Manticore?”
“Garbage? I thought it was all true.”
Julian Graves said firmly, “E.C. Tally, what a Chism Polypheme tells you is almost certainly not true. More important, I will not have this meeting turned into an irrelevant series of digressions.”
“May I speak?”
“You may speak as much as you like—after I have finished. The facts are these: we have no absolute proof that there are Builder artifacts in the Sagittarius Arm. However, a strong possibility exists that there are. This alone would be enough to encourage some investigators to make a trip to the inward arm. However, there are other and more compelling reasons for an interest in the Sag Arm. When the ship of the Chism Polypheme was thoroughly explored, a group of other alien beings was discovered within their own sealed living quarters. There were eighteen of them. They were of a species unknown to us—and every one was dead. Like the Chism Polypheme, their bodies were outwardly undamaged. But like the Polypheme, all their body cells had been burst open by some unknown force.”
Graves waited for the murmur to die down before he continued, “With considerable difficulty, we have been able to decipher their records. They came here to seek our advice and our assistance, although there is no suggestion that they ever thought the trip would prove fatal to them. They call themselves by a name which our translation machines offer as Marglotta. Their home world is in the Sag Arm, and it translates as Marglot. It is somewhere in here.”
Graves again gestured, and the Gulf with its pattern of Bose nodes vanished. It was replaced in the 3-D display by a long, twisting volume of space, dotted with the beacons of supergiant stars and great obscuring clouds of dust and gas.
“The Sag Arm, in detail. Here"—a blinking point of blue appeared—"is our best estimate for the location of the Marglot system. Either we are misunderstanding their records, or the Marglotta come from a strange world indeed. There seem to be four poles, defined as North, South, Hot, and Cold. No explanation is offered for this. The Marglotta apparently did not feel it necessary to keep in their files descriptive details of their own home world. However, you will have plenty of time to puzzle out the significance of the four planetary poles later.”
Later? But if no one else asked the question, Darya was not about to interrupt. The councilor’s big, domed head, with its powerful mnemonic twin memory and misty blue eyes, still had the power to intimidate her.