“It won’t be easy, an’ it will take time. But it can’t be this minute. I have to arrange to put us through another Bose node.”
“We’ll meet later?”
“You bet.”
Louis disentangled himself and went through into the control cabin. Its door had been sacrificed on Marglot to the cause of reduced mass, but Atvar H’sial moved to stand at the entrance and prevent anyone else from entering.
“Louis, I feel that I will never understand humans.”
“Join the club.”
“First, consider the survival specialist, Sinara Bellstock. She could not wait to mate with you on several earlier occasions. But in the conference chamber, her chemical messengers gave off no trace of interest in you. Instead they revealed great interest in Ben Blesh.”
“You don’t need pheromones to read that. Sinara has found herself a new hero. Now she’s hot for Ben.” Louis sat down in the control chair and stared at the Bose coordinates. A few more minutes would do it. “An’ you know what? I’m relieved. You’ve no idea how rotten it makes me feel when somebody expects me to be a hero.”
“I am not surprised. It is a role for which by both temperament and history you are unsuited. However, the puzzle does not end with Sinara Bellstock. When humans are in an unwashed condition, their pheromonal products are particularly easy to read. Darya Lang was offering you her body in the corridor. True?”
“Some of her body. An’ I don’t think she was expectin’ it to happen right there in the corridor. But more or less.”
“And you were giving off conflicting signals. On the one hand, you sympathize with and desire her. On the other hand, you have absolutely no intention of returning to the Sagittarius Arm under any circumstances whatsoever.”
“So? Any trip to the Sag Arm might be six months away. Darya could be tomorrow night. You gonna give me a lecture on morals?”
“I would not dream of doing so. Were you to observe Cecropian mating habits they would, I suspect, render you nauseated.”
“Some human ones don’t make me feel any too good.” Louis had his eyes fixed on the countdown. Another minute and they would enter another Bose node. One more step on the long journey to the Orion Arm, and from this point on it ought to be plain sailing. The Have-It-All was doing no more than retracing its outward path. “So maybe Darya an’ me decide to play around on the way home. Don’t you agree I’ve earned it?”
“Indeed you have. However, I want to point out one more complication that does not seem to have occurred to you.”
“Go on. Screw things up for me when they’re goin’ great.”
“Darya Lang is from Sentinel Gate, and she will doubtless wish to return there. Waiting for you on Sentinel Gate is the faithful Glenna Omar. Do you not see what a difficult choice lies ahead of you?”
Twenty seconds to go to the Bose node. Louis stared around him at the ruined cabin. He could visualize the rest of the ship. Where once had been the most luxurious of beds there were now bare metal floors. The finest robochef in the Orion Arm floated somewhere in the sea of debris that had been Marglot. Showers, once able to provide subtle combinations of perfumed essences, offered at best a trickle of cold water. Whole closets, once filled with Glenna Omar’s lingerie and furs and gowns and shoes and jewelry, stood empty.
“Yeah.” Louis entered the final transfer sequence. “There’s a choice ahead. Only it’s not mine to make, an’ I doubt it’ll be all that difficult once she sees this ship. You don’t know Glenna as well as I do.”
Space around the Have-It-All flickered. The vessel, such as was left of it, entered the Bose node.
EPILOG
From notes dictated by Darya Lang just prior to the arrival of the Have-It-All at Upside Miranda Port:
This is a proposed addendum to the volume A SURFEIT OF NOTIONS: Theories of Builder origins, activities, nature, and artifacts. Begin.
It is difficult for an author when she discovers that a major work, over which she has labored for years and which is shortly to be published, contains basic errors. This unfortunately appears to be the case with this volume. The theories presented in the body of the text, concerning the nature of the Builders, are certainly numerous and diverse. Recent events in the Sagittarius Arm reveal that all those theories may also be at best incomplete, and at worst deeply flawed. Every theory offered to date has adopted a central dogma, implicit although never stated. It is as follows: Builder actions, past and possibly present, have had a profound effect on species development within the local spiral arm, and perhaps beyond. The actions of those developing species, however, have had no effect on the Builders and their plans. Influences flow in one direction only.
There is a corollary to the central dogma: The Builders operate at such vast levels of thought and technology that assistance from our clades to the Builders will never be necessary. The contrary hypothesis, namely, that the Builders lack total control over their own works and may require help from clades whom we have previously considered so far beneath them, is close to heretical.
Let us be willing to consider heresy. From recent experience, we can speculate as to the possible nature of such assistance. All Builder activities seem designed to operate over vast lengths of time. Conceivably, Builder actions and reactions are obliged to function in a long-extended mode. Humans, like all species that develop on planetary surfaces, have perforce evolved to respond rapidly to any threat. We are short-lived, but we are fast. Could our speedy reactions be of value to the Builders? Could our ultimate relationship be not the subservience of one to the other, but some form of symbiosis? Facing great dangers, will we perhaps help and support each other?
This is such a radical notion that it cannot, of course, be justified by speculation alone. Evidence must be sought, and crucial experiments performed.
That’s the point that the dummies on the inter-clade council don’t get. Sure, you can send survival specialists to the Sag Arm. Send a hundred, send a thousand, but if you don’t send scientists, what can you hope to learn? You can’t prove general theorems based on a couple of cases—though that’s what I’ve just been doing here, and I certainly hate it. I must find a way to be part of the second expedition, even if I have to sneak on board in disguise.
Disguised as what? Maybe I could bribe somebody. Hans says that in any group of over fifty, you can always find one that can be bribed. I wonder if that applies to inter-clade council members?
What am I saying? Delete after “crucial experiments performed,” and Continue.
Hard evidence will be needed to support such a radically new hypothesis. We note, however, that many of the listed “theories” concerning Builder origins and activities are based upon the analysis of a single event or artifact. In the case of the Sag Arm, forty or more stellar systems offer proof that something on the scale of Builder artifacts and activity is at work there.
At work there. Not here, in our local arm. I wonder what Professor Merada and the others at the Artifact Research Institute will say when they hear what we found in the Sag Arm. I can make a guess. They will say lots, but they won’t do one damn thing. They’ll sit around the conference table and talk about it for the next ten years. I don’t see much help from them.
But I have to be on that next expedition. Who can I rely on? Well, there’s E.C. Tally. He certainly wants to go. But if you’re reduced to relying on E.C. you are in a bad way. Louis will help me. He and I are becoming very close. There’s a price for that, though. Hans would normally help me, too, if I treated him the right way, but I can’t handle both of them at once. I don’t have the nerve or the experience. Glenna could give me pointers, and she would probably enjoy doing it, but she’s back on Sentinel Gate. By the time we get there it will be too late.