“Thank you,” E.C. Tally said. “I must say, I like it myself. But it is not quite right.” He inspected the Zardalu critically, and as Darya watched the aquamarine tentacles of the land-cephalopods darkened a shade and the ring of breeding pouches moved a fraction lower on the torso.
“Though congratulations are due more to this ship’s image restoration and display facilities,” the embodied computer went on. He circled the group of Zardalu, trailing shiny neural cable along the floor behind him. “All I did was feed it my memories. If something as good as this had been available on Miranda, perhaps I would have had more success in persuading the Council. Do you think that it is a plausible reconstruction, Professor Lang? Or is more work needed before it can mimic reality?”
Darya was saved from answering by the sound of voices from the control-room entrance. Louis Nenda and Hans Rebka appeared between two of the massive support columns, talking animatedly. They glanced at the Zardalu standing in the middle of the room, then marched across to Darya and Kallik.
“Nice job, E.C.,” Nenda said casually. “Put it on video and audio when you’re done.” He turned from the embodied computer and the menacing Zardalu, and grinned at Darya. “Professor, we got it. We agree on everything. But me and Rebka gotta have your help persuading Graves and J’merlia.”
“You’ve got what?” Darya was still feeling like a fool, but she could not help returning Nenda’s grin. Villainous or not, his presence was always so reassuring. She had been unreasonably delighted to see him at their first meeting on the Erebus, and she found herself smiling now.
“We figured out how to track down the Zardalu.” Hans Rebka flopped down into the chair where Darya had been sitting.
“Damn right.” But Nenda was turning to face the crouched figure of Atvar H’sial. “Hold on a minute, At’s sending to me. She’s been working the computer. I’ll be back.”
If Nenda and Rebka agreed on anything, that was a first. It seemed to Darya that they had been snarling at each other since the moment when the Erebus picked up Darya and Hans Rebka and made its subluminal departure from Sentinel Gate. It did not help to be told by Julian Graves that Darya herself was the hidden reason for the argument.
She watched as Nenda moved to crouch below the carapace of the Cecropian, where pheromonal messages were most easily sent and received, and remained there in silence for half a minute.
“I don’t see how Atvar H’sial can interface with the computer at all,” Darya said. “The screen is blank, and even if it weren’t, she couldn’t get anything from it.”
“She does not employ the screen.” Kallik pointed one wiry limb to where Atvar H’sial was now rising to her full height. “She obtains information feedback aurally. She has reprogrammed the oscillators to give audible responses at high frequencies. I hear only the lower end of the range. J’merlia would catch the whole thing, but all of it is too high for human ears.”
Nenda returned, followed by Atvar H’sial. He was frowning.
“So now we got three ideas,” he said. He stared at Darya and Kallik. “I hope that neither of you two think you know where the Zardalu are.”
“I do,” Darya said.
“Then we got problems. So does At.”
“And I also have suggestions.” Kallik spoke softly and diffidently. Since they had been reunited, Darya had noticed a strange change in the relationship between Louis Nenda and Atvar H’sial, and their former — or was it current? — slaves. Kallik and J’merlia had greeted their sometime owners with huge and unconcealed joy, and those owners were clearly delighted to see them. But no one was sure how to behave. The Lo’tfian and the Hymenopt were ready and eager to take orders, but the Cecropian and the Karelian human were not giving them. Nenda in particular was on his absolute best behavior — which was not very good, in terms of social graces. If Darya had been forced to introduce him to the research staff of the Institute, Professor Merada would have had a fit. But Glenna Omar, with her appetite for anything rough and male, would more likely have been all over him.
She pushed away that last thought as unworthy as Nenda scratched thoughtfully at his backside, sniffed, and dropped into a chair next to Hans Rebka.
“We gotta sort all this out quick,” he said. “We sit here jerking ourselves off, while new little Zardalu must be poppin’ out of the pouches every five minutes.”
“We must proceed,” Rebka said. He and Nenda were having their usual silent tussle as to who was in charge, something they did whenever Julian Graves was not around. “We can’t afford to wait for the other two to show up. It seems that we all have ideas, so who wants to go first?”
Darya realized that Kallik was glancing deferentially in their direction.
“I guess that I do,” she said. “What I have to say won’t take long. I’ll start with two facts: First, when the Builder transportation system returned us from Serenity, it landed us in different parts of the spiral arm. But in every case, we came out on or next door to the location of a Builder artifact. Second, no one has reported the sighting of any live Zardalu — and you can bet that would make news everywhere. So I deduce two things. First, the Zardalu would almost certainly have arrived close to an artifact, too. And second, that artifact cannot be in Fourth Alliance territory, or in the Cecropia Federation, or even in the Phemus Circle. It has to be where you might expect Zardalu to be sent — to a location somewhere in the territories of the Zardalu Communion. That makes sense for two reasons: the Zardalu were originally picked up there; and the Communion still has a lot of unexplored territory. If you wanted to disappear, and remain hidden, that’s the first place in the spiral arm that you’d pick.”
She stared around at five silent and expressionless faces. “Any comment?”
“Go on,” Rebka said. “No quarrels so far. Where do you go from here?”
“I know the locations of all the Builder artifacts. Three hundred and seventy-seven of them lie within the Zardalu Communion territory. A hundred and forty-nine of those lie in fairly remote territory, where a Zardalu appearance might not be spotted at once. More than that, if you go along with my assumption that the Zardalu had to land someplace close to one of those artifacts, then I can narrow the field a lot further. You see, for many artifacts there’s just no planet within many light-years where an air-breathing life-form can survive. Throw in that requirement, and you have my final list.”
She turned to the console and touched three keys. “And here it is, along with my calculations.”
“Sixty-one planets, around thirty-three different stars.” Louis Nenda was frowning. “I can rule out a couple of those — I know ’em. Don’t forget Kallik and me are from the Communion. But it’s still too many. Hold on a minute, while I pass your list to At.”
The others waited impatiently during the transfer. Nenda was still in silent dialogue with the Cecropian when Julian Graves and J’merlia arrived in the control room. Rebka gestured to Darya’s list, still on the screen. “Candidate places we might find Zardalu. Too many.”
“And while I have no wish to complicate matters” — Kallik was busy at the console — “here are the results of my analysis, quite independently evolved although with a similar guiding logic.”
Another substantial list was appearing on the screen, next to Darya’s. “Seventy-two planets,” Kallik said apologetically, “around forty-one different stars. And only twenty-three planets in common with Professor Lang.”
“And it’s getting worse,” Nenda said. “Atvar H’sial did her own analysis, with a logic similar to Darya’s. But she didn’t prepare it for visual output. She’s doing that now.”