Transvergence (66 page)

Perfect. Come in, J'merlia, wherever you are
. "Keep still, Kallik. Those are weapons ports."

"I know." Kallik had stopped the sideways crabbing, but now she was moving forward. "Permit me to ask something. What is the nearest artifact to the Cecropian Fringe?"

It was an odd time for such a question, but this particular one didn't call for any thought. Information on all the Builder artifacts was so ingrained in Darya that the answer came as second nature. "It's the Kruskal Extension—what most people call Enigma."

"Thank you. Are there inhabited worlds close to Enigma?"

"Three of them. Humans call them Rosen, Lao, and Nordstrom, after the original human explorers of Enigma. But as I recall, there are no humans on any of the three. High mass, all of them, and I don't think we could breathe the air on Lao."

"Which is one way of avoiding territorial conflict. But with thanks to you, we perhaps have what we need." Kallik was still drifting forward, tracked by blunt nozzles protruding from the weapons ports. She switched to external suit broadcast and produced a piercing series of audible but near-supersonic howls. To Darya's ears it was a painful scream of buzz-saws, nothing like the knotted speech pattern that had greeted them from the ship.

There was a long silence, during which Darya waited to be dispersed to atoms. At last an answering set of screeches came from the ship.

"Excellent. That is Tenthredic, or a variant of it in which I have at least rudimentary speech capability." Kallik gestured to Darya to move forward with her. "The inhabitants of Lao are Tenthredans. They qualify, at least biologically, as remote cousins of mine."

"Cousins! But they're all set to shoot at us." The threatening nozzles had not moved from their targets, and Darya could see glowing cross-hairs within them. Another awful howl, to her ears like a final warning, came from the ship.

"With respect, I think not. They are merely expressing their own sorrow, alarm, and confusion. I told them who we are, and where they are. That news is distressing to them. Less than half an hour ago, they and a sister ship were entering Enigma to explore it—six hundred light-years from here." Kallik was heading directly for a hatch on the ship's side. "A certain apprehension on their part is not perhaps too surprising."

The stages of Kallik's logic, as soon as she explained them to Darya, seemed absurdly simple:

One: The original message was in a language used in the Cecropian Fringe.

Two: Since the ship had emerged from a Builder transportation system, it must also have entered one.

Three: Transportation system entry points are associated with Builder artifacts.

Four: The Fringe itself does not contain any artifacts, but Enigma lies close to it.

Therefore
, the newcomers probably originated on a world close to the Fringe, and also close to Enigma.

Which made the puzzle of Labyrinth, and the arrival of the ship, no less perplexing. In all recorded history there had been no evidence of Builder transit vortices—until one year ago. Now vortices were popping up everywhere, and making nonsense of all human rules for superluminal transportation.

Added to that, Labyrinth itself was changing
again
, more and more obviously. Darya and Kallik, on board the Tenthredan ship, were supposed to guide them all back to open space. As far as Darya was concerned, the Tenthredans were more likely to escape by flying their ship straight at the walls than by listening to her.
Nothing
in Labyrinth was as it had been when they entered. And the changes continued.

She nodded at the solid-bodied, blunt-headed creature poised over the control panel. The family resemblance to Hymenopts was obvious, but with their red eyes, hooked jaws, prominent stings, and banded abdomens of bright black and maroon stripes, the Tenthredans seemed far more obviously menacing than Kallik. There were five of them, and they were all watching her suspiciously with one ring of crimson eyes, while staring at Kallik with the other. The Hymenopt, gesturing to the far end of the chamber, seemed to be explaining some subtle point to the pilot. The Tenthredan was gesturing in turn, and apparently disagreeing violently.

"What's the problem?" Darya had to change her own role from that of useless supernumerary. "We know that's the only way out. We have to go through the tunnel, even if it means blasting a way through with the weapons system. Tell her that."

"Him. At this stage of the life cycle a Tenthredan is male. I am doing my best, but we are communicating with great difficulty because of my inadequate language skills."

Kallik did not seem to be aware of the irony in her apologetic comment. Darya did. When she and Kallik first met, the Hymenopt had spoken no word of any human tongue. Now, less than one year later, Kallik was completely fluent in several human languages—and Darya neither understood nor could utter a single syllable of Hymenopt.

"He agrees that the ship will not pass through the tunnel easily," Kallik went on. "However, he remains reluctant to employ extreme force."

"Tell him we don't care anymore how much he damages Labyrinth. We do whatever we have to, to get out."

Darya marveled at her own response—no one back on Sentinel Gate would ever believe that it came from the mouth of the compiler of the
Lang Universal Artifact Catalog
. She had always argued, vociferously, for the preservation of every element of every artifact. Even Kallik was shaking her head.

"Don't you see, Kallik? We must damage Labyrinth if we want to escape."

"Indeed, yes. But with respect, Professor Lang, that is not the point at issue. The pilot is reluctant to use weapons at this stage because of what his sensors suggest is in the next chamber."

Darya peered at the black void of the tunnel as it showed on the screen. "He can't possibly see anything."

"Not with visible signals. He is receiving a return sonic profile, indicating that the chamber beyond holds a ship. He argues, with reason, that no weapon should be used until more information is available. Suppose that in the chamber beyond lies the Tenthredan sister ship, transported like them, but to a slightly different location?"

Something—at last!—to do, more meaningful than attempts to become an instant speaker and understander of Tenthredic howls and screams. Darya was on her way to the hatch almost before Kallik had finished speaking.

"Tell him I'll have a message back to you in just a few minutes. And would you also tell him that I'd feel a lot more relaxed if he'd point those weapons in a different direction while I'm out in front of the ship? I get the feeling this whole group is a bit trigger-happy."

"That may unfortunately be true, Professor Lang." Kallik called after her when Darya was already in the lock. "With respect, I suggest that you proceed with extreme caution. The Tenthredan reputation is not for steady nerves. It is undesirable to excite them."

Just what Darya needed to hear. She went into the tunnel, very aware of the array of vaporizing weapons pointing at her back. Midway along the narrow corridor she paused. Suppose that what she found in the chamber ahead was dangerous, so much an immediate threat to Kallik and the Tenthredans that it had to be destroyed at once? What would she do? She was no cool hero like Hans Rebka, willing to direct fire onto his own position if it was required to save a larger group.

But she could not remain in the middle of the tunnel forever. Even if she did nothing, the nervous Tenthredans might decide it was time to shoot. Darya sighed, and started forward.

Whatever was in the chamber beyond, it was unlikely to be another ship—unless it was
her
ship. Quintus Bloom had discovered Labyrinth and talked of it on Sentinel Gate, but so far as Darya knew the artifact was otherwise unknown except on the backwater planet of Jerome's World. No one there had shown interest in exploring it—or anything else, for that matter. Darya's expedition to Labyrinth was presumably the second visit in its whole history. So if there
was
a ship in the next chamber . . .

She came to the entrance and halted again. When a person was so consistently wrong, it was time to give up having opinions.

The elongated bubble of the vault ahead contained no sign of the hail of orange particles that had threatened them on entry. What it held instead was a single humpbacked object at its far end. Small, and of an unfamiliar design, but certainly a ship.

"Kallik, can you hear me?"

"Certainly."

"Then tell your buddy that he was quite right. There is a ship through here." Darya hesitated. This one carried no sign of weapons. Nothing moved on its surface. Was it possible that she was facing a dead vessel, a derelict that had floated in Labyrinth for eons?

"Kallik, you can tell the Tenthredans that this is not their sister ship. It's much smaller, and a completely different design. I'm going to take a closer look. If there is anyone inside I will try to make contact with them."

There. That was one way to force yourself to take a dangerous action. Announce an intention, and then be too embarrassed to admit that you were afraid to go through with it. Darya wondered how a professional would approach a situation like this. There seemed to be few options. The ship itself did nothing to suggest any interest in her presence.

She examined the hull in front of her, then headed for the single lock. It was a standard design, used everywhere from the inner worlds of the Fourth Alliance to the farthest reaches of the Zardalu Communion. She knew just how it worked. No excuse for backing off and returning to the unpleasant company of the Tenthredans.

Darya reached for the manual control on the outside of the lock. It turned easily in her grip. She rotated the control all the way and swung the airtight hatch inward on its beveled hinge.

As she entered the airlock she swore a silent oath: If she emerged from this alive, she would never again poke fun at Professor Merada and his quiet, cloistered life on Sentinel Gate.

Hans Rebka stood in front of the Treel sisters, sharply aware of their glowering disbelief. He couldn't blame them. The old term for the problem was "credibility gap."

Maddy, Lissie, and Katerina had been stranded in the interior of Paradox. They were facing eventual starvation, but that was a form of death they understood.

Along came E.C. Tally: a human male, a man, which counted as a major strike against him, but at least a man who might offer possible salvation. Then Tally had explained that he had not come to save them. He was trapped himself, and he knew of no way out; and anyway he was not a man. After a lot of explanation, they were beginning to believe him.

Enter Hans Rebka. Definitely a man, and a friend of E.C. Tally, who brought with him the bad news that the prison of Paradox was no longer as safe as it seemed. He had led them out of their chamber—but not to safety. No. He had taken them and the
Misanthrope
into a diabolical ink-swirl that he called a vortex, and it had wrung them out like wet dishcloths until they had wanted to die.

They had survived. And were they safe when they finally emerged? That was a matter of opinion. Certainly they were no longer anywhere within Paradox, or any other place that Rebka or Tally had ever been or heard of. They had arrived inside some strange new prison. Rebka had made it clear that so far as he knew the vortex had flung them into unknown territory. He could tell them nothing about the place. It might be no more than a different choice of tomb.

Enter J'merlia. An alien who had certainly
not
been with Rebka and Tally on Paradox, a life-form very far from human, but a life-form
known to Hans Rebka and E.C. Tally
. And vice versa. When J'merlia had entered the
Misanthrope
he had greeted the others joyfully, as long-absent friends.

Was Hans expected to explain all this to the Treel sisters?

He couldn't explain
any
of it, even to himself. Instead, he was asking his own questions.

"Let's get this straight." He had persuaded J'merlia to shed his suit, then closed the hatch on the
Misanthrope
and locked it. "You say that you and Kallik and Darya went to
Sentinel
? Why there?"

"We know the Sentinel artifact," Maddy Treel said gruffly. "But who the devil are Kallik, and Darya?"

"They are both females. That should please you." Rebka found himself glaring at the senior Treel sister. It was tempting to start playing battle-of-the-sexes. But that would solve nothing. "I'm sorry. Darya Lang is a researcher on Sentinel Gate. She compiled the
Lang Universal Artifact Catalog
. And Kallik is a Hymenopt with whom we've all worked before. J'merlia, are you suggesting that
this
is Sentinel, where we are now? It's nothing like any description of Sentinel that I've ever seen."

"Oh, no." J'merlia was as confused as anyone, but he was obviously delighted to be with Rebka and Tally. Finally, he had someone to make his decisions for him. "We left Sentinel because it had changed and was not at all as we expected. We went on to a different artifact: Labyrinth."

"No such artifact!" Lissie glared at Hans Rebka. "What are you trying to pull? We know the Lang Catalog as well as anyone. There's nothing in there called Labyrinth."

"It's a new artifact." He didn't expect that comment to be well-received. It wasn't.

"Bullshit! All the artifacts are millions of years old." Lissie turned to E.C. Tally for support. "You say you don't have circuits that allow you to lie. So tell me: How old are the Builder artifacts?"

"All are at least three million years old—except for Labyrinth, which does appear to be quite new." E.C. Tally had hoped for facts, and was getting arguments instead. "If you would just permit J'merlia to complete his explanations . . ."

"He's right." Unexpected support came from Katerina Treel. She had taken a strand of her long, dark hair and was thoughtfully chewing on it. Socially acceptable behavior on Darby's Lick. It almost made Hans Rebka nostalgic for home, back in the crudities of the Phemus Circle.