Rebka started to walk faster.
It would serve no purpose to point
out to Julius Graves that Steven was on the
way to becoming a bore. It was all right to
know
everything in the universe—but did he have to
tell
it?
Rebka was not willing to admit the real cause of his irritation. He
hated being with someone who knew far more than he did, but worse
still he hated to be with a man who saw through him with no effort at all. No one was supposed to know that he had a soft spot for Lang.
Damn it, he had only realized it
himself
when he had pulled her out
of the crashed aircar. She was something
more than a nuisance, more than an unwanted addition to his problems with Quake and Max Perry.
Why had she come, to make life more complicated? It was obvious that she was out of her depth on Opal, a scientist who should have stayed quietly in her lab to do her research. They would have to look after her.
He
would have to look after her. And the best way to do that was to keep her on Opal when he went to Quake.
The Level Five storm was over, and there was a rare break in Opal's night clouds. It was near midnight, but not dark.
Amaranth had been swinging in on the final stages of its slow approach
to Mandel. It was high in the sky, big enough to show a glowing disk of bright orange. In two more days, the dwarf companion would begin to cast shadows.
Half a sky away from it, lurking near the horizon, lay Gargantua, beginning its own dive toward the furnace of Mandel. It was still no more than a rosy point, but it was brighter than all the stars. In another week the gas-giant would show its own circular disk, barred with stripes of umber and pale yellow.
Rebka headed across the starport to one of the four main buildings
.
Graves was still tagging along beside him.
"You are heading to meet with Louis Nenda?" the councilor asked.
"I hope so. How much do you know about him?" If Rebka was stuck with Graves, he might as well try to use his superior knowledge.
"Only what the request told you," Graves said. "Plus our own knowledge of members of the Zardalu Communion—which is less than we would like. The Communion worlds are not noted for their cooperation."
Which might qualify as the best understatement yet, Rebka thought.
Twelve thousand years earlier, long before humans had begun the Expansion, the land-cephalopods of Zardalu had tried to create something that neither humans nor Cecropians had ever been foolish enough to attempt: the Zardalu Communion, a genuine empire, a thousand planets ruled ruthlessly from Genizee, the homeworld of the Zardalu clade. It had failed disastrously. But that failure might have been the object lesson saving humans and Cecropians from the
same mistake.
"Louis Nenda is basically human," Graves went on, "but with some Zardalu augmentation."
"Mental or
physical?"
"I do not know.
But whatever was done, it must be fairly minor.
There's no mention of rear-skull or fingertip eyes, no hermaphroditism, no deboning
or quadrimanuals or quadripedals. No gigantism or compaction—he's male, and standard size and weight according to the manifest. Of course, there are hundreds of modifications that don't appear
on
any standard list.
"As for the pet
that he brings with him, I can tell you even less. It is a Hymenopt, and needless to say, it is another arthropod—though similar to Earth's Hymenoptera only by analogy. But whether it is a plaything, or a sexual partner, or even a food supply for Nenda—that we will have to wait and see."
And not wait long, Rebka thought. The newly arrived ship sat in the middle of Starside Port, its occupants already in screening for organisms at the arrival building.
Since tests for endo- and ecto-parasites took only a few minutes, the
newcomers had to be in the
final stages of entry.
Rebka and Graves moved to where Max
Perry and three officials
from Port Entry were already waiting.
"How much longer?" Rebka asked.
Instead of replying, Perry gestured to the sealed double doors of Decontamination. They were beginning to
open.
After Graves's suggestions and Rebka's imaginings, Louis Nenda
looked surprisingly normal. Short, swarthy,
and muscular, he could
have
passed for an inhabitant of one
of the denser worlds of the
Phemus Circle. He was a little unsteady on his feet, probably the
result of half a dozen changes of gravity
in the past few hours, but he had plenty of pep, and his self-confidence showed in his walk. He glared arrogantly around with bloodshot eyes as he strutted out of the exobiology test unit; trotting by his side, mimicking his head movements, came a chubby little alien. It halted when it saw the group of waiting humans.
"Kallik!" Louis Nenda tugged on the harness that passed around the Hymenopt's thorax and encased the abdomen.
"Heel."
Then, without a look at anyone except Perry, he said, "Good morning Commander. I think you'll find I test negative. Kallik also. Here's my access request."
The other men were still staring at the Hymenopt. Julius Graves had seen one in travels through the Zardalu territories, but the rest of them knew only pictures and stuffed specimens.
The alien was hard to match to the Hymenopt's fierce reputation. It was less than half the height of Louis Nenda, with a small, smooth head dominated by powerful traplike mandibles and by
multiple pairs of bright black eyes set in a ring around the perimeter. They were in constant motion, independently tracking different objects around it.
The Hymenopt's body was rotund and barrel-shaped and covered with short black fur, a centimeter or two long. That was the prized Hymantel, a tough, water-resistant, and insulating coat.
What was not visible was the gleaming yellow sting, retracted into the end of the blunt abdomen. The hollow needle delivered squirts of neurotoxins, whose strength and composition the Hymenopt could vary at will. No standard serum could be effective as an antidote. Also invisible was the nervous system that provided a Hymenopt with a reaction speed ten times as fast as any human's. Eight wiry legs could carry it a hundred meters in a couple of seconds, or fifteen meters into the air under standard gravity. The Hymantel had been a seldom-seen item of human clothing, even before the Hymenopts had been declared a protected species.
"Welcome to the Dobelle system." Perry's voice said the opposite of his words. He took the access requests from Louis Nenda and glanced through them. "Your original request said little about the reason why you wish to visit Quake. Do you have more details here?"
"Sure do." Nenda's manner was as cocky as his walk. "I want to look at big land tides, and that means Quake. At Summertide. No problem in that, is there?"
"Quake is dangerous at Summertide. More dangerous than ever, with Amaranth coming so close."
"Hell, I don't care about danger." Nenda stuck out his chest. "Me and Kallik, we eat danger. We were down on Jellyroll when they had the hyperflare. Spent nine days in an aircar, chasing round in Jellyroll's shadow to avoid being roasted, got out without even a tan. Before that we were on the next-to-last ship out of Castlemaine." He laughed. "Lucky for us. Last ship out had no supplies and a forty-day crawl to a Bose Node. They had to eat each other. But for a real experience let me tell you what happened on Mousehole—"
"As soon as we've had a chance to review your request." Perry gave Nenda an angry glance. Even on one minute's exposure it was clear that the newcomer would not take it well if his application were rejected. "We'll show you to temporary accommodation, then some of us need to have a meeting. Is there anything special that he"—he gestured at the Hymenopt—"needs to eat?"
"She. Kallik is female. No, she's an omnivore. Like me." Nenda laughed with no trace of humor. "Hey, I hope I'm not hearing what I think I'm hearing. What's all this 'need to have a meeting' stuff? I've come a damned long way for this. Too far to get the runaround now."
"We'll see what we can do." Perry glanced down at Kallik. At the fury in Louis Nenda's voice a couple of inches of yellow sting had slid from its sheath. "I'm sure we agree on one thing: You don't want to go to Quake and be killed there."
"Don't you worry your head about us. We don't kill easy. Just approve that access request and let me get over there. It'll take more than Quake to do me in."
Maybe it would. Rebka watched as Perry led the newcomer away. Quake was dangerous, no doubt about it; but if self-confidence were any protection, Louis Nenda would be safe anywhere. Maybe it was Quake that needed the protection.
"I would like to hear your recommendation, Commander."
But Perry won't look at me, Rebka thought. He thinks he knows my decision. But he's wrong—because I don't know it myself.
"I oppose Summertide access, as you know." Perry's voice was barely audible, and his face was pale.
"Oppose access for anyone?"
"That's right."
"You know that Graves will simply overrule whatever we decide? He has the authority to hunt for the Carmel twins on Quake, anytime he wants to."
"He has that authority, and we both assume that he will go. But authority won't protect him. Quake at Summertide is a
killer."
Perry's voice rose on the final word.
"Very well. What about the others? They are willing to pay Dobelle very substantial amounts for the privilege of visiting Quake."
"I would approve their visits—well after Summertide. Darya Lang can study the Umbilical without being on the surface; Atvar H'sial has the whole rest of the year to study species under environmental stress."
"They'll never agree. Refuse access at Summertide, and you lose them and the money they would pay to Dobelle. What about Louis Nenda?"
Perry finally met Rebka's eye, and a different tone came into his voice. He even managed a smile. "He's lying, isn't he?"
"I certainly think so."
"And he's not very good at it."
"He doesn't give a damn. He should have picked a more plausible story. He strikes me as the last man in the spiral arm to be interested in land tides—I'm tempted to get Steven Graves to ask him a few technical questions about them. But that wouldn't solve anything. He came a long way to get here, nearly nine hundred light-years—unless he's lying about everything else, as well. But he certainly came from the Zardalu Communion, and that's at least four Bose Nodes. Any suggestions as to what he's really after?"
"I have no idea." Perry went quiet again and looked far off at something invisible. "But I don't think he's the only one who's lying.
The inquiry you sent to Circle intelligence about Darya Lang confirmed that she's an expert on Builder artifacts, but there's no reason for her to go down to the surface of Quake. She could do all her work here, or on the Umbilical itself. But whether she's telling the truth or not doesn't make any difference to my opinion. You asked for a recommendation. I'm giving it: no access for Lang, no access for
Atvar H'sial, no access for
anyone
until after
Summertide. And if Graves chooses to override us, that's up to him."
"You would let him go to Quake alone?"
"God, no." Perry was genuinely shocked. "You might as well kill him here. I'd go with him."
"I thought so." Rebka
had made up his mind. "And so will I."
And for all the wrong reasons, he thought. If I
allow
access to Quake, I may find out why everyone is so keen to go there. But if
I
refuse
access, I'll find out just how keen they are. And I'll probably force some of them to take action. That, I know how to deal with.
"Commander Perry," he continued. "I have made my decision. I agree with your recommendation." He smiled inwardly at the surprise on Perry's face. "We will refuse access to Quake for all parties until Summertide is over."
"I feel sure that's the right decision." Perry's self-control was excellent, but the expression of relief could not be hidden.
"Which leaves us one more decision to make," Rebka said. "Maybe we should toss a coin for it. Who is going to give the bad news to Darya Lang and to Atvar H'sial? Worst of all, who will tell Louis Nenda?"
UAC#: 1023
Galactic Coordinates: 29,334.229/18,339.895 / — 831.22
Name:
Lens
Star/planet association:
None, free space entity
Bose Access Node: 108 Estimated age: 9.138 ± 0.56 MegayearsExploration History:
The full history of Lens may never be known. Lying as it does in the clade of the Zardalu Communion, all early records were lost with the collapse of the Zardalu Empire. However, given the preoccupation of the Zardalu with biological science and their relative indifference to physical ones, it is most unlikely that any systematic exploration of Lens was ever attempted by them.
The recorded history
of Lens begins with its observation in E.122, but it was long assumed to be extragalactic. The local nature, as part of the spiral arm, was discovered in E. 388 from parallax effects. The Lens was approached directly in E. 2102 by Kusra (one-way journey), but no physical evidence for material existence could be obrtained. Paperl and Ula H'sagta (E. 2377) measured a polarization change of beamed lasers passed through the region of the Lens, confirmed its location, and mapped its extent.
Physical Description:
The Lens is a focusing region of space, 0.23 light-years in diameter and of apparently zero thickness (grazing
incidence
measurements have been made down to one
micrometer). Focusing is performed only for light with wavelength range of 0.110 to 2.355 micrometers, approaching within 0.077 radians of normal incidence to the plane surface of the Lens. There is, however, weak evidence of interaction with radiation of wavelength in excess of
0.1 Iight-years (the low energy
of such radiation makes its separation
from cosmic background of debatable validity). All other light, all particles or solid objects, and all gravity waves pass through the Lens
apparently unaffected. Radiation focusing appears to be
perfectly
achromatic for all wavelengths in the stated range. In that range, the
Lens performs as a diffraction-limited focusing device of 0.22 light-years effective aperture and 427
light-years focal length. With its
aid, planetary details have
been observed in galaxies more than one hundred million parsecs distant.
Physical Nature:
This must unfortunately comprise an eliminative list of what the Lens is
not
. Today's science and technology can provide no tenable suggestion as to what it
is
.
The Lens is not built on any particles known to today's inhabitants of the spiral arm. It is not a form of space-time singularity, since such a singularity cannot affect light of certain wavelengths and leave all other forms of matter and radiation untouched. For the same reason, it cannot be an assembly of bound gravitons. It cannot possess a superstring or superloop structure, since no spontaneous or induced emission is observed.
Intended Purpose
: Unknown. The Lens represents macroengineering by the Builders at its largest and most mysterious. The specific wavelength range has, however, induced some students of the artifact to speculate that this range corresponds to the spectral sensitivity range of Builder eyes. Since there is no evidence that the Builders possessed anything equivalent to eyes in human or Hymenopt terms, the conjecture is of passing interest only.
It has also been conjectured that the Lens performs modulation of the light passing through it, in a way not understood. If so, its function as a focusing lens would be no more than an accidental by-product of the structure's true purpose.
—From the
Lang Universal Artifact Catalog,
Fourth Edition.