Graves said, "At least, we assumed that all was quiet. Then, two months ago, a ship carrying a Chism Polypheme arrived at Upside Miranda Port. The Polyphemes are a species rarely seen in our local arm, since their home world is somewhere in the Sag Arm. The Polyphemes are famously reluctant to give accurate information on its whereabouts."
Louis Nenda, next to Darya, sniffed loudly. "Why don't you tell it like it is, Councilor? Any Polypheme would rather lie than tell the truth. They're the most crooked, unreliable, deceitful species in the galaxy. If you believe anything that the one who came here said, you're a fool."
"You may be right, although the Chism Polyphemes accord the doubtful honor of maximum duplicity to humans. However, in this case it was not necessary to take the Chism Polypheme's word for anything, since it could speak not a word. The ship finished the journey on automatic pilot. The Polypheme was dead on arrival."
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.
Graves went on, "Now for a question which you may already have asked yourselves. Why was I, a member of the inter-clade
Ethical
Council, called in? I have perhaps had more contact than other councilors with Builder artifacts, but I am by no means an expert on the subject. How are ethics involved? I can give you a simple answer. We may be dealing with attempted genocide. The Marglotta say that their world is changing. Some great destructive force is at work in the Sag Arm. It has spread steadily for many millennia, possibly for millions of years. The Marglotta suspect the influence of the Builders. I cannot speak as to the truth of that conjecture, but we have made our own observations of the Sag Arm. We find a region utterly lacking in light and life. Observe."
The chamber dimmed. The new 3-D display seemed to grin back at Darya. It was as though something had taken a bite out of the spiral arm and left a small sphere of black nothing where stars should be.
"Scary picture." Louis Nenda spoke softly, as much to himself as to Darya. "And hard luck on Marglotta and friends."
She whispered back, "Scary, and strange. Anything on that scale has to be Builder activity. But no Builder artifact in our arm ever destroyed whole stellar systems."
Julian Graves was staring at them. Louis Nenda said, more loudly, "Somethin's doing a number on the Sag Arm. But Councilor, it's a zillion lightyears away. We're safe enough."
"I do not share your confidence on the latter point." Julian Graves's deep voice filled the hall. "Our own clades—
all
our own clades—could be in danger. We went back to observations of the Sag Arm made millennia ago. The dark sphere is growing, and as it spreads, its outer boundary will come closer to an edge of the Sag Arm—to the place, in fact, where nodes of the Bose network stretch across the Gulf toward our own spiral arm."
Darya could sense Hans Rebka moving restlessly at her side. He said, "I see what you're getting at. But what are we talking about here? We sure don't need to worry about next week, or next year. How long do we have?"
"Precisely?" The lights came on, and Graves was frowning. "I do not know. E. Crimson Tally? An estimate?"
"From the data available, the affected area could reach the far edge of the Gulf somewhere between twenty-nine and thirty-two thousand years from now."
Graves nodded. "There's your answer, Captain Rebka. But I wonder why you ask."
Rebka stood up restlessly, although squeezed between Darya and E.C. Tally he had no place to go. "Because of who I am, and what I've done all my life. I can see why Darya might get excited when there are signs that the Builders are busy in the next arm over. I can see why you are involved, because the immediate danger to the Marglotta is an ethical question. But me, I'm strictly short-term. Get in a fix today, maybe I can get you out of it by tomorrow. At least I'll try. But when you talk thousands and tens of thousands of years, I'm as much use as feathers on a fish."
"Which goes doubled for At an' me." Louis Nenda stood up, too, leaving Darya sitting sandwiched tightly between him and Rebka. "An' our slaves, J'merlia an' Kallik—"
"They are not your slaves, Mr. Nenda. I object strongly to the use of that word. They are free beings."
"Try tellin' that to
them
, Councilor—maybe you'll have more luck than I've had. But don't get me off the point. Me an' At don't specialize in ethics."
"I am not unaware of that point. In fact, I am relying upon it."
"Eh? What kind of crack is that? Anyway, not only ethics. I've been mixed up with Builder stuff ever since Summertide, but nobody in their right mind would call me an
expert
on them."
"This also is a fact well-known to me."
"So why am I here? Why is At here? Why is that"—Nenda seemed ready to use something insulting, but finally he just jerked a thumb toward Hans Rebka—"why is
he
here? Hell, why is any one of us here? We were forced to come, you know—we didn't want to."
Graves nodded. "That also is no surprise. Mr. Nenda, and Captain Rebka also, I am afraid that one element of this whole affair has apparently escaped you. I should have been clearer at the outset. You were not brought to Miranda Port simply to be provided with information concerning the new Bose nodes that lead to the Sag Arm. You were not brought here to learn about the Marglotta, or the destructive force at work in the Sagittarius Arm. Nor were you brought here to offer your advice, valuable as that may be. You were brought here because you, and I, and everyone present in this chamber, have a more active role to perform."
"Like what?"
"Like, Mr. Nenda, to discover what threatens to destroy Marglot, and what one day may destroy us." Graves bowed his head, so that light gleamed on his bald dome with its pattern of radiation scars that for some reason he had never bothered to have removed. "Miranda Port represents no more than a point of embarkation. As soon as possible, we will all be on our way to the Sagittarius Arm."
Darya, even though she was from one of the richest worlds in the Fourth Alliance, had never dreamed that ships like the
Pride of Orion
existed. It was a miracle of compact structure. Although it was not especially large, and although it looked like and operated as one perfectly integrated body, the ship could divide into six self-contained vessels. Each had its own drive and its own Bose transfer capability. The ship had been renamed before they set out from Upside Miranda Port. Darya suspected that was a Council act. The
Pride of Orion
and everyone within it would be the first representatives of the local arm to visit its inward neighbor.