Charles Sheffield: Resurgence

“I know. It never seems to work out that way. So I guess we’ll all be going to Miranda.”

Glenna motioned to Nenda and patted the bench at her side. Her negligee had opened at the bottom, to reveal an inordinate length of smooth white leg.

“Louis, you don’t mean all , do you? You know I’m no good at dangerous things. I’d just get in the way.”

“You mean you’d rather stay on Xerarchos?”

She patted his arm. “Silly man. Of course I won’t stay here . This is an awful place.”

“I’ve seen worse.”

“Not with me you haven’t. Now, you say you must go to Miranda. And Miranda is just one Bose transition away from Sentinel Gate. You can drop me off on the way.”

“But what will you do on Sentinel Gate?”

“I’ll take my old job. I was a Senior Information Specialist.”

“You told me you hated it.”

“Oh, it wasn’t all that bad, just a bit boring. It will only be until you come back, you know. And there was the occasional diversion.”

Occasional diversion . A male visitor to Sentinel Gate, where Glenna’s challenge was to hustle the stranger into bed before he left the planet. Apparently it didn’t matter what he looked like, or how badly he behaved, provided that he was an off-worlder.

Nenda knew all this. Glenna had once explained it to him, and anyway, he could be thought of as a beneficiary of her policy.

He nodded. He didn’t resent the proposal that she should not go with him to Miranda. A woman with real nerve was something to be admired.

He thought of asking, “We’ll wait for each other, won’t we?” then changed his mind. There were some things so stupid, you ought not even to think them. Instead he said, “That’s it, then. Sentinel Gate for you, and the two of us will have a good time on the way. An’ after that, At and me will see what Miranda has to offer.”

“Maybe fame and fortune, Louis. When I was growing up, my house-uncle always told me that every trouble could be thought of as an opportunity.”

An opportunity, in Nenda’s experience, to find even more trouble. But negative thinking never got you far.

He slipped his arm through Glenna’s and they stood up together. Miranda was well-known as one of the richest worlds in the spiral arm. Maybe he and Atvar H’sial would find a chance to skim a little off the top.

As always, travel through the Bose Network induced a faint sense of hallucination. There was something unnatural about an instantaneous jump of a hundred or a thousand lightyears, and even the best human brain apparently needed a few seconds to orient itself to its body’s new circumstances.

Darya Lang stood with her eyes closed. Five seconds ago she had stood at the Bose transition point closest to Sentinel Gate, near the outer limit of Fourth Alliance territory. When she opened her eyes, the sight that met them would be of Miranda and Miranda Port , six hundred and twenty lightyears away.

All right. You’ve had enough time to adjust. Now—do it!

A blink. And there it was, although the sight failed to do justice to the reality. The Shroud hanging by the disk of the planet was too far away for Darya to make out details, but the countless flyspecks within the gauzy web must be spacecraft: starships of all sizes and types, more than a million of them netted and warehoused in the Shroud: the biggest collection in the spiral arm, everything from Primavera body form-fits to the monstrous Tantalus orbital forts.

She was to be allowed little time for sightseeing. Already a hand clutched at her arm.

“Professor Darya Lang?”

She turned. “That’s me.”

“Finally, you are here. I am an assistant to Councilor Graves.” The man was polite and nondescript, but he did not release his hold on Darya’s arm. “If you would come with me. Today’s meeting is already in progress and may be close to its conclusion.”

A meeting here , out by the Bose transition point and at Upside Miranda Port , rather than down on the surface of the planet? But as Darya allowed herself to be led away from the glittering splendor of the Shroud, she said nothing. There were bigger questions to be asked and answered.

The puzzles had started in Darya’s study at the Artifact Research Institute on Sentinel Gate. Twilight was approaching, and the first nightsingers could be heard through the open window when Professor Merada ambled in.

His visit was not expected, but it was also not surprising. Merada was a stickler for accuracy and formality in every element of analysis and reporting, but he felt that research work done under his auspices thrived best in an informal atmosphere. Putting it another way, he felt free to butt in wherever and whenever he liked.

Darya lifted her head from her notes. She had been collating reports of the final days of the Builder artifact known as Maelstrom, but now she was down to the hearsay and rumors, and this was a logical stopping-point to ease off for the day.

One glance at Merada’s face was enough to ruin her relaxation. She thought, “Uh-oh. What have I done now?”

She knew he had always disapproved of her galloping off to inspect Builder artifacts at first hand, but the last of those journeys was years in the past. Since then she had settled down in her office at the Institute to write the definitive history of the Builders, including every scrap of information on the more than twelve hundred Builder artifacts that had once been scattered around the spiral arm.

The only sin she could think of was a possible excessive use of Institute communication privileges. She had sent dozens of messages to a planet of the Phemus Circle in the past two months, although not one of them had been answered.

Was that it? Merada was waving a sheet at her and scowling.

“This is inexplicable,” he said, in his thin, penetrating tenor. “It is also, to be honest, somewhat insulting. If there is to be an important meeting concerning the Builders, anywhere in the spiral arm, it would seem like common courtesy to address such an invitation to me, as Director of the Institute. But this document requests—more than requests, insists —upon the presence of you , of all people.” He peered down at Darya, vaguely aware that he might have said something less than tactful. “Not that I am in any way criticizing your credentials, my dear. You are, after all, the editor of the past two editions of the Universal Artifact Catalog .”

The Lang Universal Artifact Catalog . But Darya said that only under her breath.

“May I see?”

More than a certain irritation, she felt puzzled. Why would anyone choose to hold any meeting at all about the Builders, except here at the Artifact Research Institute where Builder history was a major interest? Odder yet, how could a meeting be described as an important meeting concerning the Builders, when the Builders had vanished three million years ago, and every last trace of Builder artifacts had disappeared more than two years ago?

The sheet was not very informative. In fact, it added to the mystery. First, it insisted, with the full force of the inter-clade council, that Professor Darya Lang be present “in person.” No virtual presence through the Bose communications network would be accepted. Second, the meeting would take place on Miranda, a planet which formed the major power center of the Fourth Alliance. Third—Darya stared at the date. Somebody in the Institute had been sitting on this message for a long time. She would barely get to the meeting in time even if she left at once.

Which she had done. And here she was, still dizzy from the Bose transition, walking unsteadily alongside the man who had greeted her.