Charles Sheffield - Summertide

“She’s traveling alone?”

“No. With someone or something called J’merlia. A Lo’tfian.”

“Okay, that’ll be her interpreter. The Lo’tfians are another life-form from the Cecropia Federation. Who else?”

“Another female, Darya Lang from the Fourth Alliance.”

“Human?”

“I assume so. She claims to be interested in seeing Builder artifacts.”

“I thought there was only one in the Dobelle system.”

“There is. The Umbilical. Darya Lang wants to take a look at it.”

“She doesn’t have to go down to Quake to do that.”

“She says she wants to see how the Umbilical is tethered at the Quake end. She has a point there. No one has ever understood how the Builders arranged for its retraction to space at Summertide. Her story is plausible. Believe it if you want to.”

Perry’s tone of voice made it clear that he did not. It occurred to Rebka that they had at least one thing in common — their cynicism.

“And then there’s Louis Nenda,” Perry went on. “From the Zardalu Communion. When did you last hear from them ?”

“When they had their last skirmish with the Alliance. What’s he say he wants?”

“He doesn’t bother to tell us in detail, but it’s something about being interested in studying new physical forces. He wants to investigate the land tides on Quake during Summertide. And then there’s a footnote, talking about the theory of the stability of biospheres, as it applies to Quake and Opal. Oh, and Nenda has a Hymenopt along with him, as a pet. That’s another first. The only Hymenopts anyone has ever seen on Opal are stuffed ones in the Species Museum. Add them all up, Captain, and what do you get?”

Rebka did not answer that. Unless all the records on Perry were false, there was a subtle, flexible intelligence hiding behind those pale, mournful eyes. Rebka did not believe for a moment that Perry was asking advice because he thought he needed it. He was feeling out Rebka himself, probing the other man’s intuition and sense of balance.

“When do they request arrival?”

“According to this, Darya Lang cleared the last Bose Node three days ago. That means she’s on final subluminal approach to Starside Port. Landing request could come anytime. The rest of them are maybe a few days away.”

“What do you recommend we do?”

“I’ll tell you what I recommend we don’t do.” For the first time, emotion appeared on Max Perry’s thin face. “We can let them visit Opal — though that’s going to be no joke this Summertide — but we don’t, under any circumstances, let them set foot on Quake.”

Which means, Rebka thought, that my instinct back on Starside was spot on. If I’m going to find out what keeps Max Perry on Dobelle, I’ll probably have to do exactly that: visit Quake, at Summertide. Well, what the hell. It can’t be any more dangerous than the descent into Paradox. But let’s test things here a little bit more before we jump too far.

“I’m not convinced of what you say,” he replied, and watched apprehension flicker in Perry’s pale eyes. “People are coming a long way to see Quake. They’ll be willing to pay Dobelle a lot for the privilege, and this system needs all the credit it can get. Before we deny access, I want to talk at least to Darya Lang. And I think I may need to see the surface of Quake close to Summertide for myself — soon.”

Quake close to Summertide. At those words another expression appeared on Max Perry’s face. Sorrow. Guilt. Even longing? It could be any of them. Rebka wished he knew the other man better. Perry’s countenance surely revealed the answers to a hundred questions — to someone who knew how to read it.

Hans Rebka had arrived on Dobelle disoriented and angry. Darya Lang, following his subluminal path just three days later on her run from the final Bose Transition Point to the Opal spaceport, did not have room for anger.

She was nervous; more than nervous, she was scared .

For more than half her life she had been a research scientist, an archeologist whose mind was most comfortable seven million years in the past. She had performed the most complete survey of Builder artifacts, locating, listing, comparing, and cataloging every one so far discovered in Fourth Alliance territory, and noting the precise times of any changes in their historical appearance or apparent function. But she had done all that passively, from the tranquil harbor of her research office on Sentinel Gate. She might know by heart the coordinates of the twelve hundred-odd artifacts scattered through the whole spiral arm, and she could reel off the current state of knowledge concerning each one. But other than the Sentinel, whose shining bulk was visible from the surface of her home planet, she had never seen one.

And now she was approaching Dobelle — when no one else had even wanted her to go.

“Why shouldn’t I go?” she had asked when the Committee of the Fourth Alliance on Miranda sent their representative to her. She was trembling with tension and annoyance. “The anomaly is mine, if it’s anyone’s. I discovered it.”

“That is true.” Legate Pereira was a small, patient woman with nut-brown skin and golden eyes. She did not appear intimidating, but Darya Lang found it hard to face her. “And since you reported it, we have confirmed it for every Artifact. No one is trying to deny you full credit for your discovery. And we all admit that you are our expert on the Builders, and are most knowledgeable about their technology—”

“No one understands Builder technology!” Even in her irritation, Darya could not let that pass.

“Most is a comparative term. No one in the Alliance knows more. Since, I repeat, you are most knowledgeable about the technology of the Builders, you are clearly the best-qualified individual to pursue the anomaly’s significance.” The woman’s voice became more gentle. “But at the same time, Professor Lang, you must admit that you have little experience of interstellar travel.”

“I have none, and you know it. But everyone, from you to my house-uncle Matra, tells me that interstellar travel offers negligible risk.”

The legate sighed. “Professor, it is not the travel we question. Look around you. What do you see?”

Darya raised her head and surveyed the garden. Flowers, vines, trees, the cooing birds, the last rays of evening sunlight throwing dusty shafts of light through the trellis of the bower… It was all normal. What was she supposed to see?

“Everything looks fine.”

“It is fine. That is my point. You have lived all your life on Sentinel Gate, and this is a garden world. One of the finest, richest, most beautiful planets that we know — far nicer than Miranda, where I live. But you are proposing to go to Quake. To nowhere. To a dingy, dirty, dismal, dangerous world, in the wild hope that you will find there new evidence of the Builders. Can you give me one reason for thinking that Quake has such potential?”

“You know the answer. My discovery provides that reason.”

“A statistical anomaly. Do you want to endure misery and discomfort for the sake of statistics ?”

“Of course I don’t.” Darya felt that the other woman was talking down to her, and that was the one thing she could not stand. “No one wants discomfort. Legate Pereira, you admit that no one in the Fourth Alliance has more knowledge of the Builders than I do. Suppose I do not go, and someone else does, and whoever goes in my place fails for lack of knowledge where I might have succeeded. Do you think that I could ever forgive myself?”