Convergence hu-4

by Charles Sheffield

  Amazing. No outpouring of poisonous gases, which you had to look forward to when the sun went down on Styx. No screaming gale, which marked sunrise and sunset on Teufel. No torrents of boiling rain, like Scaldworld, where anyone outside at the wrong time was brought back in medium-well-done. No mosquitoes the size of your hand, like those on Peppermill, dive-bombers that zoomed in and sank their three-inch probe into any square centimeter of exposed flesh.

  Just people laughing in the distance, and bird song, and flowers that faded in the dusk and reserved their most delicate and subtle perfumes for the evening hours.

  And, any minute now, Glenna Omar.

  Atvar H’sial could think what she liked, but Louis was not looking forward to this. At least, not all that much.

  He had protested, perhaps rather more than was justified, in an earlier discussion with Atvar H’sial.

  “I do all the work, while you sit here loafing.”

  “Are you suggesting that I am a plausible substitute for you in this activity? That my body is an acceptable alternative to yours, in your bizarre human mating rituals?”

  “You’d drive her screaming up the wall. But what about me? Am I supposed to be offered up as a sort of human sacrifice to Glenna Omar, on the off-chance that we’ll learn from her where J’merlia went? You just want your interpreter back, that’s all, so you can communicate easily with humans.”

  “I am working on alternative communication methods. And if I locate J’merlia, you also locate Kallik, and” — Atvar H’sial’s speech took on sly pheromonal insinuations — “you locate the human female, Darya Lang. I need to discuss with her the changes in the Builder artifacts, but I wonder if your implied rejection of the female Glenna Omar derives from some prior commitment on your part to the Lang person. I wonder if that is the primary cause of your reluctance to meet with Glenna Omar.”

  “Did I say I wouldn’t meet with Glenna? Of course I’ll meet with her. Tonight. We already arranged that.” And if a few hectic hours with Glenna Omar was what it took to banish Atvar H’sial’s suspicions about Louis and Darya Lang, it was a small price to pay.

  Louis was prepared to pay it now. At sunset, in the third arbor down the hill from where Hans Rebka had been staying.

  It was sunset, it was the third arbor, he was here. But where was Glenna?

  He heard a woman’s laughter from higher on the hill. Half-blinded by the setting sun, he squinted in that direction. He heard a braying male laugh in reply.

  Glenna was approaching; and she was not alone.

  Relief and disappointment both seemed premature. Louis stood up and walked toward the couple. Glenna came undulating along the path, her hand laid possessively on the arm of the tall man at her side. She was wearing a long-sleeved, high-necked gown of pale green that left a minimum of exposed skin and made her appear positively virginal.

  “Hello, Louis.” She smiled at him warmly. “I hoped we’d find you here. There’s been a change of plans. I was in the middle of a discussion with Professor Bloom—”

  “Quintus.”

  “Quintus.” Glenna snuggled close to her companion. “And we hadn’t finished talking. So he invited me to continue through dinner. And naturally…”

  “No problem.” Louis meant it. He admired real nerve, and there was no hint of apology in Glenna’s manner. “Hello, Professor. I’m Louis Nenda.”

  “Indeed?” Bloom removed his arm from Glenna’s grasp and offered a limp-fingered wave of the hand. He regarded Louis with the enthusiasm of a man meeting a Karelian head louse, the sort that popped out of a hole in the rock and nipped your head off with one snip of the mandibles. “And what do you do?”

  “Businessman, mostly, for exploration projects. Last trip I was out at the Torvil Anfract, came back via the Mandel system.”

  “Indeed?” Bloom had turned to look back up the hill even before Louis answered the question.

  Glenna lingered a moment, her fingers on Louis’s bare arm.

  “He’s an absolute genius,” she whispered. “I do hope you understand, but given a chance like this…”

  “I said, no problem.” I know that game, sweetheart. You take the one you want right now, but be sure to put the other one in cold storage in case you need him later. “Go and enjoy your dinner.”

  “Some other time, though, you and me?”

  “You bet.”

  Glenna squeezed his arm happily. But Quintus Bloom had turned, and was sauntering back with a frown on his face.

  “I say. Something you said just now. Did you mention the Torvil Anfract?”

  “Sure did. I just came back from there, way out in the Zardalu Communion.”

  “That’s the name that the Lang woman mentioned the other evening at dinner.” Bloom was explaining to Glenna, while managing to ignore Louis. “She said that it was a Builder artifact, but of course as Professor Merada pointed out, there is no evidence of that. If it were an artifact, however, that could be a finding of enormous significance.” Bloom at last turned directly to Louis. “Do you know Darya Lang?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Was she at the Anfract with you, by any chance?”

  “At it, and in it. Right in it.”

  “Three days ago, after our dinner, she left the institute.” Bloom lifted his gaze above Louis’s head, and stood staring at nothing. “She told no one where she was going. So almost certainly…”

  Quintus Bloom didn’t spell out his thought processes to Louis. He didn’t need to. Louis had the answer to the next question ready, even before Bloom asked it.

  “If I were to provide you with a ship, could you fly me to the Torvil Anfract?”

  “Could, and would. I even have the ship. If the price is right, I mean.”

  The last sentence had come out without thinking, but Louis didn’t try to kid himself. The ‘right’ price? Even if Bloom didn’t have more than two cents, it would be enough.

  Daybreak on Sentinel Gate was, if anything, more spectacular than sunset. The air was magically clear, the flowers and shrubs touched with fragrant dew. The birds, awake but not yet in motion, sang a dawn chorus from within their hidden roosts.

  Glenna, strolling back to her house, noticed none of this. She was frequently heading home in the early daylight hours, and the charms of daybreak’s plant and animal life left her unmoved. She was, in fact, feeling faintly disappointed. Quintus seemed to like her well enough, and to enjoy their long hours together. They had talked, and laughed, eaten and drunk, and talked again. They had wandered arm-in-arm around the Institute, inside and out. They had watched the romantic setting of Sentinel Gate. The touch of his hand on Glenna’s shoulder had set all her juices flowing. And then, when everything seemed ready to go full speed ahead, he had gone back to his own quarters instead.

  Glenna sighed. Maybe the demure dress had been a tactical error? Without spelling it out in detail, she had known faster men. In the case of Quintus Bloom, that slowness might be a deadly drawback. He was a career man, a man on the move, heading upwards and already itching to leave Sentinel Gate. In retrospect, it was a pity that she had introduced him to Louis Nenda, with his talk of the Anfract, because they would soon be on their way. Glenna might not get a second chance — at either of them.

  She was close to home, near enough to see the soft light that she left burning at night by her front porch. Near enough to see that the porch door, which she was sure had been left open, was now closed. Someone had been inside her house. Perhaps they were still in her house.

  Glenna frowned — in puzzlement, not in alarm. Theft and violence were almost unknown on Sentinel Gate. She lived alone. Maintenance and cleaning robots were punctiliously careful to leave a house’s doors and windows exactly as they found them.

  She felt the delicious tingle of a desired though unexpected treat. Quintus Bloom had disappointed. He had proved regrettably diffident. But Louis Nenda would not be like that. He was a real out-worlder, a wild man from one of the rough-and-tumble planets of the Zar
dalu Communion. She had postponed his date, and all that went with it. But he wasn’t willing to wait.

  She just loved an impatient man.

  Glenna slipped off her shoes, eased open the door, and drifted inside. The livingroom was empty, but she could smell a faint, alien musk. Of course, he would already be in the bedroom, lying waiting for her on the soft, over-sized bed. Would he have removed those dark, tight-fitting clothes? Or would he have waited, to let Glenna do it? Waited, if he was the man she hoped he was. He must know how eager she was to explore for herself the ways in which he had been augmented.

  Glenna tiptoed into the bedroom. As she approached the bed itself she paused. Louis was not lying on it. And crouched beside it—

  A great nightmare shape rose up, as high as the ceiling. A pair of long, jointed limbs swept Glenna from the floor, and her scream was muffled by a soft black paw. She was drawn in toward a broad, eyeless head, and to the thin proboscis that quivered at its center. Faint, high-pitched squeaks sounded in her ears.

  Glenna struggled, but not as hard as she might have. She had recognized the intruder. It was a Cecropian. She knew through the institute’s grapevine that a female of that alien species had recently arrived there. Arrived, according to Glenna’s informant, with Louis Nenda.

  “What do you want?”

  It was wasted breath, because everyone knew that Cecropians didn’t speak. But the eyeless white head nodded at the sound, and carried Glenna back to the door of her living room. One black limb pointed silently through the doorway to Glenna’s communications terminal, then to a gray box that sat next to it. Glenna found herself placed gently back on the floor at the doorway. She was at once released.

  She could flee — Glenna’s intruder would have a difficult time squeezing back through into the living room, though she must have entered that way. However, it was hard to believe that anything that intended her real harm would have placed her where she was free to run away. Glenna walked unsteadily across to the communications terminal, and stood there waiting.

  The Cecropian eased her way through the door and crept across to the gray box. Nimble black paws began a complex dance of movement in front of it. The terminal screen came to life, displaying words: SPEAK YOUR HUMAN SPEECH. THIS DEVICE WILL INTERPRET IT.

  “Who are you? Who are you?” Glenna had to say it twice, she was so breathless. “What do you want?”

  The screen flickered to a longer statement.

  MY NAME IS ATVAR H’SIAL. I AM A CECROPIAN, AND A BUSINESS PARTNER OF THE HUMAN, LOUIS NENDA. IF YOU ARE THE HUMAN FEMALE GLENNA OMAR, I WISH TO TALK WITH YOU.

  “That’s me.” Glenna stared at the gray box, then at the dark-red carapace and the open twin yellow horns on the head. As she spoke, she again could hear those faint bat-squeaks of sound. “I thought that Cecropians saw with sound, and spoke to each other using some sort of smells.”

  This time the words on the screen came painfully slowly.

  THAT IS INDEED THE CASE. I HAVE BUILT A DEVICE WHICH TAKES HUMAN SPEECH, AND CONVERTS IT TO A TWO-DIMENSIONAL PATTERN OF SOUNDS BEYOND YOUR FREQUENCY RANGE. I SEE THAT PATTERN AS A PICTURE, WITHIN WHICH ARE THE FORMS OF MY OWN WRITTEN LANGUAGE. I AM THUS “READING” YOUR WORDS WITHIN THAT VISUAL SOUND PATTERN. I AM “SPEAKING” IN A SIMILAR WAY, BY THE CONVERSION OF MY OWN GESTURES TO A TWO-DIMENSIONAL IMAGE, WHICH IN TURN MAPS TO THE ONE-DIMENSIONAL SOUNDS THAT YOU CALL WORDS. IT IS A CRUDE METHOD OF SPEECH, AND AN IMPRECISE ONE, BUT THE BEST THAT I CAN ATTAIN. BEAR WITH ME. TO MAKE NEW SPEECH, WORDS THAT I HAVE NOT ALREADY RECORDED, IS MOST DIFFICULT.

  “But what do you want?”

  I WISH TO OFFER YOU AN UNUSUAL OPPORTUNITY. I BELIEVE THAT YOU VERY MUCH WISH TO PERFORM SEX ACTS WITH MY PARTNER, LOUIS NENDA, AND WITH THE HUMAN QUINTUS BLOOM.

  “Well, I wouldn’t put it quite that way.” Glenna did her best to make allowances for a Cecropian’s lack of understanding of the finer points of human social habits. “But just for the sake of discussion, what if I do?”

  A screenful of words flashed into existence. Atvar H’sial must have prepared the whole speech in advance.

  IN ORDER TO DO THAT, YOU NEED TO HAVE CONTINUED ACCESS TO THEM. THE MAN BLOOM, TOGETHER WITH LOUIS NENDA AND MYSELF, WILL SHORTLY BE LEAVING SENTINEL GATE. WE HAVE BEEN ASKED TO GUIDE QUINTUS BLOOM TO A REGION OF THE SPIRAL ARM KNOWN AS THE TORVIL ANFRACT, WHERE HE BELIEVES THAT THE HUMAN FEMALE DARYA LANG IS CURRENTLY ENGAGED IN EXPLORATION. NENDA AND I KNOW THE ANFRACT REGION WELL, AND CAN EASILY TAKE BLOOM THERE. BUT IF NENDA AND BLOOM LEAVE SENTINEL GATE, YOUR DESIRE TO COUPLE WITH THEM WILL NOT BE FULFILLED, NOR WILL YOU HAVE FURTHER ACCESS TO THEM. HOWEVER, I CAN ARRANGE FOR YOU TO GO WITH US ON OUR EXPEDITION, AS AN INFORMATION SYSTEMS SPECIALIST. OFFICIALLY YOU WILL BE HELPING ME TO ACHIEVE BETTER COMMUNICATION WITH HUMANS, EMPLOYING THE MEANS THAT WE ARE USING HERE. UNOFFICIALLY, YOU WILL HAVE FEW DUTIES, AND YOU WILL BE FREE TO PURSUE YOUR OWN ENDS.

  “You really think I’m that keen for it? Don’t bother translating and answering that. Suppose that I say I’m interested? — and I might be. I don’t understand what’s in it for you.”

  Atvar H’sial was silent for a long time. Whether she was thinking, or just having trouble translating, Glenna could not be sure. The words came at last: MY SLAVE AND INTERPRETER, J’MERLIA, IS WITH DARYA LANG. TO GET HIM BACK, I AM MOST ANXIOUS THAT LOUIS NENDA AND I GO ON THIS JOURNEY. HOWEVER, I HAVE FOR A LONG TIME BEEN CONCERNED THAT NENDA MAY BE EMOTIONALLY UNBALANCED CONCERNING THE HUMAN FEMALE, DARYA LANG. YOU ARE, I GATHER, AN EXCEPTIONALLY ATTRACTIVE HUMAN FEMALE. AND HE IS, I BELIEVE, SUSCEPTIBLE TO YOUR CHARMS. IF YOU WERE TO TRAVEL TO THE TORVIL ANFRACT, AND LOUIS NENDA WAS TO BE EXPOSED TO BOTH OF YOU…

  “No contest.” Glenna had taken Hans Rebka from Darya without any trouble at all; she could do the same with Louis Nenda. She was intrigued. It was at the same time something of a challenge, and a chance to become closer to Quintus Bloom. Nenda would be interesting for a while, but Bloom was something else. It would be no bad thing to wander the spiral arm as the regular consort of a recognized genius. As for his apparent shyness, she knew ways to cure that.

  Glenna had only one question left. “I’m sure I can make Louis forget that Darya Lang ever existed. But I wonder about you. You’re not jealous of Lang, are you? I mean, I realize that you are a female, yourself. But I thought that there was no way that humans and Cecropians — that Louis Nenda and you — I mean, how do male Cecropians handle the females, anyway, in your mating?”

  Maybe Glenna had gone too far. Certainly there was a long delay.

  YOU HAVE THE WRONG IMPRESSION. IT WOULD BE MORE ACCURATE TO ASK: HOW DO WE FEMALE CECROPIANS HANDLE THE MALE DURING MATING? AND ALSO AFTER IT.

  A pair of forelimbs began a rhythmic crushing movement, moving in toward the dark red underside of Atvar H’sial. After a few more seconds the long proboscis reached down, questing.

  HOWEVER, THAT IS A PERSONAL QUESTION, WHICH I PREFER NOT TO ANSWER. LET ME SAY ONLY THIS: YOU WOULD PERHAPS BE LESS DISTURBED BY THE ANSWER THAN WOULD EITHER LOUIS NENDA OR QUINTUS BLOOM.

  Chapter Twelve

  Jerome’s World orbits the yellow dwarf star Tetragamma, only forty light-years from Sentinel Gate. Almost directly between the two lies the bright blue star, Rigel. Rigel is a true supergiant, fifty times a standard stellar mass, a hundred thousand times standard luminosity, blazing forth with intense brilliance and dazzling power. Few observers of the night sky from Sentinel Gate would ever notice the wan gleam of Tetragamma, tucked away close to Rigel’s line of sight. And no one on Sentinel Gate would see the mote of Jerome’s World, gleaming faintly in Tetragamma’s reflected light. Darya could not remember anyone mentioning the name of that world during all her years at the Institute, until the arrival of Quintus Bloom.

  She glanced at the planet a couple of times as the Myosotis approached for landing. That Jerome’s World was a thinly populated planet was obvious from the absence of city lights on its night side. It must be a poor and backward planet, too, or Darya would have heard more abou
t it. Yet according to Quintus Bloom, this was his home world. It was also the closest inhabited planet to the artifact he had discovered and named Labyrinth.

  Darya saw nothing to change her first impressions as the Myosotis completed its landing and she disembarked. The Immigration staff, all one of him, greeted Darya cheerfully enough, but he stared pop-eyed at Kallik and J’merlia. Interstellar human visitors were rarity enough. The Jerome’s World entry system had no procedures at all for dealing with wildly nonhuman creatures from the Cecropia Federation and the Zardalu Communion.

  While the officer scratched his head over old reference materials and kept one uneasy eye on the two aliens, Darya came to a decision. She had planned to spend only a day or two on Jerome’s World before proceeding to Labyrinth. The red tape surrounding the entry of Kallik and J’merlia might take all of that, just to produce clearances.

  “Suppose these two were to remain on the ship?”

  The officer didn’t voice his relief, but his face brightened. “No problem with that, if you follow the standard quarantine rules. Food and drink can go in, but no plants or animals” — he glanced uncertainly at the two aliens — “or anything else can come out.”

  Kallik and J’merlia raised no objection. It was Darya who felt bad, as she endured a meaningless entry rigmarole and was at last pronounced free to leave the port. Not long ago the two aliens had been slaves, and here again they were second-class citizens. It was little comfort to know that in the Cecropia Federation the situation would have been reversed, with J’merlia free to wander while Darya was impounded and regarded with suspicion.

  Her guilt vanished within minutes of leaving the spaceport. Kallik and J’merlia weren’t missing a thing — perhaps they were even the lucky ones. She didn’t know who Jerome was, but if he were dead he was probably turning in his grave, having a backwater world like this named after him. The planet was right at the outer limit of habitable distance from Tetragamma. This was the winter season, and the days were short. The sun was a bright cherrystone two sizes too small in the sky; the air was thin and cold and caught in your throat, and the straggling plant life was a pale, dusty gray-green. The people that Darya met seemed equally pale and dusty, as they directed her to the air service that served the Marglom Center.