Convergence

Chapter Twenty-Four

Hans Rebka stood in front of the Treel sisters, sharply aware of their glowering disbelief. He couldn’t blame them. The old term for the problem was “credibility gap.”

Maddy, Lissie, and Katerina had been stranded in the interior of Paradox. They were facing eventual starvation, but that was a form of death they understood.

Along came E.C. Tally: a human male, a man, which counted as a major strike against him, but at least a man who might offer possible salvation. Then Tally had explained that he had not come to save them. He was trapped himself, and he knew of no way out; and anyway he was not a man. After a lot of explanation, they were beginning to believe him.

Enter Hans Rebka. Definitely a man, and a friend of E.C. Tally, who brought with him the bad news that the prison of Paradox was no longer as safe as it seemed. He had led them out of their chamber — but not to safety. No. He had taken them and the Misanthrope into a diabolical ink-swirl that he called a vortex, and it had wrung them out like wet dishcloths until they had wanted to die.

They had survived. And were they safe when they finally emerged? That was a matter of opinion. Certainly they were no longer anywhere within Paradox, or any other place that Rebka or Tally had ever been or heard of. They had arrived inside some strange new prison. Rebka had made it clear that so far as he knew the vortex had flung them into unknown territory. He could tell them nothing about the place. It might be no more than a different choice of tomb.

Enter J’merlia. An alien who had certainly not been with Rebka and Tally on Paradox, a life-form very far from human, but a life-form known to Hans Rebka and E.C. Tally. And vice versa. When J’merlia had entered the Misanthrope he had greeted the others joyfully, as long-absent friends.

Was Hans expected to explain all this to the Treel sisters?

He couldn’t explain any of it, even to himself. Instead, he was asking his own questions.

“Let’s get this straight.” He had persuaded J’merlia to shed his suit, then closed the hatch on the Misanthrope and locked it. “You say that you and Kallik and Darya went to Sentinel? Why there?”

“We know the Sentinel artifact,” Maddy Treel said gruffly. “But who the devil are Kallik, and Darya?”

“They are both females. That should please you.” Rebka found himself glaring at the senior Treel sister. It was tempting to start playing battle-of-the-sexes. But that would solve nothing. “I’m sorry. Darya Lang is a researcher on Sentinel Gate. She compiled the Lang Universal Artifact Catalog. And Kallik is a Hymenopt with whom we’ve all worked before. J’merlia, are you suggesting that this is Sentinel, where we are now? It’s nothing like any description of Sentinel that I’ve ever seen.”

“Oh, no.” J’merlia was as confused as anyone, but he was obviously delighted to be with Rebka and Tally. Finally, he had someone to make his decisions for him. “We left Sentinel because it had changed and was not at all as we expected. We went on to a different artifact: Labyrinth.”

“No such artifact!” Lissie glared at Hans Rebka. “What are you trying to pull? We know the Lang Catalog as well as anyone. There’s nothing in there called Labyrinth.”

“It’s a new artifact.” He didn’t expect that comment to be well-received. It wasn’t.

“Bullshit! All the artifacts are millions of years old.” Lissie turned to E.C. Tally for support. “You say you don’t have circuits that allow you to lie. So tell me: How old are the Builder artifacts?”

“All are at least three million years old — except for Labyrinth, which does appear to be quite new.” E.C. Tally had hoped for facts, and was getting arguments instead. “If you would just permit J’merlia to complete his explanations…”

“He’s right.” Unexpected support came from Katerina Treel. She had taken a strand of her long, dark hair and was thoughtfully chewing on it. Socially acceptable behavior on Darby’s Lick. It almost made Hans Rebka nostalgic for home, back in the crudities of the Phemus Circle.

“I don’t care how old things are,” Katerina went on. “I’ll settle for just three things. Number one, I want to know where we are now. Number two, I want to know how to get out of here, and back to open space. And number three, I want no more damned surprises.” She turned to J’merlia. “Now, get on with it.”

“But that’s what I was trying to tell you.” J’merlia had wondered when he would be allowed to speak again. “We went to a planet called Jerome’s World, and then on to Labyrinth. We found a way in, and we followed a path that led all the way to a central chamber. But we had been forced to leave our ship, the Myosotis, in the outer part of Labyrinth. So while the others examined the middle chamber, I went back to make sure that the ship was all right. I located the Myosotis, in the same condition as when I left it. But then I made a mistake. You see, Labyrinth has thirty-seven separate sections, or it did when we entered. I think it has a lot less now, it keeps changing—”

“Like everywhere else,” Maddy said grumpily.

“ — but I accidentally went through into another part of the interior, and I couldn’t get back to where I started. I was still trying to return to the Myosotis when I saw your ship.”

“Hold it there.” Maddy held up her hand. “Let’s make sure we understand what you’re telling us. First, we’re sitting right now inside an artifact called Labyrinth?”

“Correct.”

“And Labyrinth is new — that’s why it’s not in the Lang Catalog?”

J’merlia hesitated, and Maddy caught that hesitation.

“Is it new, or isn’t it?”

“I was assured that it is new, by Darya Lang and everyone else. But I am not sure.” J’merlia told of what he had seen in his long wanderings through Labyrinth, of desiccated black batlike figures, of human skeletons in ancient suits, and of long-dead five-eyed marine giants like nothing in the whole spiral arm. Worst of all, to his eyes, had been the silent forms of a dozen Cecropians, so untouched by death that only a breath seemed needed to bring the Lo’tfian dominatrices back to life.

His listeners sat in silence when he was finished. Maddy Treel finally cleared her throat. “All right. Labyrinth is supposed to be new, but it has old things in it. Maybe they got here the same way we did. But we won’t solve anything by sitting here. The main thing is, do you know the way out?”

“I do. It is very simple. All you have to do is head along the direction of the spiral tube that increases in size. You should come to one of the exit points.”

“Fine. So that takes care of the second of Katerina’s want list. We can get out of here. And I say let’s do it, right now. We’d like more explanations, but they can wait.”

“But what about Darya Lang and Kallik?”

“You told us yourself that they should have no trouble reaching your ship, and it’s intact. You couldn’t find your way back there, but that was your own fault. Anyway, this is our ship, and we use it as we choose. Katerina, you heard what we have to do. We follow the direction of the expanding spiral, and it takes us back to open space. Let’s go, before something else happens. I agree with you, we don’t want any more surprises.”

Maddy Treel had been leaning against the cabin wall. She suddenly sat upright and cocked her head. Rebka, Tally, J’merlia, and her two sisters were all sitting in front of her. But the faint sound she could hear was coming from behind her. It was the air-lock of the Misanthrope, opening and closing on its molecular hinges.

Maddy sighed, and swore under her breath. Katerina’s third want was going to remain unsatisfied.

The explanations started all over again with a new level of tension, helped slightly by the fact that Darya Lang was indisputably a woman. She had given Hans Rebka a single look of anger and disdain, then ignored him. The Treel sisters liked that. After presenting a united front for a while they had now changed to what Rebka suspected was their natural condition. They were beginning to squabble among themselves, Lissie and Katerina kicking back against Maddy’s age and presumption of seniority.

They finally agreed to listen to Darya’s story, but patience and polite behavior didn’t last very long. Darya began well, disposing of one source of J’merlia’s perplexity in two sentences. “Labyrinth is new, but it contains old things that had been locked inside other artifacts for ages and then were brought here. Just as you were brought here.”

“So I was right,” Maddy said.

“I’m not an old thing,” E.C. Tally objected. “I’m almost new.”

“And I don’t give a damn whether Labyrinth is full of something old,” Katerina interrupted. “Or something new, or even something borrowed and something blue.”

“Orange,” said E.C. Tally. “The Builders prefer orange.”

Katerina glared at him. “Are you sure you’re not a man? As I was trying to point out, we were brought here, and that’s enough for me. Who cares if Labyrinth is crammed to the rafters with Tenthredans, or Hymenopts, or Lo’tfians, or purple-spotted blue-bummed green-balled Fambezuxian male sexist hooter-honkers. And you” — she had seen Tally ready with a puzzled look and a question — “can shut up and learn about those later, from somebody else. I want out, and I want out now.”

Maddy ignored her sister’s outburst. “But why were we brought here?” she asked thoughtfully. “And what happens next?”

Darya clenched her teeth. So much for the rest of them sitting and listening to any description of Labyrinth. They had no interest at all in hearing what she had to say. “I have no idea why you were brought here. Or what will happen next.” She stood up and firmly closed her suit’s helmet. “But I’m not going to sit here and listen to you argue with each other. If you want out, then go. I told Kallik that I would return and reveal to her exactly what I found, and I am going to do just that. I have promises to keep.”

It made a fine exit line. Darya gave Hans Rebka one last cold look, that said, I won’t deal with you now, you worm, but just you wait; then she left.

She did not like what she found beyond the airlock. She was in the same chamber, but there had been major changes. The space had somehow increased in size. Its walls had become translucent, and she could see the faint outline of other rooms beyond. Worse than that, the way back, which had been open and easy, was blocked. At the entrance to the tunnel stood the familiar but unwelcome sight of another transportation vortex.

It was still swelling and building. Darya waited. This time she knew what to expect. The pattern was developing in the same way as before: darkness, growing on itself and with a center of swirling, absolute black. Then a ghost image, flickering for the briefest moment across the dark bloated heart.

It took longer this time, because the final size of the vortex was so big that it filled almost the whole expanded chamber. Darya retreated to the illusory shelter of the Misanthrope at the far end. She noted that in spite of Lissie’s ultimatum the ship had not changed its position. She thought she could see it shaking a little. The fighting among the sisters inside was something better imagined than experienced.

The spectral image became stronger, flashing twice into near-visibility. It was a ship, and a big one, with a slightly peculiar profile. She saw why when it finally popped into full existence and she could examine it for more than a split-second at a time. The new vessel had begun life as a sleek ship with an advanced Fourth Alliance design, but somehow a large part of the aft section had been sheared away. Before she could evaluate the extent of that damage, a hatch on the side was swinging inward. Three human figures jetted out, followed a few moments later by a gigantic fourth shape.

A familiar gigantic shape. A Cecropian. Darya’s eyes were ready to pop out through her visor. She was beyond surprise when the leading human came zipping over to her.

“What, may I ask, are you doing here?” The nasal, arrogant voice had not changed a bit. “Access to this artifact is supposed to be tightly controlled.”

“She must have been dumped here, like we were,” another voice said, just as familiar. “Hey, Professor, how’s it goin’?”

Darya shook her head hopelessly and gestured to the Misanthrope, still motionless beside her. “Let’s go in there and talk. It can’t get any messier inside, and I don’t want to be out here when the next shipment arrives.”

Darya was wrong. It got much messier within the Misanthrope before five minutes had passed, because in less than that interval the next shipment did arrive. Kallik, finding the road between the chambers open, appeared with two of the Tenthredans.

The Treel’s exploration ship had been designed for a crew of three, with emergency space for a couple of extra passengers. Packed inside it at the moment were the three Treel sisters, Hans Rebka, E.C. Tally, J’merlia, Louis Nenda, Glenna Omar, Quintus Bloom, Atvar H’sial, Kallik, and the two still-anonymous Tenthredans. Plus, of course, Darya herself.

It would have made more sense to reconvene on the Gravitas, but the Treel sisters refused to board any vessel that lacked superluminal capability. As Katerina pointed out, anyone who left Labyrinth on a subluminal ship faced a long crawl home. The presence on the Gravitas of a live, adult Zardalu was of less consequence. Maddy and her sisters just didn’t believe Louis Nenda, and his comment that passage through a Builder vortex had changed the Zardalu’s attitude toward space travel and subdued it considerably was taken as embroidery on an implausible fabrication.

Not everyone was talking at once. It merely felt that way. The only happy being of any species seemed to be Quintus Bloom. He was grinning, and he had started to lecture everyone who would listen as soon as his suit was open.

“Exactly as I expected.” The prominent nose was raised high in satisfaction. “Events are occurring precisely as my theory predicted.”

That wasn’t the way Darya remembered things. She looked at Bloom, and then carefully scanned everyone else crowded into the cabin. The expressions on the faces of the nonhumans and of E.C. Tally were largely unreadable, but the rest were a study in contrasts. Maddy and Katerina Treel were edgy and impatient, eager to leave Labyrinth as soon as possible. It was only a matter of time before they threw everyone off their ship and fled. Maybe they were the smart ones. Their blond sister, Lissie, had been caught instantly by the Bloom charisma. Her deep suspicion of men had been charmed away, and she was standing right in front of him and hanging open-mouthed on to his every word.

Next to Lissie and Bloom, Hans Rebka stood in his usual crisis mode, monitoring everything and everyone, self-contained and serious. He noticed Darya staring at him and his expression turned to one of acute discomfort.

He ignored everybody else and came across to stand by her side. “Darya, we have to talk.”

“Indeed?” She stared at him coldly. “I don’t know that I have anything to say to you. And it’s the worst possible time for talking.”

“It may be the worst time, but it could be the only chance we’ll ever have. No matter what happens to us, I want to set something straight.”

“I suppose you’re going to tell me that Glenna Omar was in your bedroom by accident. That nothing happened between the two of you.”

“No. That wouldn’t be true. I know I hurt you. But Glenna really doesn’t mean anything to me, and she never did. I never meant anything to her, either. I was just another man to add to her collection, another trophy for her bedroom wall.”

“Why should I believe that?”

“Darya, just look at her. Look at Louis Nenda. Can’t you see it? What do you think they’ve been doing?”

Nenda stood four or five steps away. He seemed exhausted, his swarthy face paler than usual and his eyes marked beneath by dark bruised smudges. Glenna Omar was standing very close to him, her shoulder rubbing against his. Glenna — Darya decided that the world must really be coming to an end — was wearing no makeup, and her long hair was pulled back and tied casually away from her face. She too seemed tired. But her whole body spoke of languid contentment.

The sight induced in Darya a strong feeling of irritation, not all directed toward Hans Rebka.

“We can’t talk now,” she said. “Maybe later.”

“If there is a later.” Hans took her hand in both of his. “If not, I want to tell you that I’m sorry.”

“There won’t be a later, unless we stop talking and do something.” But Darya did not pull her hand away. Instead she focused her attention on Quintus Bloom, who alone in the cabin seemed to be on a real energy high.

“You claim you predicted all this?” She interrupted Bloom’s stream of words to Lissie Treel. “I don’t remember that.”

“Then you were not paying attention.” The beaked nose turned aggressively in her direction. “And despite my explanation on Sentinel Gate, I suspect that you still do not accept the nature of the Builders. Why, otherwise, would you have come to Labyrinth uninvited?”

Uninvited. As though Bloom personally owned the artifact. But he was sweeping on.

“Recent events provide ample confirmation of what is happening. Consider the evidence. Fact: Paradox shrinks and vanishes, and Rebka and the rest of them are shipped to Labyrinth through a Builder vortex. Fact: The Torvil Anfract changes beyond recognition, and while that change is still occurring my party is sent here through another vortex.”

Darya studied Bloom’s gleaming smile and unnaturally bright eyes, and realized a great truth about herself. She and Quintus Bloom were both ambitious, both smart, both hard-working, and both dedicated. To most observers, they must appear very similar. But there was one difference, and it was the crucial one. Darya was on the right side of the line between great enthusiasm and total obsession. She would always have doubts about herself and the correctness of her ideas. Bloom, somewhere on the way from his childhood on Jerome’s World to his appearance on Sentinel Gate, had crossed the line. He was crazy. Nothing in his life was as important as being right. The idea that he might be wrong was impossible for him to accept psychologically.

The child is father to the man. Orval Freemont, Bloom’s first teacher long ago on Jerome’s World, had read the young John Jones/Quintus Bloom exactly.

Darya compared his expression again with all the others. They were in trouble, with danger and perhaps death awaiting them in the next few hours. Some people might say that Quintus was uniquely brave, because he was so cheerful and self-confident. The truth was quite different. Bloom felt no fear, because he had no sense of danger; he could not, because danger was irrelevant to him. All that mattered was the confirmation of his theories about the Builders.

Which, in Darya’s opinion, had one fatal problem: the theories were wrong. She might never persuade Bloom of that, but her own self-esteem insisted that he must at least be told that there were other ideas in the world. It was still the worst time and place for an argument. On the other hand, as Hans had pointed out, there might never be another chance.

Darya stepped closer, edging Lissie Treel out of her position right in front of Quintus Bloom. “The artifacts are changing, no one disputes that. I even agree that they seem to be disappearing. But those are observations. They do not provide an explanation of why things are happening.”

“My dear Professor Lang.” Bloom made the title into an insult. Incredibly, despite the chaos around them, he was deep into his condescending lecturer’s mode. “I can provide that explanation, even if no one else can. Everything forms part of one simple, logical sequence of events. As I told you once before, the Builder artifacts were all planted in the spiral arm from the future, by our own descendants. When their purpose has been served, the artifacts will vanish — as they are now vanishing. And what, you may ask, of Labyrinth itself? It is a new artifact. Why then was it created, and why have we been brought here? I will tell you. Our descendants have their own curiosity. They are not content to learn of our times as part of history. They wish to see things for themselves. Labyrinth is the final artifact, a transit terminus to which the interesting contents of all other, older artifacts are being transferred. I knew this, as soon as I saw my first live Zardalu. The only living Zardalu are on the planet Genizee, but I had seen mummified forms before — on Labyrinth. Those corpses must have originated in some other artifact, where they arrived at least eleven thousand years ago, before the Great Rising. The same process is at work in all the artifacts. And once the transfer process is complete — which will be very soon now — Labyrinth will return to the far future. Whoever and whatever is here on Labyrinth at that time will go with it. I intend to go with it. I will meet the Builders — our own distant descendants! Is that not the most thrilling prospect in the whole universe?”

It was thrilling. Darya could feel her own positive response. Standing next to her, Lissie Treel was nodding enthusiastically. Quintus Bloom was one hell of a salesman. He was dreadfully plausible.

He was also dead wrong.

Darya would never be as persuasive a speaker as Quintus Bloom, but her stay in Labyrinth had provided plenty of time to organize her thoughts.

“What you say sounds good, but it leaves too many questions.”

“Indeed? I challenge you to name even one of any relevance.” Bloom was still smiling, eyebrows arched and prominent white teeth flashing to show his over-long, pink tongue. But his attention was now all on Darya. In a cabin crowded with noisy people and aliens, the interaction had become an intensely personal one.

“Right.” Darya took a deep breath. “I’ll do just that. First question: Everyone admits that the Builder artifacts have been around for at least three million years. Some of them are much older than that. Humans and the other clade species have been in space for only a few thousand years. If the Builders are our descendants, what was the point of planting their artifacts so long ago? They had no relevance to humans for almost all of their lifetime.”

“There is no doubt—”

“It’s still my turn. Second question — and this is the big one. You found your way into the central chambers of Labyrinth, and you discovered how to read the polyglyphs. I give you all the credit in the world for that — it was a staggering accomplishment. I don’t know if Kallik and I would ever have figured out that we were seeing potential messages, without your lead. But knowing it could be done, we deciphered the walls ourselves. I didn’t say wall, you will notice, but walls. Every one of them portrayed a different series of images of the spiral arm, past, present, and future. Now, I suspect that you were not in the same central chamber as we were. But you still had a hexagonal room, and six walls. My bet is that five of them revealed a history different from the history that we know. So here’s my question, and it’s actually two of them: Why didn’t you show the alternate histories, along with the real one, in your presentations? And second, what is the point of those other histories? And while I’m at it, let me throw in a third question: Why did the Builders choose such a strange way to display information, building the image sequences into the walls in three dimensions?”

Darya paused for breath. Once the questions started it was difficult to cut them off. She noticed, with shameful satisfaction, that the smile had vanished from Quintus Bloom’s bony face. He was finally frowning.

“Additional research will of course be needed to answer those questions. Or, if we remain here, we will soon be in a position to ask questions directly — of the people who created artifacts, Labyrinth, and polyglyphs.”

Bloom gestured to the ship’s display screens, which Darya had for the past few minutes been ignoring. The interior structure of Labyrinth had broken down further. Walls were vanishing, windows between chambers enlarging. Darya could see through into half a dozen other chambers, as they collapsed into each other like a connected series of soap bubbles. Within each one was a confusing blur of activity. She saw three new swelling vortices, dozens of small dots that could be figures in suits, and a trio of ships of unfamiliar design.

“Do you doubt,” Bloom continued, “that Labyrinth itself is still changing? That it is preparing to return to the future?”

“It’s changing, yes. But Labyrinth is not from the future, or going there.” Now came the critical moment. “I can answer every one of my questions that you insist will need ‘additional research.’ And I can do it now. Because I understand the nature of the Builders.”

Suddenly, the intense personal dialogue had changed. Hans Rebka was listening hard, and so were Louis Nenda and Glenna Omar. Kallik and J’merlia had ended their conversation with Atvar H’sial, and were looking Darya’s way. J’merlia, crouched beneath the Cecropian’s carapace, was sure to be offering a pheromonal translation of everything. Darya became aware of her own doubts, as surely as she had felt Bloom’s overwhelming certainty. But it was not the time to back off.

“Let’s begin with the easy one. You did discover alternate histories of the spiral arm on the other walls of the inner chamber. You chose not to present them in your seminars, because they conflicted with the theory that you were offering. Do you want to deny that?”

Quintus Bloom’s stony stare was enough of an answer.

“So I’m sure you know the main point displayed in all those alternate histories,” Darya went on, “even though no one else does. I have half-a-dozen of the image sequences with me, if we ever get out of all this and anyone wants to see them. But I can summarize. In every alternate history, a clade or group of clades arises to colonize and populate the spiral arm. Sometimes the clade is one that we know well, sometimes one we have never encountered. Sometimes the development happened far in the past, long before humans came on the scene. But in every case, as we go on into the future, some single clade achieves dominance. And after that, no matter which clade rules, the colonization at last collapses. The spiral arm is left empty, with no populated and civilized worlds.

“Now, my first thought was the simplest one. We were examining not alternative histories that were rooted in reality, but some kind of fiction. It seemed unlikely, but who knows? Perhaps the Builders had their own idea of entertainment. Fiction seemed more probable than the alternative: that what Kallik and I were looking at was in some sense real.”

“Which it clearly was not.” The supercilious sneer was back. “I examined the other image sequences, of course I did. However, I saw no point in burdening my audience or my argument with palpable fantasies. Alternative contrived histories, or fictitious imagined futures, have no relevance or interest to serious researchers.”

“If the image sequences contained nothing else, I would probably agree with you.” Darya could feel her own competitive juices bubbling. “But there was something else, something that you either did not notice or did not want to mention. One past and future of the spiral arm portrayed our past, and perhaps our present and future. That one, alone of all pasts and futures, shows the growth and continued presence of multiple clades. Many species, not just one, share the future of the arm. And unlike all other cases, that sequence does not end in the collapse of civilization. It shows a far future in which the arm is populated, healthy, and stable. And there is one other point, the most important of all: Our version of history, and our version alone, contains Builder artifacts. There is no sign of artifacts in any other alternative history.”

“Stop right there.” Bloom held up his hand, palm facing Darya. “Do you realize that you have just destroyed whatever minimal credibility your argument might have had? You accept a scenario that shows the future of the spiral arm. There is no way to know such a future, unless it is shown to us by beings who themselves are from that future.”

“Wrong. That’s what stopped me, for the longest time. I asked myself: how could any being, no matter what it was like, know the future? It might make predictions; we do that all the time. But this would have to go far beyond prediction. I wondered. Could a being exist who saw the future, as we see things around us? If such an entity did exist, what would be its essential properties?

“I didn’t have an answer — until I saw the polyglyphs on the walls of Labyrinth. Normally a picture is a two-dimensional idea. These were three-dimensional pictures, and the third dimension represented time. I asked myself, What kind of being would find it natural to treat time as a dimension no different from any other? And I found an answer: A being with finite extension in time.”

“Gibberish!” Bloom glanced around, seeking support from the others in the cabin. “What she is saying is physically ridiculous and implausible.”

“To us, maybe. But to the Builders, we are implausible. We are totally flat, living within an infinitely thin slice of time. No wonder the Builders find us difficult to communicate with. We perceive space as three dimensions, but we move through time always trapped in the moment of the immediate present. We have no direct experience of anything else, past or future. A being with finite size in time as well as space will move forward through time, just as we do, but it will also have direct experience of what we perceive as the immediate past and the immediate future. To see in any dimension, it is necessary to have a finite size in that dimension. They see the future, as we see things in space. And, like our vision, their time-vision can see detail close up, but only the broad outlines farther off.”

Darya could sense a change in the atmosphere within the cabin, people moving and turning away from her and Bloom. But she was too absorbed to stop, and in any case he was the one who had to be convinced. She spoke faster.

“I could accept this idea conceptually, but I still had a major problem: We talk about ‘the future’ as though it is a well-defined thing. But it isn’t. The future is a potential, it can take many different forms. Depending on what we do — and what the Builders did — many different futures might be possible for the spiral arm. And at last I understood. The Builders see — and illustrated, for our benefit — potential futures. That’s what the polyglyphs showed. Different walls, different possible futures. And of all those possibles, only one permits stable growth and continued civilization. It is the one where the arm is populated and dominated by multiple clades. And the Builders, with the use of artifacts planted long ago, have created the possibility of that future.”

Darya, struggling to make her points as clearly as she could, hardly saw her surroundings. Her mind was filled with the vision of the Builders, performing actions in the past and present, then peering out far ahead to watch the shifts and changes of a misty set of futures. They could not guarantee a future, they could only increase its chances. How did those options look, to the strange Builder senses? Did alternatives fade or sharpen, as different actions were taken or considered that would vary the future? How much detail were they able to see? The rise and fall of a clade, yes. But what about the smaller options, of economic power and influence?

Someone was tugging impatiently at her arm. She glared, expecting it to be Quintus Bloom. Instead it was Hans Rebka. Bloom himself was pushing his way into a crush of other people, all milling around the cabin.

Darya turned her annoyance onto Rebka. “What a nerve. I was talking to him!”

“No.” He began to pull on her arm, dragging her after the others. “You just thought you were. For the past thirty seconds you haven’t been talking to anybody. You’re as bad as he is, you know, when you get going. Come on. We have to find a way out of here. Everything is falling apart. You can tell us all about the Builders some other time — if we’re that lucky.”