Convergence

Chapter Nine

In the light of Sentinel Gate’s brilliant morning sun, Louis Nenda stood chest-high amid a thicket of flowers that threw off a riot of sensuous and heady perfume. He sniffed deeply, wrinkled his nose in disgust, and spat on the ground.

He was stuck on this pansy world, and to get off it he was going to have to deal with one of his least favorite people. Nenda and Atvar H’sial had been over the situation again and again, and seen no alternative. Hans Rebka surely knew where Darya Lang had gone, although for his own reasons he was keeping it from them. So it was Nenda’s job to worm it out of him.

If only he were on a decent world, like Karelia, where things were done in a decent way. Then he could have got what he wanted out of Rebka immediately, by smashing his stupid face in to make him talk.

But standing and thinking of better places would get him nowhere. Nenda plowed through the flowers until he was at the entrance of the bungalow. He tried the door that he came to, and found it unlocked. He snorted. An invitation to burglary — but not right now. He banged on the door panel.

No one came.

Nenda went in, walking through the livingroom and following a smell that appealed to him a lot more than the scent of the flowers outside. He’d had no breakfast.

The kitchen of the house was clean, compact, and automated. Rebka wasn’t there; but someone else was.

Wrong house! Louis was all ready to mutter an apology and retreat when he recognized the occupant of the kitchen. It was the tall, decorative woman he had seen when he first arrived at the Institute. She was wearing a white robe, open at the top almost to her waist, and split at the bottom to show more leg than Louis had ever seen before on a woman who claimed to be dressed.

“Sorry,” he said. “My mistake. I’m looking for Hans Rebka. I thought this was where he’s staying.”

“It is. But he already left.”

She had obviously recognized him, though he couldn’t for the life of him remember her name. He glared around him, as though it might be written on one of the walls. “Do you know where he is?”

“I might. And I’m Glenna Omar, since you’ve obviously forgotten. You look like you want to leave, too. You’re all the same. I hate men who are all kiss and run. I hope you’re not like that. Here, help yourself.”

She waved to the table in front of her, which bore a big plate of steaming rolls and a pot of what smelled like hot tea.

It was the price of information. Louis gave up. He sat down opposite Glenna. Atvar H’sial would never believe this if she found out, but at least he’d get breakfast out of it.

Glenna leaned back and sighed. “There, that’s better. Now we can get to know each other. Although I already know you, sort of. When you said you were ‘Louis Nenda,’ yesterday, I couldn’t think where I’d heard your name before.”

Louis said nothing. For one thing, his mouth was crammed full of hot roll. For another, in his experience nothing good was likely to come from people who knew your name.

“And then I remembered.” Glenna leaned forward to show even more cleavage. “I work here at the Institute as an information system specialist, and I’d seen your name listed as one of the people who were with Professor Lang on one of her trips. She talked about you, too. Do you find her attractive?”

“Eh?” For Louis, with half his mind on food and the other half on Glenna’s chest, the sudden change of subject was too much.

“Darya Lang. I said, do you find her attractive?”

Atvar H’sial must have found a way to get Glenna to ask the Cecropian’s own questions. It was a trap. Louis shook his head.

“Nah. Not at all.”

“Good. But you know, I think she really likes men from other planets.” Glenna leaned forward farther. The view was impressive, and almost unobstructed. “Of course, it’s easy to see why. There’s a sort of mystery about you off-worlders; you don’t have a dull stay-at-home job like me, making you into a boring person… like me.”

She arched her brows, inviting dissent. Louis had her pegged now, and the knowledge helped to clear his brain. She was a collector. He had met the type before. The trick was to get the information he needed, without his head (or other important parts) finishing as trophies on the wall behind her bed.

He looked with deep and bogus sincerity into her eyes. “I guess that Darya really liked Hans Rebka. He’s seen a hundred different planets.”

“Probably.” Glenna smiled, the cat that got the cream. “But did he like her? Not all that much, if you ask me — and I have proof. It takes more than one person to make a relationship. There has to be mutual attraction. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Oh, absolutely. You bet. So Hans dumped her, did he? Good — I mean, good for him. I bet she was mad.”

“Livid. Said she was leaving him, and leaving Sentinel Gate, and she stormed out. But she likes off-planet men, I can tell that. You know, you’re an attractive man, too. I can’t help wondering, did Darya ever make a pass at you?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way. But some imagined there was something like that goin’ on.”

“And I’ll bet they were right.” Glenna turned her face away so that she could give Louis a coy sideways glance. “You’re that sort of man, I just know it. You have that certain look in your eye.”

Right. And I’m about a foot shorter than you, and a foot wider, and I’m all scarred and hairy, and I’m swaddled in clothes so tight that I can’t get out of them inside half an hour even when I want to. What sort of mismatch from hell does it take to put you off your stride? Louis tried a demure smile, which looked more like a hideous strangler’s grin. “You shouldn’t tempt a man like that, ma’am, not in the middle of the morning. It’s not fair. You know, I’ve got work to do.”

“So do I. Call me Glenna. What are you doing this evening?”

“Nothing much. But I had the impression that you and Hans Rebka…”

“Please!” A slim hand waved away the possibility. “We’re just friends.”

You mean he’s already hanging there in the collection. “I’m glad to hear that.”

“Anyway, he’s getting ready to go somewhere, out of system.” Glenna pouted. She touched Louis’s arm, then slid her hand down toward his. “Maybe this evening, then, you and me?”

“Maybe this evening.” Nenda took her hand and swore a solemn vow to be off-planet by sunset. “But now I have to talk to Hans Rebka. Where is he?”

“He’s up at the engineering lab, fooling around with some stupid computer that got itself short-circuited during a dinner with Professor Merada.” Now that she had what she wanted, Glenna was perfectly willing to be gracious. “I can point out the way to you from the front door; it’s just up the hill.”

Louis was already moving. There wasn’t all that much time left until evening. The lab couldn’t be more than five minutes away — less if he ran.

At the door, just when he thought he was free, Glenna took hold of his hand again and turned him to face her. Her blue eyes were wide and the pupils were dilated. “I’ve just remembered one more thing about Darya Lang’s report on you. She said that you’ve been augmented.” Glenna shivered, and bit her lower lip. “That sounds absolutely fascinating. I’ve been wondering anyway what you have hidden under all those clothes. You’ve got to promise to show me.”

Louis didn’t recall running, but he made it to the engineering lab in two minutes. He entered, and found himself in the middle of what appeared to be a gruesome murder.

The body of E. Crimson Tally sat in a metal chair. Fiber tape around his arms and legs and torso held him tight. His skull had been cleaved horizontally just above the ears, so that the cranium was sheared off and had been turned, to dangle in front of his face by a flap of skin on the forehead.

Hans Rebka stood behind the chair. He held an object like an ice pick, but with a much thinner spike, and he was thrusting it deep into the gray ovoid of E.C. Tally’s naked brain.

Nenda moved forward to stand next to Rebka. “What happened? He blow a gasket?”

Rebka went on probing, and didn’t look up. “Sort of. He got into a closed loop at a dinner two days ago. I called the people on Miranda, and there’s a general logic fix on the way. Meanwhile, they told me how to do a cold start.”

“Why the tape?”

“Protection. Miranda says there may be transients while he’s booting. We don’t want him walking through the walls.”

Rebka had found the point he wanted, and gave a final poke. The body in the chair jerked. Rebka grasped the dangling top of the skull, turned it over, and fitted it into position. The bone lines clicked to form a neat seal, hidden by skin and hair.

“Going to take about thirty seconds of internal set-up before we see anything happen.” Rebka straightened to his full height and stared at Nenda. “What do you want? I told you everything I know last time we met.”

Nenda stretched upward too. He and Rebka were eye to eye, but still half a head shorter than anyone else on Sentinel Gate. He could feel the tension. If they had been a couple of dogs, the skin would be pulled back from their fangs and the hair along their backs would be bristling. Someday, the two of them would have a real go at each other. Rebka was as keen to try it as he was, Louis knew it. But it couldn’t happen today.

Nenda took a deep breath before he spoke. “I heard you’re heading out. Leaving Sentinel Gate.”

“What of it? I’m a free agent.”

“If you’re following Darya Lang, I want to propose a deal. Let us go with you. We have information that she’d like to have, and we want to know what she’s thinking.”

“We?”

“Me and Atvar H’sial.”

“I ought to have guessed that. Two crooks together, and both of you still trying to get Kallik and J’merlia back. Give it up, Nenda.” Rebka stepped closer. “They’re not your slaves anymore.”

The fight couldn’t be today.

It was the worst possible time.

But perhaps it would be today, anyway.

“You’re not a good liar, Rebka.” Nenda felt his nostrils flaring. “Yesterday you said you didn’t know where any of them are.”

“And I don’t. Can’t you get that into your tiny pea-brain? I don’t know where Darya Lang is, or Kallik, or J’merlia. Is that clear enough?” Rebka scowled, but there was more frustration than anger on his face. “Why the devil haven’t they called me?”

“Darya?”

“No. She hates my guts. She wouldn’t call me if I begged her to.”

“Good. I mean, that’s bad, ’cause I have to find her.”

“I was talking about Kallik and J’merlia.”

“Did you tell ’em to call you?”

“No. I told them to find Darya and go with her, but I didn’t tell them to call.”

“Then you’re even dumber than I thought. Whether you believe it or not, they still act like slaves. If you don’t tell ’em, they won’t do it. Wait a minute.” Nenda glared pop-eyed. The other part of what Rebka had said was finally sinking in. “You told them to go? You ordered my slave, and Atvar H’sial’s slave and interpreter, to go after Darya Lang?”

The fists and teeth were showing. Knees to the groin were just seconds away. Both men had moved to an open space, dropping from a taller-than-you posture into a defensive crouch. But before the first punch could be thrown, a loud sneeze came from the middle of the lab.

It was followed by a groan, a clearing of the throat, and a great belch. E.C. Tally was wriggling in his chair, tugging at the restraining tapes and peering squint-eyed around him in bafflement.

“What happened to the dinner table? And the people?”

Rebka hurried to his side. “Are you all right?”

“Of course I’m all right. But where am I?”

“In the engineering lab. I had to cold-start you. What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I was sitting at the dinner table, listening to Quintus Bloom and Darya Lang. And Professor Lang began to comment on the logical implications of Bloom’s assertion that the Builders are time travelers, humans from the future.” Tally’s eyes began to roll upward in his head. “Which implies—”

“You’re going to screw him up all over again!” Nenda jumped forward and shook the embodied computer, cutting off his speech in mid-sentence.

“God, you’re right.” Rebka held up his hand. “E.C., stop it there. I want you to steer clear of every thought to do with time travel until we hear from Miranda about a software fix for you.”

“But if the Builders are from the future—”

“Stop that! Think about something else. Anything else. Think about — what, for God’s sake? Come on, Nenda, help me. E.C., talk about space travel. Tell Nenda what you and I said we wanted to do, after we had been to Sentinel Gate.”

“You mean our plan to visit Paradox? Certainly. We will seek entry using some of my special capabilities, although as you all know, entry and successful return have never previously been accomplished. The artifact known as Paradox implies that the Builders—”

“Don’t talk about the Builders! Talk about Darya Lang. E.C., you were with Darya at dinner. Do you have any idea where she might have gone? Nenda thinks I know, but I don’t.”

“I can speculate.” E.C. Tally turned to face Louis Nenda. “I have considered the question of a next logical investigation, in great detail. Darya Lang is almost certainly exploring one of the artifacts, but which one? Before reaching Sentinel Gate I computed and stored for each artifact the probability of a fruitful new exploration. The results can be summarized as follows, in order of decreasing probability: Paradox, 0.0061; Torvil Anfract, 0.0045; Manticore, 0.0037; Reinhardt, 0.0035; Elephant, 0.0030; Flambeau, 0.0027; Cocoon, 0.0026; Lens, 0.0024; Umbilical, 0.0023; Magyar, 0.0022; Cusp, 0.0019…”

Nenda glared at Hans Rebka as E.C. Tally droned on. “Can’t you stop him? He has twelve hundred to go.”

“Why bother? It’s keeping him out of trouble.” Rebka glared right back. “Still want to start something?”

“Love to. But right now it’s a luxury I can’t afford.” Nenda took four steps backward, out of distance for easy action. “I need to find Darya Lang, and you can’t tell me where she is. So I’ll have to work it out for myself. And wasting time fussin’ with you won’t help me. I’m going.”

At the door to the lab he turned for a final scowl. “Have fun on Paradox, you and the dumb dinglebrain. Who knows, maybe I’ll see you both there. But I hope not.”

Rebka returned the snarl. “Go to hell.”

“Fambezux, 0.0015,” intoned E.C. Tally.

“And the same to you,” growled Louis Nenda.