Resurgence

“But they put the heat on you to come here?”

“I suppose they did. I felt that I was given no choice.”

“Same for me, same for At. Makes no sense at all. I mean, she’s an expert on the Builders, and so is Kallik. So are you. But me, if you bet on what I know about the Builders, you’d lose your ass and hat.”

“You were involved in the disappearance of the artifacts, starting with Summertide on Dobelle and ending at Labyrinth, out by Jerome’s World.”

“Sure I was, but that’s all history. I don’t remember more than half of what happened, even though I was right in the middle of it. I’m tellin’ you, something big has to be brewing.”

“Based on a gut feeling, or do you have evidence?”

“Mostly gut. But when your guts have rumbled with danger as often as mine have, you get to trust ’em. And yeah, I do have one bit of evidence. When the word came to us, me an’ At an’ Kallik an’ J’merlia an’ . . . another person, we were on Xerarchos, in what you might call the Lesser Armpit of Zardalu Communion territory. It’s a long way from there to here, so I called Miranda and said we’d need financial help to pay for the cost of the Bose transitions.”

As usual, Louis Nenda’s clothes were crumpled and his eyes were bloodshot and his battered face needed a shave. And as usual, there was an intensity in the way he looked at Darya that both pleased and disturbed her.

She glanced away from him and said, “It was reasonable to ask for help if you were short of funds. I assume that they gave some to you?”

“Yeah. But that’s not the point. As it happens, me an’ Atvar have had a good year or two an’ we’re rolling in money. We sort of try to disguise that, of course, but you can’t hide everything. A simple credit check would have shown we didn’t need no help. And when I made my request, I deliberately sky-highed what I said we’d need. I do mean sky-highed, too, because I wanted to see if I could learn anything from their reply.”

Darya found she was looking back at him in spite of herself. “And?”

“Not a murmur. Instant approval of everything I asked for.”

“What do you think it all means?”

“Haven’t a clue. Except that somebody thinks this meeting is real super-important. But since we’re supposed to find out tomorrow from Julian Graves, I’m not goin’ to worry about it ’til then.” Nenda leaned closer to Darya, ignoring the angry hiss that came from the giant Cecropian on her other side. “Nothin’ else on the agenda for today. So how about you an’ me havin’ dinner an’ catchin’ up on things?”

CHAPTER FOUR Sleepless in MirandaPort

When you have something to do, do it. When you have nothing to do, sleep.

Hans Rebka had learned that rule on Teufel before he was six years old. It had served him well through two decades as a troubleshooter in the Phemus Circle , and even better during the nerve-racking two years while he tried to overthrow the Phemus Circle’s corrupt central government.

That effort had not been a success—he had come within twelve hours of his own execution—but once he was on the ship leaving Candela he put all such thoughts out of his mind. The trip to Miranda would require careful piloting through a number of Bose transitions points, but that was not his responsibility.

Hans ate until his skinny belly bulged, went to his cabin, and fell asleep within thirty seconds. The weeks in prison had pushed his body to its limits of endurance. For the next five days he intended to do nothing but gorge, snooze, and wonder occasionally why the inter-clade council might think it worthwhile to drag him out of gaol and all the way to Miranda.

A dozen close calls had given him a lot of respect for his own abilities. He had survived the fearsome Remouleur dawn wind on Teufel, saved a whole colony on Pelican’s Wake, and flown an expedition on Quake to safety at the height of Summertide. But every one of those had been a marginal world, a place on the threshold for human existence. Miranda was rich, safe, and self-satisfied. It had been settled for millennia.

Hans yawned, turned over, and snuggled deeper under his blanket. So why Miranda? Well, when somebody told him why they wanted him there, he would know. Until then . . .

The final Bose transition and transfer to the Upside Miranda Port entry point took place in the middle of the local sleep period. He was told by the bleary-eyed woman who came to his quarters that since he was a late arrival, he might as well spend the rest of the night on board the ship. Meetings would continue the next morning, and nothing would happen until then. Hans nodded. As soon as the woman left he rose and dressed in his borrowed uniform. It was something learned through experience: in an unknown situation, any bit of extra knowledge might be the edge you would need. Examine your environment.