Resurgence

“I have no reason to question the survival team’s competence. They were trained under the direct supervision of Arabella Lund, whom I happen to know personally. And I do not want you to take unnecessary risks.”

“Fine. You’re not askin’ me an At to do that. We’re askin’ you. An’ we’re not offering miracles. If there’s trouble on the way, all we’ll give you will be a few minutes of warning.”

The argument went on and on. But Hans and Louis had finally won. The proof of that was the presence on the expedition of the Have-It-All, which had already made its next Bose transition. Darya stared hard at the screen, seeing nothing but knowing that the node entry point for the Pride of Orion could be no more than a few minutes away. One advantage of this ship’s curious structure was the existence within its hull of scores of private chambers where a person could retire with her thoughts and hide away from others. Each room had access to the Pride of Orion’s external viewing sensors, and what Darya wanted to see on the display was the reassuring beacon of the Have-It-All as soon as their own ship completed its transition.

Crossing the Gulf was nothing like normal interstellar travel, where you were always comforted by the sight of nearby stars that might send help if your superluminal travel modes failed. Around the Pride of Orion lay only a vast sea of emptiness. The spiral arm from which they had come lay far behind. Ahead the Great Unknown of the Sag Arm sprawled across half the sky.

And within that unknown, perhaps, lay completely new Builder artifacts. Darya had not been able to focus on anything else since Julian Graves mentioned the possibility. She had rejected from Louis Nenda a suggestion that they compare notes on what they knew about the Sag Arm—"I’ll show you mine an’ you show me yours.” She had also been unable to return to her previous intimacy with Hans Rebka, and it had little to do with the fact that they had been apart for two years.

Even the delivery of what Councilor Graves clearly thought of as a warning seemed to lack reality.

That had come in answer to Hans’s protest, at the end of the first meeting. “You’re crazy if you think a handful of us can run off and in a few weeks sort out the problems of a region as big as all our territories put together.”

Graves’s forehead added a few more worry lines. “Captain Rebka, I have never suggested any such thing. Our goal is the exploration of what is happening on Marglot, and possibly an attempt to help the Marglotta. We do not expect to understand the mystery of dying worlds, or to determine the fate and future of the whole Sag Arm. However, I would be remiss if I failed to inform you of another important point concerning our journey. As you remark, we are small in numbers, even if large in experience of the Builders and their artifacts. But our expedition is as small as it is because this is viewed by the Council as a high-risk endeavor.”

In other words they don’t want to send too many of us, just in case we don’t come back. But even that thought hadn’t had as much effect on Darya as it should. Artifacts! What wouldn’t she give to see new Builder artifacts? She realized now how boring it had been for the past couple of years, sitting in her office at the Institute on Sentinel Gate and methodically recording every element of the disappearance of Builder presence. It had been like making notes on your own death.

With that thought, Darya felt within her the near-imperceptible quiver that told of impending passage into and through a Bose node. She peered at the screen, seeking that other dot of light.

And there it was, a signal beacon blinking its message. The Have-It-All was safely through, with the Pride of Orion following close behind. But the thing that made Darya catch her breath lay beyond the two ships. They had attained the far side of the Gulf. A final and short Bose transition should take them to the Marglot system. However, even before that there might be evidence of Builder artifacts.

Darya eagerly scanned the glittering starscape that filled the sky ahead. Many years of experience told her that she was probably wasting her time. Builder artifacts were infinitely varied in appearance. They ranged from apparently normal structures, like the Umbilical that ran between Opal and Quake, to the near-unfathomable space-time convolutions of the Torvil Anfract. An artifact could look like anything or nothing.

She looked anyway, swinging a high-resolution scanner across the sky. Stars and to spare—they seemed more thickly clustered than in the home Orion Arm—but nothing to hint at Builder presence.

She jumped as a voice behind her said, “Too soon, I fear.”

She turned to see E.C. Tally standing there.

“How did you know what I was looking for? And how did you know where I was?”