Resurgence

She thought of the midges that made life a misery on worlds like Moldave. They were a nuisance, and each one lived only a day. But it was hard for something as “slow” as a human to get rid of them. They were too quick, in and away before you could do more than register their annoying presence. Were humans like that to the Builders?

She said, “Did the Builders change this world?”

“The Builders—change this world? No. Something else. Something not Builders.”

“I told you!” Darya turned to Hans. “You didn’t believe it, but there is another agent in the Sag Arm, as powerful as the Builders.”

“If what we are hearing is true. After a few million years alone, an intelligent being could contrive its own version of reality. That happened to a construct on Serenity, and another one on Genizee.” Hans addressed the sphere. “Do you have a name?”

“A name? We have an—an essence of being. This must be turned into your words. We are—we were—Guardian of Travel.”

“No longer?”

“Not since long. When changes came, travel ended. No thing came, no thing went.”

“Do you have other powers? One of us is hurt.” Darya pointed to Ben Blesh. “He needs help.”

“We cannot help. We are Guardian of Travel.”

“Do you still have that power?”

“We do not know. Perhaps. No thing came, no thing went for long since.”

“You must try to help us. If we stay here, we will all die.”

“Die?”

“Cease to exist. Become inorganic. No longer possess sentience. If we stay here, we must die.”

“In how long time?”

“Too soon to measure, on your scale of things. We need help at once.”

“We cannot help. Perhaps we can send you. Perhaps not. But first we must know other information. Information that is important to us.”

Hans murmured, more to himself than to the others, “You see, it’s the same all over the galaxy. You never get something for nothing. It wants to trade us, information for help.”

“We’re not in a great bargaining position.” Darya turned again to the sphere. “What do you want to know?”

“We seek to know what happened to this world. To this stellar system. It was not planned this way. This was to be a—a connect point. We, Guardian of Travel, were to serve as a center of passage, to and from many, many places. Instead, we have become Guardian of Not-Travel. The ways from here are few. They have gone from many to one. The outside of this world has changed from passage to non-passage. Can you explain?”

“I don’t even understand the question. I’ll tell you what we know, but it isn’t much. Some other great force is at work in this arm of the galaxy. We know little about it, except that it seems separate from the Builders, and it works against the Builders. What they form, it destroys. What they build, it makes useless. This world is an example. It is possible to land here, but anything that does so will be, as we were, in danger of destruction. One member of our group already died. The rest of us were lucky to survive for as long as we have. Even if we knew a way to go out again to the surface of this world, we dare not do so. We would surely be killed.”

The sphere was silent for so long that Darya said at last, “Do you not understand me? Do you not believe me?”

“Believe you? Not believe you? We cannot say. The right word is . . . we do not comprehend you. It is not possible for a force to arise within this galaxy that could match the Builders, or threaten their works.”

“Until recently I would have agreed with you completely. Now I can only tell you how it seems to us. Will you help?”

“We can try to send you. That is all.”

“To a place of our choice? We would like to return to our ship, which orbits the star of this system.”

“That is not possible. We said already, the ways from here are gone from many to one. We can send you, but to only one place. One world.”

“Which world?”

“We have no name for it. It is a world.”

“Wait one moment.” Darya turned to the other two. “Not much of a choice. Either we stay here, or we go to some place we’ve never heard of and never been.”

“That’s a no-brainer.” Hans gestured at the bare walls surrounding them. “Stay here, and we die. Go somewhere else, anywhere else, maybe we live.” He said to Guardian of Travel, “This place you would send us to. What is it like?”

“Like? It is not like here.”

“That’s wonderful, just what we needed to know. Where will we be if we go? Do we arrive at a ship in orbit, on a world, at the middle of a star, what?”

“You would wish to go to the middle of a star?”

“No! Look, what sort of place would you send us to?”

“A world. A planet. A special place, of unique importance to those who made me.”

“Will we be able to breathe the air?” Darya turned to the other two. “The Principle of Convergence may not apply in the Sag Arm. We expect habitable planets to develop similar atmospheres, but suppose it isn’t true here?”

The sphere trembled and said, “Unless you need different from what was made here, you will be able to breathe the air of the other world. Do you wish us to try to transport you?”