Divergence

CHAPTER 21

Darya arrived back in the silent chamber a little bit early, before the other three. In the past four hours she had become convinced that the search was going nowhere. She was also tired, and becoming hungry again.

Even so, she could not sit down until she had taken a look inside each of the big tanks. Logically she knew that the coffins would be empty. It made no sense for the Zardalu to have gone back into stasis, even assuming that they knew how the tanks worked.

But logic had nothing to do with it. She had to see for herself and make sure.

Atvar H’sial crept quietly into the room a few minutes later, right on time. She and Darya nodded to each other. That was about as far as they could go without Louis Nenda as interpreter, but Darya was sure that the Cecropian had also found nothing useful. She could read that much from body language, just as Atvar H’sial must be able to read her.

Rebka and Nenda came in together. They looked angry and worried.

“Nothing?” Darya asked.

They shook their heads simultaneously.

“Washout,” Nenda said. “No Builders, no Speaker-Between, no Zardalu. Bugger ’em all. From the look of it, we’d take ten thousand years searching this place properly. Screw it.” Just as Darya had done, he and Rebka went compulsively across to the tanks and peered inside to make sure that they were empty.

“It’s worse than I thought,” Nenda said when he came back. “At says she didn’t catch one whiff of them, nowhere. And she can smell a gnat’s armpit at a hundred kilometers. Stinkers like them ought to be a cinch. They’ve vanished, every one of them. What do we do now, boys and girls?”

It was smell that had persuaded Nenda, not any argument offered by Darya or Hans Rebka. When Atvar H’sial had risen high, poked her big white head inside one of the big tanks, pulled forth on one claw a trace of fatty smear, and assured them all that nothing smelled remotely like that anywhere in the spiral arm, Nenda had become an instant believer. The Cecropian knew scents better than any human knew sights. Darya had put her own head into one of the tanks and caught the faintest whiff of ammonia and rancid grease.

Rebka was sitting on top of one of the coffins, his chin cupped in his hands. “What do we do?” he repeated. “Well, I guess that we keep looking. Speaker-Between said the action would start when all three species were present. We didn’t know what he was talking about then, but now we do.”

“We’re all here,” Nenda said. “Humans, Cecropians, and Zardalu. Great — except we can’t find the Zardalu.”

“We can’t. But I’ll bet that Speaker-Between can. This is his home ground.”

“Yeah — and we can’t find Speaker-Between.” Nenda walked forward to stand in front of the tank and stare up insultingly at Rebka. “Great work, Captain. If you’re so convinced Speaker-Between will find us, I don’t know why we bothered looking.”

Rebka did not move. “Because I’d like to tell him about the Zardalu before they tell him,” he said quietly. “Just in case he doesn’t know their reputation. Got any ideas, smart guy? I’m ready to be amazed.”

“That shouldn’t take much.”

“All right.” Darya stepped between them. “That will do. Or I’ll set Atvar H’sial on both of you. I thought we agreed, we can’t afford to bicker and fight until we’re out of this mess.

“I said I’d cooperate. I never said I’d bow down in front of him, or that I’d agree with him when he said something really dumb—”

Nenda was interrupted by Atvar H’sial, who came gliding through the air to land by his side. She grabbed him by the arm with one clawed forepaw and pulled him backward so that his head was in contact with the front of her carapace.

“Hey, At,” he said. “Whose side are you on? Now just stop that!”

He had been drawn close to the Cecropian and turned bodily to face the chamber entrances. “What!” His chest nodules were pulsing. “Are you sure?”

He twisted and called back to Darya. “Behind the tanks. Get a move on! You, too, Captain.”

“What’s happening?” Rebka eased off the top of the stasis tank, but he came forward instead of moving into hiding.

“At says she’s getting a whiff of Zardalu. From out there.” Nenda nodded toward the entrance. “She’s hearing sounds, too, faint ones. Somethin’s coming this way.”

“Tell Atvar H’sial to get behind the tanks with Darya. You, too. I’ll stay here.”

“We playing heroes, Captain?” Nenda rubbed at his bare and pitted chest. “That’s fine with me.” He turned his body. “Come on, At, let go of me.”

The Cecropian did not move. She was crouched forward, her long ante

“Go on,” Rebka said. “What are you both waiting for?”

But Nenda had stopped pushing at Atvar H’sial’s encircling forelimbs and was peering at the entrance. “I changed my mind. I got to stay here.”

“Why, man?” Rebka advanced to stand at his side. “We shouldn’t all wait here if there’s Zardalu on the way.”

“Agreed. So you get back in there with the professor.” Nenda turned his head and gave Rebka a curiously distant glance. “At says she smells Hymenopt. Not just any old Hymenopt, either — she smells Kallik. I stay.”

The next minute was filled with tense inactivity. Nothing emerged from the chamber entrance. Atvar H’sial offered no further information or comment via Louis Nenda. No one else could hear, see, or smell anything unusual. Darya, feeling both foolish and cowardly, came from behind the tanks and moved forward to join the other three. Hans Rebka gave her a sharp look, but he did not suggest that she go back.

The smell came first, a faint and alien whiff that drifted in on the currents of air circulation. Darya did not recognize it. The sudden lump in her chest had to be pure nerves. But she craned forward, straining to see into the gloom beyond the tu

“Almost here, according to At.” Nenda’s gruff voice was reduced to a whisper. “Coupla’ seconds more. Hold your hats on.”

A shape was moving out of the darkness, slowly, with an odd sideways motion. One moment it could hardly be seen, the next it was fully visible.

Darya heard a bark of laughter from Louis Nenda, standing to her left. She felt like echoing it. The menace had arrived. It was no seven-meter land-cephalopod, supporting itself on a massive sprawl of tentacled limbs. Instead she was looking at a human male, slightly below average height. He wore a bloody bandage around his head, and from his awkward movement he had something badly wrong with his legs or his central nervous system.

He shuffled forward to within a couple of paces of the group. “Some of you do not know me,” he said. His voice was quite matter-of-fact. “But I know all of you. You are Darya Lang, Hans Rebka, Louis Nenda, and the Cecropian, Atvar H’sial. My name is E. C. Tally. I am here to deliver a message, and to ask a question. But first, tell me who is the leader of this group.”

Hans Rebka and Louis Nenda glared at each other until Nenda shrugged. “Go ahead. Be my guest.”

Rebka turned to E. C. Tally. “I am. What’s your question?”

“First, I must make a statement. I am here only as a messenger. The rest of the group that came here with me consists of the humans Julius Graves and Birdie Kelly, the Lo’tfian, J’merlia, and the Hymenopt, Kallik. They are now prisoners of that species known in the spiral arm as Zardalu. The others will be executed at once should you seek to free them by violence. I should add that my cooperation was forced by their threat to execute Councilor Graves on the spot if I did not function as requested. And now, the question. Are there members here of other intelligences of the spiral arm, or are you the only ones? Please give the answer loudly and clearly.”