Divergence

“Nenda! You can’t do this.” Julius Graves had dragged himself back to his feet. “God knows, I don’t want you or anyone else killed. But think of what you’ll be doing if you show them how to make a transition. You’ll be putting Zardalu back into the spiral arm, letting them run free to start their—”

A muscular tentacle reached out and swatted Graves across his upper arm and shoulder. Graves cried out in pain and collapsed to the floor.

Birdie Kelly hurried across to his side. While the Zardalu held a longer conversation among themselves, he examined Graves.

“Not broken,” he said softly. “A deep bruise. Maybe a cracked collarbone, though I don’t think so. Hold still. Don’t try to move your arm. I’ll tie it against your chest.” He glared across at Louis Nenda and raised his voice. “And you, you bag of slime. You’re worse than Kallik. You’d better hope we don’t get out of this alive. Or your name and Kallik’s will be a curse everywhere in the spiral arm.”

“Silence.” Kallik gestured to J’merlia, who had all the time been crouched close to the floor, his pale-lemon eyes jittering nervously on their stalks from one speaker to the next. The Lo’tfian crept forward to stand next to Julius Graves.

“Help him to walk, J’merlia, if he needs it,” Kallik said. “Holder has decided. We are going with Nenda — all of us. The Zardalu will inspect the transportation system. And it had better function as Nenda promises, or you will all suffer.” She pointed one wiry limb at the Zardalu standing next to her, where a pale-orange oval was just visible behind the fringe of tentacles. “Holder says we should not try to escape as we travel. The young ones are hungry. They do not mind how their food is provided to them — dead, or alive.”

The journey through the darker tu

Julius Graves and J’merlia were made to walk in front, as triggers for possible booby traps. They were closely followed by six Zardalu. Birdie Kelly, next in line, was amazed to see that the newly born were still emerging, even while the blue towers in front of him were gliding forward. As he watched, the bright apricot of two more miniature Zardalu emerged from their birth sacs in the necklace of pouches. As soon as they were completely born they slithered down the rubbery, oil-coated trunk to take refuge beneath the main body, sheltered by surrounding tentacles. Minutes later the little beaks appeared, begging for food. The parents fed them as they walked with scraps taken from the broad webbing satchels circling the base of their torsos.

Louis Nenda was at Kelly’s side. Birdie rebuffed the other man’s attempt to talk to him. After a couple of tries Nenda turned around to Kallik, who walked at the rear in the middle of the remaining eight Zardalu.

“Ask Holder somethin’, will you?” he said. “Ask what happens when we get to the transportation system. Remind her how much I’m doing to help ’em. Say it’s only fair that I should be set free.”

There was a fluting whistle from the giant Zardalu as the message was translated.

“Holder agrees, at least in part,” Kallik said. “If everything is as you promised, you will not be killed. If everything is not as you say, you should be trembling.”

Birdie turned his head. “You ought to be eaten, Nenda, you lousy traitor. That’d save the rest of us — because your stinking carcass would poison every Zardalu that touched it. If there’s any justice, you’ll be the first to go.”

“Justice? Ah, but there ain’t no justice, Commissioner.” Nenda was staring all around him, eyes bloodshot and intense. “Not here, and not anywhere in the spiral arm. You’ve been around long enough to know that. There’s only people like you and me, and blue bastards like the Zardalu.”

Birdie glared at him. The damnable thing was that Nenda was right. There was no justice. There never had been, and there never would be. If there were, he would not be here at all. He would be back home on Opal, safe in bed.

Birdie made his own gloomy inspection of their surroundings as they walked on through dark corridors and big, open chambers. Even this tiny piece of the artifact was huge and eerily alien. Since arriving here and being captured by the Zardalu, he had been dragged from one place to the next, never having an opportunity to know quite where he was going or why. Now, examining the objects that they passed, Birdie realized that he could not guess the purpose of any of them. Something certainly kept the place ticking; there was fresh air in the corridors, food in the lockers, and functioning waste disposal units for beings with needs as different as those of humans and Lo’tfians and Zardalu. But it was a wholly hidden something. There was no sign of mechanisms, no pumps or supply lines or ducting. Birdie had no idea how the artifact functioned. It was depressing to reflect that he was never likely to know.

He was pulled out of his musings when he bumped into the massive back of one of the Zardalu. Ahead of them, J’merlia and Julius Graves had suddenly stopped and turned around. They had reached the edge of a slope that spiraled gently down into darkness.

“What is wrong?” Kallik called from behind.

“It gets really steep down there,” Graves said. “The tu

“That’s all right.” Nenda pushed forward through the solid rank of the Zardalu. “Stop where you are. Feel that stronger air current? It comes from the vortex itself. We’re nearly there, at the ramp that leads to the transportation system.”

He moved forward again, to stand at the very brink of the descending spiral. The breeze from the rotating singularity at the end of the tu

He turned, trying to move back to join Birdie Kelly. But the Zardalu would not let him through. Instead, Birdie and Kallik were pushed forward, so that within a few seconds all the Zardalu stood to the rear of the group.

Holder fluted and whistled.

“They say we must go first,” Kallik said. “All of us. Before they enter the system, we must do so. We re going with them, back to the spiral arm.”

Nenda glanced over his shoulder, down the curved slope that led to the vortex, then looked back to Kallik. “But I’m the one who brought them here! Tell ’em that, Kallik. Tell ’em they promised I’d have my freedom.”

Julius Graves laughed, wincing at the pain it produced in his injured arm and shoulder. “No, Louis Nenda, they didn’t promise. No Zardalu said anything like that. You heard what you wanted to hear. They never intended to allow any of us to go free. When we arrive at their destination, and they have no more use for us, you’ll learn what their plans for us really are. I am not a vindictive man — a councilor ca

“And if there is risk,” Kallik said, “then Holder says you will share it. If there is danger down at the vortex, speak of it now. For perhaps with that warning your life will be spared.”

Nenda turned to face the Hymenopt. He opened his mouth as though to reply, but instead he placed two fingers between his teeth and produced a high-pitched whistle followed by a loud cry: “Close your eyes! Cover them with your hands.”