That chance would not be long in coming. Professor Merada always hosted a private dinner for visiting scholars after a seminar. Darya would be invited, even though she had just arrived at the institute. Her mouth watered at the prospect — and not because of the food.
Darya arrived a few minutes early. Professor Merada was already there, sitting as usual at the head of the table, with Quintus Bloom on his right. Normally Carmina Gold would sit on Merada’s immediate left. Tonight that had been changed. Darya circled the long table, seeking her own name card, and was surprised to find it right next to Merada, directly across from Quintus Bloom.
Bloom nodded to Darya, smiled at her reaction to the seating plan, and said, “At my request.” He went on talking to Merada.
Darya sat down uncertainly. Already, in some vague way, she was on the defensive. She studied the man across the table.
Seen close up, Bloom was not the attractive figure he had seemed on the stage. His face and neck were marred by some kind of skin disease, with coin-sized red sores only partly concealed by ointment and powder. His tongue seemed far too long. Darya watched with a revolted fascination as the pink tip flicked out far past his white teeth at every pause for breath.
“Well, Professor Lang?” Merada was addressing her. “What do you think?”
I think I’m an idiot. But Darya did not say it. She, who had mixed with Zardalu and a dozen other alien forms, had been so put off by minor human variations that she had not even been listening! For all she knew, everyone on Jerome’s World looked like Quintus Bloom.
“I’m sorry. What was that again?”
Professor Merada, heavy and humorless, nodded as though confirming some private suspicion. “Our guest was suggesting that perhaps it is a mistake to issue the fifth edition of the Artifact Catalog. It might be out of date, even before it appears.”
That was enough to grab Darya’s attention — all her attention. The Lang Catalog — her catalog! — was the Institute’s most respected publication. If Merada was considering withdrawing it, the influence of Quintus Bloom went far deeper than Darya had realized.
“It’s certainly not out of date! The new theory is wrong.” Darya noticed the change in the room as she spoke. Others had arrived while she was preoccupied with Quintus Bloom. She glanced along the table. Every face was familiar to her; even E. Crimson Tally’s, although it was anyone’s guess as to how the embodied robot had found his way in to what was supposed to be an invited dinner. And all those faces were turned in her direction, with every other conversation at the table abandoned.
Darya had had four hours between the end of the seminar and the start of the dinner. Not long, but enough to go back to her notes and review her own analyses.
“I say that the Builders are from the past, and existed millions of years ago. Whether they ceased to exist, or whether they now exist on some other plane that is beyond our senses, is not important. They were here, in the spiral arm. They made the artifacts. The Builders were certainly far different from us, in ways that we may never understand. They were masters of both space and time, and perhaps they could predict future events as we cannot. Furthermore, their artifacts call for a technology beyond our own, and possible changes to our understanding of the laws of physics. But that is all.”
Darya glanced again along the table. She had everyone’s attention. Quintus Bloom was smiling slightly, and Carmina Gold was nodding. E. Crimson Tally seemed slightly puzzled, as though what Darya had said was self-evident.
“Now compare that with what you are suggesting.” Darya glared at Bloom. “The Builders, you say, are from the future. But that is not an explanation of the Builders, it is merely a source of paradox. Let me make my point simply, by asking: Which future? If you say that they are from, say, Future A, then by coming back and planting the artifacts they will have created a different future for the spiral arm, say, Future B. If you reply that they did not create a different future, then Future A must be unaffected by the appearance of the artifacts; if it is unaffected, then there was no point to introducing the artifacts. Time travel as an explanation always has this fatal flaw: it contains the seeds of its own logical destruction. My ideas may require changes to the laws of physics. Yours are inconsistent with the laws of logic, and that is a far more serious problem.”
It was not coming out quite right. Somehow her clear thoughts were being twisted on the way from brain to lips.
Quintus Bloom was still smiling, and now he was shaking his head.
“But my dear Professor Lang, why are you so convinced that our present understanding of logic is any better than our understanding of physics? You asked us all a question. Let me now ask you a couple. First, does anything in your ideas explain the appearance of the new artifact, Labyrinth?”
“I don’t know that it’s new. I have had no chance to inspect it.” That was a weak answer, and Darya knew it.
“But I have done so, in detail. However, since you have not seen Labyrinth, let us omit it from consideration. Will you admit that there are changes in other artifacts, profound changes, more than there have ever been before?”
“I agree that there have been some changes. I’m not sure how great they are.”
“And do your theories explain why there have been changes?”
“Not yet. I came back to the institute to start a new investigation, precisely to explore those anomalies.”
“Ah. A worthy objective. But I can explain them now, without that research program. You say there have been ‘some’ changes. Professor Lang, when did you last visit an artifact?”
“I came here directly from the Torvil Anfract. It is an artifact.”
“Indeed?” Bloom’s eyebrows raised, and he glanced along the table. “But it is not listed in the famous Lang Catalog, the volume which we all take as our final authority.” He turned to Merada. “Unless someone with greater knowledge can correct my memory…”
“It’s not in the Catalog,” snapped Darya.
“Not even in the upcoming fifth edition? The new edition?”
“It is not in the Catalog,” Merada said. “Distinguished guest—”
“Please. Call me Quintus.”
“If you prefer it. Quintus, the Torvil Anfract had never been proposed as an artifact, until Professor Lang did so a moment ago. And it will never be listed as an artifact, without my personal review of the evidence.” Merada glanced reproachfully at Darya.
Bloom was still smiling benignly. “Very well, let us leave the Anfract for the moment. I want to ask Professor Lang: When did you last visit any Builder artifact other than the Torvil Anfract? One that is in the famous Lang Catalog.”
Darya thought back. Genizee, not in the Catalog. Serenity, not in the Catalog. The Eye of Gargantua, not in the Catalog. Glister, not in the Catalog.
“About half a year ago. The Umbilical, between Quake and Opal.”
“But the greatest changes to the artifacts have taken place within that time! Half a year, in which you have not seen a single artifact. Half a year, in which—”