Boarmus has only glanced at the logs from time to time. He has never bothered the private sensory records. Of course not! Though, perhaps….
“Dragons,” says the voice, sounding like another person. Though it is always the same mechanism, sometimes it gives an impression of difference, which means, so Boarmus believes, that it is moved by a different consciousness, a different pattern. He thinks of this voice as female, even motherly. “Have you asked Files about dragons?”
Boarmus decides to risk it. He is too curious not to risk it. “To whom am I speaking?” he asks courteously.
“To … Lady Professor Mintier Thob,” says the voice after a moment’s hesitation.
“Lady Professor, I have asked Files about dragons, of course.” She (it) no doubt knows as well as he that Files holds thousands of years’ worth of dragons. Lizards that are called dragons, extinct and living. Artworks depicting dragons, ancient and modern. Dragons in legends, human and nonhuman. Intelligent races that resemble dragons, both fossils and flesh. Boarmus had perused them all and now says so.
That humming silence again. “The Arbai resembled dragons,” says the machine. “Files has pictures of them. Files has data. Where is the Arbai Door that was here on Elsewhere when we came?” The words seem tentative, if a machine can be tentative.
“It was brought to the Great Rotunda during the early days of settlement, and it’s been there ever since,” says Boarmus. “Nothing has come through it before, if that’s what you’re wondering. Besides, there were Arbai Doors everywhere. All across the galaxy. As for the Arbai themselves, they are extinct.”
“So are we,” says the first voice once more, and for a moment Boarmus believes he can hear hideous laughter. “In a sense. But it doesn’t matter. We can do more … extinct.”
“If that’s all,” Boarmus says, only with great effort keeping it from sounding like a whimper. He wants out of this place, away from them. He needs to consider the implications of this. He needs to think!
“No. It isn’t all.” Though the voice is toneless, Boarmus interprets the words as threatening. “Someone has asked questions about us, Provost. Someone has asked questions of Files.”
His mind shudders in panic, like a child caught in a bit of naughtiness. It was such a little thing! He hadn’t expected them to notice. Possibly he should have expected it, but he had hoped…. Damn. Damn Danivon Luze. Well, Danivon is well away from Tolerance, so what?
“Tell what happened,” the voice demands.
“About what?” He feigns ignorance.
“Someone asking … about us?”
Boarmus shakes his head, making a tsking sound. “I don’t believe that anyone has knowingly asked about you. From time to time people who are reading history come upon some reference to the early days of settlement, that’s all. Every Great Question Day people consider the early days of settlement, and the committee, and the fact that the members of the committee came here to Elsewhere. That doesn’t mean people know about the Core, or know that you … are still here.”
“They think we’re dead!” says the voice flatly.
“They think you lived out your lives here and died, yes. That would have been the normal course of events,” muttered Boarmus. “No one knows about the Core but me.”
No one had ever known except the current Provost, and his living predecessor(s), if any. Though what difference it would make, Boarmus can’t imagine. Before the first refugees arrived on Elsewhere, the Core had been set deep into immemorial stone, cased in impenetrable vitreon, double housed in a power-shielded hull along with its own storehouses, its own factory, its own power sources. The Core has never depended on Elsewhere for anything! Even if every person on Elsewhere knew about it, what difference would it make? It isn’t as though any fool with a hammer could break in!
“The person you speak of was not the only person. There were other persons asking about this place, where we are. Asking about this place is also forbidden.”
Another person? Boarmus swallows. He had no idea someone else had been asking…. “Well, I’d have to review the recent Files to determine what they actually wanted to know. Questions about … places aren’t forbidden, exactly. Some answers just aren’t available, that’s all.” Boarmus manages to yawn convincingly, though he is in a perfect fever to find out who the voices are speaking of.
“You’re sending one of the questioners away,” says the dead man.
Boarmus raises his brows. “If you mean Danivon Luze, he’s the one I’m sending to investigate this business of dragons on Panubi. He’s the best person I have for the job.” Boarmus does not mention the petitions. He hopes the dead men do not know about the petitions. If they are set off by a few harmless questions about history, what will they think of being asked to rethink their position about anything!
Silence. The silence is somehow worse than the voice, for it has a hungry howling at the back of it, barely detectable. In the vault he believes he sees the dead men twisting like snakes, coiling upward toward the glass. Chadra Hume had confessed to having dreams in which snakelike arms actually came through and seized him. Boarmus shuts his eyes and recites bawdy verses to himself. “Here’s to the girl from Denial /who thought dinka-jins worth a trial….” The dead men are harmless. They may be able to counterfeit appearance and sound (though perhaps it is only suggestion that makes him think he can see and hear them), but they cannot touch him.
The silence thins into a knife edge of unsound. Then the gulper’s voice once more:
“We do not want anyone asking questions, Provost. It is not fitting that mere … mortals should question us. Not who we were. Not who we are. We will … rid
