Transvergence by Charles Sheffield

soaking up the hot stuff in the Sun Bar on Bridle Gap."

    "Can you take us there?"

    "Sure." Louis Nenda moved to the main control console. "Bridle Gap, no sweat. Only one jump. If Dulcimer still hangs around in the same place, and if he's broke enough to need work, and if he still has a brain left in his pop-eyed head after he's been frying it for more years than I like to think—well, we should be able to hire him. And then we can all go off together an' get wiped out in the Anfract."

     

    Chism Polypheme.

    As soon as the Bose jump was complete and the Erebus had embarked on its subluminal flight to Bridal Gap, Darya consulted the Universal Species Catalog (Subclass: Sapients) in the ship's data banks.

    And found nothing.

    She went to see Louis Nenda, lounging in the ship's auxiliary engine room. He was watching Atvar H'sial as she ran a dozen supply lines to a glossy chestnut-brown ellipsoid about three feet long.

    "It don't surprise me," Nenda said in answer to Darya's question. "Lot more things in the spiral arm than there is in the data banks—an' half of what's in there is wrong. That's why E.C. Tally's so screwed up—he only knows what the data banks dumped into him. You won't find the Polyphemes in the Species Catalog, because they're not local. Their homeworld's way outside the Periphery, some godawful place in the Sagittarius arm on the other side of the Gap. What you want to know about Dulcimer?"

    "Why did you say 'I'm warning you now, he's a Chism Polypheme'?"

    "Because he's a Chism Polypheme. That means he's sly, and servile, and conceited, and unreliable, an' he tells lies as his first preference. He tells the truth when there's no other option. Like they say, 'There's liars, and damn liars, and Chism Polyphemes.' There's another reason the Polyphemes aren't in your data bank—no one could get the same story from 'em twice running, to find out what they are."

    "So why are you willing to deal with him, if he's such an awful person?"

    Nenda gave her the all-admiring, half-pitying glance that so annoyed Hans Rebka, and stroked her upper arm. "First, sweetie, because you know where you stand with a guaranteed liar. An' second, because we got no option. Who else would be crazy enough to fly into the Anfract? And be good enough to get us there. You only use a Polypheme when you're desperate, but they're mebbe the galaxy's best pilots, and Dulcimer's top of the lot. He usually needs work, too, 'cause he has this little problem that needs feedin'. Last of all, we want Dulcimer because he's a survivor . He claims he's fifteen thousand years old. I think he's lying—that would mean he was around before the Great Rising, when the Zardalu ruled the Communion—but the records on Bridle Gap show he's been droppin' into the Sun Bar there for over three thousand years. That's a survivor. I like to go with survivors."

    Because you are one, yourself, Darya thought. And you're a liar, too— and you're self-serving. So why do I like you? And speaking of lying . . .

    "Louis, when you told us how you and Atvar H'sial left Serenity, you said something I don't understand."

    "We didn't just leave —we were thrown out, by that dumb Builder construct, Speaker-Between."

    "I know that. But you said something else about Speaker-Between. You said that you thought it was lying about the Builders themselves."

    "I never said it was lying . I said I thought it was wrong . Big difference. Speaker-Between believes what it told us. It's been sittin' on Serenity for four or five million years, convinced that the Builders are just waitin' in stasis until Speaker-Between and The-One-Who-Waits an' who knows how many other constructs have selected the right species to help the Builders. An' then the Builders will pop back out of stasis, and everything will be fine, and Speaker-Between and his lot will live happy ever after.

    "Except that's all bunk. Speaker-Between's dodderin' along, doing what it thinks it was told to do. But I