“Of course not. Because they are not Karelians. But the analogy still holds. The Zardalu will do just what you would do — they would try to go home. That means they would head for Genizee, the homeworld of the Zardalu clade.”

“But the location of Genizee has never been determined,” Darya protested. “It has been lost since the time of the Great Rising.”

“It has.” Graves sighed. “Lost to us. But assuredly not lost to the Zardalu. And although they do not know it, it is the safest of all possible places for them — a world that, in eleven thousand years of searching, none of the vengeful subject races enslaved by the Zardalu has ever succeeded in finding. The ultimate, perfect hiding place.”

“Perfect, except for one little detail,” Rebka said. “It’s ideal for them, but it’s sure as hell not perfect for us. We have to find them! I don’t agree with the approach that Darya Lang and Atvar H’sial and Kallik propose, but even if it’s wrong it at least tells us what places to look. So does the approach that Louis Nenda and I favor, and I’m convinced that it’s the right approach. But you and J’merlia are telling us to go look for a place that no one has ever found, in eleven millennia of trying. And you have no suggestions as to how we ought to start looking. Aren’t you just telling us that the job is hopeless?”

“No.” Julian Graves was rubbing at his bulging skull in a perplexed fashion. “I am telling you something much worse than that. I am saying that although the task appears hopeless and the problem insoluble, we absolutely must solve it. Or the Zardalu will breed back to strength. And our failure will place in jeopardy the whole spiral arm.”

The tension in the great control chamber had been rising, minute by minute. Individuals were listening to the arguments presented by others, at the same time as they prepared to defend their own theories, regardless of merit.

Darya had seen it happen a hundred times in Institute faculty meetings, and much as she hated and despised the process, she was not immune to it. You proposed a theory. Even in your own mind, it began as no more than tentative. Then it was questioned, or criticized — and as soon as it was attacked, emotion took over. You prepared to defend it to the death.

It had needed those ominous words of Julian Graves, calmly delivered, to make her and the others forget their pet theories. The emotional heat in the chamber suddenly dropped fifty degrees.

This isn’t a stupid argument over tenure or publication precedence or budgets, thought Darya. This is important. What’s at stake here is the future, of every species in this region of the galaxy.

An uncomfortable silence blanketed the chamber, suggesting that others were sharing her revelation. It was broken at last by E.C. Tally. The embodied computer was still wearing the neural cable plugged into the base of his skull. Like a gigantic shiny pigtail, it ran twenty yards back to the information-center attachment.

“May I speak?”

For once in E.C. Tally’s life, no one objected as he went on: “We have heard three distinct theories regarding the present location of the Zardalu. At least one of those theories exists in three different variants. Might I, with all due respect, advance the notion that all the theories are wrong in part?”

“Wonderful.” Julian Graves stared gloomily at the embodied computer. “Is that your only message, that none of us knows what we’re talking about?”

“No. My message, if I had only one message, would be to suggest the power of synthesis, after many minds work separately on a problem. I could never have originated the thinking that you provided, but I can analyze what you jointly produce. I said you are all wrong in part, but more important, you are all correct in part. And your thoughts provide the prescription that points us to the location of the Zardalu.

“There are components on which you all agree: the Zardalu, no matter where they first arrived in the spiral arm, would seek to return to familiar territory. Councilor Graves and J’merlia take that a little further, by suggesting the most familiar territory of all — the Zardalu homeworld of Genizee, the origin of the Zardalu clade. Let us accept the plausibility of that added proposal.

“Now, Professor Lang, Atvar H’sial, and Kallik point out that each of us was returned from Serenity close to the place from which we started.”

There was a snort from Louis Nenda. “Don’t try that on At and me. We were dumped off in the middle of nowhere.”

“With respect: you are from the middle of nowhere. You speak with disdain of the planet Peppermill, where you and Atvar H’sial arrived after transit through the Builder transportation system. But the planet of Peppermill is, galactically speaking, no more than a stone’s throw from your own homeworld of Karelia.” E.C. Tally paused. “Karelia, which could certainly be said to be in the middle of nowhere — and to which, oddly enough, you did not seek to go although it was close-by.”

“Let’s not get into that. I got reasons.”

“I will not ask them. I will continue. It seems reasonable to assume that the Zardalu, too, were returned close to the point of their origin, which would place them in the territories of the Zardalu Communion, rather than within the Alliance, Cecropia Federation, or Phemus Circle regions. Let us accept that they arrived close to an artifact in Communion territory. As Professor Lang and others have pointed out, we all arrived close to artifacts. It seems unlikely, however, that the Zardalu would have arrived exactly where they wished to be. So let us also accept the validity of Captain Rebka and Louis Nenda’s logic, that the Zardalu would have found it necessary to acquire a ship, and destroy all evidence of such acquisition.

“Let us agree with Professor Lang, that if such a ship were required to make more than one or two jumps through the Bose Network, that would have been noticed.

“Finally, let us agree that Genizee, wherever it is, cannot be in a location that is fully explored, and settled, and familiar. Preferably, the location ought to be difficult to reach, or even dangerous. Otherwise, the Zardalu homeworld would have been discovered long ago.

“Put all this information together, and we are left with a well-defined problem. We want a place satisfying these criteria:

“One: it should be a planet within the territories of the Zardalu Communion.

“Two: it should occupy a blank spot on the galactic map, little-explored and preferably hard to reach.

“Three: it should be within one or two Bose Transitions of a Builder artifact.

“Four: the only Builder artifacts that need to be considered are ones where an unexplained ship disappearance has taken place since the return of the Zardalu to the spiral arm.

“That leaves a substantial computational problem, but each of you already performed part of the work. And fortunately, I was designed to tackle just such combinatorial and search problems. Look.”

The lights in the chamber dimmed, and as they did so the figures of the Zardalu simulation vanished from the central display region. In their place was total darkness. Gradually, a faint orange glow filled an irregular three-dimensional volume. Within it twinkled a thousand blue points of light.

“The region of the Zardalu Communion,” E.C. Tally said, “and the Builder artifacts that lie within it. And now, the Bose access nodes.”

A set of yellow lights appeared, scattered among the blue points.

“Eliminating the artifacts where there were no unexplained ship disappearances” — two-thirds of the blue lights vanished — “and considering only little-explored regions within two Bose Transitions, we find this.”