“Amm-m-m I… am-m I… am I,” a wheezing voice said. “Where am I? Who am I?”

J’merlia waited. The sentient Builder constructs took a while to warm up. Some long-dormant language-analysis capability had to be retrieved and used.

“J’merlia?” the hoarse voice said at last.

“I am he. My name is J’merlia, and I am a Lo’tfian, from the planet Lo’tfi.”

“A Lo’tfian. Is that a… a live intelligence? Are you a… sentient organic form?”

“Yes.”

“Then that is the reason for your preservation. The singularity that sought you out and captured you is part of the system under my care. It functions automatically, but it was not designed to kill organic intelligence. To confine, yes, but not to kill. It therefore transferred you here, to Hollow-World.”

Language contained so many subtleties. Just when J’merlia was convinced that they had established clear communication, the other came up with something baffling. To confine, but not to kill. Was Hollow-World the artificial moon of Genizee?

“How big is the system under your care? Does it include the planet from which I just came?”

“It does. True-Home is in my care. Had you not entered the singularity, you would have been returned there, as all ships bearing organic intelligence and seeking to leave this region are returned to True-Home. That is part of my responsibility. You ask, who am I? I tell you, I am Guardian.”

“Guardian — of what?”

“Of True-Home, the world within the singularities. The closed world that will — one day — become the true home of my designers and makers; the home of the Builders.

J’merlia felt dizzy, and not only because of the wrenchings of his passage to Hollow-World. According to Guardian, Genizee was to become the home of the Builders. But Serenity, the great artifact thirty thousand light-years out of the galactic plane, was also destined to become the home of the Builders, if Speaker-Between could be believed. And even little Quake, back in the Mandel system, was supposed to be the home of the Builders, too — despite the fact that Darya Lang, who knew more about the Builders than anyone J’merlia had ever met, insisted that they must have developed on a gas-giant planet like Gargantua and would live only there or in free-space.

“I sense an anomaly,” Guardian continued, while quicksilver ripples crisscrossed its body. “You say that you are from the planet Lo’tfi. Are you telling me that you did not originate on True-Home? That you came from elsewhere?

“I did — we did, my whole party. I told you, we are from outside the Anfract, from far away in another part of the spiral arm.”

“Tell me more. I sense a possible misunderstanding, although I am not persuaded without more direct evidence. Tell me all that has happened.”

It was a direct command, but one that J’merlia felt poorly equipped to obey. Where was he supposed to begin? With his own birth, with his assignment to Atvar H’sial as his dominatrix, with their trip to Quake? Whatever he told Guardian, would the other being really understand him? Like the other sentient Builder constructs, Guardian must have been in standby mode for millions of years.

J’merlia sighed and began to talk. He told of the original home planet of each member of the party; of their convergence on the twin worlds of Opal and Quake, for Summertide Maximum; of their move to the gas-giant Gargantua and their passage through the Eye of Gargantua and a Builder transportation system to Serenity; of their successful fight with the surviving Zardalu, who had been set free from stasis fields by the Builder construct Speaker-Between; and then of how the Zardalu had returned to the spiral arm and to the planet Genizee — True-Home, as it was known to Guardian.

J’merlia and some of his companions had followed, seeking the surviving Zardalu. And at that point their ship had been plucked from the sky and deposited against their will on the surface of True-Home.

“Naturally,” Guardian said when J’merlia was finally silent. “The system in operation about True-Home assumes that any ship within the nested singularities is seeking to leave, and that is forbidden unless the organic intelligences within it have passed the tests. True-Home is a quarantined planet, under my stewardship. It was not anticipated that organic intelligences would arrive here through the protecting singularities, seek to explore within, and then hope to leave.”

“But my companions are there now. They are in danger, or even dead.”

“If what you have told me is true, and if other criteria are satisfied, than I will admit the possibility of a misunderstanding. Do you wish this situation to be corrected, and your companions assisted in their attempt to leave True-Home?”

“I do.” Even someone as naturally subservient as J’merlia had trouble giving a restrained answer to something as obvious as that. “Of course I do.”

“Then we can begin at once. There must be direct verification. Are you ready?”

“Me!” J’merlia was suddenly aware of his own insignificance and ineptitude. He was the idiot whose brain-frozen incompetence had allowed the seedship to be caught by the amorphous singularity, while he sat and did nothing. He was the fool who had launched the battered drone back to the Erebus — without even mentioning in its message the fate of Captain Rebka and the others. He was a male Lo’tfian, a natural slave who was happiest taking orders from others. He was inadequate.

“I can’t help. I’m nothing. I’m nobody.”

“You are all that can help. You are organic intelligence. You are not nothing. You are manything. You are manybody. You have many components. You must use them.”

“I can’t do it. I know I can’t.”

But the Guardian was not listening. An oval opening had formed in the middle of the fat silver body, and J’merlia was being drawn into it along a green beam of light. He opened his mouth to protest again and found that he could not speak. Could not breathe. Could not think. He was being dismembered — no, disminded, in exquisite torture.

The entry of the seedship into the outskirts of the amorphous singularity had been painful, but that had been physical pain, physical disruption, twisting and tearing and stretching. This was far worse, something he had never experienced before or heard described. J’merlia’s soul was being fractionated, his mind splitting into pieces, his consciousness spinning away along many divergent world lines.

He tried to scream. And when he at last succeeded, he heard a new sound: a dozen beings, all of them J’merlia, crying their agony across the universe.

The Zardalu had been breeding — fast.

The original group released from the stasis field on Serenity had consisted of just fourteen individuals. Now Hans Rebka, retreating into the building after Atvar H’sial, Louis Nenda, and Kallik, could see scores of them already on land. Hundreds more were rising from the sea. And these were only the larger specimens. There must be thousand after thousand of babies and immature forms, hidden away in breeding areas.

Escape along the spit of land that led to the seedship?

Impossible. It was blocked by Zardalu, with more of them arriving ashore every second.

Then escape to sea?

Even more hopeless. The Zardalu had always been described as land-cephalopods, and they were fast and efficient there, but it was clear that they had not lost mastery of their original ocean environment. They were land-and-sea-cephalopods.

Add that fact to the descriptions in the Universal Species Catalog — if you’re lucky enough to live so long, thought Rebka. He grabbed the back of Louis Nenda’s shirt and stepped across the threshold. The sun outside had almost set, and the building they were entering was unlit. Ten paces inside, and Rebka could see nothing. He blindly followed Nenda, who was presumably holding on to Atvar H’sial and Kallik. The Cecropian was the only one who could still see. She provided the sonic bursts used by her own echolocation system, and she was as much at home in total darkness as in bright sunlight.