“The first human populations that vanished were in a line, a vector, that led toward the Ular Region,” he replied.
She absorbed the fact. “So, this something wiped all human life off a dozen worlds or systems or—”
The Procurator gestured impatiently at this imprecision.
She gave him a half smile, mocking his irritation. “Well, a dozen somethings, Procurator—you asked what I knew and I’m telling you.” She resumed her interrupted account, “Sometime later the Ularians went away. Thereafter, briefly, occurred the Great Debate, during which the Firster godmongers said Ularians didn’t exist because the universe was made for man, and the Infinitarians said Ularians could exist because everything is possible. Both sides wrote volumes explaining Ularians or explaining them away—on little or no evidence, as I recall—and the whole subject became so abstruse that only scholars care one way or the other.”
The Procurator shook his head in wonder. “You speak so casually, so disrespectfully of it.”
She considered the matter ancient history. “I shouldn’t be casual?”
He grimaced. “At the time humans—at least those who knew what was going on—feared for the survival of the race.”
“Was it taken that seriously?” she asked, astonished.
“It was by Alliance Prime, by those who knew what was happening! All that saved us from widespread panic was that the vanished settlements were small and few. Publicly, the disappearances were blamed on environmental causes, even though people vanished from every world in Hermes Sector—that is, every one but Dinadh.”
She shrugged, indicating disinterest in Dinadh. She who was to learn so much about Dinadh knew and cared nothing for it then.
The Procurator went on. “My predecessors here at Prime could learn nothing about the Ularians. The only evidence of the existence of an inimical force was that men had disappeared! Prime had no idea why they—or it —attacked in the first place.”
He leaned forward, touching her lightly on the knee. “Did Leelson ever speak to you of Bernesohn Famber?”
She was suddenly intrigued. “Oh, yes. Leelson’s great-grandpop. One of the greatest of all Fastigats, to hear Leelson tell it. A genius, a biochemist.”
“Do you remember the name Tospia?”
Lutha smiled. “Bernesohn’s longtime lover. A Fastiga woman, of course.” She frowned. “A diva in solo opera. Leelson played some of her sensurrounds for me. Very nice, though I think the senso-techs were owed as much credit as Tospia herself. To my taste, one person’s performance sensed six times, however differentiated and augmented, does not have the interactive passion of six separate actors. I’ve yet to experience one that has true eroticism.”
The Procurator peered at her over the rim of his cup. “But Leelson never mentioned Bernesohn and the Ularians?”
She gave the question to her subconscious, which came up empty. “I recall no connection.”
He settled himself with a half-muffled groan. “I beg your patience:
“A century ago, there were twelve human populations on planets in Hermes Sector. Eleven of these were only settlements, six of them homo-normed, the other five at the survey stage. The twelfth world, Dinadh, had a planetary population. Dinadh is a small world, an unimportant world, except that it is near us in a spaciotemporal sense, though not in an astrophysical one. Everything into and out of Hermes Sector, including information, routes through Dinadh and did, even then.
“So, it was customary for freighters to land there, whether going or coming, and one did so a century ago, bringing the news that two of the settlements in Hermes Sector had vanished. Prime sent six patrol ships carrying investigative teams; two ships returned with news of further vanishments; the other four did not return. We sent more men to find the lost men—frequently a mistake, as in this case. None of them returned. Dinadh’s government, such as it is, refused to consider even partial evacuation, which would have been the best we could do. Evacuating a populated planet is impossible. There aren’t enough ships to keep up with the birthrate.” He sighed.
“And?” she prompted.
“Dinadh is the only occupied planet of its system, the only one suitable for occupation. The Alliance did the only thing it could think of, englobing the system with unmanned sentinel buoys. We might as well have done nothing, for all the good it did. No one came out of the sector toward Dinadh. Every probe we sent into the sector from Dinadh simply disappeared.