“We’re quite new,” Daystar said. “We’re a uniformed civilian service, like the old Surgeon General’s Corps. I’m here also to aid our Embassy in putting its archives, which extend over several centuries, into order; they’re currently unsorted.”
”So why do you want access to old First Empire star maps?” Rosenstein asked. “Why not just use the Encyclopedia Astrographica?”
“The most famous literary quarrels,” Daystar answered, “mostly associated with the quantum retrodictive doctrine of the House of Pwill, are cases in which a warp link is to be inferred from literary allusions, and there is a dispute as to whether or not a particular link existed on the most likely dates of writing. My objective is to take the list of stars, show which stars had hyperlinks, and when the links came into being or disappeared. So I am constructing a star map, but not the fixed map of the Encyclopedia. Instead I am constructing a dynamic map that shows warp links, including links that came or went. Once that map is complete, scholars interested in the history of literary-critical disputes will be able to determine which interpretations of allusions are plausible, thereby settling some disputes, and doubtless creating many new ones.”
“This literary criticism? It’s from the Second Empire?” Rosenstein asked.
“Early Second Empire,” Daystar answered. “More often First Empire. When the Imperial Senate met in the Hall of Ghosts, praise be its name, the Senate occasionally sat as judges in a literary-critical verbal disputations.”
Rosenstein shook his head. “And what is your interest in more practical topics?” he asked. “Starship design. Construction of warp nodes. Fusactor operation.”
“None,” Daystar answered. “Adequate information on First-Empire starships is in ‘All the Galaxy’s Warships” and the matching merchant volumes. I’m just looking for information on warp links as they come and go.”
“Honorable Commander Rosenstein,” Senior Librarian Luthcur said, “We can readily put filters on the files your fellow human is seeking to copy. The process is very nearly foolproof, not to mention that First Empire starships were also quite primitive by modern standards. Their major trade routes were filled with starships having only beta drives.”
“Your project sounds remarkably worthless,” Rosenstein said. “It is amazing that anyone would fund it. Have you ever met Chelan?”
“Victor Chelan?” Daystar asked, rearranging her thoughts. “I’m in the Seldon Legion. Someplace along the way we must have met, but that must have been quite some time ago. My memory says he is not very much like the usual biographic sketches. He may take command of a room, but he is not tall or large or loud. He just has presence.”
“So what does he think of this project?” Rosenstein asked.
“If he has any interest in historical studies of literary criticism, I haven’t been told about it,” Daystar answered. That was technically true, she thought.
