"How are we doing, visar?" Hunt muttered.
"We're getting there. Sorting through this kind of detail involves a lot of processing, even for me."
Hunt already knew that. He was just impatient to get on with it.
To avoid an inordinate amount of try-it-and-see experimenting that they didn't have time for anyway, visar would not attempt to create authentic interpretations of how a human nervous system would perceive the actual structures and relationships between them that existed in the Entoverse—if, indeed, any such interpretation was possible at all. Instead, the same principle of correspondence that caused emerged Ents to remember their past experiences in Exoverse-meaningful terms would cause the surrogates to perceive their experiences in terms that were familiar. Rather than try to compose a routine for constructing some physically visualizable depiction of the abstract patterns of intercellular transactions taking place in the Entoverse, visar would endow its pseudo-Ents with ready-made patterns of conceptual associations extracted from the hosts. These would respond to external stimuli by selecting the nearest from their stores of elemental human percepts that conformed to the same set of basic attributes. Thus, a feature of the surface configuration that was reasonably permanent, behaved with the properties of mass, and reflected part of the radiant flux impinging on it would look like a rock; a form that absorbed components of its surroundings, stayed where it was, and grew systematically bigger would look like a tree; and Hunt, whatever the nature of the bound pattern of cells that visar had needed to commandeer to create his Ent-equivalent acceptable to other Ents, would look, to himself, like Hunt—modified and appareled in whatever way visar judged appropriate to the circumstances that it discerned. "There isn't time to dream up a new, internally consistent world of experience," visar had explained. "We'll just have to work with what we've got."
"What's going on now?" Hunt asked.
"I think we're in business," visar replied. "Nixie's in touch with one of them down there now. It's not one of the big chiefs that she was searching for, but it seems like some guys who are in trouble. I can give you a quick preview."
A scene appeared as if before Hunt's eyes of a noisy, excited crowd cramming in from the side streets to the central square of what seemed to be a primitive village. The people were dressed in crude, rustic garb of coarse shirts and breeches, jerkins, and cloaks. But there was also a peculiar, wheelless carriage that ran on slides, like a sledge, with occupants who were more finely arrayed in jewelry and robes. In front of the carriage was a protective line of figures wearing helmets and breastplates and carrying weapons, and ahead, more of them mounted on strange six-legged beasts. Behind the carriage was a rough, open cart, also without wheels. Both conveyances were hitched to pairs of strange, bulky animals, again with six legs but heavier than the ones bearing the riders. They looked somewhat like buffalo, but with enormous, pillarlike legs that projected sideways from their bodies, then bent downward in a right angle like a spider's.
There was a raised platform with more figures, and behind them, Hunt realized to his alarm and consternation, three stakes piled ready for burning. The houses of the village were square and smooth, possibly mud-built, with projections like minarets, and arches connecting across some of the alleys. Here and there in the square, scaly, doglike animals were whooping and leaping like miniature kangaroos. The light was dim, a gloomy twilight. Outlined through it in the background were mountains, more vertical and sharply angular than any natural formations that Hunt had ever seen before.
Although Hunt had been prepared, he still found himself overcome with amazement. "That's really it, the Entoverse?" he asked, struggling to accept it. "This is really happening right now, inside a computer light-years away from here?"
"Concentrate on the situation," visar replied. "I've got a feeling you could get involved real soon."
Near the base of the platform, surrounded by more soldiers, was a group of what looked like prisoners, dirty, ragged, and disheveled, wearing manacles and chains. Two seemed to single themselves out in Hunt's field of view as visar directed his attention to them. The younger man, scarcely more than a youth, had fair hair and the remains of a long, white tunic. Hunt stared in surprise as he recognized the purple-spiral emblem on the sash hanging from his shoulder. The older of the two, with long, matted hair and a heavy beard, was clad in what had once been flowing robes, now falling apart. But instead of bowing cowed and dejected like the rest of the prisoners, he was standing erect, his face turned upward, wreathed in an expression of ecstatic revelation. Then Hunt heard a voice that he recognized as Nixie's, which he knew somehow to be speaking inside the bearded man's mind.
". . . the gods that you knew before. All that's over now. The sky's about to come under new management."
The old man's thoughts came through as another voice, sounding awed and exalted. "More powerful gods shall rule the heavens? And shall I, Shingen-Hu, be their servant? The priests of the temples, and all their powers, and the king and his forces, all shall be overcome?"
"Don't worry about them. They're out of it now . . . Ohoh." On the platform, another nobleman in robes was shouting something about bringing down wrath on blasphemers. Three more prisoners were being chained to the stakes, while several sinister figures advanced menacingly toward them holding long, nasty-looking knives.
"Look," Nixie's voice said. "We're gonna send you down one of our troubleshooters right now. You look like you could use help. Just leave it all to him. I'll explain later."
"An angel?" Shingen-Hu said. "To aid us in this moment of anguish? We shall yet be saved?"
Hunt realized with a sudden sinking feeling whom she meant. "Hey, wait a minute, visar. You can't do this. I don't know anything about—"
"Trust me," visar said. "Think about getting your act together."
Suddenly, Shingen-Hu was thundering and pointing an accusing finger up at the robed figure on the platform. "
Desist ye, false prophet and instrument of all that is evil!
" A confused hush swept over the crowd, and all heads turned toward him. "Charlatan and deceiver, thou liest! Even now do greater gods sweep thee and thy puny masters aside, to be trodden into the mire like vermin. Behold, an angel descends from the realm beyond, and he shall be my witness, and thy undoing!"
"visar, I really don't think you—"
"Okay, go knock 'em dead. You're on."
And suddenly, Hunt was up there on the platform. Not just as a focal point of impressions being relayed by visar. He was
there.
Instantly, total silence fell, and every face in the square was gaping at him as if he had just materialized out of nowhere.
As indeed, of course, he had.
It was no good. Hunt's mind seized up. For a fleeting, insane second he was tempted to say, "I suppose you're all wondering why I'm standing up here like this," but the looks on the faces below dispelled any further thought of it.
He looked down and saw that he was wearing a long, loose, togalike garment with sandals. "What's this?" he hissed inwardly at visar. "I look like a part in
Julius Caesar.
"
"You're not exactly in Trafalgar Square," visar answered. "It's appropriate. What did you want, something from Savile Row?"
The noble who had been in charge was backing away behind the soldiers, who were slowly recovering their wits and moving forward warily. "He's not a god, he's an impostor!" the noble screamed. "Kill him!"
In a passing thought, Hunt wondered how he came to understand the words. But there were more pressing things to attend to just at the moment. One of the soldiers, a bearded giant with embellished breastplate and plumed helmet, who suggested something from popular depictions of the Trojan War, drew back his arm and hurled a spear. Hunt raised a protective arm reflexively; the spear stopped in midair less than a foot away, then burst into fragments that fell to the ground.
"visar, do we have to cut things that close?" Hunt asked shakily.
"Sorry about that. I'm still experimenting with the dynamics of this place." Things that moved got longer, Hunt remembered.
"What kind of cowards are you?" the noble shouted. "That's just a man. One man!"
A hail of spears and darts came; all were deflected or fell harmlessly. The giant, whom Hunt had mentally dubbed Agamemnon, advanced menacingly, drawing his sword. Reassured that God was indeed on his side, Hunt stepped forward with a new feeling of confidence to meet him.
"Die, puppet of pretenders!" Agamemnon cried, swinging.
"Not today, I think, thank you," Hunt said, and snapped his fingers. The sword turned into a vine of pink flowers, which coiled itself around Agamemnon's arm. Agamemnon stopped, staring at the flowers in confusion, then shook them off and stamped on them.
"Getting the hang of it now," visar said.
"Yes, well, do you think you could remove this chap to a safer distance?"
"No problem." An invisible force swept Agamemnon unceremoniously across the platform and over the edge. He hit the ground with a mighty, metallic crash and sat up, dazed and bewildered.
"The others are a bit too close for comfort, too," Hunt said. Agamemnon had just started to pick himself up when the rest of the soldiers who had been up on the platform cascaded down on top of him.
"How's that?"
"Not bad."
The bearded man below, who had spoken of himself in Hunt's mind as Shingen-Hu, was pointing up at him and calling out to the crowd. "Behold the angel that was foretold! See how the servants of treachery are powerless before him!"
"How do we know what they're saying?" Hunt asked visar. "You can't be translating. You're new here, as well."
"Your thought patterns are coupled to an Ent-wired neural system that includes a local speech center. It's the same as the reason why Ents can understand Jevlenese when they emerge."
Deprived of his soldiers, the noble was cringing back among the executioner and his minions for protection. Hunt turned the knives they were holding into cucumbers and their jerkins into coats of thick molasses, then collided them all together so that they fell, writhing and adhering helplessly. Starting to enjoy himself, he turned the chains of the three unfortunates tied to the stakes into garlands of butterflies, which dispersed and fluttered away.
"So these people would be able to understand me?" he asked visar.
"They should."
"How much more can you give me in the way of background data?"
"Not a lot. I'm mainly manipulating physical data patterns. It needs processing through a nervous system to interpret what they mean."
"We need Nixie here, then."
She appeared beside Hunt, wearing a Greek chiton turned up and held by a girdle to form a short tunic falling to just above the knee; she was shod with laced buckskin. She looked like representations of Artemis, the virgin huntress. Hunt couldn't help smiling at visar's appalling choice. A murmur went up from the crowd.
"Another angel descends! My words shall be vindicated!" Shingen-Hu cried out. The crowd was impressed, clearly; but from what Hunt could see, not as much as he would have expected. Below the platform, the main body of soldiers had shown some initial confusion, but was steadying again as the occupants of the carriage came tumbling out.
"What can you make of this?" he murmured as Nixie took in the scene. "We've got gentry down there with the troops, and a chain gang over there. Good guys, bad guys, which are which? What's going on?"
"The ones getting out from the carriage are priests from the city," Nixie said. "Their logo has a green crescent, the sign of Vandros. Eubeleus uses the same sign, so they must be his buddies here." She surveyed the results of Hunt's impromptu handiwork. "It looks as if you got it right."
"I don't like the kind of party this was about to be." So saying, Hunt turned the weapons of the remaining soldiers below into a kitchen-garden variety and the chains of the prisoners into laurel leaves. The prisoners scattered them to the ground and lifted their hands, gaping down at themselves and at each other, wondering at their sudden freedom.
"See how the angels come as instruments of retribution and justice!" Shingen-Hu bellowed.
But the priests, undeterred, raised their arms in unison and pointed up toward the platform, their eyes burning in a strange, penetrating fixation that Hunt found instantly unnerving, even at that distance. And then he realized that he was paralyzed. Bolts of fire flew up at him, but visar interceded and dissipated them into clouds of sparks. A shimmering curtain seemed to pass between Hunt and the priests, and he found his faculties unfrozen again.
"What the hell was that, visar?" he gasped inwardly.
"They got to you. More goes on in this place than is obvious."
"Well, we can match that act." Hunt turned and pointed a finger at one of the three piles of fagots heaped around the stakes—the intended victims had made themselves scarce. "Fire." The pile ignited into a spectacular blaze. A murmur went up from the crowd. Hunt turned back, folded his arms grandiosely, and gazed down at the priests with what he hoped was a look of lordly contempt.
It didn't faze them. "Pah! Is that the power of your superior gods?" one of them scoffed. "Apprentice angel!" He stepped forward, pointed at the second pile, and duplicated the act. The crowd cheered. Clearly they were rooting for the home team.
"Try this," Hunt invited, and materialized a white dove out of nowhere, flying above the crowd.
"Puerile." The priest shot it down with a well-aimed digit of psychic flak. Hunt turned the third pile and its stake into a rosebush surmounted by an apple tree. The priests shredded the lot with an invisible blender. Hunt collapsed the carriage that they had just climbed out of into a heap of parts. They did the same to the platform that he was standing on, and only the speedy intervention of visar again saved him and Nixie from joining Agamemnon and his companions, who were still sorting themselves out on the ground.