"See he who calls himself a messenger from higher gods!" the Examiner called to the crowd, pointing. "Doesn't even a child know that shoe leather is repelled by mobilium?" The crowd laughed derisively.
Shingen-Hu stooped to help Hunt back to his feet. As he did so, he surreptitiously picked up a couple of slivers of the broken skids of mobilium metal and hid them in a fold of his robe.
From Thurien, Calazar was able to contact Parygol on Uttan through visar. But Parygol discovered then that his Thurien caretaker force was cut off from the rest of the planet, and that the facilities they occupied, which they had believed controlled both the planet's industrial complex and its links to a Jevlen-based jevex, were suddenly inoperative. Eubeleus had gained control of the system from elsewhere.
Porthik Eesyan, who was occupying a coupler still connected to visar and had "joined" Calazar and the others, confirmed their understanding of the situation. "Yes, that's the way it would work. There's another version of me still functioning in the Entoverse at this moment—and of all the others, of course. It's a strange feeling to know it."
"And
you
don't have any idea what's been happening since you—the other one of you—was transferred in?" Caldwell checked.
"No. The updating was to have been effected when the surrogates were erased and the originals reactivated," Eesyan said. "But the disconnection happened too abruptly."
There was a long, brooding silence.
"They'll be in trouble there, without visar," Calazar said quietly at last.
"I am aware of that," Eesyan replied. The edge to his voice was unusually sharp for a Thurien. "I happen to have a rather personal stake in the matter."
"My apologies," Calazar acknowledged.
Caldwell sat with his craggy jaw clamped in a downturned line, saying nothing. The knowledge that the original Hunt, and Danchekker, and the Marin woman, and the Jevlenese girl were intact and walking about somewhere on Jevlen was not comforting. As Calazar had said, the surrogates were now every bit as real. Caldwell didn't like the thought that was nagging at the edge of his awareness and which he knew he was refusing to face up to fully: the implication of their being somehow "expendable." He didn't like it at all.
Leyel Torres, the
Shapieron
's acting commander, looked from one to another of the faces. "We have to do something," he said simply.
"Without another link into jevex, I'm not at all sure there's much we can do," Calazar answered.
Torres fidgeted, clearly not satisfied. "How did Hunt manage to get the link that we did have?" he asked.
"Through the Jevlenese criminal ring somehow," Eesyan replied.
"Could they do it again if we restored contact with them?"
"Only they know that. And they're loose in Shiban somewhere."
Torres thought for a moment. "visar, when you had the connection, did you know where Hunt was in Shiban?"
"Almost certainly the club that they found Baumer in," visar answered. "zorac has located it on the city plan from its communications routing codes."
Torres stared hard at the floor, then looked up suddenly with a resolved air. "There is something that
we
can do," he said. "Excuse me, gentlemen. visar, disconnect." And at once he was back in one of the neurocouplers that had been installed aboard the
Shapieron.
He got up, left the room, and walked through into the ship's command deck. The crew, who were on standby, stirred at their stations.
"zorac, report the ship's status," he called.
"Flight ready, as instructed."
"Prepare for immediate takeoff."
"Aye, aye, sir!"
Inside the Planetary Administration Center in Shiban, Garuth had been brought to the communications room next to what had recently been his own office suite. One of the main screens of a bank standing in the center of the floor showed Eubeleus's control center deep beneath the surface of Uttan. Eubeleus had gained control of jevex, which was now operational and directing the h-space link carrying the channel into PAC; the Thurien occupying force had been fooled with a dummy system and was now isolated.
"I wanted you to be here to witness the futility of your fool's errand on Jevlen, and the first stage of our final triumph," Langerif gloated from the center of his entourage of officers. "Our reports are that the fervor we've been building up among the followers of the Axis has served its purpose well. There are thousands of them out there in couplers right now, eagerly waiting for jevex's promised restoration. And tens, hundreds of thousands more will follow as soon as it becomes known that the promise has been fulfilled. By tonight we will have taken Shiban. By tomorrow, Jevlen."
Garuth remained grimly silent but shifted his attention as Eubeleus himself moved into view on the screen. "A very different state of affairs from your last encounter with Jevlenese," Eubeleus said. "This time you're not dealing with the fools who tried to set up the Federation. Did you really believe that you could pit yourselves against manifestations of an intelligence that by its very nature is destined to supplant you?" He paused, seemingly having expected more of a reaction. "I believe you are aware of the method that jevex had devised to project itself into the outside universe, of which those like myself are privileged to be the prototypes."
Garuth said nothing.
On Uttan, an aide approached and stopped a short distance back, making signs to attract Eubeleus's attention. Eubeleus turned away and raised his chin inquiringly. The aide moved a step forward. "Iduane is in communication with the Prophet now. All is ready in the city."
Eubeleus nodded and looked back at the screen showing Garuth. "Never mind. You'll see for yourself soon enough," he said. Leaving the aide with the rest of those by the screen, he turned away and crossed the floor to the door leading to the coupler bank. In the passageway beyond, he met Iduane coming the other way.
"All's ready," Iduane said. "The Prophet is waiting."
"Take over in the control center," Eubeleus said, and continued on toward the booths.
Iduane entered the control center. As he passed beneath the overhead gallery surrounding the floor, he saw consternation breaking out around the screen still open to Jevlen, and quickened his pace.
"What's happening?" he demanded as he joined the group. He saw that another screen had come to life beside the one showing Langerif and Garuth at PAC. It was an outside view of the Thurien spaceport at Geerbaine. He recognized it at once by the sleek, unmistakable, half-mile-high tower of the
Shapieron
on the pad that it had occupied throughout the period of the Ganymean presence. But now it was moving, sliding upward slowly at first but picking up speed even as he watched.
"What's happening?" he demanded, hurrying across and joining the group.
One of the aides gestured needlessly. "The
Shapieron
, on Jevlen. It's taking off!"
On the screen showing PAC, Langerif was shaking his head, baffled. "The news just came in this second from Geerbaine. There was no warning, nothing. It's just taken off."
"What does it mean?"
"We don't know."
Iduane turned his head to the aide. "Go to the booths, quickly. Get the leader back here. Don't let him couple into the system yet." The aide nodded and left at a run.
On the screen from Geerbaine, the view had changed to another showing the starship's immense shape slowing down again to hang as a black silhouette, looking like some fantastic bird hovering above the Shiban skyline, with the city seemingly shrunken by perspective in the background below. Keeping its nose pointing upward, the ship began moving slowly sideways, over the city.
Bearing sacred implements and emblems of the Green Crescent, the multitude filled the forecourt of the temple of Vandros and spilled out through the gates opening into the grounds from the city. In the sky, stars had begun reappearing; Nieru had brightened. The day of the Great Awakening was at hand. On the stone terrace below the temple steps, the first batch of trembling victims had been led before the stakes, gibbets, blocks, and altars. The executioners had made ready, waiting for the daylight to return and the word to be given.
Above, on a terrace at the top of the steps, flanked by his retinue of priests and seers, Ethendor stood with his arms extended expectantly . . . and grew more perplexed. Only moments before, the Voice had spoken in his mind again, promising that the time was imminent and that a Great Spirit would speak to Ethendor, confirming his place as the chosen prophet. But not only had the Great Spirit failed to appear; now Ethendor wasn't getting any responses from the Voice, either.
"What ails the gods thus?" the Arch-Seer murmured, moving up closer behind him. "The current which thou drew still flows, but it has waned to a flicker."
"I know not," Ethendor replied. "Have the Examiner and his train returned yet to the city?"
Another of the priests conferred with a lesser priest, who turned to a messenger hovering behind an archway. "They are still awaited at the gates, O Holy One," the priest relayed back.
No doubt that was it, Ethendor thought to himself. The gods would wait until all the dignitaries and the full complement of heretics for the atonement were present.
"We must await them," Ethendor said. "Lead the people in more prayers and devotions. I shall return when the Voice speaks to me again." With that, he went back into the temple.
Eubeleus appeared at the side door of the control center with the aide who had gone to fetch him. He hurried over and took in the view from Geerbaine of the
Shapieron
drifting slowly over Shiban. "What are they doing in that ship?" he demanded, turning his eyes to Garuth, who was still standing with Langerif on the other screen.
In the PAC communications room, even with the hopelessness that had gripped him only moments before, Garuth felt a surge of exhilaration at the sight of his ship in motion and the message it brought that others were still doing something—although as to what it might be, he was as mystified as anyone else. He looked back to where Eubeleus was glaring out of the screen from Uttan. "You'll see for yourself, soon enough," he replied.
Ganymeans had double thumbs on each hand. Behind his back, Garuth crossed all four of them.
Smoke and dust poured into the corridor from the doorway leading through to the club's main lounge. It sounded as if the place was being demolished. Forgetting about what might have happened to the hour or more of lost time, Hunt and Danchekker hurried with Murray back to the rear exit that the others had taken, which was the one by which they had entered on their way from the tower elevator. Fendro, the club manager, caught up with them as they began crossing the gallery up the stairs outside.
As the four of them approached the opening into the hall where the elevators were situated, they saw Gina and Nixie with Keshen, the engineer, hanging back around a corner. Shouting and the sounds of shots came from ahead. Hunt drew to a halt and peered past into the hall. One of the elevator doors was open, with several
Ichena
inside, exchanging fire with some police who were taking cover in a corridor opening in from the far side. One of the
Ichena
had fallen and was preventing the door from closing. To try crossing the open floor was out of the question.
Fendro yelled something at Murray and went back along the gallery, gesturing. "He says there's another elevator that way," Murray told the others. "Service shaft or something. Come on." He waved Nixie and Gina on ahead, then followed with Danchekker and Keshen. Hunt waited a few seconds longer to check the situation in the hall. Somebody inside the elevator showed himself long enough to heave the body out onto the floor, was hit himself and hauled back inside by one of the others, and then the door closed. Hunt turned and ran after Keshen's retreating figure.
The rest of the group was waiting for him outside an elevator in a narrow side passage. The car arrived just as he did, and they all crowded in. Fendro spoke an order in Jevlenese, and they began ascending. Danchekker was flushed and panting, Hunt could see as he leaned against the rear wall of the car to get his own breath back. Gina was charged up with adrenaline and ready for anything. Murray was wearing a resigned, why-is-life-always-doing-something-like-this-to-me? look. Nixie seemed unperturbed and to be taking things calmly.
"It looks like maybe Scirio miscalculated," Murray said. "I guess his pals are a bit more upset than he thought."
"He was backing what looked like the whining side. I think he's upset," Hunt replied.
"I take it that our communication with visar is once again terminated for the foreseeable future," Danchekker managed between puffs and wheezes. "Most unfortunate."
"Is there any chance we could get back in there when things cool down?" Hunt asked Murray. Murray translated to Keshen. Keshen answered, then Fendro added something else and waved a hand, shaking his head.
"It doesn't sound as if there's a lot of point," Murray said. "Seems like the hardware back there isn't much use for anything except growing petunias in."
Gina looked perplexedly at Hunt and Danchekker. "I'm not sure I understand what's happened," she said. "Are there other versions of us still in the Entoverse—still functioning? Or did they disappear when the connection was cut? Or did we ever get there at all? I'm confused."
"I'm not sure I understand it either," Hunt told her.
Fendro muttered something that sounded fatalistic and turned his eyes momentarily upward.
"What was that?" Hunt asked.
"He says, all it needs now is for the hearse not to start," Murray answered. "Wouldn't that just make the day, huh? And you know something? With Jev mechanics in charge, that might not be so funny."
The elevator halted with a jolt, throwing everybody off balance. Fendro jabbered something, and the control computer replied. Something was wrong.
"The power's cut," Murray said. "Either somebody hit the switch, or something downstairs got wrecked." They felt the car beginning to descend again . . .