He felt a deep sense of satisfaction at a difficult challenge met as he stood at one end of the War Room, deep below a mountain range on Jevlen, surrounded by his entourage of advisors and military strategists, following the reports coming in through jevex from the instruments tracking the
Shapieron
many light-years away. As he looked slowly around at the ranks of generals in the all-black uniforms of the Jevlenese military and at the arrays of equipment bringing information from and carrying his directions to every corner of his empire, he felt a deep and stirring anticipation of fulfillment at the approaching appointment that destiny had set for him. It was a manifestation of the Jevlenese superiority and iron willpower of which he was both the last in a long succession of architects and the ultimate personification, and which would soon assert itself across the Galaxy.
The uniforms were not yet worn openly, and this place was not known to the Ganymeans who visited Jevlen and on occasion remained for protracted periods for various reasons. Organization, planning, and training operations were still conducted in secret, but already an embryonic officer corps was ready to emerge with an established command chain to a nucleus of trained active units upon which a carefully worked-out recruitment program could begin building at short notice. The factories hidden deep beneath the surface of Uttan, one of the remote worlds controlled by Jevlen, had been steadily accumulating weapons and munitions for several years, and the plans to switch the whole Jevlenese industrial and economic machine fully to a war footing were in an advanced stage.
But the time was not yet quite right. On one or two occasions the events of the past few months had almost prompted him into being swayed by the overreactions and panickings of his lesser aides and acting prematurely. But by thinking clearly and with courage and sheer willpower he had steered them through the obstacles and annihilated the problems one by one until finally only the matter of the
Shapieron
remained. And that would be disposed of very soon now. He had been tested and found not to be lacking, as the Cerians would discover for themselves as soon as the inhibiting yoke of Thurien had been cast off. But not yet . . . not quite yet.
"Target closed to within one scan period," jevex announced. The atmosphere in the room was tensely expectant. The
Shapieron
was approaching the device that had been transferred into its path via a toroid projected several days earlier in order for the gravitational disturbance to be outside the range of any Thurien tracking instruments following the ship at the time. The device itself, packing a nucleonic punch of several gigatons and programmed to detonate automatically on proximity, was gravitationally passive and would not register on the Thurien tracking system, which operated by computing the spatial location of the stressfield produced by the ship's drive. jevex's statement meant that the bomb would go off before the tracking system delivered its next update.
Garwain Estordu, one of Broghuilio's scientific advisors, seemed nervous. "I don't like it," he muttered. "I still say we should have diverted the ship and interned it at Uttan or somewhere. This . . ." He shook his head. "It's too extreme. If the Thuriens find out, we'll have no defense."
"This is a unique opportunity. The Ganymeans are psychologically ready to blame Earth," Broghuilio declared. "Such an opportunity will not come again. Such moments are to be seized and exploited, not wasted by timidity and indecision." He looked at the scientist disdainfully. "That is why I command and you follow. Genius is knowing the difference between acceptable risk and rashness, and then being willing to play for high stakes. Great things were never achieved by half-measures." He snorted. "Besides, what could the Thuriens do? They cannot match strength with strength. Their heritage has left them sadly ill-equipped to deal with the realities of the Universe on the terms that the Universe dictates."
"They have survived for a long time, nevertheless," Estordu observed.
"Artificially, because they have never faced the test of opposition," General Wylott declared, taking up the party line from one side of Broghuilio. "But trial by strength is the Universe's natural law. When the more natural course of events unfolds, they will not prevail. They are not tempered to spearhead the advance into the unknowns of the Galaxy."
"There speaks a soldier," Broghuilio said, scowling balefully at Estordu and the rest of the scientists. "You bleat like Ganymean sheep while you are in the safety of the fold, but who will protect you when you go out onto the mountain to face the lions?"
At that moment jevex spoke again: "Latest update now analyzed." A hush fell at once across the Jevlenese War Room. "Target no longer registering in scan data. All traces have vanished. Destruction effected with one-hundred-percent success. Mission accomplished."
The tension lifted abruptly, and a flurry of relieved murmurings broke out on all sides. Broghuilio permitted a grim smile of satisfaction as he drew himself up to his full height to acknowledge the congratulations being directed toward him from around the floor. His chest swelled with the feeling of power and authority that his uniform symbolized. Wylott turned and threw his arm out in a crisp Jevlenese salute acknowledging the leader. The rest of the military followed suit.
Broghuilio made a perfunctory return, waited a few moments for the excitement to subside, then raised an arm. "This is but a small foretaste of what is to come," he told them, his voice booming to carry to the far corners of the room. "Nothing will stand in our path when Jevlen marches forward to its destiny. The Thuriens will be wisps of straw lost in the hurricane that will sweep across first the solar system, and then the Galaxy. DO YOU DARE TO FOLLOW ME?"
"WE DARE!" came the response.
Broghuilio smiled again. "You will not be disappointed," he promised. He waited for the room to quiet and then said in a milder tone, "But in the meantime we have our good
duty
to perform for our Ganymean masters." His mouth writhed in sarcasm as he wrung out the final word, causing grins to appear on the faces of some of his followers. He raised his head a fraction. "jevex, contact Calazar through visar and request that Estordu, Wylott, and I see him at once on a matter of gravest urgency."
"Yes, Excellency," jevex acknowledged. A short delay followed. Then jevex reported, "visar informs me that Calazar is currently in conference and asks if the matter can wait."
"I have just received news of the most serious nature," Broghuilio said. "It cannot wait. Convey my apologies to Calazar and inform visar that I must insist on going to Thurien immediately. Tell visar we have reason to believe that the
Shapieron
has met with a catastrophe."
A minute or two went by. Then jevex announced, "Calazar will receive you immediately."
At Houston, Caldwell had described to Hunt the network of real power that had lain hidden across the world possibly for centuries, operating to preserve privilege and promote self-interest by opposing and controlling scientific progress. The attempt first to frustrate and then to shut down communications with Thurien had seemed consistent with such a power structure and policy.
Then Danchekker had called in a visibly excited state from McClusky with the news that Karen Heller had opened up a completely new dimension to the whole situation. On arriving in Alaska hours later, Hunt and Caldwell learned of the evidence for supposing that the Jevlenese had been interfering with Earth's technological development since the dawn of its history while they grew in numbers, reorganized, and profited from their access to Ganymean knowledge. This notion had proved so astonishing that nobody made the connection between the two sets of information until Lyn arrived from Washington with the staggering announcement that not only was Sverenssen in communication with the Jevlenese, as he apparently had been for many years, but that, from the evidence of the sculpture, the Jevlenese were still staging physical visits to Earth, at least intermittently. In other words the Jevlenese had not been interfering merely way back in early times; what Pacey and Sobroskin had started to uncover parts of right now was a Jevlenese-controlled operation.
This news immediately threw up a host of whole new questions. Was Sverenssen simply a native Terran working as a collaborator, or was he actually a Jevlenese agent injected into Earth's society and using the identity of a Swede killed in Africa years before? Whatever the answer, how many more like him were there and who were they? Why had the Jevlenese been distorting their reports to make Earth appear warlike? Could the reason be that they wanted a pretext to justify to the Ganymeans their maintaining a military strength of their own as an "insurance" against the possibility of future terrestrial aggression beyond the solar system? If so, who had the Jevlenese been intending to direct the military strength against—the Thuriens, to end what was seen as an era of Ganymean domination; or Earth, to settle an account that went back fifty thousand years? If Earth, had the activities of Sverenssen's network to promote strategic disarmament and peaceful coexistence during recent decades been a deliberate ploy calculated to render Earth defenseless and set it up to be taken over as a going industrial and economic concern instead of the ball of smoking rubble that would have been left had it been able to offer resistance? And if this were true, how had the Jevlenese then intended to deal with the Thuriens, who would hardly have just sat and done nothing while it all happened?
There had been more than enough reasons to talk straight away to the Ganymeans, so Calazar had called everybody together at Thurios—including Garuth, Shilohin, and Monchar from the
Shapieron.
After the ensuing debate had droned on for over two hours, visar interrupted to announce that something had just destroyed the object substituted for the
Shapieron.
Minutes later Imares Broghuilio, Premier of the Jevlenese group of worlds, contacted Calazar to request an immediate appointment.
Sitting off to one side of a room in the Government Center at Thurios with the others from McClusky, Hunt waited tensely for the confrontation with the first Jevlenese they would meet face to face, who were due to appear at any second. Garuth and his two companions from the
Shapieron
formed another small group on the far side; and Calazar, Eesyan, Showm, and a few more Thuriens were clustered at one end. The Ganymeans were still somewhat shaken by what they had learned of deception and subterfuge that went beyond their wildest imaginings. Even Frenua Showm had conceded that without the apparently uniquely human ability to penetrate such deviousness, it was doubtful that the Ganymeans would ever have reached the bottom of it. It seemed that being suspicious of another's motives was something that came with the conditioning of predatorial thinking, and Ganymeans simply were not predators. "On Earth they say you must set a thief to catch a thief," Garuth had remarked. "It appears just as true that to catch a human you must set a human."
"They might be great scientists, but they'd make lousy lawyers," Karen Heller murmured in Danchekker's ear. Danchekker snorted and said nothing.
Calazar was curious to see how far the Jevlenese would go in their fabrications if fed sufficient rope; also, there was more that he hoped to learn from them before exposing just how much he knew. For these reasons he did not want to confront them immediately with the presence of the Terrans and the
Shapieron
Ganymeans. He therefore instructed visar to edit out of the datastream sent to jevex, and hence to the participants on Jevlen, all information pertaining to those two groups. It meant that Hunt, Garuth, and their companions would, after a fashion, be there, but remain completely invisible to the Jevlenese. Such a tactic was a flagrant violation of good manners and Thurien law, and unprecedented throughout the many centuries for which visar had been in use. Nonetheless Calazar decreed that by their own actions the Jevlenese had warranted making this occasion an exception. Hunt was looking forward to the consequences.
"Premier Broghuilio, Secretary Wylott, and Scientific Adviser Estordu," visar announced. Hunt stiffened. Three figures materialized at the end of the room opposite Calazar and the Thuriens. The one in the center had to be Broghuilio, Hunt decided at once. He stood six-foot-three at least, and had dark eyes that blazed fiercely from a face made all the more intimidating by a mane of thick, black hair and a pugnacious mouth surrounded by a short, cropped beard. His body was clad in a short coat of gold sheen worn over a mauve tunic covering a barrel-like chest and powerful torso.
"What of the
Shapieron
?" Calazar demanded in an unusually clipped voice. Hunt would have expected that for one of Broghuilio's rank some form of opening formality would have been appropriate. The flicker of surprise that he caught on the faces of the other two Jevlenese seemed to say so too. One of them looked directly at where Hunt was sitting and stared straight through. It was a strange feeling.
"I regret the intrusion," Broghuilio began. His voice was deep and harsh, and he spoke stiffly, in the manner of somebody performing a duty that demanded a greater show of feeling than he could muster readily. "We have just received news of the most serious nature: all traces of the ship have disappeared from our tracking data. We can only conclude that it has been destroyed." He paused and cast his eyes around the room for effect. "The possibility that this could be the result of a deliberate act cannot be dismissed."
The Thuriens stared back in silence for what seemed a long time. They did not attempt playacting any show of concern or dismay . . . or even surprise. The first glimmer of uncertainty crept into Broghuilio's eyes as he searched the Ganymean faces for a reaction. Evidently this was not going as he had anticipated.
One of the other two, also tall, dressed somberly in dark blue and black, with icy blue eyes, slicked-back silver hair, and a florid face that tended toward puffiness, seemed not to have read the signs. "We tried to warn you," he said, spreading his hands imploringly in a good imitation of sharing the anguish that the Thuriens were presumably supposed to be feeling at that moment. "We urged you to intercept the ship before now." That was hardly true; possibly he placed a lot of faith in his powers of suggestion. "We told you that Earth would never allow the
Shapieron
to reach Thurien."