While zorac was speaking, visar decoded the access passwords into jevex's diagnostic subsystem, erased a set of data that it found there, substituted new data of its own, and reset the alarm indicators. Inside the Jevlenese Defense Sector Five control center, a display screen changed to announce a false alarm caused by a malfunctioning remote communications relay. Far off in space, the two destroyers turned away to return to their stations and resume routine patrolling. Already visar was pouring volumes of information into jevex that it had no time to explain, not even to zorac. At the same time it broke its way into jevex's communications subsystem and gained control of the open channel to Earth.
A voice that Verikoff recognized as visar's spoke suddenly in the communications room in Sverenssen's house. "Okay, we've done it. If Vic Hunt and the others are there somewhere, you can bring them in to watch what happens next. I can edit them out of the datastream to Jevlen on a one-way basis. Get off the line now as quick as you can."
Somehow Verikoff kept his astonishment from showing. Behind him Hunt and the others had heard and were slowly moving in through the door, too astounded to say anything. Broghuilio, obviously unaware of them, was still staring dumbstruck from one of the screens. Verikoff pulled himself together and reacted swiftly. "You have one hour to give your reply, Broghuilio," he said. "And hear this—if one of those ships at Thurien makes so much as anything that even looks like a hostile move, we will attack under an order that will be irrevocable once issued. You have one hour."
Nothing changed on the screen, but visar announced, "Okay, you're off the air." At once a bewildered Verikoff was assailed by congratulations and backslapping from all sides. Pacey and Benson were watching incredulously from the doorway, while just inside the room Sobroskin slipped his automatic surreptitiously back inside his jacket.
Another screen came to life to show the Command Deck of the
Shapieron
as visar continued to integrate the communications functions of jevex that it was taking over into its own network. A few seconds later another screen brought the view from the Government Center in Thurios. It had to be the most bizarre computer hookup ever, Hunt thought as his eyes jumped from side to side to take it all in. Caldwell, Heller, and Danchekker were physically in Alaska, yet he was seeing them through a link that extended from Connecticut to a Jevlenese star light-years away, back to the
Shapieron
and from there to a second star, and from Gistar back to the perceptron at McClusky.
"You . . . apparently believe in cutting things close," Eesyan said from the
Shapieron,
still looking distinctly shaken.
"You worry too much," Caldwell told him, addressing a point offscreen. "We know how to manage a business." He shifted his gaze to look straight out of the screen in Connecticut. "How'd it go? Is everybody okay? Where's Sverenssen?"
"We had a change of plans," Hunt replied. "I'll tell you about it later. Everybody's fine here."
On the screen that showed the Jevlenese War Room, Broghuilio had demanded a report from jevex on its current surveillance intercepts from Earth. jevex responded by producing accounts of Earth's leaders meeting secretly to agree on details of a combined attack on Jevlen. That was already historical, jevex declared in answer to questions from a completely stunned Broghuilio. Currently the plans for the assault were complete, and preparations were well advanced. jevex's latest intercept was a briefing from the senior officers of the joint Terran command staff, which it proceeded to replay. Broghuilio grew more perplexed and more flustered as he listened.
"Explain this, jevex," he demanded in a strangled voice. "What forces were those primitives talking about? What were those weapons?"
"My respect, Excellency, but it would appear to be self-explanatory," jevex answered. "The strategic forces that Earth has been building for some time. The weapons referred to are typical of those deployed by the various nations of Earth at the present time."
Broghuilio's brow knotted, and his beard quivered. He scowled at the nervous faces around him as if seized by the sudden suspicion that only he among all of them might be sane. "Typical of what weapons deployed by Earth at the present time? You have never informed us of such weapons."
Invisible fingers raced through jevex's memory, interchanging hundreds of thousands of record descriptors in a fraction of a second. "I regret that I must dispute the statement, Excellency. I have reported the details consistently."
The color of Broghuilio's face darkened even further. "What are you talking about? Reported details of what?"
"The sophisticated interplanetary offensive and defensive capabilities that Earth has been developing for several decades," jevex informed him.
"jevex, WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?" Broghuilio exploded. "Earth disarmed years ago. You have reported
that
consistently. Explain this."
"There is nothing to explain. I have always reported what I have just said."
Broghuilio brought his hands up to massage his eyes, then wheeled around suddenly to throw out his hands in an imploring gesture to those around him. "Am I going mad, or is that idiot machine having some kind of a fit?" he demanded. "Will somebody tell me that I have been seeing and hearing what I think I have been seeing and hearing for all these years. Have I been imagining things? Were we told that Earth had disarmed, or were we not? Do those weapons that we just heard about exist, or do they not? Am I the only sane person in this room, or am I not? Somebody tell me what's happening."
"jevex reports the facts," Estordu said lamely, as if that explained everything.
"HOW CAN IT BE REPORTING FACTS?" Broghuilio shouted. "It's contradicting itself. Facts are facts. They can't contradict."
"I have contradicted nothing," jevex objected. "My records all indicate that—"
"Shut up! Speak when you are spoken to."
"My apologies, Excellency."
"What Verikoff said about visar must be true," Estordu muttered in a worried voice. "visar could have been manipulating jevex when they were coupled together, before jevex disconnected—for years, maybe. Now that jevex is isolated, possibly we're receiving the truth for the first time." A ripple of alarmed voices ran around the War Room.
Broghuilio licked his lips and looked suddenly less sure of himself. "jevex," he commanded.
"Excellency?"
"Those reports—they were received direct from the surveillance system?"
"Of course, Excellency."
"Those weapons exist? They are being mobilized now?"
"Yes, Excellency."
Wylott was looking uncertain. "How can we be sure?" he objected. "jevex says first one thing and then another. How do we know what is true?"
"So, do we do nothing?" Broghuilio asked him. "Would you just sit there and hope that the Terran assault force doesn't exist? What would it take to convince you—a hundred thousand of them coming for your throat? And what would you do then? Imbecile!" Wylott fell silent. The others around the War Room looked at one another with apprehension.
Broghuilio clasped his hands behind his back and began pacing slowly. "We still have a card up our sleeve," he said after a few seconds. "We have decoded their top-level secure communications, and we know their plans. We may have fewer weapons, but we are immeasurably ahead of Earth technically. We command a vastly superior firepower." He looked up, and his eyes began to gleam. "You heard those primitives—the main advantage they were counting on was surprise. Well, they no longer have that advantage. So, Verikoff calls us a rabble, does he? Let him send in his horde of Terran primitives. We will be waiting for them. He will find out who are the rabble when they come up against
Jevlenese
weapons."
Broghuilio turned back to face Wylott. "The operation at Thurien must be suspended for the time being," he declared. "Recall our forces at once and redeploy them for defense of Jevlen, This is not a time to be concerned about upsetting orbits at Gistar. Project the transfer ports in to where the ships are now, and get them back here as soon as possible. I want them in position by this time tomorrow."
New orders went out to the commanders of the task force at Thurien, who prepared their vessels for immediate transfer back. But they were in visar-controlled space, and jevex reported that its attempts to project entry ports into that region were being jammed; the ships could not be brought back without getting clear of Gistar first. Broghuilio had no choice but to extend his deadline by an extra day and order his force to get away under its own power. An hour later it was streaming in full flight back toward the edge of the Thurien planetary system.
"Phase One completed successfully," Caldwell announced with satisfaction from Thurios as he watched the data displays being presented inside the Government Center. "We've got the bastards on the run. Now let's make sure we keep things going that way."
The transfer ports were ready and waiting outside the system of Gistar as arranged, and the Jevlenese warships peeled out of formation to enter them in relays with crisp, disciplined, military precision. What they didn't know was that by then visar was controlling the transfer system, not jevex, and such were visar's manipulations of jevex's internal functions that jevex didn't know it, either. Upon exiting back into normal space, one squadron found itself at Sirius, another at Aldebaran, and another near Canopus, while the rest reappeared strewn in ones and twos across Arcturus, Procyon, Castor, Polaris, Rigel, and assorted other stars in between. Thus they were out of harm's way for the time being and could be rounded up later. That completed Caldwell's Phase Two.
With a cigarette in one hand and a cup of black coffee in the other, Hunt stood on the patio outside Sverenssen's house, watching a protesting group of people in brightly colored garb being herded into an Air Force personnel carrier by the pool while a vigilant semicircle of Special Forces troopers looked on from a short distance back. The most recent captives had arrived at Sverenssen's expecting a party, but had found the CIA waiting instead. With visar controlling the surveillance there was no longer any need to conceal the activity around the house from orbital observation, but Clifford Benson had decided to maintain a low profile all the same, mainly to take advantage of just this kind of opportunity to extend further his suspect list of Sverenssen's acquaintances. But that was really just a precaution to identify any collaborators that might have been recruited locally. visar had found included among jevex's records a complete organizational chart of the Jevlenese operation on Earth, and with that information now in Benson's and Sobroskin's hands, the rest of the network would soon be mopped up.
A concentration of Ganymean spacecraft had been building up on the periphery of the Jevlenese planetary system, and at that point it would have been possible for visar to shut off all of jevex's services from the Jevlenese in the same way that it had done with the Jevlenese element across the Thurien-administered worlds. The problem, however, was that the Jevlenese had clearly been preparing for a war situation for some time, and there was no way of telling what other standalone and backup systems they might possess that were capable of operating without jevex. Hunt and Caldwell therefore decided that simply pulling the plug, sending in the Ganymeans, and hoping for the best was not the way to go. Instead they opted to continue applying pressure until either they obtained the unconditional surrender that Verikoff had demanded, or the Jevlenese operation somehow fell apart from the inside. Also they hoped that the reactions they observed inside the Jevlenese War Room would reveal whether or not, and if so to what degree, the Jevlenese could in fact carry on without jevex.
Behind Hunt, a flap opened in the plastic sheeting with which the back of the house had been temporarily repaired, and Lyn stepped out through what had been a glass-panel wall of the corner room. She moved over to where he was standing and slipped an arm lightly through his. "I guess this place is off the list for the party rounds from now on," she said, looking across at the VTOL down by the pool.
"Just my luck," Hunt murmured. "As soon as some of the girls I've been hearing about show up, they take 'em away again. Who ever deserved a life like this?"
"Is that all you were worried about?" she asked. Her eyes were twinkling, and there was an elusive, playfully challenging note in her voice.
"And to see pal Sverenssen off on his way, of course. What else?"
"Oh, really," Lyn said softly and mockingly. "That wasn't exactly the way I heard it from Gregg."
"Oh." Hunt frowned for a moment. "He, er . . . he told you about that, huh?"
"Gregg and I work pretty well together. You should know that." She wriggled her arm more tightly inside his. "It sounded to me like somebody was pretty upset."
"Principles," Hunt said stiffly after a pause. "Fancy me being stuck up in a place like McClusky while somebody else was down here in the sun, getting all that action. It was the principle of it. I have very strong principles."
They walked back into the house. Sobroskin was standing nearby with a couple of his officers, and Verikoff was sitting on a couch on the far side of the room, talking with Benson and a mix of CIA officials and more Soviets. Norman Pacey was nowhere in sight; probably he was still in the communications room where Hunt had left him a while earlier. Hunt caught Sobroskin's eye and inclined his head slightly in Verikoff's direction. "That guy's done a good job, and he's trying hard," he muttered in a low voice. "I hope he gets a big remission."
"We'll see what we can do," Sobroskin said. His tone was noncommittal, but there was something deep down in it that Hunt found reassuring.
"WHAT?" A voice that sounded like Broghuilio's shrieked distantly from the direction of the passageway that led through to the communications room. "YOU'VE MANAGED TO LOCATE THEM WHERE?"
"Oh-oh. I think somebody's just found his fleet," Hunt said, grinning. "Come on. Let's go and watch the fun." They moved across toward the passageway, and all around the room figures began standing up and converging behind them. Nobody, it seemed, wanted to miss the excitement.