"They survived, yes, but to what end?" the Accuser asked, moving on to the scientist. "To know Truth? To awaken a knowledge of their real, spiritual selves?" He shook his head. "No. Because
you
blinded them by reducing Reality to observables accessible to reason, and told them that was all that exists."
"I simply gave them answers that I could stand by," the scientist said. "I described what the evidence indicated. The facts spoke as they would. Of other matters I offered no opinion."
"Ah yes,
facts!
" The Accuser came to the philosopher and pointed. "And there we have the assassin who murdered the souls, leaving corpses for the other three jackals to feed on. You taught that facts alone decide reality, that experience precedes ideas. You made human quality and human essence a mere accident of evolution, leaving people no other purpose than to seek worldly fulfillment as individuals. Thus we arrive at the close of the circle. You take away their
needs
in order that others may substitute wants."
"In that case,
I
accuse
you
," the philosopher retorted. "For the needs that you try to impose are false.
You
need
them
—to feed, clothe, shelter, and take care of you; to satisfy your craving for mastery; to endow
your
life with an illusion of purpose. But they don't need you, and never have. Your whole case is a fraud designed to convince them of the opposite."
At the prosecution table, Baumer sat forward. These were the things that he wanted to hear answers to. jevex had all of human history and its aggregation of recorded thought to draw on in composing them.
Murray took Hunt and Cullen, still accompanied by Koberg and Lebansky, to one of the gaudier districts, where he had been told to meet somebody called Lesho. They arrived at a basement bar that was crowded and noisy, with a low stage to one side featuring erotic dancing of an openly lesbian flavor by a troupe of naked girls, which the clientele seemed to treat matter-of-factly.
As the others followed Murray across the floor and through the throng, a hand clapped Hunt on the back. "Well, hey, if it isn't the English scientist! I see you're taking in some of the local culture, too, eh, Doc?" It was Keith, one of the business executives who had been on the
Vishnu.
He looked bedraggled but happy, more than a little the worse for wear, and had a glass in one hand and a slinky, purple-haired Jevlenese girl clinging to his other shoulder. Alan was behind him, with a bare-bosomed companion sporting an orange crew cut.
"Field research," Hunt shouted back, forcing a grin.
"I didn't think you were in anthropology," Keith joked.
"It's the physical side of physics."
"Vic! Have a drink," Alan called from behind. He gestured approvingly to indicate the girl with him. "Find yourself some company. There's plenty everywhere. They seem to go for Terrans. Maybe we should find a few more wars to win around this galaxy."
"Not right now."
Keith waved toward Koberg and Lebansky. "Who are those two guys you've got with you? They look like mean muscle."
"Something urgent's come up," Hunt said. Murray, who had made his way over to three men sitting at a corner table, turned his head and beckoned. Hunt excused himself and went over with Cullen.
The central figure was Lesho, squat and swarthy, with black, curly hair and a tufty beard. He was wearing a suit woven from silvery thread, with a jeweled pendant over his shirt and heavy rings on his hands. The two Jevlenese with him could have been underworld thugs anywhere from Manila to Marseilles. There was no channel fifty-six available, and the talk had to be via Murray's pidgin Jevlenese.
"He'll take us to the local
Ichena
capo," Murray yelled into Hunt's ear. He pointed at Cullen. "Just him, you, and me go. The two Frankenstein brothers stay here."
"You expect us to trust human nature?" Cullen protested. "They're our security."
Murray showed his empty hands. "You want to talk, not him. That's the deal."
Hunt looked at Cullen. Cullen shrugged and nodded. "What's the choice?" He called Koberg and Lebansky over and explained the position. They looked uneasy, but accepted it.
Murray exchanged some more words in Jevlenese. Lesho finished his drink and stood up. "Let's go," Murray said.
On a sacred mount in the Rinjussin wilderness, Thrax stood on the Ascension Rock, staring up at the night sky. ShingenHu was nearby, arms outstretched, while around them the circle of cowled monks focused their minds on the shimmering thread of current curving down from the blackness, trapped by their combined powers and being drawn ever closer to the peak.
Thrax had never seen a current flowing so closely before. Inside it he could discern the filaments of iridescence, twisting, dividing, pulsing, recombining, as if each one moved with a life-force of its own. He could make out the patterns formed within the whole, coming together and dissolving, ever-changing as they danced and mixed with the rhythm of the flow.
In normal times, he would have spent much of his training absorbing the visions of Hyperia that the currents carried, before he rose up with them. Shingen-Hu, however, had relaxed that requirement, since these days the currents were too few and too precious for an attempt not to be made. Thrax trusted the Master's judgment and had accepted the decision.
"Prepare thyself, Thrax," Shingen-Hu called across to him. "The current comes lower. In a moment you must reach out."
"I am prepared, Master," Thrax replied.
He took a last look around him at the hills outlined vaguely in the darkness, which was the last sight he would see of the world he had known. When an adept arose out of Waroth, his physical body dematerialized to merge its substance into the current, so that only his spirit would enter the new being that he was to become. If he ever saw Waroth again it would be through the eyes of one of the Inspired, inside whose mind he would return to speak.
"Remember, your task shall be to serve the spiral of Nieru," Shingen-Hu intoned. "Seek those who follow the sign."
On another peak, not far away, Keyalo was watching the glowing ribbon of current looping downward above the mass of rock rising dimly on the far side of a gorge. Ethendor was with him, with a company of priests projecting their own attractive powers upward toward the current. Also standing by were two of the rare fire-knights, adepts who had chosen to dedicate their powers to the development of martial skills, and whose services were sought by the kings of all nations. Behind them, flexing their wings and rattling their tether chains in their impatience to be released, stood six fearsome griffins with their handlers.
"The moment is near. Prepare thyself," Ethendor warned.
"I am prepared, Master!" Keyalo cried.
The rendezvous was at a corner opposite a small park. Remembering from the drive into the city the canopies with their simulated skies that enclosed some parts but not others, Hunt was unable to tell if the pale green darkening into evening overhead was real or artificial. It seemed a better class of neighborhood, cleaner and with the buildings well maintained, although Lesho had brought them only a few blocks. One of the things that had struck Hunt about Shiban was the way that the entire character of the surroundings could change abruptly, sometimes by simply crossing a street.
A shiny limousine drew up noiselessly. Two men—strongarm characters by the look of them—climbed out from the front and checked Murray, Hunt, and Cullen for weapons. One of them said something in Jevlenese to Lesho, who raised a hand in salutation to Murray, nodded briefly at the other two, and walked away. Then a door of the rear compartment opened, revealing two sets of seats facing each other, with those on one side occupied by three more men: in the center, a broad, craggy-faced man with cropped gray hair, who reminded Hunt vaguely of Caldwell and who was presumably the capo, and what looked like two bodyguards. Murray stepped forward to the doorway, and there was another muttered exchange of Jevlenese. Then he climbed in and moved across the empty seats, motioning for Hunt and Cullen to follow. One of the two men who had gotten out first closed the door behind them, then returned with his companion to the front. There was the sound of more doors closing, and the vehicle pulled away.
"His name is Scirio," Murray informed Hunt. "He wants to know why it's so important for you to find this guy Baumer." In an aside he added, "He knows you're from PAC, and suspects anyone who's mixed up with the Administration—especially Terrans. They know what Earth-style governments tend to mean for their kind of business."
"Tell him I'm not interested in his business. That's why we've come here unofficially like this. Baumer has information on somebody who's gone missing, who we've reason to believe might be in danger."
Murray conveyed the message. Then, "Why should he help you? He's a businessman. What's in it for him?"
"He understands protection, right? This is to do with an interplanetary situation that involves the politics between Jevlen and Earth. If we don't get any satisfaction unofficially, then other people are going to do it officially. And they won't fool around. In other words, it's either a friendly favor to us or a police bust. Which does he want?"
Murray translated. Scirio laughed and spat out a stream of what was clearly derision, emphasized by gestures and a final throwing-away motion.
"He farts in the faces of the Shiban police. They're all assholes, and wouldn't know how to bust their way into an empty room. In any case, he owns them. We have to do better than that."
"Then try this," Cullen said, cutting in. "There are big players moving to get the Ganymeans out of Jevlen and replace them with a Terran occupation backed by a military force. That's what we're trying to stop. If we fail, what would
that
do to his business?"
Murray passed it on, and Scirio went very quiet. Then he called out something in a raised voice to one of the two men in front.
"He's gonna call the head office," Murray muttered.
A tone sounded from somewhere. Scirio opened a small compartment in a divider between two of the seats and took out a telephone handset—apparently whoever was on the other end and what was said were private matters.
Speaking in a low voice, Scirio told Grevetz the situation. Grevetz, in his villa outside the city, pondered. The German that the Terrans were trying to trace was the one Iduane had said to get rid of. But if the Ganymeans and Terrans were showing that much concern, it might lead to real problems. He ought to double-check with Eubeleus before doing anything drastic, he decided. He could always get rid of Baumer tomorrow if Eubeleus still wanted him to. But if he did it today and it turned out to be not such a good idea for some reason, that would be less easy to fix.
"Have you got any idea where this guy they're looking for is?" he asked Scirio.
"If he's not anywhere they've tried, then he'll be freaking out in the club," Scirio replied.
Grevetz thought about it. If the Terran Murray was with them, the club wasn't a secret. It didn't sound as if they were interested in the firm's business, anyway; more like some political crap that Grevetz didn't want to get involved in. Perhaps just playing it straight and open would be the quickest way of getting them to leave him alone.
"Okay, you can take them there," he instructed Scirio. "If the German's there, let them have him."
Scirio replaced the handset. Saying nothing to Murray, he called out something to the front compartment again. A voice acknowledged from a grille in the partition.
Murray raised his eyebrows and nodded. "That did the trick, guys. We're on our way to the Gondola."
In the court of the People, Baumer watched from the prosecution table as the Accuser began reading his role of witnesses.
"In support of the case brought against the accused, I call upon the religious teachers of all time . . ." A line of men in robes, cloaks, cassocks, some bearded, several with long, flowing hair and carrying wooden staffs, filed into the room through a side entrance. "I call upon the world's great artists, its poets, its seers, its mystics, all those who have tried through the ages to turn Man's eyes away from the mundane and the material, and open them to . . ."
The Accuser's voice trailed away as the Counsel for Defense rose to his feet, waving his hand in an impatient protest. Beside him was a dwarf dressed as a jester, hopping up and down excitedly in his eagerness to speak. From the dock, the industrialist, the engineer, the scientist, and the philosopher looked on with interest.
"If I might be permitted, I have here a single witness who will put an end to this whole farce now, without wasting any more of the court's time," the Defense Counsel said. "I move for the case to be dismissed."
"Who is that fool?" the clerk of the court demanded, indicating the dwarf from his seat below the bench.
"A gremlin who was found lurking in the subconscious of the prime mover responsible for these proceedings." The Defense Counsel turned and stabbed a finger at Baumer.
Startled, Baumer sat upright in his seat. This shouldn't be happening. Something was going wrong.
A murmur went up around the hall. "Speak," the Judge directed.
The Defense Counsel went on. "Briefly, this whole case reduces to an indictment of reason and its manifestation in technology. But this witness will testify that we are all, now, every one of us, creations of precisely those processes and nothing else. So is the entire reality in which we exist. In other words, the Accuser himself is a product of that which he would have us deny. Therefore, were he to prove his case, neither he nor his case could exist."
"Is this true?" the Judge challenged, looking at Baumer.
Baumer rose to his feet, confused. "I don't understand," he stammered, staring at the dwarf. "He shouldn't be here. How did he get in? If he's mine, I can deny him. Proceed as if he didn't exist."
"But he
does
exist," a voice boomed. It was jevex. Everything was going out of control. jevex had no business intruding like this . . .