The flier approached the stratified cliffs of built-up structures looming above the boundary screen of trees. A vast, bright opening yawned ahead and became one of the main aerial traffic corridors piercing the city. The flier accelerated and merged into the flow. Between Murray and the stone-faced
Ichena
on his other side, Hunt brooded silently to himself, wondering what the hell he had gotten himself into now.
Calazar, on Thurien, Torres, inside the
Shapieron
, and Caldwell, who had appeared on-line from Earth, debated the situation for a long time after contact through the probe was lost. Soon after Caldwell joined in the discussion, the Jevlenese blocked all communications from zorac out of Geerbaine. Since the rest of Jevlen's system of satellites and links had been controlled locally by jevex and not by visar, it meant that all other access to the planetary network was denied also.
For the moment, then, there was no alternative but to hope that Hunt and the others with him would complete for themselves what Porthik Eesyan had been about to say when the connection was lost, namely that the only tactic that immediately presented itself was to get visar hooked into jevex, somehow, on Jevlen. The general feeling was that they would. Whether or not they would be able to find a way of accomplishing it was another matter.
What then? If the group on Jevlen did succeed in getting visar connected into jevex, what, exactly, were the policymakers hoping that visar would do?
Caldwell could not see what the problem was. "If visar gains control, it can lock out all the couplers until we figure out a way of getting past Uttan's defenses," he told the others. "Then no more of these Ents will be able to get out, and there'll be no risk of any invasion. Once we get into Uttan we dismantle the matrix, and the problem will be settled permanently."
But Calazar, speaking with surprising firmness, vetoed such a possibility. "The Ents may have their problematical side, but peculiar as their origins may seem to us, they are fully evolved intelligences in every respect, with all the rights which that implies," he said. "However the Entoverse came into existence, exist it does, and destroying it would amount to the genocide of its inhabitants. Thuriens could not permit that. It isn't an option."
Caldwell thought about it and decided that the Thuriens were right. He had, he admitted to himself, spoken too hastily. "Okay," he agreed. "We can't pull the plug. So, why don't we simply disconnect all the neurocouplers and let Jevlen have a different, visar-like system when the time comes to take them off probation? Or visar could be extended. That way, the Entoverse can continue to exist and carry on evolving internally any way it likes. We permanently quarantine it."
But the Thuriens were not happy about that idea, either.
"Those are thinking, feeling beings, trapped in a hostile and perilous environment," Calazar explained. "The hopes of many of them are pinned on the possibility of escape. To deny them that chance would be unethical and immoral. We couldn't condone it."
Caldwell accepted the mild rebuff gracefully. "Okay then," he conceded patiently. "What do
you
want to do?"
"We don't know."
Caldwell drew a long, steady breath and reminded himself that he was dealing with the effective head of state of an alien civilization.
"Great," he replied.
The flier sped over the countryside beyond the city at a modest altitude that Hunt judged to be three to four thousand feet. Occasional bleeps came from the front, with snatches of a synthetic voice that sounded like the flight-control computer. Scirio made and took a number of calls to others elsewhere over a handset, but otherwise nobody spoke.
Below, the heaped suburbs surrounding Shiban for several miles thinned out into the kind of clusters of urban collage and spatterings of buildings strung along roadways that looked much the same everywhere, from Sumatra to New Jersey. Compared to typical developed areas on Earth there was less evidence of industry, which, following the Thurien practice, tended to be mostly underground. On the other hand, some constructions reached a scale of immensity that Earth had never seen. In one place the vehicle passed a straight, sheer-sided rift cut through a mountain range, packed with tangles of metallic geometry, the purpose of which Hunt was unable to guess. Farther on, they saw on the skyline an array of slender, pear-topped towers, interconnected by tubes, that must have stood a mile high.
Farther on, more open land began to assert itself between settlements—mostly uncultivated and wild, although a lot of new land clearing had been initiated in more recent times. Food production on Jevlen had originally been as much an artificial process-industry as the synthesis of any other material, with traditional farming being treated as a recreation, or limited as a way of life to those who liked it. But as more things began breaking down, a more mixed pattern had established itself; and since the withdrawal of jevex, the emerging entrepreneurs had been applying their inventiveness to agriculture as another means of meeting the new demands that needed to be satisfied.
They climbed, following a valley into a line of hills, where the landscape was richer and greener, with a carpet of forest, tinted peculiarly blue in parts, and several lakes. The streaky orange Jevlenese clouds and discharge patterns were more vivid and, with the chartreuse sky, imparted an unreal, eerie coloring to the entire vista that Hunt found far more alien in its effect than anything he had seen of the cityscape. Although he was used to roaming around all kinds of fantastic places via the Thurien virtual-travel system when the fancy took him, he found himself acutely conscious of the fact of actually
being
on another world. His only other experiences of being really off-planet were his stay at Ganymede, and a brief stopover en route on the Moon.
It made him mindful once again of the chasm that set humans and Thuriens apart. Given enough attention to detail, bringing information to the senses was as good, as far as Thuriens were concerned, as physically transporting the senses to where the information was. If one could not tell the difference, then there was no difference. With humans that would never be so. In that light, it seemed paradoxical that the Thuriens should be practically immune to the virtual-reality fantasies that had resulted in mass addiction on Jevlen. Or was it because the hyperrationality of the Thuriens enabled them to accept without discomposure any representation of what they knew was real, while at the same time making them incapable of surrendering disbelief to anything that they knew intellectually to be a fiction? That was pretty much what Gina had said about himself and Danchekker, Hunt reflected. No wonder the psychologists were talking about having their work cut out for the next hundred years.
Hunt returned from his thoughts to the realization that one of the men up front was speaking into his headset and the flier had begun descending. It banked into a shallow turn, and the view ahead slid sideways across the windshield until a large house standing in a clearing among trees centered and stabilized. A boundary wall passed by underneath, and the clearing enlarged into a private park of lawns, gardens, orchards, and game courts, with a lake containing several islands. It was a large, rambling house, Hunt saw as the flier came down on a paved area at the rear. The main, central section was two-storied with large areas of glass, and had curved roofs with upturned eaves, vaguely reminiscent in character of the building they had just left in Shiban. An assortment of annexes and outbuildings formed jumbled extensions at both ends. It could almost have been built, Hunt thought fleetingly, from a mixture of pieces from a pagoda and a stylish hacienda.
A group of figures was waiting at the pad. In the center was a big, roundly built, moon-faced man with smooth features and a bald head, standing hands-on-hips, watching. He wore earrings and, on one wrist, a wide bracelet, and was clad in a wraparound, short-sleeved coat over light red pants. He seemed to be the principal. The half-dozen or so other men with him, all of them also casually dressed, gave the impression of being aides or bodyguards; their manner was relaxed, mildly bored, as the doors of the flier opened.
Two of the
Ichena
got out first, followed by Scirio and Dreadnought. Some words flew back and forth outside, and then Scirio turned and said something to Nixie, motioning for her to get out. Hunt glanced at Murray questioningly. Murray shrugged.
Nixie hesitated, obviously as mystified as they were, then rose out of her seat and moved to the door. Scirio waved again, and she climbed out. Following his gestures, she moved forward between Dreadnought and the other two
Ichena
, and then froze into immobility when she saw Moon Face's expression of glowering hatred. Suddenly, as if unable to hold back any longer, Moon Face began shouting angrily at Scirio and gesturing toward Nixie with wild motions of his arms. Scirio ignored him and asked her something. She shook her head, evidently bewildered, and stepped back, terrified. Moon Face snapped something at his henchmen, and two of them came toward her, apparently to seize her, but Scirio's men blocked the way. Then Scirio and Moon Face were shouting together, at each other, then at Nixie, who ended up screaming at both of them.
"What in God's name's happening?" Hunt demanded, craning forward and gripping the seat arm.
Murray could only shake his head helplessly. "I can't make it out. The fat guy knows her, but she doesn't know him. She's telling Scirio that the fat guy's from outta the computer—
Jesus Christ!
"
A muted
buzzz
came from somewhere behind the bulkhead at the rear of the cabin they were sitting in, and Moon Face and the two men nearest him went up like torches. Simultaneously, the
Ichena
from the flier who had stopped Moon Face's men from grabbing Nixie drew pistols from their coats and shot them. There was no pussyfooting around with stun settings; the victims were blown apart. Dreadnought gave the same treatment to one of the pair that was left, and the
buzzz
came again from the back of the flier, incinerating the last of them.
Hunt could only stare, paralyzed with shock and horror. Outside, all at the same time, Scirio and his men were grabbing Nixie and hustling her back to the doors of the flier, which was already lifting; the shriek of an alarm went up from somewhere in the house, where shutters were closing across windows and sections of roof were opening outward to reveal turrets; and figures had appeared, running in all directions.
The buzzing came again from behind, and the two turrets that had been uncovered exploded. There had to be some kind of a cannon firing from the rear section of the flier—it was a gunship as well as a staff car. Figures tumbled in, Scirio shouting orders and Dreadnought bundling Nixie ahead of him like a sack. Snapping out of his daze, Hunt leaned over the seats in front to grab her and pull her in, and Murray shook himself together in time to help. Hunt's impressions of what happened after that were a confusion of disjointed scraps: Nixie petrified, but apparently unharmed and keeping grip enough on herself . . . The flier banking and lifting, its cannon buzzing continuously, ground streaking by outside . . . A point of light curving in fast from over the trees, part of the house erupting in flame . . . The perimeter wall . . . Forest . . . Rising to clear hills ahead . . .
"
Shiiit!
" Murray breathed shakily beside him.
Where had the light come from? Another craft that had been following them? Something else that had been sent up from elsewhere? Hunt stared numbly as the view ahead organized itself into the way back to Shiban, only barely aware of the tirade of words that Nixie was directing at Scirio, or of Scirio answering in even tones, his manner gradually unwinding from the tenseness that had prevailed through the journey out. Murray became attentive to what they were saying, and after a few minutes of questioning and listening, he turned his head toward Hunt.
"The fat guy they blew away was the boss, Grevetz. He was one of 'em—an Ent. Scirio figured that if what we'd said back at his place was true, then he'd be on his way down the tubes along with the rest when he'd outlived his use. So he decided he'd move first, when nobody would be expecting it. Looks like maybe he was right."
By now, Hunt's revulsion was subsiding enough for him to start thinking again. He followed, but was still puzzled. "Okay . . . but how did he know that what we'd said
was
true? How did he know it wasn't just a last-ditch try from us and the Thuriens to stop jevex from being switched on again? We could have made up the whole thing."
Murray shook his head. "That's what all that stuff back at the pad was about." He indicated the back of Scirio's head with a nod. "Did you notice how he was acting kinda weird when we walked into his place back in town?"
"Giving Nixie funny looks, you mean? Yes, I did. What did it mean?"
"It seems he knew her, from way back—or at least he knew Nikasha, the person she used to be. What clinched your story was that she'd obviously never seen him before. The real Nikasha would have run a mile, never mind go walking back into the place cool as a penguin's ass."
Hunt blinked in astonishment. "You mean she'd been there before?"
Murray talked some more to Nixie, who talked to Scirio. "Nikasha used to be Fatso's girlfriend—"
"You're kidding!"
"Only Fatso also happens to have a bitchy wife, see. Anyhow, the two of them—the two dames, that is—had one hell of a fight, and Nikasha tried to wipe Mrs. Fatso out."
Hunt stared disbelievingly. "To do in the boss's wife? Her? That's crazy."
"
Not
her. The person who used to be her. If what you're telling me's true, she's gone for keeps now, right? Yeah, do her in. It happened back there in Scirio's place, where we were before. She stunned Mrs. Fatso with a Jev shooter while she was in the pool, figuring it would look like a heart attack, but it didn't quite work out. Fatso put her number out, and that was why she did a vanishing act and lost herself in the city. It all happened before I came here—I never knew a thing about it."