In the same kind of way that the ubiquitous photon fluid carried energy and information through the Exoverse, the sub fabric of the Entoverse consisted of vast, dynamically transforming pattern streams of data. The datastreams were injected from the outside and, as they were processed through the cellular ocean of the matrix, flowed and converged toward output zones where they were extracted back to the external Exoverse.
That immediately suggested a parallel to mass-energy being sucked into black holes in the familiar universe. Duncan speculated that the purple spiral that Nixie described in the sky was an accretion vortex forming at one of the data outlets. In that case, were the Entoverse’s “stars” the inlets? If so, it would presumably have become a lot darker for the inhabitants in the time since the Ganymeans withdrew JEVEX. Interestingly, MacArthur, a recently emerged ayatollah, had raved on at one point about the gods putting the stars out.
Nixie had described certain “families” of stars that oscillated about and through the brightest member of the group on a one-year cycle. From the approximate positions and seasons that she gave, ZORAC generated visual simulations which with some trial and error matched her recollections closely. The results were compatible with a model in which the “star” that Phantasmagoria orbited existed as one data-inlet point of many arranged in a regular cubical lattice throughout the matrix. Stars belonging to the same row in the grid would appear to come together and separate again as the planet passed through a point in line with them. Such an arrangement of inlets and outlets would have been efficient for distributing the workload evenly through the processing volume.
That left one final mystery that the team felt should have at least a tentative explanation before they approached Calazar: How could the Ents have become aware that an Exoverse existed, and have managed to escape into it? Surprisingly, it was Danchekker who proposed an answer, after talking at length with Nixie. They presented their conclusions to Hunt, Garuth, and Shilohin in Garuth’s office at lunchtime the next day, when they reconvened after snatching a few hours of sleep in the morning.
Danchekker addressed the group standing, adopting his characteristic lecturer pose, his hands loosely clasping the lapels of his jacket. Garuth listened from behind his desk, while Shilohin sat across from him in a chair pushed to one side. Nixie was perched on another chair, swiveled around to face the room from a panel of screens taking up part of one wall. Hunt, arms folded, leaned with his back against the door. One of the last things Caldwell had said was that about the only thing left for Hunt to bring back this time would be a universe. Hunt had replied jokingly that it was a pretty tall order.
“The Ents evolved as natural creatures of their world, which had come into being inside a high-density, high-throughput, pattern-processing, computing matrix,” Danchekker said. He was speaking as if the hypothesis were fact, in effect rehearsing the team in its supporting role to Garuth, who intended going to Calazar immediately. “In the process, they developed an ability to read and interpret the flows of information passing through their world, in a similar way to that in which creatures of our world learned to read energy flows-photon streams. Now, a primary function of the matrix within which this took place was the handling of huge volumes of neural input-output traffic. In other words, those information streams flowed into and out of the Jevlenese minds coupled into the system. The streams carried coded representations of sensory impressions, concepts, and perceptions derived from the world outside. Some of the more gifted Ents learned to ‘tune in,’ as it were, to those currents-to adjust their own mental processes to a sympathetic mode which enabled them to extract information which they found to be intelligible.”
“We saw them as visions,” Nixie put in. “Now I know that they were scenes from this universe outside. But at the time they were unlike anything anyone had ever dreamed of.”
Hunt and Duncan Watt had in fact discussed such a possibility themselves. Ironically, the main reason why Hunt had not taken it further before was that he had been unable to see a sure way to convince Danchekker!
“Of course,” Danchekker said. Then he continued. “Lacking in any scientific tradition or knowledge of the Exoverse, they had no terms to describe the things they experienced. They could interpret them only as visions from a higher realm, or world beyond, and so forth.” He swung himself from side to side to take in his imaginary class. “Now, there is no reason to suppose that the relative strengths of the various natural forces in the Entoverse were comparable to the ratios that we happen to know. In particular, the domination of gravity at the macroscopic level, which gives our world much of its physical character and establishes the primacy of the role played by mass and weight, seems not to have been so pronounced. To say exactly why, we shall have to wait until we know more about the actual physics. But from Nixie and VISAR, I get the feeling that surface effects may have played a greater part.”
“Because of the smaller scale of things?” Garuth hazarded.
Danchekker released one lapel to show a hand briefly. “We can’t really say. There are no grounds at the moment for postulating that the counterparts of electrical charge, coulomb attraction, and hence molecular adhesion were anything like the quantities we know.”
Hunt listened, intrigued. This was a side to it that he hadn’t gotten around to pursuing.
Danchekker went on. “As I see it, these underlying ‘currents’ that pervaded everything could manifest themselves as entities with real, physical attributes in a way that has no counterpart in our world. Through mental interaction, their effects could be harnessed, focused, directed, and transformed into forces.”
“What you call magic,” Nixie supplied. “The bolts of energy that some adepts could project at will. The ability of some to levitate themselves and other objects up off the ground.”
Danchekker raised a finger to hold the room’s attention for a moment longer. “The strongest currents, however, flowed high above the surface as celestial phenomena. Through their ability to influence objects and events remotely as we have already seen, some of the Ents discovered how to draw these currents lower until they could intercept the flow directly. With this power available to be transformed into force, they could actually be carried away, up to the exit zones-and that, of course, is how they came to find themselves in the neural systems that the couplers were linked to, looking out at a new state of existence which none had seen other than as a vision, and many had never seen at all.”
Shilohin glanced at the others to assess their reactions. “The information pattern that constituted the Ent personality was somehow impressed upon the datastream and transferred with it to express itself in the brain patterns of the Exoverse host.”
Danchekker remained still for a few seconds. Then he let go of his pose and stalked slowly across the room until he was standing in front of the display panel near Nixie. “Exactly how is something I’m not entirely clear about,” he admitted.
Neither was Hunt. “Are Calazar and his people going to buy it?” he asked, looking around. “According to VISAR, the pictures that Nixie remembers are really constructs built from the elements activated in her human neural system. That’s why she remembers herself as having human form. Doesn’t that give us an indication of just how ‘alien’ the intelligence-carrying complexes that evolved in the Entoverse were? How could a mind with origins like that have found anything sufficiently compatible in a human head to give it a basis for functioning at all?”
Danchekker turned away from the blank screens. “Oh, I agree, it’s remarkable. Quite astonishing, in fact, if you want my candid opinion. But are we not driven to the conclusion that it happened? Exactly how it happened is a question we can only defer until we are better equipped with the information necessary to have a hope of answering it. Perhaps we simply don’t know enough about minds.” He tossed out a hand. “Which gives us an even stronger reason for wanting Uttan investigated.”
“I take it this process was irreversible?” Garuth asked.
&n
bsp; “Oh, quite,” Danchekker replied, nodding. “The configuration defining the Ent-being was lost when it entered the output zone. Lost from that universe, literally.”
“Like a black-hole transfer,” Hunt remarked. “The information content was extracted and reappeared elsewhere.”
“Nothing physical was actually extracted then?” Not a scientist, Garuth was still having to grapple with a lot of this new idea. “What happened to the Ent-bodies?”
Shulohin looked at him, pausing for a moment before answering. “I don’t think you completely have the point, Garuth,” she said. “There was nothing physical. They were only information constructs to begin with. Their whole world was. The fact that they perceived it as having material form was purely an evolutionary artifact of their universe.”
“Ah, yes… now I see.” Garuth sat back to absorb the implication fully. Then he frowned. “Yet, didn’t you say they had a way of going back? Nixie told us about ‘spirits’ who returned to inspire and recruit disciples, and taught them how to arise in turn.”
“There was another way,” Danchekker supplied. “The Jevlenese neural couplers, which the ayatollahs could use, just like anyone else. They found that via the couplers-”
Just then, ZORAC interrupted, saying it had an urgent message.
“What is it, ZORAC?” Garuth inquired.
“Langerif, the deputy chief of police, is outside the door now. He states that he is taking control of PAC in the name of Jevlenese independence and self-determination. He requests that you instruct your administration staff to transfer all powers and authority accordingly, effective as of now.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Garuth rose to his feet bemusedly as Langerif strode haughtily into the room, followed by several of his officers. He was holding a written proclamation of some kind, which he set down on the desk. All of the group were wearing sidearm: standard Jevlenese police-issue beam pistols, which could fire a variable plasma charge that could be set anywhere from a mildly uncomfortable shock to lethality.
Hunt groaned to himself as he realized how completely they had failed to see the obvious: the police and their training class; all the other Jevlenese who had been appearing at PAC over the past few days. But neither he nor anyone else had made the vital connection.
They had dismissed the Obayin assassination-assuming it had been-as purely a move by the Ichena to protect their headworld business. Of course Eubeleus would need somebody to secure the Jevlen end of things while he took over Uttan. Even Cullen had missed it. Everyone had been too engrossed with the Entoverse to give anything else a thought.
“You will have been notified by now that the Ganymean occupation of Jevlen is to cease anyway,” Langerif said to Garuth. Evidently there was a leak in the system somewhere. “But to forestall the prospect of one occupying force merely being replaced by another, we, the Jevlenese people, are taking charge of our own future, now. There is our declaration. You will please instruct all personnel under your authority, Ganymean, Thurien, Terran, and Jevlenese, to comply. It is not a matter for compromise or negotiation.”
“No… that isn’t correct,” Garuth protested. “A motion was merely proposed at JPC. There has been no decision. You-”
Langerif silenced him with a wave. “A mere formality. The spirit of the Council’s intent is quite clear: to minimize risk to persons and property, and to preserve order. The situation here is plainly about to get out of hand. To delay firm action until official orders are issued would be irresponsible. It is therefore our decision to preempt the emergency before it escalates.”
“Don’t buy it,” Hunt murmured. “He’s not the JPC. Neither are the people who wound up his spring. It’s a power grab.”
“This doesn’t concern you. Confine yourself to your own affairs,” Langerif snapped.
His line had been calculated to sway Ganymeans by appealing to reason and noble motives; the token show of force was deliberate, to throw them off balance. And had this been Thuriens as the Jevlenese were used to dealing with, it might have worked. But Garuth was from an earlier epoch of Ganymeans-and he had spent enough time on Earth to absorb a little of human psychology.
“No!” he retorted, straightening up fully. “The terms of my office are quite definite, and there is no emergency about to break out. Who do you think you’re fooling with this charade? We know that you are in league with the Axis. And JPC will very soon know, too. Now get out of my office.”
Langerif whitened and moved his hand pointedly to the butt of his weapon.
“What do you think you’re going to do?” Shilohin asked him derisively, backing Garuth’s stand. “Your troops aren’t here yet. There’s a room full of PAC security officers just down the hall.”
Garuth stretched out a hand toward a call button on a panel by his desk. But as he did so, Langerif turned and called toward the doorway, and a squad of armed police entered with their weapons at ready, led by another officer.
“Pig!” Nixie hissed. Langerif ignored her and waved his men into position to cover the room.
“I regret to inform you that your security department is not all as loyal as you believed,” Langerif sneered. “I gave you an opportunity to cooperate reasonably, but you force me to be drastic. Very well.’ He motioned sharply to the others in the room. “The rest of you, on your feet. You will go with the officer, now. Trouble will only make things worse.”
“This is an outrage!” Danchekker, who was still standing by the screens, shaking with indignation, found his voice at last. “Do you. imagine for one moment that bringing your guttersnipe politics in here is going to make the slightest-”
“Save it, Chris,” Hunt said resignedly. “This isn’t the time or place.”
While Garuth stood staring helplessly at gunpoint, the others began filing toward the door between the impassive, yellow-uniformed police.
Meanwhile, throughout the building other groups of police and disguised Jevlenese auxiliaries had begun rounding up bewildered Ganymeans from their workstations and offices. In Del Cullen’s office, Cullen stood, hands raised with two Jevlenese covering him while a police lieutenant scanned through status displays on his desk. side screen. Outside, Koberg and Lebansky had also been taken by surprise and were being disarmed and searched. Through the doorway, Cullen could see Koberg measuring up times and distances with his eyes.
“Don’t try anything, Mitch,” he called. “It won’t change the war.”
One of the guards jabbed him in the ribs with a gun. He winced
“Shut up,” the lieutenant in the chair at the screen told him over his shoulder.
And then, strange things began happening.
The sounds of running feet and confused shouting came from the corridor beyond the outer room where Koberg and Lebansky were. The guards who were with them looked around, startled. Langerifs voice came from somewhere outside the door. “Quick! Get out here, all of you. Never mind them. Lieutenant Norzalt, Pascars, and Ritoiter, stay there and watch the prisoners.”
The guards in the outer room rushed into the corridor. As the last one disappeared, the automatic door slammed shut behind them. At the same instant, a cry of pain came from the door into Cullen’s office. The two guards who had been left turned their heads instinctively-which was all the distraction that Koberg and Lebansky needed.
Inside the office, Cullen stared in bewilderment as the Jevlenese police lieutenant fell from the chair, writhing and clawing the phones of the Ganymean communications kit from his ears. A high-pitched shrieking noise was coming from the phones, painful even from where Cullen was standing.
“Go for it, turkey,” a voice said in his own ear. Shaking himself into life, Cullen seized the lieutenant by the collar before he could recover, lifted him up and took his weapon, and then laid him out with a couple of fast cracks to the jaw. He went through the door and came into the outer room just as Koberg and Lebansky were straightening up over the limp forms of the two guards who had been left.
�
��What in hell’s going on?” Cullen demanded, still at a loss as the other two retrieved their guns.
The door from the corridor opened again, and three more Jevlenese police rushed in, coming to a confused halt when they saw the Americans covering them and their two unconscious colleagues on the floor. Cullen and his two men disarmed them, then went outside. There was no sign of Langerif or what had caused the pandemonium. Two Ganymeans were standing, stupefied, by one of the walls.
“What in hell’s going on?” Cullen asked again.
“We don’t know,” one of the Ganymeans answered. “We were being arrested. Then the police were ordered away and left us here. They’re running all over the place. They seem to be getting conflicting orders.”
“Was Langerif here?”
“No. We heard his voice, but we didn’t see him.”
Just then, two more Jevlenese police came running around a corner. Koberg and Lebansky stopped them and relieved them of their guns. The door into Cullen’s office opened obligingly, and the latest additions to the catch were shoved through to join the six already inside. Then the door closed again.
“Those voices were coming out of the walls,” Koberg said, looking around, mystified. “The place is running itself. It’s isolating them in small groups.”
And suddenly, Cullen realized what was happening. “It’s ZORAC!” he exclaimed. “The goddamn computer’s doing it!”
“What did you expect?” the familiar voice said in his ear. “Langerif is in Garuth’s office, making a move to take over. We’ve been infiltrated. There’s a confused situation in security. Most of your men are still with you, but some are on the other side. There are six more police heading your way along R-5.”
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