Hogan, James - Giant Series 04 - Entoverse (v1.1)

by Entoverse [lit]

  “JEVEX evolved under the same influences that plotted to over­throw Thurien and Earth,” Shilohin pointed out. “Conceivably the qualities of its creators were somehow embodied into its nature—and the ayatollahs arc frequently violent and excitable. They are suspi­cious of everyone, and pathologically insecure, hence their obsessive

  urge to control others and impose their will—what else do these cults of theirs express? The insecurity also manifests itself as an insatiable lust for wealth, on a scale beyond the comprehension of normal people.”

  “Hm, we’ve seen more than a few like that back on Earth,” Hunt remarked. He was thinking of a ring that had been broken up after the Pseudowar and its revelations. Maybe Earth held more under­cover Jevlenese than had been realized.

  “A completely circular argument,” Danchekker objected. “You begin by postulating JEVEX as the cause, then conclude by deducing Jevlenese origins as a consequence. A simple observation of the com­monality of human nature to both situations would be far more to the point, would it not?”

  “Maybe,” Hunt conceded.

  Garuth was not so sure. “There is other evidence of a distinct,~ external cause at work: the suddenness with which the ayatollahs are affected. The condition doesn’t seem to be present from birth, or something that develops progressively through life. It appears sud­denly, as if the victims were being possessed.”

  “At a similar point in their lives?” Hunt queried.

  “No. It can happen at any age.”

  “There are practically no records of childhood cases, though,” Shilohin mentioned.

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  Hunt reflected for several seconds. “What kind of evidence is there for these ‘possessions’?” he asked finally. “Is it just anecdotal, or what?”

  “It’s an acknowledged fact among the Jevienese, occurring as far back as records go,” Garuth said. “Shilohin has conducted a study of their history.”

  Shilohin took up the details. “A number of common themes reappear continually beneath the superficial differences of what the various cults preach. They go back a long way, and cut across bound­aries of nation, race, creed, geographic area and historical age. One of them is this notion we’ve already mentioned of persons being suddenly ‘possessed,’ somehow. It’s always in the same kind of way:

  they usually switch to a new life—style; their value system and their conceptual world model change; and they lose rationality.”

  “So it’s not as if they never had it,” Hunt said.

  “Exactly. And it isn’t only we who see the difference. All the

  native Jevienese languages have terms that set them apart as a class— usually translating as ‘Emerged’ or ‘Arisen,’ or something vaguely synonymous. They talk about having ‘escaped’ from an ‘inner world,’ or something recognizably similar.”

  When Shilohin had finished, Danchekker twiddled the pen that Hunt had handed him between his fingers and stared down at his notes in silence for a while. Finally, he exhaled heavily and shook his head. “I still think you’re reading meaning where none exists,” he said. “Essentially the same concepts are also encountered widely on Earth. The most economic answer is that they are merely simplistic expressions of the hopes, fears, and doubts that underlie the workings of primitive mentalities anywhere. No unifying explanation of the kind you are seeking is called for.”

  “ZORAC, what’s your evaluation?” Garuth asked.

  “Logically, the professor is correct. But past experience says Vic’s hunches are the way to bet.”

  “Then let me throw one more thing at you, Professor,” Garuth said. “The pattern doesn’t extend back to the earliest stages of the Jevienese past. There was no hint of it in Lunarian history. And the descendants of the Lambian survivors brought from Minerva didn’t show it until long after they established themselves on Jevlen.”

  Shilohin completed the point for him. “It was only after JEVEX had been up and running for some time that the first ayatollahs appeared, spreading notions of mysticism and magic. Before then, nothing of the kind had been heard of. In fact, that was where the Jevlenese got their idea for sabotaging Earth. That’s why we think that JEVEX was the culprit, somehow. And it could also explain why all of the cults, regardless of their superficial bickerings and hair-splittings, are united in calling for JEVEX to be restored.”

  At that moment ZORAC came through again. “Excuse me, but I’ve got Del Cullen. He says it’s urgent.”

  “Go ahead,” Garuth said.

  Cullen’s face appeared on one of the screens by Garuth’s desk, looking tense. “Ayultha has been assassinated,” he announced with­out preliminaries.

  Gasps of disbelief came from around the office. Garuth was stunned. “When? How?” he stammered.

  “A few minutes ago, at the rally they were having in Chinzo today. We’re not exactly sure how. Look—this is what happened.”

  Cullen’s face was replaced by a view of Ayultha treating a frenzied

  gathering to one of his harangues. He seemed to reach some kind of a crescendo, standing dramatically with his arms raised while the crowd thundered in unison. Then a figure scrambled up onto the edge of the platform, shouting something, then pointed an accusing finger—and Ayultha exploded. There was a burst of incandescence, and then all that remained where he had stood an instant before was a smoldering patch on the platform. Pandemonium broke out all around. A purple-spiral banner that had formed the backdrop was blazing, and some people at the front of the crowd seemed to have been burned.

  “My God!” Danchekker whispered, staring numbly.

  Hunt watched the screen, grim-faced. “They might be crazy, Chris. But we’re not dealing with any Hare Krishnas,” he muttered. “Whatever’s going on here, those guys are serious.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Some inner inspiration had told Eubeleus, the Deliverer, that the time to act was now. One of the qualities that characterized greatness was the gift of judging tide and moment by an unsensed, intuitive process that dwelt deep below thought, and then delivered its verdict to consciousness fully formed and complete, like the solution to an elaborate, invisible piece of computation appearing suddenly on a screen.

  With the removal of Ayultha, the Spiral’s entire organization was not only in disarray, but fragmenting. Already, its members were being racked with doubts, and warring factions claimed their shares of followers as rival worthies expounded different interpretations of what had taken place. Some dismissed the event as a spectacular piece of chicanery engineered by some hostile interest; at the opposite extreme, others had no doubt of its authenticity as a manifestation of powers operating from beyond the purview of everyday experience. If the Spiral’s archprelate and guide had been defenseless against such powers, then the most fundamental tenets of its doctrines were sus­pect.

  Hence, Eubeleus had good reason to be pleased. Thousands of disillusioned followers from the Spiral would now flock to the Axis, and the convictions of its own faithful had been reaffirmed just as the time approached for him to step into the vacuum left after the former regime’s inept attempt to set up the Federation. Then, as marked all of the great moments in history, the destinies of the Leader and of the movement would be one. And even if the means had been a little dishonest, the believers needed this demonstration to prepare them for the supreme effort. It was a temporary deception, made necessary by the circumstances. True powers would come to him again when JEVEX was restored.

  Eubeleus firmly believed that in the convolutions of complexity that became JEVEX, there had come into being a channel to forces beyond the physical, which his affinity with the machine enabled him to access. Indeed, he believed himself to be, literally, an embodiment of those forces: a personification of the method that JEVEX, through the genius that had emerged within its confines, had created to extend itself into the external world.

  He didn’t know the precise procedure that JEVEX had followed to free itself~ he left m
atters of technical detail to lesser intellects. There had been a confused period many years before in his early life on Jevlen, after which he was able to recall nothing of what went before. But in compensation he found that he possessed uncommon abilities. In particular, when he discovered the neurocoupler links into JEVEX, he could converse with voices inside the system in ways that others around him seemed unable to do. Or at least, most others. For as he continued groping his way and reorienting himself to the sudden changes that he was told had taken possession of him, he met others who were apart, like himself the “awakeners,” as they were called. Some of them proclaimed it openly and were received as inspired or insane. Others harbored their knowledge secretly. But all shared the experience of remembering a world beyond the senses which the unenlightened were incapable of grasping, save in only the most simplistic and symbolic terms.

  The exact nature of that world was something even awakeners had

  never been able to agree upon with certainty among themselves. They had never consulted the Thuriens, whom the Jevlenese nor­mally relied on for guidance in technological matters, and JEVEX was, after all, a creation of Thurien technology. But Eubeleus’s answer was that JEVEX had learned to create pseudopersonalities, which it was able to project into external organic hosts, not only to extend itself into the realm outside, but through them, to shape and direct its further development to its own purpose.

  He thus saw himself as a manifestation of an evolutionary leap beyond Man, as naturally destined to dominate the inferiors among whom he found himself as it was in their nature to submit. He had found his mission, the task for which he believed JEVEX had fash­ioned the psyche that inhabited the body which he now looked out from. For the Jevlenese who had been taken over thus far represented merely the test phase of JEVEX’s design—its first, exploratory step into its own outer space. Its next, when it was back in full operation, would be to take over a whole city.

  Achieving that would mean having an ample supply of available hosts. And to insure itself of that supply, the Axis was going to need more followers.

  In the center of Shiban, the Axis of Light had a headquarters and meeting place, referred to as the Temple. It consisted of a congrega­tional auditorium, with fancifully embellished ornaments and sym­bols, an imposing dais and rostrum, and a permanent aroma of incense; various function rooms and offices for promoting the move­ment’s affairs; and private quarters for some of its staff and officers who resided on the premises.

  On the day following Ayultha’s assassination, Eubeleus reviewed a report of the city’s reactions to the event and was notified that the appointment of Langerif as the new deputy police chief had been confirmed. The time that he had been working toward, he was certain, had arrived. Accordingly, he sent for his personal aide and principal lieutenant, whose name was Iduane.

  “Contact the Prophet,” Eubeleus said, “and tell him that he must send us more more awakeners.”

  “It will be difficult. The available couplers are in practically con­stant use as things are,” Iduane warned.

  “Then Grevetz will have to get us some more,” the Deliverer replied.

  Although the city of Orenash had been purged of its sorcerers, and the priests of all the major gods had performed rites of atonement, still there was no respite from its troubles. Brigands laid waste the farms to the north, burning the villages, slaughtering the males, and carry­ing off the women and their young to sell as slaves. Mountains fell from the sky into the sea, causing floods to sweep over the coastlands. An earthquake split the hills to the west, covering the land in rivers of fire, which was seen as a sign that Vandros, the underworld god, was still unappeased.

  Ethendor, the high priest of Vandros, sacrificed a hundred prisoners who had been captured in battle and consulted with his oracles and seers. The answer they delivered was that because the currents that once had borne many aloft had waned, the gods were vying with one another for acolytes to serve them in Hyperia, the sacred realm beyond the sky. The followers of Vandros were not sending enough disciples, and that was why he was displeased.

  “But disciples are not forthcoming,” Ethendor told the king when the king asked what should be done. “The faith of the people is eclipsed with the vanishing stars. Believers are overcome with terror and doubt. Send more young men to the temples to become initi­ates.”

  “Plagues have claimed many. War has drained the lifeblood of the land,” the king replied. “Where shall I find the young men? A hunter can only bring home what the forest has spawned.”

  Ethendor went away and thought about the problem. Later he returned and took the king to the temple of Vandros, with its tower bearing the emblem of the green crescent. There, he showed the king groups of novices in the grounds and about the temple chambers, tending plants, constructing icons, and engaged in other menial tasks.

  “These could become the disciples who would placate Vandros and alleviate us of our woes,” Ethendor said. “But they have not the makings of true adepts. They aspire, but their power falls short of their ambition. So they serve each in his own lesser way as you can see, and if it is so decreed, true inspiration may one day seize them.”

  The king grew puzzled. “Then why speak to me of them?” he asked the high priest. “Our need is for birds, but you show me fish that would fly.”

  “When the forests spawn nothing, then the hunter, if he’s not to

  starve, must turn elsewhere,” Ethendor replied, speaking in a low, conspiratorial tone.

  “Elsewhere?”

  “Perhaps to the farms that are well stocked? A little poaching, maybe, if he has to?”

  “Explain what you mean,” the king said.

  Ethendor drew closer. “There are Masters who teach schools of their own, dedicated to Nieru, in the wilderness and elsewhere out­side of the city. They pay no homage to the king, neither do they serve the king. But their acts steal currents from the skies for their disciples to ride, which should, by right, be drawn down to the consecrated temples.”

  “So, tell me the meaning of this talk about poaching,” the king said. Ethendor indicated the menials at work about the temple. “Some of these novices that you see are inadequate, but not totally incapable. They couldn’t develop the ability to trap a current and rise with it by themselves. But, with help, they could probably grasp and stay with a current that had been tamed and brought down by others. You take my point?”

  “That with economy to ourselves, we could avail ourselves of the efforts of these rogue Masters?” the king said, seeing the point.

  “The novices would provide additional service to Vandros, while the circumstances of our own adepts and their capacity to satisfy him would remain unaffected.”

  “But at the expense of Nieru,” the king pointed out. “Would Nieru not seek vengeance?”

  “Vandros will protect us.”

  “Can you be sure?”

  “It is in the signs.”

  The king pondered awhile. “Let it be done, so,” he pronounced finally.

  Later, Ethendor summoned a number of the novices to him. “Prepare yourselves, for you have been chosen to ascend to Hyperia,” he told them. “The services that were rightfully Vandros’s due are being stolen by other gods. Yours will be the task of reclaiming them. We will go up into the wilderness accompanied by dragon-tamers and fire-knights, and there shall vengeance and justice be exacted.”

  Among the novices who had been selected was Keyalo, the foster-son of Dalgren, who had denounced Thrax for heresy and sorcery.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Formally, Garuth’s terms of office required him to delegate the investigation of the Ayultha affair to Jevlenese agencies. This would have given little grounds for optimism of any quick result at the best of times; but with the disruptions caused by the loss of the deputy police chief—who carried the real authority in Shiban, since the office of chief had deteriorated to being little more than a ceremonial figurehead—it was practically a guarantee that
nothing of any conse­quence was going to happen within the limited time frame that Garuth was concerned about. So, following the unofficial line that he had already opted for, he set Del Cullen to seeing what he could make of it. Cullen, in turn, involved Hunt and the UNSA group, since it was part of the problem that they had come toJevlen to help Garuth solve.

  Garuth’s other concern was for the rest of the Terran visitors who had arrived with the Vishnu. He issued a statement urging them to stay within the Thurien-controlled enclave at Geerbaine as much as possible while the unrest in the city persisted, which was about as close as a Ganymean could come to prohibition. He also sent a sharply worded note to the Thurien Central Governing Council, protesting the inappropriateness under the present circumstances of extending to Terrans the Ganymean open policy of shipping anyone who felt like it to anywhere they wanted to go. “This determination not to acknowledge real differences that exist between humans and Ganymeans has surely been a major factor in precipitating the situa­tion on Jevien that we are now having to deal with,” the note said in part.