“Tailored realities, guided by what it dredges up from your subconscious,” Sandy said.
“VISAR doesn’t read minds,” Danchekker retorted. “That’s something which is excluded quite specifically by the Thurien operating protocols.”
“It can if you permit it,” Gina said.
Danchekker blinked, then stared at her. “I’d never thought to ask about that,” he admitted. Which made her point. There was no need for anyone to say so.
“And JEVEX worked by different rules,” Sandy reminded him. “Rules that didn’t embody Thurien notions of privacy and rights.”
“You’ve experienced this phenomenon, both of you?” Danchekker asked. They confirmed it. “Tell me about what you found,” he said.
They related what they had discovered and its effects, leaving out unnecessary personal details. Hunt had warned Gina that Danchekker could be cantankerous at times, and she had come prepared for a fight. But instead of scoffing, Danchekker listened closely to what they had to say. When they had finished, he got up from his stool and walked slowly over to the far side of the lab, where he stood looking thoughtfully at a chart of Jevlenese phylogeny.
After a while Sandy, reassured by his manner, said to his back, “It might not be just us who are finding an alienness in the Thurien mind that we’re having trouble relating to. Maybe having a common biological ancestry isn’t what matters.”
It was clear that she meant the Shapieron Ganymeans, who were from a culture estimated to have been only a hundred years or so ahead of twenty-first-century Earth’s. They, like Terrans, were from a culture in which people were where they thought they were, objects and places were what they seemed to be, time and space meant what common sense said they did, and i-space had never been heard of. The civilization of Thurien—even allowing for a long period of stagnation that had almost brought about its demise-had evolved far beyond either.
“Perhaps now we know why Garuth turned for help in the direction he did,” Gina said.
Danchekker turned to face them. “Most interesting,” he pronounced. “Have you talked to Vic about it?”
“Not yet. He’s gone out into the city. We came straight here,” Gina said.
“What’s he doing?”
“I’m not sure. Trying to get a lead on Baumer, I think.”
“ZORAC,” Danchekker called.
But just then, ZORAC announced an incoming call for Gina. The pale, bespectacled features of Hans Baumer appeared on one of the screens. The face broadened into a smile as Gina moved closer.
“Oh, you’re with company, I see. Is this an inconvenient time?”
Gina shook her head. “No, go ahead. It’s okay.”
“About our talk the other day. Look, I’m sorry if I was a bit terse. You caught me at a bad time. Those Jevlenese were being awkward,
and things have been piling on top of each other lately. Of course, I’d be happy to show you a little more of Shiban. So, if you’re still interested, when would be a good time for us to get together?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The place was the same gaudy, impenitent clutter that it had been the first time Hunt was there. “Hi, Vic come back,” Nixie greeted, smiling as she let him in. She was wearing a blue metallic top showing red nipples through a pair of circles cut out for the purpose. “No girl in PAC? Get lonely? We fuck now?”
Murray killed the movie he had been watching and got up from one of the form—molding chairs. “Hell, I like the initiative, but ease off,” he told her. “He’s only here socializing.” He held out a hand to Hunt. “Wondered when you’d be back. How’s the acclimatization going?”
“Not bad.”
Nixie frowned. “What ‘socializing’ mean?” she asked.
Hunt moved into the room and studied the panel that included the screen Murray had been looking at. “Is that part of the city GP net?” he inquired.
“Among other things. Why?”
“Can you activate channel fifty-six on it?”
“That’s in a data service group. What would I need it for?”
“I just want to try something.”
Murray shrugged and said something at the panel in Jevlenese. He looked at Hunt. “What’s supposed to happen?” A Jevlenese translation of his words came from the room speaker.
Nixie stared in astonishment, then asked Murray something. “How the hell did it do that?” a faithfully intoned synthesis of her
voice asked. “What’s that? Can you two understand this? Is that me speaking in English?”
“Well, I’ll be darned,” Murray said, staring at the panel. “You mean that’s been there all the time?”
“Amazing what can happen when you bring a scientist into your house, isn’t it?’’ Hunt said.
Nixie looked at Murray accusingly. “You mean after all the time I’ve spent working my ass off learning English, we needn’t have bothered? Well, that’s just great. Maybe I should bill you for the time it’s cost me, at my regular hourly rate.”
Murray held up a hand defensively. “Honest, I didn’t know about it.” He looked at Hunt. “How does it work?”
“They’ve got it hooked into the Ganymean ship’s computer,” Hunt told him.
“You mean the Shapieron?”
‘‘Yes.”
“Well, how about that!” Murray declared.
“This is terrific!” Nixie exclaimed. “We can talk normally.” She looked at Hunt. “The girls upstairs thought you were nice. They’ve been asking me to get you to come to one of our parties here. They can be a lot of fun.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Hunt said. “I might just take you up on it, too. But not right away. Things are very busy.”
Murray sat back down and waved Hunt over to the couch. Nixie perched herself on a hassock.
“What did you think of Ayultha getting blown away like that in Chinzo?” Murray asked. “Pretty neat stuff, huh? It sounds as if everything’s a mess. SFPD’s what they need to bring in here. Any idea how they did it?”
“We’re pretty sure it was a phase—conjugating laser,” Hunt said.
“Yeah . . . right.” Murray wasn’t going to argue with that.
“Which would be fairly straightforward to do. A spot from a target—designation pilot beam appeared on his chest a moment before he ignited.”
“You see, ask a Terran and you get an answer that makes sense, even if I don’t understand it,” Nixie said.
“Well . . . I don’t know about all Terrans,” Hunt muttered.
Nixie looked at him and shook her head. “You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff you hear in this place,” she said. “Some people think it was cosmic energy from another dimension. Then we had focused waves of—what was it, ‘telepsychosynchronicity.’ I mean, what’s it all about? What in hell is telepsychosynchronicity?”
“Sounds like what used to be called mind power, but at twice the price,” Hunt suggested.
“I’d rather be getting laid,” Nixie opined.
“That would make a good bumper sticker,” Hunt said.
“People should do something about getting this city together instead of sitting around listening to that garbage and waiting for the Ganymeans to do something,” Nixie said. “Murray, why don’t we go to Earth? You said I’d make a fortune there.”
“Patience. I need to get a little more invisible first.” Murray settled himself back in the chair and stretched out an arm idly to finger the hair at the back of her neck. “Anyhow, if you’re that busy you didn’t come here to shoot any breeze,” he said to Hunt. “What gives?”
“I’m trying to find out anything I can about one of the Terrans back at PAC,” Hunt said. “It’s in connection with that traffic bridge that collapsed.”
“The one that pancaked the head of the Keystones, and them other suckers who were driving under?”
“Right. It may have to do with the Ayultha business, too.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“He’s a German by th
e name of Hans Baumer, been here a little over five months. We’ve got reason to think that he’s got himself mixed up with the shady side of city life here, somehow, and that the people he’s dealing with could tell us something. It occurred to me that it might be the kind of thing you’d know something about.”
“Why are you interested?” Murray seemed evasive all of a sudden.
“It’s starting to look as if Jevlenese plots and power games didn’t all come to an end with the Federation,” Hunt replied. “There’s some kind of scheme afoot that involves another faction, and the trouble that’s brewing is all part of it. Getting rid of Obayin could have been a preparatory move. He was being very cooperative with the Ganymeans.”
“Shit, I thought you were some kind of scientist. What the hell kind of science is this?”
“The kind that doesn’t want to see the Ganymeans kicked out of here.” Hunt gestured in the direction of the door. “Look at the mess this planet’s in out there. It should have been flying its own starships long ago. Instead it waits for Thurien handouts. The same forces that held our sciences back for two thousand years are regrouping on
Jevlen. That’s what we’re trying to prevent. And it affects you, too, Murray, because once a society becomes repressive, all forms of independence get repressed. And that wouldn’t be good for your line of business at all.”
“I like what Vie’s saying, Murray,” Nixie said.
But Murray shook his head. “Sorry, I can’t help. I don’t know anything.” His voice was clipped, and his face wooden. He was lying, Hunt could tell. Hunt could either confront him and risk alienating what could turn out to be a valuable contact with nothing to show; or he could let the matter ride for the moment and leave Murray time to think it over. He sighed inwardly.
“But you’ll let me know if you do hear anything?”
“Sure.”
Nixie stared uncomfortably at the table but said nothing.
“There was another thing,” Hunt said. “Tell me something about these ayatollahs.”
Nixie understood whatever ZORAC translated the word into, but Murray looked puzzled. “These what?”
“The cult leaders—the crazies who are stirring up these mobs, like Ayultha.”
Nixie supplied Murray a term in Jevlenese, which ZORAC returned as “awakeners.”
“What do you want to know about them?” Murray seemed to relax at the change of subject and listened while Hunt summarized what he had learned from Garuth and Shiohin. Nixie’s manner became strangely quiet as she followed.
When Hunt had finished, Murray looked apologetic—genuinely this time. “That’s fascinating,” he said. “And really, I’d like to help. But you know more about all this than I do.”
“You’ve been here six months.”
Murray spread his hands helplessly. “Hell, I’ve never gotten into conversations about stuff like that with the Jevs. You saw what our communication level was until just now, when you told me about that.” He waved at the panel. “Anyhow, they’ve got more loose screws than a do-it-yourself kit for the Eiffel Tower. Why do you care about them?”
“We think that Eubeleus and his Axis might be involved, too,” Hunt said.
“But he isn’t gonna be around much longer. They’re all taking off
for this other planet, someplace, whatever it’s called. It’s been all over the news. They’re shooting the first batch of green groupies up into orbit from Geerbaine already.”
“That’s got me beat, too,” Hunt admitted. “Okay, maybe it isn’t him, specifically. But I’m convinced there’s a connection with the cults somewhere.”
Murray could only show his hands and shake his head. “Sorry, doe, but like I said, it seems you already know more about them than I do. What else can I tell you?”
They talked about odd things for a while longer, but nothing more useful emerged. Eventually Hunt stood up and announced that it was time for him to be getting back.
“Take care, Vic. We’ll see ya around,” Murray said, seeing him to the door.
Hunt made his way back in the direction of PAC, far from satisfied with the results of his foray. He passed through noisy streets, lined with stalls displaying trinkets and bric-a-brac, and crossed a square of mostly closed frontages. Past there, he climbed a moving stairway that wasn’t—it had been under repair since the day he arrived. There were apathetic people squatting on sidewalks and, farther on, a line being handed what looked like food packages from the back of a trailer. He was pestered by vacant—faced children hassling for handouts, who could have been learning about Euclid or Newton, Bach or Magellan—or whoever the Jevlenese equivalents were, if they had ever had any.
He stopped at a corner to watch a garishly dressed group dancing frenziedly under some kind of intoxication to mindless, crashing music blaring from inside an open doorway, where others appeared to have collapsed. Somebody was shouting obscenities at them from a window nearby. Hunt stood and watched disconsolately, trying to form some idea of what he intended doing with the remainder of the day.
There was a light tug on his sleeve. He turned his head. It was Nixie.
“I say have go work now, so can catch Vie,” she said. “We go someplace now, yes?” At least she had put a wrap over her top.
Hunt sighed. “Nixie, don’t you ever give up? No thanks. Not today.”
“Is okay. I know good place.” She pulled insistently.
Hunt shook his head. “No. No fuck, understand? Nice girl, but fuck off.”
“You not understand. We just talk. Go place where is speak machine, Jevlen talk Terran.”
“Oh.” Hunt drew back and looked at her. She was serious for once, unsmiling. He nodded. “Okay. Let’s go.”
She slipped her arm through his as they began walking. “This way. I show. Place I use lots time.”
They entered a corridor of doors and display windows, many of them shuttered, leading off the street. From the other end of it, they crossed a trash—strewn plaza to another passage flanked by a couple of bars, an amusement gallery of some kind, and assorted other .doorways. Two more corners brought them to a wider concourse, on one side of which was an entrance into what looked like the lobby of a cheap hotel. There was a desk on one side, and doors off to left and right of the dingy hall beyond, where two or three people were sitting on faded chairs among oddments of furniture. Several elevator doors lined the wall at the rear. Somehow the reception machine even managed to convey an air of sneering disdain as the john drew up at the desk with his hooker.
“Look wrong if I pay,” Nixie murmured. Hunt gave her the card that he had been issued at PAC to cover incidental expenses. She flipped open a cover on the machine and passed the card across a read head. Nothing happened. Nixie muttered something that sounded like an oath and pressed a button. After waiting perhaps half a minute, she called out a stream of Jevlenese in an abusive voice and jabbed at the button repeatedly. A clerk in need of a shave and a clean shirt emerged, grumbling, from a door near the desk. Nixie gave him the card, and an irascible exchange continued between them while the card was read into a different device, a transaction record copied out, and the card returned. Finally the clerk extracted a small disk— presumably a coded room key—from the innards of the nonfunctioning reception machine, said something to Nixie that sounded sarcastic and which Hunt had a feeling referred to him, and stumped back through the door he had come out of.
They took one of the elevators up several floors and found the room around a corner farther along a corridor. Nixie touched the disk against a plate, and they entered. The room was indifferent, in keeping with the rest of the place. There was a fake window with a
graphics simulation of an unusual landscape scene, part of it nonfunctioning and blacked out. Nixie crossed over to the COM panel above the fitted unit opposite the queen-size bed, activated it, and gave an instruction in Jevlenese to switch on the translator.
“Like a drink?” she asked Hunt. “The first one comes with the
room, anyhow.”
“Why not?”
“Anything in particular?”
“I’ll leave it to you.”
“House, a couple of colantas with tangy ice, unfizzed,” Nixie said. Rattles and grinding sounds came from the dispenser unit by the chef as she walked over to it. “Don’t get mad at Murray for being cautious,” she said over her shoulder. “The people that Baumer is mixed up with don’t like noses being poked into their business. And they can be nasty.”
Hogan, James - Giant Series 04 - Entoverse (v1.1) Page 24
