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

by Entoverse [lit]

  Eubeleus nodded and looked back at the screen showing Garuth. “Never mind. You’ll see for yourself soon enough,” he said. Leaving the aide with the rest of those by the screen, he turned away and crossed the floor to the door leading to the coupler bank. In the passageway beyond, he met Iduane coming the other way.

  “All’s ready,” Iduane said. “The Prophet is waiting.”

  “Take over in the control center,” Eubeleus said, and continued on toward the booths.

  Iduane entered the control center. As he passed beneath the over­head gallery surrounding the floor, he saw consternation breaking out around the screen still open to Jevlen, and quickened his pace.

  “What’s happening?” he demanded as he joined the group. He saw that another screen had come to life beside the one showing Langerif and Garuth at PAC. It was an outside view of the Thurien spaceport at Geerbaine. He recognized it at once by the sleek, unmistakable, half—mile-high tower of the Shapieron, with its distinctive, swept tail fins, on the pad that it had occupied throughout the period of the Ganymean presence. But now it was moving, sliding upward slowly at first but picking up speed even as he watched.

  “What’s happening?” he demanded, hurrying across and joining the group.

  One of the aides gestured needlessly. “The Shapieron, on Jevlen. It’s taking oft1.”

  On the screen showing PAC, Langerif was shaking his head, baf­fled. “The news just came in this second from Geerbame. There was no warning, nothing. It’s just taken off.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “We don’t know.”

  Iduane turned his head to the aide. “Go to the booths, quickly. Get the leader back here. Don’t let him couple into the system yet.” The aide nodded and left at a run.

  On the screen from Geerbaine, the view had changed to another showing the starship’s immense shape slowing down again to hang as a black silhouette, looking like some fantastic bird hovering above the Shiban skyline, with the city seemingly shrunken by perspective in the background below. Keeping its nose pointing upward, the ship began moving slowly sideways, over the city.

  Bearing sacred implements and emblems of the Green Crescent, the multitude filled the forecourt of the temple of Vandros and spilled out through the gates opening into the grounds from the city. In the sky, stars had begun reappearing; Nieru had brightened. The day of the Great Awakening was at hand. On the stone terrace below the temple steps, the first batch of trembling victims had been led before the stakes, gibbets, blocks, and altars. The executioners had made ready, waiting for the daylight to return and the word to be given.

  Above, on a terrace at the top of the steps, flanked by his retinue of priests and seers, Ethendor stood with his arms extended expec­tantly . . . and grew more perplexed. Only moments before, the Voice had spoken in his mind again, promising that the time was imminent and that a Great Spirit would speak to Ethendor, confirm­ing his place as the chosen prophet. But not only had the Great Spirit failed to appear; now Ethendor wasn’t getting any responses from the Voice, either.

  “What ails the gods thus?” the Arch-Seer murmured, moving up closer behind him. “The current which thou drew still flows, but it has waned to a flicker.”

  “I know not,” Ethendor replied. “Have the Examiner and his train returned yet to the city?”

  Another of the priests conferred with a lesser priest, who turned to a messenger hovering behind an archway. “They are still awaited at the gates, 0 Holy One,” the priest relayed back.

  No doubt that was it, Ethendor thought to himself. The gods would wait until all the dignitaries and the full complement of here­tics for the atonement were present.

  “We must await them,” Ethendor said. “Lead the people in more prayers and devotions. I shall return when the Voice speaks to me

  again.” With that, he went back into the temple.

  Eubeleus appeared at the side door of the control center with the aide who had gone to fetch him. He hurried over and took in the view from Geerbaine of the Shapieron drifting slowly over Shiban. “What are they doing in that ship?” he demanded, turning his eyes to Garuth, who was still standing with Langerif on the other screen.

  In the PAC communications room, even with the hopelessness that had gripped him only moments before, Garuth felt a surge of exhilaration at the sight of his ship in motion and the message it brought that others were still doing something—although as to what it might be, he was as mystified as anyone else. He looked back to where Eubeleus was glaring out of the screen from Uttan. “You’ll see for yourself, soon enough,” he replied.

  Ganymeans had double thumbs on each hand. Behind his back, Garuth crossed all four of them.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  Smoke and dust poured into the corridor from the doorway leading through to the club’s main lounge. It sounded as if the place was being demolished. Forgetting about what might have happened to the hour or more of lost time, Hunt and Danchekker hurried with Murray back to the rear exit that the others had taken, which was the one by which they had entered on their way from the tower elevator. Fendro, the club manager, caught up with them as they began cross­ing the gallery up the stairs outside.

  As the four of them approached the opening into the hail where the elevators were situated, they saw Gina and Nixie with Keshen, the engineer, hanging back around a corner. Shouting and the sounds of shots came from ahead. Hunt drew to a halt and peered past into the hall. One of the elevator doors was open, with several khena inside, exchanging fire with some police who were taking cover in a corridor opening in from the far side. One of the Ichena had fallen and was preventing the door from closing. To try crossing the open floor was out of the question.

  Fendro yelled something at Murray and went back along the gallery, gesturing. “He says there’s another elevator that way,” Mur­ray told the others. “Service shaft or something. Come on.” He waved Nixie and Gina on ahead, then followed with Danchekker and Keshen. Hunt waited a few seconds longer to check the situation in the hail. Somebody inside the elevator showed himself long enough to heave the body out onto the floor, was hit himself and hauled back inside by one of the others, and then the door closed. Hunt turned and ran after Keshen’s retreating figure.

  The rest of the group was waiting for him outside an elevator in a narrow side passage. The car arrived just as he did, and they all crowded in. Fendro spoke an order in Jevienese, and they began ascending. Danchekker was flushed and panting, Hunt could see as he leaned against the rear wall of the car to get his own breath back. Gina was charged up with adrenaline and ready for anything. Murray was wearing a resigned, why-is-life-always-doing-something-like-this-to-me? look. Nixie seemed unperturbed and to be taking things calmly.

  “It looks like maybe Scirio miscalculated,” Murray said. “I guess his pals are a bit more upset than he thought.”

  “He was backing what looked like the winning side. I think he’s upset,” Hunt replied.

  “I take it that our communication with VISAR is once again terminated for the foreseeable future,” Danchekker managed be­tween puffs and wheezes. “Most unfortunate.”

  “Is there any chance we could get back in there when things cool down?” Hunt asked Murray. Murray translated to Keshen. Keshen answered, then Fendro added something else and waved a hand, shaking his head.

  “It doesn’t sound as if there’s a lot of point,” Murray said. “Seems like the hardware back there isn’t much use for anything except growing petunias in.”

  Gina looked perplexedly at Hunt and Danchekker. “I’m not sure I understand what’s happened,” she said. “Are there other versions of us still in the Entoverse—still functioning? Or did they disappear when the connection was cut? Or did we ever get there at all? I’m confused.”

  “I’m not sure I understand it either,” Hunt told her.

  Fendro muttered something that sounded fatalistic and turned his eyes momentarily upward.

  “What was that?” Hunt asked.<
br />
  “He says, all it needs now is for the hearse not to start,” Murray answered. “Wouldn’t that just make the day, huh? And you know something? With Jev mechanics in charge, that might not be so funny.”

  The elevator halted with a jolt, throwing everybody off balance. Fendro jabbered something, and the control computer replied. Something was wrong.

  “The power’s cut,” Murray said. “Either somebody hit the switch, or something downstairs got wrecked.” They felt the car beginning to descend again .

  but only to align itself with the next door down. An emergency brake locked it in position, and the door opened. Fendro led them at a run to some stairs, throwing back disjointed words over his shoulder and sounding to Hunt as if he was on the verge of panic. “Three more levels,” Murray supplied. “Scirio won’t wait.” Dan­chekker leaned against the doorframe at the bottom of the first flight, closed his eyes for a second and drew a long breath, then launched himself up at a gangling lope. Hunt stayed behind him, ready to help if needed.

  A door at the top of the third flight brought them into the bare, gray entrance hall with scratched walls. Ahead of them, the outer door onto the landing platform was open, and through it they could see the psychedelic hearse turning in preparation for takeoff, with an khena scrambling in through the doorway and two more close behind him. As the group from the stairs came out into the open, Keshen ran ahead, waving his arms and pointing back at the others, apparently trying to get Scirio to hold off for a few more seconds.

  But Scirio’s voice shouted from inside as Keshen reached the door, and the craft began to move. Keshen tried to jump, but Dreadnought appeared in the doorway and kicked him away. As Keshen picked himself up, the door slammed and the hearse accelerated away off the edge of the platform. Hunt and the others came to a confused halt as they watched it bank into a turning climb. Hunt’s ability to think deserted him. He stood, staring helplessly, while Fendro ran in front, shouting and waving his arms.

  Then Nixie called out and pointed in a direction off to one side. A group of dark-colored, streamlined shapes was swooping down and spreading out to close from different directions around the still-rising hearse.

  “Shiban PD fliers,” Murray yelled. “Looks like our friend might be up shit creek.”

  The hearse had seen them, too, and banked away evasively. Panels opened in its side to reveal small ball turrets, each mounting a pair of stub weapon muzzles—similar, Hunt guessed, to the one concealed in the personal flier that had made the attack on Grevetz’s. Two of the police craft opened fire, but without visible effect. What looked like a streamer of yellow light flashed back from one of the hearse’s turrets, but was deflected by a shimmering patch of violet that ap­peared briefly in front of the police flier. The hearse twisted around to double back into a dive that carried it close by the upper part of the tower. Another of the police fliers fired, hit the building, and debris showered down onto the platform where Hunt and the others were still watching, mesmerized.

  “Get under cover,” Hunt shouted, snapping out of it and waving at the others. They ran back toward the entranceway, Fendro leading. At the far end of the hail inside, the first yellow-uniformed figure was just emerging cautiously from the stairwell door.

  Fendro turned as Keshen reached him. “It’s no good. They’re here,” he said bleakly.

  Above, the hearse was hit by two bursts at once as it pulled into another turn. It exploded in a blaze of orange light and black smoke, and the remnants cascaded down over the city.

  On the command deck of the Shapieron, Leyel Torres stood with a group of crew officers, taking in the view being picked up by the ship’s sternward-looking cameras, showing the upper spires and roofs of the city sliding by below. A holographic floor projection showed an image of the ship hovering above a cutaway representation of the levels and buildings beneath, as retrieved from ZORAC’s stored plans of the city. The flashing symbol showing inside the zone be­neath the ship centered on a maze of alleyways and side streets at the base of a complex of interconnected buildings that merged into a step-tapered tower. The tower rose at the confluence of several of the wide traffic corridors in a part of the city covered by a high outer canopy.

  “The club’s located down in there,” ZORAC said. “Probe three is registering high police—band activity centered in that area.” A couple of the Shapieron’s probes, hovering some distance above and freed from the curtain of jamming that the Jevlenese had thrown around Geerbaine, were picking up stray communications traffic above the city.

  “And we’re sure that the canopy is of lightweight construction over this section?” one of the officers checked. “There won’t be any people up there?”

  “That’s what the plans show,” Torres confirmed. He cast an eye quickly around the company. “We have to give it a try.”

  “Message exchanges between police fliers and HQ,” ZORAC reported. “It sounds as if they’re attacking something.”

  “How far can we reconfigure the external stress field?” Torres asked.

  “Sufficient to arrest major falls below and redirect beyond city limits,” ZORAC replied. “There might be some local peripheral fallout.” The Shapieron’s drive created a zone of distorted space-time around the ship. ZORAC was saying that it could shape that external field into a force zone that would project objects clear of the vicinity.

  Torres looked at the other officers. “The decision is mine, totally,” he said. “ZORAC, execute the plan as specified. We’re going in.”

  “Geronimo!” ZORAC responded.

  “What?”

  “It’s the expression that Terran paratroopers used on going into action, back in the days when they fought wars,” ZORAC ex­plained. “It seemed appropriate.”

  “Just fly the ship, please.”

  “Yessir.”

  Inside PAC, Langerif stared bemusedly at the scene being relayed from outside, as the huge shape of the starship hovering over the city started descending. The voice of the chief who was in charge at Geerbaine came excitedly over the audio. “I don’t know what it’s doing.. . It seems to be going down again. It can’t be! It’s going to land on top.” On the view, a part of the city canopy immediately below the Shapieron was pulled up and fragmented into pieces which flew upward and out of sight. The voice became frenzied. “No, it isn’t slowing down! What is it doing? I don’t believe this. It’s going straight down through!”

  “What is happening there?” Eubeleus screeched on the screen from Uttan.

  “I think that the intelligence destined to supplant us may have written us off a little too soon,” Garuth said as he watched. He managed to make it sound satisfyingly mysterious. In truth, he hadn’t the faintest idea.

  They came to a halt, defeated. There was nowhere to go, nothing more to be tried.

  And then Hunt realized that Gina was staring up past him and pointing incredulously. He turned and saw that a section of the imitation sky almost above their heads had gone dark and was bulging inward. Seconds later it broke into huge sections of canopy and supporting structure coming asunder, parting sideways unnaturally instead of falling, and then disappearing upward as if snatched away by a giant suction cleaner. At the same time a voice boomed like thunder across the city in Jevlenese. Hunt’s head snapped around toward Murray.

  Murray was bewildered. “It’s telling people to get under cover. I don’t—Jesus Christ!”

  Hunt looked back. Silhouetted against the pale green outside, an immense shape consisting of a distorted cruciform fastened to a huge, streamlined tower that shrank away into the sky under the acute foreshortening of the perspective was coming down through the hole in the canopy. A roar of rushing air filled their ears, and minor debris scattered down and bounced off the face of the building above as the canopy above continued to buckle and tear.

  “Goddamn spaceship!” Murray yelled hoarsely. “Spaceship com­ing down through the fuckin’ roof”

  “That’s the Shapieron!” Gina shouted dazed
ly. “Vic, it’s the Gany— means!”

  The starship came down through the circling police fliers like a battleship scattering minnows filling the volume above the city s rooftops.

  “My God!” Danchekker exclaimed, staring up as the cathedral-like space between the four curving, swept fins enlarged second by second right above their heads. The retractable rearmost section of the main body which contained the entry locks was already sliding downward.

  A bullhorn voice rang out, not as loud as before, and in English this time That s them luckier than we hoped Okay Vic we see you Get everyone over. I’m opening a door.” Never had Hunt been more glad to hear the voice of a computer.

  Murray yelled something at Fendro, who came out of his funk and pressed a button inside a coverplate by the entrance. The doors