“My own feelings also,” Eesyan agreed. “In fact, since my original is already in a coupler on Thurien, I can be the first, right now.” He looked around the group. “This has been a strange experience. I look forward to meeting you all again under more familiar conditions, when we can no doubt discuss the philosophical issues. Until then.. .“ He left it unfinished. The details of his body faded, leaving just his shape outlined in featureless white; it persisted for a moment, and then was gone.
Aboard the Shapieron, Hunt and the rest of the party were already on their way to the couplers located just off the command deck. When they were nearly there, Gina stopped Hunt and turned to him with a puzzled expression.
“Vic, how is this supposed to work? There are two copies of each of us that have diverged and been leading independent existences for the last several hours. Does one of them get . . . ‘selected’ somehow, and the other one erased, like what happened to me before? If so, who chooses? I don’t think I like it.”
Hunt didn’t know. He hadn’t given it a thought. On reflection, he didn’t like it, either. How did he know that he would be the lucky one? But then, again, wouldn’t the other “him,” down in the Entoverse, have an equally valid reason for feeling the same way? So they put the question to VISAR.
“Why should you have to select either?” was VISAR’s reply.
Hunt didn’t understand. To him it still seemed a good question. “You say Eesyan’s already back on Thurien?” he said.
“Right.”
“So what did he do?”
“When I erased his surrogate in the Entoverse, I simply transferred its accumulated impressions into his original, physical self. It’s his brain, and now it contains his memories. Where’s the problem?”
Hunt glanced at Gina and shook his head, frowning. “You mean you just strung them together inside his head, serially? He remembers both sets of experiences equally vividly?” he said to VISAR.
“Yes.”
“But they were both happening at the same time,” Gina said.
“So what?” -
Hunt and Gina looked at each other. VISAR was right. Evidently it was another Terran hang-up that Thuriens could live with and not worry about. It really didn’t matter, did it? They had already gotten used to some far stranger things.
“So what?” Hunt repeated.
Gina nodded and smiled at the impossibility of ever coming fully to terms with it all. “So what?”
They continued on into the corridor where the couplers were located.
In the forecourt of the Temple of Vandros, Hunt and his remaining companions prepared to depart in style, as emissaries from the gods would be expected to do. At the door of the Chinook, he paused to exchange a few parting words with Shingen-Hu.
“No more raisings until we’ve figured out on the outside how to handle it,” Hunt said. “We’ll be in touch, that’s a promise. In the meantime, make them believe that we haven’t abandoned them, and keep the faith.”
“It shall be as the new gods command,” Shingen-Hu assured him.
“And we don’t want sacrifices, killings, atonements, cleansings, or any more of that kind of thing. Try being nice to people for a change. Help them get what they want. You’d be amazed at the results.”
“The commandments will be obeyed.”
Remembering what had happened to the Jevlenese, Hunt waved at the machine, waiting with the others already aboard, its rotors idling. “This and the other miracles will cease. They don’t belong here. The people will have to learn to develop their own ways of solving their problems and catering to their needs, in ways that are natural to this place. In that way, they will develop also.”
“We shall await the Word.”
“And that’s about it.” Hunt extended a hand. Shingen-Hu looked at it, hesitated, and then returned the gesture. They shook firmly. Then Hunt climbed up and turned from the door for a last view. As the note of the turbines rose, Eubeleus ran forward from the knot of priests and notables standing ahead of the awestruck crowd.
“What’s this?” he screeched. “You’re not leaving me here? You can’t!’’
“There isn’t a lot of choice,” Hunt called back. “You don’t seem to have grasped the point yet, Eubeleus, old chap. We have intact minds out there to return into. You don’t.”
And of course, Eubeleus hadn’t. He still thought that this was a software illusion manufctured by JEVEX, and had no idea how he had come to be part of it.
“Don’t worry too much about it for now,” Hunt shouted as the Chinook began to rise. “You should have plenty of time to figure it out.’’
And as the crowd watched in silent reverence, the machine climbed away to hang over the city, its rotors flashing in the sunshine as a testament to the new, unimagined powers that had visited Waroth. The form froze into a white outline that persisted for a second longer. . . And then it was gone.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
The Shapieron was back on its pad at Geerbaine. The edges of the hole that it had torn through the city roof had been trimmed back to remove the immediate hazard from the looser debris, but no real work had commenced on repairing the damage yet. No doubt the Jevlenese would get around to it eventually.
There were no crowds or any public ceremony. Garuth and a small party from PAC drove out from the city—the tubes weren’t running that day—to see off the group who were returning to Earth and to make their farewells, most of which were personal rather than functions of any office. Not many of the Jevlenese at large were aware that the scientists who were leaving had had much connection with recent events, anyway. All they knew was that the ballyhoo about JEVEX returning two weeks previously had fizzled out, and after all the hype about Eubeleus’s migration to Uttan, not a lot seemed to be happening there. (Actually, a lot of Thunen vessels had been arriving at Uttan, but that wasn’t general knowledge yet.) Besides that, the hotheads who had seized PAC with the collusion of some elements of the Shiban police had changed their tune suddenly and surrendered; the Ganymeans were back again—but this time they were more committed to setting up a native Jevlenese administration instead of trying to run things directly themselves; and nobody could get a headworld trip for any price anymore.
Leyel Torres and a deputation of crew officers from the Shapieron were waiting at the spaceport to add their own farewells. The groups met in the main departure lounge, watched curiously by onlookers going about regular business and others assembling to travel back on the same ship—which again would be the Vishnu. The Thuriens were still being as casual as ever about taking anyone who wanted to go, and—especially after the latest complications-steering clear of any involvement in human politics. If any Terran or Jevlenese faction, sect, authority, government, party, union, church—or whatever other form of organization humans insisted on banding themselves together into to interfere with each others’ lives—had a problem with it, they could settle it among themselves by their own incomprehensible methods.
“It should work out a lot better this time round,” Hunt said to Garuth. “Although after the way you spent twenty years getting your ship back before you showed up at Jupiter, I don’t have to tell you anything about perseverance.”
“Now that we know where the problem was coming from, I think it will change a lot of things,” Garuth replied. “The new system will give the whole population a common goal and a symbol to unite them.” His face twisted into the peculiar Ganymean form of a grin, and he looked at Danchekker. “But no pyramids or temples, crescents or spirals, eh, Professor?”
“I think the human race has had more than its fill of that kind of thing,” Danchekker agreed.
Garuth was referring to the new planetary computer system that would be built from scratch, on Jevlen, where JEVEX was supposed to have been, by the Jevlenese themselves. In the meantime, they would have to learn to meet their own needs through their own initiative, as the more enterprising among them had already shown an amazing propensity for doi
ng. As they grew, the system would grow with them. It wouldn’t come as a ready-made gift this time. The Thuriens themselves had insisted on its being that way.
“It should keep you two busy enough for a while,” Hunt said, turning to Shilohin and Keshen, both of whom would be involved with the project. “But don’t try and plan everything too far ahead. That’s how things end up inflexible-the one thing that’s sure to happen is the one you never thought of.”
“Nobody planned the Entoverse, or this one,” Shilohin said.
“We’ll let it plan itself as it goes,” Keshen agreed. He grinned. “And I know not to take on any sidelines this time.”
“Watch where you’re flying that ship, the next time you take it up,” Hunt told Torres and Jassilane. “Tell that computer of yours to try not to bump into any cities. It does tend to upset the inhabitants, and the police take a dim view of it.”
“I don’t exactly remember that they were about to give you the citizen—of—the-year award at the time,” ZORAC chipped in, reverting momentarily from translation mode to its own voice.
Del Cullen shook hands with Hunt warmly and gave him a hearty thump on the shoulder A contingent of Terran police and security advisers had arrived from Earth with the Vishnu to help Garuth s Jevlenese administration establish some machinery for protecting the basic rights that governments were supposed to be for. Cullen would be working with them initially to adjust their thinking to the needs of the local society, instead of the other way around. -
“Three months, they tell us,” he said. “So say hi to the States for us until then. And when we get there, it’ll be the wildest time of R and R since they came home from World War Two. Right, guys?”
“Right,” Koberg and Lebansky agreed heartily from behind him.
Sandy Holmes and Duncan Watt were standing with the group from PAC, not the ones who were due to leave. They would be staying on for at least three months, getting the UNSA labs at PAC organized as a permanent facility and initiating some of the kind of work for which the group had come to Jevlen officially to begin with. Hunt also suspected that they had plenty of R and R plans of their own, involving a lot of Shiban nightlife. Erwin Reutheneger would have been proud.
“Regards to Gregg and everyone back at the firm,” Duncan told Hunt. “Tell him he’s been warming that chair at Goddard for too long. It’s time we saw more of him out here in the field.”
“Maybe I can get him on the flight back with the Vishnu,” Hunt
said. “It would save us a lot of frenzy and all-night meetings when we get back after this, if I know anything about Gregg.”
Danchekker, who had been saying something to Sandy, turned with an intrigued look on his face as he caught the conversation. “Yes, what a possibility. . . And, er, might there be a chance, perhaps, of persuading Ms. Mulling to go with him, do you think?”
Sandy moved over to Hunt. “Well, Vic, Gregg did warn me that none of the expeditions he sends you off on ever work out the way anyone thinks. He said that this time he told you the only thing left for you to bring back was a universe. And you did!”
“He should have known better by now,” Hunt said.
“Do you think I could get a chance to go down into the Entoverse later?’’
“Maybe. It depends what the Thuriens come up with and how they decide to handle it. I’d say there’s a pretty good chance.”
“I didn’t exactly think Gregg was exaggerating, but I never dreamed of anything like that.”
“Watch what you dream about,” Gina said, standing beside Hunt. “These days it’s getting difficult to tell the difference.”
“And you be careful with VISAR on the way back,” Sandy told her. “Remember what happened last time.”
“Not just me, as I recall,” Gina replied.
“Just as well you did,” Hunt said to both of them. “I’ll drink to curiosity every time. Remember, objectivity is what you make it.”
The others who were boarding the Thunen surface lander had by now disappeared along the ramp, with the exception of Murray and Nixie. Murray had decided it was time to take his chances and straighten things out back home, and Nixie would get her chance to see Earth. But although they would no doubt stay in touch, their former association was over. With her unique psychology and abilities, Nixie would spend time working with Danchekker and others at Goddard, and after that would go to Thunen to assist Eesyan and his scientists with their further researches on the Entoverse.
Murray and Nixie disappeared into the ramp, and after a final round of waves and farewells, Hunt, Danchekker, and Gina turned and followed them. Soon afterward, the smooth, golden ovoid ascended from the surface of Jevlen and docked with the twenty-mile long Thunen starship, hanging in orbit. Less than an hour later, the Vishnu was accelerating out of the star Athena’s planetary system.
And of the Entoverse itself?
The Thurien position all along had been that it had to be kept running—which nobody else really objected to once the Thurien viewpoint was explained. For all anyone outside knew, many of the Ents might want to stay there, and nobody was going to disagree with their right do so.
But what of the many who wished to leave, which was another of the principles that the Thuriens had defended vigorously? Obviously they couldn’t be permitted to take over the persons of any more Jevlenese, or anyone else who might be coupled into the system for whatever reason in times to come. And, as Danchekker had pointed out, that was just as well in any case, since there were evidently compatibility problems between Ent minds and human nervous systems, which he was beginning to suspect had caused most of the aberrant behavior exhibited by “possessed” individuals all through recorded history.
But then, why should any future emergent Ents be limited to unsuitable human hosts at all? The Ganymeans had always excelled as ~‘cncnc engincers. Ecsvan had suggested that maybe they could create a purpose-devised organism that would be an ideal vehicle for Ents wishing to transfer to the Exoverse—in effect, what VISAR had improvised in the form of its Ent-being surrogates, but working the other way around. Even more bizarre, perhaps, one day a regular traffic of visitors and immigrants going in both directions would develop out of it, and be thought as natural as holidaying in Australia or one of the lunar resorts.
In any case, the Thunens had already commenced an intensive program of research into the matter, and whatever the precise form of the final answer, there seemed every chance that the Ents would come to put their unique abilities and nature to good use, and take their place in the Omniverse, alongside Terrans, Jevienese, and Ganymeans. -
EPILOGUE
“Hello, Nick. Still mixing drinks behind bars in starships?”
“Say! Hi, there! It’s a living, I guess. So how was Jevien?”
Hunt bunched his mouth for an instant. “Different, anyhow.”
“It sounds like there was a bit of excitement there since the last time. But maybe you wouldn’t have gotten to see too much of it. You’re a scientist, right?”
“You remembered.”
Nick inclined his head to indicate the group over at the table by the wall, where Hunt had come from. What’ll it be? Same as before?”
‘‘Please.’’
“I’ll bring them over.”
“Thanks.”
Hunt turned away from the few still clustered around the mess-area bar in the Terran section of the ship at that late hour, and crossed back to rejoin the others. Bob, the schoolteacher from Florida, had been recalled with his flock by an embarrassed Board of Governors under pressure from concerned State officials and panicking parents.
“Hell, how was anybody supposed to know they’d pick this time to have a revolution?” he was saying to the others as Hunt sat down.
“Were the kids worried?” Gina asked him.
“The kids? Not on your life. They never had such a good time.
And when that Ganymian spaceship came through the roof of the
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Alan and Keith, the two marketing executives t}oiii 1 )isuiey World, were also on their way back. Their preliminary survey of possibilities on Jevlen had revealed some potential; but more exciting was the revolutionary Jevlenese approach to getting away from it all that they had learned about, which could transform the whole industry back home. -
“Did you know, that was really the whole of the Jevs’ problem,”
Keith told the company. “That computer they had could manufacture totally illusory worlds inside your head, so convincing that nobody could tell the difference. But it got to be an addiction, everywhere, which was why the place was in such a mess. That was why the Ganymeans had to switch it off.”
Hogan, James - Giant Series 04 - Entoverse (v1.1) Page 53
