James Hogan - Entoverse

“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.

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 to Jevlen 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 Jevlen that we are now having to deal with,” the note said in part.

The Council’s chairman on Thurien was Calazar. Calazar had headed the deputation that first made contact with Earth when suspicions of Jevlenese duplicity could be contained no longer. His experiences during the Pseudowar that followed, of watching from the inside how the Terrans demolished the Jevlenese pretensions by meeting deception with counter deception and treachery with even greater machinations, had brought home to him the utter inability of Ganymean minds to anticipate the twists of deviousness that these alien dwarves were capable of. When he received the communication from Garuth, he admitted to himself with characteristic Ganymean candor that perhaps the lesson had not been fully learned yet.

“Perhaps those Terrans on JPC were right, and our whole approach to Jevlen has been wrong all along,” he said after considering the matter. “I’m sure Garuth is doing as much as anyone could ask, but maybe we should have delegated the task to Terrans.”

Frenua Showm, the female ambassador who had also been one of the first to initiate contact with Earth, suspected all human motives, Jevlenese or Terran. “Giving them equal partnership in Thurien culture as if it were their right was a mistake from the beginning,” she declared. “Well-intentioned, no doubt, but falsely premised. Nobody can feel worthy of what they haven’t earned. Neither can races. Our ancestors thought that a model society could be created on Jevlen through benign intervention, and they wrote Earth off as a lost cause when it chose to be left to its own devices. The reality turned out to be very different from the vision. Let’s learn something from it and not walk straight into making the same mistake again. They are not like us. Their behavior isn’t governed by the same rules.”

“You could be right,” Calazar replied reluctantly. “Human problems may need human solutions. Perhaps there’s no other way.”

VISAR spoke at that moment. “Priority request from PAC on Jevlen. Garuth is asking if you are free.”

“Oh dear. Now I expect we’re in for a personal protest,” Calazar muttered. He raised his voice a fraction. “Very well, VISAR. Bring him here.”

Since Calazar and Frenua Showm were actually coupled into VISAR and communicating from separate locations, Garuth was able to join them immediately. His figure promptly materialized, standing in the room.

“Welcome again,” Calazar greeted.

“How is the day here?” Garuth asked, as was customary.

“Good.”

“Frenua,” Garuth acknowledged, turning to Showm. She returned a slight bow of her head.

“And what brings you?” Calazar inquired, bracing himself.

“Eubeleus, the Axis of Light’s leader, has contacted me. He’s concerned about the way things are going and fears that we could see serious violence if something isn’t done quickly. He has a proposal for reducing the tension that I think you should hear. At least it’s different from anything else that we’ve been hearing.”

Calazar sent Frenua Showm a glance of relief that this was evidently not going to be the ordeal that he had feared. “Is Eubeleus available on-line at the moment?” he asked Garuth.

“Yes. He’s waiting in one of the couplers at PAC,” Garuth replied.

“Then let’s bring him here and see what he has to say,” Calazar invited.

Ganymeans were by nature rational. Ganymean scientists were very rational. Shilohin found it hard to accept that even the true believers could honestly have been taken in to the point of attributing Ayultha’s fiery end to supernatural causes. Surely, she insisted, if they could be shown that the same effect was achievable by commonplace methods that were well understood, they would have to see that a more complicated explanation was neither necessary nor justified- and in the process they might learn something valuable Accordingly, she decided to stage a demonstration. While she and some of the Ganymean technicians were setting things up, Hunt stopped by Del Cullen’s office to review matters. It was situated in a corner of the part of PAC that had been allocated for the security force that Cullen was building up.

“So who was the character who gave Ayultha the finger?” Hunt asked from the visitor’s chair by the door. “Did you manage to get any sense out of him?”

Cullen, sitting at the desk, shook his head. “A complete yo-yo. Thinks he’s a bird in the wrong body. Even the Jev police put him in a rubber room. Obviously he was just a stooge that somebody else set up for effect.”

It was what Hunt had half expected. “What do you make of it all?” he asked.

“Something’s going on,” Cullen replied. “If you want my opinion, I don’t think that bridge coming down was any accident, either.

The police report was sloppy on a lot of points. I think it was rigged.” The same thought had crossed Hunt’s mind. He stretched out a leg and rested his foot on one of the boxes piled around the floor. The office that Cullen had reserved for himself was unpretentious, and just at the moment, half of it was taken up with undivulged items from Earth that had arrived on the Vishnu, and which he had not yet gotten around to unpacking. “What makes you say so?”