James Hogan - Entoverse

“No… that isn’t correct,” Garuth protested. “A motion was merely proposed at JPC. There has been no decision. You-”

Langerif silenced him with a wave. “A mere formality. The spirit of the Council’s intent is quite clear: to minimize risk to persons and property, and to preserve order. The situation here is plainly about to get out of hand. To delay firm action until official orders are issued would be irresponsible. It is therefore our decision to preempt the emergency before it escalates.”

“Don’t buy it,” Hunt murmured. “He’s not the JPC. Neither are the people who wound up his spring. It’s a power grab.”

“This doesn’t concern you. Confine yourself to your own affairs,” Langerif snapped.

His line had been calculated to sway Ganymeans by appealing to reason and noble motives; the token show of force was deliberate, to throw them off balance. And had this been Thuriens as the Jevlenese were used to dealing with, it might have worked. But Garuth was from an earlier epoch of Ganymeans-and he had spent enough time on Earth to absorb a little of human psychology.

“No!” he retorted, straightening up fully. “The terms of my office are quite definite, and there is no emergency about to break out. Who do you think you’re fooling with this charade? We know that you are in league with the Axis. And JPC will very soon know, too. Now get out of my office.”

Langerif whitened and moved his hand pointedly to the butt of his weapon.

“What do you think you’re going to do?” Shilohin asked him derisively, backing Garuth’s stand. “Your troops aren’t here yet. There’s a room full of PAC security officers just down the hall.”

Garuth stretched out a hand toward a call button on a panel by his desk. But as he did so, Langerif turned and called toward the doorway, and a squad of armed police entered with their weapons at ready, led by another officer.

“Pig!” Nixie hissed. Langerif ignored her and waved his men into position to cover the room.

“I regret to inform you that your security department is not all as loyal as you believed,” Langerif sneered. “I gave you an opportunity to cooperate reasonably, but you force me to be drastic. Very well.’ He motioned sharply to the others in the room. “The rest of you, on your feet. You will go with the officer, now. Trouble will only make things worse.”

“This is an outrage!” Danchekker, who was still standing by the screens, shaking with indignation, found his voice at last. “Do you. imagine for one moment that bringing your guttersnipe politics in here is going to make the slightest-”

“Save it, Chris,” Hunt said resignedly. “This isn’t the time or place.”

While Garuth stood staring helplessly at gunpoint, the others began filing toward the door between the impassive, yellow-uniformed police.

Meanwhile, throughout the building other groups of police and disguised Jevlenese auxiliaries had begun rounding up bewildered Ganymeans from their workstations and offices. In Del Cullen’s office, Cullen stood, hands raised with two Jevlenese covering him while a police lieutenant scanned through status displays on his desk. side screen. Outside, Koberg and Lebansky had also been taken by surprise and were being disarmed and searched. Through the doorway, Cullen could see Koberg measuring up times and distances with his eyes.

“Don’t try anything, Mitch,” he called. “It won’t change the war.”

One of the guards jabbed him in the ribs with a gun. He winced

“Shut up,” the lieutenant in the chair at the screen told him over his shoulder.

And then, strange things began happening.

The sounds of running feet and confused shouting came from the corridor beyond the outer room where Koberg and Lebansky were. The guards who were with them looked around, startled. Langerifs voice came from somewhere outside the door. “Quick! Get out here, all of you. Never mind them. Lieutenant Norzalt, Pascars, and Ritoiter, stay there and watch the prisoners.”

The guards in the outer room rushed into the corridor. As the last one disappeared, the automatic door slammed shut behind them. At the same instant, a cry of pain came from the door into Cullen’s office. The two guards who had been left turned their heads instinctively-which was all the distraction that Koberg and Lebansky needed.

Inside the office, Cullen stared in bewilderment as the Jevlenese police lieutenant fell from the chair, writhing and clawing the phones of the Ganymean communications kit from his ears. A high-pitched shrieking noise was coming from the phones, painful even from where Cullen was standing.

“Go for it, turkey,” a voice said in his own ear. Shaking himself into life, Cullen seized the lieutenant by the collar before he could recover, lifted him up and took his weapon, and then laid him out with a couple of fast cracks to the jaw. He went through the door and came into the outer room just as Koberg and Lebansky were straightening up over the limp forms of the two guards who had been left.

“What in hell’s going on?” Cullen demanded, still at a loss as the other two retrieved their guns.

The door from the corridor opened again, and three more Jevlenese police rushed in, coming to a confused halt when they saw the Americans covering them and their two unconscious colleagues on the floor. Cullen and his two men disarmed them, then went outside. There was no sign of Langerif or what had caused the pandemonium. Two Ganymeans were standing, stupefied, by one of the walls.

“What in hell’s going on?” Cullen asked again.

“We don’t know,” one of the Ganymeans answered. “We were being arrested. Then the police were ordered away and left us here. They’re running all over the place. They seem to be getting conflicting orders.”

“Was Langerif here?”

“No. We heard his voice, but we didn’t see him.”

Just then, two more Jevlenese police came running around a corner. Koberg and Lebansky stopped them and relieved them of their guns. The door into Cullen’s office opened obligingly, and the latest additions to the catch were shoved through to join the six already inside. Then the door closed again.

“Those voices were coming out of the walls,” Koberg said, looking around, mystified. “The place is running itself. It’s isolating them in small groups.”

And suddenly, Cullen realized what was happening. “It’s ZORAC!” he exclaimed. “The goddamn computer’s doing it!”

“What did you expect?” the familiar voice said in his ear. “Langerif is in Garuth’s office, making a move to take over. We’ve been infiltrated. There’s a confused situation in security. Most of your men are still with you, but some are on the other side. There are six more police heading your way along R-5.”

“Let’s check that first,” Cullen said, and hurried away with Koberg and Lebansky following.

The lieutenant in Cullen’s office was not the only Jevlenese equipped with a Ganymean communicator to have been overwhelmed by a loud, high-frequency tone suddenly injected into the audio. Elsewhere in the building, other squads were running this way and that to contradictory orders. Half a dozen were trapped in an elevator that had stopped between floors. In the lobby area, a contingent that had gone outside to investigate a nonexistent threat were stranded there when the doors closed, and more than a few in various places were stuck in half-closed doors that refused to budge. From the numbers, it was evident that additional forces had been let in by confederates already inside.

In Garuth’s office and the room outside, the lights had gone out. Hunt, who had worked himself as far as the doorway, heard muted, high-pitched tones in the darkness, and then confused yelling. He dropped to the floor and moved through to just beyond the door.