James Hogan - Entoverse

Nixie talked to Osaya. “Oh, eprillin!” she announced, spotting his problem.

“I thought that was a hat,” Murray said.

“Yes. But also it means a kind of fish.”

“So what’s the hell’s she talking about a fish with a window?”

“She says there something that look like fish, up there outside window.”

Murray shook his head. “Have they been smoking funny stuff up there, or something?

“I go see.” Nixie exchanged a few more words with Osaya, then left.

Murray went into the kitchen, and the others heard him open a cupboard and begin rummaging. Then came the sound of hard objects being thumped down on the floor. “Say, waddya know!” his voice called through the doorway. “Genuine ham… And how about some Boston beans?”

“I’ve never heard of fried tomatoes,” Gina said to Hunt. “Is that something else weird that the English do?”

“Delicious,” Hunt said. “Especially on a slice of fried bread, with the juice soaking in. But what you really need to finish it off is a bit of black pudding.”

“What’s black pudding?”

“I rather think that the wise adage about sausages and politics applies even more in this instance,” Danchekker advised.

At that moment Nixie’s voice came from the panel. “Murray, come see here. Bring Vic up.”

Hunt sent Danchekker and Gina a puzzled frown, then rose. Murray stuck his head back through the doorway. “What is it?”

“Come see,” Nixie’s voice said.

Murray shrugged and withdrew. Hunt followed him out through the front door.

They went up two flights and entered another apartment, situated on the opposite side of the stairwell. The interior was an orgy of feminine extravagance and brilliant colors, with fluffy pink floors that looked like cotton candy, couches and chairs finished in a variety of white, lilac, and red down, outrageously erotic murals, and black walls glowing with constantly changing Mandelbrot patterns. Inside was the tall girl whom Hunt had met before, apparently off-duty at the moment in a simple shirt with pants. She beckoned and led them through a room with an enormous bed, built-in Jacuzzi, and mirrors everywhere, to where Nixie was standing at a window framed by long, silky drapes. Hunt and Murray peered out.

Below and to the sides was a jumble of interconnected roofs, with parts of various walkways and lower parts of the city visible in the spaces between. A roof enclosed the whole area above, with a web of transportation tubes and lighting installations hanging beneath, and two of the vast channels that cut across the city to carry airborne traffic receding into the distance. Whether there was more of the city above that, there was no way of telling.

Hanging motionless in the air above an open area maybe a couple of hundred feet away was a drop-shaped, silver-gray object about the size of a small car. It was featureless except for a couple of ribs that flared into rudimentary fins at the tail end, and a cylindrical device on a retractable metal pylon, which seemed to be nodding inquisitively in their direction.

“Ain’t never seen nothing like that before,” Murray said, staring at it, nonplussed.

“Is police thing? Come look for us?” Nixie asked nervously.

Hunt shook his head, and a faint smile softened his features. “It’s looking for us, but it’s not the police,” he said. “That’s one of the Shapieron’s reconnaissance probes. They must have figured out where we are.”

“Shit, I hope the cops aren’t so fast,” Murray muttered.

Hunt thought quickly. “Murray, is there any kind of portable communications gadget here-a remote pad for talking to the house system or something? If the Ganymeans figured this much out, they’ll be scanning for Jevlenese transmissions.” Murray consulted with Nixie, who said something to Osaya. Osaya went over to a bedside unit and came back with a tablet of what looked like veined, gray marble with gold inlaid designs and gold touchpads. She held it to the window and tried a few codes, then said something that sounded negative.

“Does that talk to the city net?” Hunt asked Murray.

“It should.”

“Tell her to try fifty-six.”

Murray passed it on, and Osaya tried again. Then a familiar voice said, “Ahah! We seem to be through. Hello, is anybody there?” Then it repeated itself in Jevlenese.

Hunt grinned. “Hello, ZORAC. Not a bad piece of detective work. Was it your doing?”

“Elementary, my dear Hunt. I’ve got Leyel Torres for you.”

“Great.”

Torres’s voice came through from the Shapieron. “Vic, you made it. Who else is there?”

“Gina got out with me. And Chris Danchekker made it with Nixie. We don’t know anything about the others.”

“I fear they’re in captivity,” Torres said. “We don’t understand the situation. What are the Jevlenese trying to do. Do you know?”

“We think so, but it’s a long story. And it’s urgent. It needs to go to the top, to Calazar. Can you get him through VISAR?”

“We’re talking to him right now,” Torres answered. “He’s getting together as many of JPC as he can raise. I’ll put you through to the Thurien circuit.”

ZORAC’s voice said something in Jevlenese, and Osaya tapped a code into the tablet. One of the mirrors facing the bed turned into a screen showing Torres standing in the Shapieron’s command deck against a background of crew positions manned by Ganymeans. “It looks as if you’ve found quite a home away from home there, Vic,” ZORAC commented.

“Have they got hold of Caldwell?” Hunt asked, ignoring it.

“He should be arriving soon,” ZORAC answered. “He was playing golf. It’s Sunday afternoon in Washington.”

Then another mirror turned into a view of Calazar in vivid, informal clothes. “Dr. Hunt,” he said without preamble. “I feel that we are responsible for all this. What do these Jevlenese at PAC want? They have deactivated the connection to VISAR there, and we have no access to them.”

To one side, Murray was shaking his head wonderingly. “That’s Calazar, the Thurien head honcho, here in Osaya’s bedroom? I don’t believe this,” he muttered.

“We’re pretty sure they’re only a smokescreen,” Hunt replied to Calazar. “They probably don’t know themselves what’s really going on. We’re certain that Eubeleus is at the back of it.”

The sudden misgivings on Calazar’s face, even with its alien Ganymean features, was unmistakable. “Why? Where does he fit into it?” he asked. Just then, he was joined on the screen by Porthik Eesyan, a Thurien scientific adviser whom Hunt and Danchekker also both knew of old.

Murray nudged Hunt and nodded in the direction of the window. Outside, a police flier had appeared and was buzzing around the probe. The probe had deployed more antennae and drifted away to circle on a leisurely tour of the area, presumably in an effort to obscure the whereabouts of the location that it was communicating with.

“Look, there might not be much time, so these are the facts,” Hunt said, looking back at the screens showing Calazar and Eesyan, and Torres. “The whole JEVEX business has been a fraud for years. JEVEX isn’t on Jevlen at all. The sites here are dummies and remote interfaces into it. The real guts of the system is all concentrated on Uttan. That’s what Eubeleus is really after-the business here is just a diversion. And if he gets control of it, this planet is going to be hit by an invasion of aliens that are stronger than anything any of us has ever dreamed of. We can go into the details later, but for now you have to believe it. Whatever else happens, you must stop him from getting to Uttan and turning that system back on. Tell him anything you like. This is one time to worry about ethics and principles later.”