Entoverse

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

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?”

“In a lot of ways, life on Jevlen got to be very live-and-let-live under the Thuriens,” Cullen said.

“Which is what you’d expect,” Hunt agreed.

“The laws don’t contain many thou-shalt-nots. So not much is illegal here, and a lot of what we’d think of as the criminal underworld back home is just part of the scene. If you want to get burned on stuff that’s not good for your gray cells, or lose your ass on gaming tables that anyone with a positive IQ knows are as straight as knotted corkscrews, that’s up to you. The Thuriens don’t presume any right to forbid people from being stupid.”

Hunt couldn’t really fault that. “I wouldn’t argue too much with that, either, to tell you the truth, Del. It usually has the effect of sharpening people’s wits a lot faster than most things. But it doesn’t seem to have worked that way here.”

Cullen shrugged. “Anyhow, I think our friend Obayin got too zealous. He was starting to stomp on people’s toes, and somebody somewhere had a corn… and what’s more, I suspect that it had something to do with JEVEX.”

“Go on,” Hunt said, looking more interested.

“You know that JEVEX isn’t totally shut down? There’s a core system still running for housekeeping, and to let the Thurien hackers do some poking around in the system.”

“Yes.”

“Well, the Jevs are a pretty close society, and it’s not easy to get a direct line on what goes on. But Obayin decided to play ball with the new administration. He put together a report for Garuth that we think blew the whistle on a market that nobody’s talking about out there for hooking people in.” Cullen made a palm-upward gesture in the air. “With JEVEX officially off the air, there could be a big demand. That spells money for whoever controls the plugs. But if the Ganymeans think that JEVEX is causing the crazies, a report like that could be enough to make them crack down and ruin the business. Get the scene?”

“It certainly sounds familiar enough,” Hunt agreed. He rubbed his chin, frowning. “You said you think that this report of Obayin’s blew the whistle. Don’t you know? I mean, what does it say?”

“It disappeared before anyone got a chance to go through it.” Cullen shrugged and made a resigned gesture. “The Ganymeans don’t exactly go overboard on what you’d call being security-conscious. That was one of the reasons why I was moved in here.”

Hunt nodded understandingly. “I can see the problem. And PAC’s full of Jevlenese. You could never be sure of every one of the them, however careful your screening.”

“That’s true,” Cullen said. “And that’s the direction that anyone’s suspicions would naturally turn in. However, although we can’t prove it conclusively, we’re pretty sure that the person who lifted that report was a Terran.”

Hunt looked up in surprise. “Who?”

“A German called Hans Baumer. He’s one of the sociologists that the UN sent here after the Pseudowar to advise the Ganymeans on setting up their administration. He was up in the Ganymean offices one day on what I think was a pretext, and afterward the report was missing.”

“Did you talk to him about it?”

Cullen shook his head. “What would the point have been? He’d just deny it, and I couldn’t prove anything. All it would do is tip him off.”

“And there weren’t any copies?”

“Obayin must have had some, sure, but the police department says they can’t locate any.”

“Not even an original in a computer somewhere?”

“They say not.” Cullen showed a hand briefly. “The Jevs lost a war. We’re the enemy. They’re all in it together. Ganymeans don’t understand. They can’t think that way. That’s why the Jevs have been running rings around them for years.” He snorted. “And still I’ve got some working in security.”

Hunt stretched back in the chair and put a hand behind his neck while he thought about it. “So what does it mean?” he asked at last. “If what you’re saying is true, then this character Baumer has developed some kind of connection with the criminal fraternity here-assuming they’re the ones who’d most want Obayin out of the picture. But how would he have got that well in with them so quickly? He can’t have been here more than, what, six months at the most?”

Cullen shook his head. “Vic, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you something else. Ayultha getting blown away like that on the same day wasn’t a coincidence. Something’s going on, and it involves a connection of some sort between the underworld and the cults. And right at this moment, that’s about all I know.”

Hunt thought it over again, nodded, and pursed his lips. “So where do we go from here?”

“The only lead I can see is to try and find out more about Baumer. I’ve got some stuff on his background from the personnel records of the department that sent him here, but it doesn’t tell us a great deal. He’s twenty-nine, originally from Bonn, studied moral and political philosophy at Munich, but without graduating finally. A mixed pattern of minor political activism around Europe, generally with leftist affiliations. Likes belonging to movements and associations, and organizing people. Doesn’t like capitalism and industrial technology. Isn’t married. Was sent to Jevlen by a department of the U.S. European government.”

“Hmm… Does he have quarters here, too, inside PAC?” Hunt asked, scratching the side of his nose pointedly. The implication was obvious.

Cullen nodded and lowered his voice. “Yes, I had a look around. Garuth doesn’t know about it. Baumer talks to a lot of Jevlenese, but that’s what you’d expect for a sociologist. He likes reading politics, history, and psychology, he gets letters from a girl in Frankfurt, and he worries about his health.” Cullen spread his hands.

“Nothing more?”

“That’s it. His office here didn’t turn up anything either. But he does use another one, a private place out in the city that he says provides a less threatening environment for talking to the Jevlenese that his work involves him with. That might be more interesting. But how do we get near enough to him?” Cullen jerked a thumb to indicate the larger office outside his. “He’s not going to say anything to my people. You’re here to look at Ganymean science, so you can’t go asking questions without it looking strange, especially if he’s got reasons to be suspicious.”

Hunt sat up slowly in his chair, his eyes widening. Just at that moment he would have rated Gregg Caldwell a genius.

Cullen looked at him uncertainly. “Are you okay?”

“We brought someone with us, just for that reason,” Hunt said. There had been so much happening that he hadn’t had a chance to explain where Gina fitted in.

“What are you talking about?”

“There’s a writer out at Geerbaine, who came on the same ship-a woman called Gina Marin. Officially she’s here on a free-lance job, but in reality she’s with us-UNSA-as a kind of undercover help. This is right in her court.”

Cullen blinked. “Well, I’ll be darned. Whose idea was this?”

“Caldwell’s, back at Goddard. He had an idea that this kind of situation could happen.”

A long, drawn-out explanation obviously wasn’t necessary. “Well, let’s get her onto it,” Cullen said. “Will she be there now?”

“As far as I know.” Hunt had called her an hour or so previously to see how things were going.

Cullen indicated the door with a nod of his head. Hunt turned on his chair and reached back to open it. “Hey, Crozin,” Cullen called to a Jevlenese in shirtsleeves at a desk outside. “Put a call through to the Best Western at Geerbaine, could you? See if you can get a Terran woman who’s staying there, name of Gina Marin. A writer.”

“Right,” Crozin acknowledged.

Cullen waved for Hunt to close the door again. “What about the work that Baumer’s been doing since he came here?” Hunt asked, turning back toward the desk. “Are there any reports and things from him that she could see to get more background?”

“Sure.” Cullen activated a screen by his desk and called up a list of file references. While he waited, Hunt fished his cigarettes from a pocket, lit one, and leaned back to run over what had been said. A minute or two later Crozin buzzed through to say that Gina was on the line from Geerbaine.

“You’d better take it,” Cullen said, swiveling the screen around to face Hunt.

“Back so soon,” Gina said. “What is it this time?”

“I think you’re in business,” Hunt told her. “We’ve got a job for you.”

“Does that mean I get to see PAC at last?”

“Yes. Catch one of those tubes into the city if they’re running today. Ask for the UNSA labs when you get here. I’m on my way to a show that Shilohin’s putting on for the ayatollahs, but you can ask for Del Cullen. He’ll tell you all about it. I’ll see you sometime later.”

“I’m on my way,” Gina said.