Entoverse

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The place was the same gaudy, impenitent clutter that it had been the first time Hunt was there. “Hi, Vic come back,” Nixie greeted, smiling as she let him in. She was wearing a blue metallic top showing red nipples through a pair of circles cut out for the purpose. “No girl in PAC? Get lonely? We fuck now?”

Murray killed the movie he had been watching and got up from one of the form-molding chairs. “Hell, I like the initiative, but ease off,” he told her. “He’s only here socializing.” He held out a hand to Hunt. “Wondered when you’d be back. How’s the acclimatization going?”

“Not bad.”

Nixie frowned. “What ‘socializing’ mean?” she asked.

Hunt moved into the room and studied the panel that included the screen Murray had been looking at. “Is that part of the city GP net?” he inquired.

“Among other things. Why?”

“Can you activate channel fifty-six on it?”

“That’s in a data service group. What would I need it for?”

“I just want to try something.”

Murray shrugged and said something at the panel in Jevlenese. He looked at Hunt. “What’s supposed to happen?” A Jevlenese translation of his words came from the room speaker.

Nixie stared in astonishment, then asked Murray something. “How the hell did it do that?” a faithfully intoned synthesis of her voice asked. “What’s that? Can you two understand this? Is that me speaking in English?”

“Well, I’ll be darned,” Murray said, staring at the panel. “You mean that’s been there all the time?”

“Amazing what can happen when you bring a scientist into your house, isn’t it?” Hunt said.

Nixie looked at Murray accusingly. “You mean after all the time I’ve spent working my ass off learning English, we needn’t have bothered? Well, that’s just great. Maybe I should bill you for the time it’s cost me, at my regular hourly rate.”

Murray held up a hand defensively. “Honest, I didn’t know about it.” He looked at Hunt. “How does it work?”

“They’ve got it hooked into the Ganymean ship’s computer,” Hunt told him.

“You mean the Shapieron?”

“Yes.”

“Well, how about that!” Murray declared.

“This is terrific!” Nixie exclaimed. “We can talk normally.” She looked at Hunt. “The girls upstairs thought you were nice. They’ve been asking me to get you to come to one of our parties here. They can be a lot of fun.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Hunt said. “I might just take you up on it, too. But not right away. Things are very busy.”

Murray sat back down and waved Hunt over to the couch. Nixie perched herself on a hassock.

“What did you think of Ayultha getting blown away like that in Chinzo?” Murray asked. “Pretty neat stuff, huh? It sounds as if everything’s a mess. SFPD’s what they need to bring in here. Any idea how they did it?”

“We’re pretty sure it was a phase-conjugating laser,” Hunt said.

“Yeah… right.” Murray wasn’t going to argue with that.

“Which would be fairly straightforward to do. A spot from a target-designation pilot beam appeared on his chest a moment before he ignited.”

“You see, ask a Terran and you get an answer that makes sense, even if I don’t understand it,” Nixie said.

“Well… I don’t know about all Terrans,” Hunt muttered.

Nixie looked at him and shook her head. “You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff you hear in this place,” she said. “Some people think it was cosmic energy from another dimension. Then we had focused waves of-what was it, ‘telepsychosynchronicity.’ I mean, what’s it all about? What in hell is telepsychosynchronicity?”

“Sounds like what used to be called mind power, but at twice the price,” Hunt suggested.

“I’d rather be getting laid,” Nixie opined.

“That would make a good bumper sticker,” Hunt said.

“People should do something about getting this city together instead of sitting around listening to that garbage and waiting for the Ganymeans to do something,” Nixie said. “Murray, why don’t we go to Earth? You said I’d make a fortune there.”

“Patience. I need to get a little more invisible first.” Murray settled himself back in the chair and stretched out an arm idly to finger the hair at the back of her neck. “Anyhow, if you’re that busy you didn’t come here to shoot any breeze,” he said to Hunt. “What gives?”

“I’m trying to find out anything I can about one of the Terrans back at PAC,” Hunt said. “It’s in connection with that traffic bridge that collapsed.”

“The one that pancaked the head of the Keystones, and them other suckers who were driving under?”

“Right. It may have to do with the Ayultha business, too.”

“Okay, shoot.”

“He’s a German by the name of Hans Baumer, been here a little over five months. We’ve got reason to think that he’s got himself mixed up with the shady side of city life here, somehow, and that the people he’s dealing with could tell us something. It occurred to me that it might be the kind of thing you’d know something about.”

“Why are you interested?” Murray seemed evasive all of a sudden.

“It’s starting to look as if Jevlenese plots and power games didn’t all come to an end with the Federation,” Hunt replied. “There’s some kind of scheme afoot that involves another faction, and the trouble that’s brewing is all part of it. Getting rid of Obayin could have been a preparatory move. He was being very cooperative with the Ganymeans.”

“Shit, I thought you were some kind of scientist. What the hell kind of science is this?”

“The kind that doesn’t want to see the Ganymeans kicked out of here.” Hunt gestured in the direction of the door. “Look at the mess this planet’s in out there. It should have been flying its own starships long ago. Instead it waits for Thurien handouts. The same forces that held our sciences back for two thousand years are regrouping on Jevlen. That’s what we’re trying to prevent. And it affects you, too, Murray, because once a society becomes repressive, all forms of independence get repressed. And that wouldn’t be good for your line of business at all.”

“I like what Vic’s saying, Murray,” Nixie said.

But Murray shook his head. “Sorry, I can’t help. I don’t know anything.” His voice was clipped, and his face wooden. He was lying, Hunt could tell. Hunt could either confront him and risk alienating what could turn out to be a valuable contact with nothing to show; or he could let the matter ride for the moment and leave Murray time to think it over. He sighed inwardly.

“But you’ll let me know if you do hear anything?”

“Sure.”

Nixie stared uncomfortably at the table but said nothing.

“There was another thing,” Hunt said. “Tell me something about these ayatollahs.”

Nixie understood whatever ZORAC translated the word into, but Murray looked puzzled. “These what?”

“The cult leaders-the crazies who are stirring up these mobs, like Ayultha.”

Nixie supplied Murray a term in Jevlenese, which ZORAC returned as “awakeners.”

“What do you want to know about them?” Murray seemed to relax at the change of subject and listened while Hunt summarized what he had learned from Garuth and Shiohin. Nixie’s manner became strangely quiet as she followed.

When Hunt had finished, Murray looked apologetic-genuinely this time. “That’s fascinating,” he said. “And really, I’d like to help. But you know more about all this than I do.”

“You’ve been here six months.”

Murray spread his hands helplessly. “Hell, I’ve never gotten into conversations about stuff like that with the Jevs. You saw what our communication level was until just now, when you told me about that.” He waved at the panel. “Anyhow, they’ve got more loose screws than a do-it-yourself kit for the Eiffel Tower. Why do you care about them?”

“We think that Eubeleus and his Axis might be involved, too,” Hunt said.

“But he isn’t gonna be around much longer. They’re all taking off for this other planet, someplace, whatever it’s called. It’s been all over the news. They’re shooting the first batch of green groupies up into orbit from Geerbaine already.”

“That’s got me beat, too,” Hunt admitted. “Okay, maybe it isn’t him, specifically. But I’m convinced there’s a connection with the cults somewhere.”

Murray could only show his hands and shake his head. “Sorry, doc, but like I said, it seems you already know more about them than I do. What else can I tell you?”

They talked about odd things for a while longer, but nothing more useful emerged. Eventually Hunt stood up and announced that it was time for him to be getting back.

“Take care, Vic. We’ll see ya around,” Murray said, seeing him to the door.

Hunt made his way back in the direction of PAC, far from satisfied with the results of his foray. He passed through noisy streets, lined with stalls displaying trinkets and bric-a-brac, and crossed a square of mostly closed frontages. Past there, he climbed a moving stairway that wasn’t-it had been under repair since the day he arrived. There were apathetic people squatting on sidewalks and, farther on, a line being handed what looked like food packages from the back of a trailer. He was pestered by vacant-faced children hassling for handouts, who could have been learning about Euclid or Newton, Bach or Magellan-or whoever the Jevlenese equivalents were, if they had ever had any.

He stopped at a corner to watch a garishly dressed group dancing frenziedly under some kind of intoxication to mindless, crashing music blaring from inside an open doorway, where others appeared to have collapsed. Somebody was shouting obscenities at them from a window nearby. Hunt stood and watched disconsolately, trying to form some idea of what he intended doing with the remainder of the day.

There was a light tug on his sleeve. He turned his head. It was Nixie.

“I say have go work now, so can catch Vic,” she said. “We go someplace now, yes?” At least she had put a wrap over her top.

Hunt sighed. “Nixie, don’t you ever give up? No thanks. Not today.”

“Is okay. I know good place.” She pulled insistently.

Hunt shook his head. “No. No fuck, understand? Nice girl, but fuck off.”

“You not understand. We just talk. Go place where is speak machine, Jevlen talk Terran.”

“Oh.” Hunt drew back and looked at her. She was serious for once, unsmiling. He nodded. “Okay. Let’s go.”

She slipped her arm through his as they began walking. “This way. I show. Place I use lots time.”

They entered a corridor of doors and display windows, many of them shuttered, leading off the street. From the other end of it, they crossed a trash-strewn plaza to another passage flanked by a couple of bars, an amusement gallery of some kind, and assorted other doorways. Two more corners brought them to a wider concourse, on one side of which was an entrance into what looked like the lobby of a cheap hotel. There was a desk on one side, and doors off to left and right of the dingy hall beyond, where two or three people were sitting on faded chairs among oddments of furniture. Several elevator doors lined the wall at the rear. Somehow the reception machine even managed to convey an air of sneering disdain as the john drew up at the desk with his hooker.

“Look wrong if I pay,” Nixie murmured. Hunt gave her the card that he had been issued at PAC to cover incidental expenses. She flipped open a cover on the machine and passed the card across a read head. Nothing happened. Nixie muttered something that sounded like an oath and pressed a button. After waiting perhaps half a minute, she called out a stream of Jevlenese in an abusive voice and jabbed at the button repeatedly. A clerk in need of a shave and a clean shirt emerged, grumbling, from a door near the desk. Nixie gave him the card, and an irascible exchange continued between them while the card was read into a different device, a transaction record copied out, and the card returned. Finally the clerk extracted a small disk- presumably a coded room key-from the innards of the nonfunctioning reception machine, said something to Nixie that sounded sarcastic and which Hunt had a feeling referred to him, and stumped back through the door he had come out of.

They took one of the elevators up several floors and found the room around a corner farther along a corridor. Nixie touched the disk against a plate, and they entered. The room was indifferent, in keeping with the rest of the place. There was a fake window with a graphics simulation of an unusual landscape scene, part of it nonfunctioning and blacked out. Nixie crossed over to the COM panel above the fitted unit opposite the queen-size bed, activated it, and gave an instruction in Jevlenese to switch on the translator.

“Like a drink?” she asked Hunt. “The first one comes with the room, anyhow.”

“Why not?”

“Anything in particular?”

“I’ll leave it to you.”

“House, a couple of colantas with tangy ice, unfizzed,” Nixie said. Rattles and grinding sounds came from the dispenser unit by the chef as she walked over to it. “Don’t get mad at Murray for being cautious,” she said over her shoulder. “The people that Baumer is mixed up with don’t like noses being poked into their business. And they can be nasty.”

“So you do know him,” Hunt said.

“You get to know what’s going on. And there aren’t that many Terrans in Shiban. People talk.”

“So who are these people he’s mixed up with?” Hunt asked, sitting down in the chair by the window image and producing his cigarettes.

“From what Murray says, you have them on Earth: people who supply things that are wanted, but which are illegal. He was doing the same kind of thing with chemical drugs.”

“You mean a black market?”

“Is that what you call it? Okay.”

“I thought things like that didn’t really happen seriously here,” Hunt said. “There isn’t too much that’s illegal.”

“But the changes in recent times have had effects.” Nixie turned, holding two glasses. She came over to hand Hunt one of them, and picked up his cigarette pack curiously from the sill of the fake window. “Can I try one of these?”

“Go ahead.”

Nixie selected one and leaned forward to let Hunt light it for her. “This is what you call tobacco, right?”

“Yes.”

She went over to the bed and sat down, swinging her legs up and leaning back against the headboard. “Let’s see if I understand this thing that Murray calls supply and demand. When you make something illegal, the price goes up, isn’t that it? Murray said the U.S. Government made him a lot of money-I never understood why, since they were trying to take it away from him… But anyhow, stopping people from doing what they want makes other people rich. Is that how it works?”

“It’s not supposed to, but…” Hunt shrugged. “Well, yes, I suppose that’s the way it turns out more often than not.”

Nixie gestured with the cigarette. “This is smooth… got a nice kick. Hits your throat.”

“Not all kinds. Some brands will take the lining off.”

“Is tobacco illegal on Earth?”

Hunt shook his head. “It makes the right people rich.”

Nixie thought about it. “I guess they have to be the ones who make the rules, then, eh?”

“That’s about it.”

Nixie nodded. “Anyhow, as I was saying… on Jevlen the Ganymeans have created a black market.”

Hunt looked down at his drink. It was amber, with pyramids of light green ice, and tasted like spicy Drambuie with a lemony base. Not bad. He thought he knew what she was getting at, but decided to play dumb. She was trying to help. Why spoil it? “I’m not sure I follow,” he said, looking back at her and drawing on his cigarette.

“Ask yourself, what’s been shut down for the last six months that everybody took for granted all their lives, and a lot of people don’t know how to get along without?”

Hunt frowned. “You mean JEVEX?”

“What else?”

Hunt appeared to consider the proposition. “That sounds strange,” he answered. “I mean, there might be a demand all right, but where’s the supply? You just said, it’s shut down.”

Nixie shook her head and sipped from her glass without taking her eyes off him. “The main system that ran the planet and what-have-you might be down, but the whole thing isn’t dead. There are still parts of it ticking over.”

“Well, yes, that’s right-there’s a core system still running for maintenance and…” He let his voice trail off, as if he had just seen the implication for the first time. “What are you saying? That there’s some way of getting people access to that capacity?”

“Yes, exactly. For the junkies, but at a price.”

It still didn’t explain everything, though. “Okay.” Hunt leaned back, still frowning. “But what product is it that they’re selling, exactly? I mean, you’re making it sound like a dependency situation. What is it that these junkies are dependent for? It can’t be simply to have the planet run for them again. What would there be for an individual that was worth paying for?”

Nixie smiled and watched the smoke from her cigarette. “You still don’t understand what JEVEX does, do you, Vic?”

That was something that Hunt had not been prepared for. He spread his hands and shook his head. “It’s an integrated processing and communications network. It runs the planet.”

“That’s like saying that colanta wets your throat and flows down. I’m not talking about how JEVEX functions, but what it does.” She read the baffled look on Hunt’s face. “It creates fantasies-anything that anyone wants can come true. Dreams that are real, which you can make do whatever you like just by wanting them to. Do you wonder why the Jevlenese can’t deal with reality? They’ve never needed reality.” She threw back her head and laughed. “The girls love the Ganymeans. Our business has never been better since they switched JEVEX off. They wiped out the competition.”

Hunt stared at her for a long time. A lot of things were making more sense now. If that was really the problem, then perhaps the Ganymean cure of several years’ planetary cold turkey would turn out to be the answer after all. The secondary problems would just have to be dealt with by conventional, time-tried methods, as some members of the Thurien-Terran Joint Policy Council seemed to have been saying. It would also explain why whoever was profiting in the meantime would want to keep the administration off the trail for as long as possible.

What did not make sense was why Nixie should want to rock the boat if business was so good.

“I don’t understand why you’re telling me this,” Hunt said.

“That isn’t what I followed you for,” Nixie answered. “When we were with Murray, the other thing you asked about was the ayatollahs.”

“He didn’t seem to know much about them.”

“He doesn’t. He’s not a Jevlenese. But I do.”

Hunt hesitated, checking mentally for something he might have missed. “Is there a lot more to explain about them?” he said. “It sounds as if they’re just extreme cases of this-this fantasy-addiction that you just described. Ones that have pulled their anchors up from reality completely.”

Nixie shook her head. “No. That can happen to the headworld junkies, yes. But the ayatollahs are not the same. Their situation is something else.”

Hunt nodded and raised his eyebrows. So Garuth had been right in his classifications. “There is something definitely very different about them, then?” he asked. “Something that sets them apart?”

“Oh, yes.”

“You can be sure? They’re not simply suffering from delusions? Or some kind of breakdown, possibly, induced by stresses encountered in these fantasy realities?”

“The ayatollahs aren’t products of any fantasies,” Nixie said, speaking somberly. “They aren’t junkies at all.”

“Then what makes them crazy?”

“Crazy?” Nixie stared at him strangely. “They’re bewildered,” she replied. “And very often scared, confused, lost, and hysterical. If a lot of them act demented, it’s because of things like that. And yes, maybe some of them do lose their orientation completely. But it’s not from getting too involved with some fairyland. They come from somewhere that’s real. But it’s somewhere very strange-at least, it would be strange to anyone who’s used to this…” She gestured around her vaguely.

“You mean Jevlen?” Hunt said.

“And Earth, too. Everywhere. The whole universe.”

Hunt’s brow knitted. “I’m not sure what you’re saying. Where do they come from?”

“They don’t know. That’s what screws them up-or at least, it screws a lot of them up. But some manage to handle it and keep their act together. They’re not all crazy.” Nixie lifted her glass again and gave Hunt a long, appraising look over the rim. “At least, I hope you think they’re not all crazy. You see, you’re the first scientist I’ve met here. And you’re sane. The reason I followed you was that you look like someone who might be able to find the answers.”

“Is it really that important to-” Hunt began, and his eyes widened as he realized what she was saying.

Nixie nodded, reading his expression. “Yes,” she said. “That’s right, Vic. To me, it’s very important. You see, I’m one of them.”