Entoverse

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Garuth rose to his feet bemusedly as Langerif strode haughtily into the room, followed by several of his officers. He was holding a written proclamation of some kind, which he set down on the desk. All of the group were wearing sidearm: standard Jevlenese police-issue beam pistols, which could fire a variable plasma charge that could be set anywhere from a mildly uncomfortable shock to lethality.

Hunt groaned to himself as he realized how completely they had failed to see the obvious: the police and their training class; all the other Jevlenese who had been appearing at PAC over the past few days. But neither he nor anyone else had made the vital connection.

They had dismissed the Obayin assassination-assuming it had been-as purely a move by the Ichena to protect their headworld business. Of course Eubeleus would need somebody to secure the Jevlen end of things while he took over Uttan. Even Cullen had missed it. Everyone had been too engrossed with the Entoverse to give anything else a thought.

“You will have been notified by now that the Ganymean occupation of Jevlen is to cease anyway,” Langerif said to Garuth. Evidently there was a leak in the system somewhere. “But to forestall the prospect of one occupying force merely being replaced by another, we, the Jevlenese people, are taking charge of our own future, now. There is our declaration. You will please instruct all personnel under your authority, Ganymean, Thurien, Terran, and Jevlenese, to comply. It is not a matter for compromise or negotiation.”

“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.

There was scuffling and confused mutterings. Then Langerifs voice called out something in Jevlenese from inside the office-he had evidently disposed of his Ganymean communicator. The translation came through the earpiece that Hunt was wearing: “Spread out. Cover all the exits. Abrintz, take three men out to the concourse and secure the elevators.”

Another voice responded. “Werselek, Quon, Fassero, come with-“

Then Langerif again, from inside the office. “I didn’t say that. It’s some kind of trick. Stay where you are.”

Only to be countermanded by, “This is Langerif speaking. Do as I say.”

“Don’t listen. That’s a fake.”

“No, I’m not. He is.”

“What do we do?” a voice pleaded somewhere in the blackness.

Then ZORAC’s voice said quietly in Hunt’s ear, “Move about eight feet to your right along the wall, and then across an alcove to a door in the far wall. It’s open, and leads into an equipment room.”

Hunt began worming his way along the base of the wall as ZORAC had indicated. Sounds of shooting and cries of panic came from the direction of the doorway leading out to the elevator concourse, accompanied by Terran voice shouting commands. A Jevlenese voice shouted, “All right, we surrender!”

“Come out with your hands up,” a Terran voice ordered. “Is that all of them in there, Sergeant?”

“All cleared here, sir. Three hostiles dead.”

“What’s going on out there?” Langerifs voice demanded.

“PAC security is outside,” a voice replied. “They’ve taken over the whole floor. We’re trapped.”

“That’s impossible.”

“That wasn’t me speaking,” Langerif’s voice said again.

Reaching the door that ZORAC had indicated, Hunt felt his way through. Del Cullen’s voice called out, “You calculated wrong, Langerif. Half your men were working undercover for us. We’ve got the rest of the building tied up. It’s over. Throw down your guns and come out.”

“Do as he says,” Langerifs voice instructed.

“Take no notice,” another Langerif said.

Hunt bumped his head painfully on an edge of projecting metal. Feeling ahead with his fingers, he hauled himself carefully to his feet, tracing the shapes of equipment racking and supports around him. It came to him then, what was happening. ZORAC was a ship’s computer. Its first priority was the safety of the Shapieron’s crew. Seeing them being rounded up at gunpoint had spurred it into the only action that it was capable of.

Langerif had grasped it, too. “Very clever, for a machine,” his voice snarled in the darkness. “But if the idea is to protect your Ganymeans, you’d better quit right now. We’ve got two of them here and a bunch more outside the door. If the lights aren’t back in five seconds, we shoot.”

“Hear that, you men?” another voice called out. “There aren’t any Terrans. It was the computer.”

Hunt heard the door close, and then the light came on to reveal him alone in a space crammed with electronics cubicles and cabling.

“Great special effects,” he complimented.

“It was the best I could do,” ZORAC said. “I’ve got some of them shut up here and there around the place, but they’re starting to sort themselves out. Some of PAC security came out on the other side, too.”

“What’s the general situation?”

“A mess.”

“What about the others?”

“Garuth and Shilohin are still there in his office. I got Danchekker into an elevator across the hall while the lights were out. Nixie took off and lost herself somewhere.”

“And the rest?”

“Cullen and his guys are in the middle of a fight down in security. Duncan and Sandy have been grabbed by police in the UNSA labs. Gina got away from her quarters before they arrived. She wants to talk to you.”

“Put her through.”

“And so does Langerif. He’s demanding that you give yourself up, otherwise he’ll shoot Garuth.”

Hunt drew a long breath. There were some things that the Jevlenese might be able to explain away when this got back to JPC, he thought; but not murdering the planetary governor. Even Langerif had to be smart enough to know that.

“He’s bluffing,” Hunt said.

“You think so?”

“Yes. Tell him you’re not getting a response. My headset must have been knocked off in the dark, right?”

“I hope you’re right,” ZORAC replied, in a masterfully contrived you’re-supposed-to-understand-these-people tone of voice. “Here’s Gina.”

“Vic? ZORAC’s told me the score. It’s no use heading this way. They’re everywhere. Right now I’m in an empty suite that ZORAC found.”

Hunt thought quickly. There would be no point in trying to get to any of the Thurien couplers into VISAR, since those would have been the first places to be secured. And the next thing the Jevlenese would do after getting the complex’s backup systems running would be to cut ZORAC’s connection into PAC. He should get to Gina first, while ZORAC was still available to help.

“ZORAC, can you get us together somewhere?” he said.

“You can’t get back out through Garuth’s office. Head through the compartment at the rear. There should be a way down. It looks as if you were right about Langerif, by the way.”

Behind a partition at the back of the equipment room, some runs of cabling and ducting went down a well to the level below, where a maintenance hatch gave access to an engineers’ inspection gallery. From there, Hunt came out through a machinery compartment into a tool room, and thence into a stairway that seemed clear for the moment. One level down, he entered a passage that led to an elevator, which ZORAC already had waiting to take him down to a level where several large dining rooms were situated. A lot of Jevlenese office workers were milling around, while frantic police officers tried to tell the managers what was happening. In the general confusion, Hunt managed to slip through into the warren of kitchens and passages at the rear, where ZORAC had also directed Gina. Hunt found her in a space behind a water-heating system and a pumping compartment. She seemed shaken but in good shape.

“What do we do now?” she asked.

“ZORAC, what are the options? Can we get out?”

“That’s probably the best bet. Look, there are Jevlenese engineers in the control section right now, switching in the backup communications and monitoring systems. I could be cut off at any moment. I’ll give you directions, now, to a way out through the basement that I’ll unlock. It leads into the city’s freight-moving system. First, you need to go down through the back stairs from the passage outside where you are, to a garbage-compacting plant…

They lost ZORAC shortly after, but found their way down through the route that it had described. The exit was unlocked, and they entered a system of tunnels and shafts, much of it collapsing from disrepair, which brought them into the automated sublevels of Shiban. When they had gone what they judged to be a safe distance from PAC, they began ascending via catwalks and stairways to reemerge into habitation. A short distance farther on, Hunt recognized the street outside the hotel that Nixie had taken him to. “Okay, I think I know where we are,” he told Gina.

“That’s great. But where do we want to be?”

The Shapieron was the obvious place-assuming ZORAC or whoever was in charge aboard the ship didn’t decide to take it up from the surface for some reason. But with the police possibly on the alert for them, Hunt put their chances of getting to Geerbaine as slim. And even if they did, access to the pad where the Shapieron stood would surely be impossible.

“Well, there’s only one American I know in town,” Hunt said.

“What we do when we get there, I’m not sure. But keep your voice down on the streets. There’s probably an order out to watch for Terrans.”