Entoverse

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

The carousel whirled merrily beneath bright lights in the village square, carrying its train of enraptured priests, dignitaries, and soldiers, including Agamemnon, who was planted astride a white horse with a red bridle. Elsewhere, crowds of villagers gaped in awe at a Newcomen pump and steam engine, complete with ten-foot-diameter toothed flywheel, an arrangement of revolving cages within revolving cages within a revolving cage, which spun multiple-core submarine cables, and a Budweiser beer-bottling machine. Shingen-Hu, the new deputy lord of Creation, cleansed and groomed courtesy of VISAR, and wearing fresh clothes, stood with Eesyan, arms folded on his chest, absorbing the wonders of the new Power and adjusting himself to the feeling of being its chosen agent. Thrax and the rest of the ex-heretics stood in a group to one side, listening reverently while the emissaries of the True Gods revealed the Word that they had been sent to deliver.

“Until we’ve sorted out what to do about it at the other end, we don’t want anyone else rising up out of here on the currents,” Hunt told the Examiner. The sphere that VISAR had created to represent the Entoverse symbolically, like a crystal ball, illustrated the point. It had a miniature representation of the local world inside, and around the outside, a lot of tiny red figures attached by threads coming out of their heads. “There are other beings out there, like you. And every time somebody from here arises, one of them is wiped out.” Inside the crystal ball, a mini-Ent soared upward to the surface, vanished into one of the threads, and a moment later appeared at the other end, on the outside. The red figure that had been attached there fell over and turned black.

“An angel must be sacrificed to make room for each who arises to Hyperia?” the Examiner asked, looking troubled.

“If you want to put it that way, yes,” Hunt said.

“In addition, there appear to be certain compatibility problems between Warothian mental configurations and human nervous systems, which frequently result in breakdown and make the transference a risky affair,” Danchekker informed the Examiner. The Examiner nodded respectfully, not having mastered the intricacies of this new ecclesiastical language yet.

“Angels newly emerged into Hyperia are often troubled,” Nixie supplied. A step behind the Examiner, the village headman followed it all humbly.

“Then what of the Great Awakening that has been foretold?” the Examiner asked. “If what thou sayest is true, then many angels shall fall, and great will be the woe among our multitudes due to join the Arisen.”

“What Great Awakening is this?” Gina asked.

The Examiner seemed surprised. “The goddess knows not?”

“She means, what was the version that was given to you?” Hunt explained.

“Ethendor, who was the instrument of the fallen gods, prophesied a Great Awakening, when the stars shall shine again and currents return more numerous than ever before, and the people shall arise into Hyperia in their multitudes,” the Examiner recited.

“The invasion,” Hunt said, looking at the others. “It looks as if we were right. Eubeleus was all set to bring them out in hordes.”

“When is this supposed to happen?” Danchekker asked; then he added hastily, “According to what you were told.”

“When the sun itself shines strong once more, and daylight returns to the lands of Waroth,” the Examiner replied. “Thus was it spoken.”

Hunt looked at Nixie, his face serious. “Who is this Ethendor?”

“The high priest in Orenash, the main city in this part. Apparently he ordered the crackdown on Shingen-Hu and the rest that these guys were carrying out.”

“Where is this place?”

“How far are we from Orenash?” Nixie asked the village headman.

“Half a day’s ride by drodhz sled.” The headman obviously thought that gods should have known; but he wasn’t about to make an issue out of it.

“Then that’s where it’ll all happen,” Hunt said. “We can leave the carnival here and be on our way. There mightn’t be a lot of time.” The Examiner was growing puzzled as he listened. “Thou must journey to Orenash? Then the dark masters whom Ethendor serves are not yet truly fallen?”

Hunt shook his head. “Not yet, I’m afraid. We’ve still got some work to do. But at least this has given us a better idea of how to go about it.” He looked at Danchekker and Gina. “I think the best thing would be-”

At that moment, the village headman suddenly pointed skyward. “The stars! See, the stars are returning!”

Everyone looked up. “VISAR, cut the lights,” Hunt said after a moment. The lamps on the posts that had appeared around the village square went out. Several bright stars were shining in the twilit sky. “Were those there when we arrived?” Hunt asked Nixie.

“I’m not sure. I didn’t notice,” she confessed.

“Eesyan, did you…“ Hunt’s voice trailed away as the Wurlitzer music in the background ceased suddenly. He turned and looked across the square. The carousel had stopped, pitching the startled passengers on its revolving menagerie forward onto the necks of their mounts and, in some instances, off onto the floor. The steam engine, cable spinner, and bottling machine were all frozen in silent immobility. Already, people in the crowd were muttering discontentedly and giving each other puzzled looks. “What’s going on?” Hunt demanded, jerking his head back around bemusedly.

“They were just props,” Eesyan said, but in a puzzled, faraway voice, as if still trying to work it out himself. “There was no internal motive source. VISAR was causing them to operate, externally.”

“VISAR, what is the meaning of this?” Danchekker demanded. Hunt waited, then looked at Danchekker uneasily. “VISAR?” he repeated. There was no response.

Gina shook her head in sudden alarm as the implication hit her. “We’ve lost the connection?” she said, turning her head toward Eesyan. “You mean we don’t have VISAR to back us up anymore?”

“Worse than that,” the Thurien told them somberly. “We don’t have a way back.”

Mystified, Keshen, the Jevlenese engineer in the pay of the Ichena, frowned at the monitor displays and stabbed repeatedly at the panel controls in the communications room at the rear of the Gondola. “What is this? The connection’s gone.”

Scirio heard the commotion from the room outside, where he was sitting at a table, snatching a drink with Murray and several khena. Frowning, he got up and walked over. “What is it?” he asked through the doorway.

“The beam from Thurien has gone down. We’ve lost the connection to JEVEX, too.” Keshen sat back and tossed up his hands. “That’s it. Zilch.”

“There’s nothing you can do?”

“What can I do? Somebody’s cut the links. They’re dead.”

In the room behind, the others were on their feet. Scirio bit his lip, thinking furiously. He hadn’t expected repercussions so quickly. Maybe Grevetz had had connections that even he hadn’t known about. And they would need to be high-level connections for this to have happened. He had backed what had sounded like the winning side; now it was all a mess. Did the freaks from inside JEVEX that these Terrans had talked about own the whole city already?

Fendro, the club manager, who had been out in the reception office, burst into the far side of the club’s main lounge through the door from the front passage.

“Boss! Boss! Where’s Scirio?”

Scirio went back out to the lounge. “What?”

Fendro pointed excitedly back toward the front entrance. “Cops! There’s cops outside like walking artillery. No messing. I mean, they’re coming in!” A series of solid concussions sounded from the front of the club to emphasize the point.

Another of the staff appeared from the back. “They’ve got the yard covered. Ain’t no way out that way.”

“Shit,” Scirio muttered. What had he stirred up now? “Okay, look, take a couple of guys, get back up front, and try to stall them there. Speedball, Beans, dig in here to cover Fendy when they pull back. We’ll go on up the tower to move out the hearse. Split as soon as you get three beeps on the box. Blow this place to hold ‘em if you have to.”

Murray waved along the corridor in the direction of the booths. “What about the guys dreaming in there?”

“You brought ‘em here. They’re your problem. If you want ‘em out of here, get ‘em up the tower. We’re getting out.”

On Thurien, in the Government Center in the principal city of Thurios, Calazar turned a bewildered face toward the others who had been following events in the village with him. In reality they were still coupled into VISAR at different locations, including Caldwell in Washington, and Leyel Torres aboard the Shapieron at Geerbaine, and not together in the same room as they perceived.

“VISAR, what’s happening?” he demanded.

“The channel through the i-space link from Jevlen has been cut. I don’t have access to there, or to JEVEX.”

“You mean you’ve lost them? Aren’t they still there?” Caldwell had not completely followed the technical dialogue between the Thuriens and VISAR about autonomous personality transfers and temporary state suspension.

“They’re all still there and functioning in the Entoverse,” VISAR replied. “But I can’t communicate with it to talk to them or manipulate events anymore.”

Caldwell looked confused. “But those were just… ‘copies,’ or whatever, weren’t they? The original people are still in the couplers, right?”

“Yes,” VISAR said. “But the capacity of the one channel wasn’t sufficient for me to continually update the original personae-inside the bodies that are in the couplers-in real time. So they were left in a suspended state. The transformed versions that I wrote into the Ent surrogates are the only ones functioning as coherent, conscious identities. In effect, they’re there: inside the matrix on Uttan.”

Caldwell was still uncertain. “But the bodies in the couplers still contain the original personalities, surely. Won’t they reanimate independently?”

“They’ll reanimate, yes,” VISAR said. “But without any knowledge of what happened to the surrogates in the Entoverse.”

“Then we’re okay-” Caldwell caught the looks on the Thuriens’ faces. “No? Why not?”

“I don’t think you quite see our point, Gregg,” Calazar said. “As far as we’re concerned, ever since the transfers down into the Entoverse were made, the beings that VISAR created there are real, bona fide identities in their own right, as much as any other Ent. Whether or not they originated as psychical clones of other beings existing out here in the Exoverse is beside the point. They’re stuck there, and we can’t get them out.”

“Okay, go knock ‘em dead,” VISAR’s voice said. “You’re on.”

Hunt tensed with involuntary apprehension… And then the distant, dreamy feeling brought on when the mind was being flooded by sensations fed in from the machine left him suddenly. He opened his eyes, puzzled. “VISAR?” The booth was silent. He sat up in the recliner. The image of the three terrified figures chained to the stakes, the executioners advancing toward them with knives, and the ragged prophet shouting from below was still vivid in his mind. What had gone wrong?

The door opened and Murray appeared, gesturing frantically. Distant bangs reverberated through the building, like explosions, along with the sounds of running footsteps and more voices. “Move it! Everyone’s getting out. We’ve got cops coming in shooting.”

“What the hell’s it about?” Hunt gasped, jumping up.

“Who knows?”

“VISAR?” Hunt called one last time, just to be sure. Nothing.

“Forget it,” Murray threw back over his shoulder as he disappeared again. “You got cut off.”

Hunt came out into the corridor. Nixie was there already, with Gina emerging from another booth and Murray hauling Danchekker from the door adjacent. Dreadnought and several other Ichena ran past, holding weapons. Keshen, the engineer, was hurrying through from the club with Scirio behind him, shouting orders.

“What’s going on?” Gina asked. “Those three guys? What-”

“No time now,” Murray interrupted. “We’ve got a war on here. Everyone back up the tower. We’re getting out in the hearse.”

As Nixie and Gina hurried away after Keshen, Danchekker glanced at his watch. A strange expression came over his face. He caught Hunt’s sleeve just as Hunt was about to follow the others. “I’m not altogether certain that there’s any point in worrying about those three unfortunates now,” he said. “The episode to which I think you’re referring would appear to be history.”

“What are you talking about?” Hunt asked.

Danchekker tapped his watch. “We coupled into VISAR at approximately 1420 hours, did we not?”

“That’s right,” Murray confirmed, catching the gist as he strove to move them along after the others. “Is that a problem?”

“How long were we in those booths?” Hunt asked.

“An hour, hour and a half. Why? What’s all the mystery? Let’s move our asses outta here while we’ve still got ‘em.”