“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.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Slowly, it came to the Examiner, as he gazed up at the heavens, what the signs meant. Anger rose within him as he realized how he had been deceived. It was Ethendor who had prophesied that the stars would return to the skies. And no sooner had the stars begun returning than the powers of these strangers who claimed to be emissaries of yet higher gods deserted them.
So the tricks and toys could not have been the works of higher gods at all. It had been an attempt by the lesser gods to deceive the people of Waroth into abandoning the Great Awakening that was their rightful destiny. For the legions of the faithful would destroy the followers of the false gods who were tarnishing Hyperia, and the false gods were afraid. It was all clear to him now. The events that had taken place here in the village of Rakashym had been permitted as a final test of the Examiner’s faith before the Great Awakening. He would not fail.
He turned his eyes back toward the puppets that the false gods had thrown in his path to deflect him from his course. They looked clumsy and foolish now, exposed in their ineptness-”gods” who hadn’t heard of the Great Awakening or of Ethendor, and who didn’t know where Orenash was. Across the square the priests and soldiers, freed from the spell that had bewitched them, were coming back, while the villagers closed in behind them, surly and resentful.
“The power that we use flows into here through channels that-” the first to have arrived began in what sounded like the beginnings of a plea.
“Silence!” The Examiner cut him off with a contemptuous wave. “Thou stands exposed in thy perfidy and helplessness.”
The female who had appeared with him made an imploring gesture. “Look, you have to believe what these people say. I know. I am one of you, from Waroth. I emerged and have come back by the powers they control.
The Examiner turned his back. “These are deceivers who stand exposed before us,” he called to the crowd. “Indeed did Ethendor speak truly.”
The crowd responded:
“Deceivers!”
“Servants of evil!”
“Rakashym must be purged of its taint.”
“Take them! Take them!”
The Examiner spoke to Agamenmon, who had appeared at the front of the soldiers and was waiting for orders. “Seize them and bind them. Rebuild the pyres-one for each of the false prophets who were captured, except those two.” He pointed at Shingen-Hu and Thrax. “Rakashym shall have its fill of burnings.” He indicated the two that he had singled out, and the five impostors sent by the lesser gods. “They shall return with us to Orenash, for the special festivities that Ethendor has prepared. It should be very entertaining.”