CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Ayultha, the leader of the Jevlenese cult that called itself the Spiral of Awakening and used the device of a purple spiral as its emblem, had come to Shiban. It was the same Ayultha who had led the demonstration in the city of Barusi on the southern continent, which had led to Garuth’s calling Hunt.

The SoA had been founded over two hundred years previously by a woman called Sykha, a hitherto unheard-of office clerk who had undergone an abrupt personality change. The sect’s basic creed was an involved doctrine of reincarnation, which held that the individual developed through a series of “phases” of existence on successively higher planes, each one representing a step farther along a transition that progressed away from the purely material and mechanistic, and toward the spiritual and willful. The series of lives experienced in this universe, or plane, therefore added up to merely the preparation that was necessary to proceed to the next phase. Everybody had thus lived in other, lower phases in other forms before emerging into the realm of existence as presently perceived, and after a number of cycles at the human level, which could vary and depended on how diligently the SoA’s teachings were attended to and practiced, they would go on to enter higher ones. The early theoreticians of the movement had given it all a scientific-sounding basis by tying it in to the transitions of physical particles between i-space and normal space as described by the physics of the Thuriens.

The initial appearance of Ayultha to the faithful at the start of his tour of the Shiban area would also be the first event to be held in the arena of a just-completed sports complex, west of the city, next to the three-level highway connecting the center to the spaceport at Geerbaine. The complex had been built at their own initiative by a combination of public and private Jevlenese agencies since the Ganymean takeover of the planet’s administration. Thus, it had come to symbolize the policy of self-help that the Ganymeans were trying to encourage.

To insure adequate public recognition of the Success of the venture, a formal opening ceremony had been scheduled to precede the commencement of the Spiral of Awakening rally. However, because of a sudden illness resulting from a toxic mold that was found unaccountably to have contaminated the cheese in a salad served for his lunch, Shiban’s chief of police would not be attending as planned. Instead, his place would be taken by his deputy, Obayin.

On the day before the opening, a gray limousine pulled off the high-level throughway and halted on an unfinished access ramp overlooking the approaches into the sports complex.

Scirio, who ran the syndicate’s operations on the west side and in Shiban center, motioned with a hand to indicate a slender, two-lane, flying bridge curving away from the midlevel trafficway below and connecting into a delivery area on one side of the two main buildings at the front of the complex, between the arena and the dome housing the gymnasium.

“It works like this,” he said to Grevetz, the regional boss, who was sitting next to him in the rear compartment. “Ten minutes before he gets here, a truck breaks down on the main ramp up to the front entrance.”

“They’re not gonna be letting any trucks up through there,” Grevetz declared. “Not when the big names are due to show up. It’ll be sealed off.”

“Special delivery of stuff they’ll need for the born-again concert that’s starting afterward,” Scirio said. “We’ve got a pass for the driver. And just to be sure, the captain who’ll be in charge of traffic duty tomorrow has been fixed to make sure it’s let through. He’s on the payroll.”

Grevetz nodded unsmilingly. “Okay. Then what?”

Scirio pointed. “The other front ramp up from ground isn’t finished yet. So he’ll be diverted up to the middle level and routed over that bridge. It’s the only other way in from this side right now.”

“Okay.”

Scirio shrugged. “The job was done in too much of a hurry. The Ganymeans were more interested in getting nice pictures in the papers instead of letting the contractor concentrate on getting the job right.” He indicated the center section of the bridge, which was of metal construction, supported by cantilevers projecting from pylons on one side. “Tonight some people are gonna make a few changes underneath there. The wrong kind of some sorta pins that they use got ordered, and only half of ’em were put in. So that whole section comes unstuck.” He waved a hand at the drop below, which went down past the ground-level trafficway and into the cutting where a ramp emerged from a cross-tunnel. “It’s over a hundred feet straight down onto concrete. Plus he’ll be going down in the middle of a hundred tons of junk. There won’t be enough left of him to fill his shoes. Everyone writes it off as just another screwup.”

Grevetz studied the layout in silence for a while. “How are you going to stop some other bozo from going across there first?” he asked at last. “The opening isn’t due until ten-thirty. Whoever does the job will have to be out by six at the latest. That’s four and a half hours.”

“The Ramp Closed sign will be lit from midnight on. A tech down a hole turns it off just before Obayin gets there. Plus there’ll be a construction barrier set up across the entry until he’s on his way.”

Grevetz nodded that he was satisfied.

Later that day he met with Eubeleus, the Deliverer, at a house in Shiban that the Axis of Light owned, and went over the plan with him. “It is going to be busy there tomorrow morning,” he warned. “More people could get hurt.”

“Most of whom will be purple,” Eubeleus replied. “So if a few of them are in the wrong place, Ayultha should be grateful to us. We’ll be giving him some martyrs.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

So much had been new and strange. It seemed impossible to the Vishnu’s Terran passengers as they passed through the ship’s docking bays to board the surface lander that only two days had passed since they had come aboard and seen their first views inside the Thurien starship. They had reentered normal space something like twenty Earth hours previously, five thousand million miles from Jevlen’s parent star, Athena, and were now riding in high orbit above the planet itself. Kalor and Merglis, the two Thurien officers who had met the UNSA group on their arrival, reappeared to see them off. Hunt and his group had taken up their invitation to visit the Vishnu’s command center after breakfast on the second day.

The craft that carried them down to the surface was a silent, flattened, gold ovoid, with an interior more like a hotel lounge area than a passenger cabin-nothing that the Thuriens did took much heed of conserving space. Alan, one the marketing executives from Disney World, sat across from Danchekker for the descent. “That VISAR system is something else,” he said, making conversation. “It’s incredible. We ought to think about getting something like that into

One of the schoolchildren from Florida, a girl of about twelve, with freckles and braces, was listening from a seat nearby. “It can make you think you’re as small as an ant and see everything from that size,” she told them.

“Yeah. It’s real neat,” the boy next to her opined.

“You see. The kids really go for it,” Alan declared.

“Hmnm.” Danchekker considered the suggestion. “Well, as long as you don’t try and make the world simply the way it is at our level, but merely scaled down in size,” he conceded. “I presume the intention would be to inform rather than mislead.”

“How do you mean?” Alan asked, frowning.

Danchekker took off his spectacles and examined them. “Simply by the fact of getting smaller, an object’s volume, and hence its weight, decreases much faster than its area,” he explained. “Hence its bulk becomes a negligible factor, and its surface properties rule the style of its existence-an elementary fact, but one which is apparently beyond the ability of our illustrious creators of popular movies to grasp.”