“You could be right,” Calazar replied reluctantly. “Human problems may need human solutions. Perhaps there’s no other way.”

VISAR spoke at that moment. “Priority request from PAC on Jevlen. Garuth is asking if you are free.”

“Oh dear. Now I expect we’re in for a personal protest,” Calazar muttered. He raised his voice a fraction. “Very well, VISAR. Bring him here.”

Since Calazar and Frenua Showm were actually coupled into VISAR and communicating from separate locations, Garuth was able to join them immediately. His figure promptly materialized, standing in the room.

“Welcome again,” Calazar greeted.

“How is the day here?” Garuth asked, as was customary.

“Good.”

“Frenua,” Garuth acknowledged, turning to Showm. She returned a slight bow of her head.

“And what brings you?” Calazar inquired, bracing himself.

“Eubeleus, the Axis of Light’s leader, has contacted me. He’s concerned about the way things are going and fears that we could see serious violence if something isn’t done quickly. He has a proposal for reducing the tension that I think you should hear. At least it’s different from anything else that we’ve been hearing.”

Calazar sent Frenua Showm a glance of relief that this was evidently not going to be the ordeal that he had feared. “Is Eubeleus available on-line at the moment?” he asked Garuth.

“Yes. He’s waiting in one of the couplers at PAC,” Garuth replied.

“Then let’s bring him here and see what he has to say,” Calazar invited.

Ganymeans were by nature rational. Ganymean scientists were very rational. Shilohin found it hard to accept that even the true believers could honestly have been taken in to the point of attributing Ayultha’s fiery end to supernatural causes. Surely, she insisted, if they could be shown that the same effect was achievable by commonplace methods that were well understood, they would have to see that a more complicated explanation was neither necessary nor justified- and in the process they might learn something valuable Accordingly, she decided to stage a demonstration. While she and some of the Ganymean technicians were setting things up, Hunt stopped by Del Cullen’s office to review matters. It was situated in a corner of the part of PAC that had been allocated for the security force that Cullen was building up.

“So who was the character who gave Ayultha the finger?” Hunt asked from the visitor’s chair by the door. “Did you manage to get any sense out of him?”

Cullen, sitting at the desk, shook his head. “A complete yo-yo. Thinks he’s a bird in the wrong body. Even the Jev police put him in a rubber room. Obviously he was just a stooge that somebody else set up for effect.”

It was what Hunt had half expected. “What do you make of it all?” he asked.

“Something’s going on,” Cullen replied. “If you want my opinion, I don’t think that bridge coming down was any accident, either.

The police report was sloppy on a lot of points. I think it was rigged.” The same thought had crossed Hunt’s mind. He stretched out a leg and rested his foot on one of the boxes piled around the floor. The office that Cullen had reserved for himself was unpretentious, and just at the moment, half of it was taken up with undivulged items from Earth that had arrived on the Vishnu, and which he had not yet gotten around to unpacking. “What makes you say so?”

“In a lot of ways, life on Jevlen got to be very live-and-let-live under the Thuriens,” Cullen said.

“Which is what you’d expect,” Hunt agreed.

“The laws don’t contain many thou-shalt-nots. So not much is illegal here, and a lot of what we’d think of as the criminal underworld back home is just part of the scene. If you want to get burned on stuff that’s not good for your gray cells, or lose your ass on gaming tables that anyone with a positive IQ knows are as straight as knotted corkscrews, that’s up to you. The Thuriens don’t presume any right to forbid people from being stupid.”

Hunt couldn’t really fault that. “I wouldn’t argue too much with that, either, to tell you the truth, Del. It usually has the effect of sharpening people’s wits a lot faster than most things. But it doesn’t seem to have worked that way here.”

Cullen shrugged. “Anyhow, I think our friend Obayin got too zealous. He was starting to stomp on people’s toes, and somebody somewhere had a corn… and what’s more, I suspect that it had something to do with JEVEX.”

“Go on,” Hunt said, looking more interested.

“You know that JEVEX isn’t totally shut down? There’s a core system still running for housekeeping, and to let the Thurien hackers do some poking around in the system.”

“Yes.”

“Well, the Jevs are a pretty close society, and it’s not easy to get a direct line on what goes on. But Obayin decided to play ball with the new administration. He put together a report for Garuth that we think blew the whistle on a market that nobody’s talking about out there for hooking people in.” Cullen made a palm-upward gesture in the air. “With JEVEX officially off the air, there could be a big demand. That spells money for whoever controls the plugs. But if the Ganymeans think that JEVEX is causing the crazies, a report like that could be enough to make them crack down and ruin the business. Get the scene?”

“It certainly sounds familiar enough,” Hunt agreed. He rubbed his chin, frowning. “You said you think that this report of Obayin’s blew the whistle. Don’t you know? I mean, what does it say?”

“It disappeared before anyone got a chance to go through it.” Cullen shrugged and made a resigned gesture. “The Ganymeans don’t exactly go overboard on what you’d call being security-conscious. That was one of the reasons why I was moved in here.”

Hunt nodded understandingly. “I can see the problem. And PAC’s full of Jevlenese. You could never be sure of every one of the them, however careful your screening.”

“That’s true,” Cullen said. “And that’s the direction that anyone’s suspicions would naturally turn in. However, although we can’t prove it conclusively, we’re pretty sure that the person who lifted that report was a Terran.”

Hunt looked up in surprise. “Who?”

“A German called Hans Baumer. He’s one of the sociologists that the UN sent here after the Pseudowar to advise the Ganymeans on setting up their administration. He was up in the Ganymean offices one day on what I think was a pretext, and afterward the report was missing.”

“Did you talk to him about it?”

Cullen shook his head. “What would the point have been? He’d just deny it, and I couldn’t prove anything. All it would do is tip him off.”

“And there weren’t any copies?”

“Obayin must have had some, sure, but the police department says they can’t locate any.”

“Not even an original in a computer somewhere?”

“They say not.” Cullen showed a hand briefly. “The Jevs lost a war. We’re the enemy. They’re all in it together. Ganymeans don’t understand. They can’t think that way. That’s why the Jevs have been running rings around them for years.” He snorted. “And still I’ve got some working in security.”

Hunt stretched back in the chair and put a hand behind his neck while he thought about it. “So what does it mean?” he asked at last. “If what you’re saying is true, then this character Baumer has developed some kind of connection with the criminal fraternity here-assuming they’re the ones who’d most want Obayin out of the picture. But how would he have got that well in with them so quickly? He can’t have been here more than, what, six months at the most?”

Cullen shook his head. “Vic, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you something else. Ayultha getting blown away like that on the same day wasn’t a coincidence. Something’s going on, and it involves a connection of some sort between the underworld and the cults. And right at this moment, that’s about all I know.”