“I think we may have an answer to the question of what messed up the Jevlenese,” Gina said, coming straight to the point.

“We already have an answer,” Danchekker replied airily. “They’ve been stifled by millennia of well-intentioned overindulgence by the Thuriens, who made the mistake of thinking that humans are put together in the same way as themselves.”

“So you still don’t think it was JEVEX?”

Danchekker was in an expansive mood and not minded to give anyone a hard time. “Well, in a way I suppose you could say it was,” he conceded. “Although JEVEX was merely the instrument of the cause, not the cause itself, you understand. It provided all their needs, did all their thinking, took away their problems. But the Jevlenese, like any human, is a problem-solving animal. Take away his problems and he’ll promptly invent more; otherwise he’ll languish or resent you for denying him his nature. And that is precisely what we’re seeing the symptoms of. Time and patience are the only answers now, I’m afraid.”

“We don’t think so,” Sandy told him. “We think it could be something specifically to do with the way JEVEX operated.”

Danchekker extended his lanky frame over the back of the stool and looked mildly amused. “Oh, really? That’s most interesting. Do tell me why.”

“JEVEX is pretty much the same as VISAR, yes?” Gina began.

“Well, the Jevlenese system was programmed with different procedural rules and operating parameters.”

“I mean in terms of basic technology and capabilities.”

“Very well, yes.”

Gina pulled up another stool and slid onto it. Sandy remained standing by the bench. “Then let me ask you something, Professor,” Gina said. “How much have you used VISAR yourself?”

“Probably as much as anybody,” Danchekker replied. “I was one of the party that met the first Thurien craft to come to Earth, and nowadays I use it routinely in the course of my work.”

“Yes, but what do you use it for?” Gina persisted. “Describe the operations that it performs.”

Danchekker shrugged in a way that said he couldn’t see the point but would go along with it. “To access Thurien records and data; to confer with Thuriens, and also other Terrans who happen to be at locations connected into the system; and to ‘visit’ locations throughout the Thunen domain, for business reasons, social reasons, or out of pure curiosity. Does that answer you?”

“And never for anything beyond that?” Gina asked.

Danchekker started showing the first hint of irritation at being cross-examined. “Beyond that? What do you mean? What else is it supposed to do?”

Gina sat forward, raising a hand momentarily as if mentally rehearsing herself to get this right. “Professor… with all due respect, could I suggest that your impression has been restricted by a professional attitude that sees VISAR purely as a technological tool?” She added hastily, “And the same’s true of Vic. You’re both scientists, and you’ve never thought of it as being anything other than a piece of technical equipment. But it’s far more than that. It’s a self-adapting environment in its own right, which interacts directly with the mind. And like any interactive environment, it can shape, as well as be shaped.”

“Tailored realities, guided by what it dredges up from your subconscious,” Sandy said.

“VISAR doesn’t read minds,” Danchekker retorted. “That’s something which is excluded quite specifically by the Thurien operating protocols.”

“It can if you permit it,” Gina said.

Danchekker blinked, then stared at her. “I’d never thought to ask about that,” he admitted. Which made her point. There was no need for anyone to say so.

“And JEVEX worked by different rules,” Sandy reminded him. “Rules that didn’t embody Thurien notions of privacy and rights.”

“You’ve experienced this phenomenon, both of you?” Danchekker asked. They confirmed it. “Tell me about what you found,” he said.

They related what they had discovered and its effects, leaving out unnecessary personal details. Hunt had warned Gina that Danchekker could be cantankerous at times, and she had come prepared for a fight. But instead of scoffing, Danchekker listened closely to what they had to say. When they had finished, he got up from his stool and walked slowly over to the far side of the lab, where he stood looking thoughtfully at a chart of Jevlenese phylogeny.

After a while Sandy, reassured by his manner, said to his back, “It might not be just us who are finding an alienness in the Thurien mind that we’re having trouble relating to. Maybe having a common biological ancestry isn’t what matters.”

It was clear that she meant the Shapieron Ganymeans, who were from a culture estimated to have been only a hundred years or so ahead of twenty-first-century Earth’s. They, like Terrans, were from a culture in which people were where they thought they were, objects and places were what they seemed to be, time and space meant what common sense said they did, and i-space had never been heard of. The civilization of Thurien-even allowing for a long period of stagnation that had almost brought about its demise-had evolved far beyond either.

“Perhaps now we know why Garuth turned for help in the direction he did,” Gina said.

Danchekker turned to face them. “Most interesting,” he pronounced. “Have you talked to Vic about it?”

“Not yet. He’s gone out into the city. We came straight here,” Gina said.

“What’s he doing?”

“I’m not sure. Trying to get a lead on Baumer, I think.”

“ZORAC,” Danchekker called.

But just then, ZORAC announced an incoming call for Gina. The pale, bespectacled features of Hans Baumer appeared on one of the screens. The face broadened into a smile as Gina moved closer.

“Oh, you’re with company, I see. Is this an inconvenient time?”

Gina shook her head. “No, go ahead. It’s okay.”

“About our talk the other day. Look, I’m sorry if I was a bit terse. You caught me at a bad time. Those Jevlenese were being awkward, and things have been piling on top of each other lately. Of course, I’d be happy to show you a little more of Shiban. So, if you’re still interested, when would be a good time for us to get together?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The place was the same gaudy, impenitent clutter that it had been the first time Hunt was there. “Hi, Vic come back,” Nixie greeted, smiling as she let him in. She was wearing a blue metallic top showing red nipples through a pair of circles cut out for the purpose. “No girl in PAC? Get lonely? We fuck now?”

Murray killed the movie he had been watching and got up from one of the form-molding chairs. “Hell, I like the initiative, but ease off,” he told her. “He’s only here socializing.” He held out a hand to Hunt. “Wondered when you’d be back. How’s the acclimatization going?”

“Not bad.”

Nixie frowned. “What ‘socializing’ mean?” she asked.

Hunt moved into the room and studied the panel that included the screen Murray had been looking at. “Is that part of the city GP net?” he inquired.

“Among other things. Why?”

“Can you activate channel fifty-six on it?”

“That’s in a data service group. What would I need it for?”

“I just want to try something.”

Murray shrugged and said something at the panel in Jevlenese. He looked at Hunt. “What’s supposed to happen?” A Jevlenese translation of his words came from the room speaker.

Nixie stared in astonishment, then asked Murray something. “How the hell did it do that?” a faithfully intoned synthesis of her voice asked. “What’s that? Can you two understand this? Is that me speaking in English?”

“Well, I’ll be darned,” Murray said, staring at the panel. “You mean that’s been there all the time?”

“Amazing what can happen when you bring a scientist into your house, isn’t it?” Hunt said.