Then Scirio came back out accompanied by a man in a dark jacket, whom Hunt took to be the manager. Scino spoke rapidly to Murray, indicating Hunt and Cullen with a nod and gesturing at the door that he had just come out of.
“Step inside,” Murray interpreted.
Hunt and Cullen followed the manager back through, while Murray and Scirio waited just inside the door. It was a small office, with another man sitting in an easy chair in a corner, and several screens above a console by one wall. The manager sat down at the console and brought a picture up on one of the screens. It showed people sitting at tables and in seats set in alcoves, others at a bar, mostly alone, but several in pairs and one small group talking. The lighting was evidently quite low, for Hunt could tell from the quality that the image was being enhanced.
“See if you can spot him anywhere there,” Murray said.
Hunt studied the picture carefully, then shook his head. The manager operated a control on the console to single out each of the men present in turn for a close-up view. Then he shifted the view to bring different people into the field and repeated the process. Baumer wasn’t there.
The manager said something in Jevlenese, and Scirio answered. “They’re going to try the booths,” Murray supplied.
Another screen activated to show the figure of a woman reposing in a Thurien-style neurocoupling recliner situated in a small booth. The manager flipped to the next, which showed a man with a white beard. “No,” Hunt said. The next two tries were men again, negative, then another woman. Hunt ceased responding after the first half dozen or so, allowing the manager to simply step on through the list at his own pace, dwelling for a second or two when the subject was a man, and passing straight on to the next in the case of a woman.
They must have been somewhere up in the twenties when Hunt suddenly craned forward, beckoned Cullen closer with a finger, and exclaimed, “That’s him!”
The manager zoomed to a close-up of the face, but there was already no doubt about it. The figure in the coupler was Hans Baumer.
“How do we get him out?” Cullen asked. The manager was already saying something to Scirio.
“They’ll go get him, and we leave, okay?” Murray said. “We forget where we got him from.” Hunt nodded. Illicit couplers into JEVEX weren’t his concern. The manager called toward a room at the back, from which another man emerged, wearing a dark suit. The man in the easy chair got up, and the three of them went out into the foyer, their footsteps heading in the direction of the double doors at the rear. A moment later they appeared on the first screen, crossing the room containing the people and the bar.
In one of the booths off the corridors beyond, Baumer’s eyes opened suddenly. But the person looking out through those eyes was no longer completely Hans Baumer.
The cell! Keyalo was inside the cell that he had glimpsed in the current. He sat up. A tomb! Sudden panic tore through him. Ethendor had lied. Keyalo had been consigned to a tomb. A living corpse interred to placate the underworld god. He looked about fearfully. Strange shapes, magical objects… Movement felt wrong, as if space itself had changed. An appendage of his body passed before him. Soft, squelchy, misshapen. He had been imprisoned in the corpse of a monster.
He had a voice, harsh and grating, and screamed out loud in dismay and terror as the full magnitude of the deception engulfed him. The altar on which he lay was soft and yielding. He leapt up and staggered against the wall as the sensations of unfamiliar movement and balance escaped his control. He staggered back, tearing at the altar with his puny claws, but without effect. He raged around the walls, beating them and screaming. Then a panel opened and black-clad demons appeared. Keyalo backed into a corner. The demons jabbered at him in a strange tongue. He raised a hand and directed a bolt toward them with all his power… but with no effect. His power had been taken. He screamed, howled, and raged as he realized how he had been cheated. The demons assailed him.
In the office Hunt and Cullen were on their feet, watching it all on the screen. “What the hell’s happening?” Hunt demanded. Murray showed his hands helplessly and shook his head.
Two more men came out of the back room and launched into a rapid exchange with Scirio, all of them sounding terse and excited. “Looks as if the kraut’s having some kinda fit in there,” Murray said.
“Then let’s get him out,” Cullen snapped, turning toward the door.
Scirio held up a hand and said something in a sharp voice. “Not this way,” Murray told them. “There’s a back door. They don’t want him upsetting the whole house.”
Hunt and Cullen went with the others out through the foyer and the doors at the rear into the bar area that had appeared on the screen. They crossed at a smart pace, attracting curious looks, and went through another door into one of several corridors lined by doors on both sides. As they rounded a corner they met the manager and the two who had gone with him manhandling Baumer the other way, struggling, kicking, and emitting muffled screams behind the hand clamped across his mouth.
“Christ,” Hunt breathed, shaking his head in bewilderment. “It looks as if he’s flipped. What do we do now?”
“That machine must have scrambled his head,” Cullen said, staring numbly.
Hunt stepped forward and peered into Baumer’s face as he was brought to a halt. It was wild and flushed, the eyes bulging maniacally.
“Gina?” Hunt shouted desperately. “Can you understand me? It’s important. Do-you-know-where-Gina-is?”
How, Keyalo didn’t know, but this demon’s speech was intelligible to him-although the name the demon had uttered meant nothing. He jerked his head back and tore his mouth away from the paw gagging him. “Unhand me, demons of the underworld who dwell in these tunnels of darkness! I shall not be enslaved by thy falsehoods, but swear allegiance to the true god of the spiral whom I renounced. For this is his punishment visited upon me! Oh woe! Now do I see the errors of-” A straight right to the jaw from Dreadnought put him out, and he fell limp in the arms supporting him. Scirio blasted a stream of invective at Murray.
“Get him out of here,” Murray interpreted, although it was hardly necessary. “Compliments to the Ganymeans. If they stick around, he hopes they’ll remember their friends.”
Hunt and Cullen each took one of Baumer’s arms and bore him along a side passage to where one of the staff was already unbolting a door. They came out into a rear yard, and two of the staff took them to the nearest street, where a cab called from the office picked them up a few minutes later.
“Now what?” Hunt asked, when he had collected his wits together again.
“Shit, I don’t know. Another one for the rubber room, I guess,” Cullen replied.
“I’ll tell you something else,” Murray said. He motioned with a thumb in the direction they had come from. “This wasn’t the first time it’s happened. Those guys back there have seen it before. Maybe that’s another reason they don’t like publicity.”
They dropped Murray off, then continued on to PAC with their still unconscious charge. But when they finally arrived back at the UNSA labs, they found that the whole episode had been unnecessary. Gina had walked back in while they were gone, still in one piece and looking as well as ever.