“What you call magic,” Nixie supplied. “The bolts of energy that some adepts could project at will. The ability of some to levitate themselves and other objects up off the ground.”
Danchekker raised a finger to hold the room’s attention for a moment longer. “The strongest currents, however, flowed high above the surface as celestial phenomena. Through their ability to influence objects and events remotely as we have already seen, some of the Ents discovered how to draw these currents lower until they could intercept the flow directly. With this power available to be transformed into force, they could actually be carried away, up to the exit zones-and that, of course, is how they came to find themselves in the neural systems that the couplers were linked to, looking out at a new state of existence which none had seen other than as a vision, and many had never seen at all.”
Shilohin glanced at the others to assess their reactions. “The information pattern that constituted the Ent personality was somehow impressed upon the datastream and transferred with it to express itself in the brain patterns of the Exoverse host.”
Danchekker remained still for a few seconds. Then he let go of his pose and stalked slowly across the room until he was standing in front of the display panel near Nixie. “Exactly how is something I’m not entirely clear about,” he admitted.
Neither was Hunt. “Are Calazar and his people going to buy it?” he asked, looking around. “According to VISAR, the pictures that Nixie remembers are really constructs built from the elements activated in her human neural system. That’s why she remembers herself as having human form. Doesn’t that give us an indication of just how ‘alien’ the intelligence-carrying complexes that evolved in the Entoverse were? How could a mind with origins like that have found anything sufficiently compatible in a human head to give it a basis for functioning at all?”
Danchekker turned away from the blank screens. “Oh, I agree, it’s remarkable. Quite astonishing, in fact, if you want my candid opinion. But are we not driven to the conclusion that it happened? Exactly how it happened is a question we can only defer until we are better equipped with the information necessary to have a hope of answering it. Perhaps we simply don’t know enough about minds.” He tossed out a hand. “Which gives us an even stronger reason for wanting Uttan investigated.”
“I take it this process was irreversible?” Garuth asked.
“Oh, quite,” Danchekker replied, nodding. “The configuration defining the Ent-being was lost when it entered the output zone. Lost from that universe, literally.”
“Like a black-hole transfer,” Hunt remarked. “The information content was extracted and reappeared elsewhere.”
“Nothing physical was actually extracted then?” Not a scientist, Garuth was still having to grapple with a lot of this new idea. “What happened to the Ent-bodies?”
Shulohin looked at him, pausing for a moment before answering. “I don’t think you completely have the point, Garuth,” she said. “There was nothing physical. They were only information constructs to begin with. Their whole world was. The fact that they perceived it as having material form was purely an evolutionary artifact of their universe.”
“Ah, yes… now I see.” Garuth sat back to absorb the implication fully. Then he frowned. “Yet, didn’t you say they had a way of going back? Nixie told us about ‘spirits’ who returned to inspire and recruit disciples, and taught them how to arise in turn.”
“There was another way,” Danchekker supplied. “The Jevlenese neural couplers, which the ayatollahs could use, just like anyone else. They found that via the couplers-”
Just then, ZORAC interrupted, saying it had an urgent message.
“What is it, ZORAC?” Garuth inquired.
“Langerif, the deputy chief of police, is outside the door now. He states that he is taking control of PAC in the name of Jevlenese independence and self-determination. He requests that you instruct your administration staff to transfer all powers and authority accordingly, effective as of now.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Garuth rose to his feet bemusedly as Langerif strode haughtily into the room, followed by several of his officers. He was holding a written proclamation of some kind, which he set down on the desk. All of the group were wearing sidearm: standard Jevlenese police-issue beam pistols, which could fire a variable plasma charge that could be set anywhere from a mildly uncomfortable shock to lethality.
Hunt groaned to himself as he realized how completely they had failed to see the obvious: the police and their training class; all the other Jevlenese who had been appearing at PAC over the past few days. But neither he nor anyone else had made the vital connection.
They had dismissed the Obayin assassination-assuming it had been-as purely a move by the Ichena to protect their headworld business. Of course Eubeleus would need somebody to secure the Jevlen end of things while he took over Uttan. Even Cullen had missed it. Everyone had been too engrossed with the Entoverse to give anything else a thought.
“You will have been notified by now that the Ganymean occupation of Jevlen is to cease anyway,” Langerif said to Garuth. Evidently there was a leak in the system somewhere. “But to forestall the prospect of one occupying force merely being replaced by another, we, the Jevlenese people, are taking charge of our own future, now. There is our declaration. You will please instruct all personnel under your authority, Ganymean, Thurien, Terran, and Jevlenese, to comply. It is not a matter for compromise or negotiation.”
“No… that isn’t correct,” Garuth protested. “A motion was merely proposed at JPC. There has been no decision. You-”
Langerif silenced him with a wave. “A mere formality. The spirit of the Council’s intent is quite clear: to minimize risk to persons and property, and to preserve order. The situation here is plainly about to get out of hand. To delay firm action until official orders are issued would be irresponsible. It is therefore our decision to preempt the emergency before it escalates.”
“Don’t buy it,” Hunt murmured. “He’s not the JPC. Neither are the people who wound up his spring. It’s a power grab.”
“This doesn’t concern you. Confine yourself to your own affairs,” Langerif snapped.
His line had been calculated to sway Ganymeans by appealing to reason and noble motives; the token show of force was deliberate, to throw them off balance. And had this been Thuriens as the Jevlenese were used to dealing with, it might have worked. But Garuth was from an earlier epoch of Ganymeans-and he had spent enough time on Earth to absorb a little of human psychology.
“No!” he retorted, straightening up fully. “The terms of my office are quite definite, and there is no emergency about to break out. Who do you think you’re fooling with this charade? We know that you are in league with the Axis. And JPC will very soon know, too. Now get out of my office.”
Langerif whitened and moved his hand pointedly to the butt of his weapon.
“What do you think you’re going to do?” Shilohin asked him derisively, backing Garuth’s stand. “Your troops aren’t here yet. There’s a room full of PAC security officers just down the hall.”
Garuth stretched out a hand toward a call button on a panel by his desk. But as he did so, Langerif turned and called toward the doorway, and a squad of armed police entered with their weapons at ready, led by another officer.
“Pig!” Nixie hissed. Langerif ignored her and waved his men into position to cover the room.
“I regret to inform you that your security department is not all as loyal as you believed,” Langerif sneered. “I gave you an opportunity to cooperate reasonably, but you force me to be drastic. Very well.’ He motioned sharply to the others in the room. “The rest of you, on your feet. You will go with the officer, now. Trouble will only make things worse.”