Before Gina could say anything in reply, a chime sounded from the panel.

“What is it, Lola?” Murray called.

“Nixie’s here,” the house computer announced. “She has a visitor.”

Hunt looked up in such surprise, trying to rise as he did so, that he spilled his drink. “Here? She made it? Christ, that’s bloody marvel-”

Then Nixie came in, looking pert, unflustered, and none the worse for wear. “Vic! Gina!” She rattled off something in Jevlenese, so used by that time to having ZORAC at hand that it was instinctive. Then she stopped, realizing her mistake, said something else toward the COM panel, and looked puzzled when it failed to respond.

But Hunt’s eyes had widened even more as he saw the tall, lean, bespectacled figure who followed her in.

“Ah, yes, here they are,” Danchekker said approvingly. “ZORAC informed us that it had directed you to a way out, just before it was cut off. We assumed that you would make for here.” He gazed around and took in the surroundings, including Murray’s collection of provocatively displayed girls. “So I’ve finally been enticed home by a lady of Nixie’s profession. Well, it’s never too late for a first time in one’s life for anything, I suppose.”

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Del Cullen was led into Garuth’s office, where Langerif was waiting with several of his officers and other Jevlenese. Garuth was sitting numbly by one wall of the room, with Shilohin next to him. Also present were a couple of the Thuriens assigned to PAC, whom the Jevlenese had brought up from elsewhere in the complex. Koberg and Lebansky were downstairs with the loyal majority of Cullen’s security force, whom the police had disarmed and locked away. They had put up a good fight, but the odds had been against them, and then a threat by Langerif to begin eliminating hostages had finished it.

Without ZORAC, the Jevlenese had a communications problem, since human and Ganymean voices operated over completely different ranges. The small Jevlenese-Thurien translator disks were fixed-program devices that understood neither Terran languages nor the speech of the Shapieron Ganymeans, which was different from Thurien. Langerif therefore instructed that Cullen would convey any communications from Terrans to the Jevlenese, which from the nature of his job he was used to doing, and they would then relay via their translator to the Thuriens, who in turn would talk to Garuth and his staff.

Cullen, however, was not in a mood for cooperating.

“Were you born stupid?” he said to Langerif, speaking in the limited Jevlenese that he had picked up. “Don’t you know when you’re being set up?”

“What are you talking about?” Langerif asked, taken aback.

“Let’s not play games. We know you’re with the Axis, right?” Cullen didn’t. He was simply ready to try anything that might throw the opposition off balance. “Well, you’ve seen the kind of value they put on people. Look what happened to Marion Fayne, and to the last guy who tried your job.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“You’re just being made the dickhead up front who’ll look like he was behind all the trouble that’s been going on. Eubeleus is gonna shovel it all on you, and come back from Uttan with clean hands. Then it’s your turn to go down the tubes. The Ganymeans are out, and he has a hand in setting up a new administration with JPC that he can control better. Think about it. It makes sense.”

Langerif thought for a moment, then walked up to Cullen and slapped him across the face. Cullen sighed. It had been a good try, he decided. But he wasn’t going to get anywhere. So he decked Langerif with a right to the jaw, instead. One of the watching Jevlenese felled him with a stun shot. To one side, Garuth closed his eyes.

On the command deck of the Shapieron, standing in its berthing area at Geerbaine, Leyel Torres, the ship’s acting chief in Garuth’s absence, stood looking up at the screens bringing views of the outside and from high over the city from probes that he had sent up on receiving news of the emergency. Rodgar Jassilane, the engineering chief, joined him, while crew appeared from various directions and hurried to their stations. All Ganymeans in the vicinity were being recalled to the ship, and Torres was bringing the vessel up to flight readiness as a precaution.

“They’ve disconnected ZORAC from the city net,” Jassilane said. “What do you make of it?”

“I don’t know what to think. I thought Terrans were unstable enough,” Torres answered.

“What are they trying to accomplish?”

“Who knows? Perhaps they’re all mad.”

“What about the situation here?”

“There are police sealing off the spaceport area, and the Thuriens are protesting. I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Message via VISAR from Thurien,” ZORAC announced.

“Yes?” Torres acknowledged.

“Calazar will be through very shortly. Meanwhile, Earth has been alerted. They’re locating as many members of JPC as they can.”

“Very good.”

“What’s the last we know of the situation at PAC?” Jassilane asked.

ZORAC answered. “Hunt and Gina were heading for an exit that was clear and open. Danchekker was still in the building. I’d lost track of Nixie. The rest had been detained.”

“Hmm,” Jassilane murmured.

Torres thought for a moment. “If Hunt and the woman got out, they could hardly remain at large in the city… Obviously they couldn’t go back to PAC.” He raised his voice. “ZORAC, do you have any idea where they’d be most likely to go?”

ZORAC consulted the records accumulated from its illegal spying operations. “I’ve got some places where Hunt and Nixie talked a lot. One is a hotel, probably not worth considering. The other is a private address.”

“Can you locate it?”

ZORAC called up the city directory and plans of the layout from its data bank. “Yes, reference screen seven.” A cutaway view of part of the labyrinth appeared, with a residential block in one of the complexes shown highlighted. One of the apartments partway up in it was flashing. “It’s on this side of the center, not too far from PAC.”

Tones looked at jassilane questioningly. “Not far from PAC,” Jassilane repeated. He nodded. “It’s a good bet. If they’re out, that’s where they’ll head for. Check it out.”

“ZORAC, prepare another of the ship’s probes for immediate launch,” Tones ordered.

At Murray’s, Danchekker and Nixie told their story.

The officer in charge of the police contingent placed in the PAC front lobby had turned out to be one of Nixie’s regulars. After spotting him from a stairway that she had just descended, she had drawn him aside and was in the process of talking her way out, when Danchekker stormed out of one of the elevators, ranting and threatening everyone in sight. On an inspiration, Nixie told the officer that Danchekker was a sex therapist from Earth whom she was assisting in a study of Jevlenese customs. If she was found in the place, she told the officer pointedly, the Shiban chief of police and virtually all the city officials would be public jokes by morning-and guess whose ass would be on the line. She and Danchekker had been bundled quietly out a side door a few minutes later.

After Hunt and Gina related their tale, Hunt went on to repeat the thoughts that he had just begun telling Gina when Danchekker and Nixie arrived. Murray didn’t know enough of the background for it to mean much to him, and Nixie couldn’t really follow without ZORAC. So, leaving the others to it, they went into another room to make some calls and see what further news they could gather of events at large.

By the time Hunt finished, Danchekker was looking appalled. “Yes,” he whispered. “I can see it now… Such a world, with its inherent perils and insecurity, would account for the whole Ent nature. And it becomes clear how the idea of escaping to the world they saw through these visions could become their overriding obsession.”