“Very well.” The image changed to show the face of Langerif. He looked worried. “What?” Eubeleus demanded.
“News has just come in here that Grevetz has been assassinated,” Langerif said.
Eubeleus came around the chair and sat down, glaring at the screen. “When did it happen? Do you know who did it?”
“At his villa in the Cerberan, just over an hour ago. His man who runs the north side did it: the one they call Scirio.”
“How?”
“They came down in a flier and wiped out him and a bunch of his people on the pad. Then they demolished virtually the entire place. There was no provocation or warning. It was a massacre.”
“I always thought Scirio was reliable. What was it, another of their family squabbles?”
“We’re not sure. There’s more. The hooker from the city, the one who was here at PAC-she was with them. We have the video record from the house surveillance system.”
“She’s the one who’s been helping the Terrans,” Iduane murmured. He had moved across from where he had been standing and was watching from beside Eubeleus’s chair.
Langerif nodded from the screen. “There has to be some kind of connection, but right at this moment we don’t know what.” Eubeleus’s frown deepened with suspicion. “What kind of operations does this Scirio specialize in?” he asked.
“Protection and retaliation for a price. Since the Ganymeans took over, he’s been getting big in the luxury black market, especially for high-paying headworlders. He runs a number of clubs as fronts in the city.”
“Headworlders?” Eubeleus stared back at the screen fixedly. Then his expression slowly changed to one of alarm. “That means he has access to an i-channel to Uttan. Into JEVEX.”
Langerif talked to somebody offscreen, then looked back. “Yes. Several of them, apparently.”
Eubeleus went through the sequence of events in his head. The Terran scientists from UNSA, Hunt and Danchekker both of whom had played key roles in thwarting the Federation, had come to Jevlen ostensibly as part of a scientific mission, which had turned out to be an undercover assignment to investigate what was afflicting the Jevlenese. After a lot of secret work in PAC that Eubeleus’s people had not been able to penetrate, the scientists had taken up with, of all people, an khena hoodlum. What could they be interested in? But Scirio had access into JEVEX. And-merely by coincidence?-no sooner had they talked to Scirio than he exterminated an awakener, who, it just so happened, had been due to liquidate all of the Ichena’s outsider management as soon as the takeover was completed.
Euebeleus jerked his head around sharply toward Iduane. “Commence reintegration of JEVEX.”
“Right now?”
“At once. As soon as you reach the requisite level, I want a complete check of all core functions. Scan for active i-space links from Jevlen and deactivate all of them.” Eubeleus looked back at Langerif, on the screen. “Get a list of all of the establishments of Scirio’s that have functioning couplers. Get men out to each of them and shut them down. All of them, do you understand? You’ll find the girl and the missing Terrans at one of them. When you do, take them back to PAC. Under no circumstances are they to have any means of accessing JEVEX. And I expect no blundering from anyone there this time.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
The carousel whirled merrily beneath bright lights in the village square, carrying its train of enraptured priests, dignitaries, and soldiers, including Agamemnon, who was planted astride a white horse with a red bridle. Elsewhere, crowds of villagers gaped in awe at a Newcomen pump and steam engine, complete with ten-foot-diameter toothed flywheel, an arrangement of revolving cages within revolving cages within a revolving cage, which spun multiple-core submarine cables, and a Budweiser beer-bottling machine. Shingen-Hu, the new deputy lord of Creation, cleansed and groomed courtesy of VISAR, and wearing fresh clothes, stood with Eesyan, arms folded on his chest, absorbing the wonders of the new Power and adjusting himself to the feeling of being its chosen agent. Thrax and the rest of the ex-heretics stood in a group to one side, listening reverently while the emissaries of the True Gods revealed the Word that they had been sent to deliver.
“Until we’ve sorted out what to do about it at the other end, we don’t want anyone else rising up out of here on the currents,” Hunt told the Examiner. The sphere that VISAR had created to represent the Entoverse symbolically, like a crystal ball, illustrated the point. It had a miniature representation of the local world inside, and around the outside, a lot of tiny red figures attached by threads coming out of their heads. “There are other beings out there, like you. And every time somebody from here arises, one of them is wiped out.” Inside the crystal ball, a mini-Ent soared upward to the surface, vanished into one of the threads, and a moment later appeared at the other end, on the outside. The red figure that had been attached there fell over and turned black.
“An angel must be sacrificed to make room for each who arises to Hyperia?” the Examiner asked, looking troubled.
“If you want to put it that way, yes,” Hunt said.
“In addition, there appear to be certain compatibility problems between Warothian mental configurations and human nervous systems, which frequently result in breakdown and make the transference a risky affair,” Danchekker informed the Examiner. The Examiner nodded respectfully, not having mastered the intricacies of this new ecclesiastical language yet.
“Angels newly emerged into Hyperia are often troubled,” Nixie supplied. A step behind the Examiner, the village headman followed it all humbly.
“Then what of the Great Awakening that has been foretold?” the Examiner asked. “If what thou sayest is true, then many angels shall fall, and great will be the woe among our multitudes due to join the Arisen.”
“What Great Awakening is this?” Gina asked.
The Examiner seemed surprised. “The goddess knows not?”
“She means, what was the version that was given to you?” Hunt explained.
“Ethendor, who was the instrument of the fallen gods, prophesied a Great Awakening, when the stars shall shine again and currents return more numerous than ever before, and the people shall arise into Hyperia in their multitudes,” the Examiner recited.
“The invasion,” Hunt said, looking at the others. “It looks as if we were right. Eubeleus was all set to bring them out in hordes.”
“When is this supposed to happen?” Danchekker asked; then he added hastily, “According to what you were told.”
“When the sun itself shines strong once more, and daylight returns to the lands of Waroth,” the Examiner replied. “Thus was it spoken.”
Hunt looked at Nixie, his face serious. “Who is this Ethendor?”
“The high priest in Orenash, the main city in this part. Apparently he ordered the crackdown on Shingen-Hu and the rest that these guys were carrying out.”
“Where is this place?”
“How far are we from Orenash?” Nixie asked the village headman.
“Half a day’s ride by drodhz sled.” The headman obviously thought that gods should have known; but he wasn’t about to make an issue out of it.
“Then that’s where it’ll all happen,” Hunt said. “We can leave the carnival here and be on our way. There mightn’t be a lot of time.” The Examiner was growing puzzled as he listened. “Thou must journey to Orenash? Then the dark masters whom Ethendor serves are not yet truly fallen?”
Hunt shook his head. “Not yet, I’m afraid. We’ve still got some work to do. But at least this has given us a better idea of how to go about it.” He looked at Danchekker and Gina. “I think the best thing would be-”
At that moment, the village headman suddenly pointed skyward. “The stars! See, the stars are returning!”
Everyone looked up. “VISAR, cut the lights,” Hunt said after a moment. The lamps on the posts that had appeared around the village square went out. Several bright stars were shining in the twilit sky. “Were those there when we arrived?” Hunt asked Nixie.