Shingen-Hu marveled at how perfectly the gods had prepared the moment.
Casting his powers forward, he materialized a curtain of thick, black smoke to add to their confusion. Now the train was blocked both to the rear and to the fore, and the way open for escape lay off to the side, across the gorge. Again combining his power with Thrax’s, he walked out on a jutting rock that the gods had provided. There he paused until he felt a current surging, gathered his effort, and then stepped forth confidently to feel himself carried across to a narrow ledge near the cliff base, a short distance above the water. Thrax moved onto the jutting rock, marshaling the emissaries. Shingen-Hu could see that, just as he had expected, they were giving Thrax no assistance, but were acting like helpless novices to let him meet his test on his own merits.
“Walk forward over the bridge,” he called, beckoning for them to follow.
“What bloody bridge?” the emissary who was called Hunt shouted back.
“The bridge that faith shall build for ye. Trust my word, and my power shall carry thee safe.”
Hunt shrugged and stepped off the rock, and Shingen-Hu felt a wave of exhilaration as he bore the emissary over. Next came the redheaded female, followed by the ring-eyed Father of Gods, who had arrived in the spinning temple of beasts. By that time the ledge was crowded, and Thrax was left on the other side with the short-skirted female and the long-headed giant.
“Now we must climb,” Shingen-Hu exhorted. His power would never lift five of them to the top. The test would be to get them there, he was certain. What was to happen after that would then be revealed. So saying, he began moving smoothly and surely up the face, making use of frictite veins to afford a grip where there was no convenient hold, and avoiding the protrusions of green anchorite and black catchstone, as any youngster would know how to do.
But he had barely ascended halfway when a cry from below halted him. “What in God’s name is this confounded stuff? I can’t move.”
Shingen-Hu leaned outward and peered back down. The Father of Gods was stuck to a knob of anchorite and gesticulating frantically. Hunt began traversing toward him but became entangled with a growth of clingweed hanging from a crevice, while the redheaded female below them was scrabbling futilely at a block of lubrite, which contained grains of mobilium and was unclimbable. They were acting like children to try him, Shingen-Hu realized. The test was not over yet.
Meanwhile, priests and soldiers were appearing from the confusion on the other side of the gorge. “Thrax, thou must cross over now and assist,” Shingen-Hu called down. From his stance above he helped Thrax across the gorge, then turned and resumed climbing.
But as he reached the top, Thrax’s voice came up from below. “‘Tis beyond all hope, Master. They are as fish stranded in mud.”
Shingen-Hu looked back across the gorge. The soldiers had reached the jutting rock and were dragging back the female and the long-headed one who had been left. “Then save thyself, Thrax,” he called back down. “Nothing can be gained by thy sacrifice.”
Thrax joined him at the top of the cliff minutes later. By that time the long-headed one and the short-skirted female had been led away, and soldiers had descended to the stream and were wading across. On the trail above the soldiers, the priests had assembled around the Examiner and were directing a paralyzing influence across at the three emissaries stranded below. Shingen-Hu looked on dejectedly. He had failed.
Movement higher up above caught his eye. A flock of vultures was circling above the trail, right over the spot where the priests were gathered. Raising his arm, he pointed at them, his eyes glinting malevolently. Seized by a sudden compulsion, the birds voided their contents upon the priests from on high. Shingen-Hu and Thrax turned and walked sadly away.
In the Shapieron, orbiting high over Jevlen, Eesyan was explaining over the connection from Thurien what would be involved in restoring VISAR’s connection to JEVEX.
“The line out from the club connected into the regular Jevlenese planetary communications net,” he said from one of the large screens overlooking the command deck. “The activation codes that were fed in triggered an i-link termination node somewhere, which was programmed with the operating parameters to access JEVEX. To restore the connection we need to do two things: first, find an entry point into the planetary net that bypasses the normal security checks; and second, input the same activation codes to it that Keshen entered from the club.”
“So that would trigger the same i-space terminal to connect to Uttan,” Hunt said. He was standing with Danchekker and Keshen beside the Ganymeans, Leyel Torres and Rodgar Jassilane. “We wouldn’t need to know where the node is located or what it is, or exactly how it functions?”
“That’s right,” Keshen confirmed.
“But I thought all the links were shut down,” Jassilane said. “Isn’t that what disconnected you in the first place?”
“Yes,” Eesyan agreed. “Apart from one that they’ve probably got open to their people inside PAC-but that would be inaccessible to us, anyway. But in order to stage his invasion from Uttan, Eubeleus will have to open JEVEX to access from Jevlen-based trunk nodes again. What we’re saying is that when he does, VISAR will have been routed through to one of them.”
Jassilane looked inquiringly at Keshen.
The Jevlenese nodded. “If we can get back into the net,” he confirmed.
Gina watched with Nixie, Fendro, and Murray, over on one side. There was nothing she could contribute, and tossing in questions that could just as well be answered later would only delay things. Nixie, Fendro, and Murray were still too awed at the interior of the starship to have much thought about anything else, anyway.
“And I think there’s a way we might be able to do it,” Keshen said. He looked around quickly. “Through one of the redirector satellites that were left functioning. There are about thirty of them. They’re part of the regular net, unmanned, and a long way out.” The others were listening intently. He spread his hands and went on. “If we could get to one of them and find a way inside it, I think I could break into one of the primary circuits. That would bypass the protection. The network itself would take care of finding a route to wherever the access code indicates. We don’t have to know where it points.”
“Do you know the codes?” Eesyan asked. He sounded dubious, as if he found the thought unlikely.
Keshen looked surprised. “But I assumed VISAR had the codes,” he replied. “VISAR was connected when I entered them at the club. Isn’t it true?”
“They were stored in local memory,” VISAR said. “They got lost when I was cut off.”
Eubeleus paced agitatedly to and fro across the floor of the main control center deep beneath the surface of Uttan. The latest report from Jevlen was that the Shapieron had lifted out from the planet and was riding in orbit. It was the Shapieron that had slipped in close under the planet’s defensive guard during the Pseudowar and intercepted a communications beam to let VISAR into JEVEX. All his instincts told him that the Terrans were going to try the same thing again. He should have felt completely confident, he knew, for this time he had foreseen their plan; but he found himself unable to shake off an oppressive nervousness, which he traced back to the knowledge that Hunt and Danchekker were involved. It meant that anything could happen: especially something that nobody else had thought of.
“How close to completion is the final integration sequence?” he asked the operators clustered around the supervisory console.