“Sure.”
She put her feet on the floor, sat upright, and stood cautiously, not quite knowing what to expect. Nothing changed. Everything felt normal.
“So, what happened?” she asked uncertainly. “Technical hitch?”
“You think so, eh?”
“You mean it worked?”
“Thurien engineering works. That’s one thing you never have to worry about.”
“But… we’re still in the ship. I thought we were supposed to be going to Jevlen.”
“No. You’re falling into the illusion already. Virtual travel, remember? You knew you weren’t really going anywhere.”
Gina put a hand to her brow and shook her head. “Okay. Let’s not start getting picky about words. You know what I mean. I thought that sensory information from Jevlen was supposed to be coming to me.”
“VISAR, give us a preview,” Hunt instructed.
At once, Gina and Hunt were standing in a wide, circular space like a gallery, overlooking a central area below. There were figures walking this way and that, some human, some Ganymean. As Gina stared, a small group consisting of two Ganymeans surrounded by a half-dozen or more humans gesticulating and seemingly talking all at once passed close by. Although the conversation was presumably being conducted in an alien tongue, the snatches that came through were transformed into English.
“…thousands of them, with nothing to do. They must be entertained. You have to arrange something.”
“Why can’t they learn to entertain themselves?” one of the Ganymeans asked, sounding harassed.
“They have always been entertained. It is their right!”
Gina looked at Hunt disbelievingly. He grinned back at her, clearly enjoying himself. “Let’s take a walk,” he suggested, and led the way across to the rail at the gallery’s edge. Gina’s mind was in too much turmoil for her to do anything but follow mechanically.
They looked down over a concourse of various levels and partly enclosed spaces, where more figures were standing or sitting, walking, and going about their business. The concourse appeared to connect to other spaces beyond, and had pedestrian avenues entering from several directions. The architecture was unusual, with generous use of curvature and asymmetrical divisions of space that blended strange notions of aesthetics and ornamentation with what was clearly a functional purpose. Gina’s first thought as she began to recover her reeling senses was of a Moorishly inspired airport terminal. It was all definitely very futuristic, and unquestionably alien… but it did keep itself tidily to definite planes, without assaulting the eye with anything resembling the geometric chaos of the Thurien spacecraft.
But as she continued looking, a puzzling aspect of it all registered itself. For what was supposed to be a glimpse of an advanced, technologically adept culture, it was all rather shabby. The finishing on the elaborately styled shapes and surfaces was drab and unimaginative, with a general air of wear and neglect and tiredness. There were lights that weren’t working, panels missing from one of the walls, and on the far side a whole, partly dismantled section closed off by barriers, with machines that looked like maintenance robots standing idle.
Hunt indicated a direction with his hand, and they began walking around the gallery toward a series of low arches on its outer edge. The figures around them passed by unheeding. Gina had to remind herself that she was merely perceiving what was taking place at a distant location; the people who were actually there had no knowledge of her “presence.”
Beyond the arches was a semicircular, windowed space, an eating lounge of some kind, with seats and tables on several tiered levels. Again, the surroundings were plain and utilitarian. The figures, human and Ganymean, took no notice as Hunt and Gina descended a stepped aisle to a clear area along the window wall, which turned out to be a continuous expanse of glass. That was when Gina realized that the sky was not blue, but light green, with strange, curling, sheetlike clouds of streaky orange.
The city beneath the pale green sky extended away and below them in waves of interconnected towers, terraces, and heaps of architecture that at first defied comprehension. But then Gina noticed that one of the bridges nearby was missing two of its central spans; a tower beyond it was showing daylight through its windows and seemed to be a derelict shell; below them, a terraced roof had had several sections removed and was open to the elements.
Finally she looked back at Hunt.
“Believe it now?” He waved a hand casually. “Shiban, one of Jevlen’s principal metropolises.”
Gina moved forward to take in more of the view and saw, through a gap between two of the structures, a tall, streamlined shape standing upright in what appeared to be an open space, possibly beyond the edge of the city proper. Although the bottom part of it was obscured, she had seen enough pictures to recognize it. “Isn’t that the Shapieron?” she asked, indicating with a motion of her head. It was the Ganymean spacecraft from ancient Minerva. If anything, the nose was still some way below the level they were looking out from-and the Shapieron stood almost half a mile high.
“Shiban is where the Shapieron is currently berthed,” Hunt replied. “It’s at a place called Geerbaine, just to the west of the city. The place we’re in is Garuth’s Planetary Administration Center. It used to be the governing center for this region of Jevlen. We can’t go any farther without resorting to total simulation, because this is the only part that the Thuriens adapted for VISAR-Jevlen was managed by JEVEX, which had slightly different sensor wiring. But anyhow, welcome to another world. What do you think?”
Gina stared outside again. She rubbed her brow with a knuckle and shook her head, then looked back at Hunt. “No… this still doesn’t make any sense. How can I be seeing Jevlen through VISAR, if I’m not coupled into VISAR?”
The strange smile, which had never quite left Hunt’s face, broadened. “Aren’t you?”
“Well, no… I got up out of the chair and talked to you. I-oh, Vic, stop looking at me like that. Tell me what’s going on.”
And then, just as abruptly as before, she was standing inside the cubicle in the Thurien starship again, with Hunt facing her from the doorway, just as they had been before the transition.
“It’s simple,” Hunt told her. “If VISAR can make us think we’re walking around on Jevlen, it can just as easily make us think we’re standing here in the ship.”
It took a few seconds for the meaning of what he was saying to sink in. “You’re kidding!” Gina breathed incredulously. Hunt shook his head. She ran a finger experimentally down the edge of the door-frame. It felt cool and hard and solid. There was even a burr at one place, where something had scratched it.
“Hold out your hand,” Gina said. Hunt obliged. She ran a finger along one of his and traced it over the palm. It felt warm and fleshy, with each line and wrinkle in the skin clearly discernible. “It’s uncanny,” she whispered.
“Not bad,” Hunt agreed. “What you saw a moment ago is what’s happening in a part of Shiban at this moment. Those people are really there. VISAR is very good at realism.” Hunt pointed at a spot on her arm. “You’ve even got the stain on your sleeve, where you rubbed your elbow in some ash that had fallen on the table when we were in the cafeteria.”
Gina looked at the sleeve of the green sweater she was wearing, and flicked at the gray patch with her other hand. Sure enough, most of it brushed away, leaving a faint smudge, just as real ash on a real sleeve would have done.
Hunt laughed. “There’s an easier way. In this world, you can do anything you want. VISAR, clean the sleeve.” The remaining discoloration vanished, leaving no trace. “Or change the whole thing if you don’t like it. VISAR, how about a red sweater?” Gina’s sweater promptly changed to a rich ruby red.
She gasped. “It’s true! This is all happening inside my head? I’m not really standing here? So aren’t you here, either?”