"What's the news?" Calazar asked when they arrived at the glass-walled gallery looking out across space toward the distant array of projector bells and associated constructions. Caldwell was already connected through from Earth, superposed visually in an avco window.
The Controller looked grave. "Nothing, I'm afraid. There's not a trace. It's completely dead."
Calazar had pretty much known. If anything had changed, he would have heard. He gestured imploringly. "Is there nothing that can be done? It's not possible for VISAR to conduct some kind of search?"
"There's nothing to search for. If the beacons are dead, they are invisible in M-space. So is the Shapieron. The only way to find the universe it's in would be by sending an instrument probe to try and match the environment and look for it. The number of times you'd have to do that to have any chance of success appreciably greater than zero makes it simply not practicable."
"But there's a huge number of universes out there that will have versions of the same thing going on, right?" Caldwell said. "Doesn't that even up the odds a bit?"
"Marginally," the Controller agreed. "But you're still up against the sparse distribution statistics that we encountered earlier." He rubbed his brow for a moment between his two thumbs. "Also, even if we were extraordinarily lucky and did hit on a universe with the Shapieron there, we'd have no way of knowing that it was 'our' Shapieron, if you know what I mean. In fact, the overwhelming likelihood would be that it wasn't. With an operating beacon, its umbilical connects uniquely back to our universe here. There might have been countless versions of it, but that made it 'our' beacon, in the same universe as 'our' Shapieron. Now that no longer applies."
"As long as they got back, I'm not sure they'd be too particular," Caldwell answered.
The girl had the typically short and round build of a Lunarian, with what would have passed for Mediterranean skin on Earth. Her hair was straight and black, with almond eyes that looked Oriental and made her quite pretty. She was dressed in a plain beige trouser tunic with a high neck, a brown sleeveless over-vest, and carrying some kind of bag. The woman with her had said "the Cerian translator." The girl hadn't been brought through into the communications room, where the Shapieron was still showing on one of the large screens. An armed guard was standing a few paces back. Hunt guessed that the word was meant literally, and the girl was from the Cerian technical delegation known to have been in Melthis as a prelude to Harzin's visit. That made it somewhat difficult for him to be too explicit in revealing what he knew about the assassination plot. Bluntly stating the facts through somebody from the other side would place her at an unknown risk, which would be unconscionable. Hunt couldn't even be sure that the Lambian officer who had brought him out to the ante-room was in on it. Banking that the woman and the officer were not linguists, Hunt switched to more coherent Cerian than he had shown previously, when he was trying to gain access to ZORAC.
"Officer represents prince? Are you a Cerian prisoner?"
The girl looked startled for a moment but composed herself, catching on quickly and translating the first question only. She relayed back the colonel's answer, "You may talk to him. Freskel-Gar is very busy at present." Then added, "Yes, with the Cerian technical group."
"Tell him the visitors know things. Very important Freskel-Gar be aware. Plane is in danger."
"The colonel asks, what things? Who are you? How do you know?"
"We know the action, event planned today that involves missile. We know who is responsible. If we know, others will know. Lambia will stand… guilty, to be blamed. Very complicated. Don't endanger yourself." The officer's expression conveyed that it didn't mean much to him. Hunt persisted, "Freskel-Gar should know that ships of other visitors have limited power. Cannot be refilled. Soon useless. Bad bargain. The large ship is good… for a long time. Without limit. The Giants have returned."
The girl's eyes widened. "The colonel says yes, he will pass that back. Is that all? From the stars?"
"Freskel-Gar must stand by Perasmon. War will be… ruin, end… of Minerva. We know your future. Bad. Trying to change it. Please stress urgency."
The officer listened, nodded, and went back through the inside door.
"How can you know the future?" the translator asked.
"No talking now," the woman escorting her snapped.
"Putting you through to General Oodan now."
"Oodan."
"Hovin Lilesser of NSRO for you, General."
"Hello? Lilesser here." Lilesser was the person Oodan had tasked to try and locate the member of the National Science Research Office's delegation in Melthis who was allegedly responsible for originating the warning.
"Yes. Oodan speaking."
"This is uncanny. We've been trying to contact the delegation in Melthis for almost an hour. Communications seem to be out. The Lambians say there's a computer down or something. But how did you know?"
"What do you make of it?" Oodan asked.
"I'm not really sure. It's very unusual. They should have backup for this kind of thing."
"There could be something strange going on, then?"
"Well, I don't know. That's not really for me to say. Why? Is something else happening?"
"I'm not sure… Leave it with me. Thank you. You've helped as much as you can."
"Any time."
Oodan replaced the phone and stared at it for almost a minute. A remarkable coincidence, he decided. Coincidences always made him suspicious. The Internal Security people needed to be in on this. They were the ones who dealt directly with the President's Office. He picked up the phone again.
"General?"
"Who do we know at DIS? I need to talk to somebody there right away. Find out who handles the President's personal security, or someone to talk to whoever does. This can't wait."
"At once, General."
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Prince Freskel-Gar watched the screen showing the Giants' ship while he listened to the colonel's summary of the message from the human accompanying them who had called himself Hunt. With all that was going on that day, he hadn't had time yet to discover what the story was behind this awesome-looking vessel whose appearance had troubled even Broghuilio. It was coasting in space, maintaining a position that kept the Moon interposed between it and Minerva. The view was being captured by one of the Broghuilio's ships on the Farside surface. It was being relayed too, from the Agracon, to Wylott and his advance group of Jevlenese at Dorjon. The Jevlenese were also human, but they seemed different from the two who had landed with the Giants. It sounded as if this was going to be a complicated story.
The last-minute decision to bring forward the takeover at the Agracon had been pulled off surprisingly smoothly, with the world outside still unaware that it had happened. It was important that news of Perasmon's end be known first, before Freskel-Gar began moving overtly to consolidate his position. As expected, there had been a barrage of calls and messages querying the apparent hitches with communications, and some visitors had been inconvenienced, but by and large the cover stories had stood. Later, an explanation could be concocted attributing the early moves in the Agracon to security precautions taken in response to an intelligence alert that had been recognized only later as pertaining to the assassination. To minimize the time for which the action at the Agracon would need to be concealed, Hat Rack had also been brought forward and would now be executed over mid-ocean. That part of the operation was being directed by Freskel-Gar's deputy, Count Rorvax, from Dorjon. For obvious reasons the details had been made available only to an absolute minimum who had a need to know.
All in all, Broghilio's show of nerve had paid off. His improvised amendment to the plan to accommodate the sudden change in the situation appeared to be working. This surely wasn't a time for Freskel-Gar to be losing his nerve and over-reacting. So the big news from Hunt, the colonel was telling him, was that the Giants knew about "an action" and "who was responsible." All very vague, with nothing specific stated explicitly. Freskel-Gar didn't see how they could know-even the colonel who was delivering the message didn't know what it was in reference to. Most likely, Freskel-Gar, thought, with their advanced surveillance resources the aliens had detected the Hat Rack flight climbing and moving on an interception course, made a lucky guess, and the rest was pure bluff. So Broghuilio was intending to scrap his ships because Minerva didn't have the resources to refuel and maintain them. Well, wouldn't that apply equally well to the ship that the Giants had arrived in too? Hunt said no, but that was no doubt just another part of the bluff. And if their ship was so superior, why were the Giants evacuating it right now, as he watched? They didn't seem to have much ability to resist whatever Broghuilio was threatening. No, just at the moment Freskel-Gar saw no reason to reverse his decision.