Entoverse

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

They found a small lounge that wasn’t being used, opening off from a library. There were some easy chairs, of both human and Ganymean scale, reading tables, and several workstations with panels and displays.

“Her story simply isn’t credible, Vic,” Sandy said after the door had closed itself behind them. “You don’t understand what that machine can do once it gets inside your head.”

Hunt shrugged in a way that asked what more there was to know. “It creates dream worlds to order. What’s so terrible about that?”

“Have you experimented with it-even since Gina and I went to Chris about it?”

Hunt realized, even to his own surprise, that he hadn’t. “No, as a matter of fact. I suppose I’ve been busy with other things.”

“You see. You’re a scientist. You only see it as a piece of technology. As a tool. I said the same thing to Chris.”

“Okay, so it’s a recreation, as well-even a reality substitute that people can get hooked on. I don’t use drugs, either. Some people tell me it’s because I’m high all the time and don’t need them. But if this lets you do even better without messing up your chemistry, maybe it could be quite fun.”

Sandy shook her head. “You don’t always have control over it. It can work on things that it pulls out of your subconscious that you didn’t even know were there. Or maybe things that you preferred not to think about. Maybe you find out you’re not who you’ve thought you were all your life. Most of the walls that people build inside their heads are to defend their prejudices about themselves from assault by facts. Then, suddenly those walls aren’t there anymore…”

Hunt stared at her, realizing that his attempted flippancy had been a mistake. His manner became more serious. “There are still millions of Jevlenese out there who presumably didn’t see it that way,” he pointed out. “If it’s really such a bad trip, how come Garuth had to shut the system down to tear them away from it?”

“You can have bad trips on molecules, too. Vic… I don’t know how it affects everybody else. But I do know how it affected me, and how it affected Gina. And I’m certain that she wouldn’t have gone near it again. At least, not the way she said-with Baumer. And not when she was out on an assignment for us. And definitely not if she knew she’d be walking into JEVEX, not VISAR.” Sandy paused, giving Hunt a long, sober look, inviting him to reflect on the implication. But the expression on his face told her that he had seen it already. She nodded. “But Gina isn’t giving us a line. She remembers it the way she says-and I think there’s only one way that could have happened.”

“Christ!” Hunt breathed.

“Which means that Baumer was setting her up from the beginning. He led her to whoever is really behind all this. What happened to her wasn’t done at any headworld shop run by the local Mafia.”

Hunt was already nodding. It all made sense. “We need to tell Cullen about this,” he said.

The car carrying Koberg, Lebansky, and Gina arrived in front of the complex where the Geerbaine Best Western was situated. On a grassy area to one side of the approaches to the complex was an untidy collection of shanty huts and tents belonging to a meditation group who believed that the cosmic energy drawn down by arriving spacecraft helped them commune with the universe. Nearby, a meeting was being held to protest that the same energy posed a risk of cancer and mutant babies. The fact that there was nothing measurable to produce either effect made not the slightest difference.

“They’re all crazy,” Koberg declared, observing the scene as the car crossed an open area in front of the hotel. “Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea if they did ship the troops in from back home. It could be what the place needs. How else are you gonna straighten it out?”

“Either that or get out,” Lebansky agreed. “Let the Thuriens handle it.”

“Hell, they’d be even worse than what we’ve got.”

“Maybe we’re just being old-fashioned, Mitch. Aren’t Thuriens what people used to call liberals?”

“Then if God was a liberal, we’d have had the Ten Suggestions,” Koberg said. They both laughed.

Eubeleus and the first several thousand Axis of Light followers had been lifted up into orbit earlier, to join the Thurien ship that was to take them to Uttan, and there were still all kinds of people about. There had also been some trouble, by the look of things. Gina pointed through a side window at two burned-out vehicles pushed to one side of the road. “See over there. It looks as if there’s been some excitement.”

“Probably a Jev auto mechanic,” Koberg grunted.

They pulled up in the hotel forecourt, where a number of police were standing around loosely, and went through to the front lobby. Koberg accompanied Gina to the desk. Lebansky remained a short distance back, scanning the surroundings from long habit, his eyes missing nothing, checking everyone who came and went.

“Room 201,” Gina said to the clerk. “I called earlier about a change of plan. I just need to collect my stuff. “The clerk consulted a terminal.

The hotel manager, Eric Venders, whom Gina had gotten to know casually, was also at the desk. “You’re leaving us?” he asked. “Don’t tell me you found a better place in town.”

“I’m moving into PAC. I’ll be doing some work in the city. It’s more central.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

Gina opened her purse, ostensibly to find her door key, and located the folded sheets of the report for General Shaw that she had brought. “Was there some trouble here earlier?” she asked. “There’s a lot of police around outside, and I noticed a couple of burnt cars.”

“A bit,” Venders said. “It’s over now. I don’t know what it was about. I stay out of Jev politics.”

The clerk looked up from the terminal. “You’re all set, Ms. Marin,” he confirmed.

“And there should be a package for me.”

“One moment, I’ll check.”

“A reader left one of my books to be signed,” Gina explained to Venders. She was acutely conscious of Koberg standing behind her and surprised at the nervous flutter in her voice. “She called me at PAC earlier.”

“Here it is: ‘Ms. Gina Marin.’” The clerk was holding a large, buff-colored envelope.

“That looks like it. Thank you.”

An incoming call sounded.

“Excuse me.” Venders turned away to take it.

Gina opened the envelope and drew out a copy of Green Gestapo: Hidden Agendas for Social Control in the Nineties. Tucked inside at the title page was a short note from Marion Fayne, explaining that she had an appointment that morning. Gina wrote: To Marion Fayne, with best wishes-the first of my interstellar fans. Thanks for bringing home suddenly a lot closer! She signed and dated it, adding, Shiban, planet Jevlen.

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that Koberg was still just behind her, relaxed but alert. Worse, there was a mirror on the far wall behind the desk, making her body ineffective as a screen. She bit her lip, and then let a diary drop from her purse. Loose notes and odd slips of paper that had been lodged inside spilled over the floor.

“Oh, damn!”

“I’ll get it, ma’am.” Koberg squatted down and began collecting the papers back together.

“Thanks so much.” Gina slipped the report into the book, quickly closed the cover, and pushed the book back into the envelope. She crossed out her own name, wrote MARION FAYNE above, and handed it back to the clerk. “Could you reseal that, please, and keep it to be collected?”

“Sure thing.”

Koberg stood up and handed her back the diary. She returned it to her purse, and they went on up to room 201, leaving Lebansky watching the lobby.

In Cullen’s office, Hunt waved an agitated hand above the desk. “More to the point, if they’ve implanted phony memories in her head, what really happened that they’re covering up? If they were using JEVEX, they could have read anything that was in there. We have to reexamine everything, right from the beginning, and list everything she knew.”

Sandy shuddered as she listened. “I’d rather be raped by an octopus.”

Cullen sat back in his chair, rapping his chin with a knuckle. “Shit,” he muttered, barely audibly. He stared at the wall, thinking hard, running through the options in his mind. “Dam it, darn it…”

Hunt watched and waited for several seconds, then lit a cigarette.

“I should have said something sooner,” Sandy told them, more to fill the silence. “It wasn’t until this morning that I felt really sure. One minute she talks as if this was the first time she’d ever tried it, and the thing on the Vishnu never happened; then the next, she’s saying it was just a pretense to go along with Baumer. Then she sees the contradiction and keeps changing her reasons for justifying it.”

Cullen nodded distantly.

“It means that they must know she was working with us and that we suspected Baumer,” Hunt said. “And she knew about us using ZORAC to bug the city, so we can write that off as a lost cause. But at least it could be worse. She didn’t know anything then about the things we’ve been turning up lately.”

Cullen nodded rapidly as if all that was obvious, then looked back at Hunt directly. “But think of what else it means,” he said. “I’m thinking like a security man. They put a lot of fake memories in her head-memories that sounded innocuous and would have had us fooled if it wasn’t for Sandy.” The other two nodded but looked puzzled. Cullen turned a hand palm-up. “Well, what other memories might she have that she’s not telling us about? See what I’m saying? Or let me put it to you this way: If you wanted to have a spy working for you on the inside, right here at PAC, and you had her plugged into JEVEX as an opportunity, how might you go about it?”

Hunt swallowed and sat back abruptly, looking stunned. Sandy raised a hand to her brow disbelievingly. “Oh, my God…

Cullen rapped his fingers on the desk, then turned to flip a switch on the COM panel to one side. “ZORAC?”

“Sir?” Cullen liked being addressed in the way he was used to.

“Have Koberg and Lebansky arrived at Geerbaine yet?”

“Just under ten minutes ago.”

“Okay, get a message on a secure channel to one of them, would you? Ms. Marin is not to overhear it. They’re to keep her under observation at all times, and she isn’t to communicate to anybody, repeat anybody. Anyone attempting to contact her is to be apprehended-they can use help from the police there if they need it. They’re to report directly here as soon as they get back.”

“Yes, sir.”

Gina, Lebansky, and Koberg returned to the car, Koberg carrying Gina’s two bags. Lebansky, who had been in the lobby while the other two went up to the room, saw her into her seat, closed the door, and then went around to exchange a few words with Koberg as he stowed the bags. Gina saw Koberg nod, say something in reply, and indicate with a nod a group of police with an officer, standing nearby. Lebansky waved back toward the hotel, and they both nodded again. Then they came around and climbed into the car.

“Is everything okay?” Gina asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Koberg replied impassively. But something in their manner had changed.

They pulled out and drove back around the open square. But as soon as they were out of sight from the hotel, Lebansky ordered the autodrive unit, which had been reprogrammed to understand English, “Change destination. Park anywhere.” The car slid out of the throughway and halted.

“What’s going on?” Gina asked, looking from one to another.

“Just take it easy, ma’am. There’s nothing to be worried about,” Lebansky said. Koberg got out and began walking back in the direction of the hotel, keeping close to the walls.

“Why have we stopped?” Gina demanded. “What’s he doing?” She reached for the door catch. “Look, I’m going-”

Lebansky laid a restraining hand lightly but firmly on her arm. “Just take it easy. We had a change of orders, that’s all. I don’t know what it’s about, either, but I figure you could be in some kind of trouble.”

At the reception desk inside the Best Western, a redheaded woman with a yellow coat and flowery scarf smiled at the clerk and fluttered her eyelids. “Excuse me. My name is Marion Fayne. I believe there might be something for me to collect. Would you look for me, please? It’s an envelope that I left here earlier.”

“I’ll see.” The clerk turned away.

“That looks like it, up there… Yes, that’s the one. Thank you. Do you need to see some ID or something?”

“That’s okay.”

“Well, I just thought. Anyone could say anything, couldn’t they? Oh, thank you. It’s a book that I left to be signed, you know. One of my favorite writers. Did you know she was staying here? Ah, yes, there, she’s changed the name.”

As the woman moved away from the desk, a tall, broad-shouldered man in a navy suit who had been watching stepped in front of her and held out a hand. “I’ll take that, if you don’t mind.”

The woman froze. Suddenly her face hardened, and sizing up the situation in an instant, she reached inside her coat. She was fast, but Koberg was faster and slapped the gun from her hand as she pulled it out.

She turned for the door and ran-straight into the police officer and two men who had been waiting there. “Bastard!” she managed to spit back at Koberg as the policemen hauled her outside.

But she had been watched, and the news reached an office in the Axis’s Shiban Temple within minutes.

The woman who called herself Marion Fayne had no knowledge of the tiny implant that had been placed in a neural plexus at the base of her brain a long time previously. It responded to a radioed code. She collapsed suddenly in the police van that she was traveling in, and was found to be dead on arrival at headquarters.