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  “I’d already assumed that.”

  “And Duncan’s been agitating for a chance to do a spell off-planet. I think he should get it, too. He’s been doing a great job.” Hunt was referring to his assistant, Duncan Watt, who had moved with him from Houston. Duncan always ended up holding the fort whenever Hunt went away.

  “Okay.”

  “Chris might want to bring one of his people, too.”

  “I’ll let you take that up with him,” Caldwell said.

  Hunt sat back, rubbing his lower lip with a knuckle and eyeing Caldwell hesitantly. “There, er… there was one other small thing,” he said finally.

  “Oh, yes?” Caldwell sounded unsurprised, but in his preoccupation of the moment, Hunt missed it.

  “It just occurred to me… There’s a journalist that I happened to run into, who wants to write a book on some of the possible Jevlenese agents in history that people aren’t talking about.”

  “Just occurred to you,” Caldwell repeated.

  “Well, sort of.” Hunt made a vague circling motion in the air. “Anyhow, this business on Jevlen could provide a lot of valuable background to what happened here. So, if it looks as if we might end up getting involved in the Jevlenese situation, anyway..

  “Why not help the journalist out a little at the same time?” Caldwell completed.

  “Well, yes. It occurred to me that…“ Hunt’s voice trailed away as he registered finally that Caldwell had not shown any sign that anything Hunt was saying was especially new. His manner became suspicious as an old, familiar feeling asserted itself. “Gregg, you’re up to something. I can smell it. What’s going on? Come on, give.”

  “Unusual kind of journalist, was it?” Caldwell asked nonchalantly. “From Seattle, maybe? Stimulating outlook: not programmed with the canned opinions that you seem to find in most people you meet these days. Quite attractive, too, if I remember.” He grinned at the look on Hunt’s face. Then his manner became more brisk, and he nodded. “She contacted me a little while back, and came here a few days ago.”

  Hunt got over his surprise and studied Caldwell with a frown. Gina, going straight to the top in what Hunt had already seen to be her direct, forthright fashion, had gotten in touch with Caldwell to ask if UNSA could help her with the book. And as Hunt thought it through, he could see why that might have posed problems. He knew from his own experience how many major publishers, TV companies, top-line writers, and others were wining and dining, wheeling and wheedling with UNSA’s top executives to try and get a corner on the Jevlen story from the “inside.” In that kind of climate it would have caused endless complications and ructions for UNSA to be seen as giving official backing to a relatively unheard-of free-lancer, and Caldwell was enough of a politician to stay out of it. But he could safely, if he chose to, turn a blind eye to something that Hunt chose to involve himself with privately.

  But Gina had made no mention of having been referred to Hunt. That meant that she had let him make his own choice in the matter freely, without mentioning Caldwell’s name, which would have carried the implication that Hunt was being prodded from above. She would have let the project go rather than resort to high-pressure tactics. Not many people would have done that. He felt relieved now that he had brought the matter back to Caldwell instead of burying it.

  “I guess it wasn’t something the firm could put its name on,” Hunt said, nodding as it all became clearer. “But you thought she deserved a break all the same, eh?”

  “She talks more sense than I hear from geniuses they put on TV screens for ten thousand bucks an hour,” Caldwell replied. He pulled a cigar from a drawer in the desk. “But there’s another side to it. Think of it this way. The kind of dealings that Garuth is talking about are going to require a certain amount of… let’s call it ‘discretion.’ When you get there, situations will quite likely arise in which some kinds of irregularities might be acceptable, while others will not. Or to put it another way, things might need to be done that an independent free-lancer-and especially one with the kind of reputation that she’s no doubt built up-might get away with, but which a deputy director of an UNSA division-” Caldwell pointed at Hunt with the cigar before putting it in his mouth. “-couldn’t be seen to do.”

  In other words, Hunt’s team had an unofficial aide to help in potential politically sensitive situations where official UNSA action was precluded. And that, Hunt had to agree, could turn out to be very useful. What impressed him even more was that Caldwell had figured it out in the brief time that had gone by since his decision to send Hunt to Jevlen.

  Caldwell was like a chess player, Hunt had noticed, building his winning positions from the accruing of many small advantages, none of them especially significant in itself to begin with, or created with any definite idea at the time of how it would eventually be used. In Gina’s case, he could simply have told her that there was nothing he could do, and sent her away. But instead, he had invested the effort of doing her a small favor, which really had cost him nothing. And as things had turned out, the return had come a lot sooner than anyone could have guessed.

  Caldwell read that Hunt had assessed everything accurately, and gave a satisfied nod. “How did you leave things with her?” he asked.

  “I said I’d get back. She’s still at the Maddox. I wanted to bring it up with you first.”

  “You talk to her, then, and tell her we want to send her to Jevlen. We’ll work out some cover angle for public consumption.” Caldwell waved in the direction of his outer office. “Mitzi has a line to the Vishnu. She’ll fix the details. Then, that’s it, unless you’ve got any other points for now.”

  Hunt started to rise, then looked up. “What are you expecting me to come back with this time, Gregg?” he asked.

  “How do I know?” Caldwell spread his hands and made a face. “Lost planet, starship, interstellar civilization. What does that leave? The next thing can only be a universe.”

  “That’s all? You know, you may have me there, Gregg,” Hunt said, smiling. “There aren’t too many of those left. Where am I supposed to find another universe?”

  Caldwell stared at him expressionlessly. “I don’t think anything you did could surprise me anymore,” he replied.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The gods had turned away from the world of Waroth, and their stars had gone out. With the emptiness in the sky came changelessness upon the land. The currents of life, which brought storms and stirred the landscapes, died to a flicker, and sameness hung like a stupor everywhere from day to day and from place to place. Crops failed; orchards wilted. Sea monsters that devoured ships moved in close to the shores, and the fishermen were afraid to leave their harbors. Marauding bands roamed at large, plundering and burning. Sickness and pestilences came.

  In the city of Orenash, the king and the council of rulers summoned the high tribunal of priests, who read from the signs that the reason the gods were abandoning the people was that the people were turning away from the gods by permitting sorcerers to meddle in knowledge that was not intended for this world. The currents and the stars would return when the people atoned and cleansed themselves by renouncing such arts and sacrificing to the gods those guilty of practicing them. Accordingly, the sorcerers were rounded up and brought in chains before the Grand Assembly. Thrax’s uncle, Dalgren, was among them.

  “They are not Seers. They have not seen Hyperia,” the Holy Prosecutor thundered at the trial. “But they seek knowledge, here, now, of mysteries that the gods have seen fit not to unfold until the life that comes after Waroth. Thus they would exalt themselves and set themselves above the gods.”

  The Prosecutor glowered. “They speak of laws! Of processes constrained to predictability by strange powers of lawfulness beyond our comprehension. They are not Seers, mind you; but they feel able to tell us of the rules that govern Hyperia, which the Seers who have seen Hyperia have never seen. Is it they, then, are we to conclude-these sorcerers-who are to say what will be in Hyperia, rather then the gods
?

  “Their ambition spurred them to be as the gods. But, unable to expand their own powers to embrace the complexities of chaos that support the world, the sorcerers had to make the world simple enough to fit with what they could comprehend. They sought consistency across space and predictability over time-laws that would remain unchanged, making all objects stay the same no matter where or when they were observed.

  “The gods granted them what they sought… and now they are letting us see the results of it. The currents that fed chaos are dying. Lawfulness is taking over the land, and the land, too, dies, stifled and crushed by sameness. For it is chaos that brings change, and change is life. Change is vigor. Change is the uncertainty that allows Good to vie with Evil, action to take meaning, and for the judgments of the gods to prevail.”

  He stabbed a finger in the direction of the accused, detaching a bolt of light that dispersed and vanished in a puff of expanding radiance. “The gods have shown us our folly. Now they must be paid the atonement that they demand..

  To determine the judgment, a year-old uskiloy was tethered inside a consecrated circle before the Assembly and thrice blessed. Then, seven Masters in unison prayed for a lightning stroke to appear and smite within the circle. A swirl of night and light gathered above the court before the temple, and when the flash came, the uskiloy was consumed. Thus, the verdict delivered was: Guilty.

  Keyalo, the stepson of Dalgren, saw the verdict as vindication of the uncompromising position that he himself had taken from the outset. Seeing an opportunity to win favor with the authorities and at the same time take care of the source of his resentment and jealousy, he went to the Holy Prosecutor’s secretary-scribe and said, “The household of Dalgren is not cleansed yet of its stain. There is another there who also blasphemed against the teachings, an apprentice of the accursed arts.”

  “Who is this of whom you speak?” the Prosecutor’s officer asked him.

  “The nephew, whose name is Thrax. Many times have I seen him assisting in the fabrication of strange devices and performing unholy rites. And he, too, speaks of stealing the laws of Hyperia and bringing them to Waroth.”

  “Then he, too, shall stand accused” was the reply.

  But Thrax had gone to consult a Seer outside the city, who touched the mind of Dalgren even while Dalgren sat chained in the Holy Prosecutor’s dungeons. “He has a message for you, Thrax,” the Seer announced. “He has seen the signs across the land and repented of his ways. Indeed, the ways that are of Hyperia are meet for Hyperia, and the ways that are of Waroth are meet for Waroth. The sorcerers have defied the teachings, and in their impudence and pride brought woe upon the world.”

  “Has he renounced the quest of lawfulness?” Thrax asked, seized with bewilderment as he listened.

  “Aye,” the Seer answered. “And he accepts his fate with fortitude and humility. The will of the gods and the way of life does indeed work through the whims of chaos. You have the ability, Thrax. Use it to learn the true wisdom.”

  “What would he have me do?”

  “Begin again. Take thyself hence from the city and the plain. Find thee a Master who teaches, and learn from him the true way. Seek beyond for Hyperia; it can never be built in Waroth.”

  Thrax gasped. “He would have me become a Master?”

  “Thus speaks the mind of Dalgren.”

  Seized by remorse and a new resolve, Thrax turned his back upon the city, and there and then, taking only the clothes that he stood in, he set off toward the wilderness. And it was as well for him that he did. For even as he fixed his gaze upon the distant mountains, the sheriff of the city was arriving at Dalgren’s house with a troop of guards and a warrant from the Assembly to arrest him.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Before joining UNSA, Hunt had been a theoretical physicist employed by the Metadyne Nucleonic Instrument Company, a British subsidiary of the Intercontinental Data amp; Control Corporation based in Portland, Oregon. IDCC’s senior physicist at that time was a man called Erwin Reutheneger, of Hungarian extraction, well into his eighties, but with a mind still sharper and more agile than most a quarter of his age.

  Hunt remembered him talking once about the regrets that he felt, looking back over life. The biggest, it turned out, wasn’t that he had not won a Nobel Prize for his contributions to nucleonic science, or had a lecture series named after him at a major institution of learning, or otherwise made his mark in halls of fame or rolls of honor in a way that would be recorded by posterity. It was a missed opportunity with a petite, French philosophy graduate from the Sorbonne whom he had met in the course of a stay in Paris in 1968, which he was sure would have turned out differently if he’d had a better idea at the time of what was going on. “Don’t become a sad old man who missed his chances” had been his advice. “Have plenty of memories to chuckle about-even the ones that didn’t work out the way you hoped.”

  Partly because of Hunt’s nature, and partly because of the hardly orthodox life that he always seemed to find himself leading-as he had told his neighbor, Jerry, a settled domestic existence didn’t go with things like year-long jaunts to Jupiter-it accorded well with his own philosophic disposition toward life. And since his work left little time for any creative precipitation of opportunity, the serendipitous incursions of good fortune that chose occasionally to infuse themselves into life’s pattern were all the less to be sneered at.

  Intelligence, he had always found, was the most potent aphrodisiac, and since inhibition did not seem to be one of Gina’s problems, he had not bothered overly to disguise the fact. He had found himself intrigued by her questioning ways and curious to learn what else her peripatetic interests had led her to explore. She, for her part, had done nothing to hide her fascination for somebody who had crossed the Solar System and who took calls at home from aliens at other stars. What happened next would develop in its own time, if it wanted to. Rushing the situation would be the worst thing to do, as well as not being in the best of taste. But a small helping hand while it was making its mind up wasn’t the same thing at all, Hunt told himself.

  Caldwell had stressed that Gina’s involvement with the Jevlen mission had to be, as far as outward appearances went, a private matter, unconnected with UNSA. Therefore, Hunt reasoned, he could hardly ‘invite’ her to Goddard to brief her on it. Accordingly, he called her at the Maddox later in the evening after his talk with Caldwell and told her that he had some news. Could they get together later somewhere and talk about it?

  “How about meeting me here for a drink?” she suggested. “It’s a bit small, but the bar’s okay.”

  “Have you eaten?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, why don’t we make an evening of it and talk over dinner? There’s a nice, quiet little place I happen to know over on that side of town.”

  “Uh… huh.”

  “I could pick you up there. This isn’t really for bars, anyway.”

  Her pause was a study in amused suspicion.

  “Sure. Why not?”

  An hour and a half later, they were talking across a candlelit table by a penthouse window facing out across the illuminated towers of nighttime Washington. They had talked about Gina’s approach to Caldwell and her handling of Caldwell’s response, and Hunt had told her how he would be going to Jevlen.

  “As a matter of fact, you couldn’t have picked a better time to show up,” he said, sipping from his wineglass over a plate of prime-rib special. Gina waited, watching his face curiously. He lowered his voice a fraction. “I’m going to let you in on something confidential. This business about going there to appraise the possibilities of Ganymean science is mostly a blind to fit in with my regular job. The real purpose is to find out more, firsthand, about Garuth’s problem with the Jevlenese and see what we can do to help. The place to do that is on Jevlen, not here.”

  Gina’s brow creased in puzzlement. “What is this guy Caldwell running, a scientific division of UNSA or a security agency?”

  “The G
anymeans of the Shapieron are personal friends, who are in trouble. That’s his first concern.”

  “Oh. I didn’t realize that he sees it that way. I take it back.”

  “No, you’re right. Essentially it is a political issue, and he should just hand it over. But he’s always been a bit of an empire-builder. Besides the immediate aspect, the temptation to get a finger into what’s going on at Jevlen is too much for him to resist.”

  “It sounds as if moving from Houston to Washington might have gotten to him a little.”

  “Gregg’s okay. He gets things done, and he doesn’t mess around.”

  “Okay. So when do you leave?”

  “In three days-with the Vishnu.”

  Gina raised her eyebrows and picked up her glass. “Well, what do I say? It sounds like a wonderful assignment. But it also means that you won’t be around to give me any background on the book for some time. So why did you say I’d picked a good time? It sounds to me as if I couldn’t have picked a worse one.”

  Hunt finished chewing before he replied. “There are a number of Earthpeople on Jevlen already for one reason or another. The situation there could be politically sensitive. We don’t exactly know what to expect.”

  “All right Gina said slowly, nodding but not following.

  “In particular, the job might call for some snooping around and talking to people that would look out of place for a scientist on a purely scientific assignment-the kind of thing that would invite unwelcome questions to be asked.” Hunt held her eye steadily. “But a journalist-especially one known for being something of a maverick-wouldn’t cause any eyebrows to be raised. It would be expected.”

  “Yes, I can see that.”

  “So officially you’d be there as a free-lancer collecting research for your book-but unofficially to help with the things that I couldn’t go poking my own nose into too obviously.”

  It took Gina a few seconds to register what he was saying. She set her fork down on her plate and stared at him in disbelief. Hunt smirked back shamelessly at her befuddlement.