The tension lifted abruptly, and a flurry of relieved murmurings broke out on all sides. Broghuilio permitted a grim smile of satisfaction as he drew himself up to his full height to acknowledge the congratulations being directed toward him from around the floor. His chest swelled with the feeling of power and authority that his uniform symbolized. Wylott turned and threw his arm out in a crisp Jevlenese salute acknowledging the leader. The rest of the military followed suit.
Broghuilio made a perfunctory return, waited a few moments for the excitement to subside, then raised an arm. "This is but a small foretaste of what is to come," he told them, his voice booming to carry to the far corners of the room. "Nothing will stand in our path when Jevlen marches forward to its destiny. The Thuriens will be wisps of straw lost in the hurricane that will sweep across first the solar system, and then the Galaxy. DO YOU DARE TO FOLLOW ME?"
"WE DARE!" came the response.
Broghuilio smiled again. "You will not be disappointed," he promised. He waited for the room to quiet and then said in a milder tone, "But in the meantime we have our good duty to perform for our Ganymean masters." His mouth writhed in sarcasm as he wrung out the final word, causing grins to appear on the faces of some of his followers. He raised his head a fraction. "JEVEX, contact Calazar through VISAR and request that Estordu, Wylott, and I see him at once on a matter of gravest urgency."
"Yes, Excellency," JEVEX acknowledged. A short delay followed. Then JEVEX reported, "VISAR informs me that Calazar is currently in conference and asks if the matter can wait."
"I have just received news of the most serious nature," Broghuilio said. "It cannot wait. Convey my apologies to Calazar and inform VISAR that I must insist on going to Thurien immediately. Tell VISAR we have reason to believe that the Shapieron has met with a catastrophe."
A minute or two went by. Then JEVEX announced, "Calazar will receive you immediately."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
At Houston, Caldwell had described to Hunt the network of real power that had lain hidden across the world possibly for centuries, operating to preserve privilege and promote self-interest by opposing and controlling scientffic progress. The attempt first to frustrate and then to shut down communications with Thurien had seemed consistent with such a power structure and policy.
Then Danchekker had called in a visibly excited state from McClusky with the news that Karen Heller had opened up a completely new dimension to the whole situation. On arriving in Alaska hours later, Hunt and Caldwell learned of the evidence for supposing that the Jevlenese had been interfering with Earth’s technological development since the dawn of its history while they grew in numbers, reorganized, and profited from their access to Ganymean knowledge. This notion had proved so astonishing that nobody made the connection between the two sets of information until Lyn arrived from Washington with the staggering announcement that not only was Sverenssen in communication with the Jevlenese, as he apparently had been for many years, but that, from the evidence of the sculpture, the Jevlenese were still staging physical visits to Earth, at least intermittently. In other words the Jevlenese had not been interfering merely way back in early times; what Pacey and Sobroskin had started to uncover parts of right now was a Jevlenese-controlled operation.
This news immediately threw up a host of whole new questions. Was Sverenssen simply a native Terran working as a collaborator, or was he actually a Jevlenese agent injected into Earth’s society and using the identity of a Swede killed in Africa years before? Whatever the answer, how many more like him were there and who were they? Why had the Jevlenese been distorting their reports to make Earth appear warlike? Could the reason be that they wanted a pretext to justify to the Ganymeans their maintaining a military strength of their own as an "insurance" against the possibility of future terrestrial aggression beyond the solar system?
If so, who had the Jevlenese been intending to direct the military strength against-the Thuriens, to end what was seen as an era of Ganymean domination; or Earth, to settle an account that went back fifty thousand years? If Earth, had the activities of Sverenssen’s network to promote strategic disarmament and peaceful coexistence during recent decades been a deliberate ploy calculated to render Earth defenseless and set it up to be taken over as a going industrial and economic concern instead of the ball of smoking rubble that would have been left had it been able to offer resistance? And if this were true, how had the Jevlenese then intended to deal with the Thuriens, who would hardly have just sat and done nothing while it all happened?
There had been more than enough reasons to talk straight away to the Ganymeans, so Calazar had called everybody together at Thurios-including Garuth, Shilohin, and Monchar from the Shapieron. After the ensuing debate had droned on for over two hours, VISAR interrupted to announce that something had just destroyed the object substituted for the Shapieron. Minutes later Imares Broghuilio, Premier of the Jevlenese group of worlds, contacted Calazar to request an immediate appointment.
Sitting off to one side of a room in the Government Center at Thurios with the others from McClusky, Hunt waited tensely for the confrontation with the first Jevlenese they would meet face to face, who were due to appear at any second. Garuth and his two companions from the Shapieron formed another small group on the far side; and Calazar, Eesyan, Showm, and a few more Thuriens were clustered at one end. The Ganymeans were still somewhat shaken by what they had learned of deception and subterfuge that went beyond their wildest imaginings. Even Frenua Showm had conceded that without the apparently uniquely human ability to penetrate such deviousness, it was doubtful that the Ganymeans would ever have reached the bottom of it. It seemed that being suspicious of another’s motives was something that came with the conditioning of predatorial thinking, and Ganymeans simply were not predators. "On Earth they say you must set a thief to catch a thief," Garuth had remarked. "It appears just as true that to catch a human you must set a human."
"They might be great scientists, but they’d make lousy lawyers," Karen Heller murmured in Danchekker’s ear. Danchekker snorted and said nothing.
Calazar was curious to see how far the Jevlenese would go in their fabrications if fed sufficient rope; also, there was more that he hoped to learn from them before exposing just how much he knew. For these reasons he did not want to confront them immediately with the presence of the Terrans and the Shapieron Ganymeans. He therefore instructed VISAR to edit out of the data-stream sent to JEVEX, and hence to the participants on Jevlen, all information pertaining to those two groups. It meant that Hunt, Garuth, and their companions would, after a fashion, be there, but remain completely invisible to the Jevlenese. Such a tactic was a flagrant violation of good manners and Thurien law, and unprecedented throughout the many centuries for which VISAR had been in use. Nonetheless Calazar decreed that by their own actions the Jevlenese had warranted making this occasion an exception. Hunt was looking forward to the consequences.
"Premier Broghuilio, Secretary Wylott, and Scientific Advisor Estordu," VISAR announced. Hunt stiffened. Three figures materialized at the end of the room opposite Calazar and the Thuriens. The one in the center had to be Broghuilio, Hunt decided at once. He stood six-foot-three at least, and had dark eyes that blazed fiercely from a face made all the more intimidating by a mane of thick, black hair and a pugnacious mouth surrounded by a short, cropped beard. His body was clad in a short coat of gold sheen worn over a mauve tunic covering a barrel-like chest and powerful torso.