… now stark and bare against the pale, orange-smeared green of the sky, their original function long forgotten. A stream connecting ornamental pools built on a series of terraces had run dry and become a trash dump. Jevlenese in blue costumes were dancing to a strange, repetitive chant, vaguely reminiscent of medieval plainsong, while a crowd looked on apathetically. Insensible figures lay sprawled against walls along the sidewalks.
It reminded Gina of a trip she had made to parts of the eastern Mediterranean some years previously, off the regular tourist circuit. There, she had seen peasants tending goats amid the ruins of what had once been splendid temples, and crude village hearths made of stones taken from palaces. Once more she was looking at the promise of genius lost to unreason and sunken into apathy.
The agitators and cult leaders who talked to the people blamed it all on the Ganymeans. It was the result of withdrawing the services performed by JEVEX, they said, and they called for the full functionality of the system to be restored. In fact, the stagnation had begun long before the events that led to JEVEX’s being shut down. But the people had been conditioned to have short memories, and they believed what the demagogues told them.
“This is what you get when degeneracy sets into a society,” Baumer told her. “There’s never been any order or discipline. I blame it on the Thuriens for not instituting any proper system of control. But then, they don’t have any concept of the word themselves.”
The reason for Baumer’s sudden change of mood still was not clear. He had no interest in the kind of work that Gina had described, and he didn’t come across as the kind of person who would rush to do favors for strangers, or who would put any great value on sociability. Her first inclination had been to assume the attraction to be therefore mainly physical-he had, after all, been away from home and his own kind for almost half a year; but his manner showed no hint of it, and the passion in his eyes when he spoke burned only for visions of Jevlen’s future. So if Baumer didn’t have a reason, the reason had to be someone else’s-and that could only be the Jevlenese that Baumer was working for. Del Cullen had asked her to try and find out what it was that gave them a hold over him.
Her approach was still to affect a more sympathetic attitude toward his views than she felt. “Maybe the Federation people had the right idea,” she said. “But they only played at being leaders. They never had to learn about real survival. They only had Thuriens to deal with.”
“Absolutely,” Baumer agreed.
At one point he stopped and pointed at the entrance to a solid-looking frontage on the thoroughfare that they were passing along. It had large double doors, and two men who looked like guards could be seen inside. One of them was in the act of opening an inner door to admit a man carrying a wrapped bundle under his arm. “People are getting nervous,” Baumer said to Gina. “They’re putting their valuables in deposit banks that are springing up, like that one, and the receipts are becoming negotiable currency.” Evidently he didn’t approve. “A few profit from the insecurity of many. Manipulators of money… We know what it leads to. We’ve seen it all before, on Earth.”
With JEVEX no longer coordinating the planet’s distribution system, the flow of supplies and commodities into Shiban and its vicinity had become erratic. However, some entrepreneurial spirits were emerging among the Jevlenese, and had organized workforces of mechanics to recover and fix all kinds of defunct vehicles from the piles abandoned around the city. Others were setting up retail outlets and building up a growing trade with various sources, near and far, that they had sought out and worked deals with. “Exploiting people’s needs,” Baumer sneered. “Everyone has a right to eat. The Ganymeans should be taking care of all that.”
Looking into a store displaying extravagant jewelry and clothes in what appeared to be a fashionable quarter, he seethed. “They could have been building a just society, based on equality. But everyone has to be made to work together for it to succeed. The Ganymeans can’t see it. They haven’t got the background. Somehow we have to get the authority to put the right people in control.”
Gina had heard it all before. It was the envy and rage of the frustrated intellectual at the capriciousness with which a system based on free choice bestowed its rewards. Traditional patterns of privilege, right, and might didn’t matter. Who would succeed and who would fail was decided, often with little discernible logic or reason, by the collective whims and preferences of everyone. But those who could produce nothing that would sell in the marketplace, and who had nothing of appeal to offer at the ballot box, were unable to compete. Their only recourse was coercion. If their worth and wisdom went unrecognized, they would use the state and its legislative power to make people need them.
They bought a couple of hot, crisp breads filled with chopped meat and vegetables in a spicy sauce from a corner vendor. Baumer said they were called grinils. They ate them sitting on a low wall nearby, drinking from mugs of a dark, bitterish brew tolerably close to coffee, and watching the life in the street pass by.
“What kinds of Jevlenese have you gotten to know in the time you’ve been here?” Gina asked absently.
“Besides the historical societies, you mean? There’s one character at the university here that I think you should meet.”
Gina shook her head. “No, I didn’t mean in connection with what I’m here for, particularly. Just in general. Socially, when you’re off-duty. That kind of thing.”
“Oh, different kinds, you know,” Baumer replied vaguely. “Why? What kind were you interested in?”
“No kind especially. I just wondered what people get up to here. I might have come to research a book, but there’s life to live, too. You don’t exactly get to visit another world every day.” She munched her grinil and sipped casually. “You’ve got some pretty strong views on the way Jevlen should be organized. I’d have thought you’d try getting to know Jevlenese who think the same way.”
He looked at her oddly. “Are you interested in meeting people like that?”
“Maybe, if you know any. What they’re heading for is a mess. Who wouldn’t be interested in trying to do something about it?”
Baumer continued staring at her for a few seconds longer, but then changed the subject. “You’re spending a lot of time with those UNSA scientists at PAC, I notice,” he said.
“They’re an island of something that’s familiar, I suppose,” Gina answered. “But it’s not the same as getting out and seeing Jevlen, is it? And I don’t really follow what they’re talking about most of the time, anyway.”
“How far do you think they’ll go?” Baumer asked her. “I mean, how far will they go in importing Ganymean science to Earth? I take it that’s what their mission here is all about.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t put it as strongly as that,” Gina replied. “They’re just sifting through the basics, as far as I can tell. I haven’t heard anything about plans for a firm program. What did you mean? Setting up something comprehensive there, planetwide, like JEVEX was here?”
“I suppose it’s a question that will have to be asked sooner or later,” Baumer said. “In fact I’d be amazed if it hadn’t been asked already.”
“Do you think it would be a good thing? I mean, look at the situation it’s resulted in here. And we’re still a long way from solving that.”
“Then bring it back. What good has taking it away done? None. It’s only made everything worse.”
“You think so?”
“Oh, no question.”
“So you’d have no qualms about switching JEVEX on again tomorrow,” Gina concluded.
“It should be available freely everywhere,” Baumer said. “Part of the Ganymeans’ task should be to provide it.”
“You don’t have any reservations about JEVEX, then?” Gina asked.
“Reservations? Why should I?” A strange, distant light came into Baumer’s eyes, and his face softened into one of its rare smiles. “JEVEX is wonderful. It solves all needs and problems. It’s the people’s rig
ht. Isn’t it their property?”
Gina looked at him curiously. “How do you know so much about it? Surely it was switched off before you got here.”
Baumer’s attention returned suddenly to present. He seemed confused. “Well, yes, of course. It’s what I hear from the Jevlenese-the ones that I talk to in my studies.” He took her empty mug and stood up. Gina watched as he returned both the mugs to the stall, but when he returned she decided to drop the subject.
A group of about a dozen or so zanily dressed youths, with vivid purple makeup and orange hair molded into spikes and rings, was gathering on an opposite corner. “Come on,” Baumer said, sounding wary. “Let’s be moving on.”
But as he and Gina moved away along the street, the group began moving also. After they had turned two corners and crossed a shabby court beneath the supports of a traffic flyover, it was clear that they were being followed. Baumer quickened the pace but said nothing.
“What’s going on?” Gina muttered.
“I’m not sure.”
“Who are the punks?”
“It could be any one of the cults that you find in this place. There are scores of them.”
They were in a distinctly run-down area now, entering a dingy alley with premises closed down and deserted, few people about, and little chance of help if things turned ugly. Gina wondered fleetingly why Baumer should have come this way. Surely historical societies weren’t to be found in such surroundings.
Behind, the pursuers were getting closer and were uttering a chorus of murmuring that grew into a chant, punctuated by jeers.
“Do you understand what they’re saying?” Gina asked, scared.
“They’ve spotted us as Terrans. Apparently we’re not popular. It sounds like the equivalent of ‘Yanks go home.’”
They came out of a foot passage into a narrow alley that joined a wider road farther on. A black automobile was parked in the alley, facing the other way, with barely enough room on each side for someone to squeeze past. Two men, both looking unremarkable in plain, gray overcoats, were standing by the back of it. Baumer didn’t recognize them as any he had dealt with before. They seemed in a different league, not flashy or brash. Gina registered in an absent kind of way that there was something odd about them, but just at that moment her attention was too focused on the pursuers behind, who were making their way along the foot passage, for her to care. But at the sight of the car and the two men waiting by it, the punks halted.
And then the rear doors of the car opened and two more men got out, smartly dressed in suits, but looking mean and businesslike. One of them drew some kind of gun and pointed it, at the same time snapping something in a firm, no-nonsense tone. The one who seemed to be the punk leader backed away, raising his hands placatingly, his face working in an inane grin, presumably intended to avoid offending. He muttered something, and then the whole group disappeared back along the passage.
Gina turned, and for a split second her instinctive reaction was one of relief, even gratitude. But then she realized that the attention of the four men from the car was now directed at her. In the same instant she knew that they had been expecting her. Confused, she turned to where Baumer had been, but he had moved away to one side, while one of the four had moved between Gina and the passage, blocking her retreat. It hit her then that she had been set up. She turned back again, but the other three were already closing in around her. There was nowhere to go. One of them pointed a bulbous object at her and squirted a jet of gas into her face. She collapsed instantly. Two of the men caught her and steered her limp form into one of the open doors of the car, then climbed in after her. One of the remaining two went around and got in the other side, while the last stopped to look at Baumer, who was standing tense and white-faced.
“Okay, you’ve done your part. Now disappear,” he ordered, waving a hand in a dismissive gesture.
Baumer withdrew a few paces, but he was reluctant to enter the passage for fear that the punks might still be lurking. He would leave in the opposite direction when the car had gone.
The man in the gray coat went around and climbed in next to the driver, and moments later the car moved away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Danchekker stood in a room in the upper level of PAC, hands clasping his lapels, speaking in a confidently genial tone.
“There have been times, I admit, Vic, when I have been guilty of displaying less of an open-minded disposition than should be expected from a scientific professional,” he told Hunt, who was leaning on the wall, arms folded, while Shilohin listened from behind an oversize Ganymean desk. “But you know yourself the difficulty of abandoning a notion that appears to make sense once it has taken root.” The professor released one lapel briefly to make a dismissive gesture in the air. “In the present case, my conviction up until now has been that no hypothesis beyond misplaced Thurien generosity, coupled with their inability to understand the human capacity for self-deceit and wishful thinking, was necessary to account for the general Jevlenese condition that we observe today.”
“Yes, Chris, but there’s something-” Hunt began.
Danchekker merely nodded that he understood and continued. “In particular, I disagreed with the suggestion that there might exist a discrete, external cause of their widespread aberration, and specifically that such a source might be associated with JEVEX.”
“I’m not saying that it’s a general Jevlenese condition anymore,” Hunt said. “It only applies to-”
But Danchekker raised a hand, as if preparing Hunt for a revelation. “I am able to inform you, now, that I have seen fit to reverse that opinion. Sandy and Gina have persuaded me that JEVEX might indeed turn out to have been the culprit.” He turned momentarily to survey an imaginary chalkboard. “The neurally coupled Thurien information-transfer system is able to generate a complete sensory experience of any real, sensor-equipped location; or alternatively, of what can be totally illusory circumstances and events, fabricated within the processing environment itself. Now, we already know that JEVEX didn’t incorporate the same precautions and restraints as VISAR, the system upon which it was modeled. Also, VISAR was developed in the first instance to accommodate to Ganymean psychology, which is vastly different from human.
“The point that escaped me until my attention was drawn to it is the ability of this alien technology to access directly and interact with the inner processes of the mind. In brief, it can create utterly compelling artificial realities shaped by the conscious and subconscious wishes of the subject.” Danchekker stared pointedly at Hunt. “Imagine what that could mean. We’ve been asking what could divert a whole population from rationality and disrupt their mental equilibrium, to the point where they are unable to sustain a coherent distinction between illusion and reality. Now, I think, we have the answer. Escape into JEVEX-created fantasy became a universal narcotic: perhaps the ultimate analgesic against all pain and worry, disappointment and boredom. The Ganymean psyche, by its nature, enjoyed an inbuilt resilience against overindulging; the human one, unfortunately, did not.”
Danchekker bared his teeth in a show of the new amity and understanding that existed between them now that he had reformed. He turned toward Shilohin. “Garuth described the symptoms as being like a ‘plague.’ And, indeed, we see that is precisely what it was: a plague of an addiction that operates directly on the mind. The historical record shows that the symptoms first began appearing long ago, but not until JEVEX had been in operation for some time. Again, the facts are explained. And today, all of the cults and movements across Jevlen, despite their other disagreements, are unanimous in demanding that JEVEX be restored.”
“But that’s not it, Chris,” Hunt managed to get in at last. “I don’t think that what we’re looking for has got anything to do with fantasies in people’s heads. I think it’s something very real.”
Oblivious, Danchekker sailed on. “And the social disruption that we see shows precisely the kind of effects that one would expect from a powerful
narcotic. In the course of its development, the brain has evolved a chemical reward system which motivates the organism by producing sensations of pleasure that become associated through learning with beneficial, survival-oriented behavior patterns. What makes narcotics so pernicious is their ability to short-circuit the process by triggering the reward mechanism directly, without anything beneficial having to be done at all. And in the case of a narcotic such as the one we have here, where the effects are-” He stopped and jerked his head back to look at Hunt abruptly. “What was that? What did you say?”
“Yes, headworlding and the Thurien interstellar welfare program are what have made the Jevlenese defenseless against the plague. But those things aren’t the virus,” Hunt said. “There is a source, and it’s a very strange one-as strange as anything that might be extracted from the most psychotic subconscious. But I don’t think it’s a product of anything like that. I think that the source exists somewhere tangible-that it’s real.”
Danchekker blinked. “But that’s what I’ve just said, isn’t it?”
“Not quite. You s-”
“You tried telling me it was JEVEX, and I disagreed. Now I’m accepting that it was.” Danchekker’s color deepened a shade. “Dammit, Vic, ever since we met you’ve been telling me that I should be more flexible. Now I’ve conceded to reverse my view on something which, quite frankly, still strikes me as more than a little farfetched, and you’re saying it’s not good enough. Well, what in God’s name do you want?”
Hunt remained unruffled. “You’re accepting JEVEX as the cause that detached them from reality,” he said. “But I’m saying it only dissolved the glue. What pulled them away was a particular kind of Jevlenese who weren’t out of touch with reality-or maybe whose reality was very peculiar.”
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