“Is there anything more that you need from us for now?” Parygol’s deputy inquired.
“No, the arrangements are satisfactory,” Eubeleus said. “We shall be on our way immediately. The sooner we begin our work, the better.”
“You’re sure you wouldn’t like some of our officers to accompany you?” Parygol offered again. “Since everything is powered down there’s little to see, but they could show you where we’ll be disbanding the Federation’s military installations. It might help you with your own relocation planning.”
“There’s no need,” Eubeleus replied. “I’m sure that the schedules we have will be sufficient.”
“As you wish.”
Eubeleus’s announced intention was to go with a small group of disciples to conduct a preliminary inspection of some of the places that they had selected as possible habitats. Until he was in full command, he would have to play his role straight with the Thuriens on Uttan, since the zone they were in, plus a few other key locations, had been wired into VISAR. Before occupation by the Thuriens, Uttan’s communications had been integrated into JEVEX, and thus deactivated with the main system. Any premature seizure of overt
control would have been signaled back to Thurien instantly, alerting the authorities before Eubeleus could consolidate himself. However, once JEVEX was restored and the secret defenses reactivated—which the Thuriens showed no sign of knowing about—it would be a straightforward matter to disconnect VISAR and lock up the garrison. Then the authorities could do anything they liked. Uttan would be impregnable, and for as long as it remained so, the takeover of Jevlen via i-space would be able to proceed without impediment.
“This is going to be easier than we dared hope,” Eubeleus murmured to Iduane after they left.
They descended a shaft, through levels of intricate conveyor lines and immense machinery, to a terminal where fast-transit tubes converged from all directions along the surface curve of the planet. A capsule traveling noiselessly and without a tremor, riding on a localized gravity wave so that even the acceleration produced no sensation, carried them at more than orbital velocity a quarter of the way around Uttan to a supervisory station located in the midst of a vast, subterranean materials—transmutation complex, where rock was reduced to ion plasmas and rebuilt into other nuclei as required. In a basement level of the complex, beneath pipeworks and supporting structures, where the primary energy converters loomed several hundred feet overhead, they opened a concealed door into a further shaft that gave no outward sign of existing, and which didn’t appear in any of the official plans or construction records.
Two hundred miles farther down, they emerged into a forbidding, steel-walled bunker where the air was artificially cooled and the lighting was a harsh white. Three massive, reinforced doors brought them into suddenly less oppressive surroundings of staff quarters and living space, with warm colors and varied decor, luminescent ceilings, soft carpets, and comfortable furnishings.
A level farther down, the appearance of the working areas was more uniform and cleanly businesslike. The footsteps of the new arrivals echoed briskly across shiny tiled floors and past deserted rows of glass-partitioned workstations and gleaming consoles. Finally, Eubeleus led them through a set of wider doors to an inner floor of control desks, displays, and indicator panels, overlooked by a surrounding gallery with ancillary communications rooms and staff facilities opening off—the primary control center of JEVEX itself.
The assistants who were with him were all picked and knew their jobs. With little more than a few words being exchanged, they
dispersed to the key monitoring points and began calling up status reports and function charts onto the screens. Eubeleus paced slowly about the room, running a critical eye over the scene and stopping from time to time to observe over the shoulders of the operators. Finally he drew up beside Iduane and interrogated him silently with a look.
“It’s about as we thought,” Iduane said. “The core is running at approximately a half-percent base for archive retrieval, plus minimal system diagnostic and self-check running in standby mode.” He was referring to the operations being performed by the Thurien scientists on Jevlen, who didn’t even know that the machine they were interacting with was light-years away.