“And Eubeleus won’t know?” Hunt asked.
“JEVEX won’t even know,” VISAR told him.
Keshen was looking puzzled. “Uttan? The planet? What has Uttan to do with this?” he asked.
“It’s too long a story to go into now, believe me,” Hunt replied. Then the sound of footsteps came from the lounge outside, and Gina appeared at the door with Danchekker. The three men who had brought them from Murray’s were behind.
“My God, it’s Vic and the others!” Danchekker exclaimed. “You’re here. We had no idea what was going on. These-” He hesitated as he heard his words being translated. “These gentlemen collected us.”
“You weren’t safe there,” Hunt explained. “This is Scirio. He had you brought here. And this is Keshen. Don’t ask where we’ve been.”
Gina was looking past Hunt with a puzzled expression. “What’s doing the translating? Have we got ZORAC back again?”
“Even better,” Hunt answered. “It’s VISAR. We’ve got a link to Thurien.” Danchekker was already staring incredulously, having seen Calazar on one of the screens. Hunt indicated ‘the other section of hardware. “And that’s the channel into JEVEX. Keshen has just hooked them together.”
Danchekker blinked. “You’ve done it? You mean already? They can set VISAR loose on JEVEX from here?”
“And with JEVEX still in a coma, it won’t know what hit it— literally,” Hunt replied.
The news was so sudden and unexpected that it took Gina several seconds to absorb it. “You mean that’s it?” she said finally. “We can keep JEVEX off permanently, as of now? Then it can be taken apart? The problem’s over?”
“Er, no,” Calazar said from the screen. He sounded apologetic at having to complicate things. “We’ve already discussed that. The Ents are a race of fully sapient beings in every respect. What you’re saying would amount to genocide.”
“What are they talking about?” Keshen muttered to Scirio. “What are Ems?” Scirio hushed him with a warning shake of his head.
The screen split, and Caidwell’s face appeared in one half. He nodded at Hunt and the others, evidently having gotten the news from VISAR. “Great job. Looks like maybe we’re in business, then, eh?”
Gina was still bemused by what Calazar had said. “Then what will you do?” she asked. “Isolate it? Leave it as its own, self—contained universe?”
Caldwell shook his head, guessing the way the conversation was going. “The Thuriens won’t go with that, either. But in any case, both those options would depend on VISAR being able to keep control over JEVEX. Right now, that all hinges on the single link into it that you’ve just established. If we lose that, we lose our only chance. Once Eubeleus and his people were warned, they wouldn’t give us another opportunity.”
Hunt was looking perplexed. “What, then?” he asked, shifting his eyes from one side of the screen to the other. “If we’re not going to get rid of it and we’re not going to cut it off, what are we going to do? What other alternative is there?”
“The real problem that we’ve got in the short term is staving off a mass exodus of Ents,” Caldwell said. “JEVEX is simply the means that would make it possible. But it wouldn’t happen at all, regardless of whether we continued to control JEVEX or not, if the Ents could be persuaded to change their minds—at least until we’ve had a chance to understand the situation better and figure out how we can help them solve their problem without wiping out a Jevlenese every time one of them comes out.”
“What?” Hunt said. This was a completely new twist. He glanced at Danchekker, then at Gina. They both looked as much at a loss as he was.
“I don’t understand,” Danchekker said to the screen. “Persuade them? How?”
“By talking to them,” Caldwell said, as if that explained everything.
Hunt was completely befuddled. He shook his head. “They’re just patterns in a computer, Gregg. How’s anyone supposed to talk to them?”
“That’s what we’ve been thinking about,” Caldwell replied. “Why don’t we go down there and check the situation firsthand? Then, maybe, we’d have a better chance of figuring out what to do.”
Hunt’s bemusement changed to suspicion. “Who’s ‘we’?”