ENTOVERSE

Caldwell answered in an unapologetic, matter-of-fact kind of way. “Okay, since you’re the agent assigned to the job on the spot: ‘you.’”

Hunt’s misgivings deepened. “Down where?” he asked.

“There,” Caldwell replied simply. “It was Eesyan’s idea: down into the Entoverse.” As Caidwell spoke, Eesyan’s head and shoulders came into view on the other side of the screen, next to Calazar.

“We can’t,” Hunt replied. “It takes another Ent to get inside another Ent mind through the couplers. They evolved there. They’re the only ones who have the knack.”

“Ah, that was before, when the couplers into JEVEX were the only way of gaining access to the Entoverse,” Eesyan said. “But now we have another way.”

Hunt still wasn’t with it. “What way?” he asked.

“VISAR,” Eesyan replied. “Which has a far greater natural affinity for manipulating JEVEX’s internal processes than even the Ents

have.”

Hunt stared. It was obvious. In the Pseudowar, VISAR had ob­tained the unconditional surrender of the Jevlenese by creating a gigantic Terran battle force that existed only in JEVEX’s imagination.

“If VISAR can scan the matrix and locate and analyze the data structures that constitute the Entoverse—which it should have com­menced doing already, if your connection there ii working—it ought to be able to figure out how an Ent is put together: literally, at its ‘atomic’ level,” Eesyan explained. “Then, VISAR would know all it needed to write an artificial Ent-being of its own into the En­toverse.”

“I have identified the planet and its orbit,” VISAR interjected. “There only seems to be the one. It’s interesting—about a hundred fifty miles in diameter. It’s detectable only through correlation analy­sis of the cell activity states. I can see why JEVEX would never have been aware of its existence. Now let’s take a closer look at the surface details . .

“Extraordinary!” Danchekker breathed.

Eesyan went on. “Given permission, VISAR would also have access to the full set of mental constructs of anyone neurally coupled into it. Therefore, it should be able to impress that personality into the Ent-being that it had created down there in the Entoverse.”

“That’s you,” Caldwell put in, as if the look on Hunt’s face didn’t say plainly enough that he knew exactly what Eesyan was talking about.

“I would go, too,” Eesyan said. He looked out at Hunt. “Then we would, literally, be down there in the Entoverse, and could talk to them.”

It was typical of the Thuriens. After pursuing reasonableness and caution to the point where it seemed they would never be capable of initiating any action at all, they had come up with something so stunning that it made everything everyone else had been talking about look tame. For a moment Hunt was speechless at the audacity of it.

“Then what?” he managed to ask finally.

Caldwell shrugged. “Then it’s up to you. But with VISAR on your side, you ought to be able to pull off something pretty effective. After all, in the Entoverse, VISAR will be God.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Hauled by two slow-plodding drodhzes, their six legs moving in a lazy, lumbering shuffle, the cart slipped and bumped its way down the rocky trail toward the village. A company of cavalry from the Royal Guard went before, while the Examiner and his assistant priests i ode in a carriage following, with another squad of soldiers bringing up the. rear.

Thrax sat with Shingen-Hu and a dozen or so other captured adepts, tattered and filthy, staring dejectedly out over the side of the cart at the ravaged crops and orchards withering in the gloom. His body still ached from the welts and bruises he had collected when they were captured. The rough chains chafed painfully at his wrists, neck, and ankles. Despite the springy coils supporting the cart’s floor, every bump and jolt of the boards beneath them seemed to find a new sore spot and send another stab of pain shooting through his stiffening joints.

So, finally, it had come to this. After all the hopes and aspirations of one day joining the Arisen, and having come so close—only to see his opportunity cruelly snatched from within his very grasp, and to be exterminated ignominiously as a deceiver. For the high priest, Ethendor, had proclaimed all Waroth’s afflictions to be a result of Nieru’s anger at the pretenders who had been allowed to desecrate the sign of the Purple Spiral, and promised that the stars would return to the heavens when atonement had been made. As a consequence, all the teachers and adepts not affiliated with the temples were being hunted down. The people, frightened and desperate for better times to return, heeded the warnings and gave no sanctuary. He looked at Shingen-Hu, next to him. The Master’s eyes were dull and empty, resigned to whatever fate lay ahead.

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