Eubeleus had influence because the size of his following translated into a substantial inflow of cash, a hefty block of political leverage, and when the occasion demanded, a guaranteed turnout to add physical pressure to rhetoric and persuasion on the streets. But the greatest benefit that he brought to Grevetz’s organization was a result of the demand for the services of JEVEX itself. For although the primary operating functions of JEVEX had been suspended, a residual core capability had been left ticking to support certain maintenance and housekeeping functions, and to monitor faults and sustain system integrity; also, Thurien analysts were exploring parts of the records accumulated over centuries in an endeavor to uncover exactly what the Jevlenese had been up to. Through connections that existed somewhere in the planet’s communications grid, Eubeleus could provide access into that core system of JEVEX. He had not told anybody how he did it.
“I am the one who is endowed with the vision,” Euheleus told the other two on the fronded patio, bordered with shrubs, at the rear of the villa. “My mind touches deep into JEVEX’s soul. I know the things that must come to be. The design that is prepared has been revealed to me. That is why you must heed my words all the more closely when I say that this man is an instrument of forces that lie beyond the bounds of your present awareness of things. An obstacle that must be removed—” Eubeleus picked up an imaginary stone from in front of him and tossed it aside. “—from the path.”
He had a lean yet large-boned frame, and was tall in build, with yellow hair that curled at the back of his neck, and piercing, electric blue eyes, which the word among the faithful held to be a manifestation of the paraphysical forces that operated through him. He was clean-shaven, which was unusual for Jevlenese cult gurus and mystagogues, but the countenance thus displayed was perhaps even more striking. It comprised angled cheekbones and hollowed features that objectified resilient austerity; a straight, undeviating nose that gave him a line along which to look downward unwaveringly on the lesser species of creation; a mobile, expressive mouth, and a hard, tapering jaw, obstinately set in a line that had never felt a need of questioning or known the twinges of self-doubt. He was dressed in a. loose, two-piece tunic of orange with green—crescent devices on the lapels, topped by a green cape. His manner as he spoke was grandly imperious, an oration, even in private, his sonorously modulated phrases emphasized by dramatic bodily poses and flourishes of his hands and fingers .
But Grevetz and Scirio, used to that from somebody who thought he was a walking extension of a computer, reacted impassively.
The subject of Eubeleus’s wrath was a document lying on the table at which Grevetz and Scirio were sitting. It was a report from Obayin, the deputy chief of the Shiban police, to Garuth, head of the Ganymean administration headquartered at the Planetary Administration Center, on the facilities for illicit access into JEVEX that had been uncovered both in that region of Jevlen and elsewhere. And it reported them straight, without playing things down. That kind of overzealousness could lose the Axis a lot of followers—not to mention cost Grevetz a lot of lost revenue from his own clients—if the authorities started taking serious action. A deputy chief of police who was any use would have known that. And there were longer-term plans that Eubeleus had chosen not to divulge yet that were far more important and stood to be disrupted even more. The risk was intolerable.
“So what if we do get rid of him?” Grevetz asked. “Do you have anybody in particular in mind to take over?”
“Whom do you have prepared?” Eubeleus threw back.
Grevetz looked at Scirio. “What are we paying Langerif these days?”
“Enough. It has to be. It’s the second cut down, anyhow.”
“We’d go for Langerif,” Grevetz told Eubeleus.
The Deliverer nodded. “I shall have his record checked by my own sources. If it proves satisfactory, a word in the right quarters will assure his appointment.” He tossed out an arm beneath his cape as if casting out an evil and moved a few paces away. “Then I can leave the more immediate aspect to you?” he said, turning and staring at Grevetz.