ENTOVERSE

“Just not one of your days, is it, Eubeleus?” Hunt observed.

“You forget—here, I command powers!” Eubeleus snarled, level­ing a finger at Hunt. A ray of pale yellow light shot out of his fingertip; but after traveling about three feet it stopped in a blob, which spun itself tauntingly into a disk, became a custard pie, and flew back into Eubeleus’s face. VISAR freed and cleaned up all the captives, and then proceeded to turn the helmets of the soldiers into assorted hats and bonnets and their armor into corsets and negligees, and painted red noses and clown faces on the priests.

“VISAR, what in hell’s happening?” Hunt asked. “How did he get here?”

“He was coupled into the cheerleader who got fried. There’s just a vegetable left in the coupler on Uttan. What else could I do?”

In the temple forecourt, the Chinook landed, and Shingen-Hu descended to the ground, accompanied by his acolyte, while crowd, soldiers, and dignitaries alike prostrated themselves.

Hunt looked at the others. “I think this place has got itself a reliable chief executive now. Why don’t we get out now, before things get

complicated, and let him start running things his own way from the beginning?”

“Your originals think so, too,” VISAR said. “They can’t wait to find out what happened.”

“My own feelings also,” Eesyan agreed. “In fact, since my original is already in a coupler on Thurien, I can be the first, right now.” He looked around the group. “This has been a strange experience. I look forward to meeting you all again under more familiar conditions, when we can no doubt discuss the philosophical issues. Until then.. .“ He left it unfinished. The details of his body faded, leaving just his shape outlined in featureless white; it persisted for a moment, and then was gone.

Aboard the Shapieron, Hunt and the rest of the party were already on their way to the couplers located just off the command deck. When they were nearly there, Gina stopped Hunt and turned to him with a puzzled expression.

“Vic, how is this supposed to work? There are two copies of each of us that have diverged and been leading independent existences for the last several hours. Does one of them get . . . ‘selected’ somehow, and the other one erased, like what happened to me before? If so, who chooses? I don’t think I like it.”

Hunt didn’t know. He hadn’t given it a thought. On reflection, he didn’t like it, either. How did he know that he would be the lucky one? But then, again, wouldn’t the other “him,” down in the En­toverse, have an equally valid reason for feeling the same way? So they put the question to VISAR.

“Why should you have to select either?” was VISAR’s reply.

Hunt didn’t understand. To him it still seemed a good question. “You say Eesyan’s already back on Thurien?” he said.

“Right.”

“So what did he do?”

“When I erased his surrogate in the Entoverse, I simply transferred its accumulated impressions into his original, physical self. It’s his brain, and now it contains his memories. Where’s the problem?”

Hunt glanced at Gina and shook his head, frowning. “You mean you just strung them together inside his head, serially? He remembers both sets of experiences equally vividly?” he said to VISAR.

“Yes.”

“But they were both happening at the same time,” Gina said.

“So what?” –

Hunt and Gina looked at each other. VISAR was right. Evidently it was another Terran hang-up that Thuriens could live with and not worry about. It really didn’t matter, did it? They had already gotten used to some far stranger things.

“So what?” Hunt repeated.

Gina nodded and smiled at the impossibility of ever coming fully to terms with it all. “So what?”

They continued on into the corridor where the couplers were located.

In the forecourt of the Temple of Vandros, Hunt and his remaining companions prepared to depart in style, as emissaries from the gods would be expected to do. At the door of the Chinook, he paused to exchange a few parting words with Shingen-Hu.

“No more raisings until we’ve figured out on the outside how to handle it,” Hunt said. “We’ll be in touch, that’s a promise. In the meantime, make them believe that we haven’t abandoned them, and keep the faith.”

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *