“It should work out a lot better this time round,” Hunt said to Garuth. “Although after the way you spent twenty years getting your ship back before you showed up at Jupiter, I don’t have to tell you anything about perseverance.”
“Now that we know where the problem was coming from, I think it will change a lot of things,” Garuth replied. “The new system will give the whole population a common goal and a symbol to unite them.” His face twisted into the peculiar Ganymean form of a grin, and he looked at Danchekker. “But no pyramids or temples, crescents or spirals, eh, Professor?”
“I think the human race has had more than its fill of that kind of thing,” Danchekker agreed.
Garuth was referring to the new planetary computer system that would be built from scratch, on Jevlen, where JEVEX was supposed to have been, by the Jevlenese themselves. In the meantime, they would have to learn to meet their own needs through their own initiative, as the more enterprising among them had already shown an amazing propensity for doing. As they grew, the system would grow with them. It wouldn’t come as a ready-made gift this time. The Thuriens themselves had insisted on its being that way.
“It should keep you two busy enough for a while,” Hunt said, turning to Shilohin and Keshen, both of whom would be involved with the project. “But don’t try and plan everything too far ahead. That’s how things end up inflexible-the one thing that’s sure to happen is the one you never thought of.”
“Nobody planned the Entoverse, or this one,” Shilohin said.
“We’ll let it plan itself as it goes,” Keshen agreed. He grinned. “And I know not to take on any sidelines this time.”
“Watch where you’re flying that ship, the next time you take it up,” Hunt told Torres and Jassilane. “Tell that computer of yours to try not to bump into any cities. It does tend to upset the inhabitants, and the police take a dim view of it.”
“I don’t exactly remember that they were about to give you the citizen—of—the-year award at the time,” ZORAC chipped in, reverting momentarily from translation mode to its own voice.
Del Cullen shook hands with Hunt warmly and gave him a hearty thump on the shoulder A contingent of Terran police and security advisers had arrived from Earth with the Vishnu to help Garuth s Jevlenese administration establish some machinery for protecting the basic rights that governments were supposed to be for. Cullen would be working with them initially to adjust their thinking to the needs of the local society, instead of the other way around. –
“Three months, they tell us,” he said. “So say hi to the States for us until then. And when we get there, it’ll be the wildest time of R and R since they came home from World War Two. Right, guys?”
“Right,” Koberg and Lebansky agreed heartily from behind him.
Sandy Holmes and Duncan Watt were standing with the group from PAC, not the ones who were due to leave. They would be staying on for at least three months, getting the UNSA labs at PAC organized as a permanent facility and initiating some of the kind of work for which the group had come to Jevlen officially to begin with. Hunt also suspected that they had plenty of R and R plans of their own, involving a lot of Shiban nightlife. Erwin Reutheneger would have been proud.
“Regards to Gregg and everyone back at the firm,” Duncan told Hunt. “Tell him he’s been warming that chair at Goddard for too long. It’s time we saw more of him out here in the field.”
“Maybe I can get him on the flight back with the Vishnu,” Hunt
said. “It would save us a lot of frenzy and all-night meetings when we get back after this, if I know anything about Gregg.”
Danchekker, who had been saying something to Sandy, turned with an intrigued look on his face as he caught the conversation. “Yes, what a possibility. . . And, er, might there be a chance, perhaps, of persuading Ms. Mulling to go with him, do you think?”