ENTOVERSE

“What’s ZORAC?” Gina asked to keep up her image, at the same time crossing imaginary fingers that ZORAC wouldn’t recognize her and return some wisecrack. But either Baumer had switched the channel off, or only a subset of ZORAC’s capacity was available to the public net, or it was programmed with enough manners to know when to keep quiet—Gina had not learned enough about it, yet, to know which.

“The Ganymean computer aboard the Shapieron,,” Baumer re­plied. “It doesn’t play straight into your head like the Thurien com­puters do.” He waved a hand. “Oh, I’m not really conversant with these technical matters. It needs microphones, screens, and things. You’ll find out about it when you meet some of the people in PAC.”

“That’s Planetary Administration Center, right?”

“Yes. Perhaps you should try and get to see some of the Gany­means on Garuth’s staff—theoretically he is in charge of everything.”

“Yes, I know.”

Baumer frowned down at the desk and shook his head in thinly disguised irritation. “You really should have got more of an agenda arranged before you came He reached for a pad and picked up a pen. “Anyway, his chief scientist is a woman called Shiohin—”

“A Ganymean, you mean?”

“Yes. She should be of some help. She’s involved with a number of Jevlenese and Terrans who are investigating alleged agents on Earth.” He scribbled a few lines. “Those are a couple of other names that work under her. And here are a few of the Jevlenese that it might

be worth your while approaching. This last one, Reskedrom, was quite high up in the Federation while it lasted, and should be useful— but he’s not easy to get to. Your best bet would be to start at COJA:

Coordinating Office for Jevlenese Affairs—that’s a department inside PAC. They keep lists and charts of who’s what and where, and everything that’s going on.” Baumer finished writing, tore off the top sheet of the pad, and pushed it across. “That should help. But other­wise, I don’t think I have very much to offer, I’m afraid.”

Gina took the slip and put it in a pocket. “Thanks anyway. I did meet a bunch of UNSA people on the ship, but they’re really only coming here to look into Ganymean science. They’re tied up setting up their labs, anyhow, so I don’t have anyone to show me around.” She paused to give Baumer time to react if he chose. He didn’t. Still reluctant to let it go at that, Gina waited a few seconds longer, and then inquired, “What do you do here that keeps you so busy?”

“I am a sociologist. I have a whole new society to work with.”

Baumer’s choice of phrasing suggested an approach. Gina had read all of the reports he had written, which Hunt had run off for her from PAC’s files. “Control” seemed to be the dominant word in Baumer’s vocabulary. In his eyes, Earth had gone too far down the path of degeneracy as represented by the insanity of the free market and the corrosion of liberal morality for there to be any hope left of saving it. But the situation on Jevlen, if only those with the power could be made to see, offered a clean slate on which to begin anew and engineer the model society. And Baumer knew just how it should be done.

“That’s interesting,” she said. “Which way could Jevlen’s society be heading, do you think, after it gets straightened out?”

Baumer sat back in his chair and looked at the far wall. The indifference that had hung in his eyes until then changed to a hint of a gleam. “There’s an opportunity here,” he replied. “An opportunity to build the society that could have existed on Earth, and now never will—without all the greed and arrogance that doesn’t care what it destroys; one based on true equality and values that count.”

Gina looked at him as if he had just said something that she didn’t hear very often. “I’ve often thought the same thing myself,” she said. Inside, she felt a twinge of disgust at her own hypocrisy; but she had known what the job would entail when she agreed to do it. “Is that why you came here from Earth?” she asked him.

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