“I only said it was an interesting question logically,” ZORAC interjected.
“All the better. I said a minute ago that from the way things are going we could end up with a shooting war. That means that Garuth, Shilohin, Monchar, Rodgar, and all the other Ganymeans from the ship would be caught here in the middle of it. Your best way of safeguarding them is to help prevent it from happening. So circumvolute that.”
“Agreed. But Garuth, as the ship’s commander, is the final authority. He’d have to approve.”
“Then let’s find Garuth and talk about it,” Hunt said.
Eubeleus and his lieutenant, Iduane, sat in one of the private rooms in the SoA’s Shiban “Temple,” talking to a screen showing Scirio, who among other things ran the illicit headworld couplers in part of the city. He also provided the go-betweens to Baumer, avoiding any direct involvement of the SoA. Scirio ran through a number of routine matters and then came to Baumer’s meeting with Gina.
“Baumer wasn’t suspicious?” Eubeleus repeated. The plan was at a critical phase, and he wasn’t leaving anything to chance. Somebody that he didn’t know suddenly appearing out of nowhere and .questioning one of his sources was something that would have made him suspicious at any time.
“He thinks she’s what she says: a starry—eyed broad with big ideas about being a book writer,” Scirio said. “They talked politics. He gave her some names to check out that she could have found in the directory.”
“She is registered as an author in the hotel at Geerbaine,” Iduane offered in a tactful attempt to support Scirio. “She’s there independently under her own name, and she traveled on her own from Seattle, USA.”
“I say she’s clean,” Scirio said. “Hell, we’ve got a lot to do.”
Eubeleus remained dubious, but didn’t take the matter further for the moment. Afterward, however, he said to Iduane, “I’m not happy about that woman. Check with our other sources in PAC and see if they have anything on her. Get back to me on it today.”
Hunt made a gesture of appeal across the desk in Garth’s office. Del Cullen, whom Hunt had rounded up and brought with him for moral support, watched from one side. “Look, I know it’s underhanded and not the kind of thing that a Ganymean feels comfortable about, but we have to find out what they’re doing,” Hunt urged. “Hell, the Jevienese eavesdropped on our whole planet for fifty thousand years! What right do they have to get upset over a few tapped wires around one city?”
“We need better sources,” Cullen agreed. “A break like this isn’t quite an intelligence man’s dream, but you play with what you’ve got.”
Garuth had just heard from Calazar that JPC’s reaction to Eubeleus’s offer to remove to Uttan was favorable. Eubeleus had made the point that if the object was to defuse the tensions on Jevlen, one small demonstration of good faith now would have more effect than a torrent of good intentions and promises of doing things later. To emphasize his own sincerity, he was prepared to move himself away from the scene immediately, with a token advance guard of followers. The Thuriens thought his offer magnanimous and were arranging for a ship to be sent to Jevlen to take them. Privately, Calazar had confessed to Garuth that he wasn’t completely comfortable about it, but it seemed that the farther away from Jevlen Eubeleus was in the immediate future, the less mischief he would be able to do.
Garuth didn’t trust Eubeleus any more than Hunt did, but at least the relocation would remove the man from being Garuth’s responsibility for the foreseeable future, and so Garuth had no reason to object. Meanwhile, he would be able to concentrate on his own problems. All the other lines they had tried had drawn blanks. A clue could only come from out there in the city. Distasteful as he found the suggestion, it was a human problem to do with a human world, and it probably required human methods.
“Very well. Do it,” he instructed ZORAC.
Hunt grinned faintly. But it really wasn’t a lot to go pinning hopes on. All it meant was that Baumer, and maybe another Terran or two out in the city, might say something to a Jevlenese that was useful. The situation was purely passive. Hunt could tell that Cullen found it as unsatisfying as he did. He looked across and pulled a face.