If so, who had the Jevlenese been intending to direct the military strength against-the Thuriens, to end what was seen as an era of Ganymean domination; or Earth, to settle an account that went back fifty thousand years? If Earth, had the activities of Sverenssen’s network to promote strategic disarmament and peaceful coexistence during recent decades been a deliberate ploy calculated to render Earth defenseless and set it up to be taken over as a going industrial and economic concern instead of the ball of smoking rubble that would have been left had it been able to offer resistance? And if this were true, how had the Jevlenese then intended to deal with the Thuriens, who would hardly have just sat and done nothing while it all happened?
There had been more than enough reasons to talk straight away to the Ganymeans, so Calazar had called everybody together at Thurios-including Garuth, Shilohin, and Monchar from the Shapieron. After the ensuing debate had droned on for over two hours, vis~ interrupted to announce that something had just destroyed the object substituted for the Shapieron. Minutes later Imares Broghuilio, Premier of the Jevlenese group of worlds, contacted Calazar to request an immediate appointment.
Sitting off to one side of a room in the Government Center at Thurios with the others from McClusky, Hunt waited tensely for the confrontation with the first Jevlenese they would meet face to face, who were due to appear at any second. Garuth and his two companions from the Shapieron formed another small group on the far side; and Calazar, Eesyan, Showm, and a few more Thuriens were clustered at one end. The Ganymeans were still somewhat shaken by what they had learned of deception and subterfuge that went beyond their wildest imaginings. Even Frenua Showm had conceded that without the apparently uniquely human ability to penetrate such deviousness, it was doubtful that the Ganymeans would ever have reached the bottom of it. It seemed that being suspicious of another’s motives was something that came with the conditioning of predatorial thinking, and Ganymeans simply were not predators. “On Earth they say you must set a thief to catch a thief,” Garuth had remarked. “It appears just as true that to catch a human you must set a human.”
“They might be great scientists, but they’d make lousy lawyers,” Karen Heller murmured in Danchekker’s ear. Danchekker snorted and said nothing.
Calazar was curious to see how far the Jevienese would go in their fabrications if fed sufficient rope; also, there was more that he hoped to learn from them before exposing just how much he knew. For these reasons he did not want to confront them immediately with the presence of the Terrans and the Shapieron Ganymeans. He therefore instructed VISAR to edit out of the data-stream sent to JE VEX, and hence to the participants on Jevlen, all information pertaining to those two groups. It meant that Hunt, Garuth, and their companions would, after a fashion, be there, but remain completely invisible to the Jevlenese. Such a tactic was a flagrant violation of good manners and Thurien law, and unprecedented throughout the many centuries for which VISAR had been in use. Nonetheless .Calazar decreed that by their own actions the Jevlenese had warranted making this occasion an exception. Hunt was looking forward to the consequences.
“Premier Broghuilio, Secretary Wylott, and Scientific Advisor Estordu,” VISAR announced. Hunt stiffened. Three figures materialized at the end of the room opposite Calazar and the Thuriens. The one in the center had to be Broghuilio, Hunt decided at once. He stood six-foot-three at least, and had dark eyes that blazed fiercely from a face made all the more intimidating by a mane of thick, black hair and a pugnacious mouth surrounded by a short, cropped beard. His body was clad in a short coat of gold sheen worn over a mauve tunic covering a barrel-like chest and powerful torso.
“What of the Shapieron?” Calazar demanded in an unusually clipped voice. Hunt would have expected that for one of Broghuilio’s rank some form of opening formality would have been appropriate. The ificker of surprise that he caught on the faces of the other two Jevlenese seemed to say so too. One of them looked directly at where Hunt was sitting and stared straight through. It was a strange feeling.