There was little Kieran could do but wait. He had thought that after the wedding party left, he might risk showing himself at June’s, but with the syndicate out and almost certainly looking for him he decided against it. He was on his way back to the Oasis, when Pierre called to say he had obtained a multiplex modulator of the kind Kieran had specified, and they needed to get together to rehearse how they would use it. Since there was no point in advertising Pierre’s involvement by having Kieran go to where he was, they arranged to meet at the hotel.
Pierre had with him an artificial culture of cells containing the assembled protein synthesizers and molecular-circuit receivers for activating them, along with portable equipment to analyze the codes picked up by the receivers and how the synthesizers responded. Through several hours of trial-and-error testing, they called the room’s number from a pocket comset fed by the muxmod and established the settings needed to generate the required external field pattern. By the time they had gotten it right, they could call the room, and under cover of an innocuous regular connection, transmit a protein-director code to the synthesizers inside the cells of the culture sample placed close to the receiving screen. To be sure it wasn’t an accidental result due to all the equipment being in the same room, Kieran took the muxmod down to one of the public booths in the lobby and made several calls from there, which proved successful. As a finale, he routed a call through Pierre’s comset, with the muxmod attached. Hence, they could piggyback the codes onto a call from a third party being routed through to the called number. The call carrying the code to the target didn’t have to originate from the phone that the muxmod was connected to.
By this time, a new possibility had suggested itself to Kieran’s ever fertile mind. “Let’s put it to a live test before we go active with Asgard,” he said to Pierre upon returning to the room. “Can you set up codes to deactivate the synthesizers that we initiated among those guys out at Troy?”
“Deactivate them?” Pierre looked mystified.
“Yes. I want to test the effectiveness in selecting a target subject.” Kieran meant the individual who would be actually at the receiving screen, as opposed to others who might be close by. “And it will add to the image. Hasn’t one of the best ways of turning nonbelievers around always been a demonstration of mystical healing? We’re about to expand the business.”
* * *
A half hour later, Kieran was looking at the frightful, green-purple visage of Justin Banks at the Troy site. Banks was still in the Mule transporter but outfitted in a lightweight suit as if he were about to leave; also, there were figures in the background who looked like medics. It seemed that Kieran had caught them just as they were about to be moved to the hospital at Lowell.
“Who the hell are you?” Banks demanded, taking in the garish, smiling form that had appeared on an incoming message screen.
“Profoundest greetings to you. I am he who is known as the Khal of Tadzhikstan, at present in Lowell, who only as recently as this morning had the honor of an audience with your Lady Marissa.” Kieran glanced across the room at Pierre, who was juggling numbers on a screen plugged into the muxmod, which in turn was feeding into the room system’s data port.
“Oh God, not another one,” Banks groaned.
“Who is that?” Kieran heard one of the doctors mutter in the background.
“I’m not sure. I haven’t seen him before. We’ve been having trouble from—”
“I have come at the behest of the seer Keziah, who is with the party nearby to you in the desert. Deserts are no stranger to me. Neither is the affliction that you suffer. But the tidings I bring you are joyous! Your transgressions were committed out of ignorance and not malice, and are therefore to be forgiven. I bring to you the healing powers from our Earthly home of the spirit.”
“Isn’t there ever going to be an escape from you people? Look, for the last time . . .”