Everyone, including the observers from the PEC, later agreed that by the time the viggies appeared on the terrace, in full chorus with an Urthian libretto, their obvious sentience was an anticlimax.
Within moments of the first appearance of the new Presence, Justin was aware of it. The residence provided for the CHASE Commission had been well equipped with eyes and ears. Justin was not one to leave anything to chance.
Now he stared at the small holostage on his desk in furious disbelief. The image of the Emerald Eminence appeared tiny and irrelevant and he heard the words coming from it with angry incredulity. Nothing had prepared him for this. No one had even suggested that this could happen. It was a trick! Had to be. It had to be explained to the commission members as a trick. Somehow it had to be explained away….
But he couldn’t wait on that! He picked up the com and punched for Colonel Lang.
‘Send the orders to destroy,’ he snarled.
‘The commission report isn’t in,’ the Colonel objected, testily. The Colonel had eyes and ears of his own.
‘You can send the orders to your troops and apologize later, telling them you thought the commission had reported, or you can refuse, in which case I have some papers to be transmitted to your superior officers within the hour. I think these papers would solve the Jut Massacre mystery to everyone’s satisfaction. No one has ever known how the assassins got off the Jut … until now.’
Colonel Lang’s voice cracked with rage. ‘You’d implicate yourself, Justin!’
‘You think I care? I’m going to hold this planet, Lang. I’m going to take it over. I’m going to get rid of all the roadblocks and take it for myself. There won’t be any sentience to question when I’m through with it, and I’ve got some friends in very high places. Now what are you going to do?’
There was only a moment’s reluctant silence. ‘I’ll send word to the troops.’
‘Fine. Do that.’
There was a disturbance somewhere in the building. Justin went to the door of his office and listened to the uproar from the reception area below. Raised voices, one screeching, the other bellowing. Honeypeach Thonks and Wuyllum. So, they had also seen the Presence speaking to the commission and had come for asylum. Justin showed his teeth. Let them. It might come to the point that any pair of hands that could recharge a rifle would be an asset.
Justin summoned his chief of security and barked half a dozen hasty orders. Thanks to Verbold’s timely warning about the assassination attempt, all the men were present. There were enough forces and weapons inside the walls to hold the BDL building against anything the planet had available to bring against him. And in addition to that, the building had a few nasty surprises built in, surprises that Justin had arranged for, even though he had never really thought he’d have to use them.
By the time he finished – first with the Presences and then with Jubal – any power that might have opposed him would be gone!
Partway up the vertical shaft that burrowed down six floors through the BDL building walls, Gretl Mechas leaned her head against the wall and listened. The bottom of the shaft was now within inches of the goal. The last few buckets full of shattered mud brick had been hauled up and poured away. Now she could hear great disturbance inside the building, much shouting, feet hammering to and fro. Taking a deep breath, she began to ascend the peg ladder to the servants’ quarters, almost a hundred feet above where Michael waited. It was time.
18
Since Jamieson and Clarin had first encountered them blocking the way west, the troopers had methodically worked their way farther into the ranges. Although led initially by Explorers, most groups had long since lost their guides. As the intent of the troops had become clear, the Explorers had vanished. This did not greatly disturb the officers, who had been well briefed by Colonel Lang, although it occasioned a mild spookiness among the ranks, inclining them to start at the least sound and move hastily away from anything that resembled a Presence.
‘You don’t understand,’ a young lieutenant remonstrated with his men. ‘When we get the orders, we’re going to blow them up. They won’t be able to do anything to us if they’re blown up!’
From time to time a shadowy, dusk-hidden figure might approach a nervous group to ask some such question as, ‘How much of them do you suppose is showing? Most of the Presence is underground. If we blow up the top, what’s the bottom part going to do?’
The shadowy figure would then drift away, leaving the enlisted men to pass this question on to their fellows. They didn’t know who had asked them – just ‘somebody.’ The officer, aware that hysteria had gone a bit further than consonant with discipline, tried to find the somebody, with no success, and the Tripsinger who had started the rumor moved back into the ranges to think up something else, equally troublesome.
This kind of harassment, which was widespread, made the Tripsingers who did it feel slightly better, but did almost nothing to mitigate the danger to the Presences. The troops kept on moving eastward, and when the orders from Colonel Lang began to reach them, there were bodies of well-equipped men dallying along within a few hours’ march of almost twenty major Presences.
The orders told them they needed delay no longer.
Sergeant (sometime) Halky Bend had been detailed to lead a small group of men at a fast pace, guided by an unwilling Explorer knight, by a circuitous route to the Watchers. The route was no good for wagons or mules, but men on foot could make it. Bend had been released from the
