Cerberus: A Wolf in the Fold Page 24

  “Lover,” I retorted, and hugged her back.

  Otah’s shop hadn’t changed at all, nor had Otah himself. He hadn’t seen me in some time, though, and looked surprised and pleased to see me, although less so at the sight of Dylan. Still, he pulled himself up as straight as he could and came over to us.

  “Qwin! How delightful! I’d given you up for dead!”

  “I’ll bet,” I responded dryly, then gestured with my head to Dylan. “This is my wife, Dylan Kohl.”

  “Your wi—Well, I’ll be damned! And to think you two first met here!”

  “We didn’t,” Dylan told him. “That was somebody else, same body.”

  That news befuddled him a bit, which I took as a good sign. That meant that Otah had no idea, what I had transmitted, or he’d have known of Dylan, Sanda, and the rest. He didn’t listen—or couldn’t.

  “Well, what can I do for you two this lovely day?” he asked pleasantly, and I could see that behind that fat face his mind was trying to figure out how to separate the two of us so he could force a report.

  “You can can the act, Otah,” I responded, a slight edge in my voice. “I know about the transmissions. I know you get your black-market electronics from the Confederacy somehow in exchange for triggering folks like me.”

  He laughed nervously. “Why, Qwin! That’s insane!”

  “No, it’s true—and you know it, I know it, even Dylan knows it. Otah, this has grown bigger than you, bigger than the bootleg stuff. I need to call in. I need to call in now, consciously, and with full knowledge and memory of the call. You understand?”

  “I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about!”

  “No more games!” I snapped, “If you want to keep this sham up, fine. There are other sources. But you’ll be long gone to Momrath for inconveniencing me, I promise you. Otah, I’m in the middle of Wagant Laroo’s own circle, including the man himself. One word about your off-planet bootlegging activities and you know what will happen.”

  He sputtered and swallowed hard. “You wouldn’t.”

  “In a minute. Now, let’s stop this old school uniform stuff, huh?” We got to be friends because that was how you got your payoffs. You used me, and that means I can now use you—or discard you. Which will it be?”

  He swallowed hard, shook his head, and sighed. “Come on, it was nothing personal, Qwin. You gotta believe that. I always liked you. It was just—well, business.”

  “The transceiver, Otah. Let’s get this over with. I can only promise you that if you go along, with no funny business, no one will ever -know. But we’re stuck for time. We’re being followed, and I had to get a doctor to remove a couple of small tracking devices placed under our skins without our knowledge. We’re going on a real shopping spree and celebration today, hitting all our old haunts, and you’re one. But if we take too long here, they’ll know.”

  He looked around nervously. “Come on in the back, he turned and we followed.

  The workshop was the usual mess, out of which he dug a helmetlike device and plugged it into what looked like a test bench console, then turned on the juice.

  “Looks something like the brain-scan things—the big stuff,” Dylan noted, and I nodded.

  “It probably is something like that. Otah, without saying the magic words, how’s it work?”

  He shrugged. “I dunno. The transmission just goes out through the antenna on the roof I use for routine communications. I guess it’s scrambled and picked up somewhere else on Cerberus, then beamed to satellite, and then to who knows -where. All I know is you come in, we talk, I wait until we’re alone and say—well, the key words—and you and I walk back, turn the thing on, plug it in. Then you put it on and go into a trance for a couple of minutes. Afterwards you take it off and come back out, and I spot you and make some inane comment and you pick up the conversation from there, just as if you never left.”

  I nodded. “Okay, good. Go on back out to the shop until I need you. Dylan can stand watch.”

  “Suits me,” he responded nervously, and left

  I looked over the helmet. “It’s a simplified version of a readout used by the Security Clinic,” I told her. “It is something like a scan device, only it transmits the information.”

  “I thought that was impossible,” she responded. “Nobody but you would be able to receive it.”

  “That’s pretty much correct. Now, don’t get alarmed if I go into that trance. Just let it go. Make a brief appearance out front if you want to—I want no interruptions. When I’m through, we’ll see what’s what.”

  “Qwin, who’s on the other end of that thing?”

  I sighed. “A computer, probably. Quasi-organic type. And eventually me.”

  • • •

  And so that’s where we stand to date. I hope you will evaluate this information and pass it on to the Operator at this point, rather than waiting for a final report which I will make—if I’m able.

  There is a mild pause, like a break in the static. Suddenly a voice—no, not a voice, really, just an impression of one, forms in my mind.

  “I will inform him that the report should be read,” the computer says, “but not of its incomplete nature. He will make his own decision.”

  “Fair enough,” I tell the computer. “How long?”

  “Unknown. He is distraught over the Lilith report and has refused immediate reading of this one. Perhaps a day.”

  “How, then, will I get back into contact? 1 can’t draw attention to here.”

  “We will contact you. Do not worry.”

  That’s easy for you to say. You’re only a machine, and you aren’t down here with your neck in a noose.

  END TRANSMISSION. READ OUT, HOLD FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.

  The observer removed the helmet and sank back in the chair, looking and feeling exhausted. He just sat there for several minutes staring at nothing, as if unable to focus his thoughts or get hold of himself.

  “You are upset again,” the computer said.

  He pointed at nothing. “Is that me down there? Is that really me? Is that me so romantically linked, so crazy and so ambitious?”

  “It is you. The verifications and patterns show it so.”

  He chuckled dryly. “Yeah. Quantitative analysis. Boil everything down to nice, neat little numbers and symbols. It must be nice to be a computer, not to give a damn that everything you ever thought, ever believed, about yourself and your society is being ripped apart bit by bit, piece by piece.”

  “Both of us are the sum of our respective programming,” the computer noted. “Nothing more—or less.”

  “Programming! Aw, what’s the use? You’re incapable of understanding this. I wonder if anybody is. Nobody’s ever been put through this before—and shouldn’t be, again.”

  “Nonetheless, we have learned much. If the Cerberan unit were to be terminated right now, we would be far ahead. We know now how the robots are programmed. We know that the point of contact between alien and Diamond is inside the orbit of the moons of Momrath. We also are in a position to strike a blow against those robots, even if we have not yet solved the puzzle.”

  “I’m not going to recommend frying Cerberus!” he snapped. “Not now, anyway.”

  “The station and Laroo’s Island would be sufficient, don’t you think, to put more of a crimp in the operation than even killing one of the Lords, or even all four?”

  “Yeah, you may be right. But if I report this, they’re going to recommend taking the whole planet out anyway. As Laroo, I think, pointed out, that might provoke a confrontation—and it would eliminate the robot threat. Without Cerberus, they couldn’t program the things with real minds.”

  “Why do you hesitate?—Ordinarily you would think nothing of such a step.”

  “Why—” He paused, sitting back down. “Yeah, why do I?” he asked himself aloud. “What’s it to me?” That was his training and experience talking, but that was only his intellectual side. There was another side of him, o
ne he had never suspected, that had now revealed itself not once but twice. With Lilith he’d finally convinced himself that it had been an aberration. He was a technological agent, and in a nontechnological society he’d had to change and compromise. But Cerberus? The excuse was gone in that situation. And yet, and yet—had only his twins down there changed?

  Still, there was only one thing to do, and he knew it.

  “If it makes your decision any easier,” the computer put in, “the elimination of Cerberus would not stop the robot operation, only set it back. As long as any of the Cerberan variant of the Warden organism remained in alien hands it could be used anywhere in-system. We had the indication that it already was being so used. Nor is it yet the time to provoke a confrontation. We have insufficient data yet to get such a resolution through Council for the sector’s elimination. All we might accomplish at this point is a refusal to defend by the enemy, the elimination of the Warden system or its neutralization, and we would then lose all links with the enemy.”

  He considered that, and it made sense. “All right. Transmit the proposal and problems to Security Central and get an evaluation and recommendations.”

  “Being done,” the computer responded.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  R&D—And a Split Decision

  I notified Bogen that I had initiated the contact and could only wait for results. It would be a nervous time, I knew. The only bright spot was that Dylan was so much fresher, so much more alive, her old self again in spades. If it hadn’t been for the noose, those next three days would have been among the happiest and most satisfying of all my time on Cerberus.

  At the end of the third day, though, I received a call from someone I didn’t know and from a place I couldn’t guess. I knew Bogen had the phone bugged and traces all over the place, but somehow I doubted his ability to do much about this.

  There was no visual, only audio. “Qwin Zhang?”

  “Yes?”

  “Your proposal has merit, but nothing can be done without a physical sample.”

  I held my breath. “How much of a sample?”

  “About fifty cubic centimeters of brain tissue and another fifty of other random tissue should suffice. Is this possible?”

  “I’ll see,” I told whoever- or whatever it was. “How do I let you know?”

  “We’ll be in touch.” The line was dead.

  Dylan came in. “Who was that?”

  “You know who,” I responded. “Time to call Bogen from the security shack.”

  Bogen insisted on talking to me directly, so I got on the line.

  “They contacted me. They need two tissue samples.”

  He nodded. “Figures. We anticipated that. Just out of curiosity, though—how did they do it? You haven’t been out all day and you haven’t received any phone calls or messages.”

  “They called. On my phone. Surely you tapped it.”

  He looked more than a little nervous. “We sure did. And your quarters, too. I’ll check it out, but nobody called me from the monitors like they were supposed to. I don’t like this at all. They shouldn’t have power like that—not here.”

  He switched off, but I understood his concern and waited at the shack for a reply, which wasn’t long in coming.

  “Did you check the phone?” I asked him.

  He nodded worriedly. “Sure did. No calls of any kind. And we ran the recording of our bugs in your place, too. You wouldn’t be kidding us, would you, Zhang? There’s nothing on that tape but normal noises. No conversation on the phone at all, although we do hear your wife come in and ask ‘Who was that?’ and you reply.”

  I whistled. I was impressed, and so was Bogen—although not in the same way. “So what’s the answer?”

  “You’ll get your tissue.”

  “Shall I pick up or do you deliver?”

  “Very funny. No, it should be picked up, if only because I want to see how they collect the sample.”

  “I’ll get a boat started up,” I told him.

  “No. As a precautionary measure, Chairman Laroo has ordered that you never set foot on the island again, and security will fry you if you try.”

  “That wasn’t part of the deal!” I protested, feeling a sinking sensation in my stomach. If Security went along, I had to be there.

  “We changed it. You’re art admitted assassin, Zhang, and we don’t minimize your skills. We can’t afford to take the chance.”

  “But I’ll have to come in if they give me anything.”

  “Nope. If anything physical is required that we can’t handle, you will send your wife. Between the psych implant against killing and the fact that she’s native here, we feel more secure.”

  “I don’t want to involve her! The deal’s off!”

  He laughed evilly. “Well, that’s okay, but if it ends here, so do the both of you. You knew that when you started this. Our terms, or forget it Now, send her over in two hours exactly.”

  “All right,” I sighed. “We’ll play it your way—for now. But wait a minute. She’s of the motherhood. She’s prohibited from ocean travel.”

  “By whom? By authority of Chairman Laroo she’s been waived of that requirement. Anybody gives you trouble on it, tell ‘em to call me.”

  “But I thought she had a psych implant against it.”

  “We had Dumonia remove it. It wasn’t much anyway. Go ahead. We’re wasting time.”

  I switched off, feeling less than confident now. This change in the ground rules was hairy indeed.

  Dylan, however, didn’t mind at all. “We’re in this together, remember.”

  I nodded, and could do nothing but see her down to the docks and off. She was excited to be on a boat again, for she really did love the sea. She was gone about five hours, a time in which I became increasingly worried and nervous. When she finally returned I was still apprehensive.

  “They didn’t do anything to you, did they?” I asked her.

  She laughed. “No. Mostly I took the wheel and had a little fun. That’s a gorgeous place inside there, though. They only let me on the main floor, handed me the sealed, refrigerated case here, and marched me back.”

  I looked at her nervously. Would I know if they’d replaced her with a robot? Would I know if they’d pulled a fast one with the psych machines?

  Well, I’d know the robot situation if we swapped during the night, and I felt reasonably confident that at this stage they wouldn’t risk it. For the other, I’d need Dumonia—if I could trust him.

  Suddenly I stopped short. “That son of a bitch!” I muttered. “That crafty old anarchist!”

  She looked at me, puzzled. “What? Who?”

  “Dumonia. He’s ahead of both Laroo and me. He knew this all along, set me up for it.”

  Points of similarity indeed. He knew damned well what he was saying when he told me that.

  We just brought the case into the apartment and then waited for more instructions, which didn’t come. Finally, we got tired of waiting, caught up on some routine paperwork, and went to bed.

  In the morning the case was gone. I reported the theft to Bogen, who sounded none too thrilled about it all. He’d had lenses, agents, and a full security system trained on the place, and nobody had seen a thing. Worse, at least five separate tracing devices had been placed inside the case, all of which had functioned perfectly, apparently. At least they still were—they said the case was still in the apartment. The trouble was, no amount of detection and searching could reveal it, although they finally came up with a tiny recording module, something like a tiny battery, wedged inside the floorboards.

  Sure enough, it nicely broadcast exactly all five tracing signals.

  Bogen was both furious and unnerved by it all. I knew damned well that a far different account would reach Laroo, one in which Bogen didn’t look so bad.

  I had to admire the Confederacy’s father agent in this area, who seemed head and shoulders above even me, at least in audacity. In fact I was so impressed that when he calle
d and made an appointment for us to go and see him, I could hardly wait.

  The samples had been gone nine days, and during that time little of interest happened in any direction, except Bogen was becoming more impatient and threatening toward us. Both Dylan and I started becoming a little fidgety.

  Finally, though, the call I’d been expecting came, and off. we went, almost certainly unsuspected by Bogen and his other people.

  “I always wondered how and why you thought you could talk so freely in here,” I told the agent.

  Dr. Dumonia smiled and nodded to the two of us. “Oh, it’s a couple of modern wonders, really. The fact is, the place is bugged and Bogen’s people are right now hearing us talk. They’re just hearing something quite different. It’s so pleasant to work in a technological environment that’s a few decades behind what’s current.”

  “You and your anti-Confederacy anarchism. I knew there was something funny about you, almost from the first, but I missed which side you were on.”

  “I’m on my side, of course. So are you two—on your side, that is. I’m not a fraud, and everything I told you is true. I detest the Confederacy. If I could be sure these aliens of ours wouldn’t eliminate our whole race I’d cheer ‘em on as they attacked. There would be no better shot in the arm for humanity than a good old war, as long as the race survived to build and grow. I’m a psychiatrist and I like my creature comforts and my profession, too.”

  “Then why—why work for them?” Dylan asked, puzzled.

  “Oh, I don’t work for them, exactly. On Cerberus, I just about am the Confederacy, which I consider a delicious joke on all of them. It has to do with the way I look at history and society. Qwin here might tell you more about that. I don’t really feel like philosophical chats right now, there’s too much to be done. Let’s just say that I use them, and they use me, and we both profit. I also use Laroo and his people and system. All to the end of living exactly the life I want, doing what I most love to do.”

  “I don’t understand why they sent me at all,” I told him honestly, and with the respect one professional offers another. “You could have done everything easier and with less risk yourself.”