Cerberus: A WOLF IN THE FOLD (24 page)

 
Item: As I had already known, every single computer expert pulled from Tooker at the start of the last quarter had been expert in some form of organic computering. Most major organic computers and work on them
Had
been banned long ago by the Confederacy, after some of the early creations, centuries ago, became more than human and almost took over humanity. That.
bitter
, bloody, and costly war had made such work feared to this day. Those who dabbled in it were wiped or—sent to Cerberus? From Sugal and other sources I determined that we weren't the only one tapped for such minds.

 
Item: A couple, of months earlier than this, major construction began on Laroo's
Island
, partly to create a place for shuttle landings to be made in safety there. But a whole hell of a lot more than that was in progress, to judge from the crews and raw materials ordered.

 
Item: Interfaces between Tooker's master computer —and other corporations' master computers—were established on a high and unbreakable scramble, relayed by satellite. The relay system's other end pointed to La-roo's
Island
, although officially it was interconnected to the Lord of the Diamond's command space station in orbit around Cerberus. That raised an interesting question: if the work was so super-secret, why
not
the space station? It was almost as large as the island, and if one allowed for the shuttle dock, power plant, and fixed structures on the island, it was a damn sight bigger in usable space.

 
Item: Interestingly. HroyasaiFs own area for trawling had been increased by almost 50 percent shortly before I took over, something I never would have noticed if it hadn't been reflected in the quota plan for the quarter, a document I was only now getting to know ultimately. Seaprince of Coborn, about the same distance south of Laroo's
Island
as we were north, had an equal increase. A look at corporation affiliates and a check with the previous quarter's quota plan showed that an entire Tooker trawling operation, Emyasail, was in the previous quarter's plan but was totally missing now. Its area had been given to Hroyasail, which was natural, and Seaprince, which w^as most unnatural, since Seaprince was a Comp-world Corporation subsidiary, not one of Tooker's. You didn't hand valuable territory to a competitor that close voluntarily, so Compworld had to have given something really major in return and nothing like that showed in the books. In fact records showed that Tooker's
skrit
harvest since the quarter began was down sharply, indicating a dip into the reserves by next year. So it wasn't voluntary, and only the government could force such a move.

 
These facts alone, put together with what only I really knew of anyone likely to compile them, painted a stark picture.

 
Item: The only folks anybody knew about now using uncannily human organic computers were our aliens and their spy robots, robots known to have a connection with the Warden Diamond. That was why I was here. But the alien robots were so -good that no research project would be really necessary on them—and even if it was, it wouldn't be carried out here, not on Cerberus or any other Warden world, and certainly not by any of our people, who were definitely behind the aliens in this area.

 
And yet the conclusion was inescapable: Wagant Laroo had converted his former retreat and resort into an organic computer laboratory, staffed with the best of his own that he could find and supplied by Emyasail's trawlers. Why trawlers and gunboats and not by air? Well, for one thing it would attract less attention and give the appearance to onlookers of business as usual in Emyasail's area. Also, there appeared to be some paranoia about many aircraft in the vicinity of Laroo's
Island
.

 
I paced back and forth for several days and also talked the matter over with Dylan, who, having less background in this sort of thing than I did, came up even more of a blank. However, her more parochial outlook gave me the key I was looking for. "Why are you assuming the aliens have anything to do with it?" she asked me. "Why isn't this just a new scheme by Wagant Laroo?"

 
That stopped me cold. Suddenly all the pieces fell into place, and I had at least part of the picture. "No," I told her, "the aliens have everything to do with this—only they don't know itl"

 
"Huh?"

 
I sat down. "Okay, we know that these aliens are able to make facsimiles of people, people with jobs in sensitive places they have to gain access to. We know that these organic robots are so good they fool literally everybody. Not just the machines that check to see who's who, but everybody. Close friends.
Lovers.
People they've known for years. And they even pass brain scans!" I was getting excited now. "Of coursel
Of
course! How could I be so blind?"

 
She looked concerned. "What do you mean?"

 
"Okay, so first your agents pick out the person they want to duplicate. They find their records, take holographic pictures, you name it. And from that, our alien friends create an organic robot—grow is a more apt term, if I remember correctly—that is absolutely physically identical to the target.
Absolutely.
Except, of course, being artificial it has whatever additional characteristics its designers want—eyes that see into infrared and ultraviolet, enormous strength if need be. Since it's made up of incredibly tough material instead of cells, with a skin more or less grafted on top, and powered perhaps by drawing energy from the fields that surround us*—microwaves, magnetic fields, I don't know what—it can survive even a vacuum. The one that penetrated Military Systems Command seemed to have the power to change its components into other designs—it actually launched itself into space. And yet it fooled everybodyl Bled the right blood when it had to, knew all the right answers, duplicated the personality, right down to the littlest habit, of the person it was pretending to be. And there's only one way it could have done that."

 
"All right, how?"

 
"It
was
the person it was pretending to be."

 
She shook her head in wonder. "You're not making any sense. Was it a robot or a person?"

 
"A robot.
An absolutely perfect robot whose components could provide it with whatever it needed, either as a mimic or as a device for fulfilling its mission or getting away.
An incredible machine made from tiny unicellular computers that can control independently what they are and do—trillions of them, perhaps. But the aliens solved the problem we never did, and never allowed ourselves the research time to do—they discovered how to preprogram the things indelibly, so they'd be free and complete individuals yet never deviate from their programming, which was to spy on us. So now they build them in our images, and—what? They bring them to Cerberus.
No, not Cerberus, probably to the space station."

 
Dylan frowned, puzzled. "You mean they're around here?"

 
I shook my head. "No, what happens next has to be something like this. The target is snatched-—kidnapped.
Probably on vacation.
At least at a time when he or she won't be missed for up to a couple of weeks.
The victim is brought to the station and infected with the Cerberan version of the Warden organism and allowed to season there. Then—Dylan, you remamber that drug you stole to get out of the motherhood?"

 
She nodded. "I—I got it off a shuttle pilot."

 
"Greatl It's coming together nicely. So, after seasoning, their target is given some of this drug and introduced to the similarly infected robot facsimile. The target's mind and personality goes into the
robot's
, but the robot is already preprogrammed as an agent."

 
"As they programmed me," Dylan said emotionlessly.

 
I nodded.
"Only a far more sophisticated method.
A psych machine wouldn't do the job, since they need the complete person—and only that person's attitude is changed. No, it's in the original programming of the robot when it's made by the aliens, of that I'm sure."

 
"But how can this robot return and replace the original?" she asked. "Wouldn't the Warden organism destroy it when it left?"

 
"No, not necessarily.
Remember, there are several items, several products that even now can be sterilized. Apparently these robots can too. Basically, all they do is get out of the system. The Wardens die, but so adaptable are the quasi-cellular components of the robot that they can make immediate repairs. The target returns to work from 'vacation,' the absolutely perfect agent-spy. It's beautiful."

 
"It sounds too much like what happened to me," she noted.

 
"I'm sorry," I said gently. "I was.
admiring
a finely Grafted'gem. I don't want to make light of the human tragedy involved. Still, considering the size and complexity of the Confederacy, it'd be almost impossible to block them all out, and the major damage has probably already been done."

 
"And Laroo's Project
Phoenix
?"

 
I considered it a moment. "There's only one possibility I can come up with, and it's a terrifying one in some respects. The aliens have no reason to use the island, and less reason to use people who know less about their robots than they do. To put any of their operation directly on a Warden world would eventually tip off the Confederacy anyway, and they know the Wardens are 'hot' for them right now. No, for the answer you have to think as Wagant Laroo thinks, from the perspective of the.Warden Diamond, and the answer becomes obvious."

 
"Not to me it doesn't," she said.

 
"All right—all along we've wondered just what the aliens could offer the Four Lords other than revenge. Well, here's the payoff. When they win, the Four Lords, and those others whom they choose—maybe even the whole population of all four worlds—will be given new bodies.
Perfect bodies, those of organic robots.
You see what the Four Lords were offered?
A way out.
Escape.
The freedom to leave.
If these agent robots can do it, anybody can. But there's a hitch, one that necessarily paranoid Lords like Laroo would immediately think of." "I can follow this part. What's to stop these aliens from preprogramming the payoff robots as well, so they have a population of superhuman slaves?"

 
"Very good.
High marks. So here you're given a way.
of
escape and you dare not use it. What would
you
do?"

 
She thought a moment. "Study theirs and build my own."

 
"All right.
But it's unlikely that you could do it without such a massive plant that the Confederacy watchers wouldn't take notice. Besides, it might well involve construction materials or support materials not found anywhere in the Warden Diamond, maybe unknown to anybody on our side at this point. What if you couldn't build one?"

 
"Well, I guess you'd order a few you didn't need as agents from the aliens, who have to trust your judgment in these matters, and use them."

 
"Right again! But these will come preprogrammed by a method unknown to our science. To make them work you have to find out how they are programmed and eliminate the programming. No mean trick, since it's probably integrated with instructions on how the robots function and those you have to keep. The best you can do is hope. Gather everything you can, and everybody who might know something about it, lock 'em up on the island with the robots, lab, computer links, and whatever, and try and find an answer. And that's what Project Phoenix is all about."

 
"Laroo's not only getting back at the Confederacy," Dylan said in an almost awed tone, "but double-crossing the aliens, too!"

 
I nodded. "I have to admire the old boy for that, anyway. And it's probably not just Laroo but all the Four Lords. And I think I know, at least, how the robots are getting in and out, too. It has to be in the shuttle system. But aside from the Diamond they go only one other place —the moons of Momrath. Out there someplace, possibly inside those moons' orbits, alien and Warden
human
meet."

 
I sat back, feeling satisfied. In one moment I'd solved at least half the Warden puzzle. I didn't know anything about the aliens, true, and I had no idea as to the nature and scope of their plot, but I now understood
,
I felt certain, much of the Warden connection.

 
"And what good does it do you to know these things?" Dylan asked. "You can't do anything about them."

 
Good old practical Dylan! Her comment was on the mark. What
could
I do?

 
Or more accurately, what did I
want
to do?

 
Kill Laroo and topple the system, yes—but even if I figured out how, did I really want Project Phoenix to fail?

 
At the moment I knew only one thing. The biggest deal in Warden
history
was happening out there on Laroo's
Island
—and I wanted in on it.