Cerberus: A WOLF IN THE FOLD (28 page)

 
There were other agents here somewhere. Probably local people, perhaps with something they wanted from outside, or perhaps exiles with close friends, family, something to lose back home.
Blackmailable, to a degree.
How many times had one of these come to me, perhaps when I was walking alone or on the road, and told me to call the office? Lead me, then, to a transceiver of some sort sp I cold send my doings up to my other self, sitting there off the Warden system. Done it, then promptly forgot it

 
"I think I understand," I told him. "My—ah, previous activities, well, they involved some complex dealings and some people in high places. These people need certain—codes, basically, to continue to enjoy what I no longer can. This, I think, is a form of blackmail."

 
He smiled blandly at me. "You're a plant, aren't you?
A Confederacy agent.
Oh, don't look startled. You're not the first, nor the last. Don't worry, I won't rat on you. In fact it wouldn't matter much if I did, all things considered. Your profile indicates you are highly independent, and that Cerberus, and particularly Dylan, has changed you, as something always does. They keep trying though."

 
I sat back and sighed. "How did you know?"
"From the start—Qwin Zhang.
Woman's name.
Woman's body, when you came down. But you're no woman. You've never been one, except for that brief and quite brilliant cover entrance. There are differences in the brain scans between males and females. Not ones you'd really notice, but not only am I an expert, I'm also on a world where such swapping goes on all the time, so I see all sorts of switches. Remember the physiological differences between the sexes. The brain governs them, and while new patterns might emerge, there are always traces of the old. Not in your case, though. So from your appearance here, I infer that the Confederacy's finally figured out how to do what we can do naturally."

 
"Not exactly," I told him. "The attrition rate's high. But they're working on it."

 
"Fascinating.
They'll have to suppress the knowledge, you know, except perhaps for the leadership and essential people. They'll have to—such switching would disrupt their society enormously, perhaps beyond repair." He smiled at the thought. "Well, it's no big thing, since the Confederacy still has the unsolvable problem. Anybody capable enough to really cause damage as an agent that they send to a Warden
world
changes into one of the Warden Diamond's best and most dangerous citizens. Tell me, do you really intend to kill Laroo?"

 
"I
should
kill you," I noted icily. "You're the most dangerous man on this planet to me.
More than Laroo."

 
"But you won't," he responded confidently. "For one thing, that would add lots of complications to whatever you're doing now. For another, it would draw attention to you, even if you got away with it, since you'd be linked to me by your scheduled visits. I doubt if a man like you could stand being under a microscope right now. And finally, I think you realize that I couldn't care
less
if you bump off Laroo, or settle down and enjoy life, or take over the whole damned place. If you did, it'd be a change, anyway. You must believe me, Zhang, when I tell you that you're the seventh agent I've met and I haven't turned one in yet. You surely must realize by now that my own fatal psychological flaw is that I'm a romantic revolutionary anarchist with no guts, but with a taste for the good life. If you weren't sure I would stay bought, you wouldn't have come to me in the first place."

 
I relaxed, in spite of my old instincts. He was right, of course—and it was unlikely that I could do anything
but
trust him. This was a smart man who'd protect himself.

 
"Can you remove that 'call the office' command? At least the part about forgetting I did it?"

 
"Sadly, no.
Not with what I have. However, both commands are simple enough that they could be canceled out."

 
"Huh? What do you mean?"

 
"Well, using the level and intensity of the patterns I have here, I could lay on a new set of commands of absolutely equal strength. For example, I could lay on one that said you
liked
Wagant Laroo and had good feelings whenever his name was mentioned. This would negate the other. If I phrased the command exactly right, you'd wind up in a love-hate relationship that would cancel. As for the other—well, I could give an equal command that you will
not
use a transceiver for off-planet communication.
Same effect.
You'd still go when called, but you wouldn't tell 'em anything."

 
"I'm not too concerned about those," I told him.
"At least not now.
Later I might want to have that call command negated; right now it might be useful, although I'm not sure how. But I want to remember doing it, and what I did. Any tricks there?"

 
"After the fact, perhaps.
After all, it's all there, in your memory. You're just barred from consciously recollecting it. I suspect that with a very strong neutral field under a psych converter, together with a .hypnotic series, for example, we might be able to get the information out of you and recorded. When you awoke you still wouldn't be able to remember it, but you could then examine the recording and get the data no matter what" "AH right," I told him. "Let's do it."

 
The trick worked, after a fashion. I really don't know what is being transmitted even now, you bastards, but I now know how it's done and by whom. And how damnably obvious the whole thing was once the truth was out.

 
Who better to have such a spatial link with you than old fat, friendly Otah?
An electronics shop with black-market connections.
No wonder Otah could get whatever he needed in the way of bootleg gear! That's how you pay him, right?
Very clever.
I should have thought of it as soon as I figured out that you had something to do with my being sent to Medlam, so close to Laroo's Island, in the first place. Medlam, and associated with looker, a corporation well suited to my talents. And waiting there, where you knew I'd eventually go, was Otah.

 
Well, it didn't matter now. In fact it helped.
Now at least I knew who—and when.

 
Three weeks had passed since my dirty deeds at Em-yasail, and I was beginning to feel nervous. Something, I felt sure, should have happened by now. I began to turn my mind to more direct, less devious, but more risky alternatives.

 
The one bright spot was Dylan, whose treatment was really helping. I'll say this for Dumonia: although he is crazy as a loon and more amoral and cynical than I am, he really knows his stuff. I began to believe that in his own field he was one of the most brilliant men I had ever known. This is not to say that Dylan was anything like back to normal, but she was more comfortable with herself and with me, more like a real human being, and she seemed happier. Dumonia explained that he could do a lot, but the key breakthrough eluded him, the point of her own insecurity regarding me. It was a wall he couldnt get past, a wall erected of her deep-rooted conviction that without the pity angle I would not like her as she wanted to be and would tire of her and leave. She was very wrong, of course, but her fear was deeply rooted in her understanding of the culture from which I came and the culture of Cerberus in which she had been raised— cultures minimizing close personal attachments and emotional factors. In the Cerberan culture you held your power and position by the favors owed you or by blackmail or by some other hook. So the idea of such things not being necessary was a cultural gap that seemed impossible to bridge. In reversed circumstances, I could see myself having the same hang-ups.

 
"If she weren't under judgment, there
are
things that might be used," Dumonia told me.
"Unorthodox, maybe dangerous things, but quite effective.
But as long as she's trapped in that body we're stuck."

 
That thought depressed me a bit, since I most wanted the old Dylan back, a partner I could deal with as an equal, almost the part of me I'd gotten used to having. It was peculiar that I, the consummate loner, born and bred to be above such things and never before touched by them, should suddenly have this need, almost a craving, for someone else. I instinctively knew that it was my Achilles' heel. Still, the fact that I had these
weaknesses,
didn't matter'to me as much as it had, and there was also the corner of my mind that said that everyone, even me at my old top form, had flaws and weaknesses anyway. Nobody was immune. The important thing was to recognize your own and get to know them so that perhaps they could also work
for
you.

 
A few days later, when I'd just about given up, my scam paid off. I was visited in midmorning at my Hroya-sail office by a big, burly man whose dark eyes indicated an intelligence his general appearance belied.

 
"I'm Hurl Bogen," he introduced himself, offering his hand, which I shook, then gestured for him to have a seat.

 
"What can I do for you, Mr. Bogen?"

 
"I'm the security coordinator for Chairman Laroo," he told me, and my heart almost stopped. This was either very good or bad news. "You know he has an island resort south of here?"

 
I nodded. "I'm afraid I've even taken a vicarious look at it from one of our boats," I told him honestly. If he didn't already know that he should have.
"Just out of curiosity."

 
He grinned. "Yeah, lots of folks do. I don't blame 'em and I don't worry about it. Basically, though, we've run into a big problem with a project we're working on over there and we need your help. We've contracted with Em-yasail to keep steady supplies coming and going to and from the island, and it's worked out fine until a couple of weeks ago. We got just creamed by borks—never saw so many of 'em in my life. We got most of 'em, but they did a pretty good job on Emyasail's fleet. We're down to a dozen trawlers, all smaller types, and just one gunboat."

 
I feigned shock. "But hell, how many borks could you
have?
Those were good crews, and we haven't had any problems of that sort. Matter of fact, we've been pretty damned peaceful around here the last few weeks, with only one or two reported and only one actual engagement"

 
He nodded ruefully. "No wonder. They were all down our way. The bio boys say that something attracted them down there, possibly a run of some chemical in subsurface currents.
Rotten luck."

 
I held my breath. "How many people were lost?"

 
"We were pretty lucky there, although we did lose a dozen or so. Luck of the job, really. You should know that. But the main thing is
,
we no longer have enough boats to meet our supply needs. We've limped along with what we had for a while, using some air supply for the emergency stuff, but we really need some boats. Not trawlers—we're commandeering some big freighters now —but gunboats. We need a full four to make it out to the island okay."

 
"I can understand that," I replied, "but I've only got the four here myself."

 
"We need one of 'em," he told me matter-of-factiy. "We're also pulling one each from two other companies along the coast here. You'll have to make do with three." It wasn't a request but a command.

 
I sighed.
"All right.
But I'm responsible for those boats and crews and I don't like the idea of a high-risk bork" area being worked by four crews unused to each other."
I pretended to think for a moment. "Look, for your safety as well as ours, why not do this instead? Pull all four of my boats and crews off—that is, let Hroyasail take over entirely from Emyasail. We'll use your surviving Emyasail boat and the other two to fill in here. The Emyasail skipper knows the territory around here, and putting three crews from three spots into a routine trawling and protection operation is a lot safer than cargo."

 
He considered my suggestion. "Makes sense," he admitted. "In fact I'll recommend it if you and your crews check out okay."

 
My eyebrows went up. "Check out? Come on, Mr. Bogen. You're a security man. You've already checked us out"

 
He smiled and gave a slight shrug. "Well, yes. Your boats and crews check out nicely, I admit. You, however, are a question mark to me, Mr. Zhang. You don't fit. You don't quite add up to me. Your psychological profile feels funny. I have the funny feeling I should take the rest of Hroyasail and not you."

 
"What! I don't understand."

 
"Don't ask me why. It's just a gut feeling. Still, my gut feelings are often correct. Besides, -we don't really need you, you know."

 
This guy was good. I hadn't quite counted on this and I had to make some split-second decisions on him based on risky and incomplete data.

 
"Look," I said. "What do you think I am?
A Confederacy spy or something?
You have my old records."

 
"Yes, we do.
And more completely than you can believe.
We find your whole personality and profile too much at variance from Qwin Zhang's to dismiss." Then he thought for a moment, as if wrestling with himself, while I suppressed my rising tension.
Damn
Security for that sex switch! First Dumonia, now the infinitely more dangerous Bogen, smelted a rat because of it.