Sword of the Lamb (43 page)

“A logical and simple explanation. Too simple.”

Jael nodded. “Well, maybe I
am
an anomaly in the Outside. For one thing, my old Ser does all right for his own; money’s never been short, and money buys education, if that’s where you’re turned. Of course, it’s not so easy in the Outside. The old Ser could lay hands on a kilo of diamonds any time, but teachers—that’s another gim. But he managed, and we have inputs to almost any Concord memfiles, including the University’s. Mostly, there was my mother.” He paused, frowning into his cup. “She was different. A fringer, really; born uppercaste. Anyway, she had it in her head I should be educated, and she was no illit dodder herself.”

Alex frowned slightly, his gaze direct now.

“You speak of her in the past tense.”

“Yes. Well, my lady mater died a few years ago. Viral cancer. We’ve got the medical facilities to handle the rips and burns the Brothers pick up on the line, but we aren’t set up for anything like that, and she couldn’t walk into a Conmed hospital. Her survival odds would’ve been nil.”

Alex turned away, and Jael saw the small, spasmodic tensing of muscles along his jaw.

“I’m . . . sorry, Jael.”

It was a straight say, and Jael understood it. But he didn’t pursue it; he recognized a screened area when he ran into it.

“Anyway, my mother made the error of seeing I got educated, and I guess that tends to be an eye-lifter always. And then . . .” He hesitated, searching for the words. “Maybe the view from the Outside gives you a sharper focus. You see the derelicts, and the poor tooks on the slip looking for a door, and the survivors—the ones who live to come out of the DCs—and the little men in the big uniforms, and the fat Fesh smugs praying with one hand, digging the other into someone else’s pocket. And the Lords—they let the Outside stay in business so they’ll have a place to go to buy off boredom with excess. You never get disillusioned when you come up in the Outside; you never
learn
any illusions. And you see everyone on the quiv. When the ones wearing the black get scared, they start squeezing the lowcaste Fesh, or the Outsiders, but mostly the Bonds. The ones on the bottom blow off now and then, but nothing comes up from that except they get burned and everyone starts squeezing harder.” He took a long breath and let it out slowly. “Nothing will change the basic nature of the human animal, but you have to lay certain lines and hold them or the whole system spins out. Maybe I don’t cleave deep to the old Concord, but I keep wondering what happens when it spins out altogether.”

Alex was silent for some time, his eyes shadowed, and Jael recognized in that silence a kinship.

“Jael, the view from the Inside isn’t so different.”

“No, I guess it isn’t.” He leaned back, clasping his hands behind his head. “I thought it would be. These people here are all Insiders, but they see the same picture, even if the angle’s different. And they really knock me blind, you know. I mean, I didn’t have anything to lose and maybe a hell of a lot to gain tying with the Phoenix, but they tossed off everything—careers, homes, families. Like you, brother. You tossed it all.”

The pale eyes were cool, probing, but there wasn’t a hint of suspicion; it was there, but well hidden.

“Sacrifices are relative, and I can’t believe you haven’t made your own. What do you hope to
gain
from the Phoenix?”

Jael shrugged. “Maybe just something to hope for, or to believe in. That runs short where I came up. Religion is for Insiders, and the Concord doesn’t pull any believers in the Outside. The Brotherhood isn’t something you
believe
in; it’s just something you’re cleave to for survival’s sake.”

“The Brotherhood? You mean the Brotherhood of Amik the Thief?”

“That’s the only Brotherhood there is in the Outside. You’ll find a few independent clans, but most of them are cleave one way or another to the Brotherhood, and there aren’t many soul Outsiders who don’t line with it.”

One eyebrow came up a millimeter. “Does your ‘old Ser’ know about you and the Phoenix?”

“Yes, but he’s been conditioned. Besides, he wouldn’t turn the Shads on me; not on a blood son. Nor on anything I lay edict for.”

“What does he think of your joining the Phoenix?”

Jael laughed, remembering his father’s initial reaction.

“Well, he doesn’t hold much faith in the Phoenix, but he doesn’t in anything, and he feels some kinly since it’s Outside, too, for the Shads. Maybe he has it in his head there might be some fringe divvies in a blood tie in the Phoenix, and in that, he’s doomed for a go-down. But he wouldn’t try to stop me. I take my own way.”

Alex concentrated on his coffee. “There might also be some advantages for the Society in that blood tie.”

“Don’t count
that
in your calculations. I won’t use the old Ser or the Brothers; I lined that out from the first.”

Alex met his eyes, and his laugh was indicative of satisfaction. “I’m relieved to hear that.”

“You should be. Any tie-up with the Brothers would be asking fate for the Phoenix. The Brotherhood will be around when the Phoenix and the Concord take the last fall. Again, the nature of the human animal.” He picked up his cup, then, finding it nearly empty, rose and went to the ’spenser. He filled his cup, but didn’t return to his chair. He’d said enough for tonight, and he didn’t expect Alex Ransom to reciprocate that self-revelation.

“I’m going to put in some time with the memfiles. You have a lap on me. How far behind am I, anyway? How long have you been here?”

Alex rose. “About two weeks, but no one’s clocking us to the finish line.”

Two weeks. Jael almost laughed. If he had any doubts, the timing would still them.

“I’m not asking for a race.” He went to his bedroom door, then turned to give Alex a sidelong smile. “Tomorrow night I’ll give you another lesson in Outside hand-to-hand techniques—if you’re up to it.”

Alex laughed. “Any time, Jael. Any time.”

“Rest up, brother.”

Jael switched on the doorscreens and went to the desk console, but for some time he only stared at the blank reading screen.

Alex Ransom. That one was a walking time charge here, and perhaps for the Concord as well. And he might make light of the price he paid to join the Phoenix, but Jael doubted anyone else here had paid a higher price. And he wondered what he asked in return.

PERSONAL FILE: E. RADEK CASE NOTES: 7 AUGUS 3253

SUBJECT: ALEX RANSOM

I had an opportunity for a short conversation with Alex this evening—he’s taking full advantage of my offer to use my inputs on the Richard Lamb files and prefers to have me on hand to augment them with personal comments and assessments. It’s sometimes rather exhausting. And that impersonal attitude is evident now even in his approach to Rich’s work, if not to Rich himself.

Alex’s immersion in the Phoenix is becoming a borderline obsessive tendency. He has ceased to refer to his family by familiar names entirely, and when he refers to himself as “Lord Alexand,” it is in no way synonymous with “I.” This is consistent with the identity reorientation demanded of him, but he’s using that to buttress his repressive systems. I suppose I should be pleased with the success of the reorientation, and for the Society I am, but I’m concerned about the cathexis associated with Adrien Eliseer. It’s indicative that from the time of his arrival in Fina, he showed a healthy interest in his family and House, but has yet to ask what effect his “death” had on the Lady Adrien.

I haven’t discussed the latent schism within the Phoenix with him yet, and I won’t until after he’s completed GT. However, the potentials haven’t escaped him. In anything related to politics, he’s a sensitive observer.

Jael joined Alex in GT today, and I learned of their first encounter from Jobe Howe in Physical Training. Jobe was a SportsMaster before he joined us, and I was concerned when he said Alex’s style showed elements of formal karatt, which he wouldn’t learn in Confleet. But Jobe has created his own rationale for this apparent anomaly: Alex was training to be a SportsMaster before being conscripted into Confleet. It’s interesting, of course, that he was aware of Alex’s Confleet experience. I doubt Predis intended to broadcast that so widely when he let it “slip” to Val and the Barrets.

Jobe is jubilant, thinking he may have found a fencing partner in this supposed fellow SportsMaster. Jobe’s been trying to interest someone in the Sport of Lords since he joined us. I must warn Alex. For him to show unusual skill at fencing could be too revealing, and Jobe is so outgoing and aggressive, he might box him in.

I’m pleased, however, that Alex has discovered our gymnasium, and I’ve no doubt he’ll take full advantage of it. Adjusting to the confinements of Fina hasn’t been easy for him. Beyond that, physical preparedness is important to his ego percept. I only hope he never suffers a serious disability; he’d find it difficult to tolerate.

The sign by the doorway read SECURITY AND INTELLIGENCE 10: WILLS.

Jael glanced at Alex and touched the doorcon. The door-screens went off, and the man behind the desk inside the small room pushed his chair back and rose.

“Come in. I’m Haral Wills. Most people call me Willie.”

Jael studied him—wiry, tight-knit, dark eyes that didn’t miss anything.

Alex said, “I doubt we need to introduce ourselves to you, Willie. I’m sure you know everything worth knowing about us.”

Wills nodded, answering Alex’s smile with his own.

“Right, Alex, I probably do. At least, from SI’s point of view.” Then he glanced around the austere room—which Jael noted did not have the usual mirrored walls—and said, “Well, this may not look like a classroom, and it isn’t. This is my office, and all you’re going to get from me is a sort of introduction to SI and some of the things you’ll be learning about when I turn you over to Marg Conly.”

Jael put in, “And maybe a close eye-over?”

Wills laughed. “What did you expect, Jael? But this is going to be a short session; I’ve got a meeting in a few minutes. You won’t mind, though, when you meet Marg. But I warn you, she’s happily married, and her husband’s big enough to take on both of you at once.”

Jael gave that a laugh as Wills came around to the front of the desk, hands on his hips in a ready stance that seemed to come naturally.

“All right, first I’ll show you some of the mechanical devices you’ll need to know about, either for protection, acquiring information, or maintaining contact with other Phoenix agents or your HQ, wherever that happens to be. In SI we deal with situations pertaining outside Fina primarily, but even if you’re assigned to Fina, you’re expected to know how to handle yourself as a double ident. The people you’ll have to watch out for—House security, other House agents, and the SSB—use a lot of the same kind of equipment, so one of your problems is to learn how to recognize it as well as use it. I’ve set up a demonstration for you. A test, really, to see how good your eyes are.”

Alex asked, “What are we looking for?”

“That’s the test.” He moved a pace away from the desk. “But I’m making it easy; what you’re looking for is all on me. I want you to tell me what I’m carrying on my person that wouldn’t be considered normal wearing apparel.”

Alex glanced at Jael. “I think this is going to be
your
kind of gim.” Then, to Wills, “How close an inspection are we allowed?”

“Close as you want, but visual only. I’ll give you one minute; that’s more than you’ll usually get under real working conditions.” He looked at his watch. “Beginning now.”

While the two of them circled him, Wills stood patiently, hands still on his hips, feet a little apart. The slacsuit was skimp for cover, but there were pockets, the waistband, shoes. And there were enough subtle bulges and anomalies so that Jael knew if he met Haral Wills in the Outside, he’d give him a long look and maybe a little space.

Finally, Wills checked his watch, gave them a few seconds, then said, “All right, time’s up. What did you find?”

Jael asked of Alex, “You want first go?”

He laughed briefly and shook his head. “It’s all yours, Jael.”

He nodded and turned to Wills. “Well, off the top, I don’t know exactly what that ring does, but it’s part of your arsenal.”

“What makes you think so?”

“You aren’t a body-decker. Some kind of memento ring, maybe, but that rock—what is it, anyway? If it’s supposed to be a moonstone, it’s a sad synth.”

Wills laughed at that. “You’re right about it being part of my arsenal, and it is a synthetic.”

“May I see it?”

He nodded and took it off, and when Jael reached for it, it slipped and fell to the floor. A try at catching it deflected it under Wills’s feet, and that left it to him to go for it. Wills bent to retrieve it, then handed it to him, accepting his apology with a hint of skepticism.

“It has more than one function,” Wills commented as Jael inspected it, then passed it on to Alex. “That ‘sad synth’ of a stone is a lens. The ring puts out a modulated light frequency as well as an audio mod-stim. It’s a conditioning aid. This particular ring also carries a spring-activated stun dart, so be careful with it, Alex. We use standard Conpol or SSB drugs, plus a few we’ve developed ourselves. The effects range from a short blackout to instant fatality. You’ll learn more about the available drugs later. All right, Jael, what else caught your eye?”

Jael gave him another quick survey, noting the way he perched on the desk, looking fully relaxed, and he was, but he unconsciously kept the leverage right in case he had to move fast. A straight blade; he’d be that in the Outside.

“Well, you’re wearing body armor under your clothes, you’ve got a ’ceiver in one ear, a laser in a spring sheath in your right sleeve, which tells me you’re a right-hander. You have an underarm sheath—flat; probably a blade. That watch has a hidden compartment and probably a few other special features; it’s not a standard Concord product. Your ’com probably isn’t either, but I haven’t seen it, so that’s just a guess. And your shoes—the seam isn’t standard. I don’t know what you have in hide there, but if we were facing off in unfriendly stats, I’d keep an eye on your feet.”

Wills studied him, then laughed heartily.

“Not bad. Anything else?”

“Not on a fast scan.”

“Alex? Any observations to add?”

He smiled obliquely. “No. I know when I’m outclassed.”

Wills said, “That’s always a good thing to know. All right, I’ll tell you more about these items—and show you the ones you missed, Jael.” He straightened and pulled his shirt out of his waistband to display the dark, gleaming fabric underneath. “Not that you missed much. And you were right about the body armor—
and
the fact that it limits your movements to some extent. Especially in bending over.”

Jael shrugged. “I’ll admit the finger-slip’s an old gim.”

“But you’re damned good at it. Anyway, we use spun borasil for body armor; the same stuff we use on our ships as a protective and insulating coating. It’s even more flexible than flexsteel, and there’s no metal to read on detectors.” He stuffed his shirt back under the waistband, but with enough care to alert Jael to what else might be hidden there. But he didn’t comment; he’d done enough flashing off.

Wills snapped his right arm down, and a small, flat X
¹
sprang from the sheath under his sleeve into his hand.

“Jael, you’re probably familiar with the spring sheath. What about you, Alex?”

“No. That’s not exactly Confleet’s style.”

“Well, you’ll be issued a sheath and gun, but make sure you practice with it. If you don’t catch the gun when it pops out, you’re in trouble.” He reached inside the breast pocket of his shirt and pulled out a thin-bladed silicon knife. “This is a false pocket to make it easier to get at the underarm sheath.”

Jael hefted the knife, thinking that he’d want more weight behind it if his life were up for stakes.

Wills continued, “The watch
is
special, Jael. We have different models for different functions, some with microwave transceivers or conditioning aids.” He touched the rim of the watch face; it flipped up, revealing an empty chamber. “This is handy for hiding things like minicorders or microtape spools. And this earceiver—” he took a tiny disk from his ear, “—is useful for one-way communications, but it has drawbacks. Obviously, it shows up on a close inspection, and it limits your hearing to some degree. We have another earspeaker that’s handy for making contacts. The con-rad. It sets up a signal tone when you get close to another one on the same wavelength. You were right about the shoes, too, Jael.” He hit the back edge of one heel against the floor, and at the toe a sliver of a needle appeared.

“Another stunner?” Jael asked.

“Right.” Wills didn’t try to remove the needle, but simply kicked his toe against the floor and broke it off, then leaned down to pick it up, handling it carefully as he put it on the desk. “If you ever have to use one of these, be damned sure you don’t get tangled up in your own feet and stab yourself. The soles of the shoes have hidden compartments, too; we usually use them for MT fixes.” He reached into his pants pocket for his ’com, then flipped the back open to show them a flat chamber. “Another handy hiding place. We also have ’coms equipped with spring-fired stunners, conditioning aids, and some modified for long-range microwave frequencies. Those have built-in sigmod circuits for signal encoding and decoding. You’ll be issued a personal ’com, by the way, and personal call seqs. Those are clear lines keyed to your voice; they can’t be monitored without your knowledge, and no one else can use them.”

Wills put the ’com down on the desk, then reached under his waistband and pulled out a small cylinder about one centimeter in diameter and four long; one end was slightly flared. He handed it first to Jael.

“That’s something else you missed. Stunner injector. Careful—don’t put any pressure on the wide end. They’re only good for close-range encounters; they require direct skin contact. But they’re handy on occasion.”

Jael passed the injector on to Alex while Wills went around to the back of the desk and began pulling various items out of a drawer. “A lot depends on your mission, your location, and your role. If you’re going upper-class Fesh, you can use jewelry—rings or medallions like these. Women have an advantage with jewelry and koyfs and some hair styles. In fact, a lot of our male agents with the build for it prefer to take female roles. That has its problems, too, of course. Some of these things are equipped with transceivers, stunner ejectors, or conditioning aids. This medallion has an imagraph lens.” Next, he took out a handful of small, nearly transparent disks. “These are adhesive minicorders. They’ll stick to almost any surface, and they’re hard to see once they’re in place. We have plants down to half a centimeter in diameter. This sort of thing you can carry whatever your role, and unless you’re assigned duty here in Fina, you’ll be playing a role of one kind or another all the time. But that’s getting into Master Jeans’s department.”

Jael smiled. “We’ve already had a taste of Jeans’s department.”

Wills nodded, meeting his eye with an answering smile.

“He’s a real bastard for detail—right? Well, just see that you don’t miss any of it. The disguise angle—the plasimask, wigs, iris lenses, costume—all that’s part of it, but his talent, and I should probably say his
genius
, is acting. A disguise isn’t worth a damn unless you can play the role that goes with it.” He took a flat, black rectangular object small enough to fit in the palm of his hand from the drawer. “Here’s another handy item. A jambler. Good insurance for private conversations. And this—” he brought out a similar box-like object, slightly larger, with a thin loop antenna at one end, “—this is a montector. Any monitor puts out an emission on some wavelength, no matter how weak it might be. This thing can locate any plant we’ve come up with, and certainly anything the SSB has to offer.” He paused, and for a moment studied the equipment scattered on the desk, then looked up, first at Jael, then at Alex.

“Quite an array, right? And this is only a sampling. But the most important item in our arsenal is conditioning.” He picked up the ring he’d worn for the initial test, slipped it on, then stood with his arms folded, the ring turned upward.

The light was barely visible, the flash frequency so fast it didn’t even read as a flicker, but it was aimed directly at Jael’s right eye, and what he felt in his head ran a chill down his spine. He looked away from the ring, but felt the drag in it; his eyes didn’t want to move.

Wills turned his hand slightly and let Alex have a feel of it, and he obviously didn’t like it either. Then Wills’s thumb moved under his palm, against the shank of the ring, Jael realized, and he became aware of a high whine that was more a sensation than a sound. He didn’t like the feel of that, either, and he couldn’t turn his ears away.

Wills switched off both the light and sound, smiling faintly.

“I’m not trying to condition you. Anyway, you’re both resistants. If you weren’t, I’d have you close to a Level 1 by now. Of course, Erica put you through conditioning, but she always starts with low intensities and works up to something like this. If you ever have to use conditioning in a working situation, you won’t have time for that.” He took off the ring and put it down on the desk. “We call these mod-stim devices. That’s for ‘modulated frequency stimulus.’ What these visual or audio frequencies do is induce synergistic resonances with the subject’s brainwaves. That creates the receptivity state, then you set up the conditioning verbally. There’s an art to that, but you’ll have plenty of practice on it later. And you’ll learn more about the different types of conditioning. Some of it
you’re
the subject for; that’s the basic conditioning Erica gave you. Sec-con, for instance; security conditioning. That covers everything associated with the Phoenix. The memory-lapse phenomenon. You probably haven’t experienced it yet, but if you tried to tell an outsider—” He stopped, and with a wry glance at Jael amended, “I mean a non-Phoenix member where our main HQ is, you’d find that every time you tried to say the word ‘Fina,’ you just wouldn’t be able to remember it. You’ve also been given a set for contingency conditioning, which means that if any Phoenix member asks consent and you grant it, they can set up a conditioned command.”

“But it takes consent,” Alex put in.

“Yes, and there are safeguards. We don’t make any member vulnerable to nonconsent conditioning; not from anyone. Another type SI agents use a lot is recognition conditioning. For instance, if you’re trying to make an initial contact with an agent you don’t know, and electronic contact devices aren’t feasible, then you can be conditioned to recognize a voice. It’s as sure as VP ident. Then, of course, there’s the TAB. That’s the one all of us hope we never have to use. It goes into effect automatically if you’re arrested. Actually, it’s not literally a
total
memory block; it leaves you with the memory you need to function. Essentially, it strips you of personal identity. Anything pertaining to you, past, present, or future, is gone. That includes everything you know about the Phoenix. Sometimes the TAB is modified for various reasons so it won’t go into effect unless you’re interrogated. Fortunately, arrest doesn’t always mean interrogation. The SSB knows Phoenix conditioning when they see it, and generally they won’t waste time trying to break it. But the PCs give it a try occasionally. All we can do is get prisoners out of their hands as fast as possible. We’ve got agents in the SSB and we’re usually successful at that. One thing you can count on: we take care of our people.”