Liege-Killer

by Christopher Hinz

  Rome shook with anger. “And this Ash Ock—this Codrus—also arranged to have Max become a shareholder in the West Yemen Corporation?”

  “Yes,” said Nick, “in order to set up this whole chain of events, to divert the ICN loan money and discredit La Gloria de la Ciencia.”

  Begelman smacked his hand against a monitor. “And consider the way this Reemul has been able to move from colony to colony without the slightest trace.”

  “Bishop Vokir,” said Nick, “has the entire Church transportation fleet under his command. Reemul probably disguised himself as missionaries or as a couple of priests. The Guardians would not dare search such individuals, not unless probable cause existed. Reemul could board a Church shuttle wherever he pleased and be whisked from colony to colony.”

  Rome nodded. “And these three Earth temples—you really believe that the Ash Ock are using them for breeding labs?”

  “I think so. I believe that the Paratwa are creating a new army beneath the surface.”

  “What real proof do we have for any of this?” Rome asked.

  “None,” admitted Begelman. “Everything is circumstantial.”

  Nick stood up. “But everything ties together perfectly. The Church of the Trust came into existence during the final days, shortly before the Apocalypse. What a perfect cover for the Ash Ock! They knew the end was near, they knew they had to have a long-range program—a safe house for the future. They created a religion that not only provided a strong source of funding for their projects, but also, through the ritual of Earth burials, guaranteed them continued access to the planet.”

  Nick shook his head. “I should have seen it! I spent years studying the Ash Ock and their methods. I should have perceived that a religion provided one of the easiest ways of manipulating society.” He paused. “The more I look at the Church of the Trust, the more I see a concoction reeking of the Ash Ock.”

  Rome frowned. “If Bishop Vokir is indeed Codrus, what about his other tway? Do you still think it’s Drake?”

  “He’s the logical choice. But we can’t be certain.” The midget smiled grimly. “When we get our hands on the bishop, though, we’ll find out in short order. A little unfriendly persuasion and the bastard will tell us who his other half is.”

  Rome’s lust to see Vokir killed vanished. It was as if a plug were suddenly pulled; a stopped drain again permitted free flow.

  “Nick, understand me clearly. All the proof in the world won’t make me condone torture. I will not stoop to Vokir’s level.” And he thought: The idea of torture has released my real feelings. Brutality and horror—they are like a magnet thrust into the soul, polarizing natural human emotions. They permit us to rationalize any form of injustice.

  Nick grunted. “Well, you’re sure as hell not going to find out who the bishop’s tway is just by asking him!”

  Rome hesitated. “I’m not even certain we can arrest Vokir, not without something more definite.”

  “I don’t think we should arrest him, either,” said Nick.

  Rome studied the small face. “You have something in mind?”

  “Maybe. Remember, we don’t simply want to stop Codrus and Reemul. We’ve got to find out what’s in those three Earth temples. A surprise raid...”

  “That’s out of the question. Even if E-Tech were to agree to such an outrageous violation, I’m not sure we could pull it off. Many of our own people are devout members of the Church of the Trust. They might warn Vokir or refuse to take part in such a raid. Worse yet, without the Council’s approval, Artwhiler’s Guardians would view an E-Tech raid as an act of terrorism. In Artwhiler’s present state of mind, he would probably take offensive measures against us.”

  Nick smiled coldly. “I said there should be a raid. I didn’t say that E-Tech should take part in it.”

  Before Rome could respond, the door flashed open. Pasha Haddad entered with a disheveled and strangely garbed figure. For an instant, Rome did not recognize the man.

  “Gillian!” Nick’s face lit up, then twisted into a frown. “Gillian ... your clothing?”

  Gillian wore dark trousers, a windbreaker, and on top, a maroon and black dress that swirled gently across his hips. Rome studied the dirty face, saw the tension, the clenched jaw muscles and the uplifted cheekbones, as if Gillian were trying with all his might to prevent his head from exploding. The glazed eyes warned Rome that he was looking into madness.

  Haddad explained calmly. “He wandered into the building a few minutes ago. He’s been very cooperative. We were able to disarm him without any trouble.”

  Nick crossed the room. “Gillian! Do you recognize me?”

  Gillian stared down at the familiar face. He tried to smile. “Nick. Good to see you, Nick.”

  Rome felt pity. Gillian’s voice sounded flat, devoid of all human qualities. The killing of the Costeaus had obviously unhinged him.

  Nick led him gently by the arm, sat him down beside a blank terminal screen.

  “Can you tell us what happened?”

  “What happened,” Gillian mused. The question was very complex. He did not understand.

  Nick backed away. “We were worried about you. Do you know ... where you are?”

  Gillian looked around, saw that they were surrounded by computers. One of them began to bleed—bright gold fluid poured from the keyboard and dripped down the side of the console. He closed his eyes.

  The golden lightning flashed. He shuddered. Abruptly, he remembered why he had come to E-Tech. Nick is here. Nick will help me.

  He opened his eyes. “You have to help me.”

  “I will,” Nick soothed. “We’re all going to help you. But you have to talk to us. You have to tell us what happened.”

  “Everything happened.”

  “You have to be more specific, Gillian. To begin with, why are you wearing a dress?”

  Gillian ran his hand along the smooth fabric beneath the collar. He began to shake. “I don’t know. I had to have it. I had to put it on.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I needed to touch it, to remind me of ... her.” Gillian felt his chest heave, as if some great force were trying to burst from his lungs.

  They’re trying to trick me! He roared to his feet, aimed an accusing finger at Nick.

  “You’re the one! You’ve been deceiving me all along! I know it! You can’t fool me anymore!”

  The Pasha withdrew a tiny needle from his coat and eased into position behind Gillian. Rome considered calling for a Security squad. Even unarmed, an out-of-control Gillian could be too much for them to handle.

  Abruptly, Gillian’s shoulders sagged. The threat of violence seemed to pass.

  For a long moment, Nick stared at Gillian’s twisted features. When the midget finally spoke, it was with deep compassion.

  “Gillian, you’re right. I’ve lied to you from the beginning. And I can’t allow it to go on. I can’t deceive you any longer; you’ve come too far.”

  The delicacy of Nick’s words betrayed truth. Rome knew that the midget was not merely using psychological persuasion to subdue Gillian’s madness.

  Gillian swallowed hard. “You can’t know what it’s like. I loved the most beautiful woman in the world. Don’t you understand? I lost the most precious love a person could have. She’s gone. Nothing can bring her back! Nothing can replace her!”

  “You’re right,” said Nick. He turned to Begelman. “That second computer program—call it up.”

  Gillian felt a sob wrack his body. “She was so beautiful,” he whispered. “She was my life. I lost everything when I lost her.”

  “Lost whom, Gillian?”

  He shuddered. “Her! Catharine—my wife!”

  Begelman typed. The first cryptic question of the second program appeared on the monitors.

  how many seeds in a watermelon?

  Nick reached up, put his hand on Gillian’s shoulder. “I want you to sit down at the terminal here and run this program. It’s important.”

 
“Nothing’s important!” he cried out. “Do you really think I care about a computer program? Do you really think some machine is going to make it better for me?”

  “It’s important, Gillian. Please believe me. You’ll find ... answers.”

  Again, Gillian felt his anger erupt. “Answers? What do I care about answers? You still don’t understand. I lost her! I lost Catharine! There are no answers! She’s gone! I lost her!”

  Nick’s eyes grew misty. “Yes, she’s gone. But Gillian, my friend and my companion, you have to learn the whole truth.”

  “The truth!” Gillian screamed. “The truth is that she’s dead! My wife is dead!”

  Nick took a deep breath. “No, Gillian. The truth is you were never married.”

  Rome knew—in one terrible instant, he knew. I should have realized it the day we awakened them.

  Gillian snarled, “You’re out of your mind! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  Rome saw the pain on Nick’s face and realized how hard this was for him.

  “You were never married, Gillian. Catharine was not your wife. She was your tway.”

  Lightning flashed before Gillian’s eyes. The whole room burst into a savage display of golden faces, enveloping him, swallowing awareness. He threw his arms in front of his face.

  “No...” Gillian found that his voice had become a mere whisper, alone and separate from him. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “Run the program,’” ordered Nick.

  Gillian shuddered. He felt hands grip his shoulders, guide him back down into the chair. He opened his eyes. Letters sparkled on the screen,

  “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “Run it!” shouted Nick.

  I’m going mad! In some odd way, the thought soothed him. Yes, that’s it! I’m no longer real. I’m insane.

  He stared at the screen and the letters melded, became words, a sentence.

  A question.

  how many seeds in a watermelon?

  It was a silly query. He smiled at his own cleverness as he typed a response into the machine. there is a large number of seeds in a watermelon.

  The second question appeared. why is love of family conducive to the formation of less rigid social institutions?

  Gillian frowned. This program was stupid. He typed: answer depends on specific family and specific institution.

  The screen blanked. Then:

  family is your own. institution irrelevant.

  Gillian shook.

  “He’s running it!” squeaked Begelman. “The program is responding to him!”

  Nick did not reply. He was staring at the floor, lost in some deep sadness.

  Gillian felt terror. My family! My family is dead!

  A voice came from within, denying his thoughts.

  Not dead, said the voice. How could something that never was be dead?

  He escaped the terrible feelings by plunging into the next question.

  do gray cats have claws?

  The answer came unbidden. yes and no, he typed.

  I used to have a gray cat. Catharine declawed it so that it would not scratch...

  For one horrifying instant, Gillian felt as if he had ceased to exist. He lost touch with his body; no weight, no muscles, no sense of legs or arms or hands or a chest or a beating heart—nothing.

  And then his body returned, in turmoil. Agony tore through his guts; his ribs, aching since yesterday’s escape from the Skeibalis Inn, felt as if they were being splintered. He cried out and pushed himself away from the terminal. His head fell sideways. He retched violently.

  A powerful force—some inexplicable urge—made him turn back to the keyboard and call up the next question.

  Nick raised his head from the floor, whispered, “It’s got him. The program has control. He’s committed to run the entire sequence.”

  And Rome recalled what Begelman had said about the program. It would take six hundred years to run!

  why are there no tropical rain forests in kansas?

  Gillian shrieked. “No! I don’t know the answer!”

  Begelman whispered. “Mnemonic cursors?”

  “Yes,” said Nick.

  Rome frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  Nick spoke like a condemned man.

  “The program interacts with Gillian on multiple levels. On the intellectual plane, the questions stimulate his curiosity. At the same time, on a purely emotional level, some of the questions key into suppressed feelings. They awaken his hidden pains.

  “Then there are the mnemonic cursors. They exist within the deepest fabric of Gillian’s consciousness. They are control data—discrete packets of information, genetically implanted by E-Tech at the time this program was created. These mnemonic cursors are keyed by the syntactic makeup of the questions themselves. As Gillian reacts, he subconsciously triggers his most powerful and basic urges. It’s as if he is being starved. Only by answering the questions can he hope to satisfy this artificially created hunger.”

  “He’s been deprived of all choice,” muttered Haddad.

  Begelman wagged his head in agreement. “The mnemonic cursors are more powerful than any cerebral or limbic-system patterns. Neither his intellect nor his emotions can override them.”

  “They are chains,” said Nick, “linking him to this program, forcing him to run the entire sequence even though he desperately wants to stop. His body is being sent signals—this program represents food. He must respond.”

  Gillian sobbed. “I don’t know the answer!”

  Yes, you do, said the inner voice.

  He typed: tropical rain forests cannot exist in kansas, but i can exist in a rain forest and in kansas at the same time. i can be in both places. therefore, rain forests can exist in kansas.

  He screamed as the memory came back to him. They sent Catharine, my tway, to Kansas. They kept me at home, in the rain forest, in Brazil. We were very young. It was the first time they had ever separated us. We awoke—as one—but frightened because we could not see each other. They told us that they wanted to make sure we could still maintain the interlace over a great distance.

  We did it. It was easy. We were never apart. We looked up at the sky and we saw Kansas and we saw the rain forests of our home.

  Gillian screamed, a weird yell; a mixture of triumph and pain.

  Rome faced Nick. “You did the impossible. You kept one tway of a Paratwa alive after its other half had been killed.”

  “We did it,” said Nick. There was guilt in his voice. “E-Tech caught Gillian’s Paratwa in a raid. A combat unit killed Catharine, his tway. Gillian was knocked unconscious.

  “When he awoke, he was a madman. E-Tech, myself included, made the decision to try and keep him alive. After all, we reasoned, he was unique—the first tway ever captured.” Nick’s words grew bitter. “We were overcome by our excitement. The things he could tell us...”

  what are the two nicest aspects of hawaii?

  Gillian, still shrieking, typed desperately.

  the sun on the water. the sand beneath our feet.

  An early feeling. Separateness. Our tutor took us to the Hawaiian Islands. We were barely toddlers. I enjoyed the setting sun, frothing waves against red sky. Catharine delighted in the wet sand sticking between her toes. We looked at each other, laughing, overcome by this wonderful new feeling of being apart.

  We stared into each other’s eyes and brought on the interlace, became whole again. We did not even need a mirror. From that moment, we knew we were different. We could be either one or two. We could exist in both worlds.

  Rome said, “You lied to Gillian. You created an artificial past for him.”

  The midget laughed harshly. “Yes. We created a wonderful security blanket, using the most modern techniques. Hypnotic trances, submnemonic probes—we drugged him with painkillers and then we questioned him, learned all about his life. Then we created a whole new existence for him. We hid the real Gillian behind a wal
l of lies. We implanted false memories. We told Gillian he was human. We performed cosmetic surgery and completely altered his appearance. We twisted all of his hurt and anger in order to make him into a functioning killer.”

  “Hard decisions,” muttered Rome.

  “Yes ... hard decisions.”

  “You spared him pain,” offered the Pasha.

  “True enough. But even that wasn’t done to help Gillian. We needed a tool to fight the Paratwa. Here was a warrior trained from birth, skilled with the Cohe wand. We gave him the incentive to seek vengeance. We told him that Paratwa assassins had killed both of his parents, and later had murdered his adoring wife, Catharine. We turned him against his own kind.”

  Gillian cried out. Agony tore through him, wave after wave of searing pain. Awareness of the room contracted until only suffering remained.

  Questions continued to flash across the screen. His fingers smacked the keys, responding automatically. Some dim part of his consciousness, that inner voice, recognized that the program no longer carried intellectual or emotional meaning. Everything had become much simpler. He was a sealed crate and the program was a sledgehammer, smashing him open.

  Nick continued. “We molded him to our image. We dammed the tide of his own feelings. But we knew that, someday, that dam could burst. We knew that his real feelings, his real agonies—buried within—could someday seek release. So we implanted the mnemonic cursors and created this computer program.

  “There is an old human saying, ‘Time heals all wounds.’ I don’t know if that can be applied to Gillian or not. But we gave him the chance to find out. If he lives through this program, then he will be himself, freed of our manipulations. He will be nothing less than a fully conscious tway.”

  Again, Nick released a bitter laugh. “But we did not create the program for Gillian’s benefit. We did it to relieve our own guilt. We of E-Tech needed our own painkiller—something to help us live with the knowledge that we were capable of being just as cruel and manipulative as the Paratwa.”

  Gillian was suddenly enveloped by the golden light. He jerked upright in the chair.

  * * *

  Death.

  The enemy had overrun the base. Combat platoons descended from the skies and poured from the jungles, thrusters wailing, slaughtering lab workers and scientists and trainers alike. He and Catharine—separate—retreated to the meditation chamber, a warm hexagonal room at the edge of the compound.