She nodded with a little smile. “The people will accept a Jagellon woman I think, but only as your deputy. I’ll be the junior Tribune and take over if you are incapacitated.”
“My thanks,” I said. “It is no light burden that you take on, as well you know. The other problem, though, is what to do if Mortifer introduces another duplicate at some crucial moment. Mortifer has secret supporters still, and many resources. What if a duplicate appeared on the View with some lying tale? At best it would confuse the people and destroy confidence in us; at worst it might enable Mortifer to take over somehow.”
Wanda frowned. “Your strictly legal powers depend on the Council being in session. Things are slow; we can keep the Council in recess for a while.”
Paul Sobeski tapped his fingers on the table around which we sat. “What we need is some means of identifying you as yourself which a duplicate can’t easily reproduce—or steal. The trouble is that all the means of identification in our society depend on genotypes and a clone would have the same genotype and key the same identity tests. And it has to be a publicly visible sign of identity. You could have a fire-drake tattooed on your chest and we would know that a duplicate without the tattoo wasn’t you, but as soon as you publicize anything of that kind Mortifer could reproduce it on his clone.”
“There are unique gems in the Treasury here at the Castle . . .” began Ladislas Mankowitz.
I shook my head. “I wouldn’t put it past Mortifer to duplicate any material object. He duplicated Castle Thorn itself—twice! Anyway if we put our trust in something like that Mortifer has only to steal it somehow and it becomes a weapon against us.”
Ladislas knit his brows. “Something alive?” he suggested tentatively. “A dog perhaps.”
“Not a dog,” I said. “Any duplicate would smell just as I do and I don’t think a dog could tell us apart. The difference between me and a duplicate made by Mortifer would be in the mind and a dog can’t smell your mind . . .”
“No,” said Wanda softly, but with excitement, “not an ordinary dog. But a Caphellan ghost-hound can!” She turned to Ladislas. “Get on to the exotic importers, Ladislas. I doubt if there’s a ghost-hound on Carpathia, so put in a special order. I’ll use my personal credit to give Mortifer a little less chance of getting to us.” She turned to me. “The Caphellans are extreme empaths . . .”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve met one.”
“Good, then I don’t need to explain the Caphellans,” she said. “As you might guess they find it extremely painful to go among other species who have uncontrolled emotions by Caphellan standards. To a Caphellan you or I are constantly ‘shouting’ our emotions and are completely ‘deaf’ to the emotions of others. Imagine living among deaf people who constantly bawled at the top of their voices. So Caphellans living in other societies are extremely reclusive. At home Caphellans have little use for pets; they get constant emotional support from other Caphellans. An isolated Caphellan feels the lack of that support so they’re bred a sub-sapient Caphellan life-form into a sort of a super-pet for Caphellans who have to live away from other Caphellans. They form a unique emotional bond with their master or mistress . . .”
I frowned. “I don’t see why if I got such a creature Mortifer couldn’t acquire one too and bond it to his duplicate.”
Wanda smiled, “Ah, but you don’t know the unique characteristics of a ghost hound. They sniff out hatred and fear; that should make it harder for a traitor to get near you. But most important they can detect when a person is lying. In particular, if its master lies a ghost-hound ‘blushes’; turns a deep rich red all over.” She added dryly, “They aren’t popular pets among non-empaths.”
“It may just work,” I said slowly. “There’s a Caphellan at the Academy, or was when I landed here on Carpathia. See if it has a ghost-hound and will cooperate in making some sort of presentation of it to me on the View. Don’t cancel the order to the importers, Ladislas; even if the Caphellan parts with his beast I presume that it will want a replacement.”
The Caphellan was located and agreed to trade us the ghost-hound for a round trip starpassage to Caphella. “In the emotional freeze of a starflit I won’t miss my pet,” the creature said, “and after restoring my soul by communion with my people I can bring back a young Lar, a “ghost-hound” as you call them. My own beast is getting rather old. Ordinarily it would not transfer its loyalties to a new owner, but in your case I think there will be no trouble.” The Caphellan gave me an enigmatic glance from its three eyes and I remembered that it had been able to detect operation of the Jagellon Gift.
We had a rather impressive little ceremony broadcast on the View. The Caphellan presented me with his ghost-hound.
“I am returning to Caphella for a while and can find another,” it said. “Your planet has been kind to me; I think that this will be for the good of your planet and your Tribune.”
I thanked him and turned to face the receptors which sent out my image to the Views in homes and public buildings all over Carpathia. “I have never lied to you, so far as I remember,” I said. “If I try to do so from now on, you will easily catch me out, for Trinka, my ghost-hound, will always be with me. If I do tell you a lie, see what happens.” I thought for a moment and then said earnestly. “I am completely happy about never being able to tell a lie without Trinka giving me away.” I grinned as a flood of red color flowed over Trinka’s body from the tip of her nose to her feathery tail. It was a remarkable sight, for Trinka looked not unlike a white Afghan hound, but her fur was not hair but a sort of soft quills filled with liquid, which is what in fact changed color.
I looked into the receptors again. “Even an honest man does not like to have to tell the truth,” I said. “The reason that I have accepted Trinka, and will keep her with me constantly, is that Mortifer, my enemy and yours, is still plotting against us. He has tried to kill me and will try again, and for that reason I am going to have to restrict my activities for a while. I ask you to give your votes to Wanda Jagellon as Second Tribune, so that she can help me with my duties and take over if Mortifer succeeds in putting me out of action. Mortifer may also try to substitute someone for me; someone who looks like me in every way, but is a creature of his own. So long as you see Trinka with me you will know that you can trust what I say if I warn you of a danger or ask you to take action. If you see me without my ghost-hound, beware! Even if it looks like me it may not be me.” That should take care of the most obvious moves that Mortifer could make, having a duplicate commit some atrocity for instance to destroy my popularity. Better tell Ladislas not to cancel the order for another ghost-hound though; poor Trinka was probably a prime target for assassination now.
“I tell you most sincerely that Mortifer is a danger to Carpathia and even to the Commonwealth as well as to me. Any citizen who has information that might help us find him is urged to contact us at the Tribune’s special code; for the time being that View will be manned by a team of operators who will record your information.”
I looked into the receptors then and said softly, “Mortifer, kill me if you can, for if you do not I will put an end to you and your plans.”
17. The Lake of the Crater
In the end it was a child and a clerk who led us to Mortifer. Paul Sobeski, who was acting as my secretary, had supervised the first sorting out of the flood of messages which followed my appeal for information about Mortifer. After over a week of work he came to me one day and said, “I’d like you to hear two record chips taken from the calls we got about Mortifer. Put together, I think that they might give us a valuable clue.”
When the first chip was inserted in the playback it showed on the View an elderly woman with a precise, fussy air. “I am the chief dispatcher for the Central Chemical Concern,” she said. “We used to supply the laboratory of Academician Mortifer at the Academy in Thorn. In dispatching one gets used to a certain pattern of supplies for a given customer; in many cases one could fill the order almost automatically. But there is en
ough judgment involved that the job can’t be computerized. After the election of Our Tribune orders from the Mortifer laboratory ceased and I rather expected to have an overstock on some rare items. However, I’ve noticed that all of these items continue to be ordered. The orders are spread out between a dozen different customers, many of them new customers. Those who aren’t new haven’t ordered these particular items in the past. Put together the orders from those dozen firms almost exactly duplicate the typical order from the Mortifer laboratory. Most of the firms are east of the mountains, but when occasionally I get a rush order for an item it almost always goes west. Two special rush orders have gone to a rather odd location; a little town on the edge of Lake of the Crater Crown Preserve. My husband and I have vacationed in that Preserve; I can’t think of any enterprise in that little town which could possibly use such chemicals.”
She paused and blushed very slightly. “When I was a girl I used to be very fond of stories about King Casmir the Protector. When Our Tribune came to us . . . Well, I just wouldn’t want anything to happen to Our Tribune. I used to respect Academician Mortifer, but if he is trying to kill Our Tribune he must be a very wicked man and he should be caught as soon as possible.”
The playback ceased and I turned to Paul. “As soon as we have time I’d like to thank that woman in person, Paul,” I said. “Wanda has offered me various family heirlooms from the time of Casmir the Tenth; see if you can find something among them that this woman might like and ask Wanda if she will give it to me to pass on to our informant as a token of appreciation.”
Paul made a note with his pen on a pad of paper—a scholar’s affectation in this day of recording chips—and said, “I’m sure she will. The next message is from a child; a boy who lives on a farm near that Crown Preserve.”
The boy might have been a farm lad of my old times; sturdy, freckled, clad in a faded shirt. “Well, I don’t know if this will be any help,” his recorded image said, “but it’s sure funny. We live just on the edge of Lake of the Crater Preserve. Us kids around here always used to swim in the Lake, and the rangers never said anything. But a couple of years ago the Preserve was pretty well closed down; they said the scientists from the Academy in Thorn were using the lake for experiments. When Dad tried to protest he didn’t get anywhere; eventually he found out that Councillor Mortifer was behind these experiments and in those days, before Tribune Casmir came, you just couldn’t buck old Mortifer.”
He paused and spoke a little more awkwardly. “Well, us kids were mad, and we’ve been sneaking over at night and in the early mornings to swim. I’m sorry if we’ve been breaking the law but we didn’t think it was fair. So anyway my friend Jimmy and I have seen some awfully funny stuff going on in that lake. They take boats out at night and drop big cases of stuff right into the water in the middle of the Lake. And we’ve seen transport discs going down into the water too, and one time we almost got caught when we were swimming and a transport disc came right out of the water. So since old Mortifer was behind getting the Lake closed I figure that maybe it was something Tribune Casmir oughta know. And . . . if this is some help to you, could you maybe see . . . about getting the Lake open again for swimming, Tribune?”
Paul and I both chuckled as the playback finished. “Once we had those two leads we did some further checking and found some other leads pointing to that location,” said Paul. “We’re pretty sure that it’s a secret stronghold of Mortifer’s; perhaps his main base now you’ve driven him underground. There’s a good chance that he himself might be there. I’d like your permission to send in an assault team of monitors; the charges pending against Mortifer are serious enough to get us a search and seize warrant from the High Court of Justice.”
I frowned. “If I know Mortifer he won’t be taken easily; he probably has half a dozen escape routes. I think that our best chance is to intercept the next big shipment and get ourselves dropped into Mortifer’s stronghold in some of these big crates the boy spoke of.”
Paul sighed. “You say ‘ourselves.’ You are going to insist on going then?”
I grinned at him. “Did you doubt it?”
He smiled wryly back. “Not really. All right; the Tribune has certain powers of investigation which we can probably stretch to cover this. You’re certainly as much an expert at hand-to-hand combat as most monitors, and they’ll certainly follow you with enthusiasm. But take every precaution, Casmir. Carpathia is recovering nicely from Mortifer, but we’ll need you around, at least as a symbol, for some time yet. Besides that, your friends would miss you.”
“And I you,” I said. “Don’t worry, Paul. This new life is much too interesting to throw away recklessly. I’ll wear earplugs against that ‘magic word’ of Mortifer’s and take some other precautions, too. Ask the Healers if it’s safe for the whole assault group to have Lysergol injections so we can’t be knocked out by neural interruption. We’ll carry those Fire Service shields against torching and wear regular monitor’s body shields against projectiles. If we can get inside the defenses by being delivered like packages, I have hopes that those things will be enough.”
Paul nodded. “Yes and you’d better wear Support Suits and carry a reasonable air supply too. That way if Mortifer floods the place or tries some sort of gas attack you’ll be all right. In fact, with Support Suits you can be neatly sealed inside those cases and not have to be worried about air holes or what happens when they drop you in the Lake.”
For all that, we were uncomfortable enough in our packing cases as the boat carried us over the surface of the Lake of the Crater. Some of us had been in those cases longer than others; we had tried to insert ourselves into Mortifer’s supply chain as unobtrusively as possible, burglaring warehouses in the dead of night to substitute monitors for supplies. An “accident” involving a cargo disc had enabled us to substitute the last few cases in the confusion. Luckily Mortifer tended to use standard sized chests large enough, though barely, to hold a man. A few boxes too small to hold a monitor were packed with equipment we hoped would prove useful.
The sound of the engine that drove the boat ceased, and I heard clanking sounds through my packing case. Very careful observation from the shore by our agents had told us the routine that was followed; the boat was moored to a buoy tethered just below the surface and the cases were tipped overboard from the side of the boat, which then returned to a boathouse on the shore of the lake.
Presently, the case I was in was lifted and dropped into the water. I was head-down for a moment, then the case was righted by the weights which had been placed at my feet to make the case weigh the same amount as the one we had substituted it for. Presently, there was a bump and silence for a while. Then the case was pushed sideways for a way and there was another pause. A loud humming began and I felt myself descending again. Then there was a gurgle of water running away.
I moved aside a little hatch which had been built into my case and peered out through the piece of dark translucent material which, I hoped, concealed my spyhole. The cases were standing in a large circular chamber from which water was gradually draining; harsh white lights behind protective transparent panels lit the scene. When the water was gone a heavy round door opened in one wall and blue-domed androids with cargo handling equipment came into the room. I let them take a case or two to the door so that there was one case inside the door and another blocking it. Then I simultaneously keyed a machine I held and kicked the release that made my case fall away in two halves.
The androids froze, as they had at the false Castle Thom when Droste and his men invaded it. I blew a blast on a whistle which I had carried on a chain round my neck and all of the cases carrying monitors split and spilled out their contents. Each man or woman ran to perform assigned tasks; making sure the door was well blocked so that it could not be closed on us, retrieving pieces of equipment from the smaller cases.
We formed up in skirmishing order and went down the corridor upon which the door opened. No effort had been made to close the door
, though it was remotely, not manually, operated. Either our invasion had been unobserved or else the enemy was playing a waiting game. Reluctantly I keyed the contact that would turn off my sound receptors; from now on I must travel deaf and let others be my ears. We were all anonymous in dark-colored Support Suits, but Mortifer knew me well enough to realize that I would want to be in the assault group myself. If he spoke the word that would stop my heart and breath there might be no time for my companions to aid me, even though one of them was a Healer and carried emergency medical equipment.
The monitors carried equipment to override any ordinary door lock and we left no room unexplored as we passed along the corridor. This was a storage and service area; one room held neat stacks of supplies, another a transport disc in the process of repair. There were stored foods in some rooms and one was a wine cellar. Mortifer, I remembered, prided himself on his discriminating palate for wine, and since he was not a man to indulge his servants it was an encouraging sign that Mortifer himself lived here at least some of the time.
Now we passed small utilitarian bedrooms, all empty. Some human staff must live here then, at least part of the time. Presently a few more pretentious bedrooms showed that Mortifer sometimes housed guests or had human servants to whom he allowed some luxuries.
We now reached a more elaborate door closing off the passage; our lock-opening machine took several minutes to solve the problem of opening it. Eventually the door flashed open and we entered a long, richly decorated corridor; there were soft carpets underfoot and paintings on the wall. As we went down the corridor at a trot a man in dark clothing emerged from a side room carrying a tray with dishes on it. A neural interrupter flashed and he dropped to the floor, but not before he had time to utter a warning cry into a disc on his wrist. I couldn’t hear what he had yelled, of course, but it was probably enough to warn Mortifer.
The Parallel Man Page 14
