by Isaac Asimov
The drug dealer’s face reddened, and he started to stand. Then he caught himself, resettled his ample frame in the chair, and forced a smile onto his face. “Think big, Vorian. You don’t have much time left, so you might as well occupy yourself with the long view. This goes way beyond cooking up bugs to dupe idiots on Nova Levis. Basq and his people are serious. They’re going to get the citizenship drive done, one way or another, because once it becomes clear how powerful they are the Triangle’s going to roll over and let it happen.
And then some of them are going to emigrate to other Settler worlds to start legal fights over reciprocity of citizenship under interplanetary law. Don’t be surprised if Nucleomorph puts a little money into those fights, and don’t be surprised when the borgs win.
“See where this is going? Once the tech is a little firmer, they’ll live forever, or at least longer than any human. How much power can someone accumulate just by being in one place for a hundred years?
What if that person runs for an office? And then what if that person uses his sway to make things a little easier, a little more lucrative, for Nucleomorph when the company comes to that new planet? It’s a sweetheart of a deal all around: Nucleomorph gets to legitimize its cyborg procedure, collect royalties on the patents, and license all the subsidiary tech; the cyborgs get to work themselves from what you see to positions of power all through the Settled worlds. They’ll be rich, and once a few human generations have passed, they’ll be respected, and Nucleomorph will keep making more of them.”
“Come on, Filoo,” Masid said. “Are any of these people really that naïve?”
Holding up a hand, Filoo said, “You should watch what you say. Gorka, why don’t you wait outside for a minute?”
When the cyborg had shut the door behind him, Masid said, “What’s to stop the borgs from making deals with other people? Nucleomorph can’t keep a hold over them forever.”
“Oh, yes they can,” Filoo countered, nodding. “Because Nucleomorph is on the track of the one thing the cyborgs want worse than they wanted to live before they were transformed.”
Masid knew what he was going to say before he said it. Still the word rocked him.
“Reproduction. It’s the cyborg Holy Grail, and Nucleomorph is closer than you might think.”
It hit Masid from two sides: one, the realization that a breeding population of cyborgs would put Homo sapiens at an insurmountable disadvantage; and two, the horrified suspicion that even Filoo might not be getting the whole story. If cyborg tech was improving that fast, how long would it be before they were indistinguishable from the regular human population? What might not be available through force typically was through stealth, and if cyborgs could sneak into positions of power on Settled worlds, and begin reproducing, by the time they announced themselves it would be too late for anyone to do anything about it without resorting to a war that would lay waste the precarious culture of any Settler planet.
He forced himself to approach the question from a less adversarial perspective. What if no such takeover was planned? What if the integration of man and machine was just the next step in human progress? Was anything to be gained by resisting it? Humans had never been very adept at choosing not to do what was possible, even when they suspected the consequences would be different than their expectation.
“Now I think you’re starting to get it,” Filoo said. “Nucleomorph will be the shadow government on a hundred worlds as long as they can keep the borgs waiting for the Grail. Hell, as soon as this thing gets off the ground, I’m signing up myself.” He stood and opened the door. “In case you were wondering, Basq won’t let me kill you unless you refuse the transformation. He’s going to stop by later today, and if I were you I’d have my answer ready.”
With that, he left Masid alone. As soon as the door shut, and Masid was sure Filoo or Gorka weren’t going to come back in, he flipped his datum out of his pocket. They hadn’t searched him, which could only mean they didn’t care who he called. Some threshold must have been crossed — Brixa and Basq must have figured that their project had reached a critical mass. Masid wondered if it had something to do with Ariel, or if there was news from Kopernik. A war in Terran space would sure free up Nucleomorph to stop looking over their shoulders.
The other thing to consider was that no one in the Triangle was likely to answer Masid’s call. He was on his own, in the position of knowing a truth that very few people on Nova Levis would have believed or wanted to hear. Derec Avery was possibly the only exception, and he’d called from an anonymous datum whose code Masid couldn’t backtrack. Masid swore, thought furiously, and was about to call Mia at Kalienin’s office — careers be damned all around — when she called him.
“It’s on, Masid,” she said. On the tiny screen her face looked ghostly, all eyes and pale skin and twitching mouth. “A Terran strike force is already in-system. They didn’t tell anyone they were coming, and our satellites just picked them up. Kalienin and Lamina are both tearing out their hair because no one in the Terran military command will talk to them, but there’s no public awareness. The policy of the Triangle seems to be that whatever happens to Gernika isn’t their concern.”
“Have you talked to Derec?”
“No. I didn’t even know he was back from Kopernik. I’ll call him too, but if you’re in Gernika, you need to get out. Now. The whole place might disappear within an hour.”
“Or they might wait to see how the Spacers react to Terran military positioned over a Settler world where the government is a Spacer-Terran coalition,” Masid said. “You can bet that Lamina has been in touch with everyone who will take her calls. I wouldn’t bet on a strike happening right away.”
“Would you bet your life against it?” Mia snapped. “Masid, get out of there.”
“Will do,” he said. It wouldn’t do any good to mention that he wasn’t exactly at liberty to get out of anywhere. “If you talk to Derec, tell him to get in touch with me. Ditto Ariel, although I’m guessing she won’t answer her com right now. She’s gone with Zev Brixa to Nucleomorph.”
“She’s safer there than you are at Gernika,” Mia said.
Maybe, Masid thought. He wasn’t willing to bet on that, either. At best, Ariel was a useful public voice; as soon as she was no longer suited to that role, Nucleomorph would —
That was when it all came clear.
“Mia,” Masid said, “try like hell to get in touch with Derec. I’m going to be on the move here. Wait for me to call you.”
He snapped off the call and immediately dialed the personal com code Ariel had given him. Only three days late, he thought. And could be you would have been worse off if Basq or Brixa — or Filoo — knew I was looking for you.
Right.
A message scrolled across the screen: CONNECTION FAILED.
Masid tried again.
CONNECTION FAILED.
Shit, he thought. Was her datum disabled? Did Nucleomorph have screens in place? Those were the only two reasons he could think of for why he wouldn’t even have gotten a message server, or been forwarded to Ariel’s robot back in Nova City — and he didn’t like either of them.
Chapter 32
BRIXA’S OFFICE WAS walled entirely with projections of various units of the laboratory/hospital complex. He and Ariel sat in plush armchairs and sipped expensive Terran bourbon. When enough time had passed that the silence was about to become uncomfortable, Brixa said, “A big enterprise demands the use of people we might not otherwise employ.”
“Do you mean Basq, or are we talking about Weil and Jan?”
Brixa shrugged. “General comment — could be any of them. Basq is a bit of a zealot, Weil is the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a robot wearing human skin, and Jan has his head in the clouds. He doesn’t know it, but he’s right in line with the ancients who believed that the first networked communications would lead to archived personalities and so on. Left to their own devices, the three of them would kill each other before too long. It’s my
job to keep them all pulling in the same direction, for the sake of the project.”
“And now you add me,” Ariel said. “With my own set of stubborn beliefs that don’t square with yours. You just keep making problems for yourself.”
“If you’ll pardon an old entrepreneur’s canard, most things that look like problems at first glance turn out to be opportunities.”
“So I’m an opportunity.” Ariel looked over the rim of her glass at Brixa, and thought: Incredible. I’m practically flirting with him.
Brixa held up a hand. “Apologies if I made it sound like you’re just a cog in some plan. That’s not the case at all. Listen, Ariel. I meant it when I said we lose too many. It’s easy for you to think of me as a soulless operative, so you do. The truth is that every time we recruit someone and that person dies, I take that as evidence of a personal failure to oversee this project properly. Every one of their deaths is on my head.”
Ariel couldn’t decide whether to believe him or not. She sipped her whiskey, feeling that a crux was approaching. She had committed herself to something in front of Basq, and here in Zev Brixa’s office she was about to find out exactly what that something was.
With a smile more rueful than any she’d yet seen, Brixa went on.
“We lose more adults than children. Their bodies are less resilient.”
“More orphans,” Ariel said, and let it hang.
“Nothing I can do will convince you that I believe in this,” Brixa said. “But you’re still willing to speak for us.”
“Not for you. For them.”
Brixa nodded, accepting the implied rebuke and moving on. “As it should be. This is an early stage. In twenty years, or fifty, you’ll look back and realize you were part of something wonderful.”
“Will I?” Ariel asked. “What interest will cyborgs have in working with unaltered humans? They’ll live longer, they won’t get sick — why would they even consider themselves human?”
“As long as they can’t reproduce,” Brixa said, “they’ll want to be a part of human civilization. After all — if you’ll permit a fairly cold-blooded assessment of the situation — it takes a constant supply of humans to ensure a fresh supply of cyborgs.”
“Unless you figure out how to make them fertile.”
“Please, Ariel. We are doing some research into fertility, but it’s just for the sake of image. As long as we keep them believing that we’re going to discover a way for them to reproduce, they’ll do whatever we want. That includes my old friend Basq, however convinced he may be that he’s the senior partner in our little project. Nucleomorph’s only problem is making sure we can make more of them faster than they die off.” Brixa set his drink down. “And that’s where you come in.”
Out of reflex, Ariel put her glass on the table, too. “I beg your pardon?”
The office door opened, but something in Brixa’s face kept Ariel looking at him. “Adult conversions, Ambassador,” he said, and the smile came back in all of its amoral exuberance. “Most of our subjects are immature Terrans riddled with disease. We’re very excited to find out what happens when we do the procedure on a healthy adult Spacer.”
Now Ariel did turn around, and saw coming toward her the robot Brixa had brought up from Nova Levis.
“Ariel Burgess,” Brixa said, “meet Kynig Parapoyos. Oh, excuse me. I forgot you knew him as Gale Chassik some years ago; your acquaintance predates mine.”
She knew it was hopeless, but Ariel leaped out of her chair and made a break for the door. The robot caught her without even rocking back. It lifted her off the ground and carried her out into the hall.
Brixa, coming up behind them, said, “This is a privilege we haven’t extended to anyone else, Ariel. You’ll be the first person to know why we’re willing to expend all of this effort on you.”
Ariel fought. She kicked, she screamed, she cursed Brixa and Parapoyos and in the end herself, and when the robot carried her into the operating theater where Krista Weil waited with a transdermal, Ariel spit in her face and cursed her, too.
Weil didn’t even wipe away the saliva before touching the transdermal to the back of Ariel’s hand and depressing the trigger.
Chapter 33
THE HUT DOOR opened, and Masid barely got the datum stowed before Basq came in. The cyborg remained standing, but he looked completely at ease. “We have an arrangement to discuss,” he said.
“So I hear, but it came from Filoo, so I’m glad you’re here to confirm,” Masid answered. The small sally got a chuckle, but he had no illusions about being able to deal with Basq if the cyborg leader had made up his mind.
“Filoo gave you the substance of it.” Basq eyed Masid, giving him a chance to commit. Masid had the sense that more was coming, though, so he waited. “Clandestine enterprises make hypocrites of us all, Masid Vorian. If it were up to me, Filoo would have been turned over to the NLBI years ago; there’s certainly enough to charge him with. He’s peculiarly persuasive with the constituency we need to get our enterprise off the ground, though, and when he discovered that Kynig Parapoyos was alive, he practically forced himself on us. I wouldn’t have expected it of Filoo, but he’s pathologically loyal when it comes to Parapoyos.”
“Is Parapoyos running things around here?” Masid asked.
“I run things here,” Basq said. “Do not doubt that. Parapoyos is a revered figure among us, but that reverence is ever tempered by the realization that he treated us like experimental mice, to be discarded when nothing more could be learned from us. In his current circumstances, he is a useful tool. We use him the way he used us.” He allowed himself a thin smile. “And you very nearly solved the problem.”
“Not a very discreet maneuver, bulling into my office in the middle of the night. I take it he was freelancing? Or was I part of the plan after Taprin?”
“Hardly. Pon Byris was an opportunity to stretch Earth-Spacer tensions even farther than Taprin’s death had. You, on the other hand, were a simple grudge. Parapoyos is now keenly aware that this kind of vendetta is counterproductive. You’ve got nothing to fear from him, I think. Filoo, on the other hand …” Basq let the question hang.
Masid in turn forced himself to face it square-on for the first time.
If it meant he would live, would he undergo the procedure? He recoiled from the idea, but that revulsion passed quickly, and his honest response was yes, he would. If death was the alternative, he would.
The question was whether he could get away with not telling Basq this right away.
“Are you and Brixa planning to transform Ariel?” he asked.
“I’m not,” Basq answered, “and you’re dodging the question. What Brixa intends for her I do not know. I think she will be useful to us as a respected public official. It never hurts to have people like that on your side.”
“You’re dodging my question, too,” Masid said. “Fact is, I think you’re lying to me. Let me lay the theory out for you. Cyborg tech is advancing as fast as you can sacrifice sick kids to it, and pretty soon you’ll be able to create cyborgs who are indistinguishable from fully organic human beings. My guess is you’ve got something along those lines planned for Ariel. The best advocate is the one who looks like someone who should hate you.”
“Good plan. Not my plan, probably not Brixa’s plan, but a good plan. To tell you the truth, I believe we’ll have to consider it now. Unfortunately, I think it will be several years yet before we are superficially indistinguishable from unaugmented humans. It seems unlikely that we will be able to keep Ariel Burgess either sequestered or duped for that length of time.”
Masid’s instinct was to trust Basq. The cyborg leader didn’t come across like someone who lied very often, or for any less than crucial reasons. He vacillated, holding back his acquiescence only because he thought he still might be able to wriggle out of this. The wild card was the military strike — if it was imminent, Masid was more or less certain that by revealing it to Basq he would buy back his unaltered, flesh-and-
blood life.
His datum chirped, and Masid thought: It hasn’t done you much good to be indirect, Vorian. Let’s try brazen now, see how that goes.
He took the datum out, looking Basq in the eye, and answered the call.
Basq showed no sign of distress that Masid still had a datum, or that he hadn’t asked permission to use it. Masid turned the screen so they both could see Avery on the screen.
“Derec,” Masid said.
“Masid.” Avery was in a flier of some kind. “I came from Nova City as soon as I got off the ship. Where’s Ariel? Where’s the robot?”
“The robot I don’t know about. Ariel, I think, is up at the Nucleomorph lab. There’s another problem now, though. Derec, let me introduce you to Basq.” Masid turned the screen a little more so Derec’s field of vision included Basq. The cyborg nodded in greeting.
“Where’s Ariel, Basq?”
“As Masid said. She is with Brixa, I believe touring Nucleomorph’s facility. Before we get too entangled here, Mr. Avery, I want to tell you how much I admire your positronics work. Bogard was exceptional. Before my transformation, I was involved in a similar area, not so theoretical, and I tip my metaphorical cap to you.”
Derec looked a little nonplussed at the compliment. “I’ll ask both of you,” he said. “Why did I get a recorded message from people identifying themselves as Terran military about three hundred kilometers back?”
For someone who had never believed in luck, Masid found himself suddenly drowning in it. “Oh, that,” he said, with a glance over at Basq. “Mia Daventri called me a little while ago. Seems that Vilios Kalienin is worried enough about the situation here that he’s looking for outside support. He talked to someone in the Auroran diplomatic corps — Hofton, I think was his name. You know him?”
Derec’s face had changed at the mention of the name. “Yes,” he said. “Go on.”
