Cerberus: A Wolf in the Fold

by Jack L. Chalker

  “Well, that’s not true. If I got anywhere near Laroo, or particularly his island and his projects, I’d put myself in severe and immediate danger, and I’m just not willing to do that. As I said, my activities are designed to keep me in my own personal nirvana as long as possible. Indefinitely, I hope. So I’m not the active sort. Laroo wouldn’t trust me near him or his babies simply because I know too much about him, know him too well.” He grinned. “He thinks I had a partial mindwipe about that, which is the only reason I’m still here. But on a. secondary level, I’m too close to the problem. I’ve been here too many years, know too many people. My objectivity is askew. A fresh analytical mind was needed to filter the information. Besides, this way it’s your neck, not mine.”

  “But you said you didn’t care if the aliens attacked,” Dylan noted, still trying to figure him out. “Then why help against this thing at all?”

  He became very serious. “The ultimate threat is those creatures out there. Perfect organisms, superior in every way. Homo excelsus. And all totally programmable. Totally. Everybody’s programmed, of course, by what we call heredity and environment. But we have the ability to transcend much of that, to become what the programming never intended. That’s why no totalitarian society, no matter how absolute, in the whole history of mankind has been able to eradicate the individual human spirit These—robots—are the first true threat to that. They can’t outgrow their programming. Speaking euphemistically, I have to say they scare the shit out of me.”

  We both nodded. “So where do we go from here?” I asked him.

  “All right. We’ve analyzed and dissected and played with all those samples. I’ll tell you the truth: Dr. Merton is correct. We have no idea how to duplicate that stuff, how to make it ourselves. It’s beyond us. Which is all to the good, I think. I wouldn’t want to win that business, either, although Lord knows they’ll try. That’s the bad news, sort of. The good news is that though we can’t make it or quite understand how it works, we know how to work it, if that makes sense.”

  “Not a bit,” I told him.

  “Well, I don’t know how to make a pencil, but I know how to use one. Even if I’d never seen one before, I could still figure it out. The operation, that is. We have an infinitely Complex variation of that same idea here. Now, if the basic obedience programming were in the very chemical makeup of the thing, we’d be up the creek. No way to deprogram without dissolving it. Fortunately, it’s not. There is a programming device inside each quasicell, and it’s quite complex and we don’t understand it at all. However, knowing that, we can add programming information and be sure that the information is transmitted and stored via the Wardens the same way as we swap here. There’s an interesting implication that the thing is designed with Wardens in mind and might not work without them, which may mean that these things were developed by our aliens specifically for us here and now on Cerberus, rather than just being a variation of something common in their culture.”

  “So? What does this all mean?” Dylan asked impatiently.

  “Well, half the samples went elsewhere and the other half stayed here, where my lab handled the practical stuff. Wardens were essential, which we have in abundance here. It became a fascinating exercise, really. Using an organism we can’t understand at all to influence another we can’t build or duplicate. But with the aid of computers Outside and my lab here, we finally managed to get a readout. The chemical coding language is quite complex and not at all human, and that’s what took the time, but we finally got it. Fortunately, the basic obedience stuff is duplicated in every cell. In fact all the cells, whether brain or tissue, are pretty much the same and can simply become what they need to be. The programming is rather basic, as it would have to be, since it’s serving as a single base for all the different robot agents being sent back to all sorts of different worlds, jobs, and conditions.”

  “Then you can get rid of it?” I pressed.

  “Nope. But we can do the same thing I suggested as regards psych implants. The aliens have made it impossible to separate the basics without lousing up the cell and triggering this meltdown process. But the cells are programmable, remember. They have to be. So we can add programming to override these initial steps. Cancel it out completely, leaving an unencumbered mind in a super body.”

  “Surely Merton would have thought of that,” I pointed out

  “Undoubtedly she has,” he agreed, “but she hasn’t the computer capacity and resources to get a complete readout of the codes, let alone actually break the language used. That’s what stuck them. You wouldn’t believe how much time had to be. devoted to this. Laroo was right: not every string he could pull could commandeer that much computer time for that long without drawing Security like a magnet”

  “So we can give him what he wants,” Dylan sighed. “How does that gain us anything?”

  “Well, for starters, we’ll need to give you some absolute protection. That can be accomplished simply by making it a complex psych implant using the Security system. Laroo can’t break it. Nobody here could break it—or if they can, we’ve already lost the war. In other words, you can’t give the information to ‘em unless you want to, which is the only time you’ll know it—and you’ll just know what to do, not what you’re doing. And it’ll have to be done one at a time, one robot at a crack.”

  “But he’s only allowing me on the island,” Dylan pointed out. “Doesn’t that mean he’ll just make a robot out of me and have it any time he wants it, block or no block?”

  “No, and there’s an easy way to handle that. Very easy. We add another block, similar to the dozens Security’s placed in Qwin’s brain over the years, as insurance. There is no human who cannot be tortured, or chemically or mechanically made to spill his or her guts. None. So we use the same methods to make sure that such operations will be fruitless. It’s what stopped Laroo from going the robot route with Qwin here right from the start. I’m sure he has some implants like This himself. It’s really simple, and one they’ll understand and accept right off because they all know the type. Basically, it’s a psych command that erases other information if any sort of coercion is used, and can even be triggered voluntarily if need be. He won’t dare try anything with you. He’ll need you totally—and he can use his own psych staff to verify the existence of the erase commands. It protects you—and it protects us.”

  Dylan looked puzzled by that, but I understood him exactly. “He’s telling us that not only can it be triggered voluntarily or involuntarily to erase, but it can be triggered externally, as by a Confederacy agent Similar to what the good doctor here must have used on Laroo to ensure his own well-being.”

  Dumonia smiled and nodded.

  “But you’re still going to give him the answer he wants!” Dylan protested.

  Dumonia kept smiling.

  “Think about it, Dylan,” I urged her. “You’ve seen the way we think long enough. Remember the cells are programmable.”

  She considered what he said, and I was beginning to think we were going to have to spell it out. Then suddenly I saw her mouth shape into an oval. “Oooh … Oh, my!”

  “My only regret is that Dylan’s going to have to do this all alone,” I grumbled. “I hate missing out on the climax of the big scam. After all, it was my idea.”

  “There’s a way, you know,” Dumonia reminded us softly, but I could see that eager gleam in his eyes. “I set things up in case you wanted to do so.”

  Dylan looked at him, then me. “I—I’m not sure I want to,” she told us. “I’m a little scared of it.”

  “I told you there was a big risk,” the psych admitted. “And I understand the cautions. First, you could split. No big deal there, as long as you wanted to stay together forever, and that’s a long time. You could merge into one new personality. Or you could find out that deep down neither of you really like the other. That’s particularly the case in Qwin’s mind, since he was a very unpleasant person until he came here and found his humanity.”

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nbsp; She nodded. “I know. That scares me the most, I guess. I love him the way he is now, but I don’t think I would like the old Qwin very much at all. He sounds too much like Wagant Laroo.”

  I looked at her strangely. Her, too?

  “There’s another possibility,” he suggested, sounding slightly disappointed at her reluctance. I think he really wanted to pull off that merger or whatever, strictly for professional curiosity or maybe just for fun. “I could manipulate the psych plants so that it would require both of you to complete the programming operation.”

  I looked up at him accusingly. “That’s what they recommended right along, wasn’t it? To make sure that neither of us could be held hostage to the other’s cooperation.”

  He coughed apologetically, then shrugged and gave a wan smile. “So would I be a good doctor if I didn’t point out all the interesting alternatives?”

  “Then we go together, whether they like it or not,” Dylan said firmly. “That’s good.” She hesitated. “But won’t this operation point an arrow straight back to you? Won’t they know who had to be the one to give us the information?”

  “If it works, it’s academic,” he told us. “If it doesn’t, or if anything goes wrong, well, I have contingency plans. Don’t worry about me. I cover myself pretty well.”

  “I’ll bet you do,” I said dryly. “Well, let’s get on with it”

  As I predicted, Bogen didn’t like the revised plan, not one bit.

  “What could I do?” I asked him innocently. “Here we were going down the elevator from Dumonia’s office and suddenly, bang, out go the lights for both of us. We wake up half an hour later halfway across town, with the briefing identically planted in our minds and the blocks in place. You know your men lost us.”

  He didn’t much like that, either, but could only glower.

  “Well, you got it, though?”

  “We got it.” I had already explained the terms and conditions, spelling out the protections in pretty absolute terms.

  “The boss isn’t gonna like this,” he growled. “Too much to go wrong. Tell you what, though. Both of you come out to the island this afternoon. Bring your things—it might be a long stay.”

  I nodded and switched off.

  “You really think Laroo will buy it?” Dylan asked worriedly. “After all, he’s putting himself in the Confederacy’s hands.”

  “He’ll buy it,” I assured her, “although cautiously. He doesn’t have any choice, as you know who assured us.”

  “Imagine. The most powerful man on Cerberus, one of the four most powerful in the Diamond, and maybe one of the most powerful men around today, period—and he’s scared to death.”

  “Alright,” I responded. “Let’s go pack.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The Final Scam

  Dumonia and his psych computers had built a tremendously impressive psychological profile of Wagant Laroo over the years, back from when he first appeared on Cerberus. Like all the world’s most powerful men throughout history, his one fear was assassination or even accidental death. This fear had actually been compounded, on Cerberus, where one had the potential of eternal life—and that was the kicker. By now Laroo felt almost omnipotent, but to feel like a god and know you were potentially mortal was unthinkable. The robot was the closest thing to total security he could ever hope to achieve. Even more, it would allow him to leave the Warden Diamond—and return—at will, thus making him certainly the most powerful man our spacefaring race had ever known. Surrounded by a small army of the more obedient sort of organic robots, he would be virtually invulnerable. Freed from all wants and needs of the flesh, and armed with a mind that could operate with the swiftness and sureness of a top computer, he would be a monster such as mankind had never known.

  He knew this, and knowing this, his psych charts said, he had to take the risk. Add to that the knowledge that one Lord had already been done in, a Lord he obviously respected and feared—and you had the clincher.

  I couldn’t help but think that Dumonia had had a lot to do with my decisions. I’d been seeing him—and he’d made sure it would be him—about Sanda and Dylan before I ever made the Project Phoenix move, and then I’d done nothing until just the right psychological time—for Laroo. Then and only then had I been willing to take the ultimate risk and had done so practically without hesitation, and with Dylan’s full support. I couldn’t help wondering how many little pushes and suggestions I’d gotten from him even before I ever heard of him.

  It really didn’t matter now, though. Now everything would come together—or it would all come apart. Either way, I had no doubt he was protected. And I suspected that if we did fail there was a cruiser even now prepared to come in close to Cerberus and fry Laroo’s Island to a crisp and us with it.

  Dylan and I spent almost a full week in the Castle, mostly enjoying ourselves, although always under the watchful eyes of guards and scanners. She was fascinated by the broad, green lawn, something she frankly had never even conceived of before, and by the museums of stolen goods, many of which I could take pleasure in explaining both the history and something about the culture they came from.

  When we first arrived we were taken to Dr. Merton, who ran some tests to verify our psych commands and blocks, as expected, and had done so. Unlike the first time I’d come to the Castle, I wasn’t bluffing now, and they confirmed it.

  We also revealed, without really knowing or understanding what it was we were describing, the type of equipment necessary for the deprogramming process. Merton checked the information over with interest; obviously understanding it, and assured us that it could be assembled quickly.

  Finally, though, and without any real warning, a big transport landed on the front lawn. Out stepped five people as before, only these were far different. Dylan surveyed them curiously from the window. A teenage boy and girl. A tough-looking woman pushing forty, with short gray-brown hair”. A short, wiry man of very dark complexion. And finally, a young executive type in full dress suit and black goatee.

  “He has quite a collection,” I said approvingly. “Nobody there I recognize, from last time or any other time.”

  “They walk alike,” Dylan noted. “Even the women walk just like the men.”

  “I see what ‘you mean. They’re good actors. Damned good.”

  “How will we know which one is the real Laroo? Or if any of them are?”

  “That’s simple,” I replied. “The real one will be the one left alive and kicking at the end.”

  We were summoned by National Police to the downstairs lab complex, and left immediately. All five of the newcomers, plus Merton and Bogen, awaited us in the lab, where seats had been provided—five seats.

  “They even cross their legs the same,” Dylan whispered, and I had to suppress a laugh.

  We stopped. The goateed businessman proved the spokesman this time.

  “Well, well. Qwin Zhang, I hadn’t intended that we meet a second time, but you made it unavoidable.”

  “I’ll make it worth your while,” I promised him.

  “You better,” he growled. “I don’t like people who make themselves indispensable. You should understand that.”

  I nodded. “You have a choice. We can call this off and all go home.”

  He ignored the comment and looked over at Dylan. “A pleasure. I trust all is satisfactory with you now?”

  “Extremely,” she responded with that old confidence. I could almost read her mind, and I loved her for it. Wagant Laroo would be a pantywaist in a bork hunt.

  “You understand there’ll be some, ah, tests first?” f We both nodded. “We’re ready when you are,” Dylan told him. “The truth is, we no more understand this than you do.” She looked them all over. “Who goes first?”

  “None of us. Yet.” He nodded at Bogen, and the security man went out. Two technicians wheeled in a device that was pretty much what we’d described several days before to Merton. It was a hybrid, and obviously had been knocked together, but if M
erton thought the thing would work, well, I was willing to trust the expert.

  The machine looked essentially like three hair driers on long, thick gooseneck poles leading into a rear electronic console. They brought it in, and with Merlon’s help fitted it against the instrument cluster that was a permanent part of the lab. Cables—lots of them—were taken from the top rear of the console part and plugged into the instrumentation, and switches were thrown. Merton checked the whole thing out, then nodded. “It’s ready.”

  I looked at the gadget and couldn’t shake the feeling that I was about to be electrocuted. According to Merton, it was a variation of the basic psych machine itself, although without a lot of the electronics and analytical circuits. In effect, it would allow Dylan and me, if we concentrated, to send impulses from our own minds to a third. What we were going to do could have been done by computer, of course, but then they wouldn’t have needed us. Chairs were brought in and placed under the gadget, and the helmets or whatever were adjusted to hover just over each one.

  “Now what?” Laroo demanded.

  “We need a robot,” I told him. “First we feed the signal into the robot, then you slide a mind in there any good old Cerberan way.”

  “Merton?” he said expectantly.

  The doctor walked over to one of those booths and opened it, obviously prepared for this. The robot inside didn’t look like a cadaver this time, but was fully propped and animated. Still, it had a totally vacant look that would be impossible for a human being to duplicate.

  Dylan and I both gasped at the same time. “Sanda!’ she breathed.

  No, it wasn’t Sanda, but it was a perfect facsimile of Sanda’s current, and Dylan’s old, body.

  “I see I haven’t underestimated the old boy,” I muttered. “What a rotten trick.”