“Take that seat and strap in, Tix,” the man instructed.
She smiled. “Oh, yes, my lord,” she said in a childish-sounding yet sexy voice, and did as instructed. I noticed she never stopped smiling and just about never took her eyes off him. The other two strapped themselves in and the man noticed me staring at the young woman.
“Never seen a Goodtime Girl before, huh?” he called out conversationally.
I shook my head. “No, sir. I’m from Gray Basin, and we don’t see any there.”
“I daresay,” he answered with pride. “You just arrest ’em and send ’em to us and we make ’em.” He chuckled at that.
I responded with a smile I didn’t feel. There was something creepy about Tix, something unnatural.
I’d heard mentions of Goodtime Girls, of course. Everybody had. Entertainers, consorts, concubines, and a little of everything else, it was said—mostly for the entertainment and gratification of the bigwigs. But nobody I had ever talked to had actually seen one, or really knew anything about them except that theirs was a different kind of job. I always wondered why, on a planet ninety-percent female, there weren’t Goodtime Boys.
The man proved chatty. Either he, too, was ignorant of who I was or he was putting on a mighty fine act. I gave him my cover story, with the truth when explaining what I was. doing on the shuttle. He seemed to accept it.
Goodtime Girls, it seemed, weren’t employees, they were slaves. Oh, he didn’t call Tix that, but it was clear that all the euphemisms were stand-ins for the word “slave.” They had been convicted of crimes against the state and sentenced to Ultimate Demotion. Most UDs, as he called them, were sent off to the mines of Momrath’s moons, but a few were selected and turned into Goodtime Girls by expert psychs in the government’s Criminal Division. “Some of ’em are real artists,” he told me proudly. “You wouldn’t believe what Tix looked like before they worked on her.”
“There are no Goodtime Boys?” I couldn’t resist asking.
He shook his head from side to side. “Nope. Something in the process having to do with our little buggers the Wardens. When they remove the psyche or whatever it is they take out, the subject’s invariably locked in as female.” He gave a leer in Tix’s direction, and she nearly shivered with delight. “Not that I mind that a bit.”
I had to repress the urge to shiver. In all the barbaric acts of mankind, the worst was certainly abject slavery, and probably the worst of the worst was to create willing, natural slaves with a psych guide and a pysch machine. The system seemed terribly perverted, somehow, as well as downright crazy. Why have slaves on a world where robots were happily employed? The only possible answer was instant ego-gratification for the kind of mentality that worshiped only power. This guy had been “given” Tix by the government for doing such wonderful work and reaching a government grade level that warranted a Goodtime Girl. He took her with him as a highly visible status symbol, and because he got his jollies having a personal slave to order about. It was the ultimate reflection of the sickness of this society, I thought sadly. What kind of a place was it that was run by people who had psych-created fawning slaves the way influential people in other societies owned great gems or great works of art?
I repressed a sudden urge to kill the fellow and his companion right then and there, and maybe the Goodtime Girl, too, although, in more than one sense, she was already dead.
About twenty minutes after takeoff the speaker came on. “Please remain strapped in your seats. We are about to dock.”
The man and woman both frowned, and she. turned to him. “That’s odd. I didn’t feel any deceleration.”
He nodded. “I wonder if something’s wrong?”
There were no windows, so there was no way of knowing, but I tensed up. Here we go, I thought, and got myself mentally ready for any move that could be made.
I felt a shudder and vibration, then three quick deceleration bursts, and we slid neatly into the dock. There was a hissing, and then the rear door slid open. The man unbuckled himself and walked over to the door, looking out, still puzzled. “This isn’t Centrum,” he said, confused. “I think this is the space station.”
I unbuckled myself, sighed, stood up and walked back to the door. “Just go back to your seat,” I told him, “and relax. I think this is my stop.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A Victim of Philosophy
The lock was of the modern, standardized type, with the shuttle docked in space against a long tubular entryway into the space station itself. I knew that all four planets had such stations, and that the Four Lords made good use of them. The_ master computer for Medusa was here, for example, but I was unprepared for the enormity of the place. It had good artificial gravity, perhaps a bit lighter than I’d become used to. From the entry tube you could look out through a transparent strip and see the gigantic structure stretching away from you on all sides. It was more than a mere space station; it was more like a small floating city several kilometers across, large enough to be self-sufficient in those things that would support a sizable population.
At the end of the long walk up the entry tube I came upon a second airlock chamber, which I entered without hesitation. If they’d meant to kill me they could have done so far more easily and less messily elsewhere. This second lock was pretty much an insurance measure against premature leak and emergencies, but it also served as a neat security cell. Up top was the ever-present monitor, almost certainly with a real person on the other end, and a series of small and unfamiliar-looking projections that could have been either decontamination or weapons.
The first door closed behind me, but the second did not open right away. Suddenly those projections flooded the chamber with a pale blue force field that had a rather odd effect on me. The sensation must have been similar to that of being suddenly struck deaf or blind or both, yet I could see and hear perfectly well. What I no longer could do was sense or contact the Wardens within my own body. They had cut off communications, somehow, and, in so doing, had reverted me to my original form. I could see and feel it happening, with no powers except my own brain.
The ray cut off quickly, and the outer door opened. I found it very difficult to move, though, as if heavy weights had suddenly been placed all over me. I wasn’t quite sure what they were doing, but I guessed that they, not I, were now sending to the Wardens in my body somehow, and they were telling them to produce this sensation. It was quite effective. I could still move and act normally, but any quick or sustained actions would be beyond me. I had walked into the trap, and now they had me good. I had a vague thought that I should have made a run for it back at Gray Basin, no matter what the risks, but it was a little late for that now.
A strong-faced Medusan woman in government black waited for me in the reception lounge, along with a monitor sergeant armed with some sort of small, light sidearm. It was certainly no laser weapon, and I guessed it to be some sort of stun gun, which made perfect sense in this situation. You could shoot hostages as well as the hostage-takers with no fear of permanent injury to either, and you were unlikely to burn accidental holes in the space-station wall.
“I am Sugah Fallon,” the woman announced, “director of this installation. You are, I would guess, the one called Tarin Bul, although I expect that that’s not your real name, either.”
“It will do,” I told her wearily. “I see you know a lot more about the Warden organism than even I expected.”
She smiled. “Research into the possibilities is never-ending, Bul. You would be amazed at the things we can do these days. Come. It must be days since you ate, so we’ll attend to that first.” With my every move physically restricted, I had little choice but to follow her. Besides I was starved, I had to admit.
The food was good, and it was fresh. “We grow it all ourselves,” Fallon told me with some pride. “In fact, we support a staff here of over two thousand permanent party personnel plus half again as many on transient business. It is from here that the entire monitoring
system is guided.
All the records are here, and all are centrally coordinated and beamed by satellite to every city on the planet. Our laboratories and technical specialists are drawn from all four Diamonds worlds, and are the best in their fields.”
I really was impressed. “I’d like to see the whole thing sometime,” I said dryly.
“Oh, perhaps you might, but we will show you only a few departments today, I think. You’ll be fascinated by what we’re doing in those areas, I think.”
“Alien psychology?”
She laughed. “No, sorry, that’s off limits. You understand we have to be somewhat circumspect with you since we know that you carry some sort of broadcaster inside your head. Until that goes I’m afraid your movements will be rather limited here.”
“How do you know about that?” I asked, not bothering to deny it. This wasn’t a fishing expedition—they knew a whole hell of a lot.
“We know a bit from some of your compatriots. You may be interested to know that the agent sent to Lilith did manage to kill Marek Kreegan, although in a rather oblique way, and that Aeolia Matuze of Charon is also dead, partly thanks to your man there. On Cerberus, though, your man failed, and did a most interesting thing—-he joined our side without even making a. real attempt at Laroo.”
That was news, most of it welcome. Two out of four wasn’t bad at all, everything considered. Her comment further indicated that none of the other three had revealed that they were, in fact, the same person as myself. I wondered about the turncoat on Cerberus, though—was his conversion sincere, or some sort of ongoing ruse? The fact that he was alive and apparently influential indicated to me that he couldn’t be counted out.
“I suppose it’s too late for me to defect,” I said half-seriously.
“I’m afraid so. Defections under duress are so undependable. It really was nothing personal, either, that you failed. You accomplished a tremendous amount that we would have thought impossible, and you’ve caused a major reassessment of our entire monitoring system. In fact, if you hadn’t attacked the Altavar on your way out, you would still be free and a tremendous threat to us. Even so, you could have escaped. You have a weak spot, a sentimental streak, that your compatriots seem to lack. It’s what’s done you in.”
I shrugged. “I owed it to them to see what I could do. Besides, if I couldn’t pull it off, I was neutralized anyway, with no hope of ever really doing anything beyond living with the Wild Ones. Call it the testing of a theory—and the theory proved wrong. I simply underestimated the system. Just out of curiosity, though, I’d like to know when you got on to me.”
“We knew you were in Gray Basin when we sent somebody to check on the missing monitor at the station,” she told me. “However, we really didn’t have any idea of who you were until you punched Ching Lu Kor into the computer. Since the monitor you were pretending to be didn’t have knowledge of, interest in, or anything to do with that case, it raised a flag here. From that point on, of course, we had you. We were pretty certain it was you, since few others would have the combination of nerve and timing to pull off such a thing even that far.” She paused, then added, “You should have kept switching identities every hour or so.”
I nodded, then added, “I could still have gotten away if I hadn’t misjudged how long I’d slept. That was my key mistake and I admit it. One little mistake in a long string of successes, but that’s all you get in this business.”
“That’s why the system always wins. We can make a hundred mistakes, but you can make only one.”
“Tell that to those two you said are dead.”
The comment didn’t faze her. “Their systems were quite different from ours. Technology doesn’t even work on Lilith, and it’s easily negated by a strong mind on Charon. They will have to develop systems better suited to their own homes, as we have evolved this one.”
“I’m not very impressed with this one,” I told her. “It’s a dull, stupefying world of sheep you’ve created down there, people without drive, ambition, or guts. And for the elite on top, human slaves kept as status pets—like something out of the Dark Ages of man.”
She didn’t take offense. Her reply, in fact, was indirect and at first I didn’t see where she was going. “Tell me one thing that’s puzzzled me, Tarin Bul or whatever your name is. Just one thing. I know you’ve been conditioned so that we can’t get any information from you by force, but I would like to know the answer to one question.”
“Perhaps. What is it?”
“Why?”
“Why what?” I was very confused.
“Are you really as blindly naive as you say you are, or is there a real reason why you continued doggedly on your mission once you were here?”
“I told you I found your system repugnant.”
“Do you really? And what are the civilized worlds if not an enormous collection of sheep, bred to be happy, bred to do their specific jobs without complaint, and also without ambition or imagination. They look prettier, that’s all—but they don’t have to survive the hard climate of Medusa. What you see down there is simply a local adaptation, a reflection of the civilized worlds themselves. And do you know why? Because most people are sheep and are perfectly content to be led if they are guaranteed security, a home, job, protection, and a full belly. In the whole history of humankind, whenever people demanded democracy and total independence and got it, they were willing and eager to trade their precious freedom for security—every time. Every time. To the strong-willed, the people who knew what to do and had the guts to do it. The people who prize personal power above all else.”
“We don’t have cameras in people’s bathrooms,” I responded lamely.
“Because you don’t need cameras in the bathroom. You’ve had centuries of the best biotechnology around to breed out all thoughts of deviant activity, and a barrier not of energy but of tens of thousands of light-years of space to keep out social contamination. The few who slip by, people like you, are sent here. That’s why so many of them wind up in charge, and why the system here is a reflection of the civilized worlds. We grew up there, too, Bul, so it’s the system we know and understand best. We’re the people most fit to rule, not by our own say-so, but the Confederacy’s. That’s why we got sent here.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but nothing came out.
There had to be a flaw in the logic somewhere, but I could find none. However, accepting her thesis didn’t make things any more pleasant. “If I admit the point, then all I can say is that the system itself is corrupt, bankrupt, and wrong, whether it’s here or in the Confederacy.”
“Then you are naive. Both Medusa and the Confederacy have given the masses exactly what all the social reformers have clamored for all these years—peace, plenty, economic and social equality, security. All other alternatives that are not variations of the plan have resulted in mass privation. You saw nothing wrong with the Confederacy while you were there because you were a part of the power structure, not one of the sheep. You chafed-here because we tried to make you a sheep. But if you’d come in as a government official, perhaps a monitor officer, you’d have felt right at home.”
“I doubt that now,” I told her. “I have lost my faith.”
“Then, perhaps, that’s why you really did what you did. Think about it. You could have been home free, yet you persisted. You could have turned back at several points, yet you came on against hopeless odds. That isn’t the act of a trained Confederacy assassin, even a disillusioned one. You came willingly because you know what I say is true. You cannot accept the system in any form, yet you accept the fact that it is the best one. For one like you, living as a savage in a dead-end existence would eventually drive you crazy, yet you could not embrace the system. You didn’t really came after us to rescue anyone, Bul. You came here to surrender, and you did. There is no place in this world for one like you, and you know it.”
I didn’t want to believe that what she said was true, and I would not admit her conclusions no m
atter what. I had no desire for suicide, no need to purge myself. She had it only partly right, I realized, and I would not give her the satisfaction of admitting even that to her. I could not exist on Medusa; there was no place on it for one like me. I came either to destroy the system or die trying.
Or was I just kidding myself?
“What happens to me now?” I asked her.
“Well, first J think we should give you something of an education, I think, perhaps, we should first take you to your friends. It should be interesting to see your reactions to our rather unique art form.”
We stood on a walk overlooking a vast expanse of plant growth. In many ways it was reminiscent of a resort complex back in the civilized worlds, with white sandy beaches, small pools of clear water fed by artfully constructed artificial waterfalls, and a safe but beautiful flower-filled planned jungle.
“The First Minister’s personal pleasure garden,” Fallen told me. “A place to totally relax and get away from it all.”
I squinted and looked down. “There are people down there.”
She nodded. “The garden is staffed by several dozen Goodtime Girls,” she told me. “They are there to fulfill his every wish, indulge his every whim, as well as keep the place in perfect condition.”
“At least in the Confederacy we don’t turn people into robotized slaves,” I noted acidly. That was one clear difference.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Fallen admitted. “However, you killed four people in cold blood just to get this far, and who knows how many others over your career? The Confederacy takes the so-called criminals people like you catch and either totally wipes their minds and rebuilds childlike, menial personalities, or they totally remake your psyche into their own image if they can. In extremely violent cases, they simply kill the people. They send only the best to the Warden Diamond, but only because they have done something unusual or creative—or are highly connected politically, which is the most important factor in being sent here, since someday those determining the criminal’s fates may be caught doing something naughty and sent down themselves. The difference between the Council and the Congress and the so-called criminals like Talant Ypsir and Aeolia Matuze, two former government members, is only that Ypsir and Matuze made some enemies and so were prosecuted. They’re no different from any other Confederacy rulers. The personality goes with the job.”
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