The next few weeks were nerve-racking. I had depended on the system being efficiently and competently run by people who understood the criminal mind because they too each had one. But after the success of our mission I was beginning to fear that I had been too subtle.
However, late one afternoon Turgan Sugal came down to see me, looking like a man who had suddenly found eternal life and fortune. “They suspended Khamgirt today,” he told me.
“Oh?” I tried to sound playfully ignorant, but inside I felt a rising sense of satisfaction.
“Seems he had a hidden gambling vice. He was in hock up to his ass and still owed, so he had been siphoning off corporation money and spreading it thin in a lot of small bank accounts. A banking securities check a few days ago turned up the account pattern in the banking records, and they traced it to him.”
“Well, what do you know about that!” I replied sarcastically.
He stopped for a moment. “It was you, wasn’t it?” he managed, as if struck by a sudden revelation. “You—framed him? How?”
“Me? I didn’t do any such thing,” I replied with mock seriousness. “Hell, do you realize what it would take to fake something like that? Impossible!” And then I broke into loud laughter.
He laughed along with me for a moment, then stopped and stared at me strangely. “Just what the hell did you do to get sent here, anyway?”
“The usual. Computer fraud.”
“How the hell did they ever catch you?”
“The same way they caught Khamgirt,” I told him. “That’s what gave me the idea.”
He whistled. “Well, I’ll be damned. All right, I won’t ask any more. Things are pretty turbulent right now, and there’s an investigation of the whole thing, since Khamgirt has not only denied everything but has passed a truth scan.”
“Sure. They know it’s a frame. But that won’t help him. Oh, don’t worry—they won’t kill him or send him to the mines or anything like that. They’ll pasture him, with a slap on the wrist. Not for embezzlement. They’ll know he was had. For getting framed. That means he is not only unable to protect himself and his secrets but vulnerable. The syndicates don’t allow you to make mistakes. Just remember that when you get on the high and mighty side.”
He nodded. “Makes sense. But what if they figure it out and trace the whole thing back to us?”
“What do you mean, us?” I shot back. “You weren’t involved except in supplying some inf ormation they can’t specifically trace to anybody in upper management. And I really wouldn’t worry about it in any event. They’ll have some grudging respect for whoever pulled this off. It was a risky operation that took a lot of luck, but it worked. They might figure out how it was done, but never who did it. Just relax and take advantage. I assume you’ll be moving up?”
“That’s what I came to see you about. They’ve asked me to fill in as corporate comptroller while the comptroller assumes the acting presidency. I’m finally leaving this place—and none too soon, either. We can’t possibly make Khamgirt’s artificially high quotas this quarter. Fortunately, as comptroller, I’ll be able to adjust those to a more realistic figure on a temporary basis, maybe even show the board of directors that Khamgirt was conducting a vendetta against us. They’ll be happy to believe anything of him now.”
“And how soon am I paid?” I asked him slowly.
He paused a moment. “Give me a month to get a handle on the operation there. Then I can act—they won’t find it surprising for me to reward several old associates. It’s done all the time, to put our men into the underpositions. That’s the earliest I dare move.”
I nodded. “Fine with me. I have a lot of work to do here before I leave, anyway—company work, don’t get that stricken look. But there are two other things.”
He started looking uneasy again. “What do you mean? We had a deal.”
I nodded. “And I’ll stick to it. The other two are in the form of favors. One is simply that I be able to get an appointment, maybe a business lunch, with the acting corporate comptroller once in a while. Just to keep my hand in and find out the latest company gossip.”
He relaxed a bit. “That’s easy enough.”
“The second’s a very different favor, and it’s not a requirement or condition. If necessary I can handle it in an underhanded manner, But it would be easier if you could do it normally.”
“Go ahead.”
“There’s a young woman who did us both a real service, and she’s stuck in the motherhood and doesn’t want to be. That’s bad enough, but she’s extremely bright and talented and has a lot of guts. I’d like to get her out—I kind of owe it to her.”
He thought for a moment. “I can see your reasons, but it’s pretty tough, you know. I don’t know of anybody with the power to do it unless you could force a judgment—catching somebody committing a crime against her. And that’d be pretty rough on her.”
I nodded. “Just thought I’d ask in case there was some way out.”
“Look, tell you what. Give me some time on this, a couple of months at least, and I’ll see if anything can be done. Fair enough?”
I agreed. “It’ll wait. She’ll have sixty days’ leave coming soon, so it’s not that pressing. Only if you can’t, tell me, won’t you? And don’t you want her name and address?”
He grinned. “Don’t need it. I keep very good track of my employees.”
That brought a little feeling of admiration from me. Still, I felt compelled to nail him down a bit.
“As you can see, I’m a good friend—and a loyal one, Mr. Sugal. I won’t cross you now or in the future as long as you don’t cross me either. Just remember we have a mutual stake in each other’s protection. If you get in trouble, a psych probe could smoke me out. If I do, the reverse is true. So we have a stake in each other’s welfare.”
“Funny,” he replied. “I was about to give the same speech to you.”
Events proceeded in a slow, relaxed fashion after that, but right on schedule. Sugal was promoted, and within the month Tooker quotas were slashed and an industrial investigation team from the government evaluated maximum production potential with the staff we had against the quotas imposed and declared the quotas unrealistic and false. That gave us a great deal of breathing space.
Also during this period a particular fire district had a completely new alarm system installed, and our night janitorial supervisory staff was changed and its cleaning methods modified. Several staff members, including me, were discreetly questioned, known associates, that sort of thing. The investigators found nothing, of course, and the heat was off as quickly as it had appeared.
At the end of the month Sanda had her baby, a little girl, and within a week after was looking and sounding more like her old self again. I’d told her I was working on her problem, but that it might take time, and she seemed to accept that. After our little caper, she had the utmost trust and confidence in my ability to deliver—and of course that meant I felt honor-bound to do so.
Shortly afterward Tooker was reorganized, with a new manager appointed and many of my colleagues and co-workers promoted, moved around, and in a few cases, canned—particularly if they had been known Khamgirt people. As for me, I was made president of Hroyasail Limited, a wholly owned Tooker subsidiary. The job paid extremely well, but as I knew, wasn’t all that necessary, being one of those ornamental posts mostly used to pasture people like Khamgirt. My promotion raised no eyebrows, since it was explained as a personal decision based on my relationship with Dylan.
And so it was I had the upper offices of the Akeba marina cleaned and redecorated. There I was, a company president in less than a year—never mind that it was a dead-end job. Technically I was in charge of a fleet of four hunter-killer boats and sixty-two trawlers, plus assorted warehouses and processing centers for the catch.
The offices were a three-story affair overlooking the harbor and perched in the branches of a couple of huge trees. One branch had been cut and a deck put on it that extend
ed, bridgelike, back to the offices, so there was a clear walk down to the boats themselves.
The lower floors contained basic administration and records processing and the initial holding tanks for the skrit, a reddish little creature somewhere between a plant and an animal whose internal body chemistry provided, among other things, chemicals that made superb electrical conductors. Once a week or so, more often if business was good, a big industrial flier would arrive, take the tank off to Tooker for processing, and then drop oft a new, empty one.
The upper floor, however, had been closed off since the last president, at least eight years before. I spent Tooker’s expense money lavishly, fixing up not only a comfortable office suite but also a huge luxury apartment with all the amenities. I moved in quickly. Shortly after, Dylan moved in as well, and we drew up and filed a marriage contract. Marriages were not usual nor necessary on Cerberus and existed mostly among people belonging to religious communities, but there were reasons for this one. On a practical level, it clearly defined joint and separate property and allowed us to establish a joint credit line. In that sense, it fulfilled my original promise of full partnership, and her position in Hroyasail suddenly became, as the boss’s spouse, one of greatest among equals.
And of course our relationship made my request for the Hroyasail position all the more credible to any suspicious onlookers. But there was more to it than that. I felt comfortable around Dylan, and not as comfortable away from her. She was a close friend and absolute confidante, and I’d never had that close a relationship. It was more than that. Being with her felt good, somehow—having her there, to know she was there even when we were in different parts of the place doing different things. However, this dependency bothered me, because up until now I’d considered myself immune to such human emotional weaknesses.
We slept together as a couple, too, causing frequent body switches that bothered neither of us. As Class I’s we did our regular job no matter who looked like who, and the experience brought us closer than any couple I could remember.
As for Dylan—well, all I can say is that I seemed to fit into a hollow space in her life, possibly left over from her previous career in the motherhood. She needed someone very close, and sleeping together without shields was more important to her than to me.
The only two things that bothered me were her cigars, which were pretty smelly even with the blower system on full, and the fact that most mornings she’d go out on that damned boat and risk her life. I wasn’t on my post more than a couple of weeks when they brought the first bodies back, mangled and bleeding if the sailors had been lucky, or in parts in body bags if they hadn’t been. I didn’t want to see Dylan come home like that, but I couldn’t talk her out of it. It was her life, In her blood, and no matter how she felt about me I knew I’d always come second to the sea.
Sanda, of course, was the extra element in all this, but it wasn’t really so bad. Both Dylan and I were nearby now, constantly within a quick elevator ride of Akeba House. So Sanda couldn’t have been happier, although there was a wistful envy inside her that she could witness this but was prohibited by virtue of the motherhood from its paradoxical freedom and stability.
I had heard a few times from Sugal, who was digging into the comptroller’s post so solidly that it looked like the “acting” titles for all of the board would soon be removed and the positions made permanent. Khamgirt, as I predicted, had been convicted of the charge, placed on probation, and pastured to president of a regional shipping line that was also a Tooker subsidiary.
Things were going well for me, but I resisted the temptation just to let things slide. There was still Wagant Larao to catch, and all I could do was keep my eyes and ears open and wait for a new break.
CHAPTER TEN
A Bork Hunt
My worries over Dylan increased with each injury, and yet I understood her well enough to know that protesting was useless. Sanda, on the other hand, had gotten the bug bad from her exploit with me and was just dying for some more action.
We were sitting around the place one evening, just talking and relaxing, when Sanda brought the subject up after hearing a few new accounts from Dylan, who never tired of the subject.
“It sounds so thrilling,” she told us. “I’d give almost anything to go out just once.”
“You’d probably be bored stiff,” Dylan told her. “After all, we don’t have hunts and attacks every day—thank heaven.”
“Still—just to be out there speeding across the waves, with the feeling that danger could come from anywhere—I’ve heard all your stories so often I can see it in my dreams. Instead, well, my leave’s almost up. Next week it’s back to the House and the hormones.” The thought of that really depressed her.
“You know you can’t go, though,” I noted sympathetically. “You’re certified valuable to the state. No risks allowed.”
“I know, I know,” she sighed and sank into depression.
Though this wasn’t the first time the subject had come up, this had been the worst and most persistent round. I could see Sanda was getting to Dylan, partly out of friendship but also because she too had once been in the girl’s position.
Later that evening, after Sanda was asleep in the guest room, we lay there, not saying much. Finally I said, “You’re thinking about Sanda.”
She nodded. “I can’t help it. I look at her, listen to her, and all I can see and hear is me a few years ago. Anything on getting her out?”
“No, and you know it. Sugal’s pulled every string he can find and it just isn’t done. The only cases on record are ones in which a syndicate boss wants a private breeder, so to speak, to control his own kids—or for Laroo’s own purposes. It’s a dead end. Maybe I can come up with something of my own, but I’ve gone through all the possibilities and the system’s just against me. Unless I can crack that master computer I can’t do much, and to crack the computer I’d have to replace Laroo.”
“What about the drug angle? It’s the way I got out.”
“And they closed that loophole after you,” I noted “After your switch they had a big debate and decided that there was nothing in the rules to use against you, so they let you go, but then they made some new rules. Any switch from the ‘valuable to the state’ category has to be voluntary on both sides now or either one can seek a judgment to reverse it.”
“We could let her use one of our bodies now and then. That’s something.”
“Yeah, that’s true, but not for the boats and you know it. If anything happened to either one of our bodies under those conditions we’d automatically wind up in the motherhood ourselves—permanently, regardless of our Class I status.” I sighed in frustration. “That’s the hell of this system. In some places, in human history and even out on the frontier, motherhood’s not only voluntary but a normal and respected thing. Even on other Warden worlds, I hear. But the bosses are afraid that the birthrate would decline low enough that it wouldn’t sustain their need for new bodies as well as maintaining normal population growth. As long as they control and raise the babies they also control who lives forever and who dies—the ultimate control on this society.”
“Hey! Don’t forget, I was raised that way,” she reminded me. “So was Sanda. They don’t do a bad job.”
“No, they don’t,” I had to admit. “And don’t forget that my state raised me, too. It’s going through and picking the kids who’ll live and the kids who’ll die that gets to me. Sure, sixty percent get a good upbringing, but it’s that other forty percent that gets me. And as long as the system’s as depersonalized to the average Cerberan as the birthing centers are in the civilized worlds, they’ll never fully face up to what they’re doing—killing kids for their bodies.”
“Are you going to turn down a new body when your turn comes?”
I chuckled sourly. “Hell, no. That’s the heart of this system. Even its opponents can’t resist taking advantage of its benefits. Still, it probably won’t matter to either of us, anyway. I’ll proba
bly get my fool head blown off in the next scam and you’ll wind up lunch for a bork. What you said about me is also true for you—our luck can’t last forever.”
“I’ve been thinking along similar lines,” she said. “I mean it—we’re two of a kind. My luck’s been astounding for the past few years, but it can’t hold out forever. And I know that one of these days you’re going to go off to do battle against Wagant Laroo, and one of these times it isn’t going to work out. That’s why I wanted this. Why I am, right now, having the time of my life. We’re doomed, the both of us, doing the jobs we love, and every day might be the last. You feel that, too.”
I nodded slowly. “I know.”
“So you see, if we’re professional risk-takers, why cant we take a risk with Sanda on the boat?”
“My instinct’s just go against it,” I told her honestly. “I can’t explain why.”
“Look, I’m going to tell you a story. It’s about a girl genetically tested and selected while still very young.
One that the genetic experts said had all the right and none of the wrong genes. So when she was very young, she was taken out of the normal group and put in a special school composed entirely of other little girls and isolated from the mainstream of society. She received no more formal education, but instead was subjected to ceaseless propaganda on the wonder fulness of having babies, the duty to society and civilization to do so, and how to have them and give them prenatal and postnatal care. By thirteen she was capable of having them, but didn’t yet, although she had been introduced to sex, sexual pleasures, and all the rest, while the mental conditioning reached such a fever pitch that she wanted desperately nothing but the life of the motherhood. She was also mentally and physically conditioned to a life of leisure and to the idea that she was in the most important class on all Cerberus.”
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