Cerberus: A Wolf in the Fold flotd-2

by Jack L. Chalker

  Dylan frowned, puzzled. “You mean they’re around here?”

  I shook my head. “No, what happens next has to be something like this. The target is snatched-—kidnapped. Probably on vacation. At least at a time when he or she won’t be missed for up to a couple of weeks. The victim is brought to the station and infected with the Cerberan version of the Warden organism and allowed to season there. Then—Dylan, you remamber that drug you stole to get out of the motherhood?”

  She nodded. “I—I got it off a shuttle pilot.”

  “Great! It’s coming together nicely. So, after seasoning, their target is given some of this drug and introduced to the similarly infected robot facsimile. The target’s mind and personality goes into the robot’s, but the robot is already preprogrammed as an agent.”

  “As they programmed me,” Dylan said emotionlessly.

  I nodded. “Only a far more sophisticated method. A psych machine wouldn’t do the job, since they need the complete person—and only that person’s attitude is changed. No, it’s in the original programming of the robot when it’s made by the aliens, of that I’m sure.”

  “But how can this robot return and replace the original?” she asked. “Wouldn’t the Warden organism destroy it when it left?”

  “No, not necessarily. Remember, there are several items, several products that even now can be sterilized. Apparently these robots can too. Basically, all they do is get out of the system. The Wardens die, but so adaptable are the quasi-cellular components of the robot that they can make immediate repairs. The target returns to work from ‘vacation,’ the absolutely perfect agent-spy. It’s beautiful.”

  “It sounds too much like what happened to me,” she noted.

  “I’m sorry,” I said gently. “I was. admiring a finely Grafted gem. I don’t want to make light of the human tragedy involved. Still, considering the size and complexity of the Confederacy, it’d be almost impossible to block them all out, and the major damage has probably already been done.”

  “And Laroo’s Project Phoenix?”

  I considered it a moment. “There’s only one possibility I can come up with, and it’s a terrifying one in some respects. The aliens have no reason to use the island, and less reason to use people who know less about their robots than they do. To put any of their operation directly on a Warden world would eventually tip off the Confederacy anyway, and they know the Wardens are ‘hot’ for them right now. No, for the answer you have to think as Wagant Laroo thinks, from the perspective of the Warden Diamond, and the answer becomes obvious.”

  “Not to me it doesn’t,” she said.

  “All right—all along we’ve wondered just what the aliens could offer the Four Lords other than revenge. Well, here’s the payoff. When they win, the Four Lords, and those others whom they choose—maybe even the whole population of all four worlds—will be given new bodies. Perfect bodies, those of organic robots. You see what the Four Lords were offered? A way out. Escape. The freedom to leave. If these agent robots can do it, anybody can. But there’s a hitch, one that necessarily paranoid Lords like Laroo would immediately think of.”

  “I can follow this part. What’s to stop these aliens from preprogramming the payoff robots as well, so they have a population of superhuman slaves?”

  “Very good. High marks. So here you’re given a way of escape and you dare not use it. What would you do?”

  She thought a moment. “Study theirs and build my own.”

  “All right. But it’s unlikely that you could do it without such a massive plant that the Confederacy watchers wouldn’t take notice. Besides, it might well involve construction materials or support materials not found anywhere in the Warden Diamond, maybe unknown to anybody on our side at this point. What if you couldn’t build one?”

  “Well, I guess you’d order a few you didn’t need as agents from the aliens, who have to trust your judgment in these matters, and use them.”

  “Right again! But these will come preprogrammed by a method unknown to our science. To make them work you have to find out how they are programmed and eliminate the programming. No mean trick, since it’s probably integrated with instructions on how the robots function and those you have to keep. The best you can do is hope. Gather everything you can, and everybody who might know something about it, lock ’em up on the island with the robots, lab, computer links, and whatever, and try and find an answer. And that’s what Project Phoenix is all about.”

  “Laroo’s not only getting back at the Confederacy,” Dylan said in an almost awed tone, “but double-crossing the aliens, too!”

  I nodded. “I have to admire the old boy for that, anyway. And it’s probably not just Laroo but all the Four Lords. And I think I know, at least, how the robots are getting in and out, too. It has to be in the shuttle system. But aside from the Diamond they go only one other place—the moons of Momrath. Out there someplace, possibly inside those moons’ orbits, alien and Warden human meet.”

  I sat back, feeling satisfied. In one moment I’d solved at least half the Warden puzzle. I didn’t know anything about the aliens, true, and I had no idea as to the nature and scope of their plot, but I now understood, I felt certain, much of the Warden connection.

  “And what good does it do you to know these things?” Dylan asked. “You can’t do anything about them.”

  Good old practical Dylan! Her comment was on the mark. What could I do?

  Or more accurately, what did I want to do?

  Kill Laroo and topple the system, yes—but even if I figured out how, did I really want Project Phoenix to fail?

  At the moment I knew only one thing. The biggest deal in Warden history was happening out there on Laroo’s Island—and I wanted in on it.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The easy way into an impregnable fort

  A few days later I had Karel take me out in her boat and go through all the routine motions, but this time we went almost as far south as we dared go. I remembered Dylan’s comment about chasing a bork to within sight of Laroo’s Island, and I had questioned her on the incident. I felt certain we could get as far chasing an imaginary one as she had chasing a real one.

  The “island” was really pretty far out in the ocean, far from any sight of land and exactly the kind of dictator would love as a refuge. It was a small stand of major trees, giving an area of perhaps a hundred or so square kilometers. Not a really big place. At some point this grove had obviously been connected to the main body, but something had happened, probably ages ago, leaving only isolated islands of trees out here now. There were several dozen in the area, none really close enough to be within sight of the others; still, they pointed like a wavering arrow toward our familiar “mainland” bunch.

  We skirted the island just outside the main computer defense perimeter, an area clearly visible on electronic scans of the place. It was a mass of orange, purple, and gold foliage atop the thick, blackish trunks, and even from our vantage point of almost fifteen kilometers out, my spotting scopes revealed an extraordinary building in the center of the mass. Gleaming silvery in the sun, sort of like a fantasy castle or some kind of modernistic sculpture, it was both anachronistic and futuristic. The exiled concubines and even Dylan herself had given rough descriptions of it, but these paled before the actual sight.

  Still, thanks to Dylan and contacts throughout the Motherhood, at other Houses where Laroo’s women had been sent, I knew it pretty well. Knew, at least, the basic room layouts and the locations of the elevators, the key power plant, the basic defense systems, and things like that. From it all, I concluded that it was as close to an impregnable fortress as was possible to build on Cerberus.

  The electronic screens were not only domelike over the place but also went down to a depth of more than two kilometers—right down to the ocean floor itself. With a few million units of the right equipment and a force that would be more than obvious, it might be possible to tunnel under the screens, but even then it would be risky once you were throug
h the initial barrier. There were not only inner defense screens but physical ones as well. Both robotic and manned gunboats constantly were patrolling.

  Karel, a big, muscular woman with a deep, rich voice, was all too happy to help, and she at least suspected what I might be up to. She and Dylan were very different to look at, but they shared a lot deep down and had been close to partners for more than three years.

  “Suppose we drove borks in there? Lots of them?” I suggested, thinking of various plans.

  She laughed at the idea. “Sure would be fun, but it wouldn’t get you in. There are ways to attract borks, for sure, but those screens are pretty powerful. You’d need a regular stampede even to make a dent, and if two of our boats in skilled hands can usually finish one, you wouldn’t believe what the defenses there can do, even to a dozen.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I know. But—sayl Did you say there were ways of attracting borks?”

  She nodded. “Certain high-pitched sounds, and certain odors in the water that simulate a skrit colony. You might draw three or four, if you were lucky, but no more. They aren’t as common as all that around here. If they were, there’d be no way for the skrit to survive and reproduce.”

  I nodded idly, but I was already thinking. When we got back to shore I’d do a bit more, and see what could be done. I was sure that given enough time—and I had no idea how much time I had—I could have gotten through those screens, but that would have gotten me only to the island—where just about every step required a brain scan.

  No, there had to be some easier way.

  “Dylan?”

  “Yes, Qwin?”

  “How do those torpedoes on the boats work? I mean, how do they explode?”

  “A detonation device screwed in the side, with a minicomputer aboard. You tell it when to arm and when to explode by remote control.”

  “Uh-huh. And how do you know one from the other? I mean, how can you use a single remote to trigger the whole bunch?”

  “Why, you don’t. Each uses the same frequency and all the torpedoes are universal. Each also comes with a code stamped on it. You just read the code for each into your transmitter, then fire them by the code numbers, which is all they’ll answer to. Once you have the numbers in yours weapons control computer you don’t really need to know anything else.”

  I nodded. “And who feeds the new numbers in? Do you take ’em off the invoices or bills of lading when new ones arrive, or what?”

  “Are you kidding? Would you trust your life to a bill of lading? No, each captain loads each torpedo into his or her own boat, then physically reads the numbers off and puts them personally into the weapons control computer,”

  “Uh-huh. And where’s this number stamped?”

  “On the detonator hatch. A small door that’s welded shut after the minicomputer for each is placed inside. Go down and see for yourself in the warehouse here.”

  I did—and liked what I found. They didn’t bother to stamp each number on the door, just stenciled it on. Talking with others, I found that, indeed, sometimes the numbers were wrong, but there was a test code to check it that would send back an acknowledging signal to the weapons control computer verifying the number. It was a rather simple test: you just took a number like, say, FG7654-321AA and changed the last A to a T.

  I found the information most interesting, and asked Dylan a few more key questions. “The minicomputers come preprogrammed and the doors welded shut. I assume, then, that they’re shipped live, so to speak?”

  She nodded. “There’s no danger. A test must be run to arm them, no code is ever duplicated or used again, the frequency used is used only for that purpose, and the transmitters are controlled devices built into the gunboats. Why this interest in torpedoes all of a sudden? Are you planning something?”

  “What you don’t know can’t violate your psych commands,” I told her. “Of course I’m planning something.”

  “Just changing the codes won’t work,” she noted. “They wouldn’t pass the test.”

  I grinned. “What’s the transmitting range on these things?”

  “As an additional safety measure, only three kilometers. That’s more than enough for a good captain.”

  “And more than enough for me, my darling,” I responded, and kissed her.

  The next day I dropped by Tooker and checked the shipping section and bills of lading. Even if Emyasail was now working only for Laroo, it was still our company and supplied via our transit routes. And of course they needed torpedoes in case they ran into a bork or two on their way to Laroo’s Island anyway.

  Nobody kept a large stock of the things on hand—no matter how safe they were claimed to be; they terrified the fire department, and even local governments didn’t like to think of all those explosives in one place. A little warehouse fire and you could wipe a whole section off the map.

  I did have to wait, though, a bit impatiently, for over ten days until Emyasail put in another order, and then it was for only twenty. Still, that was enough, considering that they would at best be replacing used ones in the tubes, not completely refitting the boats.

  A bit of creative routing on the forms made sure that these torpedoes would come first to Hroyasail and little ol’ me.

  Dylan could have nothing more to do with this one. She would be prohibited from assisting in anything that would almost certainly cause someone to come to harm. Sanda, however, was only too glad to help out.

  I had been worried about Dylan’s reaction to having Sanda around, but the true problem had turned out to be the reverse. Sanda felt tremendous guilt and remorse and blamed herself completely for what had happened, and she really didn’t want to face me or, particularly, Dylan any more than necessary. I had put her to work as a maintenance worker around the docks, refinishing the wharf, painting the boats, stuff like that, and she seemed content with her lot. Now, however, I had a different sort of painting to do, and it had to be done quickly and quietly.

  The flaw in their torpedo system was that, since there was little to be perverted concerning them, they’d standardized it. Thus Sanda and I, working through the night with Emyasail’s new torpedoes, were able to remove the numbers and, with some expert stenciling, replace them. I had some admiration for the manufacturing process: those numbers were baked on and hard as hell to get off, but my trusty computers at Tooker had come up with a solvent, and I had no trouble with a replacement stencil and paint, although the numbers would not be on as solidly as before. Oh, they’d look right, but they weren’t as permanent. I hoped nothing rubbed off during the transshipment.

  Sanda was puzzled, but there was a slight glow of excitement in her as she realized another operation was underway. “I don’t see what good switching the numbers will do,” she commented, sounding more curious than anything else. “I mean, they just won’t test out and they’ll be rejected, like those three over there of ours.”

  I grinned. “But they will test out,” I told her. “We aren’t just changing numbers. We are exchanging the numbers. All the numbers are still good, just for the wrong torpedoes. When they load these and test them, they’ll get a response from their computers—from the torpedoes in the warehouse—but the computer won’t know that, or at least won’t tell. So they’ll sail off with a batch of torpedoes that will test out perfectly, but when they have to use them, they won’t work.”

  “Sounds like you’re gonna blow up the dock instead,” she noted.

  “No. It’s highly unlikely that any borks will come within three kilometers of land. The danger zone’s out past five kilometers. And that’s too far. Still, if there’s a really thorough investigation, I can always blow the docks—from one of our boats.”

  She stared at me, looking slightly shocked. “Oh,” she said.

  Rigging the torpedoes was only part of the problem. The other was making certain that there would be an occasion to use them. For that, I began a thorough search for everything that turned borks on.

  It turned out that the most r
eliable and effective means were pretty simple—some soluble sulfides would draw them if they were anywhere, close and would drive them into something of a frenzy (as if that weren’t their normal state anyway). But for long-range attraction, I needed something more. Again the solution was rather simple. Like marine creatures on many worlds, the borks were supersensitive to ultra-high-frequency sounds and apparently used them for territorial claims, fights, lovemaking (hard to imagine with something like that, but, then again, there were a lot of borks), and such. The vocabulary was not extensive, but it was clearly known, so much so that various boat engines and the like were made to specific noise standards to avoid any such sounds within their operating ranges.

  On such a simple idea I didn’t go the circuitous route, but simply got some modified UHF broadcasters from Otah myself, then worked with them, a circuit diagram, and some easy modifications of tiny programmable chips to create a remote transceiver that I could tune to any selective frequency from anywhere within an area of fifty to a hundred kilometers. Various shops specializing in special underwater gear provided easy cases that could be adapted to the transmitters without much problem. A couple of chemical supply houses sold various standard compounds that together would in my makeshift kitchen lab create one hell of a glue to reinforce the magnets on the inside of the case. I didn’t want the things falling off under battle stress, as magnets might risk—and a magnet powerful enough to stay regardless would be a magnet powerful enough to be detected by ship’s instruments. More electronic modification and I had a small charge I could also set off by remote control—enougb to melt the little transmitters into a nondescript goo, but not enough to cause harm to the hull.

  Although they were curious, I dared not tell Dylan or the boat captains and crews what I was doing, since in Dylan’s case she might try and stop me because of her prohibition against any violence, while the boat people would hardly be enthusiastic about my possibly doing in several of their own. I didn’t like that prospect much myself, but more was at stake here than a few lives. This was Laroo I was going against, not some minor executive or fire department employee. At least my way they had a chance and so did I. Simply to have sabotaged the boats might not accomplish what I wanted, but would certainly alert Laroo and his security forces that somebody nasty was up to something.