Jack Chalker - Cerberus - A Wolf in the Fold

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 reliable 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.