Jack Chalker - Cerberus - A Wolf in the Fold

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.”

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.”

“Oro/ it,” I responded. “Let’s go pack.”

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.