CHO WAS WAITING FOR HER WHEN SHE EMERGED from the audience, as she’d hoped. Vulture liked the Holy Lama; she was sorry that circumstances cast them as enemies, but there was no way around that. The old girl’s primary responsibility, as it should be, was to her faith and her planet. Vulture cared only about one thing the Holy Lama did not—but there was a knife at Chanchuk’s throat, and the throats of the Holy Lama and her people, and those who held that knife cared only about that ring as well.
The orders had been simple, although they would never be properly delivered: turn everything over to Chi and the SPF; give them every cooperation and defer to them completely, but record every order and every decision and every demand, so if anything went wrong, it would be Chi and the SPF who would get the blame for usurping normal authority and failing while Chanchuk came out pure and noble and patriotic.
“Is all satisfactory, Holiness?” Cho asked her politely, not really expecting to be taken into her confidence. The effects of the hormone were far too subtle for Cho to even understand why he remained there or why it mattered.
“Yes, Cho, all is well. We would, however, appreciate a small service. We suffered an accidental shoulder injury not long ago and it is not yet fully healed, making it difficult to bend in certain ways. We have had problems putting on the backpack now and again, and it would be appreciated if you might accompany me to the drying room to aid me should I have problems. Would that ask too much of you?”
Cho’s eyes lit up. “Oh, no, Holiness. No trouble at all. It will be my pleasure.”
This would be tricky. Between the drying room and the waiting hall was a very short length of corridor that wasn’t under direct observation—Vulture had determined that from past visits. It was the only unmonitored area available to a Seed, and it was so because it didn’t need to be monitored.
There were more than enough monitoring devices on either end of the corridor to require them there.
She walked down, Cho following. He probably wouldn’t have had the nerve to do it except for the lure of the hormone, which left him slightly turned on and very eager to please.
Halfway down the hall, she checked to make certain that no new security devices had been added, stopped, turned, listened for any sounds from below, and then stared down at the little male.
Cho stopped and looked up at her quizzically. “Is something wrong, Holiness?”
“No. At least we do not believe so. Come here. Closer. Yes, that is about right.” Without another word she put her arms around a startled Cho as if to hug him, but that was not the intent as the process began instantly, freezing any further thought or comment the Seed might have.
It was always a gruesome sight, but no one was supposed to see it. Almost instantly the flesh of the high priestess seemed to take on a life of its own, reaching out and blending with the flesh of the hapless Cho. They seemed to merge, the inorganic things they had on or with them falling away, seemingly repelled from the increasingly shapeless, bubbling mass of flesh.
It took several minutes; that was why this had been so difficult and was even now a risk should anyone enter or leave through the corridor. What they would make of it was anyone’s guess, but there would certainly be quite an alarm.
Now, out of the seething, bubbling, merged mass arose a new shape, Chanchukian in form but at first hairless and featureless. It was far smaller than the total mass, drawing from the throbbing pulp what it needed and no more. In an almost magical transition, the form took on the eyes and mouth and general features of Cho, then the hair and other elements took shape. Cho was completely reconstituted, and exactly so, right down to his memories and brain and body chemistry; so close that if it were possible, even a cell-by-cell comparison of the two would not show any difference.
But there was a difference. Vulture was in many ways as much a machine as the devices he fought against; a wholly organic machine, which stored its own memories and separate identity and will throughout every cell of its body, whatever that might be. The new creature that stepped out of the still-seething goo was Cho in every way—physically, mentally, emotionally—but not down to the basic submicroscopic structures within each cell that retained all that Vulture had been and the memories of all the people the creature had eaten before.
The goo was still living, but it was beginning to die, bereft of its controlling mitochondria-sized program. Getting the clothing and other articles out of the edges of the goo where it had fallen and getting the ichor off so that Cho could return above was unpleasant, but Vulture had done this sort of thing before. Far more difficult would be disposing of the priestess’s papers, case, and minimal clothing and, if possible, getting rid of the goo. That was more of a problem here, and Vulture relied from the start on Cho’s own knowledge of the Sacred Lodge to accomplish that. Fortunately, it provided a fast and easy means for part of the problem.
There was a maintenance chute in the hall used when the robotic cleaners worked the place at night, but while that might be all right for the clothing and travel case with its papers, it wouldn’t do for the goo. To prevent accidents, the automated cleaning systems would sort out anything organic and pass it through to a secondary inspection before sending it to waste disposal. That second check would find the goo unusual enough to flag a security computer.
He did what he could. The stuff wasn’t even completely dead yet—and when it was it would turn brown and give off a terrible odor. Papers down the chute, also the briefs, but before disposing of the case, he removed a small vial of muscle balm and a small lighter used in religious ceremonies. He also removed the high priestess’s large signet ring. He poured the balm over as much of the goo as possible, wishing he had a few liters and not just the small amount he dared to bring in, then lit it with the lighter. Both vial and lighter, then, also went into the chute.
Dissatisfied but not able to come up with anything better, Cho returned to the glare of the waiting room and began to hum softly as he cleaned up the place. Let them make what they would of the remains of the goo. He knew now that he could patch into the internal computer and send out a recording of the high priestess leaving the lower chamber from a visit months ago, since, even though Cho didn’t have the vaguest idea about such things, he knew where a terminal was—and Vulture clearly recognized the standard model and knew it well.
High priestess comes, high priestess leaves, goes on four-day trip to Wa Chi. Not unusual even in light of the Holy Lama’s orders. There would be no one unusual or detectable inside the Sacred Lodge, where it mattered.
The male body Vulture now occupied was . . . sensual. Probably the most sensual Vulture had ever experienced. The mind was not particularly limited in intelligence or reasoning ability, any more than the female’s had been, but it was culturally limited and intimidated by its own feelings of sensuality and inadequacy at being so small and weak compared to the women.
The males of Chanchuk, it appeared, were as dull and docile as they seemed mostly because of their physically and culturally induced inferiority complexes, fed by their lack of any real education and the impossibility of being more than they were. Only in the bedchamber and the nursery were they in any way dominant, and so it was in those roles that the Chanchukian male found refuge and security and ego, solaced only by a religion that stressed reincarnation as the true path, the soul being both male and female.
It was a shame, really, but biology had played this cruel trick on them, and Master System had either created or imitated that. Still, it might be a lot of fun to explore this kind of body in general society, although Cho was now incapable of actually fathering anything. The sperm he would make would look and act correctly but would be bereft of that extra part the cells needed to keep pretending to be the real thing. They would quickly become nothing more than microscopic bits of the same goo, and then quickly dead. But he was unlikely to get to test it in normal society.
First he had to do a bit of computer doctoring, something that males would certainly never be expected to be capable of doing. Then he would start his preparation, so that when the time was right, the primary mission could be fulfilled.
Satisfied that all was as reasonably correct as it could be under the circumstances, Vulture put the signet ring under his armpit and walked toward the Seed’s quarters. He would have to stash the ring someplace until, later on and in private, he could remove the thin shell and reveal what it really was.
Colonel Chi frowned. “So what is the foul-smelling stuff? It smells like a decomposing body.”
The SPF technical officer shrugged. “I have never seen anything like it, and I’ll have to send it up for full computer analysis. It’s definitely organic, but there is no life left in it, I feel certain. Someone or something has tried to burn it, but the fuel was not nearly enough to do more than scorch an area on top and set off the fire sensors.”
“Well, take no chances. No one touches it or even approaches it except through remotes. Seal it and get it up for complete analysis.” Chi looked at it a moment. “You know, if it weren’t such a—mess—and weren’t flattened out so, it would have a fair amount of mass. Almost as much as a real body . . . I wonder—could this once have been alive?”
The tech shrugged again. “As you said, Colonel, it seems to have the mass for it, but I know of nothing that could do this to a body. Why bother? A disintegrator is cleaner, a laser pistol or projectile weapon is less messy if you need the body. Why even invent something that would do this?”
Chi nodded. “Why, indeed? Unless it was because you couldn’t sneak a real and recognizable weapon past our security system. Perhaps a catalyst. Some sort of chemical agent that wouldn’t show up in the screen. There would be ways to do that, if you knew the limits of the screening. Go—get on it! I want to know!”
“At once, Colonel,” the tech responded, and began supervising her staff in the recovery of the material.
Colonel Chi didn’t like this, not one bit, and certainly not coming right on the heels of the discovery of that mysterious engine. As soon as she returned to security, she stormed upstairs, not even taking the time to dry off, and stormed into the Center security officer’s cubicle.
“Where is the remote Center liaison?” she asked crisply. “She went to see the Holy Lama at sixteen-thirty and did not return.”
The security officer sighed and checked her terminal. “She is on her way to Wa Chi Center. The Holy Lama ordered complete cooperation, Colonel, but we suspect that the liaison had more—proprietary orders.”
“Can you check and see if she actually left the Sacred Lodge?”
“Huh? What? Well, we suppose so. She would have had to pass the security sensors on the way out. Yes. There is a record of it. Why?”
“I really don’t know,” the colonel answered honestly. “Still, I want your best people to find her. She can’t have gotten too far. I want her located and brought back here tonight. It is vital. I will make certain she makes her appointment. Also, I want to talk to the regular guards outside the Sacred Lodge entrance as soon as they can be relieved.”
“We will do what you say—but might one ask why? It seems that you are acting as if her holiness is some sort of traitor.”
“No. I doubt that. I am not trying to call your sister into question. Believe that. In fact, I may be her best friend at this moment. You see, what I am seeking is proof that the liaison, your sister, is still alive.”
The security chief’s eyes bulged. “What?”
By the time the first lab reports were coming in from the command ship, Colonel Chi was already forming a pattern. The problem was, she didn’t have any idea what the pattern meant.
The guards at the entrance had a clear memory of the section chief entering and no recollection at all of her leaving. They considered this unusual but not impossible, of course, and in and of itself it wouldn’t mean much. Various guards had to take air breaks every once in a while anyway, and that often left only one pair of eyes to see in both directions.
Most disturbing was the fact that there were entries in the various computer logs substantiating that exit. How had they gotten there? There was no direct input terminal to the master security computer net from inside the Sacred Lodge except in the Holy Lama’s private offices. This indicated a possible involvement of the chief administrator, but even Chi couldn’t bring herself to believe that the C.A., particularly this one, would be involved in overt treason. It was not only against her character, it was too stupid for one such as the leader of this world. If the object were to steal the ring and the Holy Lama had it and was in league with the thieves, a simple swap of a look-alike on a routine visit would have done it and no one would have been the wiser. No, it didn’t make sense, but that only deepened the mystery.
Chi did not underestimate her enemy. They were clever and incredibly resourceful. She even had a real sense of admiration for anyone who could do what they did on Janipur and get away, not to mention fighting a brilliant space battle and dispatching several Vals—no mean feat when even the SPF had been taught that it was, while not impossible, very nearly so. Admiration and respect, however, did not mean that they were not still the enemy. It had been so long now since they’d been active that many commands had a false sense of security. Chi was one, along with her general, who believed that the space battle over Janipur’s ring was costly to the pirates and that they had not so much quit as changed tactics. Now, clearly, that time had been well spent on Chanchuk setting up who knew what.
Security could not locate her holiness, but it was early yet and the routing wasn’t clear. If, however, there was no further evidence of exit or her supposed trip by the middle of the night, Chi felt certain that the priestess would never be located.
A special read-only security circuit to the Sacred Lodge’s internal computers clearly showed the priestess in the entry hall and going in for the audience, then leaving again. Master security showed an exit—or did it? She studied the pictures of the priestess’s entry and exit. Any differences? Yes—but subtle. The backpack looked slightly different. But these were security records, not great art, and it might have been imagination. You couldn’t blow them up to improve detail. It just got fuzzy. But such records for that very reason weren’t all that hard to fake.
She dispatched a squad to pick up the housekeeper and maintenance people who shared a lodge with the missing priestess. No one was home and Chi was not really surprised at this. They took the lodge apart piece by piece but found nothing unusual—except that the taps on the lines in and out had been circumvented and different tapes were fed to the monitors rather than actual conversation. Not unusual in and of itself; Center personnel often pulled that sort of thing just to get some privacy. Again, though, it was yet another nail in the priestess’s coffin. Chi ordered the lodge monitored and staked out although she felt certain that no one who had lived there would ever return to it.
The medical team on the base ship was less helpful than Chi had hoped.
“The material is decomposing rapidly. We have frozen some of it, of course, but it’s impossible to do any real tests that way. The cellular structure is—unusual. It is as if the interior of each cell has simply collapsed, broken down. There isn’t a piece of DNA, RNA, or any other useful combination left, although the fragments we have recovered do show what we can only call a consistent inconsistency.”
Chi frowned. “Explain.”
“We have been able to identify two separate patterns, as if these had been cells from two totally different individuals, yet they are intermixed and bound in the mass. We do not have enough to give you any real information on either master code, but it is as if you took two people and broke them down as if melting them into a single cellular mass. We have never seen anything like this, but if we were to try this the laboratory, the computers required would be enormous. Nor would we want to—not with a transmuter available.”
“I see. But a transmuter wouldn’t produce this effect? Say, if two people were transmitted down and got all jumbled up together.”
“It would be possible to induce it, yes, but where is the transmuter? There is no way you could get the necessary machinery into that hall unobtrusively no matter how long you took, and even if we accept that someone did, there is certainly no way you could get the stuff back out of there or effectively hide or shield it from our own search in so short a time.”
Chi nodded, knowing that this had been the conclusion of the computer systems as well. The bottom line was that anybody good enough to do that wouldn’t have to do it.
The scenario was simple enough, if grotesque. On Janipur they’d managed to snatch and switch one of the top security people in that Center and replace that person with a ringer—and it fooled every security safeguard in common use. That was certain. All right, assume that was the case with this priestess. With so long to work, it might have been done months, even years ago. A mole in the heart of this Center. All right—they had done it before, so it wasn’t a fantastic idea.
Now what? The ring’s on the Holy Lama. Can’t snatch it when the C.A. is outside—too much security. You might snatch it but you’d never get away. But the C.A. is a cloistered monk—nobody who sees her day to day is ever allowed out, and no one is ever allowed in except under maximum security monitoring. The only one who could get close enough to the C.A. to steal that ring outside of normal internal security would be one of the permanent party. Not a monk—an insect queen!
She turned to her computer. “Comparison, in percentage. Total mass of the recovered organic substance against total estimated mass of the deputy administrator.”
“Recovered mass is eighty-nine point three three percent of estimated mass of the subject,” the computer responded.
Chi nodded. There would be some loss, certainly. Energy would be consumed, there would be free cells, and possibly a measure of decomposition of the outer area before they’d been able to get to the mass and stabilize it. All right.
Colonel Chi wasn’t a scientist or any sort of technocrat, and she knew it sounded bizarre, but somehow, she was convinced against all of the computer’s logic that she was right. Somehow these pirates had made a very big discovery, a kind that could shake the system to its foundations. No wonder they had managed to get so far! Some sort of biological or chemical agent, or some strange thing created by transmuter. It didn’t matter to her how it was done. Somehow, they could become someone else. An exact duplicate—almost. And without further aid of any machinery at all. So one of them had become the priestess and learned all there was to learn and gained access to the Sacred Lodge. Access—but not the ability to steal the ring unobserved. So now, spooked by the discovery of the motor and the resultant knowledge that the pirates were at work here, they had moved—now! Before new precautions could be put in place! Now what had been the priestess was one of the Seed within the Sacred Lodge, with full run of the place and full access to the Holy Lama and the security system. The excess mass not needed in the transformation was the dying organic matter they had found.
And now what? Perhaps a switch of rings, or maybe even a theft, then wait for a new audience to be commanded. The next poor sucker walks in, gets escorted back, and in the hall there is another, smaller pool of goo. And the thief walks right out with the blessings of the guards past the best security net they could design!
Colonel Chi knew that she was right. She also knew that, without any proof that such a thing was possible, she would be considered mad not only by her subordinates and superiors in the SPF but by Master System itself. The mere idea that some escaped prisoners and freebooter refugees could do something Master System itself considered impossible would be tantamount to heresy. But it wouldn’t help if this ring—her ring—was stolen, either, to be right and silent. It was a tricky problem—and the reason why this pirate scheme was so fiendishly clever.
Hell, I’m the boss here, she thought suddenly. I don’t have to explain myself to anybody at this point.
She turned back to the special SPF channel. “This is Colonel Chi. Absolutely no one—repeat, no one—is to enter or leave the Sacred Lodge from this point on until I give the word. That includes anyone summoned there, regardless of rank, or any of our forces, or so much as a sea slug. No one in or out—including the Holy Lama. Then I want a full electronic and human ring, on the surface and below, around the Lodge and I want the same on any exit channel large enough for a microbe to get out. All trash, all garbage, is to be instantly and completely disintegrated by automated equipment independently programmed and under our exclusive control. I want our nastiest sentry robots in the automated areas. Seal all watertight doors and exits. Put the vacuum seal in place in the entry passage. The only communications channel in or out is to be routed directly to me and not through any locals or any subordinates. Understand?”
“As you command, Colonel,” came the crisp reply. “May I ask why all this? I have to have it for my reports.”
Always covering your sweet ass, aren’t you, Wu? “I have evidence that an agent of the pirates is already inside the Sacred Lodge. It is speculative and circumstantial, but I believe on my authority as commander that we have no choice but to act as if it is real.” Think now. Everybody knows you can’t transmute somebody twice. “There is a possibility that this agent has coercive means to gain the cooperation or obedience of anyone inside, including the Holy Lama.”
There was a pause, then: “Very well.”
“Major? Check to see if there’s any way we could get a nerve agent of some kind in there—either in the air or water or food—to knock them all completely cold.”
Another pause. “It would be difficult and perhaps not a hundred percent effective, but I feel it is possible. The problem is, the place has its own internal security system that we can’t tap. It’s murylium-powered so we can’t cut it out, and if activated, it’s among the best.”
Chi sighed. “Could we lull them, then? Be certain we killed every living thing in there no matter how big or how small?”
“Easier—but, Colonel, if you do that you will kill the spiritual leader of this world and everyone, male as well as female, who could create the children to replace her. None of her own children are yet old enough to be outside. The oldest is barely six. You would turn this entire peaceful and basically loyal population violently against us and against everything we stand for. Something of that magnitude would require the direct order of Master System, and you know it.”
The major, of course, was right. Chi wanted to be a general, not a heretic and maniac. “Very well. Do what you can and make certain nothing gets in or out, period. Nothing. And I want all human guards paired at all times. Not for a moment is anyone to be left alone. We have at least three other missing agents around and they definitely have transmuter access. You understand me? I don’t want any of our people switched. If I can’t get in to the agent, at least, he, she, or it can’t get out and can’t get the ring out. Sooner or later a deal will have to be made or they’ll remain here until they rot.”
The colonel signed off and leaned back in her contoured chair. All right, you pirates. You’re very good at playing the system against me, she thought firmly. But you won’t succeed. I know your little unbelievable secret. And I need hold you for only five days. In five days I will have sufficient force behind me that you could not escape without a fight more disastrous by far than Janipur, and possibly not even then. And in five days I’ll have you all out of that Sacred Lodge, immobilized, and in stasis—completely isolated. And if you remain behind, you will die. If you do not, then you will be in an SPF control lab where we’ll find which one of them you are.
“Something has gone wrong. I can feel it,” Min commented nervously. “They have the Sacred Lodge sealed off and the SPF has taken total and exclusive command of all Center security. They know. I tell you, they know.”
Butar Killomen shook her head. “No. They suspect, which is quite a different thing. The Vulture is inside, that is all that matters at the moment. Our job is to get the ring and get safely away. Vulture has prepared for a number of contingencies, and this plan has been checked and rechecked by our best minds and best computers. It is the only way to do it, and no matter how strong the enemy seems to be, it is his own system we use against him. This Colonel Chi is good—better than any Val we have met. She has both guts and imagination, a dangerous combination in an adversary. The only question we can concern ourselves with is whether or not we can still get the ring through the increased security cordon. Well?” She stared at Min and Chung.
“If the equipment works, we should have several minutes,” Chung responded nervously. “If the computer analysis of their response time is near accurate, at least ten. We have been operating entirely on that window. I feel I can control the exterior—if all goes well with Vulture inside.”
“There will not be two chances,” Killomen reminded them. “If we fail this time, the three of us will be useless. It must work!”
She had tried hard not to think of the possibility of failure, but it wasn’t an easy thing to do. This was so complex, and if just one thing went wrong, it would all be for nothing. She did not like this body in which she knew she would be spending the rest of her life, and all the mindprinting in the universe couldn’t help that. She had been born to a race that was large and physically tough, both the men and the women. She could get over being covered with hair, and swimming was something of a thrill—her native race had no mobility in the water at all—but she felt ugly, ugly and also so very . . . fragile. She knew she’d always seemed somewhat monstrous to others of different races, but never to herself. The transmuter transformation had been, to her, a severe sacrifice, but one she had felt she couldn’t refuse. Not after so many of the others had allowed themselves to be turned into far worse.
It had been just as hard, if not harder, on Min and Chung. She knew that, although it didn’t help that she had company. They had been Earth-humans, as far from this form and life as hers, but they had also been males from a social tradition that prized masculinity and detested its opposite. She at least had been born female and had spent many years as a part of an all-female crew. Part of it had been mental protection—all the members of the Kaotan crew had been of different races and each had been, as far as they knew, the only one of their race to escape their home worlds. Far better for mental health to be in the company of women who, however different from one another physically, could understand the problems of the others; in particular, how hard it was to see men and women of other races relating to one another, interacting, even occasionally bonding and having offspring. When there were others who were also the sole representatives of their species, at least there was some solace.
Now the old crew was broken up; only two were left in their natural forms, and who knew how long that would last? She was stuck now, and the old times, the old independence, were gone forever. Win or lose, this one operation was her last moment, her final purpose. After this they would just be a bunch of fragile water creatures out of their element and unable even to procreate due to the lack of a male.
She still dreamed of a little love, a little romance, but the man of her dreams was of a shape and form that would crush her in the first embrace. She often wondered, but never asked, if Min and Chung had their own fantasies. If so, it must be infinitely worse not only to be the wrong race but the wrong sex for the one of such dreams.
This had better work. The cost was already too high.
It was a world where you not only never had to grow up, you weren’t expected to. The quarters of the Seed included the most elaborate multilevel swimming pool complex Vulture had ever seen, complete with hewn water slides and many other playthings. There were lots of games and toys available, and elaborate facilities for playing dress-up, and the males took full advantage of all of it.
Most of the cleaning and maintenance was automated; meals were of the dial-in kind using a transmuter, a system not found elsewhere to his knowledge on Chanchuk, but standard on large spaceships and in other confined areas. Food was chosen by pushing the selector until the picture of the meal or snack or whatever you wanted came up in the window, then pressing the select button. About two minutes later it was there, transmuted from waste products or, if they weren’t available, from common seawater.
And there were drugs, too. Drugs to make the Seed feel wonderful, or bring him down; give him energy or let him sleep like a rock. Drugs to aid in meditation and prayer, and drugs to induce feelings of general well-being when the boredom got to be too much.
And there was a considerable amount of homosexual activity, something considered neither aberrant nor odd in a society where the sexes were so completely different and differentiated physically and socially. This was true among the general population as well, females as well as males, although for the females it tended to be less physical. Chanchukian females only really wanted sex during their five-day ovulation period; the rest of the time they had no real sexual drive at all. Males, on the other hand, seemed to be turned on by the slightest things, and it was easier to note the brief periods in each day when they weren’t excited than the bulk of the time when they were.
They were remarkably ignorant, even of their own world. They had no idea that the world was round or large, or how many people there were or how they lived. For those who served a spiritual leader of sorts, they didn’t even know or understand anything about that faith except some very vague meditation and prayer rituals. The reason for this last was obvious: the Holy Lama was close to being deified by her people. If the Seed lived with her and around her and saw her basic humanity, they might lose more faith than they gained, and if they believed in her as something more than their mistress and lover, they might have problems performing their holy sexual duties.
There were more mundane duties, though—even a sort of routine. The Holy Lama was, after all, only interested in their bodies a few days each month, and not at all while pregnant, and she needed various kinds of service. The Seed made up her bed and rooms and served her her meals and cleaned away the trays. They acted as hosts for occasional visitors, and, most of all, they watched over and helped the young new crop of kids they helped bring about. They did everything from nursing them to changing them, and Vulture was surprised to discover that the young of Chanchuk had to be taught how to swim, develop the reflexes for holding their breath, and even how to see and act underwater. Females and males looked much the same until they were more than five years old; then distinct sexual and growth differences developed and accelerated. At that point the girls would be sent away to be brought up in various lamaseries connected to Centers around the world. All were raised as if they all were to be the next Holy Lama, for one of them surely would be. In their remote locations, they would be trained in both spiritual and secular skills well into adulthood, until their mother died and a new Holy Lama was selected by the priestesses. Then the rest would be neutered and become apprenticed to the Centers and lamaseries for jobs like the liaison’s.
The males would be raised to puberty within the Seed’s harem, after which they would be distributed among the ranking family hierarchies of the Centers of Chanchuk, thus giving the secular rulers a claim to spiritual relationship beyond that of the masses.
To Vulture, the primary problem was stealing the ring.
During a sexual encounter would be the best, of course, but he couldn’t rely on that chance, and he certainly couldn’t expect the key period he planned to be inside to coincide with the Holy Lama’s unknown reproductive cycle. Hell, she might even be pregnant. No, in this case a certain amount of outside help was cruder, but far more effective.
It took him some time to realize that his greatest problem in the wait was in knowing what time it was. There were no clocks about, and not much need for the Seed to have them. This meant he had to force himself awake through mental discipline for two nights running to check the automated cleaning and maintenance cycle against the system security clock to be certain he could tell the time when he had to without any watches or clocks. All that without awakening any of his fellow Seed.
And, far more quickly than it seemed, it was the evening of his fourth day inside.
“Colonel, it is a violation of everything we have sworn to live by to keep us here incommunicado,” the Holy Lama protested. “I stand on my rights, not as spiritual leader to our people but as chief administrator of Chanchuk. I demand to know at once the full and complete reasons for these actions and I demand my right to appeal directly to an agent of Master System.”
That would mean at least a Val, if not a direct link. Chi was fully conscious of the severity of what she was doing.
“Madam, you have an agent inside your lodge. A pirate.”
“Indeed? And when has invisibility been perfected?” the prelate retorted sarcastically.
“Not invisible. A shape changer. It entered in the form of your sister. I am convinced that it did not leave but rather became another, a duplicate, of one it dispatched.”
“You are mad, Colonel! Such a thing is impossible!”
Chi shrugged. “I know what is, not what is impossible. I have no idea whether it is a scientific breakthrough or some alien form of life in alliance with the pirates, but I am convinced it is real. When the Vals arrive along with the task force, I will undoubtedly be arrested, and I will be subjected to a mindprint and probe. They will have the same reaction as you, but they will see how and why I came to those conclusions and they will act. They will act because they cannot afford to accept even the minuscule possibility that I am correct. I am sure, under the proper conditions, we can unmask this impostor no matter how perfect it is and neutralize it. And when that happens I will go from being a mad woman under restraint to being acclaimed as the most brilliant tactical security strategist in history. Only another thirty hours, madam, and we shall see who is insane.”
The Holy Lama gave up and switched off, but then she began to think about it. Suppose this officer were right? Technological breakthrough—ridiculous! But alien life, now that made a certain kind of sense. And if Colonel Chi was correct, and there was no one missing inside the Sacred Lodge, then there was only one person it could be.
She turned and punched her intercom. “Cho, your presence is required—now.” She never used a tone like that unless it was something vital. She knew Cho would come on the run, and he did.
Standing there, looking at him, someone she’d known ever since coming here after her investiture by the Council, someone she’d had sex with, even—it was nearly impossible to believe. Everything was just so absolutely right.
“Cho—you know there are people over us, people who run things even beyond our own power and control?”
The little man looked confused. “Yes, ma’am. I suppose so. You mean the gods?”
“Don’t act so stupid in front of us!” she snapped. “We know you are brighter than that and have been around here many years. You may never have directly seen them, but you know what security is.”
Cho seemed to be quaking slightly. “Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am.”
“They have just used their authority to remove us from power, to make us prisoners here in our own lodge. They say it is because an alien being is in here, not of Chanchuk or the People at all but merely masquerading as one. Tomorrow they will pump some sort of gas in here and come in with machines, carrying weapons and cages, and they will take us away. Until then, anyone who tries to get in or out of here will be vaporized. You know what that means? Reduced to nothing. What do you think of that?”
“These matters are not for a poor Seed, ma’am,” Cho responded. “I do not understand all this.”
The Holy Lama stared at him as if looking not through but inside of him. It was a disquieting, discomforting feeling.
“Yes, I believe you do understand,” she responded, sounding a bit surprised. “We have always liked you, Cho. You’ve been the bright one, the clever one, yet very loyal. We believe, for the sake of ourselves and our world, you deserve to rise to the next level of incarnation.”
“Ma’am?” Startled, he started to take a step forward, but she raised a hand and stopped him.
“Do not approach us! We may be insulated, but we are not defenseless. You may meditate on this where you are as long as you like, but in the end it is the end. Only if you give us some compelling reason not to will we fail to send you out to security’s waiting weaponry.” A hand went below her recliner and pulled out a very shiny and new-looking Mark IX needler. It was unexpected. Who would have guessed she would have a weapon of her own in here, let alone know how to use it? Why would she? But the fact was she did.
“This will knock you out, although we could kill you with it without much change in settings. When we desire, we will fire it, then summon some of the maintenance robots to haul your limp form out to Colonel Chi. We preach infinite patience, it is true, but we do not believe that in this case we will wait very long.”
Vulture was caught completely off guard. First he’d misjudged Chi, mistaking the martinet image and crudeness of manner for the real officer and not recognizing a first-rate mind behind the mask. Now he’d mistaken a first-rate C.A. for a head-in-the-clouds pious mystic. She didn’t believe Chi, that was clear, but for the restoration of her communications links and authority and to get rid of the SPF presence she was sure willing to sacrifice Cho. It was time to give her a surprise in return.
“That little thing would not bother me,” he responded in a cold yet casual tone, a tone unlike that ever used by any male of Chanchuk. The sudden change in him startled the Holy Lama; there was a sudden spirit there, a sudden hard fire inside that tiny body, a cocky sense of power and control. It frightened her more than anything ever had in her entire life.
“Then it is true.” She sighed.
“Whatever Chi has guessed is probably essentially true,” Vulture admitted. “By the way—I notice your thumb just pushed the Mark IX up to kill. I wouldn’t bother. It would cause me pain for a moment but otherwise wouldn’t bother me much, and I am used to pain. And I have no desire to take you over the way I did Cho, even though such a thing would probably provide me with great wisdom and skills beyond my own understanding. I learned much from your sister, but it can be only a shadow of what you know, and you are still growing in this position. I would hate to have to deprive Chanchuk of you.”
The sheer confidence and total disregard for any threat to him, as if he held a gun on her, was perhaps equally as unnerving as being faced with the sheer fact of his existence.
“What are you?” she asked him.
“I am called the Vulture. The name is that of a predatory bird of old Earth that eats carrion, although I do not. Who I eat, I become, and all that they were stays with me. I and my associates have worked for a year to be in more or less this position. I come for the ring.”
“Why not just take it, then, if you are as powerful as you say?”
“I intended to. But, as you point out, there is a matter of escape that is more than a little bit tricky. Something is planned, in the immediate future, that will allow me to liberate the ring and pass it to my associates. Then we will wait for the colonel and her probes.”
“Then they will unmask you and have you.”
He shook his head. “No. The colonel is creative, even imaginative. You saw the conviction in her and you saw the alien within me. Their superiors, however, are technocrats, and their masters are machines. They believe in what can be quantified and measured. If they want blood, I can create whatever is required for their machines. If they probe my brain, they will find only Cho there. If they try their chemical drugs, then they will still not find me. Sooner or later they will have to conclude that Chi was wrong. They will send me back, and I will feed and walk out as someone else. It’s as simple as that.”
“And you admit this to me? This session is being recorded.”
“If necessary, that can be fixed. You know it and I know it. You do it all the time before the required semiannual Master System mindprint and retreat at Qonjin Monastery in the north. They all do it. You have a mindprinter here somewhere to do the fine tuning, I suspect.”
“None is necessary, as you should know if you were my sister as you claim. The Five Levels of Kwanji are more than a match for any of their silly machines. What will you do now?”
“Nothing. If you force the issue, I will, of course, have to deal with you, and that will make things ugly. Nine Seed were here before, nine Seed should be here at the end. But I’ll manage. I am designed to survive. That is my number-one ability. Somewhere in your own mind is another way out. No chief administrator I ever heard of didn’t have all the contingencies covered that they could cover, and I’m sure isolation and entrapment here is one such contingency. What happens next is up to you.”
“Who do you work for? And why is this ring so important?”
“If the Five Levels can disguise the rest they should disguise this. If not, no matter how cooperative you are, you will either die or have your mind erased. My group calls itself the pirates of the Thunder. The Thunder is our base ship. We are refugees, many from old Earth, freebooters and opportunists now wanted by Master System. The ring, together with its four mates, contains a code that will shut Master System down cold. Yours is the third, and we are in league with the possessor of a fourth. We mean to shut this system down. Many brave human beings have died for this cause already, innocent and guilty alike, while others have undergone mental and emotional changes that no person should be asked to endure. Still others have voluntarily turned themselves into what they see as monsters in this one cause. The system is mad, and it is only a matter of time until it eliminates humanity as we know it. Humanity created it. Humanity can and must destroy it first.”
The Holy Lama had not put down the gun, but she listened intently, staring at him the whole time. Finally she asked, “And what, considering all this, would you wish us to do now?”
“Nothing,” he responded. “Just forget it. Wipe it off the recording and then wipe it from your mind so thoroughly that even Master System itself could not find it. If you have a probe and printer around, I’d use it. They will go much deeper than usual this time, searching for me. The other contingencies have been taken care of.”
“There is a huge force coming. A task force. Thirty hours, no more, the colonel said.”
“If they find nothing, then the colonel is imaginative—and wrong. All, save myself, the ring included, will be long gone.”
The Holy Lama sighed and put down the gun. “Just do nothing, you say?”
Vulture nodded. “We have it all mapped out—I hope. And we will give the colonel another bogeyman to chase.”
Hard nails drummed on the desk top. “Do you need anything else from us?”
“As a matter of fact, it would help greatly if I could borrow a watch.”