“We will contact you. Do not worry.”
That’s easy for you to say. You’re only a machine, and you aren’t down here with your neck in a noose.
END TRANSMISSION. READ OUT, HOLD FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.
The observer removed the helmet and sank back in the chair, looking and feeling exhausted. He just sat there for several minutes staring at nothing, as if unable to focus his thoughts or get hold of himself.
“You are upset again,” the computer said.
He pointed at nothing. “Is that me down there? Is that really me? Is that me so romantically linked, so crazy and so ambitious?”
“It is you. The verifications and patterns show it so.”
He chuckled dryly. “Yeah. Quantitative analysis. Boil everything down to nice, neat little numbers and symbols. It must be nice to be a computer, not to give a damn that everything you ever thought, ever believed, about yourself and your society is being ripped apart bit by bit, piece by piece.”
“Both of us are the sum of our respective programming,” the computer noted. “Nothing more—or less.”
“Programming! Aw, what’s the use? You’re incapable of understanding this. I wonder if anybody is. Nobody’s ever been put through this before—and shouldn’t be, again.”
“Nonetheless, we have learned much. If the Cerberan unit were to be terminated right now, we would be far ahead. We know now how the robots are programmed. We know that the point of contact between alien and Diamond is inside the orbit of the moons of Momrath. We also are in a position to strike a blow against those robots, even if we have not yet solved the puzzle.”
“I’m not going to recommend frying Cerberus!” he snapped. “Not now, anyway.”
“The station and Laroo’s Island would be sufficient, don’t you think, to put more of a crimp in the operation than even killing one of the Lords, or even all four?”
“Yeah, you may be right. But if I report this, they’re going to recommend taking the whole planet out anyway. As Laroo, I think, pointed out, that might provoke a confrontation—and it would eliminate the robot threat. Without Cerberus, they couldn’t program the things with real minds.”
“Why do you hesitate? Ordinarily you would think nothing of such a step.”
“Why—” He paused, sitting back down. “Yeah, why do I?” he asked himself aloud. “What’s it to me?” That was his training and experience talking, but that was only his intellectual side. There was another side of him, one he had never suspected, that had now revealed itself not once but twice. With Lilith he’d finally convinced himself that it had been an aberration. He was a technological agent, and in a nontechnological society he’d had to change and compromise. But Cerberus? The excuse was gone in that situation. And yet, and yet—had only his twins down there changed?
Still, there was only one thing to do, and he knew it.
“If it makes your decision any easier,” the computer put in, “the elimination of Cerberus would not stop the robot operation, only set it back. As long as any of the Cerberan variant of the Warden organism remained in alien hands it could be used anywhere in-system. We had the indication that it already was being so used. Nor is it yet the time to provoke a confrontation. We have insufficient data yet to get such a resolution through Council for the sector’s elimination. All we might accomplish at this point is a refusal to defend by the enemy, the elimination of the Warden system or its neutralization, and we would then lose all links with the enemy.”
He considered that, and it made sense. “All right. Transmit the proposal and problems to Security Central and get an evaluation and recommendations.”
“Being done,” the computer responded.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
R D—And a Split Decision
I notified Bogen that I had initiated the contact and could only wait for results. It would be a nervous time, I knew. The only bright spot was that Dylan was so much fresher, so much more alive, her old self again in spades. If it hadn’t been for the noose, those next three days would have been among the happiest and most satisfying of all my time on Cerberus.
At the end of the third day, though, I received a call from someone I didn’t know and from a place I couldn’t guess. I knew Bogen had the phone bugged and traces all over the place, but somehow I doubted his ability to do much about this.
There was no visual, only audio. “Qwin Zhang?”
“Yes?”
“Your proposal has merit, but nothing can be done without a physical sample.”
I held my breath. “How much of a sample?”
“About fifty cubic centimeters of brain tissue and another fifty of other random tissue should suffice. Is this possible?”
“I’ll see,” I told whoever or whatever it was. “How do I let you know?”
“We’ll be in touch.” The line was dead.
Dylan came in. “Who was that?”
“You know who,” I responded. “Time to call Bogen from the security shack.”
Bogen insisted on talking to me directly, so I got on the line.
“They contacted me. They need two tissue samples.”
He nodded. “Figures. We anticipated that. Just out of curiosity, though—how did they do it? You haven’t been out all day and you haven’t received any phone calls or messages.”
“They called. On my phone. Surely you tapped it.”
He looked more than a little nervous. “We sure did. And your quarters, too. I’ll check it out, but nobody called me from the monitors like they were supposed to. I don’t like this at all. They shouldn’t have power like that—not here.”
He switched off, but I understood his concern and waited at the shack for a reply, which wasn’t long in coming.
“Did you check the phone?” I asked him.
He nodded worriedly. “Sure did. No calls of any kind. And we ran the recording of our bugs in your place, too. You wouldn’t be kidding us, would you, Zhang? There’s nothing on that tape but normal noises. No conversation on the phone at all, although we do hear your wife come in and ask ‘Who was that?’ and you reply.”
I whistled. I was impressed, and so was Bogen—although not in the same way. “So what’s the answer?”
“You’ll get your tissue.”
“Shall I pick up or do you deliver?”
“Very funny. No, it should be picked up, if only because I want to see how they collect the sample.”
“I’ll get a boat started up,” I told him.
“No. As a precautionary measure, Chairman Laroo has ordered that you never set foot on the island again, and security will fry you if you try.”
“That wasn’t part of the deal!” I protested, feeling a sinking sensation in my stomach. If Security went along, I had to be there.
“We changed it. You’re are an admitted assassin, Zhang, and we don’t minimize your skills. We can’t afford to take the chance.”
“But I’ll have to come in if they give me anything.”
“Nope. If anything physical is required that we can’t handle, you will send your wife. Between the psych implant against killing and the fact that she’s native here, we feel more secure.”
“I don’t want to involve her! The deal’s off!”
He laughed evilly. “Well, that’s okay, but if it ends here, so do the both of you. You knew that when you started this. Our terms, or forget it. Now, send her over in two hours exactly.’’
“All right,” I sighed. “We’ll play it your way—for now. But wait a minute. She’s of the motherhood. She’s prohibited from ocean travel.”