I had seen little but parlor tricks on this world so far, but I could accept his examples at least as comparative allegory. “And he’s still working against you.”
“He is. Not effectively of late, but he is more than dangerous. He retained good friends in high places, and some of his agents even managed to penetrate meetings of the Four Lords themselves. At one point, they got past tight security of kinds you can not imagine to witness a meeting with our alien allies themselves. The spies slipped up before they could do any harm and were all eventually tracked down and killed, but it was a very close call. Koril came within a hair’s breath of killing all Four Lords and two of the aliens as well—and he wasn’t even there! He was still safe down in Gamush.”
It was my turn to push now. “All this is well and good—but, tell me, why are you telling me all this? I would assume it’s far from common knowledge.”
“You’re right. Koril’s fall was pictured publicly as a move to save Charon from, evil ambition. We created, in the minds of the people, a portrait of him as a devil, a demon, a creature of pure powerful evil. It has been quite effective, and even useful—a force of opposition based on fear and power. It keeps the masses in line, and he can be blamed for just about anything that goes wrong.”
“A bogeyman.” So much for tolerating other points of view, I thought to myself.
“Yes, exactly. But a real one who remains a real threat. We would much prefer to have him be merely a myth. He’s used our own propaganda against us too, to attract those unhappy with us in any way, employing the trappings of devil worship and the rest, creating an effective cult of opposition, in both senses of the word ‘cult.’ We can not be truly safe and secure until Koril is destroyed.”
“But I thought you said you had tried that and failed.”
“Well, not exactly. There was no concerted effort to destroy him when he wasn’t already forewarned and forearmed. After all, we didn’t hate him or covet his job—we merely wanted him out because we could not change his mind. Had we foreseen what sort of enemy he would make—but that’s hindsight. We can kill him—if we face him down. But to do that we have to know where he is, where that redoubt is.”
I knew all this was leading somewhere, but it wasn’t clear why I was the one being led there. “What’s all this have to do with me?”
“I’m coming to that. First of all, he has a large minority following in-his demon cult, but they are mostly useless except as information gatherers because they really believe that guff. In the aftermath of his botched assault we pretty well wiped out his effective force. He needs new people—level-headed, unclouded with superstition, and yet with some residual ties to the old values of the Confederacy. People who would be useful commanders of his demonic troops, bring fresh ideas and approaches to him, and take his side against the aliens even if they had no particular love for the Confederacy.”
I began to see. “In other words, newly arrived inmates like me.”
“You’re the most logical. We get few newcomers these days—none of the Wardens get many, and we get the fewest of all. The nature of our atmosphere prevents most clandestine communications, and even blocks basic surveillance of us on the ground by remotes. The Confederacy has agents of one sort or another all over the Warden Diamond, but they are of almost no use here since messages are nearly impossible to get in or out except by spacecraft, which are rigidly monitored. You’re the first small group we’ve gotten since long before Koril was deposed, so you’re an absolute natural for him to approach. And of course there is a different reason as well—the real reason why we got any prisoners this drop. You see, due to the inevitable slip-up, the Confederacy is finally wise to the fact that we and our alien allies are plotting against it. That’s all it knows though, and it’s too little to act upon—and, I think, too late. Still, they are not stupid. They have already sent at least one top assassin to the Warden Diamond—we know that.”
“What!” I felt a cold chill. Was I being led down the garden path to the guillotine? Had my cover been so easily blown?
He nodded. “And while we are sure only of the one, it’s reasonable for us to assume that they would send more.”
“But what for?” I asked, steadying my nerves as best I could. “You just said it would be nearly impossible to get information out. And anybody they’d send here would be stuck, just like us.”
“It is our belief-^-Charon’s, not the Four Lords, I might add—that they will send their best men available to each of the four worlds with the intent of killing each of the Four Lords. Doing this will, they feel, cause some disruption, and the new Lord will be a lot less sure of him or herself and perhaps less disposed toward treason. It is not much of a hope, I admit, but it’s the only logical thing they can do while they try and find the alien enemy first.”
He was uncomfortably close to the mark, and I could only feel I was being toyed with. Something inside kept shouting “He knows! He knowsr’—but my more controlled overmind kept saying that the best way to proceed was to play along, at least for now. “And you think that one of us is a Confederacy fanatic?”
“I know it,” he responded. “I knew it the moment I met the agent face to face.”
He paused for a moment and I braced for the inevitable denouement to our little play.
“The Confederacy’s agent,” he said, “is Zala Embuay.”
CHAPTER FIVE
A Plot, a Deal, and a Potion
“Zola? You’ve got to be joking!” I could hardly contain my emotions at this point, a mixture of incredulity, relief, and a still-lingering suspicion that I was being had. “You’ve got to be kidding. Without protection she wouldn’t last ten minutes outside this hotel.”
“That’s partly the point,” Korman responded, and he didn’t seem to be joking. “Have you ever seen anyone so innocent, so confused, so totally dependent! Not the Warden Diamond sort at all. Not even the Confederacy’s.”
“You’re saying it’s all an act? A plant?” I found it hard to take this seriously from any viewpoint.
“Oddly enough, no. Zala is, I’m certain, exactly what we see. She’s shallow, weak, more an outline of a real person than a whole human being. There is no doubt in my mind that she believes herself to be what she is utterly and has no inkling whatsoever of her true nature and purpose.”
I had to laugh. “This is impossible.”
“When I saw her I was immediately aware of the anomaly. The Wardens, you see, congregate in every cell, in every molecule of our being. They permeate our existence. With some training you can even see them. Sense them. Hear them. I’m sure you’ll one day experience what I can only inadequately verbalize. But the Wardens become as highly specialized as the molecules they link up to. The brain is particularly odd. Wardens there organize in specific ways, so specialized that you can actually see a diagram of the parts of the brain. When I look at anyone—you, for instance—I see those parts distinctly, and even how they interconnect and interact. The cerebrum and the cerebral cortex are easy to define. In you, in everyone—but not in Zala.”
“Huh? How’s that?”
“I can’t really explain it. It is outside my experience in every way. Outside anybody’s, I’d guess. But organically, Zala’s cerebral functions are organized very differently. It’s almost as if there were two forebrains in there, two totally different operative centers linked to the same cerebellum, medulla, spinal cord and nervous system—but not to each other. It is definitely organic. Deliberate. And unprecedented as far as I can tell.”