“You’re telling me that there are two minds in one body? That’s hard to swallow, although I’ve heard tales of multiple personalities.”
“No! Not in that old sense. Multiples as we know them are psych conditions. Psychologically induced—and curable. This is not a psych condition. I’m talking about two real minds, Lacoch!”
I couldn’t shake the oddest feeling that either I was dreaming this whole illogical and improbable conversation or that I had really gone suddenly insane. The thought suddenly came to me that all this was illusion, some way in which they were pulling some sort of sophisticated psyche job on me. Still, I had wits enough left to realize that no matter what the situation, my only choice was to keep playing along, at least for now. “You will understand,” I said carefully, “that I find both the idea and your means of confirmation rather, ah, improbable.”
He nodded. “Still, it’s true and it must be acted upon. The implications of a dual mind with unknown powers are ones we can’t ignore, and must know more about it Within a matter of hours, I can get a set of master defense codes for the Confederacy, even a list of the top fifty assassins now on assignment along with the actual assignments of at least half. Our information conduits into the Confederacy are not only beyond their belief, they are almost beyond mine. Yet we have heard nothing whatsoever about a project like this, which must have been—what?—twenty years plus in the making. The perfect agent. She can be hypnoed, psyched to the gills, tortured beyond endurance and she wouldn’t know or give away a thing. If we had telepathy she’d pass that test too. All the while the other mind, the assassin’s mind, would be there, beyond reach, gathering data and picking its own time to assume control. It must be something else—it has nothing to do but its job. Cold, analytical genius set to one task and only one.”
I thought about it. If all this were real, I could not only see his point I could almost doubt myself. Krega had never said that I’d be the only agent, and Zala might well be part of an independent effort. Telling myself I was really crazy for starting to believe all this, I still had to press on. “So you just kill her and that’s that,” I commented dryly.
“Oh, no! Then we would never see this other mind, never know its capabilities—and we might not catch the next one, or the next dozen, or hundred, or whatever. Not to mention that they’ll be ticking bombs back in the Confederacy when all hell breaks loose and we return. We need to know a great deal more about her new type. Of course, we’d like to know just how much they really know about us at this stage.”
“I thought you just told me their secrets were an open book.”
He glared at me. “Some. But we—the Four Lords—are a special target of a special group. Their plans are so secret that even those who formulated them have been wiped now.” He sighed. “And that brings us back to what we have dubbed ‘Operation Darkquest’—which brings us back to you.”
I nodded, beginning to see how all this was fitting together. Still, I couldn’t resist a mild jab. “It seems to me that for a man with the powers of a god you’re sounding pretty human.”
Again the glare, but it softened, and his eyes lit up with just a trace of humor. “You’re right, of course. It is something of a humbling experience, but the mind is always the best weapon no matter what sort of power one acquires.”
“Now—do you mind getting down to specifics?” I pressed.
“All right, all right. We are going to assign Zala to you and you to a minor but conspicuous village post down south where Koril’s cult is very strong. We feel certain Koril will contact you, indirectly of course, and sound you out. Now that you know the situation, we want you to go along with him, feed his prejudices. You and Zala will ultimately accept his deal to join him, and that will mean getting you to his redoubt.”
“You feel sure he’ll contact us? We’ll be pretty obvious, I’d think.”
“He’ll contact you, all right. Maybe not right away, but hell come. Eventually he’ll contact all of you, but not all will go his way.”
“I see. And you want me to somehow get the location of that fortress to you.”
He nodded. “That and his future plans.”
“You have some gadget for me to do all this with, I presume?”
He shook his head from side to side. “Sadly, no. Most of the usual ones won’t work here, and anything I might add by my powers Koril would detect. He’s that good. No, I suspect we’ll have to wait until he sends you out on your first errand, or mission, or whatever. Call it a test of your resourcefulness.”
I considered it. “And how am I supposed to make sure this message gets to you without getting my head blown off either by your people or Koril’s?”
“Koril is your problem. As for the other, the key word is “Darkquest.” Village sores and those above will know the term but not what it means. What it will do is make certain that you are not killed and that word of your capture or whatever will reach the Synod.”
“It seems to me Koril’s going to know at least the signal word himself—if he’s as good as you say.”
Korman nodded. “He will, but it will do him no good. He won’t know what it means, and any of his people using it other than yourself will simply walk into capture.”
That part pretty well satisfied me. “How good is this Koril in psych terms though? Am I likely to go through some sort of exercise that will betray the plot when I’m down there in his domain?”
“He himself is powerful enough to turn your mind to almost anything, which is the reason for the length of our session here. I have been creating blocks in your mind, selective traps and guards that will go up should he try any such thing. And if he does try any mind-turning, it won’t take. Not for long anyway.”
“But he’s likely to sense the blocks,” I noted.
“On most attempts, certainly,” Korman agreed. “But you—you have been through three years of intense psych before coming here, remember. Your mind now shows many, many blocks and re-channelings to me. The extras I add won’t be noticed, and that alone is what makes you so uniquely qualified—you see?”
I did see. Of course, the psych blocks Korman saw weren’t from any Lacoch psych treatments but from my own breeding, training, and Krega’s Security; but it explained a lot If Korman could sense those blocks—but not remove them—it not only reinforced my assumed identity but quite possibly prevented him from doing some of that mind-bending on me. I remembered that earlier hypnotic gaze. “All right, I understand the plot,” I told him. “What about Zala?”
“Take her along, by all means!” Korman urged. “Find out all you can from her, particularly from her alter ego which you will almost certainly see. And if you can manage it, when you are in position to use Darkquest see if you can’t manage to have her with you.”
I chuckled. “This is some job you’re giving me. I was a planetary administrator, for god’s sake^ Now I’m instantly supposed to be a master spy, secret agent, and the rest, pitting myself against the top power on the planet and a Confederacy assassin!”
“You don’t have to accept,” he said calmly. “I admit your overall qualifications aren’t very good. Against the perfect psych cover and an interesting and agile mind, we must balance your lack of experience. Do you remember your old self all that well?”