I gave the required shudder. “Yes, I remember him.”
“You were a master of disguise and you baffled the best police for over five years. You’re not as rank an amateur as you think.”
I considered that. “Still, I’m going to have to make every move right—no mistakes of any kind. One goof and I’m done, maybe for a very long time. The odds are I’m going to get killed.”
“Well, that’s true,” he admitted casually, “but consider that you have alternatives. First, you can refuse categorically. I’ll find another candidate, team Zala up with him or her, and wipe this entire conversation from your memory. You’ll then be sent north, out of the way, and can spend the rest of your life toiling in the fields getting in the harvest. That’s safe. Or you can accept—and get killed. Or you can accept, accomplish the mission, and find yourself very abruptly a man of immense rank and power at the right hand of Aeolia Matuze and the Synod, a participant in the coming revolution, and sure recipient of its fruits.”
I looked at him cautiously. “And I could accept, contact Koril, and really join his side.”
“You could,” he admitted, “and yet—why? If you win you’ll be a big shot on an isolated and primitive world forever. More likely, you will not win, and will either grow old in frustration as we go ahead anyway—or die in some foolish attempt on the Synod. If you can’t see that Koril has nothing to offer worth the risk, then you’re not much good to me anyway.”
I nodded. “All right, I’ll be your boy. Overall, you don’t give me much choice, and it beats boredom. Besides, I’m kind of curious about all this myself.”
Korman smiled. “I knew you would see reason. Just remember this: don’t underestimate Koril a whit, and under no circumstances try to take on the old boy himself or even run to us while he’s anywhere in the neighborhood. Nobody’s that good. It’ll take the whole Synod to nail him. Bet on it.”
“I fully intend to live through this,” I assured him.
He laughed evilly. “Lacoch, if you blow this, death will be the best you can expect. Now, I’m going to lower the barrier and continue asking routine questions once more. None of the others, not even my associates, will know that this conversation has even taken place. You’ll be assigned later today and be on your way early in the morning. It’s a long trip, but one you’ll find interesting. Once in Bourget, the town we’re sending you to, you’ll be under the whig of Tally Kokul, the local sore. He’s a good man and hell orient you properly, but he won’t be in on this at all. Keep it that way—and watch out for him and his apts. We’re not so sure of the apts, and any of them have more power than you can imagine.”
“I’ll remember,” I assured him.
There was a sudden feeling of disorientation that lasted only a fraction of a second. I didn’t turn around, but I could hear the rest of the inmates whispering and rustling behind me.
“I think we have a number of openings for administrative types like yourself,” Korman said, now very businesslike. “You may return to the group.”
I got up and went back to the rest of them, searching for signs that any of them were in any way aware of just how long we had been talking, but detected nothing. Still, there were a few knowing smirks, and I remembered that Korman had had private conversations with most of the others as well. I wondered if they had gotten the same offer that I had. I somehow doubted it—unless some of them also had unique qualifications. It was unlikely that the sorcerer had put all his eggs in one basket.
I had to look at Zala again, with new insight, but what I had just heard still didn’t seem possible. And yet… It was also unlikely that the Confederacy would have put all its eggs in one basket either. If what Korman suspected was true, it would place me in a very interesting position. I too wanted very much to meet this other Zala—if indeed she truly existed.
We were fed again, and then relaxed, playing some basic games, just snoozing or sitting in the lobby waiting for our hosts to return. Several times I got into conversations, but either I was too subtle or nobody wanted to discuss his experience. Finally I wound up in a corner with Zala.
“What do you think will happen to us now?” she asked me.
I shrugged. “They’re going to give us jobs, I think.” “They knew I wasn’t an administrator,” she said nervously. “I guess they have the official records no matter what they said He said there wasn’t much call for my talents here.”
“Don’t worry. It’ll all work out.”
“I wonder if they’ll split us up?” she went on, playing out her petty fears. “I wouldn’t want to be split up. Not from you.”
“We’ll see,” was all I could reply, knowing the verdict ahead of time.
It was a couple of hours before Korman returned, this time with a clipboard. He took his seat again behind the table, thumbed through some sheets, then looked up at us. We all stood, expectantly, waiting for the word. Zala seemed extremely nervous and squeezed my hand so hard she was almost cutting off circulation; some of the others looked a little anxious themselves, but others did not. I found that an interesting fact in itself.
One by one, Korman called out our names, not in the order he had used at the start, and told the various people the names of towns and jobs they were assigned to. About halfway through, he called both Zala and me, whereupon my suffering hand got squeezed even tighter as we approached.
“Park Lacoch, you were a planetary administrator, and that’s quite good and useful experience, although here you won’t have your fancy computers and large staffs. It’ll take some getting used to, so we’re going to start you off small. The town of Bourget on the southeast coast just lost its Town Accountant. It’s a bit larger than we’d like to start somebody green at, but the position’s open and you’re here. You’ll deal with four industries, twenty-one Companies. There’s a civil staff there that’ll break you in and get you oriented—depend on them until you learn the ropes.”
“Won’t there be some resentment that I got the job ahead of them?” I asked him.
“Probably a little, but not much. It’s basically a local staff, all native, and they’re a pretty contented lot. They do what they’re told. If you’re good to them and respect their experience they’ll accept you.”
“Sounds fair,” I told him, meaning it.
“As for you, Zala Embuay,” Korman continued, “you present us with a problem. Your non-augmented literacy rate is very low, your grasp of figures basic. The best position we could find to fit your unique talents would be barmaid or chambermaid. Your entertainment and planning skills might be considerable, but they are all tailored to augmentation. Without the standard computer devices, these skills are mostly useless here. In fact, the more we considered it, the more we realized that you would be out of your element even in the bar or chamber service. You would have to learn skills taken for granted here.”
I felt her tremble through the clutched hand as this was being said, all the more so because it was true. A product of a society in which robots did all the basic work and everything from the lights to the music was controlled through machines, she simply had no skills to offer here.
“Therefore, the most logical occupation for you here would be an agricultural field worker. But we feel that such a radical change to basic menial labor without some intermediate steps might not be best for you; your outworlder status could cause some disruptions among your fellow menials.” Zala looked blankly at him when he said that, but I understood what he meant. Workers are happiest when they don’t know what they’re missing. Zala’s memories and tales of the wonders of the Confederacy, while they lived with no hope of change in the wretched and primitive condition, would foster resentment—and cause all sorts of local disruptions, not to mention perhaps more converts for Korf!.