And, in fact, just how different was Kira from that man up there? Outside of assignments, psych blocked and mostly wiped, he was really nothing more than a Zala with money. A playboy in the haunts of the rich and powerful, contributing little and totally hedonistic. The only difference between Kira and me, deep down, was that when I got all that information back before a mission, like now, I still had at my base that other man, that playboy lover of fun. Kira, on the other hand, experienced everything vicariously and never felt that her cover was anything more than that—certainly not a part of her.
The technique by which Zala/Kira had been formed remained a mystery. The medics here had poked and probed and found nothing. Her brain, aside from the Warden organisms’ odd grouping, appeared normal. Nothing in medical science could pinpoint the difference in any way. And yet it was not a psych technique, or some mental aberration—the wa showed clearly a true biological division there somewhere.
To look into a mirror, to see such a personality—the perfect assassin—and see in all its ugliness the perfection of those qualities you always prided yourself on, this was the problem. Nor did I have the faith, the moral certitude, any more that I was on the side of right, justice, and good. Charon and its viewpoints and my own experiences here had killed that certainty, and even though I was still, for now, on the same side, I was there because the opposition repelled me, not out of any lingering loyalty to the Confederacy ideal. Had this, I wondered, happened to the others, my counterparts on Lilith, Cerberus, and Medusa? I knew this—I was more completely human now than ever before, and both the weaker for it and yet, somehow, whole as Kira was not and might never be.
Explaining all this to Darva wasn’t easy. Although it helped to share it and talk it out, the fact was she could never fully understand. She hadn’t been raised to believe.
And that, in the end, was the bottom line of difference between Kira and me. I had been a believer who lost his faith but found his humanity. She had never believed in anything, and, because of that, could never find or even fully comprehend her own humanity. I had been literally reduced to the animal on Charon and been reborn a human. Kira was reduced to the machine and locked there for all time.
In a sense, she’d forced me to take a good, hard look at myself—and in the process, I was free. The last bonds were cut. Like that little Cerberan, Dumonia, I severed my last ties to my past and stayed allied with it only because, for the moment, our interests coincided.
For the first time I reached back and examined myself, and much to my surprise, was able to locate through my own wa that tiny piece of organic goo in my brain. Still there. From Lacoch to changeling to bunhar to changeling again, it had somehow survived. So you’re still listening, my brother out there? My… Kira.
Koril looked grim-faced. His office was littered with reports and photos, and he wasn’t pleased with whatever they said.
He got straight to the point. “We have been compromised. After all these years, we’ve been compromised.”
“Somebody got word out?”
He nodded. “Somehow. I’m not sure how. But this complex is doomed, Park. It’s only a matter of time. Oh, it’s safe enough against ground assault, but once its location is known they could bring in heavy stuff, off-planet stuff, and fry hell out of us.”
“Then why haven’t they?”
He smiled. “Funny. Basically because the Confederacy monitors the system so well. They don’t have the heavy weapons on Charon to do the job, and if they tried to get them they’d be shot to hell in space. To hit us hard they’d have to bring in one of their alien friends’ vessels—and that would force them into the open. But it’s only a matter of time until they work out some way to fool our Wardens.”
“How much time?” I asked uneasily.
“Who knows? A day? A week? A month? A minute from now? Whenever they can work it out. We can’t take the chance of its being long.” He sat back in his chair, and for the first time he looked very old, old and incredibly tired. “Well, perhaps it’s for the best. To end it, one way or the other, once and for all. He looked up at me, the weight of his decision showing in his face. “You know, Park, for the first time I realize how I’ve been kidding myself all these years. I enjoyed this place. I loved the research, the peace, the lack of demands. I even loved being the rebel leader. It was far more of a challenge to be the opposition than to actually run the place. It’s funny—always preparing but never acting. That’s just what Dumonia was saying the other—son of a bitch!”
•What’s the matter?”
“That old bastard! Outside of people directly under my control, Dumonia was the only one who knew precisely how to determine this base’s location. He had to—his people stocked it. Why, I ought to…” He was turning so red I feared his rage, but he soon calmed down.
“Oh, hell,” he said, “I guess he had a right. Without him I wouldn’t have all this.”
“You mean the Cerberan betrayed you?”
He nodded. “Had to be.”
“But why?”
“Just to get me to move. Damn it, Park, I’m ready. I’ve been ready for over a year. You saw Bourget—just a little test. That’s why Dumonia was here. We talked and talked and talked, and I gave him a hundred excuses, but hell, the man’s a psych. He knew I would have to be pushed, and so he pushed.”
I frowned. “Who is that man, anyway? Where does he get the resources and power he uses?”
“He’s probably the most dangerous man in the Diamond, and that’s saying something,” Korfl replied. “He could be Lord if he wanted, or just about anything else, I think. He’s absolutely brilliant, particularly at making other powerful people do what he wants. Right now he has the Confederacy and who knows how much of the Diamond doing his bidding. What his motives are I can’t say—but I know it’s not power for its own sake. If he wanted to run things, he would. I asked him once why he was helping me and you know what he said? He said it was a relief from boredom! But, enough of him. He’s kicked me hard now—and I have no choice but to act.”
“You’re going to try and retake control then?”
He nodded. “Now, I don’t want to minimize anything. You’re still new here—a little over a year total, I think. You still don’t really appreciate what we’re up against.”
I waved my hands around. “This place is equipped to take the whole system, and your planet wide underground is effective. I can’t see why you’d have a problem at this stage.”
He smiled grimly. “Ah, but you see only the surface. First of all, we can’t depend on the weapons here. Didn’t you ever wonder why those troopers in Bourget had projectile weapons? I took a great risk with the laser stuff there. One small tabarwind and we’d have been blown to kingdom come.”
“You know, ever since I’ve been on Charon I’ve heard about tabarwinds,” I told him. “And yet they have to be rare. I never saw one, or met anyone who did.”
“It only takes one to scare hell out of you. It’s, a whirling electrical storm that reaches from the ground to the ion layer surrounding the planet. Nobody knows what causes them, but they look like something out of the most fanatical of religious hells. There’s even a religion based on them, if you can believe it. They just appear—i-no cause, no real reason we’ve ever found. They can be anywhere—except here, in the center of Gamush, for some reason. They follow no set path and no logic, and they vanish as quickly as they come. It can be a year between them—and then there can be dozens, even hundreds. Aside from the direct fury of the storm, almost anything electrical within a dozen or more kilometers of the storm just goes crazy. Overloads and explodes, often with a force beyond anything inherent in the exploding device. No sorcery, no force of will can stand against them. And electrical energy attracts them like a magnet.”