“No race lasts long enough to reach the stars and do all that this one has done unless it first acts in its own self-interest,” the computer noted. “We can probably dismiss the evil concept of the criminal on one of dozens of bases, the most probable being that these aliens are subjectively terrifying to look at, or smell putrid, or something of that sort. It is hardly likely that their evolution, even given some of the same basics as humankind, is anything like that of humans.”
He nodded. “I keep thinking of Morah’s inhuman eyes. He claims he is not a robot and that he is the same Yatek Morah sentenced to the Diamond more than forty years ago. We need not believe him, and should not, but let’s for a moment take his statements at face value. If he is who and what he claims to be—then why those eyes?”
“A Warden modification, possibly self-induced for effect. He could do it easily on Charon.”
“Perhaps. But, perhaps, too, those eyes mean something more. What does he see with them? And how? A broader spectrum, perhaps? I don’t think they are totally for effect. For protection, maybe? I wonder …”
“Still, the bottom line remains your report,” the computer noted. “I will admit that I, too, am somewhat curious, even though I have the basics.”
“Medusa first. Let’s complete the set. Maybe my missing piece will be found there. Or, maybe, what I experience will jog my mind to see those missing implications. It can’t hurt.”
“But Talant Ypsir lives. The mission is incomplete there.”
“We are beyond caring about the Lords of the Diamond now, I think, except, perhaps, in some sort of solution if one is possible. I need information. Medusa will have the most direct contacts with the aliens. Let me get the information I need.”
“But whether or not it is there, you will still make your report after that?”
He nodded. “I’ll make my report.” He got up and walked forward to the central console, then sat down in the large padded chair and adjusted it for maximum comfort. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.” The computer lowered the probes, which the agent carefully attached to his forehead. Now he simply lay back and relaxed, hardly feeling the computer-induced injection that cleared his mind and established the proper state for receipt and filtration of this kind of information.
Thanks to an organic module inside the brain of his other self down there on Medusa, every single thing that had happened to that other self was transmitted to the computer as raw data. Now it would be fed into the mind of the original in the chair, filtered—the basics and unimportant matter discarded by his own mind—and that other self would give a basic report both to the agent in the chair and to the computer as if the man were there in that room—which, in a very broad and very odd sense, he was.
The drugs and small neural probes did their job. His own mind and personality receded, replaced by a similar, yet oddly different pattern.
“The agent is commanded to report,” the computer ordered, sending the command deep into the agent’s mind, a mind no longer quite his own.
Recorders clicked on.
Slowly, the man in the chair cleared his throat. He mumbled, groaned, and made odd, disjointed words and sounds, as his mind received, coded, and classified the incoming data, adjusted it all, and sorted it out.
Finally, the man began to speak.
CHAPTER ONE
Rebirth
After Krega’s talk and a little preparation to put my own affairs in order—this would be a long one—I checked into the Confederacy Security Clinic. I’d been here many times before, of course—but not knowingly for this purpose. Mostly, this was where they programmed you with whatever information you’d need for a mission and where, too, you were “reintegrated.” Naturally, the kind of work I did was often extralegal, a term I prefer to illegal, which implies criminal intent—and much of it was simply too hot to ever be known. To avoid such risks, all agents, of course, had their own experience of sensitive missions wiped from their minds when they were over.
It may seem like a strange life, going about not knowing where you have been or what you’ve done, but it has its compensations. Because any potential enemy, military or political, knows you’ve been wiped, you can live a fairly normal, relaxed life outside of a mission structure. There’s no purpose in coming after you—you have no knowledge of what you’ve done, or why, or for whom. In exchange for these blanks, an agent of the Confederacy lives a life of luxury and ease, with an almost unlimited supply of money, and with all the comforts supplied. I bummed around, swam, gambled, ate in the best restaurants, played a little semi-pro ball or cube—I’m pretty good, and the exercise keeps me in shape. I enjoyed every minute of it, and except for my regular requalification training sessions—four-to-six-week stints that resemble military basic training only nastier and more sadistic—I felt no guilt over my playboy life. The training sessions, of course, make sure that your body and mind don’t stagnate from all that good living.
They implant sensors in you that they constantly monitor and decide when you need a good refresher.
I often wondered just how sophisticated those sensors were. Having a whole security staff witness all my debauchery and indiscretions once worried me, but after a while I learned to ignore it.
The life offered in trade is just too nice. Besides, what could I do about it? People on most of the civilized worlds these days had such sensors, although hardly to the degree and sophistication of mine. How else could a population so vast and so spread out possibly be kept orderly, progressive, and peaceful?
But, of course, when a mission came up you couldn’t afford to forego all that past experience you’d had. A wipe without storage simply wouldn’t have been very practical, since a good agent gets better by not repeating bis mistakes. In the Security Clinic they had everything you ever experienced, and the first thing you did was go and get the rest of you put back so you would be whole for whatever mission they’d dreamed up this time.
I was always amazed when I got up from that chair with my past fully restored. Clear as my memory was once again, it was hard to believe that I, of all people, had done this or that.
The only difference this time, I knew, was that the process would be taken one step further. Not only would the complete “me” get up from that table, but the same memory pattern would be impressed on other minds, other bodies—as many as needed until a “take” was achieved.
I wondered what they’d be like, those four other versions of myself. Physically different, probably—the offenders on the Warden Diamond weren’t usually from the civilized worlds, where people had basically been standardized in the name of equality. No, these people would come from the frontier, from among the traders and miners and free-boosters who operated there, and who were, of course, necessary in an expanding culture since a high degree of individuality, self-reliance, originality, and creativity was required in the dangerous environment in which they lived. A stupid government would have eliminated all such, but a stupid government degenerates into stagnancy or loses its vitality and growth potential by standardization. Utopia was for the masses, of course, but not for everyone or it wouldn’t be Utopia very long.
That, of course, was the original reason for the Warden Diamond Reserve. Some of these hardy frontier people are so individualistic that they become a threat to the stability of the civilized worlds. The trouble is, anybody able to crack the fabric that holds our society together has, most likely, the smartest, nastiest, most original sort of mind humanity can produce—and, therefore, he is not somebody who should be idly wiped clean. The Diamond, it was felt, would effectively trap those individuals forever, yet allow them continued creative opportunities. Properly monitored, they might still produce something of value for the Confederacy—if only an idea, a thought, a way of looking at something that nobody else could evolve.