sig'Alda was aware of uneasiness and touched the Loop for calm. Addicts . . .His dislike faded under the Loop exercise, and he once more gave the specialist full attention.
"This bag has a blue dot." She handed it to him. "It has the same overall weight, a double-strength dose of Cloud, and a time-release double dose of something you are well familiar with: MemStim."
sig'Alda smiled at the blue dot. Of course!
"Yes," the pharmacist said, apparently pleased with his approval. "Agents use MemStim while reporting to aid the exact recall of events. This particular mix also contains a disinhibitor and an experimental receptor flush-and-bind." The pharmacist dared a smile of her own. "I designed the packets several days ago. Tests on subjects of the approximate mass of the Terran show interesting effects.
"Initial effect is unremarkable to Lethecronaxion: all memory older than a few hours, and, later, memory older than a few minutes, becomes uncertain, clouded—hence the vernacular designation. At the time release, the flush was nearly instantaneous, throwing the subjects from complete cloud-effect to a deep MemStim state. The beauty of the flush-and-bind system is that it ties the MemStim to those receptors most affected by the Lethecronaxion. An addict—or, for that matter, anyone who takes MemStim—has trained receptor sites; in the case of a Cloud user, these sites are most likely to be triggers to painful memories, else why cloud them?" The pharmacist paused, glanced at the commander, and received a wave that indicated she should continue.
"Thus the subjects went from total repression of unwanted memories to a total and enhanced recall. Depending on the amount of alcohol and disinhibitor in their systems, subjects recalled their memories to the point of reexperience. Variously, subjects attempted suicide, became delirious, bit and clawed at themselves, or were otherwise incoherent for periods exceeding half a Standard day. I expect that when the receptor-stimulus time is reached—that is, when another fix is required—there will be another period of disorder."
sig'Alda placed the packets carefully into his belt. The Loop showed a ten-percent gain in Chance of Mission Success, stipulating the opportunity to introduce the mixed drugs to the Terran.
The commander bowed to the drug expert, then toward the weapons man, who began to speak.
"We've run an analysis on yos'Phelium's mission reports and compared it with known events in the recent unreported mission. We have the following guidelines and comparisons." He took a breath, fixed his eyes on a spot above sig'Alda's head, and began.
"First, we have uncovered a bias. The Department had been taking advantage of yos'Phelium's ability to operate close to his targets. This consideration figured in his last mission—terminating an upper-level Terran agent in a bombproofed building. A more carefully factored reading shows that Agent yos'Phelium has a tendency to use a knife or other bladed weapon far more frequently than would have been expected from his training. This affinity leaves him vulnerable to middistance pacification by projectile weapons. He has a good-to-excellent rating with pellet weapons, but Agent sig'Alda's rating is within the margin of error."
The weapons master deigned to meet sig'Alda's eyes. "You," he said calmly, "will take extra practice with a variety of weapons before leaving. You will be equal to yos'Phelium at his best. We have tapes of his practices, and a competition program will be constructed for your practice sessions." He paused and redirected his eyes to a point above sig'Alda's head. "Given Agent yos'Phelium's tendency toward bladed weapons, it is suggested that Agent sig'Alda wear flexi-mesh."
The commander bowed to the three experts. "Your reports are most useful."
The dismissal was clear, and they all rose. sig'Alda stood, as well, but at a glance from the commander he sat again as the experts left the room. Dispassion, control, he repeated to himself.
"Your desire to pursue your mission immediately is appreciated, sig'Alda," the commander said. "You will consider yourself to be on mission now; you will leave this building only to leave the planet under orders. I will now address a resource with which you cannot be familiar."
The commander stood, went to the door, and set the portal locks. Then glancing at a wrist device, he rotated in place.
sig'Alda felt confusion and astonishment. The commander was checking for a spy, here, within the heart of the Department?
The commander returned and sat, hand on table so that the wrist-warn could be seen clearly by both.
"You are among our most excellent agents," he said. "And the one we seek is also among our most excellent agents. Understand this completely and explicitly: Your mission is to find Val Con yos'Phelium and return with him. If he is dead you will provide explicit and complete proof. If you find him alive and he refuses, in spite of all your best persuasions, to return—then you will bring explicit and complete proof that he is dead. His head will do for proof; or several portions of his spinal column."
sig'Alda blinked.
"Yes. I give you precedence. Do you understand?"
"Yes." sig'Alda bowed. "yos'Phelium is to return, even if under extreme compulsion."
"Exactly. We must not, at this juncture in the Plan, allow any Clan an opportunity to question our goals or to subvert our information. Now—extreme compulsion takes several forms. Death is but one of them.
"You have heard it mentioned that your training came after yos'Phelium's. Certain safeguards available to you are not available to him. You, for example, may go into 'Hold'; keeping yourself and your mind closed to outside interference until brought back by a special command issued by myself. This avoids the possibility of interrogation. Earlier implementations were not as secure, nor were they self-activated.
"There is a set sequence of phrase and echo built into Agent yos'Phelium's Loop. When you present the beginning of the sequence, he will respond—he must. If you continue, he must continue. At the conclusion of this sequence, yos'Phelium will be as a tractable imbecile: He will follow orders without question."
The commander glanced at the wrist telltale, then back at the rapt sig'Alda. "You will be the third person to know this sequence. You will not, under any circumstances, divulge or discuss this with anyone but myself or my successor. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Commander."
"Good. Tyl Von sig'Alda clare try qwit—"
He blinked. The phrase had not quite made sense.
The commander was smiling. "All is well, Tyl Von. When the sequence is needed, it is yours by repeating yos'Phelium's name, and then 'clare try qwit glass fer.'"
The commander extended a hand. In it was a small blue pin in the shape of a Liaden glow-gull in full flight.
"You are my deputy, Tyl Von sig'Alda. You may not fail." The agent took the badge of trust and bowed, momentarily touching the commander's cold hand. There was nothing to say.
Val Con settled comfortably in the chair, leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and consciously discounted the sounds being made in other parts of the house by Hakan and his father. He checked heartbeat and respiration and found both within the tolerances for physical relaxation. The Loop was quiet—there was nothing, after all, to calculate, the mission being three days done—and his mind was clear. His status was that of an agent in excellent overall condition.
Deliberately, maintaining calm, he sought the switch level and the switch.
He noted resistance, a flicker that might have been Loop-phenomenon, and a slight acceleration of respiration.
Patiently, he brought his breathing back down and called the logic grid to prime consciousness:
The mission is done. There is no need for the agent to be on constant standby. The switch exists and has tested well in initial action. There is no reason to suspect that it will fail in another instance.
Resistance faded. Val Con achieved the switch level almost immediately and perceived the thing he had constructed within himself on Edger's ship, using the L'apeleka exercises Edger had taught him. He withdrew his whole attention to the switch level, concentrating only on the switch, then reached forth—
Heart rate spiked and he was half out of the chair, gripping the arm rests, gasping, eyes open but seeing inward, where the loop reported Chance of Mission Success at .03.
"Cory?"
He was fully out of the chair at that, spinning to face the intruder, heart stuttering back to normality, CMS fading from his inner eye.
Hakan was holding two mugs, steam gently curling from each. He held one out. "Want some tea?"
"Thank you." Val Con took the thing, slid back into his chair, and looked up at the younger man, seeing trouble in the soft blue eyes.
"Can I talk to you, Cory? About—about what happened."
The battle. Val Con inclined his head, and a measure of relief seemed to enter Hakan's face as he sat on the chair opposite. He stared into his mug.
"The newssheets say we're heroes," the musician said.
That was not new information; the four royal princes who had come over during the last three days to shake their hands had said the same thing, as had the commander of the militia mop-up squadron. Val Con waited.
Hakan looked up, mustache drooping, eyes as sharp as nearsightedness would allow. "Do you feel like a hero, Cory?"
Val Con sighed gently. "Hakan, how do I know?"
"Right," Hakan's gaze dropped to the mug again. "I feel rotten. I—" Then he looked up again, and it seemed that his eyes were filled with tears. "I killed three men.
Three."
He turned to look at the window, voice dropping. "How many did you kill?"
Memory provided an exact tally. "More than three." Val Con sipped his tea. "You did well. Hakan, you did your duty. Besides the three dead, you wounded many and kept them from fighting. Remember that you were armed with only a gun for hunting—"
"That's it!" The other man's face was alight with passion. "That's it exactly! I felt like I was
hunting,
not . . .The one guy, he was—running through the brush, and I knew he was going to have to jump the stream and I just waited for him, Cory. Played him like he was a stag; and when he jumped, I—" His voice cracked, but his passion impelled him to finish. "He jumped and I killed him; and then I was on to the next guy—and I never felt anything, except that
that
was taken care of . . ."
A cool head in battle and the reactions of a pilot. Corrective surgery for the myopia and a bit of training, and he might well have been an adequate agent. Val Con sipped tea.
"You were in the militia. Did they tell you that you might need to kill in battle?" He paused. "You own a gun to hunt with. You say you have hunted and killed before."
"But not a
man,"
Hakan whispered. "I'd never killed a man before, Cory."
"Ah." Val Con considered the reddish depths of his tea. Why does he come to me? he wondered irritably. And he answered himself in the next breath: You were the Agent in Charge. To whom else would he go?
"It is—sad," he began slowly, eyes still turned down, "that men must be killed in battle. It would be better if no person ever—needed—to kill another person." He sighed, groping after concepts that should not be so tenuous, beliefs that had no strength of conviction, though he knew, somewhere very deep within himself, that he believed them with a passion that shadowed Hakan's grief. "The thing you did—the man who jumped and died. That man carried a—a big gun—a
heavy-automatic.
Is that right?"
"You saw him? Yeah, he was carrying a thalich gun. I used one once, in the militia. Thing can really tear up a target."
"So. Think about that man, with that gun, and one more man to guard his back—think about that man on Main Street in Gylles." He glanced up, saw that Hakan was looking vaguely ill, and pushed the point home. "One man, one gun—how many would
he
have killed? People who were unarmed, who were not soldiers, or—children, shopkeepers. Zhena Trelu. Kem."
He leaned forward and touched the other man's arm. Such a gesture seemed required. "You did well, Hakan. I can see no way in which you could have done better, after you decided to disobey me and stay."
Hakan actually grinned, though the expression was a little wobbly around the edges. "Well, what could I do? Miri was in there, and you go walking up to the house, just as cool—with a
knife,
for—I thought at least I could, you know, create a diversion. Keep the guys who were outside busy, so they didn't decide to go in the house. Give you and Miri a chance to get out alive."
"You achieved your goal. You lived through the battle. You have found abilities inside you that you did not know were there. All of this is good, Hakan."
Val Con shifted uncertainly. "You asked me—I have never met a hero. I don't know what a hero feels like. I think that it doesn't matter how
many
men you kill. I think that only animals kill without sadness, even when there is no choice except to kill. I think—you have not been playing your guitar, Hakan. When I have been—troubled—before, I found it was—good—to play music. To let the music help—sort out what has happened."
"Neither one of us has been playing," Hakan agreed. "Might be a good idea—" He made a determined effort, and the grin this time was much better. "There's still Winterfair to practice for, you know." He tipped his head. "My father's got a council meeting tonight. I'll invite Kem over for dinner, and we can practice after, okay?"
Practice? Music? Panic was noted; was contained. "All right . . ."
Hakan was looking at him sharply. "Maybe we could slide by and pick up Miri, too. Bet she's ready to go bats, being cooped up in a house with Zhena Trelu and Zhena Brigsbee."
Miri? Something else was added to the panic and quickly suppressed. "I don't think so, Hakan, thank you."
There was a pause, the expression on the younger man's face unreadable. "Well, okay, man. If you change your mind, though . . ."
"Thank you, Hakan."
The courier ship flashed into existence at the edge of the system, broadcasting on all frequencies, then skipping back into hyperspace on the third repetition of its message.