Cerberus: A WOLF IN THE FOLD (12 page)

 
He shook his head in disbelief. "That's absurd. I would have heard about it."

 
"Would they tell you? So you could do it to them? Look, even Laroo has been on Cerberus less time than you've been around by far, and look what happened to him."

 
Sugal considered that. "How would you do it?"

 
"Given, say, a week and a little inside information.
Ill
know
exactly. I have a rough plan in mind, but it'll need fine-tuning, the kind that can only come when it has a specific objective and target."

 
He looked at me somewhat uneasily. "And why would you do this?
For me?
Don't give me that bull."

 
"No, for me.
What would happen to your position if I could do it? Where would that leave you?"

 
"Probably as a senior vice-president," he told me. "Higher up, certainly, particularly since I'd know it was coining when nobody else did and would be able to pave the way. I know how to do it, but the only opening to the top I had a chance at Khamgirt took. Still, as I said before, what's in it for you? I can hardly promote you to plant manager so suddenly."

 
"No, I don't want much of
an advancement
," I told him. "In fact, I'm thinking of a different direction for myself.
One safe for you.
Do you know Hroyasail?"

 
Again he was caught a little off-guard, which was fine. "Yeah, it's one of our subsidiaries.
Harvests
skrit
offshore.
We use some of the chemicals from it in making insulators. Why?"

 
"I want it," I told him. "Right now the place doesn't even have a president. A company accountant comes down three or four times a year from the home office and that's about it."

 
"Sure. Something that small usually doesn't need one."

 
"I think it does. Me. And the position's already provided for, at least on the organizational chart. All it needs is certification by a senior official.
You
could do that as plant manager—but I'd prefer it coming from a senior vice-president, say."

 
"Now what in hell would you want that for?"

 
"My own reasons.
But it's a nonthreatening position. The kind of job they'll give
you
if Khamgirt gets his way and you fail to meet quota.
A pasture job.
It pays well, has few responsibilities, has no experience prerequisites, and is still within the company. And of course as a company president I'd love to drop around occasionally and gossip with a senior vice-president of my parent corporation."

 
He thought it over. "Supposing—just supposing—you could pull it off. And, again just supposing, I could finagle that post for you. Would I have to watch my own back, then?"

 
"No
, "
I responded as sincerely as I could. "I'm not interested in your job, present or future. That kind of stuff would drive me nuts. This is a company world and I'm just not the company type. Believe me, Mr.
Sugal,
nothing in any of my plans would in any way harm you now or in the future. I like and admire you—but we're two different sorts with two different directions to follow."

 
"I think I believe you," he told me, still sounding uneasy, "but I'm still not sure if I shouldn't be afraid of you."

 
"What can you lose? They have you at their mercy now.
I'm
going to do something, not you. You alone will know that I did it—but neither of us will be able to ever use the information against the other because that's the only way both of us can ever be incriminated. If I fail, you're no worse off than you are now. If I succeed, we both get what we want.
How about it?"

 
Til believe you can do it when I see it done," he said skeptically, "but I can't see anything against it, either."

 
I grinned. "You provide me with a few important bits of information, and I'll almost guarantee it. A deal's a deal." I looked at my watch. "And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going down to change- for the game. Sure you won't play?"

 
He shook his head.
"Big meeting tonight with the area managers.
But—good luck."

 
"I try and keep luck out of it, sir," I told him.

CHAPTER SIX -
Preparations

Sanda Tyne, Dylan Kohl, Turgan Sugal, and, yes, even fat Otah.
Especially him.
The elements were all there.

 
The first thing I did was drop down to a store and
buy
an armload of electric slates. I needed a lot of plotting and planning with hard copy, but I wanted no trace whatsoever to remain after. No innocent slips of paper, no idle tracing to betray me. When the deed was accomplished, I'd have to stay well protected. The scam would be absolute and it would work, but those higher up, far beyond Khamgirt, would smell a rat somewhere, if only because they were variations of people like me and would have a nose for it. They'd know what had occurred was a frame, but even as they allowed Khamgirt to be led away to oblivion of some kind they'd be searching for the culprit Khamgirt wouldn't be sacked because they believed him guilty, but for being so sloppy as to allow such a dirty trick to be played on him.

 
Dylan had exploited much the same weakness in the system when she had broken "free of the motherhood by using a drug most people had never heard about or believed existed. I had no access to such substances, and even if I might get some that wasn't what I wanted. Any controlled substances, particularly those from offworld, could be traced by a determined group of investigators. The key to this plan as it developed was that, even if they figured it out, they would reject the explanation because of its very absurdity. I liked that touch.

 
Even as Sugal got me what I wanted to know—information on night shifts in certain parts of Tooker, various routine business transfer codes, and facts about certain basic computers supplied by Tooker to borough agencies—1 started out to complete my subtle recruitment This was not something that could be done alone, although I would have preferred to do it that way. But what had to be accomplished in very little time was too spread out and complex for any one person to manage. Furthermore, I wanted no chance of interruptions by third parties who might have to be dealt with, so I had to control everybody in the area for a stated period of time. That would be tough. However, I had some things to offer, and some interested parties to offer them to.

 
By now I had Dylan's measure pretty well and was certain of her ability to keep things quiet, including herself, and of her guts to pull off her assignment. Sanda was the problem. Now over seven months pregnant, she had little freedom of movement, and her life in that cloister was beyond my checking. She'd go along with my plan, of course, but I had to trust Dylan's judgment that she'd keep her mouth shut about it.

 
I decided on Dylan first, just because I needed her final evaluation on my pregnant potential weak link.

 
I had to wait for the .weekend to get down there, though, because I needed the time with the information Sugal supplied to work things out. Also after a day chasing borks or at least patrolling for them and then cleaning and checking the boat, Dylan was not very lively company in the evenings. In one way we were incompatible: anybody who liked getting up at dawn to go to work was a bit strange and incomprehensible in my book.

 
I arranged to meet her at a small club in town to make sure that Sanda wouldn't be around. We'd met like this a couple of times before, just to be social—and we had gotten
very
social the last time—but this meeting would be slightly different She was a very attractive woman, though, and even more so when she dressed for a night on the town rather than a day on the sea.

 
We ordered dinner and mostly exchanged small talk, then ate and went out to a small cabaret and did a little drinking and dancing. At the end of the evening, we went over to her apartment as-we had before, but this time I had something additional in mind.

 
And at the right moment as I judged it, while we lay there, relaxed, I finally got to die point. In fact, she provided the opening. "You seemed distracted, far away tonight," she noted.
"Something wrong with you?
Or is it me?"

 
"No, nothing's wrong," I assured her, "but, yes, you're right. Dylan, it's time I came out in the open, I think, and I hope I know you well enough to trust you."

 
She sat up and looked at me, half puzzled, half expectant

 
"Dylan, we've gotten to know each other quite welL I think we somehow complement each other. And we've talked freely about ourselves, I think. Still, what do you know about me?"

 
"You're Qwin Zhang, you're a computer programmer for Tooker, and you came from Outside," she replied. "And you've been an awful lot of places across the galaxy. You were loadmaster on a spaceship. And, according to some friends I know, your name is female on the civilized worlds.
So?
You trying to say you were once a woman?
So what?"

 
"I came here as a woman, yes," I told her, taking the big gamble, "but I wasn't bom in that body. It was Qwin Zhang's body—but I'm not Qwin Zhang.
Not the original one, anyway."

 
"I thought only Cerberans could do that."

 
"It's a different process.
A mechanical one, basically.
But I wasn't a criminal and I wasn't a loadmaster."

 
She was staring at me, fascinated but not apprehensive. "So? Who
are
you, then, and what
did
you do?"

 
"I killed people the Confederacy wanted killed," I told her. "I tracked them down, found them out, and killed them."

 
There was a sharp intake of breath, but no other reaction. Finally she asked, "And they sent you here to kill someone?"

 
I nodded. "Yes. But it's someone who needs it, and since I'm stuck here the same as everybody else, that's important. They might try and kill me if I didn't, but that's beside the point. I'm confident enough they wouldn't succeed, and what they want is what I want, too."

 
"Who?" she asked.
"Wagant Larpo," I told her.

 
She whistled. "They don't think small, do they? And neither do you. Well, at least that explains why you were so interested in Laroo's
Island
."

 
I nodded. "I'm going to do it, Dylan. Nothing is more certain than that—although there are still a lot of steps in the way, and so a lot of time will pass before I can do it. Still it
will
happen.
Nobody
is invulnerable, not even me."

 
"Any particular reason why?"

 
"Problems.
It seems Laroo and the other Lords of the Diamond made a deal with some aliens to help conquer the Confederacy. I don't have real affection one way or the other for the Confederacy, but I have a' lot for the human race."

 
"These—aliens.
What are they like?" "We don't know," I told her. "All we do know is they're so nonhuman that there's no way they can do their own dirty work. That's why the Four Lords were hired. I'm sure they figure they'll get revenge and be on the winning side, but we don't know about these aliens. After they crack the Confederacy they might just decide they don't need ms any more, either. They're trying to find out all they can about these creatures, whoever and whatever they are, but the only common link is the Warden Diamond. And one way of at least throwing a curve is to eliminate the Four Lords as currently constituted. A power struggle would disrupt things, buy time—and the new Lords might not be so thrilled about cooperating with and trusting these allies. I drew Laroo,
But
after seeing how he runs things here, I'd like a shot at bun anyway. There are better, freer ways to run things than this, ones that don't cost people so much of their self-respect.

 
You only have to think of the motherhood to know what I mean."

 
"I'm not too sure I follow that last bit, but the rest I understand," she said. "I don't think anybody, not even the Four Lords, can commit people like me to help these aliens. All I keep thinking about is a race of sly, clever borks."

 
"Perhaps," I told her. "Or they might be a lot more appealing—it makes no difference. We don't know anything except that they're
very
nonhuman. Until I get a lot more assurances, that's all I need to know. We here in the Warden Diamond are sitting ducks when they don't need us any more. A civilization capable of crossing space and subtle enough to hire the Four Lords isn't one I could trust with my future."