Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail (30 page)

I really was impressed. “I’d like to see the whole thing sometime,” I said dryly.

“Oh, perhaps you might, but we will show you only a few departments today, I think. You’ll be fascinated by what we’re doing in those areas, I think.”

“Alien psychology?”

She laughed. “No, sorry, that’s off limits. You understand we have to be somewhat circumspect with you since we know that you carry some sort of broadcaster inside your head. Until that goes I’m afraid your movements will be rather limited here.”

“How do you know about that?” I asked, not bothering to deny it. This wasn’t a fishing expedition—they knew a whole hell of a lot.

“We know a bit from some of your compatriots. You may be interested to know that the agent sent to Lilith
did
manage to kill Marek Kreegan, although in a rather oblique way, and that Aeolia Matuze of Charon is also dead, partly thanks to your man there. On Cerberus, though, your man failed, and did a most interesting thing—he joined our side without even making a. real attempt at Laroo.”

That
was
news, most of it welcome. Two out of four wasn’t bad at all, everything considered. Her comment further indicated that none of the other three had revealed that they were, in fact, the same person as myself. I wondered about the turncoat on Cerberus, though—was his conversion sincere, or some sort of ongoing ruse? The fact .that he was alive and apparently influential indicated to me that he couldn’t be counted out.

“I suppose it’s too late for me to defect,” I said half-seriously.

“I’m afraid so. Defections under duress are
so
undependable. It really was nothing personal, either, that you failed. You accomplished a tremendous amount that we would have thought impossible, and you’ve caused a major reassessment of our entire monitoring system. In fact, if you hadn’t attacked the Altavar on your way out, you would still be free and a tremendous threat to us. Even so, you could have escaped. You have a weak spot, a sentimental streak, that your compatriots seem to lack. It’s what’s done you in.”

I shrugged. “I owed it to them to see what I could do. Besides, if I couldn’t pull it off, I was neutralized anyway, with no hope of ever really doing anything beyond living with the Wild Ones. Call it the testing of a theory—and the theory proved wrong. I simply underestimated the system. Just out of curiosity, though, I’d like to know when you got on to me.”

“We knew you were in Gray Basin when we sent somebody to check on the missing monitor at the station,” she told me. “However, we really didn’t have any idea of who you were until you punched Ching Lu Kor into the computer. Since the monitor you were pretending to be didn’t have knowledge of, interest in, or anything to do with that case, it raised a flag here. From that point on, of course, we had you. We were pretty certain it
was
you, since few others would have the combination of nerve and timing to pull off such a thing even that far.” She paused, then added, “You should have kept switching identities every hour or so.”

I nodded, then added, “I could still have gotten away if I hadn’t misjudged how long I’d slept. That was my key mistake and I admit it. One little mistake in a long string of successes, but that’s all you get in this business.”

“That’s why the system always wins. We can make a hundred mistakes, but you can make only one.”

‘Tell that to those two you said are dead.”

The comment didn’t faze her. “Their systems were quite different from ours. Technology doesn’t even work on Lilith, and it’s easily negated by a strong mind on Charon. They will have to develop systems better suited to their own homes, as we have evolved this one.”

“I’m not very impressed with this one,” I told her. “It’s a dull, stupefying world of sheep you’ve created down there, people without drive, ambition, or guts. And for the elite on top, human slaves kept as status pets—like something out of the Dark Ages of man.”

She didn’t take offense. Her reply, in fact, was indirect and at first I didn’t see where she was going. “Tell me one thing that’s puzzled me, Tarin Bul or whatever your name is. Just one thing. I know you’ve been conditioned so that we can’t get any information from you by force, but I
would
like to know the answer to one question.”

“Perhaps. What is it?”

“Why?”

“Why what?” I was very confused.

“Are you really as blindly naive as you say you are, or is there a real reason why you continued doggedly on your mission once you were here?”

“I told you I found your system repugnant.”

“Do you really? And what are the civilized worlds if not an enormous collection of sheep, bred to be happy, bred to do their specific jobs without complaint, and also without ambition or imagination. They look prettier, that’s all—but they don’t have to survive the hard climate of Medusa. What you see down there is simply a local adaptation, a reflection of the civilized worlds themselves. And do you know why? Because most people
are
sheep and are perfectly content to be led if they are guaranteed security, a home, job, protection, and a full belly. In the whole history of humankind, whenever people demanded democracy and total independence and got it, they were willing and eager to trade their precious freedom for security—every time. Every time. To the strong-willed, the people who knew what to do and had the guts to do it. The people who prize personal power above all else.”

“We don’t have cameras in people’s bathrooms,” I responded lamely.

“Because you don’t
need
cameras in the bathroom. You’ve had centuries of the best biotechnology around to breed out all thoughts of deviant activity, and a barrier not of energy but of tens of thousands of light-years of space to keep out social contamination. The few who slip by, people like you, are sent here. That’s why so many of them wind up in charge, and why the system here is a reflection of the civilized worlds. We grew up there, too, Bul, so it’s the system we know and understand best. We’re the people most fit to rule, not by our own say-so, but the Confederacy’s. That’s why we got sent here.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but nothing came out.

There had to be a flaw in the logic somewhere, but I could find none. However, accepting her thesis didn’t make things any more pleasant. “If I admit the point, then all I can say is that the system itself is corrupt, bankrupt, and wrong, whether it’s here or in the Confederacy.”

‘Then you
are
naive. Both Medusa and the Confederacy have given the masses exactly what all the social reformers have clamored for all these years—peace, plenty, economic and social equality,
security.
All other alternatives that are not variations of the plan have resulted in mass privation. You saw nothing wrong with the Confederacy while you were there because you were a part of the power structure, not one of the sheep. You chafed-here because we tried to make you a sheep. But if you’d come in as a government official, perhaps a monitor officer, you’d have felt right at home.”

“I doubt that now,” I told her. “I have lost my faith.”

‘Then, perhaps, that’s why you really did what you did. Think about it. You could have been home free, yet you persisted. You could have turned back at several points, yet you came on against hopeless odds. That isn’t the act of a trained Confederacy assassin, even a disillusioned one. You came willingly because you know what I say is true. You cannot accept the system in any form, yet you accept the fact that it is the best one. For one like you, living as a savage in a dead-end existence would eventually drive you crazy, yet you could not embrace the system. You didn’t really came after us to rescue anyone, Bul. You came here to surrender, and you did. There is no place in this world for one like you, and you know it.”

I didn’t want to believe that what she said was true, and I would not admit her conclusions no matter what. I had no desire for suicide, no need to purge myself. She had it only partly right, I realized, and I would not give her the satisfaction of admitting even that to her. I could
not
exist on Medusa; there
was
no place on it for one like me. I came either to destroy the system or die trying.

Or was I just kidding myself?

“What happens to me now?” I asked her.

“Well, first J think we should give you something of an education, I think, perhaps, we should first take you to your friends. It should be interesting to see your reactions to our rather unique art form.”

We stood on a walk overlooking a vast expanse of plant growth. In many ways it was reminiscent of a resort complex back in the civilized worlds, with white sandy beaches, small pools of clear water fed by artfully constructed artificial waterfalls, and a safe but beautiful flower-filled planned jungle.

‘The First Minister’s personal pleasure garden,” Fallen told me. “A place to totally relax and get away from it all.”

I squinted and looked down. “There are people down there.”

She nodded. “The garden is staffed by several dozen Goodtime Girls,” she told me. “They are there to fulfill his every wish, indulge his every whim, as well as keep the ‘ place in perfect condition.”

“At least
in
the Confederacy we don’t turn people into robotized slaves,” I noted acidly. That was one clear difference.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Fallen admitted. “However, you killed four people in cold blood just to get this far, and who knows how many others over your career? The Confederacy takes the so-called criminals people like you catch and either totally wipes their minds and rebuilds childlike, menial personalities, or they totally remake your psyche into their own image if they can. In extremely violent cases, they simply kill the people. They send only the best to the Warden Diamond, but only because they have done something unusual or creative—or are highly connected politically, which is the most important factor in being sent here, since someday those determining the criminal’s fates may be caught doing something naughty and sent down themselves. The difference between the Council and the Congress and the so-called criminals like Talant Ypsir and Aeolia Matuze, two former government members, is only that Ypsir and Matuze made some enemies and so were prosecuted. They’re no different from any other Confederacy rulers. The personality goes with the job.”

“But—slaves out of some thirteen-year-old boy’s wet dreams?”

“They serve a purpose. All are criminals by
our
standards. Their guilt is not in doubt in the least. The strongest and cleverest we send to the moons of Momrath—
our
Warden Diamond, you might say. The rest, the ones who cannot be trusted to continue at all, we either kill or change. We change them. We make them useful. In many ways we’re more humane than the Confederacy. Come.”

We walked back into the main station complex and past a door that read psych section, authorized personnel only. I knew what the next stop was. My faithful armed guard, who had not so much uttered a word or changed her dour expression, followed.

“Originally the idea was just to change the mind-set into something useful,” Fallon continued, seemingly enjoying the grand tour she was giving me. “We have, after all, a lot more menial jobs than the civilized worlds. But we discovered that when we did a wipe on a Medusan, a funny thing happened. The body, whether male or female, reverted to a primal female form as well.” We stopped in front of a door, which opened for us. We entered an observation room for a psych machine. “Recognize the subject in the chair?” she asked me.

I looked hard. Connected as she was to all sorts of tubes, sensors, and the like, it was at first difficult to get a good look at the woman “on the couch,” as psychs liked to call it. Still, I recognized the general facial features and. form quite well. “Ching,” I sighed.

She nodded. “We’re almost to the state we call ‘at rest’ in our process here. You can see that the skin is abnormally soft and pliant, there is no hair or any blemish or unusual feature. The basic form is female but not unusually so.”

I nodded, feeling sick again. So this was what this business was all about. They were going to take great pleasure in making me watch, and I knew they could force me whether I wanted to or not.

“It’s actually rather unfortunate that all Medusans reach this base female pliancy. It would be useful to have some Goodtime Boys. But don’t think that all Goodtime Girls are mere sex objects. I’m afraid many of our top male administrators prefer to use them that way, as does the First Minister, but there can be a number of different types. My two, for example”, are like very muscular young boys, very cute. Female, of course, but you’d hardly know.

It’s the new art form I was talking about. The artists are our top psychs, who can actually feed information through the psych machines to the Wardens within a body, once all mental resistance is eliminated. Goodtime Girls to order, according to preference. All still smart, able to learn all sorts of things as instructed, and all totally and completely devoted to their owners.”

“Who is … she being made up for?” I asked, my previous meal turning sour in my stomach as I watched.

“Haval Kunser. He is my counterpart on the planet itself, you might say. He runs the administrative side of the government. Both of us are equals, just, below the First Minister, who sets the policies we carry out. Of course, Hav probably won’t keep her. He’ll give her to somebody as a reward or something. We even export a few to the other Diamond worlds. Ah! I see the psych is ready. Now watch.”

“I don’t want to see any more,” I snapped.

“What you want is of no concern,” she responded coolly. “I can freeze you in place and make you, so shut up. Whining doesn’t become a Confederacy assassin.”

And, of course, she was right. How different, really, was this from the young woman I’d killed on the train platform? The only real difference was that I hadn’t
known
that woman. Maybe Fallen
was
right, after a fashion, I told myself. The more I looked at myself coldly and dispassionately, the less I liked what I saw.