“We have taken no action concerning this threat for several reasons.
“First, we lose nothing by allowing the Bill to confront Angus Thermopyle on our behalf. Ultimately he is”—Vestabule appeared momentarily uncertain of the word he wanted—“expendable. We are not harmed if he is challenged and made insecure. On the contrary, we gain a greater understanding of the threat itself.
“In particular we hope to gain a greater understanding of Nick Succorso’s treachery.”
In bitterness and fear, Milos admitted privately that he wanted to understand Nick’s treachery himself.
“Second,” Vestabule went on without pausing, “Angus Thermopyle and Nick Succorso are natural antagonists. This is a concept which is not comprehensible to the Amnion, but which I have been able to retain.
“I am”—he lifted his shoulders like a shrug—“as you see me. Portions of my former body remain. Similarly portions of my former mind remain. I am able to grasp that Angus Thermopyle and Nick Succorso cannot form an alliance without simultaneously seeking to betray each other. Granted enough scope, they will expose each other’s truths and undermine each other’s strengths, thereby rendering each other ineffective.”
Milos might have sneered at this proposition, but the Amnioni didn’t wait for his reaction.
“Naturally the question of ‘scope’ is critical. It is possible—indeed, it is probable—that the threats they pose, separately and together, will become so acute that we cannot afford to allow them enough scope. Nevertheless while we can we wait, searching for the truth.
“Third, it is our experience that Angus Thermopyle is inherently less dangerous to us than Nick Succorso.”
Milos couldn’t help himself: he gaped in surprise. “You’re kidding. Nick’s just a pirate. Thermopyle is the slime of the universe.”
Vestabule’s alien eye held the yellow light humorlessly. “Both as a cyborg and as a human,” he asserted, “we distrust Thermopyle less. As a cyborg, he is limited as well as enhanced by his programming. And as a human his malice is too pure to permit the profounder forms of treachery.
“This is not speculation, Milos Taverner,” he said as if he were articulating a fact which had no personal impact. “I have direct experience with Angus Thermopyle, during my life among your kind. At one time I crewed aboard a vessel named Viable Dreams, an in-system hauler which fulfilled the support function of transshipping ores discovered by prospectors. It was an unglamorous labor, but profitable. However, we were hijacked by Angus Thermopyle. Twenty-eight men and women, the survivors of our crew, he brought here and sold to the Amnion.”
The calm with which Vestabule revealed this detail chilled Milos as much as his rusted flesh and sharp teeth.
“I understand his limits,” the Amnioni continued. “His behavior, both on that occasion and subsequently, has made his essential nature plain. For that reason we are disinclined to dispose of him when he may yet serve us against Nick Succorso.
“Finally, you control him, do you not?” Vestabule’s human eye blinked rapidly, signaling an intensity which his posture and expression concealed. “Why should we take action against him, when you are able to command him at will?
“Is that not what you wished the Bill to understand when you compelled Angus Thermopyle to ingest your discarded—I have forgotten the word—your nicotine sticks in clear view of the surveillance monitors? Have you not deliberately created circumstances which would lead the Bill to believe that you—and perhaps therefore we—stand at the heart of this treachery?”
“No!” Milos could hardly breathe: his mask was full of fear, suffocating him. “That’s not it!” If the Amnion believed that, he was finished, finished. “I was just testing him—trying to prove he still obeys my codes. I haven’t told you why I’m here. It was all a lie. I believed it, but it was a lie. I came to talk to you as soon as I learned the truth.”
“What is the lie? What is the truth?” Vestabule touched the side of his head. “The Bill is passionate in his demand for your delivery. He hints that your presence here violates our agreements with him. How can we answer, except by granting what he wishes, if we do not comprehend what has brought you here?”
Don’t do it! Milos fluttered his hands, almost begging for a chance to explain. Don’t let him have me.
“I don’t know how big it is,” he panted urgently, “the lie. I don’t know how far it goes. It may or may not have anything to do with destroying this installation. All I know is, it has something to do with Morn Hyland, that woman Nick gave you. Davies Hyland’s mother. I told you about her—a long time ago. She’s UMCP—an Enforcement Division ensign.”
“Nick Succorso made no mention of this,” Vestabule observed in a tone as dead as ruined metal. “When he delivered her to us, he retained her id tag.”
Milos might have heard hints in Vestabule’s words, possibilities of survival; but he was too frightened to concentrate on them. Driven by the pressure of his heart, he went on talking, explaining.
“Thermopyle got his hands on her, gave her a zone implant so he could use her. But Nick wanted her. He took her when we framed Thermopyle. That was a UMCP deal, too. I told you Nick works for them sometimes. They wanted Thermopyle framed. So they could req him. Nick did it in exchange for her.”
“What is the significance of this?” the Amnioni asked flatly.
“It’s Thermopyle’s programming.” The sweat on Milos’ hands made them feel foul; corrupted. “I’m supposed to be able to control him. I’m supposed to guarantee that he does what he was sent here to do. That means I have to know what it is. To destroy the installation. But Hashi Lebwohl was in charge of the whole project. He told me specifically, explicitly, that we were not here to rescue Morn Hyland. Even though she’s UMCP. Even though Thermopyle wants her back. As far as UMCPHQ is concerned, she’s lost, dead. Thermopyle was supposed to ignore her. And I was supposed to make sure he did.”
The breathing mask seemed to stifle Milos’ outrage. He wanted to shout, but couldn’t get enough air.
“Do you understand what I’ve told you about him? His head is full of zone implants, all run by a computer. And his codes and instructions are written in a datacore, where they can’t be altered. I have power over him because I know some of those codes, but it’s the computer that enforces them. He can’t make his own choices. It’s physically impossible.
“But he is making his own choices. He’s making choices that violate his programming—that violate what I was told his programming is.
“They aren’t what you think.” Unconscious of his own actions, Milos scrubbed his hands harder and harder against his thighs. “Nick may be plotting against you—or against the Bill—but Thermopyle isn’t. He’s plotting to get Morn Hyland back. He snatched Davies because Nick offered him a trade, Morn for the kid. He didn’t know you already had her. So now he’s planning to come after her. He kept Davies, and the two of them are going to try to get her back.
“Do you see what that means? I’m supposed to control him—but Hashi Lebwohl lied to me. Warden Dios lied to me.” On this one subject, you were misled. “They’re using me as some kind of shill. Thermopyle can’t make his own choices, so he must be acting on the instructions in his datacore, instructions I don’t know about—instructions that sometimes let him override my command codes.”
Can’t you understand that we’re all being set up here?
Faintness was beginning to spin through his head like vertigo. With the pressure of his palms against his thighs, he tried to push it down.
“Interesting,” Marc Vestabule observed after a long pause. “There are indeed many facets here, many concerns. You speak of some—yet you make no mention of others. Are you unaware of them, Milos Taverner, or does your silence conceal other truths?”
The vertigo seemed to suck Milos’ mind away, leaving nothing behind except a fine white panic. Grinding his fingers into his legs so that he wouldn’t scream, he asked thickly, “What ‘other truths’? I don’t k
now what you’re talking about.”
For a moment Vestabule’s human eye became as unblinking as the Amnion one. “Are you unaware,” he inquired, “that both Nick Succorso and Morn Hyland possess a quality which must make them uniquely precious to the UMCP?”
Milos stared back at the Amnioni stupidly. “What quality?”
Vestabule made a small warding gesture with his crusted arm. “Both possess an immunity to mutagens. Twice the same compound which transformed me has been administered to her. She remains human—as Nick Succorso himself once did.
“Unfortunately this installation lacks the facilities for adequate study. We can only determine that her immunity exists. We cannot define how it exists.
“Will you tell me, Milos Taverner, that you know nothing of this?” The rust had been rubbed away: now Vestabule’s tone was pure iron. “Will you tell me that the true purpose of Nick Succorso’s visits to Enablement Station was not to test his immunity?
“Will you tell me that the true purpose for which he delivered Morn Hyland to us was not to make us aware of the existence of this immunity, thereby informing us that humankind is defended against us—and thereby warning us that humankind is now prepared to engage us in war if we do not retreat from our imperatives?
“Will you tell me that the true purpose for which Angus Thermopyle was sent here was not to retake Morn Hyland before we could study her—before we could discover the source or nature of her immunity?”
“No!” Milos protested at once. “I’m not going to tell you any of those things! Maybe they’re true. For all I know, they could be. What I’m here to tell you—”
Abruptly his brain froze. Through his white, blind panic came a black flash like a streak of intuition.
They could all be true.
Then why did Hashi Lebwohl lie? What did he gain by trying to convince me Thermopyle had a completely different mission?
Another flash.
Unless he already knew the truth about me.
He lied to me because he knew I would pass his lies on.
And another.
He sent me here to get rid of me. He wanted the Amnion to do his dirty work for him when they discovered that what I told them wasn’t true.
Panting feverishly, Milos said in supplication, “I’m here to give you everything I have. I came as soon as I knew the cops were lying.
“Thermopyle has a secret mission.” He wanted to rip off his mask and throw it away; let the Amnion air sear his lungs until all the dread was burned out of him. “It has something to do with Morn Hyland. He’s coming to try to get her away from you. And he’s bringing her son with him.
“That’s it. That’s all I have.”
With one exception—
“But if you keep me alive—if you back me up—I might be able to stop him. And if I do that, you can almost certainly catch Davies again.” He was desperate: he’d reached his own absolute limit. One by one his choices and hopes had been stripped away. Only this remained. “You’ll get them both. You probably can’t mutate Thermopyle. His datacore will kill him before it lets that happen. But you can study him, learn everything about him. And you’ll have Davies to do what you want with.”
Vestabule regarded Milos steadily: the Amnioni sat as still as a tombstone, untouched by Milos’ appeal.
“Isn’t that enough?” Milos cried. “What more do you want from me?”
Vestabule stirred; shifted his legs. “Milos Taverner,” he said like cold, cleaned metal, “I urge you to refrain from fear. It gains nothing. We will keep you alive. We will give you our support. I do not mean to frighten you when I say that your usefulness is at an end.”
His human hand slid into the pocket of his shipsuit.
“These are concepts which no Amnioni can process without great difficulty. For many of my people they are impossible. Even for me they stretch the limits of comprehension. Nevertheless it is necessary to comprehend them.
“While serving both Com-Mine Security and the United Mining Companies Police, you have dealt with us, trading your knowledge of them for credit. Though it is difficult for us to understand, we must assume that you have dealt similarly with them, trading your knowledge of us for credit.”
No, Milos wanted to protest, no, of course not! But Vestabule’s alien gaze held him; Vestabule’s iron tone struck him dumb.
“After the events which have taken place here,” the Amnioni continued, “this network of dealings will no longer be fruitful for us. Therefore our relationship must be altered. Between you and us, Milos Taverner, conformity of purpose will be achieved through the mutual satisfaction of requirements.
“You require life and support.
“We require you.”
From out of his pocket, Marc Vestabule pulled a hypo. The vial of the hypo held a viscid liquid, as dark as poison.
Screaming, Milos flung himself out of his chair. Vestabule caught him easily, however. One Amnioni hand gripped him, as tight as a flexsteel band; one human fist drove like a piston into his solar plexus.
Fear as fathomless as the gap between the stars shocked Milos’ nerves. Locked in spasms while his neurons misfired, he couldn’t defend himself as Vestabule pierced his forearm with the hypo and released mutagens into his veins.
ANCILLARY DOCUMENTATION
WARDEN DIOS: EXTRACTS FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF HASHI LEBWOHL, DIRECTOR, DATA ACQUISITION, UNITED MINING COMPANIES POLICE
[This extract is dated several months prior to Angus
Thermopyle’s arrest by Com-Mine Security.]
owhere is the particular and peculiar genuis of the man more evident than in his handling of the matter of the Intertech immunity drug.
I have had occasion to note in previous entries that he is my superior because he possesses a quality of charisma—the ability to lead by inspiration—which I lack. In other ways, however, I consider him my only peer—certainly my only peer in the hallowed bastion of UMCPHQ. Yet I must acknowledge that I would have been hard-pressed to manage the crisis which Intertech’s immunity research represented as well as he did. Perhaps because I lack charisma, I might not have been able to obtain—as he did—the most desirable of all possible outcomes….
… the issue is difficult to explain because an understanding of its parameters requires an understanding of Holt Fasner, and an explication of Holt Fasner’s motivations is not a challenge to be undertaken lightly. Speculation is both easier and less useful than true insight.
I might, for example, consider the possibility that the common view of the Dragon is inadequate. Of course, I do not refer to the public perception that he is simply the most wealthy, dominant, commanding, glamorous, and therefore necessary man living. Rather I mean to cite the view which commonly underlies the public perception—the view that he is a man driven by avarice, impelled by greed to risk all human space against the Amnion for the sake of the UMC’s profitability. This view is inadequate because the difference between unimaginable riches and even more unimaginable riches is ultimately trivial.
Instead I might speculate that his avarice is not for wealth, but for power—that he is driven by a desire for godhood, a yearning to attain the stature of unquestionable as well as unavoidable fate for the whole of humankind. And I might further observe that all human aspirations to godhood must fail while the Amnion and death exist. Finally I might conclude that it is this ineluctable failure which both confirms Holt Fasner’s lust for power and erodes his ability to control it.
But having said all that, what have I accomplished? Have I shed any light into the dark heart of the Dragon in his lair? Have I altered any of the decisions which must be made, the actions which must be taken, concerning him? I have not. I have only constructed a guesswork edifice for my own edification and amusement….
… accept, then, the underlying common view that Holt Fasner is cemented to his own fate by ordinary acquisitiveness—that all his great attainments and cunning are dedicated to the uninteresting goal of acquiring meaningle
ss increments of wealth. Does this imply a concomitant acceptance of the commonly held underlying view of Warden Dios, that he is nothing more than the perfect instrument of Holt Fasner’s will? that he is at once so brilliant and so mindless that he can serve Holt Fasner purely, untainted by needs and desires of his own? that he lacks both of those glorious human foibles, scruple and ambition?
Certainly not. It is patent that brilliance and mindlessness cannot coexist, that ambition metastasizes exponentially in the absence of scruple. Holt Fasner QED. Therefore it follows as naturally as humans fear pain that Warden Dios is not the Dragon’s instrument, but rather his natural enemy.
This explains the Dragon’s selection of him as director of the UMCP. How better to both defang and profit from a natural enemy than by binding him to yourself, sealing him away within your own structures and exigencies, so he cannot serve himself without also serving you? If Warden Dios were not the director of the UMCP, Holt Fasner would have to kill him.
Yet this is a paradox—at once fertile and dangerous—because Warden Dios’ needs and ambitions can never be identical to the Dragon’s.
Intertech’s immunity research provides a case in point.
Grant for a moment that Warden Dios is another Holt Fasner—less confirmed in his lust for power, less eroded in his ability to control it, but another Dragon nonetheless. Precisely because he has been less confirmed, less eroded, he cannot aspire to supplant his nominal master. Yet what other outlets remain for his ambitions? What other needs or priorities might his brilliance serve? And—do not neglect this point—how else can his natural enmity to the Dragon express itself?
Perhaps by identifying himself with the UMCP rather than with the UMC. By assigning to the UMCP an importance which he denies to the vaster and less specific domain of the Dragon. By affirming the stated purposes and restrictions of the UMCP at the expense of Holt Fasner and the UMC.