Blind, she could hardly pass herself off as someone new in security, nor could
the sisters, with their terrible scars. She had to think as Song Ching would
think—as Song Ching’s father would think.
You say there is much human experimentation and some two-way traffic. Is this
place never used to modify or repair Earth people?
That is a primary function. Those whom the Presidium wish to use but who cannot
be allowed to continue to exist as they are, for example, are sent there and
changed radically. A death is convincingly faked for them on Earth and recorded
with Master System. Also, there are enhancements and repairs of grave injuries
suffered doing things which cannot be registered with Master System.
Then we will go to Melchior with our records modified, she told it. I will
give you my story and then cover stories for the other two. You will prepare
supporting documentation. We will be not prisoners but patients.
This is dangerous. I have no hypnotics or master mindprinter aboard. You will
have to give convincing performances, at least until you can get clandestine
access to a mindprinter yourself. One curious hypno or security examination will
expose all three. One slip will expose all three.
We will have to risk it. Orders and paperwork and records often supersede
common sense. It is why I have gotten this far. I have some codes and overrides,
a knowledge of the equipment, and I will not be a prisoner but a patient.
Besides, no one ever breaks in to Melchior.
You have no idea what they can do in there, the pilot warned. It is said that
if Master System knew, it would blow the whole place to pieces.
It is the best of a bad set of alternatives, she responded, but inwardly she
was excited. Change identities, change personalities, change into whole new
people … You have no idea what they can do in there. Might not even Chu Li
perhaps live again? Might not the Chows gain outer beauty to match their inner
selves? Considering how far she’d already come, nothing was beyond reach.
Uh—if we go to Melchior under those conditions, what about Sabatini?
He is already past the normal preservation stage and has been placed in a
cryogenic condition. I can keep him there at least until I return to Earth
orbit. By that time, you should either be away or exposed. In either case it
will make no difference.
Very well. Let’s do it.
Hawks! The voice echoed through the subterranean garden. Where’s the heap big
Hyiakutt chief now, eh? Come talk to Raven!
There was a rustle and the sound of a large body dropping to the ground and
coming toward the edge of the garden and its forcefield.
Even though he’d been well briefed, Raven was still shocked at Hawks’s
appearance. The man was filthy, worse than when the Crow had captured him, but,
more, he had a wildness in his face and eyes and a brutal, animal-like gait and
carriage that was somehow unnerving. Even though the Hyiakutt’s current
personality set was mere overprinting—that is, all of him was there below it and
could be used—the Crow knew that he’d use tranquilizer darts before trusting
himself with this fellow now to redo the printing and preparations.
If Raven was surprised to see Hawks, then the reverse was even more true. Hawks
squinted. Ray-ven, he growled. Why are you still here? It was obviously a
labor to speak, which was understandable.
I’ve got a new job and a new boss, that’s why. We’re not rid of each other yet.
How have you liked it the last few days?
Hawks charged the forcefield with a roar and was thrown back. He picked himself
up but returned only a surly glare. Bas-tard Crow!
Lazlo Chen had indeed taught Hawks the true meaning of primitive. He had
restored the two women, and after having them fully mindprint recorded so they
could be restored later, he had wiped them basically clean and imprinted on them
the mindprints of female apes of some kind. They had no memories that were not
ape memories, no language except the guttural grunts and shrill cries that
amounted to about six basic phrases— danger, good food, and such. More, they
were conditioned to see themselves as apes and each other as apes of the same
type and tribe—and to see Hawks that way as well. They ate, preened each other,
and slept, and that was life. At least they had no idea that anything was
different. Hawks, however, did.
Chen had ordered him imprinted with the bull ape imprint but otherwise left
alone. He knew, and he had to watch those he loved act as animals and react to
them so, as well. It was the most miserable, unhappy experience in his whole
life.
So you found out being a chief ain’t all romance and glory, Raven noted
sardonically. I don’t know about you, but among the Crow, though bloodlines
will get you a real shot, a chief must prove himself and be elected— and he can
be canned if he doesn’t have it. That’s because the job isn’t bravery, although
it calls for that, or smarts, although it calls for that. Lots of folks can be
politicians and generals. What a chief really means is responsibility. Sending
young men off to die. Making widows. Protecting those of the tribe even at the
cost of his own life or even his honor. Not like Chen, either, because he
doesn’t care about his people, only himself. That’s because folks like that lack
honor. That’s why you don’t want to work for him, you know. No honor.
Hawks stared at the strange, ugly Crow. Raven had put his finger exactly on the
problem, the moral dilemma, and also had shamed him. Men like Chen got where
they were and stayed that way because they had no honor and took no
responsibility. Even now, Chen wanted others to make him ruler of the universe,
to take all the real risks, then hand him the ultimate in power and profits.
Chen didn’t care how many were killed or even if his own people were wiped out
in doing it. He didn’t care about them; he cared only for personal power while
avoiding any real sense of responsibility. And yet Chen understood the concept
of honor, of responsibility. Understood it and saw it as a weakness, something
to be exploited. That was why he had done this.
Have you come to taunt me in my misery?
Naw, the Crow responded. I’ve come to take you all away from all this. The
heat for you is getting tremendous for one thing, and also, old Chen wants his
garden back before it’s trampled flat. You can go as apes in cages or you can
give your solemn oath that you’ll be good, cooperative passengers, and we’ll put
you all back together. They won’t even remember any of this. Only you.
You—you can put them back?
Good as new, except for bruises, scratches, hair tangles, and that sort of
thing. Your absolute bond is all I need.
You have it.
Now you’re thinking like a chief. All right, Chief. We’ll get this show on the
road tonight. Put you all to sleep, cart you over as cargo, stick you on, then
bring you back after we’re away.
You say we. You are going, too?
Yeah, me and Cuddles the Warlock. You remember her. She’s attacked four people
since you left. Chen thinks she’s got potential if she can be redirected a bit.
Don’t know what he sees in me. I think my job’s to keep her in line.
You are one to speak of honor!
Raven shrugged. You’ll never really know that, will you? So don’t get too
excited. This is a one-way trip to Melchior, the nice little garden spot where
folks go who have to disappear or be disappeared. At least you won’t have to
worry about them making monkeys out of you, will you?
The screen repelled a new attack.
The Melchior asteroid was small and irregularly shaped. Resembling a monstrous,
misshapen baked potato, it was ugly, dark, and forbidding. Pockmarked with
craters and pits, its one distinguishing feature was a space dock at the smaller
end, and even that wasn’t visible from a distance.
The origins of the place were lost in antiquity or covered in forbidden
knowledge. Why this asteroid, out of all the other ones around, was picked and
developed was a mystery only Master System could solve. The rumor was that when
humanity was forced kicking and screaming out into the universe, it required
adaptation. Mars had been the testing ground for the whole project, and for half
the year Melchior was not all that far from Mars as the spacecraft flies. It was
said that here the original Martian colonists were tinkered with and reprocessed
until they were just right, and perhaps other prototypes were developed on
Melchior later. Still, the asteroid wasn’t very big, certainly not the sort of
place that could process the billions involved, and so it was more or less
abandoned by Master System in favor of new and improved mass production models.
How the Presidium then got hold of Melchior was another lost mystery, although
it was certainly the Martian Directorate that saw its uses first and somehow
convinced Master System that there was a need for a prison strictly for the most
valuable prisoners, the ones who could never again be allowed contact with
normal society but who had talents or bright ideas. After a few centuries with
no escapes and no real threats, Master System didn’t even care anymore that the
place wasn’t hooked into its all-seeing monitors. Some thought its preoccupation
with its enigmatic war was the cause, but more likely it was that Master System
understood that the sort of men and women who would maintain its system on Earth
and Mars had to have some outlet. Better that outlet be a little asteroid in the
middle of nowhere and totally self-contained than in the Centers and Councils of
Earth and Mars. It didn’t really care who or what went in there, or what went on
there, so long as they stayed there and so long as they never got out to
threaten the system.
The place consisted of three large and countless small chambers, all set apart
by kilometers of interlocking tunnels and all blasted with disintegrators out of
the rock itself. The closed atmospheric system necessitated a huge number of
safety air locks, which also served as security checkpoints; anyone who managed
to sneak in could be caught merely by ordering the surrounding air locks sealed
and then pumping out the air.
The prison cum prison town was in the larger of the two sides and was
interconnected to the laboratories and other research facilities through
deliberately confusing and well-monitored tunnels and air locks. The odd design
not only maximized use of space but helped to disorient anyone who tried to
figure the place out. The labs were underneath the prison and, from the prison’s
point of view, upside down. Gravity, impossible to create here by the spin
method, which was cheapest and most efficient, was provided by a complex
electromagnetic’ system designed by Master System. Over the centuries here, many
scientists had gone absolutely crazy trying to figure out just how it worked.
To make matters worse, the center tunnels connecting the smaller east and the
larger west were not equipped with the gravity system; one actually swam
through them, weightless. The maintenance tunnels and chambers were also all
weightless. Fortunately, the gravity in the habitation sections was close to
Earth normal.
And so, to this place came first Chu Li and the Chows under false colors and
then, within a week, Hawks, Cloud Dancer, Silent Woman, Raven, and the strange
Manka Warlock. The Chinese, however, were treated a bit better, being listed as
official patients, and assigned at the start to the staff area. Because most
spaceships were entirely controlled by a computer pilot, the lack of any staff
save the three was not even considered unusual.
The psychogeneticist interviewer looked Chu Li over critically. She was brisk
and professional but not judgmental.
So, you are here to become male, the scientist noted, looking at her screens.
A waste, considering your looks. Is this voluntary? I mean, do you concur?
Chu Li nodded. I do. I was always supposed to be, but Master System saw
differently. I am a genetic construct.
I could see that by the cell samples, the psychogeneticist huffed. There are
limits to what can be done short of a total remake, and that takes a lot of
time. It says here you must be back in a new identity with all possible speed.
That limits us.
I will be fully functioning? And feel it?
Oh, of course. However, the sperm would not be yours but a—donor’s—and we could
make only superficial cosmetic changes. Your basic female bod,y shape and bone
structure will remain, for example, although we’ll remove most of the breasts
and smooth out what is left and perhaps surgically adjust the face to give it a
more masculine cast. The strong male hormones which we will distill from the
minute quantities you produce now but which will then be duplicated and produced
by your new glands and sacs will alter you far more as time goes on. I gather no
mental adjustment is required for this.
They want me just the way I am, mentally. That’s why they did the first part of
the adjustment back there.
Now, then, you were blinded in a mindprinter accident?
Not exactly an accident. I think I wasn’t supposed to see something. It was
understood that my sight would be restored here.
Uh huh. Well, we’ll have to scan for damage, but if it’s just a printer
program, it should be simple. We’ll send you in for tests now. If all prove out,
we’ll get started right away.