“We shall not be home until very late,” Vulture told the other agent. “We are summoned to an audience with the Holy Lama at sixteen-thirty hours and there is no telling how long it will take nor what we will be commanded to do after.”
There was a somewhat pregnant pause from Killomen, who then responded, “Very well, Holiness. We shall prepare nothing for you, but we will leave something in the storage compartment in case you come in hungry and late.”
“Do not bother, child. It might well be three days. Just enjoy yourselves and do what you want to do. We will cope.”
And that was that. Three days from now, at a predetermined time, things would start to pop—if Vulture managed to pull off her part at all. If not, it gave enough time for the high priestess to return home and call it off.
At a bit after sixteen hundred, Vulture packed all the materials into a watertight bag, sealed it with the official security seal, put it on, and went out for the short trip to the Sacred Lodge. The staff eyed her in awe and wonder, knowing she was going to see, even converse with, the Holy Lama herself. They might as well get a good look. If all went well, some time in the early morning a little bit of a worm would sneak into the security computer system with the order from the Holy Lama dispatching her to Win Tai to take personal charge of things. They didn’t have access to skimmers and the like here; the Centers had to be located too close to the masses to make any ostentatious display of technology possible. There were quick ways, certainly—and the SPF could have gotten her there in hours—but it would not be in character to use them. Using the speediest modes of travel available to Wa Chi Center, it would take someone three or four days to reach Win Tai. That might be cutting the timing close and her cover might be blown, but it was better than nothing.
With luck, and if the Holy Lama didn’t ask for her or summon her when she was supposed to be somewhere else by order of the Holy Lama, the high priestess might not be missed until it was far too late.
The Sacred Lodge was grandiose, even underwater. The whole support structure and base glowed incandescently, and, unlike the other lodges, seemed to sit not on wood supports but on some kind of translucent marble columns. Statues of the Great Buddha were inset around as well, and scenes highlighting the cardinal principles of this odd offshoot of Buddhism were carved on thick bands around the columns. There were both electronic and human guards as well, the latter armed with very efficient and non-mass-culture rifles with automatic sights adjusted for use in water or air.
The Grand Entrance was a womblike tunnel full of twists and turns. The curves were there for a reason: they gave security plenty of time to look over a visitor while she presented a perfect slow target who could be cut off by lightning-fast door seals at the least suspicion. Nobody got very far by accident or without an invitation.
Once in the drying chamber, however, one had to hand over all parcels and items of clothing to be passed through sensors while presenting eyes, fingers, and blood samples to special security computers not connected to the main computer network and controlled entirely from within the temple. This was a relatively new procedure ordered by Master System itself a few years before. It knew that the pirates had gotten into the security system of Janipur and wanted to make very certain that no spy, no matter how clever, could influence the gateway to the one who wore the ring. The system was totally automated as well; it even included a mindprint routine to make absolutely certain that anyone entering was just who they seemed to be. The transmuters might fool all the physical safeguards, but duplicating both physical and mental characteristics perfectly was considered by Master System as next to impossible.
As usual, Master System was wrong. To the Vulture, who was designed to fool just such mechanisms, it was child’s play.
She reclaimed her belongings on the other side of the security door and went up to the waiting chamber. It was sumptuously furnished and the gold relief on the religious scenes engraved in the walls was awe-inspiring. The fact that some of those gems and intricate designs concealed monitors made any move here highly unlikely. Here was where luck had failed in the first attempt, and where luck needed to be far better this time. Damn it, this was about as impregnable a place to get in and out of as could be designed under the limits of a colonial Center. She settled down on a soft couch and waited.
A small door opened opposite her and one of the Seed of Buddha entered carrying a small tray.
The males of Chanchuk were less than imposing. The average female was perhaps a hundred and sixty-five centimeters tall and weighed perhaps fifty-five to sixty kilograms; the average male was perhaps a hundred and twenty centimeters, many shorter, and usually did not weigh more than thirty-five kilos. They also had a bushy mane of hair around their heads that was usually slightly lighter or darker than the rest of their body hair and often was dyed to give great contrast. They often went to great lengths in wearing various jewels and other ornaments to make themselves stand out to any females who might be looking. Most incongruously, they had two small but very firm breasts that actually produced milk on a continuous basis. Still, they had one attribute that made them instantly attractive to the opposite sex, as the large golden codpiece this one wore attested.
Males really were rather weak. Fewer than two in seven made it past their first year and they were subject to more diseases before they reached puberty, which cut their numbers down even further. Of course, even though they numbered only thirty percent of the adult population, there were more males than were required for procreation, particularly when they had such raging libidos. In general, males kept house for a number of women who could then space their children so that it would not affect the group’s income or disrupt their lives unnecessarily.
The females bore the young, but the males nursed and raised them. In this biological system the males had all the sexual lures but were small and weak and very dependent. They were such prisoners of their continuous hormones—unlike females whose hormones got out of whack only briefly every month—that culturally they were considered incapable of more than running a household and were not all that bright. Most education, at least, was denied them, and their roles were rigidly fixed. Whether or not they really had higher IQs than anyone credited was something Vulture hoped to find out.
The male stopped and bowed slightly before Vulture. “Greetings, Holiness. I am Cho. We met when you were here a few months ago. Might I offer some tea and biscuits? The Holy Lama will see you soon.”
Vulture nodded and allowed the tea to be poured. She remembered Cho, all right. She almost had him last time, but she couldn’t get him far enough out of the monitor range.
There was no sexual attraction felt by either now, of course. There never was around a priestess; after she’d been gutted of her sexual apparatus and even had her biochemistry adjusted to that of an asexual being, there wasn’t much to arouse interest. Without the glandular odors, the male wouldn’t find a eunuch particularly attractive.
Idly, Vulture reached down to her vaginal area, found, and squeezed hard and somewhat painfully on a tiny hard spot just beneath the skin. A tiny, surgically implanted vial gave way and exuded a substance through the pores of the outer skin layers. The high priestess was now no less a eunuch, but for the brief period until the stuff washed off or lost its potency, she began exuding a real glandular come-on. The odor was not noticeable on a conscious level—just another in the mix of body odors—but it would, Vulture and Clayben theorized, have an interesting effect on any males in close range who might be very confused but still would find her suddenly very alluring.
There was no immediate effect, although she got as close as she could to Cho. Still, after a little while and some small talk, Cho seemed to become a bit distracted and she could see him catching himself as his hand moved to his crotch.
That was just an opener, however. From this point, a high priestess who came also had to leave.
A chime sounded, breaking the scene, and Cho jumped up. “The Holy Lama will see you now,” he said, sounding a bit throaty and breathless. He went to the main door, and it opened in front of him. He entered, and she followed, and they went down a short hall that opened into a large office the opulence of which was breathtaking.
The Holy Lama looked up from her desk. “All right, Cho—go play with yourself. We have business,” she snapped in a hard, professional voice. The little male bowed, turned, and left, closing the inner doors behind him.
She was still relatively young, yet the pressures of the dual jobs of chief planetary administrator and top priestess to a major religion were already showing on her. The eyes were as hard as the voice, and the fur on the face and along the arms already seemed to be tinged with gray.
“So, are we still running things or aren’t we?” the Holy Lama asked, getting directly to the point.
“We are—to a point,” Vulture responded. “Colonel Chi is a soulless person, but with all the human failings of ambition and arrogance. She is used to giving orders and being obeyed instantly, and she has no respect for or loyalty to any culture or beliefs other than her own militaristic upbringing. One can tell that she is just itching for an excuse to declare full martial law, depose us, and turn Chanchuk into a godless police state.”
The Holy Lama, as always, had the ring right on her finger. Four little birds against a black jadelike background laid into an ornately jeweled golden ring. It was so tempting to just become the Holy Lama and obtain it by right of possession, but it wasn’t possible. Everything in this room was being recorded; there was no way that there would be the fifteen or more minutes necessary to make the change without some kind of alarm being raised—and no way to block security from later watching a recording of what had happened and thus discovering just what the Vulture’s power really was.
“Let us see your case,” the Holy Lama said, and it was handed over. The highest of priestesses broke the seal and studied the documents and the picture of the device for some time, deep in thought. Finally she said, “This isn’t good. Chi may be a soulless bastard, but she does have a point.” She put down the papers and stared at her ring. “We would live our next incarnation as a water slug to know why this is so important that aliens would risk lives and worse for it and Master System would go to this sort of extreme to stop them. If it were not a required badge of office, we would just take it off and give it to the SPF and tell them to go throw it in the sun or something. There is no real religious connotation to it. It is just a very pretty ring from the Mother World and the old days.”
Vulture shrugged. “If you wish, it could be done. You could give it to us now and we would take it to Chi and have done with it and her.”
“If that were true, we would not hesitate to do so, but do you know what the security monitors would do if this thing left here without being on our finger in a prearranged audience? No, they feel that if the Holy Lama is sealed away in this ornate mausoleum, it cannot be gotten. We wonder, though. If there were such a thing as absolute security, we would not get away with much of what we get away with now, would we? Master System would have roared in here and mindcleaned the lot of us—and our ancestors, too—if that were true.” She sighed. “We would almost like to meet one of these pirate thieves. If, somehow, we could truly be convinced that this ring could aid in disrupting or even blowing apart this foul and evil system and its master machines, we would be tempted to present it to them freely. But— this system cannot be broken. Not by the likes of a jeweled ring.”
Vulture was so heartened by that comment—which would be judiciously edited out of the recording by the Holy Lama’s own special programs before it got to security and Colonel Chi—that she longed to tell all. There was just no way that the chance could be taken. It might be possible to convince the chief administrator that the rings could really do it, but first Vulture would have to convince the old girl that the sister she’d grown up with and known all her life was actually an artificial entity, then convince her that this entity was working for the pirates and not Master System out to trap treasonous chief administrators, and, finally, that the pirates could get all five and use them.
Better to steal it—if Vulture could, somehow, manage to do even that.
2. Facing The Inevitable
CHO WAS WAITING FOR HER WHEN SHE EMERGED from the audience, as she’d hoped. Vulture liked the Holy Lama; she was sorry that circumstances cast them as enemies, but there was no way around that. The old girl’s primary responsibility, as it should be, was to her faith and her planet. Vulture cared only about one thing the Holy Lama did not—but there was a knife at Chan-chuk’s throat, and the throats of the Holy Lama and her people, and those who held that knife cared only about that ring as well.
The orders had been simple, although they would never be properly delivered: turn everything over to Chi and the SPF; give them every cooperation and defer to them completely, but record every order and every decision and every demand, so if anything went wrong, it would be Chi and the SPF who would get the blame for usurping normal authority and failing while Chanchuk came out pure and noble and patriotic.
“Is all satisfactory, Holiness?” Cho asked her politely, not really expecting to be taken into her confidence. The effects of the hormone were far too subtle for Cho to even understand why he remained there or why it mattered.
“Yes, Cho, all is well. We would, however, appreciate a small service. We suffered an accidental shoulder injury not long ago and it is not yet fully healed, making it difficult to bend in certain ways. We have had problems putting on the backpack now and again, and it would be appreciated if you might accompany me to the drying room to aid me should I have problems. Would that ask too much of you?”
Cho’s eyes lit up. “Oh, no, Holiness. No trouble at all. It will be my pleasure.”
This would be tricky. Between the drying room and the waiting hall was a very short length of corridor that wasn’t under direct observation—Vulture had determined that from past visits. It was the only unmonitored area available to a Seed, and it was so because it didn’t need to be monitored.
There were more than enough monitoring devices on either end of the corridor to require them there.
She walked down, Cho following. He probably wouldn’t have had the nerve to do it except for the lure of the hormone, which left him slightly turned on and very eager to please.
Halfway down the hall, she checked to make certain that no new security devices had been added, stopped, turned, listened for any sounds from below, and then stared down at the little male.
Cho stopped and looked up at her quizzically. “Is something wrong, Holiness?”
“No. At least we do not believe so. Come here. Closer. Yes, that is about right.” Without another word she put her arms around a startled Cho as if to hug him, but that was not the intent as the process began instantly, freezing any further thought or comment the Seed might have.
It was always a gruesome sight, but no one was supposed to see it. Almost instantly the flesh of the high priestess seemed to take on a life of its own, reaching out and blending with the flesh of the hapless Cho. They seemed to merge, the inorganic things they had on or with them falling away, seemingly repelled from the increasingly shapeless, bubbling mass of flesh.
It took several minutes; that was why this had been so difficult and was even now a risk should anyone enter or leave through the corridor. What they would make of it was anyone’s guess, but there would certainly be quite an alarm.
Now, out of the seething, bubbling, merged mass arose a new shape, Chanchukian in form but at first hairless and featureless. It was far smaller than the total mass, drawing from the throbbing pulp what it needed and no more. In an almost magical transition, the form took on the eyes and mouth and general features of Cho, then the hair and other elements took shape. Cho was completely reconstituted, and exactly so, right down to his memories and brain and body chemistry; so close that if it were possible, even a cell-by-cell comparison of the two would not show any difference.
But there was a difference. Vulture was in many ways as much a machine as the devices he fought against; a wholly organic machine, which stored its own memories and separate identity and will throughout every cell of its body, whatever that might be. The new creature that stepped out of the still-seething goo was Cho in every way—physically, mentally, emotionally—but not down to the basic submicroscopic structures within each cell that retained all that Vulture had been and the memories of all the people the creature had eaten before.
The goo was still living, but it was beginning to die, bereft of its controlling mitochondria-sized program. Getting the clothing and other articles out of the edges of the goo where it had fallen and getting the ichor off so that Cho could return above was unpleasant, but Vulture had done this sort of thing before. Far more difficult would be disposing of the priestess’s papers, case, and minimal clothing and, if possible, getting rid of the goo. That was more of a problem here, and Vulture relied from the start on Cho’s own knowledge of the Sacred Lodge to accomplish that. Fortunately, it provided a fast and easy means for part of the problem.
There was a maintenance chute in the hall used when the robotic cleaners worked the place at night, but while that might be all right for the clothing and travel case with its papers, it wouldn’t do for the goo. To prevent accidents, the automated cleaning systems would sort out anything organic and pass it through to a secondary inspection before sending it to waste disposal. That second check would find the goo unusual enough to flag a security computer.
He did what he could. The stuff wasn’t even completely dead yet—and when it was it would turn brown and give off a terrible odor. Papers down the chute, also the briefs, but before disposing of the case, he removed a small vial of muscle balm and a small lighter used in religious ceremonies. He also removed the high priestess’s large signet ring. He poured the balm over as much of the goo as possible, wishing he had a few liters and not just the small amount he dared to bring in, then lit it with the lighter. Both vial and lighter, then, also went into the chute.
Dissatisfied but not able to come up with anything better, Cho returned to the glare of the waiting room and began to hum softly as he cleaned up the place. Let them make what they would of the remains of the goo. He knew now that he could patch into the internal computer and send out a recording of the high priestess leaving the lower chamber from a visit months ago, since, even though Cho didn’t have the vaguest idea about such things, he knew where a terminal was—and Vulture clearly recognized the standard model and knew it well.
High priestess comes, high priestess leaves, goes on four-day trip to Wa Chi. Not unusual even in light of the Holy Lama’s orders. There would be no one unusual or detectable inside the Sacred Lodge, where it mattered.
The male body Vulture now occupied was. . . sensual. Probably the most sensual Vulture had ever experienced. The mind was not particularly limited in intelligence or reasoning ability, any more than the female’s had been, but it was culturally limited and intimidated by its own feelings of sensuality and inadequacy at being so small and weak compared to the women.
The males of Chanchuk, it appeared, were as dull and docile as they seemed mostly because of their physically and culturally induced inferiority complexes, fed by their lack of any real education and the impossibility of being more than they were. Only in the bedchamber and the nursery were they in any way dominant, and so it was in those roles that the Chanchukian male found refuge and security and ego, solaced only by a religion that stressed reincarnation as the truth path, the soul being both male and female.
It was a shame, really, but biology had played this cruel trick on them, and Master System had either created or imitated that. Still, it might be a lot of fun to explore this kind of body in general society, although Cho was now incapable of actually fathering anything. The sperm he would make would look and act correctly but would be bereft of that extra part the cells needed to keep pretending to be the real thing. They would quickly become nothing more than microscopic bits of the same goo, and then quickly dead. But he was unlikely to get to test it in normal society.
First he had to do a bit of computer doctoring, something that males would certainly never be expected to be capable of doing. Then he would start his preparation, so that when the time was right, the primary mission could be fulfilled.
Satisfied that all was as reasonably correct as it could be under the circumstances, Vulture put the signet ring under his armpit and walked toward the Seed’s quarters. He would have to stash the ring someplace until, later on and in private, he could remove the thin shell and reveal what it really was.
Colonel Chi frowned. “So what is the foul-smelling stuff? It smells like a decomposing body.”
The SPF technical officer shrugged. “I have never seen anything like it, and I’ll have to send it up for full computer analysis. It’s definitely organic, but there is no life left in it, I feel certain. Someone or something has tried to burn it, but the fuel was not nearly enough to do more than scorch an area on top and set off the fire sensors.”
“Well, take no chances. No one touches it or even approaches it except through remotes. Seal it and get it up for complete analysis.” Chi looked at it a moment. “You know, if it weren’t such a—mess—and weren’t flattened out so, it would have a fair amount of mass. Almost as much as a real body… I wonder—could this once have been alive?”
The tech shrugged again. “As you said, Colonel, it seems to have the mass for it, but I know of nothing that could do this to a body. Why bother? A disintegrator is cleaner, a laser pistol or projectile weapon is less messy if you need the body. Why even invent something that would do this?”
Chi nodded. “Why, indeed? Unless it was because you couldn’t sneak a real and recognizable weapon past our security system. Perhaps a catalyst. Some sort of chemical agent that wouldn’t show up in the screen. There would be ways to do that, if you knew the limits of the screening. Go—get on it! I want to know!”
“At once, Colonel,” the tech responded, and began supervising her staff in the recovery of the material.
Colonel Chi didn’t like this, not one bit, and certainly not coming right on the heels of the discovery of that mysterious engine. As soon as she returned to security, she stormed upstairs, not even taking the time to dry off, and stormed into the Center security officer’s cubicle.
“Where is the remote Center liaison?” she asked crisply. “She went to see the Holy Lama at sixteen-thirty and did not return.”
The security officer sighed and checked her terminal. “She is on her way to Wa Chi Center. The Holy Lama ordered complete cooperation, Colonel, but we suspect that the liaison had more—proprietary orders.”
“Can you check and see if she actually left the Sacred Lodge?”
“Huh? What? Well, we suppose so. She would have had to pass the security sensors on the way out. Yes. There is a record of it. Why?”
“I really don’t know,” the colonel answered honestly. “Still, I want your best people to find her. She can’t have gotten too far. I want her located and brought back here tonight. It is vital. I will make certain she makes her appointment. Also, I want to talk to the regular guards outside the Sacred Lodge entrance as soon as they can be relieved.”
“We will do what you say—but might one ask why? It seems that you are acting as if her holiness is some sort of traitor.”
“No. I doubt that. I am not trying to call your sister into question. Believe that. In fact, I may be her best friend at this moment. You see, what I am seeking is proof that the liaison, your sister, is still alive.”
The security chief’s eyes bulged. “What?”
By the time the first lab reports were coming in from the command ship, Colonel Chi was already forming a pattern. The problem was, she didn’t have any idea what the pattern meant.
The guards at the entrance had a clear memory of the section chief entering and no recollection at all of her leaving. They considered this unusual but not impossible, of course, and in and of itself it wouldn’t mean much. Various guards had to take air breaks every once in a while anyway, and that often left only one pair of eyes to see in both directions.
Most disturbing was the fact that there were entries in the various computer logs substantiating that exit. How had they gotten there? There was no direct input terminal to the master security computer net from inside the Sacred Lodge except in the Holy Lama’s private offices. This indicated a possible involvement of the chief administrator, but even Chi couldn’t bring herself to believe that the C.A., particularly this one, would be involved in overt treason. It was not only against her character, it was too stupid for one such as the leader of this world. If the object were to steal the ring and the Holy Lama had it and was in league with the thieves, a simple swap of a look-alike on a routine visit would have done it and no one would have been the wiser. No, it didn’t make sense, but that only deepened the mystery.
Chi did not underestimate her enemy. They were clever and incredibly resourceful. She even had a real sense of admiration for anyone who could do what they did on Janipur and get away, not to mention fighting a brilliant space battle and dispatching several Vals—no mean feat when even the SPF had been taught that it was, while not impossible, very nearly so. Admiration and respect, however, did not mean that they were not still the enemy. It had been so long now since they’d been active that many commands had a false sense of security. Chi was one, along with her general, who believed that the space battle over Janipur’s ring was costly to the pirates and that they had not so much quit as changed tactics. Now, clearly, that time had been well spent on Chanchuk setting up who knew what.
Security could not locate her holiness, but it was early yet and the routing wasn’t clear. If, however, there was no further evidence of exit or her supposed trip by the middle of the night, Chi felt certain that the priestess would never be located.
A special read-only security circuit to the Sacred Lodge’s internal computers clearly showed the priestess in the entry hall and going in for the audience, then leaving again. Master security showed an exit—or did it? She studied the pictures of the priestess’s entry and exit. Any differences? Yes—but subtle. The backpack looked slightly different. But these were security records, not great art, and it might have been imagination. You couldn’t blow them up to improve detail. It just got fuzzy. But such records for that very reason weren’t all that hard to fake.
She dispatched a squad to pick up the housekeeper and maintenance people who shared a lodge with the missing priestess. No one was home and Chi was not really surprised at this. They took the lodge apart piece by piece but found nothing unusual—except that the taps on the lines in and out had been circumvented and different tapes were fed to the monitors rather than actual conversation. Not unusual in and of itself; Center personnel often pulled that sort of thing just to get some privacy. Again, though, it was yet another nail in the priestess’s coffin. Chi ordered the lodge monitored and staked out although she felt certain that no one who had lived there would ever return to it.
The medical team on the base ship was less helpful than Chi had hoped.
“The material is decomposing rapidly. We have frozen some of it, of course, but it’s impossible to do any real tests that way. The cellular structure is—unusual. It is as if the interior of each cell has simply collapsed, broken down. There isn’t a piece of DNA, RNA, or any other useful combination left, although the fragments we have recovered do show what we can only call a consistent inconsistency.”
Chi frowned. “Explain.”
“We have been able to identify two separate patterns, as if these had been cells from two totally different individuals, yet they are intermixed and bound in the mass. We do not have enough to give you any real information on either master code, but it is as if you took two people and broke them down as if melting them into a single cellular mass. We have never seen anything like this, but if we were to try this the laboratory, the computers required would be enormous. Nor would we want to—not with a transmuter available.”
“I see. But a transmuter wouldn’t produce this effect? Say, if two people were transmitted down and got all jumbled up together.”
“It would be possible to induce it, yes, but where is the transmuter? There is no way you could get the necessary machinery into that hall unobtrusively no matter how long you took, and even if we accept that someone did, there is certainly no way you could get the stuff back out of there or effectively hide or shield it from our own search in so short a time.”
Chi nodded, knowing that this had been the conclusion of the computer systems as well. The bottom line was that anybody good enough to do that wouldn’t have to do it.
The scenario was simple enough, if grotesque. On Janipur they’d managed to snatch and switch one of the top security people in that Center and replace that person with a ringer—and it fooled every security safeguard in common use. That was certain. All right, assume that was the case with this priestess. With so long to work, it might have been done months, even years ago. A move in the heart of this Center. All right—they had done it before, so it wasn’t a fantastic idea.
Now what? The ring’s on the Holy Lama. Can’t snatch it when the C.A. is outside—too much security. You might snatch it but you’d never get away. But the C.A. is a cloistered monk—nobody who sees her day to day is ever allowed out, and no one is ever allowed in except under maximum security monitoring. The only one who could get close enough to the C.A. to steal that ring outside of normal internal security would be one of the permanent party. Not a monk—an insect queen!
She turned to her computer. “Comparison, in percentage. Total mass of the recovered organic substance against total estimated mass of the deputy administrator.”
“Recovered mass is eighty-nine point three three percent of estimated mass of the subject,” the computer responded.
Chi nodded. There would be some loss, certainly. Energy would be consumed, there would be free cells, and possibly a measure of decomposition of the outer area before they’d been able to get to the mass and stabilize it. All right.
Colonel Chi wasn’t a scientist or any sort of technocrat, and she knew it sounded bizarre, but somehow, she was convinced against all of the computer’s logic that she was right. Somehow these pirates had made a very big discovery, a kind that could shake the system to its foundations. No wonder they had managed to get so far! Some sort of biological or chemical agent, or some strange thing created by transmuter. It didn’t matter to her how it was done. Somehow, they could become someone else. An exact duplicate—almost. And without further aid of any machinery at all. So one of them had become the priestess and learned all there was to learn and gained access to the Sacred Lodge. Access—but not the ability to steal the ring unobserved. So now, spooked by the discovery of the motor and the resultant knowledge that the pirates were at work here, they had moved —now! Before new precautions could be put in place! Now what had been the priestess was one of the Seed within the Sacred Lodge, with full run of the place and full access to the Holy Lama and the security system. The excess mass not needed in the transformation was the dying organic matter they had found.
And now what? Perhaps a switch of rings, or maybe even a theft, then wait for a new audience to be commanded. The next poor sucker walks in, gets escorted back, and in the hall there is another, smaller pool of goo. And the thief walks right out with the blessings of the guards past the best security net they could design!
Colonel Chi knew that she was right. She also knew that, without any proof that such a thing was possible, she would be considered mad not only by her subordinates and superiors in the SPF but by Master System itself. The mere idea that some escaped prisoners and freebooter refugees could do something Master System itself considered impossible would be tantamount to heresy. But it wouldn’t help if this ring—her ring—was stolen, either, to be right and silent. It was a tricky problem—and the reason why this pirate scheme was so fiendishly clever.
Hell, I’m the boss here, she thought suddenly. I don’t have to explain myself to anybody at this point.
She turned back to the special SPF channel. “This is Colonel Chi. Absolutely no one—repeat, no one—is to enter or leave the Sacred Lodge from this point on until I give the word. That includes anyone summoned there, regardless of rank, or any of our forces, or so much as a sea slug. No one in or out—including the Holy Lama. Then I want a full electronic and human ring, on the surface and below, around the Lodge and I want the same on any exit channel large enough for a microbe to get out. All trash, all garbage, is to be instantly and completely disintegrated by automated equipment independently programmed and under our exclusive control. I want our nastiest sentry robots in the automated areas. Seal all watertight doors and exits. Put the vacuum seal in place in the entry passage. The only communications channel in or out is to be routed directly to me and not through any locals or any subordinates. Understand?”
“As you command, Colonel,” came the crisp reply. “May I ask why all this? I have to have it for my reports.”
Always covering your sweet ass, aren’t you, Wu? “I have evidence that an agent of the pirates is already inside the Sacred Lodge. It is speculative and circumstantial, but I believe on my authority as commander that we have no choice but to act as if it is real.” Think now. Everybody knows you can’t transmute somebody twice. “There is a possibility that this agent has coercive means to gain the cooperation or obedience of anyone inside, including the Holy Lama.”
There was a pause, then: “Very well.”
“Major? Check to see if there’s any way we could get a nerve agent of some kind in there—either in the air or water or food—to knock them all completely cold.”
Another pause. “It would be difficult and perhaps not a hundred percent effective, but I feel it is possible. The problem is, the place has its own internal security system that we can’t tap. It’s murylium-powered so we can’t cut it out, and if activated, it’s among the best.”
Chi sighed. “Could we lull them, then? Be certain we killed every living thing in there no matter how big or how small?”
“Easier—but, Colonel, if you do that you will kill the spiritual leader of this world and everyone, male as well as female, who could create the children to replace her. None of her own children are yet old enough to be outside. The oldest is barely six. You would turn this entire peaceful and basically loyal population violently against us and against everything we stand for. Something of that magnitude would require the direct order of Master System, and you know it.”
The major, of course, was right. Chi wanted to be a general, not a heretic and maniac. “Very well. Do what you can and make certain nothing gets in or out, period. Nothing. And I want all human guards paired at all times. Not for a moment is anyone to be left alone. We have at least three other missing agents around and they definitely have transmuter access. You understand me? I don’t want any of our people switched. If I can’t get in to the agent, at least, he, she, or it can’t get out and can’t get the ring out. Sooner or later a deal will have to be made or they’ll remain here until they rot.”
The colonel signed off and leaned back in her contoured chair. All right, you pirates. You’re very good at playing the system against me, she thought firmly. But you won’t succeed. I know your little unbelievable secret. And I need hold you for only five days. In five days I will have sufficient force behind me that you could not escape without a fight more disastrous by far than Janipur, and possibly not even then. And in five days I’ll have you all out of that Sacred Lodge, immobilized, and in stasis—completely isolated. And if you remain behind, you will die. If you do not, then you will be in an SPF control lab where we’ll find which one of them you are.
* * *
“Something has gone wrong. I can feel it,” Min commented nervously. “They have the Sacred Lodge sealed off and the SPF has taken total and exclusive command of all Center security. They know. I tell you, they know.”
Butar Killomen shook her head. “No. They suspect, which is quite a different thing. The Vulture is inside, that is all that matters at the moment. Our job is to get the ring and get safely away. Vulture has prepared for a number of contingencies, and this plan has been checked and rechecked by our best minds and best computers. It is the only way to do it, and no matter how strong the enemy seems to be, it is his own system we use against him. This Colonel Chi is good—better than any Val we have met. She has both guts and imagination, a dangerous combination in an adversary. The only question we can concern ourselves with is whether or not we can still get the ring through the increased security cordon. Well?” She stared at Min and Chung.
“If the equipment works, we should have several minutes,” Chung responded nervously. “If the computer analysis of their response time is near accurate, at least ten. We have been operating entirely on that window. I feel I can control the exterior—if all goes well with Vulture inside.”
“There will not be two chances,” Killomen reminded them. “If we fail this time, the three of us will be useless. It must work!”
She had tried hard not to think of the possibility of failure, but it wasn’t an easy thing to do. This was so complex, and if just one thing went wrong, it would all be for nothing. She did not like this body in which she knew she would be spending the rest of her life, and all the mindprinting in the universe couldn’t help that. She had been born to a race that was large and physically tough, both the men arid the women. She could get over being covered with hair, and swimming was something of a thrill—her native race had no mobility in the water at all—but she felt ugly, ugly and also so very. . . fragile. She knew she’d always seemed somewhat monstrous to others of different races, but never to herself. The transmuter transformation had been, to her, a severe sacrifice, but one she had felt she couldn’t refuse. Not after so many of the others had allowed themselves to be turned into far worse.
It had been just as hard, if not harder, on Min and Chung. She knew that, although it didn’t help that she had company. They had been Earth-humans, as far from this form and life as hers, but they had also been males from a social tradition that prized masculinity and detested its opposite. She at least had been born female and had spent many years as a part of an all-female crew. Part of it had been mental protection—all the members of the Kaotan crew had been of different races and each had been, as far as they knew, the only one of their race to escape their home worlds. Far better for mental health to be in the company of women who, however different from one another physically, could understand the problems of the others; in particular, how hard it was to see men and women of other races relating to one another, interacting, even occasionally bonding and having offspring. When there were others who were also the sole representatives of their species, at least there was some solace.
Now the old crew was broken up; only two were left in their natural forms, and who knew how long that would last? She was stuck now, and the old times, the old independence, were gone forever. Win or lose, this one operation was her last moment, her final purpose. After this they would just be a bunch of fragile water creatures out of their element and unable even to procreate due to the lack of a male.