Analog SFF, July-August 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “Have you hired other investigators?”

  “No,” she said, “I'm afraid to.”

  “Why? With your money, you could hire droves of them. That would increase your odds of finding him.”

  She shook her head. “You don't understand. I told you his company is going downhill. It's even worse. There's this other corporation, Granger Holdings, that's trying to take it over. Because the stock price is down, they're making a run at it. Without Vergon around to steady some nerves, the stockholders are starting to sell out. The thing is, Granger does exactly what Vergon does—make stepdocks. They just want to eliminate the competition. So if they get control of it, they'll just sell off all the equipment to recoup their loses and then fire all the employees.”

  “What does this have to do with hiring some private investigators?”

  “Because I can't trust anyone!” she insisted. “Already, I'm pretty sure I'm being followed.” She glanced over her shoulder, peering into the hordes of people passing along the concourse.

  I didn't see anyone but tourists. “Why?”

  “Why! Because they don't want me to find Vergon, that's why. They want to keep the stock price low, and if he shows up, it will probably jump. The shareholders would wait to see what the brilliant Vergon Daughn is going to do. No, I'm afraid whoever I hire will really be working for them. I need somebody I can trust.”

  “And you trust me?”

  She nodded. “Iconic, isn't it?”

  "Ironic is the world you're looking for, I think. And yes, it's very ironic.”

  “Iconic, ironic, whatever is it is, I need your help, Duff. I can't do this without you. I want to find my husband.”

  I said nothing.

  “And if you won't do it for me,” she said, “do it for the million employees of Vergon Enterprises that will lose their jobs. Do it for them. That's why even if he's dead . . .” She hesitated, closing her eyes and steadying herself before continuing. “Even if he's dead, I need to know. At least the company could appoint a new CEO, which the board doesn't want to do until they know for sure he's gone. Maybe then we could still save the company.”

  It was quite a tale. It would be easy enough to check, so I assumed it was true, but that didn't mean I trusted her motives. But I was curious why a man—correction, an android—like Vergon Daughn would up and disappear, putting in jeopardy all his years of hard work. If nothing else, I could find Vergon just to satisfy that curiosity, and maybe, just maybe, I could end up doing some good while I was at it.

  And, of course, get paid really well.

  “All right,” I said, “I'll find him for you.”

  “Oh, good!”

  “But I want the money up front.”

  In the end, it was she who clasped my hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “Of course, Duff. Whatever you want.”

  Looking at her, her eyes wide and her lips parting slightly, I remembered her whispering those very words to me late at night between satin sheets. I remembered and tried to put it out of my mind.

  Money.

  I was doing this for money.

  * * * *

  The credit showed up in my account within ten minutes of Ginger passing through the stepdock back to the Vergon Enterprises headquarters on Palfacia Prime. It was twice even the outrageous amount I'd quoted to her, with so many zeroes in the number that I actually brought up the bank on nexlink to verify it wasn't a mistake. Ever after the holorep assured me that the deposit was, indeed, accurate, I still procrastinated for the rest of the day before finally calling up my hotel client and asking him if I could take a hiatus for a couple of weeks for personal reasons, assuring him I'd come back and finish the job. I somewhat hoped he'd say no, but he didn't.

  Finally out of excuses, I set to work finding Mr. Vergon Daughn, the android who became a human who became an android.

  The first thing I did was get in touch with the biomechanical engineer who performed the human-to-android transference, who, it turned out, was the same one who'd performed the BIP and made Vergon human in the first place—a tall and spindly Dulnari named Bwer Fwer. I tried him on the vid first and was told by a pert blond—so bubbly she had to be an android—that he'd see me that afternoon if I could come to his office.

  His clinic, Mind-Body Technologies, was located on one of the oldest and richest planets in the Unity Worlds. It was a gas giant named Jellon with a trillion inhabitants and well over a hundred stepdocks, so there was no need to take a ship or shuttle at any point. But I'd been poor too long to take a direct step, so it still took two hours of hopping across the galaxy and fighting through crowded immigration controls to get to the gleaming black tower that contained his office.

  After waiting in his lobby for another two hours, being asked by three different blond android secretaries why I was there, I wasn't in the best of moods when a fourth bubbly blond finally showed me to his office. He was rising from his desk, a dark and wolfish figure with skin like elephant hide. Even in a sharp blue suit and red tie, he still came across as more than a little menacing, but I let loose with all of my built-up irritation anyway.

  “If this is how you treat people who have appointments,” I said, “how do you treat everyone else?”

  His beady eyes flared briefly, but it was the only outward sign of emotion. Right away I knew he was no ordinary Dulnari, because an ordinary Dulnari would have leapt across the table and gone for my throat at the slightest provocation.

  A decade earlier, the Dulnari had been a major threat to the Unity Worlds, in a bloody war that lasted nearly thirty years, and even now there still weren't many of them who held anything but the most mundane jobs. This was partly due to how much the war had set them back as a race, but it was mostly because of the nature of the Dulnari themselves. Because of their telepathic connections to one another, in concert they were incredibly intelligent, but individually they weren't much smarter than low-grade AI floor sweepers. How one could ascend by himself to become a brilliant engineer—one Vergon was willing to risk his life with—was hard to believe.

  “Mister Duff,” he said, extending his hand, “I'm sorry to keep you waiting. I was conferencing with several senators and they were being quite stubborn about some of my requests.”

  It was the first time I'd shaken hands with a Dulnari. His four-fingered hand was smaller than my own, but his skin was tougher and thicker. There were lots of folks who still wouldn't shake hands with a Dulnari, veterans of the war or victims of their atrocities, but I didn't fall into either of those camps. The need had simply never arisen.

  “It's just Duff,” I said. “I would have been happy to talk to you over the vid, you know.”

  “Yes, that would have certainly been more convenient,” he said, “but I felt it was necessary to talk to you in person.” He froze for a second, and it was like watching a hiccup in a vid feed. “Yes, yes, quite right. Most unusual.”

  “I'm sorry?” I said.

  “Hmm?”

  “What's unusual?”

  “What do you mean?”

  It was like he didn't know what he'd just said. Some form of schizophrenia or stepdock madness? I'd also never heard a Dulnari speak in such an articulate manner, especially in Unity Worlds Prime. He motioned to one of the two seats across from him. It was then, when he slightly cocked his head to the side, that I noticed something black and electronic behind his ears, tiny lights flashing red and blue.

  “You have an implant,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said, showing no sign of offense. “The ones I make now are much less crude, completely internal, but mine is now so integrated into my biological processes that it would extremely problematic to remove it.”

  “Is that why you're . . .” I began, not knowing quite how to phrase the question.

  “Smarter than your average individual Dulnari?” he finished for me. “Yes. My implant contains a hundred mature Dulnari intelligences. All AIs, of course, but my mind sees them no differently than the real thing . . . The
flaring is quite unusual this time of year.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He blinked a few times. “Hmm?”

  “You said something about the flaring being unusual this time of year.”

  “I did? Oh, yes. The side effects. You see, though the implant gives me the intelligence of a small Dulnari group mind, I have not yet perfected the natural filter process that works with a real group mind. So I may occasionally say things not intended for you. I apologize for this in advance. Please, be seated.”

  I did, and so did he. The three windows behind him displayed a gorgeous view of the city's skyline, but everything else about the room was absolutely sterile: a desk with a built-in monitor and keyboard, three chairs, and nothing else. Not even a couple of holovids on the walls.

  “I never intended to spend much time here,” he explained.

  “I'm sorry?” I said.

  “This room, I see the way you're looking at it. But I always intended it to be mostly for show. I'm a lab rat, Duff. That's where I'd like to spend most of my time, and where I did spend most of my time until my company was bought out. Then the new owners made certain changes that forced me into more of a . . . diplomatic role.” He said the last two words with a sneer, and for just a moment I thought of the wolf in the Red Riding Hood fairy tale, dressed up in human clothes and pretending to be something he wasn't.

  “Hobnobbing with senators, you mean?” I said.

  “Exactly. It's dreadfully boring . . . Multivids are on sale in Setifine . . . But you don't care about any of that. Let me tell you why we had to meet in person. When Ginger Daughn first questioned me about all of this, I was absolutely convinced that her husband's disappearance had nothing at all to do with his procedure—or at least, that nothing in his procedure directly caused it. It went perfectly. Every test confirmed it . . . the low-g yoga is best after breakfast . . . If he disappeared, it was either his own choice or because he was abducted, not because there was some defect in the transference that modified his personality.” He shook his head. “Now, I'm not so sure.”

  His non-sequiturs were annoying, but I was getting better at ignoring them. “What do you mean?”

  He clasped his slender hands and leaned his long snout on them, closing his eyes for a moment before answering. “Our equipment has been tampered with.”

  “What?”

  He opened his eyes and looked at me. “It's why I had to have you come here in person. I don't know who to trust . . . The headaches go away in a few days, Kylor tells me.”

  I pretended he hadn't made the headache comment. “You sound like Ginger,” I said. “She didn't know who to trust either.”

  “Honestly, I'm not even sure I can trust you, Duff. However, one of the reasons you were kept waiting was that we were performing scans of your responses to our questioning. There is every indication that you are truly here investigating Vergon Daughn's death.”

  “You gave me a lie detector test?”

  He nodded. “Three of them, in fact. I'm sorry about that, but I had to be sure . . . A hangover is no cure for happiness.”

  “Who tampered with the equipment?”

  “If I knew that,” he said, “I probably wouldn't need your help.”

  “What was done?”

  He clicked his fingernails on the desk. Dulnari fingernails had the same look and texture as volcanic glass, so the clicking sounded vaguely like tinging wine goblets. “It's hard to say. It turned up on a deep diagnostic, meaning it was somebody who really knew what they were doing . . . I don't play MateMax at the Laztor, no.”

  “What happened to the human body?”

  “It was disposed of. I personally attended to its incineration.”

  “You . . . killed him?”

  “Oh, no. That would be murder according to Unity Worlds law, even if that's not technically what it is. No, he committed suicide, which is entirely legal here on Jellon. He had several witnesses from the press there. He wanted absolutely no doubt that the new android Vergon Daughn was the only Vergon Daughn. Otherwise there could be sticky legal issues . . . I see that this idea makes you uncomfortable, Mr. Duff.”

  “Well, yeah,” I said. “I mean, to the human Vergon Daughn, it was still like dying wasn't it?”

  “No,” he said. “It wasn't. To you, to most biosens, even to me to a minor extent, a reverse BIP would seem like death . . . I hear the fruit is quite delicious . . . Few humans would be willing to do it. But to an android, a perfect copy is a perfect copy, indistinguishable from the original in every sense.”

  “If you say so,” I said. “Who bought you out? The company, I mean.”

  “Oh, just one of those intergalactic corporations that owns a little bit of everything. They're called Granger Holdings. I'm sure you've never heard of them.”

  “No, actually, I have,” I said, trying to hide my surprise. “And they bought you out before you turned Vergon back into an android?”

  “Yes. It was between when I performed his BIP and when he came back for his reversal. I explained to him that I was no longer allowed to perform the operation myself, that it all had to be automated by robots because Granger wanted to roll out the process for mass production, but he said that if I at least oversaw the operation, that would be enough . . . why, are you allergic to peanuts?”

  “Could somebody have altered the new Vergon android in some way?”

  He nodded. “That is quite possible. In fact, that is what I fear most . . . Shakespeare was not bad writer, for a human . . . I fear Vergon has gone a bit insane, or his memories have been tampered with in some way, and if you do find him and it is proven correct, then Mind-Body Technologies will be blamed for it rather than whoever tampered with the equipment.”

  “Ah,” I said, “I'm beginning to understand.”

  He looked at me with his dark, penetrating eyes. “Do you? I'm asking you to be discreet in your investigation, Duff. And of course, I'm willing to pay you handsomely for your discretion.”

  “In other words, if I find him, and he's out of his mind, you want me to lie.”

  “Oh, no. Not lie. That would be unethical. Just delay the truth until we can make certain that we have enough evidence to present what actually happened. We're doing more diagnostics, but it could take a while . . . Dulnaris have no need for shampoo . . . How much credit would you require?”

  Somehow I doubted they were performing more diagnostics. What was more likely was that they wanted to doctor the evidence, if not outright manufacture it, so that no one would ever think they were to blame. “Zero,” I said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I only work for one client at a time, Bwer Fwer.”

  “I see.”

  “But I will tell you this. If I find him, and he's crazy, I'll definitely let you know.”

  He frowned. “That's very kind of you . . . My mother-pod still thinks I'm unmodified.”

  “Give my best to your mother-pod.”

  “What?”

  I left without answering.

  * * * *

  The next two days were a series of dead ends and wrong turns that left me increasingly frustrated. Deciding to stay on Jellon until I had another lead, I spent most of the time on the vid in a cheap hotel—old habits die hard—talking with various associates, friends, and employees of Vergon Daughn. The picture that emerged was of a cautious, quiet, and extremely logical android who became an even more quiet, cautious and logical man, somebody with no hobbies other than the one he'd developed fairly recently—keeping the three-breasted woman in his life happy. Otherwise, he spent all his time working.

  Even his personal attendants couldn't offer anything useful, except to say he seemed even quieter and more withdrawn after he became a human. I was trying to get a handle on where a slightly deranged Vergon Daughn might go, and it would have been helpful if I had hobbies, interests, or favorite places to get me started.

  Then, on the third day on Jellon, it came me: maybe he hadn't left at all.

 
; Maybe he was still there.

  Like everyone else, I'd assumed that because Vergon Daughn was a genius with technology, he would have found a way to fool the security scanners at all the stepdocks or spaceports. But even without the scanners, that would have been incredibly risky. No, the most logical thing to do would have been to stay on Jellon itself, exactly because everybody knew he could get off if he wanted.

  But where would he go? Someplace hospitable for androids, so perhaps one of the large cities where there'd be plenty of power grids and high-traffic nexlinks. I started to make a list of all the underground contacts I knew in the biggest cities, people who could point me in the right direction, when I realized I had it all wrong.

  Vergon wouldn't go to a big city. He was too smart for that. He'd go someplace nobody would expect an android to go.

  The good news was that most of Jellon was highly developed, so there were really only a handful of places an android wouldn't be able to survive long without returning to civilization—the Harlo Desert, the Three Seas of Kinl, and Nelsani Rainforest. In fact, he wouldn't have been able to get far in any of them without some sort of guide. If my theory was right, I just had to find the guide.

  I downloaded a list of travel agents and other tourist operations to my handheld, then headed out into the crowded streets, past booths of loud-mouthed vendors of every race imaginable, the air alive with sizzling grease and pungent spices. I was about halfway to the nearest stepdock when I had the distinct feeling I was being followed.

  In the elbow-to-elbow crowd, I was barely able to lift my arms, but I managed to round a corner and duck into a shadowy alcove. I hung back, the crowd drifting past like a river choked with debris. I watched, waiting, looking for a reaction of some kind from somebody, and then I saw it.

  A muscular blond human in a black trench coat picked up his pace and rounded the corner.

  I dropped into the crowd and followed. When I rounded the corner myself, we came face-to-face. He'd been running, and he pulled up short. His face was expressionless, but it was still frozen in place.

  “Hey, buddy,” I said, clamping down on his arm, “I want to have a word—”