Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail

by Jack L. Chalker

  “Yes?”

  “We’ve been watching you, Tarin Bul.”

  “Aren’t you always?” I cracked, zipping up my pants and going to the washbasin.

  “We are not TMS,” the voice told me. “We do not like TMS very much. We suspect that, by now, you don’t like them much, either.”

  I shrugged and washed my hands. “I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t on that one,” I told the voice sincerely. “If this is a test by TMS and I say I don’t like them, I’ll get picked up and asked why. If, on the other hand, I say I just love TMS, they’ll pick me up for sure and rush me to the nearest psych. So I’ll pass on the answer, and unless there’s something else I’ve got to go back to work.”

  “We are not TMS,” the voice told me. “We are in opposition to the TMS and the current government of Medusa. We are powerful enough to feed a false signal, recorded earlier, of you sitting on the toilet to TMS monitors while we use this channel to talk to you.”

  “Says you,” I retorted.

  “You’re no native, programmed to this life. Why do you not accept what we say?”

  “For one thing, if you’re that powerful you don’t need me. And if you do need me, and are that powerful, then you’re either phony or pretty, incompetent rebels.”

  “We don’t need you,” the voice responded. “We want you. That is a different thing. The more people in more guilds we have, the stronger we become, the better able to manage this world after it is ours. You in particular have two attributes of value to us. You have mobility due to your job, which is invaluable in our society. And, you are not a native of this world, and sooner or later it will drive you crazy.”

  “Maybe it already has,” I said, retaining my skeptical tone. “But let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that I believe you’re who and what you say. What good does it do me?”

  “Listen carefully, for we will say this only once, and time is short. Someone will soon miss you and come in demanding to know why you are not back at work. You have one chance and one chance only to join us. At your next layover at Rochande you have a day off. Go to the matinée show at the Grand Theater that day. Sit in the balcony. Leave to go to the bathroom halfway through the first act. We will contact you.”

  “And my pair-mate?”

  “Not at the first meeting. Later we will arrange for her as well. This communication is ended. Guard your comments.”

  And, with that, things were, allegedly, back to normal. I left quickly and returned to work. Ching noticed that I seemed cheerier than I had for weeks, but couldn’t figure out why.

  We always went out for a special meal and a show on our day off and when I suggested the Grand, Ching wasn’t the least surprised. As instructed long ago, I keyed in the code on my terminal that told me how much credit we had for our day on the town—and simultaneously let my TMS contact know that things had, finally, started to roll. I had no intention of double-crossing either side until Td gotten what I wanted from this assignment, and certainly not until I could get away with it.

  When you’re sitting in the middle of a dark and crowded theater you-can instantly make yourself a villain in a number of ways, but the worst is to go to the bathroom in the middle of the show. I finally made it to the aisle through the curses and dirty looks—made worse by the sure and certain knowledge that I’d be back—and proceeded to the upper lobby, where the large rest room was located. As I passed the last row of seats—far more sparsely populated since they were so far from the screen you might as well have dialed the show on your terminal—a hand shot out from a darkened seat, grabbed my arm, and pulled me over with such force I almost lost my balance.

  All I could really tell about her was that she was tall, lean, and looked to be a pure civilized worlder. “Listen, Bul,” she whispered, “just sit down and make like you’re watching the show. Let me do the talking.”

  “Fair enough,” I whispered back, and sat.

  “Are you still interested in our organization?”

  “I still don’t believe in it,” I told her, “but I’m here, at least out of curiosity.”

  ‘That’s enough—for now. Just two blocks north of this theater is a small café the Gringol. Go there after the show. Order what you like from the menu. Wait for us. We will take care of things from that point on, both with you and with TMS. If you are not there, you will never hear from us again. Now get up and go to the toilet.”

  I started to open my mouth and respond, then thought better of it, and did as instructed.

  Ching and I watched the rest of the show, then wandered outside, where it was still light but would not be for much longer. I suggested a walk to get the kinks out of my leg. In the middle of the second block north of the theater, I spotted the small sign for the Gringol and turned to Ching. “I’m getting hungry. Want to get something?”

  “Sure. Why not? Got anyplace in mind? How flush are we?”

  “Not very,” I told her, and that was the truth, despite the extra cash. “Let’s see what this café has.” The maneuver was nice and smooth and natural, and she didn’t suspect a thing.

  The place was small and dimly lit, although, of course, that would not matter to TMS and its ever-present monitors. Still, in a world with cafeteria sameness, the occasional trip to a restaurant or café, with an actual menu from which to select meals, was a real treat. Sometimes, the food in small places like this was even prepared by humans with their own special recipes, mostly Warden exiles or those with recipes passed down from exiles and pioneers.

  “Looks expensive,” Ching said dubiously. “Are you sure we can afford this?”

  “Probably not, but what the hell,” I responded, picking a small two-person table in the back and sitting down. The place was almost empty, although a few more people drifted in as we sat A human waitress arrived from the back and handed us small menus. There weren’t that many choices, but the few available promised to be “special recipes found nowhere else on Medusa”: a Cerberan algae steak, an unusual Charon fruit plate, and other Warden specialties, including some meat dishes, I noted. The menu bragged that nothing used was synthetic. I doubted that, but at least such a declaration meant they’d try hard to make you believe it. The prices were fairly reasonable, so when the waitress suggested a special Lilith wine I looked at Ching, then sprang for it.

  Frankly, I was surprised at the suggestion, considering our obvious youth. The wine arrived and was poured from a small wooden flask. I picked mine up, looked at Ching, and smiled. “Ever had alcohol before?”

  “No,” she admitted, “but I’ve always been curious about it.”

  “Well, you’ll know why you haven’t. Try it.” I sipped mine, and she drank hers as if it were a glass of water, then made a curious face. “It tastes—funny.”

  It was actually a very good wine, considering I had no idea what it was fermented from, that tasted like a high-class white from the civilized worlds. “You don’t like it?”

  “No—I mean, yes. It’s just—different.” The waitress was soon back to take our order, and we gave it and relaxed. It occurred to me that either the wine or something in the food might contain a drug, but that didn’t worry me. I expected it.

  I looked over at Ching, who was already looking a little glassy-eyed and just smiling and staring at me. She was small and alcohol was new to her and would hit her. She sighed, “I feel real good. Relaxed.” She reached for the flask, poured more wine, and drank it fairly quickly. I was still sipping my first glass, of course, feeling fairly human and normal for the first time since I woke up on that prison ship.

  Whoever this Opposition was, they were a most civilized underground. While whatever it was, was somewhere in the meal, they let us finish it before our consciousness just sort of faded out without either of us even noticing. Half expecting it, I could have established mental defenses to block the effects—but that would have defeated the whole plan anyway.

  I awoke in a smelly tunnel, with several dark forms hovering near me.
The place smelled really cruddy, like raw sewage, and it took no brains at all to figure out that I was somewhere down in the drainage system under the city.

  Whatever they used was no more than a light hypnotic; I could break it fairly easily, but that wasn’t something Tarin Bul was supposed to be able to do, and so I simply rearranged my mind-set while keeping myself under at about the same level as the drug or whatever—but with autohypnosis replacing the substance. If agents could be subdued by such simple chemical means there’d be no use breeding them and training them so extensively.

  I could not quite make out the dark shapes, even though they were very close. Either they wore some all-encompassing black hooded garments or they were using some sort of disrupter field.

  “He wakes to level one,” a woman’s voice said.

  “It is time, then,” another—a gruff man’s voice—responded. “Here—let me check.” He kneeled down very close to me, and a black, ghostly arm and hand opened one of my eyes, checked my pulse, and did other routine checks. He got back up, seeming satisfied. “It’s okay, Sister 657, you want to take him?”

  ‘Tarin Bul—do you hear us?” the woman’s voice asked softly.

  “Yes,” I responded dully.

  “You understand that this is your point of no return? That you may tell us now to restore you and nothing more will ever be said nor will you hear from us again? But, if you continue, you are committed to us, and should you compromise or betray the Opposition you will forfeit your life.”

  “I understand,” I told them. “I did not come here to turn away.”

  They seemed to like that. “Very well,” Sister 657 said, “then rise and follow us.”

  I did as instructed, thankfully noting that I had been on a dry wooden platform and not in that gunk below. We were, in fact, walking on catwalks over the river of sludge, somewhere beneath Rochande in a maze even those who worked in it would need a map to negotiate. Not these folks, though; they knew just where they were going. Despite the twists and turns, I was pretty sure I could get back to where we started, but that knowledge did me no good. I had no assurance that that starting spot was anywhere near the café, since I had no idea how long I’d been out.

  Finally we made a turn and walked over a temporary catwalk maybe three meters long. It led to an opening in the tunnel wall beyond which was a dimly lit room full of maintenance equipment. Several more dark shapes were in evidence, perhaps a dozen in all including my captors, which was a good thing. With all the ropes and probes and cables and patch can about, there wouldn’t be room in the place for many more.

  They sat me down on a crate in front of them, whereupon I relaxed. The stuff they gave me would be out of my system by now anyway, and they’d be the first to realize that.

  Sister 657 seemed to be the leader. Nice touch, that, just the camaraderie title and a simple number. The odds were that her number made her very high up indeed—I assumed, correctly as it turned out, that the numbers referred to cell and city and only one to the individual’s within the cell.

  “Behold a possible brother,” Sister 657 intoned. I hoped I wasn’t in for a night of silly mumbo-jumbo and secret lodge stuff. “We give him the number 6137. He is awake, alert, and open to questions.”

  “Brother—why do you want to oppose the government?” a woman in the back asked me.

  “It’s pretty dull,” I responded, which got a few chuckles.

  “Brother—why do you wish to join us?” another woman asked.

  “You recruited me,” I pointed out. “Right now you’re the only game in town, so, okay, I’ll join up. But I really don’t know what you stand for, and maybe your ideas on running Medusa are worse than the government’s.”

  Some whispers around, as if I’d said something I shouldn’t, but I intended to be blunt. What little I could pick out seemed to concern how cocksure and self-confident I was for one so young.

  “He makes a good point,” Sister 657 broke in, defusing the whispers. “We have told him nothing of ourselves. Perhaps we should before going any further.” She turned to me. “Brother 6137, we don’t bother with oaths, handshakes, or ceremonies. That’s for the superstitious masses. However, I should tell you that, like most groups of this sort, we are more united in our opposition to the current government than we are in what to replace it with. Still, a lot more can be done with this world than this society permits, and it can be done effectively without having the government watch you go to the bathroom. We are strong, powerful, and well-positioned; but the means of overthrow has, as yet, eluded us. Right now we concentrate on getting recruits, gaining as much technical information on the local level as possible in each place, and establishing ourselves in each major population center on Medusa. It is a start.”

  I nodded. “But you can just as easily become a powerful debating society,” I pointed out. “Look, I was born and bred to politics. Had things gone differently for me, in a few years I’d have been in planetary administration instead of sitting here waiting on passengers. Don’t patronize me or think of me as a kid. I leave that to the people I want to underestimate me. For example, I think you should know that TMS knows you’re in Rochande and put me out as bait.”

  There was a lot of shuffling and gasping at that one. Finally the leader asked, “Are you sure you know what you just said?”

  I nodded. “Why hide it? You snuffed one of theirs and they got some information from another, and I was the logical bait. So they bumped me to a job that would bring me here. Frankly, I was getting sick and tired waiting for you people.”

  “He admits to working for TMS!” a woman almost shouted. “Remove him—now!”

  “If I were a really effective TMS agent or plant the last thing I would have done would have been to tell you what I just did,” I pointed out—falsely, as a matter of fact. The outburst worried me. Amateurs. Damned play-at-revolution amateurs! I had hoped for better.

  “And will you tell TMS that you have contacted us, and joined us?” Sister 657 asked.

  I nodded. “Sure. And you’ll have to cook up something occasionally for me to feed that stonelike major or they’ll pick me up and put me under a psych machine. They did that to one of your own—I don’t know any names—a few months back, another newcomer like me, breaking her mind. I don’t want anything like that happening to me, so if you’re as powerful as you say you are I expect protection.”

  The man—possibly the only male other than myself—rose for the first time. “You make good sense, young man. You are very clever. Perhaps too clever. I almost wonder about you. The Cerberans, it is said, can make robots in any shape or form that cannot be told from humans. Ones that can assume the characteristics of any of the four Warden worlds.”

  “I’m no robot,” I assured him, “but that information interests me.” I paused, as if thinking over some weighty matters, then showed by my face and manner that I had made a decision. “In point of fact, I’m going to tell you something that isn’t even on my records. Something Medusa, and, I suspect, Halstansir doesn’t really know. I was a ringer back home. I didn’t come out of the administrative breeding pool nor out of their schools. Do you think a high-class administrator could have managed to get into a reception and chop off a top politician’s head with a sword? No, for reasons that are old history and have no business with you or anybody else any more, I came out of the assassin’s pool.”

  There. A nice white lie that allowed me to be a little more of myself while at the same time protected my real identity and purpose. Who knows? My logic was so good maybe the kid had been from my old school at that. I’d like to think so. It disturbs me that an amateur could have pulled off that job so neatly.

  And they bought it, hook, line, and sinker, just because it did make good sense. My first meeting, and already I’d engineered at least a social promotion for myself. As I said, amateurs.

  “This explains a lot about you and your manner,” Sister 657 said. “If this is so, then you are a far more valued recruit tha
n I—we—had originally hoped for.” Interesting slip, that. It implied that I knew her and she knew me, and I didn’t know that many older folks on Medusa. She seemed unaware of her slip, though, and continued.

  “Our time is run for this matter,” she told us. “I propose we administer a small hypnotic and replace him at the café. Later, this week or early next, 6137, you will be called to the company psych for a routine check. There one of our people will add her own little bit to your testing, and we will check out your facts. If you prove out, then you will join our group, leaving for meetings in the same manner, but without the drug, from various small cafés. Objections?”

  I shook my head. “Not on the psych stuff, no. But I suggest we continue to use the Gringol, at least for me. It wouldn’t make any sense at all to compromise other cafés and similar places, since I am both being watched and obliged to report to TMS. Everybody else can use different spots—but keep me on the café Eventually they’ll put a transmitter on me somewhere, probably one I know about and one I won’t, but I assume you have some kind of scanning for that sort of thing. If not, the next time or two, I’ll show you how to build one. They’ll assume any failure in the gadgets is your doing, anyway.”

  “Why do I feel we just joined him?” a woman in the front said grumpily.

  I smiled.

  They were smooth, I’ll say that. Ching had passed out, but with the careful administering of additional doses of the hypnotic—a native plant, since anything else would be quickly negated by the Wardens—she was hardly aware that time passed at all. Nicely susceptible to the hypnotics, as most people are, she accepted a reasonable romantic scenario set in and near the café that, the Opposition assured me, would be supported in TMS records.

  I dutifully keyed in the major on the terminal later that night, and, sure enough, the next day, after returning to Gray Basin and getting something to eat, TMS had another “random pickup,” this time of both of us, although we were separated, once at headquarters.

  The major, whose name, I learned, was Hocrow, was more than interested in my account, which, no doubt, was being checked and verified by countless scanners and sensors. No doubt, indeed—because she not only had a chair for me this time, she insisted I sit in it. Still, I had no worries about them, either—not only could I control just about all my important bodily indicators to make those machines read any way I wanted, I insured things by telling nothing but the truth, leaving out, of course, some of the inconvenient details.