Cerberus: A Wolf in the Fold flotd-2

by Jack L. Chalker

  Sanda had left a message for me at the gatehouse that she was down on the docks. I took the public elevator down. Just outside the compound was a small complex of commerical trawlers and bork-hunting boats, mostly the commercial type that protected the watermen rather than the sports charter type.

  Sanda, out on a dock next to a formidable-looking hunter-killer bqat, spotted me, called, and waved. I ambled over, wondering what she was doing down here.

  “Qwin! Come on! I want you to meet Dylan Kohl!” she told me, and together we boarded the boat. It was sleek and functional with twenty-five centimeters or more of armor plate, a retractable hydrofoil, and a nasty-looking cannon. The vessel looked more like a warship than a commercial boat. I’d never been on one before, but found it fascinating.

  Dylan Kohl turned out to be a tall, tanned, muscular-looking young woman wearing a sunshade, dark glasses, some very brief shorts and tennis shoes. Smoking a huge, fat Charon-import cigar, she was working on some sort of electronics console near the forward turret. At our approach, she dropped a small tool and turned to meet us.

  “So you’re Qwin,” she said, her voice low and hard, putting out a hand. “IVe heard a lot about you.”

  I shook the hand. A hell of a grip, I noted. “And you’re Dylan Kohl, about whom I’ve never heard a word up to this moment,” I responded.

  She laughed. “Well, until you came along I was the only conversation Sanda had on a more than business basis outside the House.”

  “Dylan’s a rare hope,” Sanda added. “She’s the only person I know who ever got out of the motherhood.”

  That raised my eyebrows. “Oh? And how’d you manage that? I’ve been hearing how impossible it was.”

  “Is,” Dylan told me. “I cheated. I did it crooked, I admit, but I never regretted doing so. I drugged my way out”

  “Drugged? Even caffeine and other stimulants usually get pushed out in an hour or less.”

  She nodded. “Some drugs work. Stuff distilled from Warden plants, particularly ones from Lilith. Strictly controlled, government use only—but I managed to get a little of a hypnotic. Let’s not go into how. Swapped with a Class II dockworker.”

  We walked back to the aft section behind the pilot house, which had been set up as a sun deck while in port. I settled into a chair and so did Sanda. Dylan went below and returned with some refreshing-looking drinks laced with fruit. She then stretched out on a collapsible chaise tongue. I tried the drink—a little too sweet for my taste, but not at all bad.

  Dylan’s hard, determined manner contrasted sharply with Sanda’s. No matter what body she’d originally had, it was hard to imagine her as a professional mother.

  “This dock down here did it,” she began. “Watching the boats go in and out, hearing the stories, seeing the expressions on the faces of those who went out and came back every day. I don’t know. Something in my head, I guess. I’ve had a lot of lovers, but I’ve been married to the sea ever since I can remember. It showed, I think—the water people would always talk to me. We had the same feelings. One of ’em finally took a risk and smuggled me out on a run. I was hooked. I knew that no matter what happened somehow I had to work the boats. Just shows that if you have enough smarts and you want something bad enough you can get it. I keep telling Sanda that when she’s down.”

  I smiled and nodded. I was beginning to like Dylan Kohl quite a bit. Although I didn’t share her love for the sea, in general attitudes her mind paralleled my own.

  “This is your boat, I take it?”

  She nodded “Every rivet and plate. Once I was out of the House I was determined to make myself a Class I secure, and to do it with boat work. I’d go out with ’em on my own from time to time, filling in where they needed help while doing my dock cleanup job. When openings came along, I got signed on as crew. There are usually openings in this business, but you gotta be crazy to be in it to begin with. On a world where everybody’s trying to live forever I love a job where you get to be captain by surviving long enough. Eventually you either have your own boat or get swallowed whole or in little pieces. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  “You’re the captain, then?”

  She nodded. “Shorter time than most, I’m told. Four years. I’m the sole survivor of her original crew of six. They were a pretty sloppy bunch, though—it’s why I picked ’em.”

  Here was one tough woman, I told myself. And, I guess, you had to be in this kind of business. As she said, most Cerberans tried as hard as they could to stay away from any sort of danger, with death feared far more than any place where people died naturally and normally. But in her business you constantly courted danger. It was often fatal business.

  “Ever been on a bork hunt?” she asked.

  I shook my head slowly from side to side. “No, never really had the inclination after seeing the pictures.”

  “Aw, there’s nothing like it,” she enthused. “Going in and out against the thing at thirty to forty knots, your skill, knowledge, and reflexes against the monster’s. You don’t feel bad about killing them, either—they’re so nasty and good-for-nothing. And you’re saving the lives and livelihood of the salts who work the deeps. You feel good about it—and I am good at it. In seven months now as cap I haven’t lost a crew member. Why, just the other day we were down off Laroo’s Island and we—”

  “What!” I exclaimed, almost rising to my feet “Where?”

  She stopped and appeared slightly annoyed at being interrupted. “Why, Laroo’s Island. It’s a little out of my territory, about a hundred and forty kilometers southeast of here, but we got to chasing a big one. A real challenge. You get like that.”

  “You mean Wagant Laroo?”

  “There’s two?”

  Suddenly I was very interested in bork hunting.

  Carefully, though, I steered the conversation away from Laroo and back into her tales of the hunt, which she obviously enjoyed repeating to a new audience. I could see Sanda with stars in her eyes at hearing all this. Even if she didn’t feel like hunting borks, Dylan Kohl was the embodiment of her ideal. The hero-worship went really deep.

  Inwardly, though, I felt some excitement and mentally checked my programmed map of Cerberus—nothing marked “Laroo’s Island” on it. Taking a look to the southeast of Akeba, I detected only a couple of possibilities, isolated groves of great trees separated from the main body by perhaps thirty or more kilometers.

  I began to see an unseen overhand in my current position and location. The Warden worlds weren’t as free of some Confederacy machinations as they liked to think.

  I saw more of Dylan after that, generally but not always accompanied by Sanda, and eventually eked out more information on Laroo’s Island. The Lord of Cerberus was a secretive man, one who enjoyed power but not the celebrity that usually went with it. The island was neither the headquarters of the government nor his official residence, but he was there as often as possible.

  The place was reputed to be truly grand, the ultimate in resorts. It was also constantly patrolled by air and ship, approaches monitored by just about every known surveillance system. If somehow you beat it, you then had to pass a brain scan to keep from getting creamed automatically. It was in fact as nearly impregnable a fortress as the Lord of the Diamond, Boss of all Bosses, Chairman of the Council of Syndicates, could design.

  Like all absolute dictators, Wagant Laroo feared assassination the most—and more than any others, since that was the only way of getting rid of him or allowing his syndicate chiefs to move up to the top themselves. He himself had gotten the job by judicious and legally untraceable eliminations.

  Well, I didn’t want to wait twenty or thirty years to move up the ladder. Not only did I not have that much patience, but there was more of a chance that something would go wrong in such a slow rise than by the more direct fbute. But the challenge was becoming irresistible on its own merits. The little-seen political boss in his impregnable fortress! Just perfect.

  All the elements wer
e now in place for a break when it presented itself, and it did so a bit sooner than expected, judging by the worried expression on Turgan Sugal’s face. Sugal was the Tooker plant manager, a pretty good one who took an extraordinary interest in every facet of the business. Even those of us on the lowest end of the seniority scale knew him, for he was always about, checking on us, making suggestions, socializing, playing on all the company teams. He was, in fact, a very popular boss, and highly accessible. He’d been around a while, too. Although his current body was barely thirty, he was said to be almost a hundred years old.

  He looked the hundred, though, when he dropped down to my department to tell me he wouldn’t be able to play in the company cordball game that evening. I was captain of the team.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked him, genuinely concerned. “You look like a man about to have his head chopped off.”

  “Not quite that bad,” he responded glumly, “but bad I enough. We just got the next quarter’s production quota and allocations from the syndicate. They’re sky-high. At the same time they’re yanking several key people from me for some big project upstairs. Khamgirt’s been out to get me for years, and he’s dropped the whole load on my shoulders. I don’t see how we can meet the quotas with a reduced force, and it’s my neck if we don’t.”

  “Can’t you lay off some of the stuff to the other plants?” I asked. “Or get some help from them on personnel, anyway?”

  He shook his head. “Normally, yeah, but Khamgirt really means business this time and he’s refused. He’s never liked my way of doing business, anyway, and canning me has always been a big goal.” He paused and chuckled. “And you thought when you were the boss you didn’t have to worry about this kind of shit any more, didn’t you?”

  I returned the chuckle. “No, I know the score very well. Remember, I had a long life and job before I ever got to this planet.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. That’s right—you’re from Outside. I keep forgetting. Maybe that’s why you’re easier to talk to, huh?”

  “A damn sight cheaper than a psych, anyway,” I joked, but my mind was already working. Here it was, I could feel it. Here was the break, the start in the chain that would eventually lead me to Wagant Laroo.

  “Tell me, Mr. Sugal,” I said slowly, choosing my pace with care, “how would things go next quarter if President Khamgirt wasn’t president any more?”

  He paused and looked at me quizzically. “What are you suggesting? That I kill him? That’s damned hard and you know it.”

  That statement gave me an inward chuckle, since Khamgirt was a little enough fish that I could probably have taken him out effortlessly. But I hardly wanted to betray myself as a pro in that area. Not yet. Too many other nervous bosses would see me as a threat.

  “Uh-uh,” I answered him. “I’m talking about getting him canned.”

  Sugal snorted derisively. “Hell, Zhang, you’d have to prove gross incompetence, direct and prolonged mismanagement, or criminal intent against the state—and as much as I hate the son of a bitch, I don’t think he’s guilty of any of those things.”

  “Whether he is or isn’t is beside the point,” I told him. “Suppose I could hang one of those on him anyway?”

  “Are you crazy? What you’re saying is impossible!” he responded, but he sat down.

  “Not only not impossible, but not even that hard if a little luck is riding with me—and it usually is. I’m pretty sure such a thing has been done before, many times. I studied the histories of a lot of our syndicate bosses and corporation presidents. This is a technological world founded by technological criminals, Mr. Sugal. Founded by them and run by them.”

  He shook his head in disbelief. “That’s absurd. I would have heard about it.”

  “Would they tell you? So you could do it to them? Look, even Laroo has been on Cerberus less time than you’ve been around by far, and look what happened to him.”

  Sugal considered that. “How would you do it?”

  “Given, say, a week and a little inside information. I’ll know exactly. I have a rough plan in mind, but it’ll need fine-tuning, the kind that can only come when it has a specific objective and target.”

  He looked at me somewhat uneasily. “And why would you do this? For me? Don’t give me that bull.”

  “No, for me. What would happen to your position if I could do it? Where would that leave you?”

  “Probably as a senior vice-president,” he told me. “Higher up, certainly, particularly since I’d know it was coining when nobody else did and would be able to pave the way. I know how to do it, but the only opening to the top I had a chance at Khamgirt took. Still, as I said before, what’s in it for you? I can hardly promote you to plant manager so suddenly.”

  “No, I don’t want much of an advancement,” I told him. “In fact, I’m thinking of a different direction for myself. One safe for you. Do you know Hroyasail?”

  Again he was caught a little off-guard, which was fine. “Yeah, it’s one of our subsidiaries. Harvests skrit offshore. We use some of the chemicals from it in making insulators. Why?”

  “I want it,” I told him. “Right now the place doesn’t even have a president. A company accountant comes down three or four times a year from the home office and that’s about it.”

  “Sure. Something that small usually doesn’t need one.”

  “I think it does. Me. And the position’s already provided for, at least on the organizational chart. All it needs is certification by a senior official. You could do that as plant manager—but I’d prefer it coming from a senior vice-president, say.”

  “Now what in hell would you want that for?”

  “My own reasons. But it’s a nonthreatening position. The kind of job they’ll give you if Khamgirt gets his way and you fail to meet quota. A pasture job. It pays well, has few responsibilities, has no experience prerequisites, and is still within the company. And of course as a company president I’d love to drop around occasionally and gossip with a senior vice-president of my parent corporation.”

  He thought it over. “Supposing—just supposing—you could pull it off. And, again just supposing, I could finagle that post for you. Would I have to watch my own back, then?”

  “No, ” I responded as sincerely as I could. “I’m not interested in your job, present or future. That kind of stuff would drive me nuts. This is a company world and I’m just not the company type. Believe me, Mr. Sugal, nothing in any of my plans would in any way harm you now or in the future. I like and admire you—but we’re two different sorts with two different directions to follow.”

  “I think I believe you,” he told me, still sounding uneasy, “but I’m still not sure if I shouldn’t be afraid of you.”

  “What can you lose? They have you at their mercy now. I’m going to do something, not you. You alone will know that I did it—but neither of us will be able to ever use the information against the other because that’s the only way both of us can ever be incriminated. If I fail, you’re no worse off than you are now. If I succeed, we both get what we want. How about it?”

  I’ll believe you can do it when I see it done,” he said skeptically, “but I can’t see anything against it, either.”

  I grinned. “You provide me with a few important bits of information, and I’ll almost guarantee it. A deal’s a deal.” I looked at my watch. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going down to change for the game. Sure you won’t play?”

  He shook his head. “Big meeting tonight with the area managers. But—good luck.”

  “I try and keep luck out of it, sir,” I told him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Preparations

  Sanda Tyne, Dylan Kohl, Turgan Sugal, and, yes, even fat Otah. Especially him. The elements were all there.

  The first thing I did was drop down to a store and buy an armload of electric slates. I needed a lot of plotting and planning with hard copy, but I wanted no trace whatsoever to remain after. No innocent slips of paper, no idle tra
cing to betray me. When the deed was accomplished, I’d have to stay well protected. The scam would be absolute and it would work, but those higher up, far beyond Khamgirt, would smell a rat somewhere, if only because they were variations of people like me and would have a nose for it. They’d know what had occurred was a frame, but even as they allowed Khamgirt to be led away to oblivion of some kind they’d be searching for the culprit Khamgirt wouldn’t be sacked because they believed him guilty, but for being so sloppy as to allow such a dirty trick to be played on him.

  Dylan had exploited much the same weakness in the system when she had broken free of the motherhood by using a drug most people had never heard about or believed existed. I had no access to such substances, and even if I might get some that wasn’t what I wanted. Any controlled substances, particularly those from offworld, could be traced by a determined group of investigators. The key to this plan as it developed was that, even if they figured it out, they would reject the explanation because of its very absurdity. I liked that touch.

  Even as Sugal got me what I wanted to know—information on night shifts in certain parts of Tooker, various routine business transfer codes, and facts about certain basic computers supplied by Tooker to borough agencies—I started out to complete my subtle recruitment. This was not something that could be done alone, although I would have preferred to do it that way. But what had to be accomplished in very little time was too spread out and complex for any one person to manage. Furthermore, I wanted no chance of interruptions by third parties who might have to be dealt with, so I had to control everybody in the area for a stated period of time. That would be tough. However, I had some things to offer, and some interested parties to offer them to.

  By now I had Dylan’s measure pretty well and was certain of her ability to keep things quiet, including herself, and of her guts to pull off her assignment. Sanda was the problem. Now over seven months pregnant, she had little freedom of movement, and her life in that cloister was beyond my checking. She’d go along with my plan, of course, but I had to trust Dylan’s judgment that she’d keep her mouth shut about it.