THE FIRST FEW WEEKS AT COCHIN CENTER WERE really
orientation—getting to know the layout of the place, the dos
and don’ts specific to it, the social pecking order and
one’s place in it, and who was important, who was not, who
was powerful, and who was to be feared above all. These were, in
most respects, more important to long-term happiness at Center than
learning a new job.
Barring emergencies, which were few, things worked
slowly—most said leisurely—around Cochin Center as well
as the other Centers on Janipur. Jeruwahl Peshwar was basically a
statistician now promoted to low-level Evaluator. This meant he
spent much of his time with computers and graphics projections
looking for potential sources of long-term trouble for the system,
identifying and classifying them, and then passing them along to
higher specialists who would make the final decisions. It was not
an ideal position for someone who didn’t want any risks,
since if some potential problem was not identified and passed on to
the proper channels for action or was misidentified or sent to the
wrong parties and things went badly, there was no one lower to
blame for the results. It did, however, offer real potential for
advancement if problems were identified that were not obvious and
things ran smoothly for long periods in the areas under study. The
right guesses made fewer problems for the higher-ups, so they
looked good and tended to remember who made them the points.
His first job, really more of a placement test, was to examine
the rate of population growth versus death rates in several major
cities with high-density populations and project problems in food
supply and other support systems as well as jobs for the new
population and other such factors resulting from that growth. The
bulk of Janipur’s economy was still village-based subsistence
farming, but a few cities, such as the one he’d just left,
existed to supply a host of more elaborate products and services to
legal and governmental centers, as well as religious centers.
Cities needed to be supplied from the country, and cities attracted
those people disillusioned with subsistence farming, simply down
and out, or those looking for the end of the rainbow, and if a
sufficient number came in and a poor underclass developed, there
was potential for political ferment, violence, and challenges to
the system. Children born to city natives could not easily be
shifted to rural subsistence work. It was a tricky job keeping
everything balanced without violating the technological limits.
Centers had odd top administrators, many with jobs that would
horrify their own people. Administrators like the minister of
plagues and pestilences, who could, surreptitiously, make very
certain that a population was pared down to a manageable size, and
the innocuous-sounding minister of meteorology, who could manage
some very nasty tropical storms, floods, droughts, and the like as
needed—or provide essential rain to an area where higher
yields were needed. The offices of worthies like those received the
reports of bureaucrats like Peshwar.
His was not a difficult or demanding job; the computers did most
of the work. It would, however, have been far easier without the
required Leave; it was hard to recommend a plague on people who
you’d just lived with and really liked. That, in fact, was
the official reason for the transfer; ones like him were not
permitted to make such evaluations or decisions about their own
native regions, and for obvious reasons.
They had been in their new homes for a bit over four weeks and
things were going quite well. They had toured the Center—all
the unclassified parts—and had even toured the museum in the
center of the main level and seen the splendors of Janipurian
crafts, the great gems and wondrous works in wood and metal from
all over the planet. The central exhibit and artifact, however, was
the chief administrator’s Holy Ring of Peace, a grand ring of
gold with a shiny black setting in which were two intricately
carved birds looking at each other while sitting on a single
stylized branch. One of the few objects in the museum displayed
occasionally to the masses, it was known to all as an object of
reverence and power, a great and mystical relic from Mother World
itself, passed down from generation to generation.
Madowa of late had not been feeling at her best, however. She
began by waking up feeling nauseous, and had dizzy spells and
flushes now and then. It did not affect her appetite, however; if
anything, she was eating far more than usual and including a fair
amount of raw vegetables and extremely sweet confections, although
she had not been a real sweets lover before. She shrugged it off,
but when Sedowa began showing the same symptoms and both had missed
two consecutive periods, they decided to go to the medical clinic
and find out if there was some sort of contagious disease going
around. The clinicians knew when the records came up what the
situation was, but did far more thorough tests in light of
Madowa’s history of infertility. Madowa was about eleven
weeks pregnant: Sedowa was perhaps eight and a half or nine. The
news excited them, not to mention Jeruwahl, and more and more their
thoughts turned to children and nothing else.
That made the invitation to visit Deputy Security Chief Nurim
Boil all the more inexplicable. It was very unexpected, but they
understood that an invitation from one such as this was not a
request but a command.
Boil was a very large man for a Janipurian and had an enormous
hawk nose and a facial expression that seemed locked in a permanent
grimace. He looked mean and nasty without a gram of spirituality
within him. He met them in a small, private office on the
administrative rather than the security level, which was also odd
but at least didn’t generate unnecessary anxiety and require
a hundred clearances. Boil locked the door, bade them be seated,
and examined them for a moment. Then he said, strangely,
“Vulture takes Clayben. Thunder and lightning
result.”
For a moment there was no effect, and then on all three of them
it was like a cloud lifted from their minds and a whole enormous
part of themselves that they never suspected was there was suddenly
revealed and thrust forward. They were still Janipurian, but they
now knew just who they really were and why they were there and who
Boil must be.
Vulture continued in the Janipurian form of Hindi. It was more
than adequate for what he had to say and was easier for them all.
It wasn’t safe for them to start thinking again in their old
tongues. “This room is secure. We have a number of them about
like this, feeding the monitors all sorts of distortions. With more
than sixty SPF in the Center it’s the only way to keep sane
or do anything naughty. You are being monitored in your apartment
and elsewhere, however. You’re not under
suspicion—it’s just routine for new people. I’ll
take care of it when the time comes. Are you clear enough in the
head now to go on with this?”
“Y-yes, I suppose,” Jeruwahl-Sabir responded.
“But surely you cannot consider doing anything at this point.
Both of the women are with child.”
“We are aware of that. That’s why we have to rush
this thing.”
“We cannot do this! Not now. We must wait,
however long it takes, until the timing is right.”
“That is the protector and father talking,” Vulture
noted. “I’ll give it to you straight. We have a plan,
if the two women do their parts, that just might work. The getaway
is tricky and probably messy, but it’s the best we can come
up with. Getting in is still a missing piece of the puzzle that you
must fill in. The pregnancies are a good cover. Absolutely no one
suspects any of you, that I assure you.”
“But it is too far along. Already Madowa’s body
changes. In two weeks, three at best, the changes will come faster
and faster and she will become unable to help. Sedowa is only two
or three weeks behind.” He stopped a moment, suddenly struck
with a thought that horrified him. “We will not allow an
abortion.”
Vulture looked at the two women, who nodded in unison.
“All right.” He sighed. “I never even thought of
that angle, since it would cause all sorts of problems and raise
enormous suspicion. The bottom line: assuming we can steal the
damned thing to begin with and get away from Center, all the forces
of darkness will descend upon us like a horrible plague. We
can’t use any of the flyers for getaways since they’re
automatically tracked by the central security system. We will have
to go overland, hiding out where we can and eluding the biggest
manhunt this world has ever seen—with the technology of a Val
and the SPF and Master System on top of us. I’ve been busy
preparing that escape, but it won’t be easy and it
won’t be quick. It is by no means certain that any or all of
us can make it the whole way. It is absolutely certain,
dead certain, that it will be impossible with two infants.
And we can’t leave them even if you were willing
to—these people will use them against us. Torturing babies in
public is just another means to an end for them. It’s going
to be tough enough handling two increasingly pregnant
women.”
“Then we wait until—”
“How long?” he challenged, not letting the potential
father get the complete objection out. “Two years? Through
the next Leave? I’d have to put you back under again, and
then we’d have more babies most likely—and Sedowa would
be sent home to a family that doesn’t even know she exists.
We cannot wait. We go now, or you three go back under permanently
and are abandoned here and we will have to figure out a new way to
send others in to do the job. What about you, young ladies?
You’re the key to this. What do you have to
say?”
They looked at one another. The truth was, their minds were
divided in this and they were having a great deal of trouble. A
strong part of them resented this sudden nightmarish intrusion into
what had been up until now the happiest time in their lives. The
culture and attitudes not just of their Janipurian selves but of
their original peasant upbringing on Earth told them that the child
within overrode all other priorities and obligations. And yet the
easy and desirable way was not the honorable way, and might not be
the practical way, either.
“What do you mean I would be sent home?” Sedowa
asked.
“I am not lying to you on this—your husband can
check it out for himself. You are here on sufferance, to bear a
child of Peshwar, and this you are doing. An unexpected extra is
that his legal wife also now is pregnant after being declared
barren—normally the one guarantee of getting pregnant, sort
of like declaring a volcano extinct. Your term here is for two
years, after which you must leave. They run you through a
mindprinter and edit out all memories of the wonders of Center so
you remember only living in a very big capital city of the normal
type. The child is legally Madowa’s, something you were
supposedly told going in and agreed to. There’s no legal
challenge—your legal father’s a judge,
remember—because there was no coercion. You are a surrogate
mother with no status beyond that. So you can’t stay here,
but you have no real home to go back to.”
She was shocked and looked at Sabir. “He is just
making that up to force us to go along. Isn’t he?”
Sabir sighed. “No, I fear he tells the truth, but there
are probably ways around it. There are ways around almost
everything. Given what this man says is true, we still could give
the Thunder’s great computer and its staff an extra
year to figure out and allow for the extra problem. If we go into
this in extreme haste, we will all probably die.”
Vulture sat back and looked at them. He’d figured on
something like this, but he wasn’t terribly worried. Not yet.
“Tell you what—just go back up to the museum in the
next day or two and look it over again, this time from the point of
view of the theft. I want to know if it can be done, and
if so, how it can be done, and what would be required.
This costs you nothing. Will you do that much for me?”
“We cannot refuse that much,” Chow Dai-Madowa
responded. “Give us three days from now to look it over and
think it out, and give us some cover so we may discuss it without
being overheard or recorded.”
“I can’t get you complete cover on that last one,
but I’ll activate your cards for this office. It’s in a
public area and isn’t officially assigned. You can be relaxed
here. Your surveillance may wonder what you’re doing coming
here so don’t come here often, but take it easy and do it
openly and confidently. I am pretty sure you two can lie your way
convincingly out of a small encounter if you need to. We will talk
again in three days, but not here. I’ll arrange it and call
for you. Good enough?”
That much none of them could object to.
The Chows were well experienced at casing a target and not
looking or sounding like they were doing so. In other times they
would have been natural bank robbers and probably very successful
at it. Although they made a visit a day for three days to the
museum, only one of them for any length of time, they made it seem
a natural meeting place and did not raise any alarms. It was
unlikely that they would in any event; a pregnant pair like this
would have been dismissed from the overconfident and largely male
security force’s minds as no possible threat, no matter what
their intent.
At the end of three days the two women were told to come down to
the medical clinic for more follow-up tests, but when they got
there they found themselves taken together to a small examination
room and told to wait. Vulture arrived a few minutes later. They
were mildly surprised.
“You speak to us while Jeruwahl is still at work,”
Chow Mai noted.
“I know. I’m not trying to separate you for any
devious purposes, but the fact is that Sabir is only an excuse to
get the two of you in here. I don’t want amateurs in the
actual operation if I can avoid it. Amateurs set off alarms. You
have what you need?”
They nodded. “The great outer door appears to be a simple
mechanical key lock, but it is not. The key actually must be turned
to form a simple combination. With a wood or metal dummy key of the
correct size it would not be difficult to open. Without them, using
something for a pick, it might take some time.”
“The guards make their rounds through there every five
minutes after dark,” Vulture told them. “Not much time.
The hall monitors can be fooled, but I wouldn’t like to do it
for very long or somebody will notice. The key is locked in a case
in Center security but I can see it. I know what it looks like and
I think I can have a basic duplicate made. It might not touch all
the sensors inside.”
“No need. It is simply a matter of the turns. A simple
mechanism. The inner door is computerized and encoded and appears
to take a numeric code and a palm print. I ‘stumbled’
and by mere chance, of course, put my palm on the plate. The tiny
sensors reacted to my hand and compared it to their records and
flashed a red light. The comparison was there for a fraction of a
second. The bypass appears to be the cut-out trace of a hand. It
will take a few minutes and a few tools but I do not believe
it’s a problem. It is not nearly as elaborate as
Clayben’s on Melchior.”
He nodded. “All right. I have recordings of the audio and
visual sweeps of the areas that can be patched in to provide a
continuous record for the computers. You are inside. Now
what?”
“There are some kind of light beams all over the
place,” Chow told him. “They cover the main room like a
spider’s web. I could not see them but I recognized the
pattern in the little holes in the walls and ceiling. China Center
used some like that. To bypass that would take a special thing made
of some thin, light, perfectly reflective material, and it must go
all the way not only to the ring but beyond it. I have a drawing of
the necessary shape. It will also have to be supported by sticks or
rods somehow from the entrance. This we cannot make, but
it will have to be made.”
He took the drawing, studied it, and got the idea immediately,
although he had to admit he never would have thought of it
himself.
“We will need some sort of light source under it,”
Chow Mai put in, “but it cannot interfere. We will sew velvet
pads for our hooves, so we may walk in silence. You will have to
take care of the sweeping cameras.”
“That’s the same as the entry and corridor. I don’t
think we have to worry about them, though. I think they are
automatic—turned on if any other alarms go off. If any other
alarms are set off, then we’re in a lot more trouble anyway.
Continue.”
“The case itself is not difficult to open, although the
locks on both sides must be turned within seconds of each other to
both unlock the case and avoid setting off the alarms. It takes two
people to turn the locks. The problem is that they are simple
spring locks that must be held in place while the case is open.
This means the two must operate the locks while a third opens the
case and takes the ring.”
“You’re sure there’s nothing on the ring
itself? No weight traps, no extra locks?”
“We think not. Remember, this is a ceremonial ring. It is
taken out and used very often. The case is good enough. It is a lot
of trouble and takes three to open properly, but if the chief
administrator needs the ring, he need only walk down with two
assistants with the keys, have the assistants turn the keys and
hold them while the case lid pops up and he reaches in and takes
it. He would not care about the museum’s security,
which is for when it is closed. He just needs to come down when it
is open, and that is probably whenever he wants.”
Vulture nodded. “He takes the ring during the day, with
all sorts of people around. If it had elaborate precautions, they
would be observed. I think you’re right—what they have
is enough.”
“They do add one extra thing when the museum is
closed,” Chow Mai said. “The long piece of tile in
front of the case that is covered by the rug is on some kind of
scale. It is locked down by day and unlocked, I suppose, when they
close. We could see it outlined where it stretched and strained the
carpeting.”
“They said something about a weight trap when they briefed
me on the museum’s security, and I assumed it was there. It
is not connected to the computer center, however. Not directly,
anyway. It probably triggers gas or stun fields of some kind that
would keep you unconscious until they opened up the next day and
found you. I hadn’t really noticed the details. Does it also
cover the key locks?”
“Yes, but that is not a problem. Anyone can turn the key
from the side. But it puts the ring out of reach of anyone also
operating a key. The ring, on its stand and under its magnifier,
would have to be lifted carefully and then removed to the back of
the case and then up and out. Easy enough if you are standing right
in front of it, but otherwise very hard. The top and front of the
case are a single piece, so there is no way to put someone on top
to reach down.” Chow Dai sighed. “It would be easier to
steal it from the chief administrator when he had it
out.”
“Yeah, sure—with all those SPF and regular Center
security people around. I toyed with the idea of becoming
the chief administrator and then I found that there was just no
point at which he and I could possibly be alone and unmonitored for
enough time to do it and cover up the mess. He is never really
alone, and when he removes the ring, he always keeps it on his
finger until the ceremony or function is over, then puts it back. I
will get this information up to Thunder. The bottom line
is, I suspect, that we can get to the ring but we cannot remove it.
A way will have to be found to get around that weight sensor. I
wish I knew how much it took to depress it. Only the chief
administrator and chief of security can gain access to the details
of the museum security system, and for one reason or another both
are out of reach to me. You give me a precise list of what you need
that you can’t make for yourself, and I’ll get on
it.”
“It is odd,” Chow Dai said, “that with them
suspecting, at least, that we’re going after this ring and
having that whole army here and all, they didn’t put in all
sorts of extra security, extra systems it’d take Star Eagle
to beat.”
“No. I already know the answer to that one, and it works
in our favor this time. They believe their measures are adequate,
that the ring is safe, but they really do not care if it is not.
They are convinced that we cannot escape with it if we steal it. I
think the plan is that if we do manage to steal it they will shadow
but not apprehend us—at least not all of us, and not the one
with the ring. The one ring is unimportant—useless without
the other four. But out there in space, somewhere, are automated
fighting ships and perhaps a ship or two of SPF forces, as well,
under more than one Val. They want, they need, the
Thunder and all of us pirates.”
“If that is the case, then why do they not make this
easier to steal?”
He chuckled. “If they did that, we’d smell a rat and
would not lead them where they want to be led. That does not mean
that they leave it all to chance and our
overconfidence . . . ” He snapped his
fingers. “In fact, I think I know what they did. What
I would do. If I am right, then we can use it against
them. The getaway will not be easy, and not without peril, but we
might manage it. You steal it. I’ll get you out—if it
is at all possible.”
“We are still uncertain of what to do ourselves,”
Chow Dai admitted. “We—we find our thoughts confused
and muddied, our loyalties mixed.”
“Not too long ago you considered yourselves
monsters,” he pointed out. “Has this
changed?”
They looked at each other, then back at him. “No, not deep
down, although when we do not think of ourselves and allow Madowa
and Sedowa to take over, we are content. But, unlike you, we will
always be this way. On Janipur everyone is a monster of the same
sort as we. It is—comforting. Back out there—we and our
children will be monsters.”
“We are all monsters, in a way,” the shapechanger
said. “You are at least something, someone. You know who you
are and what you are. I do not. I can never be one person, one
thing, no matter how long I live or how content I am. It would be
nice to be human, to have children, to look forward to the future
and to some inner peace. I can never have that. Never. There will
be five of you on Thunder if we all survive this, then
seven soon after, and perhaps more. You might well become the
dominant race of the pirates. Your future, your children’s
future, might be bright and happy depending on our success. For me,
the game is the goal. I enjoy playing this game, but I have nothing
to win at the end of it. Master System or no Master System, I will
not change, or gain.”
His statement hit them with great impact. They had never thought
of that before, and it made their own problems and situation seem
far less important. Vulture in fact had no stake in all this; he
was playing the game for its own sake.
“For now, say nothing of this meeting to your husband
unless he asks where you can answer. I will get to work on the
problems and get back to all of you. Now—go.”
Madowa-Chow Dai stood and reached into her neck purse. She
removed three small objects from it, each wrapped in cloth, then
unwrapped them. “These are fragile,” she warned.
“Do not break or mishandle them.”
He stared at them, suddenly realizing what he was seeing.
“Impressions. You took impressions of all the mechanical
keys! How? . . . ”
“It was not too difficult,” she responded, although
he knew that it must have been. “Just make the
keys.”
He touched them. They were hard as a rock. “What did you
use to get them?”
She grinned, which meant, for a Janipurian, showing all the
teeth. “Bread dough. Very thick bread dough. It is a very
convenient medium if it is not set too long.”
He began to appreciate the level of genius he was dealing
with.
Vulture had much to do, and contacting the Thunder was
an early priority.
Hawks and the others listened intently to the details, and Star
Eagle immediately put his robots to work creating what was needed
from the digital data sent by Vulture on Janipur. They could
arrange a drop far easier than Vulture could risk getting the items
made himself, and take advantage of a higher technological
level.
Working out the full details of the plan, however, was more
difficult. Star Eagle was not of great help in this area; the
computer could allow for all the unknowns and come up with
predictions of success in the range of point three to about
seventeen percent. The only contributions of real value the pilot
could make were estimates of how Master System, its Vals, and its
forces might react at any given level, but even these had to be
only approximations. Vals and Master System might be eighty or
ninety percent predictable, but the SPF and its leadership were
humans with a great deal of autonomy. Those freebooters who had
ever had dealings with the SPF could only vouch for their
unswerving loyalty to the system and their love of action. Whether
or not their officers could overrule a Val in the field was
questionable, but certainly a good general could freely interpret
orders and directives to his liking. Rewards were great if he was
right; the penalty for failure was severe, but no general convinced
of the righteousness of his or her decisions would let fear of
punishment sway them. They were fanatics.
All of this information was gathered and compiled by those of
the Thunder’s crew who had experience in such
matters, and they began to formulate a new plan.
“All right,” Raven sighed. “So we get
’em the equipment and we get ’em in with the skeleton
keys and dummy stuff they want. Vulture has to be on duty in
security during the whole operation to cover the alarms.
Sabir—well, that’s one to worry about, but maybe we can
use this sudden infusion of male chauvinism on the part of our
former Hindu lady to good effect. If he knows what’s going to
happen, you can bet we’ll have a dedicated gun and watchdog.
So they get in, use Star Eagle’s gadget, get to the case, and
flip the keys. Now we got a pressure plate that somebody’s
got to stand on to get the ring out. How much
pressure?”
“Rats,” Manka Warlock said.
“Beg pardon?”
“The vast bulk of that Center’s population are still
the distilled classical Hindu types with a real reverence for all
lower life forms. I always thought Hindus were fascinating in that
they disliked killing flies yet they killed each other in about the
same numbers as everybody else in the world. Center has rats and a
few other pests. Not the usual rats, either, although they’re
bad enough. I asked. These are large, hairy things but rats all the
same. They live in the air ducts and ventilation shafts too narrow
and winding for Janipurians to use. They don’t kill them.
They just try to feed them at designated spots to keep them out of
real harm. They run from people unless concerned or in large
groups, but they are big.”
Raven followed her thinking. “In the museum?”
“It has air ducts and ventilation shafts, I am certain. It
is in the middle of Center’s main level. There are probably
gratings but I will wager that sooner or later a few get in and
have to be shooed out. They would break those light beams, would
they not?”
He thought about it. “Yeah, sure. They’d have to.
And that’d trigger the alarms—no. Probably not. A
class-one security alert would result and all hell would break
loose at regular intervals. Even if it was originally set up that
way, they’d have gone nuts and changed it by now.”
“Precisely. In fact, they are a nice little security
backup in case someone tried a robot tentacle, let us say, down the
shafts. You couldn’t use those shafts without disturbing the
rat colonies and that would result in alarms and an investigation
or perhaps a horde of rats being dumped into whatever room you were
trying to break into. Now that is a thought. Make such a
commotion the night before you break in, it would cause them to
assume any new signals were just more rats breaking through the
unrepaired areas.”
“Uh uh. Some of these people are as crooked as the next
guy. You don’t leave your museum vulnerable that way. You
either post a lot of nasty human guards as supplements or you work
through the night repairing it. Too risky. But I see what you mean
about the rat problem. I missed that in the reports. If
they’re big and they do occasionally get in, then those light
beams can’t trigger a general alarm. Then what do
they trigger?”
“The cameras and audio sensors. They must. A
break turns them on and sounds an alarm in the security center.
They check their screens, pan around, and see and hear rats, so
they—what?”
Raven thought a moment. “Well, either they’d have to
come in and get them, or they’d have to switch off the
beams . . . Say! We’ll have to
ask Vulture what the procedure is. If he can patch the outside
video he can patch that as well. A lot easier than moving some
cockeyed mirror contraption in that might not work and in a place
where we don’t have the precise angles to make sure it does.
Good girl!”
“But what does that say about the pressure platform under
the carpet as well?” she asked him, very pleased with
herself.
“Uh huh. I wonder how much one of those suckers weighs? Or
several? A kilo? Two? And they’re pack animals. Almost never
travel alone. Figure there might be as many as three running across
at one time. Allow some margin—some real
margin—and you might have a fair amount of weight required to
trigger that sucker.” He paused a moment. “Nope. Forget
it. They have some monkeylike creatures and a number of other pets
down there. You can bet the designer allowed for someone sending in
small trained animals. Even if we allow six or seven kilos,
it’s not enough. Besides, somebody’s got to close that
case. Odds are it has some kind of time delay if it’s open
too long, whether they spotted it or not. It might sound an alarm
when opened anyway. That’s the way I’d design
it.”
“But this is a lower level of security than we are
accustomed to. A lower technological level, Center or not. This was
designed by humans, not machines, and built by humans to stop
humans. It might sound a buzzer or ring a bell when opened, but if
it did it would probably have the effect of turning on the audio
and visual system so the duty officer could see if it were a real
problem or a false alarm. A lot of this boils down to a very few
true security systems. Almost everything except the pressure
platform and the locks themselves is designed to turn on the
audio-visual to see what is going on before a general alarm is
sounded. Block those channels and the security center is blind,
deaf, and dumb. It is a key weak point. They must not have much of
a true criminal element there.”
He nodded. “I don’t know about their crooks, but
clearly the system’s designed to discourage somebody from
trying. Beyond that, the thing really isn’t all that hot.
They seem pretty confident that nobody could escape even if they
did take the crown jewels, and they’d normally be right. I
mean, it’s a Center, damn it! Strict
computer-controlled access in and out. Codings, trackings, you name
it. Let’s face it—without Vulture we could steal this
sucker but we could never get it out. Having the deputy chief of
security on your side makes all the difference, and nobody is gonna
plan for that. The more you look at our group the more you realize
how much thought went into it. We’re supposed to have a
fighting chance to win, after all.”
“All right. But that doesn’t get us around the
pressure-plate problem.”
“Vulture has an idea on that. I don’t like it much,
but it might be the only alternative. We’re gonna run some
tests with that Janipurian pair and see if it works. Let’s go
on to the getaway. If they trip any alarms, even silent ones,
it’s all over.”
She nodded. “I think our deputy chief of security can be
counted on there. He will, after all, be in the security center and
will probably outrank anyone there. Either of us in his situation
could cover for quite a while if we had to. He can’t hide a
major exposure or alarm trip, though. All right—that has to
be their problem. Now they get out and head for a prearranged meet.
Where?”
“The clinic. He has some secure areas there, and it
wouldn’t be considered at all strange for folks to go there
at any hour.”
“Good. We will have to have some provisional diversions
ready—just in case. Some nasties Vulture could set off by
remote control if he needed to.” She smiled. “Ones
designed for maximum damage and casualties.”
“Vulture’s developed a whole line of hideouts along
his route, but that whole place will be swarming with searchers
once the theft is discovered. We can’t get to them until
they’re clear: Security’ll be looking for anything
coming in for a pickup. They’re gonna hav’ta lay low a
long time, but maybe we can buy ’em a little breathing space.
After Vulture gets this equipment from us, he won’t need the
fighter he’s got down there now, and anyway it’s too
far to reach. If we time it right, we might convince Center that
the fighter we take off has them aboard. They might even drop
everything to chase it and blow it away.”
She nodded. “We will try it, but if they do not buy it, or
are the least suspicious, there will be only one way to save
them.”
He sighed. “Yeah, Space battle. Ship to ship. They might
underestimate our strength, though.”
“Or they might overestimate it. We must recall
and outfit the freebooter ships and practice with our whole fleet,
such as it is. These freebooters are very good at running and
hiding. I wonder how good they are in a fight.”
Vulture had met privately with Jeruwahl-Sabir after the planning
had been firmed up. The “husband,” acting very much
that role, had been more than just upset that Vulture had met
secretly with both women earlier, and it had taken some politicking
to mollify him. Vulture, in fact, was as worried about Sabir as he
was the actual operation. This was someone he didn’t really
know well and was still having some problems understanding. It
wouldn’t take much to expose their whole plan and at the very
least abort the mission, perhaps at the cost of three lives.
“I do not like this one bit,” Sabir said coolly.
“Already it has been awhile since you first brought us out
from under the mindprint, and Madowa’s horns are beginning to
sprout. I do not think this is possible any more.”
Vulture gave a slight shrug. “It is possible. Willpower
can do a lot, and we aren’t out of time yet. They want to do
this thing, Sabir, and they are ready. I think now so are we. The
only question left for me is you.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“When this started, you weren’t all thrilled about
becoming Janipurian, I’m told, but you saw it as your duty
and a chance to participate and help in a great undertaking. If
you’d been a man at the start—say, Captain
Paschittawal—I might have followed your subsequent behavior
a bit better, but you weren’t. If you’d had a past like
the women had—stepped on, pushed around, raped,
tortured—I might understand. But I think you knew coming in
that the mission is everything. We—all of us—are at
tremendous risk and expendable. Only the mission matters in the
end. Not being the martyr types, we will all try to survive, but
there are no guarantees. You were born a freebooter, not a colonial
dirtcrawler. You must decide.”
“That is easier for you to say, and perhaps easier for you
to decide,” responded Sabir. “You may have little to
gain except satisfaction in your personal war against the whole
system, but you have nothing to lose. I did not expect this,
although we all should have allowed it. You see, up until now I
have had nothing. I was born the last of eleven children to parents
who looked a hundred when they were in their forties and scratched
out the bare necessities on a small rocky claim in the middle of
nowhere. When I was but thirteen, I came on to a mechanic on a
freebooter tramp ship just to get out of there, to have some sort
of freedom and life. When he was done with me, stupid and naive as
I was, he abandoned me in a small settlement. I was but a defiled
child, and I did whatever was necessary to survive and to get what
learning I could. I sold my labor when possible and my body when it
was not, but each time I learned something that was useful later
on. I was an extra hand on twenty different ships, one trip at a
time. I finally found the Indrus, which was owned and
operated by distant cousins, and they took me on although they did
not need me. I would not have remained, but it was comforting for a
while to be with my own kind. Both men are married and devoted to
their wives, and the only other crew member is Ravi’s
daughter. I had nothing. I have never had anything. That is why I
volunteered for this. Why not?”
He nodded. “I see. And now, all of a sudden, you have some
status, some responsibility, and two children on the way. You have
blended into a society when you never had one before. Never mind
the others, the mission, even the women. It is selfishness, is it
not?”
Sabir bristled. “And why should I not be selfish? Who has
ever given me anything? What do I owe you or them or
anyone?”
“I don’t give a damn what you owe to whom, and I
don’t give a damn what you want or think. Those two women
have had it far worse than even you and they are committed. If you
turned us in, they would not reward you and you know it. They would
pick your mind to pieces for information on us, and the
others’ minds, as well. Your body might live, as some
simpleton building his house out of his own dung and plowing
someone else’s fields, but your mind would die and your soul
would bear the burden of your crimes. You can do nothing, but that
buys you two years at most. When the time comes to take the next
mind-print—assuming they don’t catch you before
that—there will be no deputy chief of security to launder
your truths or protect your wife and children, and you don’t
have the rank to have it managed otherwise. If you wish to protect
what is yours and play your petty games, you are better off going
along with me. The real Peshwar is very loyal and dedicated to his
wife. You will have both the Chows, and the children, if we make it
out, and you will have a position of authority and power. You are
comfortable in this society. It is too bad you were not born to it,
but you were not. So, be selfish—see it through.”
Sabir thought that over and saw that Vulture spoke the truth.
“What you say is all well and good—if I thought we
could get away with it. I cannot believe that we will,
though.”
“You haven’t seen it all, nor will I show you
now,” he replied, “but I think it’s possible.
Let’s go for it. Let’s take a chance on
life.”
“When—if I agree?”
“The ‘when’—when you agree.”
He sighed. “Very well. If the Chows go along, I will not
stand in the way and will be what help I can.”
“Excellent!” Vulture responded. “Tomorrow
begins Holi. The chief administrator will need the ring
but has not taken it as yet. It will probably be far too late for
him to put it back tomorrow night, but it will be on his finger and
he will be surrounded by guards. He might wear it the whole
festival, but I think not. In past years he has returned it after
opening an utsava so people who come in from the field for
the festivals can see it on display. When he removes it, I will be
there, and this will give me a chance to see just how the case is
normally opened and the ring removed. No matter what night he
returns the ring, that night we will take it.”
Just because the Brahman class was privileged to know of Master
System, the wider universe, and some of its technology did not make
them any less people of their own culture. In point of fact,
Hinduism was particularly suited to the hierarchical Center
leadership, especially as that structure had been refrained and
reemphasized by Master System. Rta, the balance of forces,
the natural order, was supreme. Vedic prayers were to the
maintenance of order; to watch the natural order carefully, imitate
and perpetuate it. It was a short, perhaps heretical step, but an
easy one, to see one’s self as the maintainer of order,
stability, and balance. The order had been disrupted in Mother
India and the people had been corrupted, but now Indra had given
them another chance, on a new world, in a new form, and set the
highest of humans, the Brahmans, the holy task of maintaining the
Rta at all costs so that the chosen ones of Janipur could
find their own paths to salvation and immortality unencumbered by
external forces.
The role of the Center Brahmans, then, was to do just what
Centers were designed for—maintain the balance and eliminate
anything that might change the way the people and culture worked.
It was a system tailor-made for Master System’s own goals,
and it worked well, far better than in many other places where it
had been imposed. Unlike the cynical Centers of Earth and many
colonial worlds where knowledge destroyed faith, here the Center
elect were true believers. Until the SPF had landed, the only
contact Janipurian Centers allowed was with a few ships like the
Indrus, peopled by crew who shared much of their beliefs
and understood and respected them. To maintain stability and
balance, no matter what the cost, was a sacred duty.
They had the duty of dharma, of keeping the world and
its people on the right path, of maintaining things.
This was also a people who felt the necessity of
Bhakti, of devotion to and relationship with individual and
often personal gods; they placed enormous store in rituals and
ceremonies and had many deities. Their very form was a matter of
pride; on Earth it had been this part of Hinduism that had brought
the cow to a status of near or actual worship; on Janipur, they had
some of the form and characteristics of the sacred animal.
The Holi utsava, or Spring Festival, was an ancient
ritual devoted to Krishna, but it was also a time of joy and
produced a near-carnival atmosphere punctuated with spectacular
public ceremonies and rites open to all. Although it was
Krishna’s festival, the god Soma, and the fiery liquor named
for him, would not be ignored. It was one of the few religious
observances where all but the bare minimum of Brahmans from the
entire continent could come and enjoy a bit of Cochin
Center’s comforts. Many would come to join in the
celebrations by the masses, leaving only the ascetics and those
leaders with strong local ties and not much love for Center or its
comforts.
This was also the time when security had nightmares and the SPF
had fits. As members of the ruling caste, those from outside had
the right to enter Center and see it and visit their departmental
chiefs as well as look at the museums, libraries, and shops that
were outside the limits of normal purview. Security areas were
still off-limits, of course, but with such crowds, the mere task of
keeping them from unauthorized areas, breaking things or tapping on
terminals kept all the security force busy.
The SPF, with its own modernized religion compelling and vesting
them with the god-given responsibility of keeping order on pain of
their immortal souls, had a hard time dealing with this idea of
relatively open access to Center, even for a limited period of
time. They simply couldn’t check out everyone who arrived
with their families and cousins, since nobody actually had to be
invited and those who could showed up, often at the last minute.
Center could not accommodate or maintain such a crowd, so they
camped outside in what became a huge, temporary tent city.
Vulture balanced the increased security against the benefits of
the crowd and its confusion and anonymity. The festival lasted
several days, however he no longer had those days to spare, even
if he would have preferred to have dealt with an exhausted security
force and an even more exhausted and frustrated SPF. He decided he
could use the confusion of the festival far more than he could
afford to wait a week—if the C.A. put the damned ring
back.
The Brahmans in Hindu society controlled the spiritual levers of
power and authority, not the secular, but in practice the Brahmans
of Centers were more secular than they would have liked to admit.
Still, they saw their roles as purely spiritual. In the field, most
were affiliated with religious orders, but a few were involved in
the professions and everyday life. Some were doctors and some
lawyers or judges; often they earned their livings this way while
on call as duty priests when needed. Each Hindu was his or her own
church, so there were no formal churches on Janipur, but ceremonies
and rituals required priests, and the professional service class of
Brahmans was there to serve. Even those who weren’t needed or
had had their turns before were at the festival, as well.
Vulture couldn’t help but wonder what some of the
twice-born of lower castes would think if they could see how
unsaintly some of these secularized Brahmans acted when they were
entirely among their own. One of the security men remarked his
relief that so few ascetics had come this year; they were usually
trouble, since they spent most of their time berating and cursing
their more materialistic brethren. On those occasions, it took a
fair amount of soma in the belly to wash away the guilt
that always lingered in the back of the minds of even security
personnel. It was, in fact one of the most spartan of Centers, the
technology used only when it was essential to the holy mission,
but, still, when one was in an enclosed city with its own climate
control, electric lights, and computerized kitchen, it was hard to
convince yourself you were striving to go beyond material things.
There was little that could be done, though; fires, tents, and the
like would not be practical at Center, and they would most
certainly interfere with the computers and communications
networks.
And, of course, somebody had to clean up the place, stock it,
run the stores, and do all the other jobs that were beneath a
Brahman. In other circumstances, the lower castes would have done
it, but they were not permitted here, so a high degree of
automation was required to maintain Brahman purity.
To Vulture, who was a product of no culture and an amalgam of
many, it was just more proof that people would rationalize almost
anything in the name of religion.
The plain outside on the morning of the start of the festival
was a colorful sea of tents and a mobile sea of grayish-tan bodies.
It was impossible to judge immediately, but it was possible that
there were three or four thousand people in the temporary city.
There were firewalkers—on feet, not hooves—and
demonstrations of yoga and other powers of the mind and much
more.
Shortly after nine in the morning, Chief Administrator Namur
walked down the hall of the main level of the Center with his wife
and retinue. He was dressed simply in a white loincloth and his
wife in plain white silk, but what was impressive was that they
walked, upright, the entire distance of more than three
hundred meters that they were in public view, and they walked
rather well. Since such a thing required not only great practice
but great concentration and force of will, it was a gesture that
impressed even Vulture, who was one of the retinue.
They stopped at the great red doors to the museum. The curator
stood there, made obeisance in the time-honored way, then removed
the large key from around her neck and stuck it in the lock.
Vulture watched. One right, one left, another left, then right,
then left again. There was a click, the curator pushed on
the golden door latch, and the two doors swung inward. The C.A. and
his wife followed the curator inside to the second and more modern
security door, which opened when the curator inserted a small card
and then presented her right palm to the plate. The inner door
moved back silently, and they proceeded inside.
Vulture was several steps in back of the chief administrator,
but his eyes took in everything. He decided they needn’t
worry about the light beams; either they were switched off when the
inner door opened or they just turned on the monitors, as
suspected. What was more interesting was that the carpeted area in
front of the ring’s case was bulging upward perhaps fifteen
centimeters. Whatever it triggered was automatically turned off
somehow, but he couldn’t see how. Not the door. Why have the
damned thing at all if it’s turned off by springing the door?
A thief would have to do that just to get in. Then it struck
him—the combination! The palm opened the doors, but the
numerical code deactivated the pressure plate. Neither he nor the
Chows knew that combination, and the panel was recessed so that no
one could see what numbers the curator punched. It was a standard
enough system that it had been easy to figure out how to
temporarily circumvent it, but that wouldn’t deactivate the
plate. Clever.
The curator and an assistant went to the plate. When the curator
set one foot on the plate it depressed and wiggled but nothing
happened, but in the split second when the other foot came down a
bell began to ring. The assistant stepped on the other side, adding
enough weight to depress and lock it, and the bell stopped
sounding. There was no way to be certain, but he felt the bell was
important for the delay before it rang—that split second when
just part of the body weight was on the platform. Raven had been
right; the thing had been designed to halt a Janipurian thief and
to allow for Janipurian rats and other critters that might get in.
The bell did not worry him; if it went off they’d know
immediately that they’d blown it and then it would be time to
try to shoot their way out.
Vulture, as deputy chief of security, had been handed one of the
two keys to the case and told to take the left side. The chief
would take the right, and the C.A. would remove the ring. He had
been given the key only when he joined the party and would have to
surrender it almost immediately. It had been hell figuring out how
to take an impression of it but he’d managed. The impression
wouldn’t do much good at this stage, but, matched against the
key made from Chow Dai’s dough impression, it would
tell him before they were committed if they’d blown it.
On a nod from the chief administrator, both Vulture and the
chief of security inserted their keys and then turned, he to the
left and the other to the right. He had been instructed to hold it
there. There was a click, and the case, fully four meters
long and containing much more than just the ring, opened, the lid
comprising the entire transparent area moving back electrically and
merging with its back wall. There were solenoids along the sides,
he noted, although the Chows already had figured this out.
Interrupt one, by trying to reach in or climb into the case from
the side, and the lid snapped shut. Vulture figured about half of
the person who tried it that way would become a bloody part of the
permanent exhibit.
The C.A. leaned over, approached the ring with his right hand
from the back, carefully lifted it up off its peg mount and brought
it back, up, then out. He seemed to examine it, then turned to his
wife, smiled, and gave it to her. She nodded and as he held out his
hand she placed the ring on the third finger. It was a good fit,
which indicated that it had been relined in some way.
The chief administrator moved away, and with a nod from his
immediate boss, Vulture slowly turned the key back to straight
again. A mechanism clicked in, and the case lid moved forward and
clicked back into place. He then removed the key, placed it back
around his neck, and followed the boss back out the doors. He
reflected that it was almost a pity that the ring wasn’t
still there today, since the museum would have a couple of staff
people on but would be closed to the public. A perfect time for a
robbery—if he’d wanted anything other than the
ring.
The ceremony and rites themselves were indeed impressive and
quite solemn, lasting most of the day. This was a rare occasion for
communal worship, and much of it was spent fasting and chanting,
over and over, in unison,
“Krishna . . . Krishna . . . Krishna . . . ” The chief
administrator served as high priest for the rites, before a massive
statue of Krishna.
There was no physically possible way that a Janipurian could
accomplish the lotus position, but they could bend themselves into
incredible and impossible positions all the same.
The ceremony concluded late in the day, and the crowd broke up
into random groups listening to teachers relate various parables,
lessons, or philosophies, or participated in rites of faith
including firewalking and demonstrations of the power of the mind
over the body. This would continue for days—although not with
the chief administrator leading—to a steadily diminishing
number of the pious. Some would spend the whole time in prayer,
meditation, and learning, but for most, one day was enough.
The chief administrator walked among them, though, and at
various points demonstrated his own great mental control and at
other times his humility by sitting at the feet of a yogi or other
teacher, and occasionally by stopping to talk with this person or
that on an informal basis regardless of job or status. Vulture
couldn’t help but think how easy it would be to simply take
the ring at this point. Unfortunately, anyone who did so would be
brought down by several hidden but expert and well-armed SPF
forces, by security forces themselves, or, if that failed, by the
crowd. Stealing that ring was just about the most blasphemous thing
you could do around this crowd of faithful; they would all consider
it an attack on themselves.
By nightfall, it was clear that the chief administrator was not
going to return the ring that night, but Vulture hadn’t
thought he would. Tomorrow would be soon enough. By then some of
the holiest would have miraculously changed into tourists, and
others into bureaucrats trying to score points with their
superiors. It was a much better crowd to work with, anyway.
But the next day the museum opened without the ring. By the
close of the third day, Vulture was beginning to worry that
something in fact was wrong. Chow Dai-Madowa’s horns were
already out around a hundred centimeters and seemed to be growing
so fast one could almost see them grow, and she was complaining of
how tiring it was to stand for any length of time; Chow Mai-Sedowa
was in much better shape but her own horns had started to appear
and she was eating heavily. Those horns grew at an average
of almost ten centimeters a day, judging by Chow Dai. Time
was running out.
Worse, the chief administrator continued his public
appearances—with the ring nowhere to be seen. Finally, five
days later, when Vulture was already talking with Thunder
about improvising and making alternate plans, perhaps taking the
trio out of Center and getting them back up to Thunder
somehow for the births—hard but not impossible if the ring
was not in their hands and there was no hue and cry—when the
call came to attend the chief administrator and replace the ring.
It was done privately, quietly, near the end of the day and with
none of the fanfare that taking it out had occasioned. Still,
Vulture was reassured to see that the combinations and procedures
didn’t seem to have changed. Nick of time, he thought, and sent signals to the trio
and to Thunder. He was all prepared—in fact, he felt
overprepared. It was frustrating to have to wait until
night.
THE FIRST FEW WEEKS AT COCHIN CENTER WERE really
orientation—getting to know the layout of the place, the dos
and don’ts specific to it, the social pecking order and
one’s place in it, and who was important, who was not, who
was powerful, and who was to be feared above all. These were, in
most respects, more important to long-term happiness at Center than
learning a new job.
Barring emergencies, which were few, things worked
slowly—most said leisurely—around Cochin Center as well
as the other Centers on Janipur. Jeruwahl Peshwar was basically a
statistician now promoted to low-level Evaluator. This meant he
spent much of his time with computers and graphics projections
looking for potential sources of long-term trouble for the system,
identifying and classifying them, and then passing them along to
higher specialists who would make the final decisions. It was not
an ideal position for someone who didn’t want any risks,
since if some potential problem was not identified and passed on to
the proper channels for action or was misidentified or sent to the
wrong parties and things went badly, there was no one lower to
blame for the results. It did, however, offer real potential for
advancement if problems were identified that were not obvious and
things ran smoothly for long periods in the areas under study. The
right guesses made fewer problems for the higher-ups, so they
looked good and tended to remember who made them the points.
His first job, really more of a placement test, was to examine
the rate of population growth versus death rates in several major
cities with high-density populations and project problems in food
supply and other support systems as well as jobs for the new
population and other such factors resulting from that growth. The
bulk of Janipur’s economy was still village-based subsistence
farming, but a few cities, such as the one he’d just left,
existed to supply a host of more elaborate products and services to
legal and governmental centers, as well as religious centers.
Cities needed to be supplied from the country, and cities attracted
those people disillusioned with subsistence farming, simply down
and out, or those looking for the end of the rainbow, and if a
sufficient number came in and a poor underclass developed, there
was potential for political ferment, violence, and challenges to
the system. Children born to city natives could not easily be
shifted to rural subsistence work. It was a tricky job keeping
everything balanced without violating the technological limits.
Centers had odd top administrators, many with jobs that would
horrify their own people. Administrators like the minister of
plagues and pestilences, who could, surreptitiously, make very
certain that a population was pared down to a manageable size, and
the innocuous-sounding minister of meteorology, who could manage
some very nasty tropical storms, floods, droughts, and the like as
needed—or provide essential rain to an area where higher
yields were needed. The offices of worthies like those received the
reports of bureaucrats like Peshwar.
His was not a difficult or demanding job; the computers did most
of the work. It would, however, have been far easier without the
required Leave; it was hard to recommend a plague on people who
you’d just lived with and really liked. That, in fact, was
the official reason for the transfer; ones like him were not
permitted to make such evaluations or decisions about their own
native regions, and for obvious reasons.
They had been in their new homes for a bit over four weeks and
things were going quite well. They had toured the Center—all
the unclassified parts—and had even toured the museum in the
center of the main level and seen the splendors of Janipurian
crafts, the great gems and wondrous works in wood and metal from
all over the planet. The central exhibit and artifact, however, was
the chief administrator’s Holy Ring of Peace, a grand ring of
gold with a shiny black setting in which were two intricately
carved birds looking at each other while sitting on a single
stylized branch. One of the few objects in the museum displayed
occasionally to the masses, it was known to all as an object of
reverence and power, a great and mystical relic from Mother World
itself, passed down from generation to generation.
Madowa of late had not been feeling at her best, however. She
began by waking up feeling nauseous, and had dizzy spells and
flushes now and then. It did not affect her appetite, however; if
anything, she was eating far more than usual and including a fair
amount of raw vegetables and extremely sweet confections, although
she had not been a real sweets lover before. She shrugged it off,
but when Sedowa began showing the same symptoms and both had missed
two consecutive periods, they decided to go to the medical clinic
and find out if there was some sort of contagious disease going
around. The clinicians knew when the records came up what the
situation was, but did far more thorough tests in light of
Madowa’s history of infertility. Madowa was about eleven
weeks pregnant: Sedowa was perhaps eight and a half or nine. The
news excited them, not to mention Jeruwahl, and more and more their
thoughts turned to children and nothing else.
That made the invitation to visit Deputy Security Chief Nurim
Boil all the more inexplicable. It was very unexpected, but they
understood that an invitation from one such as this was not a
request but a command.
Boil was a very large man for a Janipurian and had an enormous
hawk nose and a facial expression that seemed locked in a permanent
grimace. He looked mean and nasty without a gram of spirituality
within him. He met them in a small, private office on the
administrative rather than the security level, which was also odd
but at least didn’t generate unnecessary anxiety and require
a hundred clearances. Boil locked the door, bade them be seated,
and examined them for a moment. Then he said, strangely,
“Vulture takes Clayben. Thunder and lightning
result.”
For a moment there was no effect, and then on all three of them
it was like a cloud lifted from their minds and a whole enormous
part of themselves that they never suspected was there was suddenly
revealed and thrust forward. They were still Janipurian, but they
now knew just who they really were and why they were there and who
Boil must be.
Vulture continued in the Janipurian form of Hindi. It was more
than adequate for what he had to say and was easier for them all.
It wasn’t safe for them to start thinking again in their old
tongues. “This room is secure. We have a number of them about
like this, feeding the monitors all sorts of distortions. With more
than sixty SPF in the Center it’s the only way to keep sane
or do anything naughty. You are being monitored in your apartment
and elsewhere, however. You’re not under
suspicion—it’s just routine for new people. I’ll
take care of it when the time comes. Are you clear enough in the
head now to go on with this?”
“Y-yes, I suppose,” Jeruwahl-Sabir responded.
“But surely you cannot consider doing anything at this point.
Both of the women are with child.”
“We are aware of that. That’s why we have to rush
this thing.”
“We cannot do this! Not now. We must wait,
however long it takes, until the timing is right.”
“That is the protector and father talking,” Vulture
noted. “I’ll give it to you straight. We have a plan,
if the two women do their parts, that just might work. The getaway
is tricky and probably messy, but it’s the best we can come
up with. Getting in is still a missing piece of the puzzle that you
must fill in. The pregnancies are a good cover. Absolutely no one
suspects any of you, that I assure you.”
“But it is too far along. Already Madowa’s body
changes. In two weeks, three at best, the changes will come faster
and faster and she will become unable to help. Sedowa is only two
or three weeks behind.” He stopped a moment, suddenly struck
with a thought that horrified him. “We will not allow an
abortion.”
Vulture looked at the two women, who nodded in unison.
“All right.” He sighed. “I never even thought of
that angle, since it would cause all sorts of problems and raise
enormous suspicion. The bottom line: assuming we can steal the
damned thing to begin with and get away from Center, all the forces
of darkness will descend upon us like a horrible plague. We
can’t use any of the flyers for getaways since they’re
automatically tracked by the central security system. We will have
to go overland, hiding out where we can and eluding the biggest
manhunt this world has ever seen—with the technology of a Val
and the SPF and Master System on top of us. I’ve been busy
preparing that escape, but it won’t be easy and it
won’t be quick. It is by no means certain that any or all of
us can make it the whole way. It is absolutely certain,
dead certain, that it will be impossible with two infants.
And we can’t leave them even if you were willing
to—these people will use them against us. Torturing babies in
public is just another means to an end for them. It’s going
to be tough enough handling two increasingly pregnant
women.”
“Then we wait until—”
“How long?” he challenged, not letting the potential
father get the complete objection out. “Two years? Through
the next Leave? I’d have to put you back under again, and
then we’d have more babies most likely—and Sedowa would
be sent home to a family that doesn’t even know she exists.
We cannot wait. We go now, or you three go back under permanently
and are abandoned here and we will have to figure out a new way to
send others in to do the job. What about you, young ladies?
You’re the key to this. What do you have to
say?”
They looked at one another. The truth was, their minds were
divided in this and they were having a great deal of trouble. A
strong part of them resented this sudden nightmarish intrusion into
what had been up until now the happiest time in their lives. The
culture and attitudes not just of their Janipurian selves but of
their original peasant upbringing on Earth told them that the child
within overrode all other priorities and obligations. And yet the
easy and desirable way was not the honorable way, and might not be
the practical way, either.
“What do you mean I would be sent home?” Sedowa
asked.
“I am not lying to you on this—your husband can
check it out for himself. You are here on sufferance, to bear a
child of Peshwar, and this you are doing. An unexpected extra is
that his legal wife also now is pregnant after being declared
barren—normally the one guarantee of getting pregnant, sort
of like declaring a volcano extinct. Your term here is for two
years, after which you must leave. They run you through a
mindprinter and edit out all memories of the wonders of Center so
you remember only living in a very big capital city of the normal
type. The child is legally Madowa’s, something you were
supposedly told going in and agreed to. There’s no legal
challenge—your legal father’s a judge,
remember—because there was no coercion. You are a surrogate
mother with no status beyond that. So you can’t stay here,
but you have no real home to go back to.”
She was shocked and looked at Sabir. “He is just
making that up to force us to go along. Isn’t he?”
Sabir sighed. “No, I fear he tells the truth, but there
are probably ways around it. There are ways around almost
everything. Given what this man says is true, we still could give
the Thunder’s great computer and its staff an extra
year to figure out and allow for the extra problem. If we go into
this in extreme haste, we will all probably die.”
Vulture sat back and looked at them. He’d figured on
something like this, but he wasn’t terribly worried. Not yet.
“Tell you what—just go back up to the museum in the
next day or two and look it over again, this time from the point of
view of the theft. I want to know if it can be done, and
if so, how it can be done, and what would be required.
This costs you nothing. Will you do that much for me?”
“We cannot refuse that much,” Chow Dai-Madowa
responded. “Give us three days from now to look it over and
think it out, and give us some cover so we may discuss it without
being overheard or recorded.”
“I can’t get you complete cover on that last one,
but I’ll activate your cards for this office. It’s in a
public area and isn’t officially assigned. You can be relaxed
here. Your surveillance may wonder what you’re doing coming
here so don’t come here often, but take it easy and do it
openly and confidently. I am pretty sure you two can lie your way
convincingly out of a small encounter if you need to. We will talk
again in three days, but not here. I’ll arrange it and call
for you. Good enough?”
That much none of them could object to.
The Chows were well experienced at casing a target and not
looking or sounding like they were doing so. In other times they
would have been natural bank robbers and probably very successful
at it. Although they made a visit a day for three days to the
museum, only one of them for any length of time, they made it seem
a natural meeting place and did not raise any alarms. It was
unlikely that they would in any event; a pregnant pair like this
would have been dismissed from the overconfident and largely male
security force’s minds as no possible threat, no matter what
their intent.
At the end of three days the two women were told to come down to
the medical clinic for more follow-up tests, but when they got
there they found themselves taken together to a small examination
room and told to wait. Vulture arrived a few minutes later. They
were mildly surprised.
“You speak to us while Jeruwahl is still at work,”
Chow Mai noted.
“I know. I’m not trying to separate you for any
devious purposes, but the fact is that Sabir is only an excuse to
get the two of you in here. I don’t want amateurs in the
actual operation if I can avoid it. Amateurs set off alarms. You
have what you need?”
They nodded. “The great outer door appears to be a simple
mechanical key lock, but it is not. The key actually must be turned
to form a simple combination. With a wood or metal dummy key of the
correct size it would not be difficult to open. Without them, using
something for a pick, it might take some time.”
“The guards make their rounds through there every five
minutes after dark,” Vulture told them. “Not much time.
The hall monitors can be fooled, but I wouldn’t like to do it
for very long or somebody will notice. The key is locked in a case
in Center security but I can see it. I know what it looks like and
I think I can have a basic duplicate made. It might not touch all
the sensors inside.”
“No need. It is simply a matter of the turns. A simple
mechanism. The inner door is computerized and encoded and appears
to take a numeric code and a palm print. I ‘stumbled’
and by mere chance, of course, put my palm on the plate. The tiny
sensors reacted to my hand and compared it to their records and
flashed a red light. The comparison was there for a fraction of a
second. The bypass appears to be the cut-out trace of a hand. It
will take a few minutes and a few tools but I do not believe
it’s a problem. It is not nearly as elaborate as
Clayben’s on Melchior.”
He nodded. “All right. I have recordings of the audio and
visual sweeps of the areas that can be patched in to provide a
continuous record for the computers. You are inside. Now
what?”
“There are some kind of light beams all over the
place,” Chow told him. “They cover the main room like a
spider’s web. I could not see them but I recognized the
pattern in the little holes in the walls and ceiling. China Center
used some like that. To bypass that would take a special thing made
of some thin, light, perfectly reflective material, and it must go
all the way not only to the ring but beyond it. I have a drawing of
the necessary shape. It will also have to be supported by sticks or
rods somehow from the entrance. This we cannot make, but
it will have to be made.”
He took the drawing, studied it, and got the idea immediately,
although he had to admit he never would have thought of it
himself.
“We will need some sort of light source under it,”
Chow Mai put in, “but it cannot interfere. We will sew velvet
pads for our hooves, so we may walk in silence. You will have to
take care of the sweeping cameras.”
“That’s the same as the entry and corridor. I don’t
think we have to worry about them, though. I think they are
automatic—turned on if any other alarms go off. If any other
alarms are set off, then we’re in a lot more trouble anyway.
Continue.”
“The case itself is not difficult to open, although the
locks on both sides must be turned within seconds of each other to
both unlock the case and avoid setting off the alarms. It takes two
people to turn the locks. The problem is that they are simple
spring locks that must be held in place while the case is open.
This means the two must operate the locks while a third opens the
case and takes the ring.”
“You’re sure there’s nothing on the ring
itself? No weight traps, no extra locks?”
“We think not. Remember, this is a ceremonial ring. It is
taken out and used very often. The case is good enough. It is a lot
of trouble and takes three to open properly, but if the chief
administrator needs the ring, he need only walk down with two
assistants with the keys, have the assistants turn the keys and
hold them while the case lid pops up and he reaches in and takes
it. He would not care about the museum’s security,
which is for when it is closed. He just needs to come down when it
is open, and that is probably whenever he wants.”
Vulture nodded. “He takes the ring during the day, with
all sorts of people around. If it had elaborate precautions, they
would be observed. I think you’re right—what they have
is enough.”
“They do add one extra thing when the museum is
closed,” Chow Mai said. “The long piece of tile in
front of the case that is covered by the rug is on some kind of
scale. It is locked down by day and unlocked, I suppose, when they
close. We could see it outlined where it stretched and strained the
carpeting.”
“They said something about a weight trap when they briefed
me on the museum’s security, and I assumed it was there. It
is not connected to the computer center, however. Not directly,
anyway. It probably triggers gas or stun fields of some kind that
would keep you unconscious until they opened up the next day and
found you. I hadn’t really noticed the details. Does it also
cover the key locks?”
“Yes, but that is not a problem. Anyone can turn the key
from the side. But it puts the ring out of reach of anyone also
operating a key. The ring, on its stand and under its magnifier,
would have to be lifted carefully and then removed to the back of
the case and then up and out. Easy enough if you are standing right
in front of it, but otherwise very hard. The top and front of the
case are a single piece, so there is no way to put someone on top
to reach down.” Chow Dai sighed. “It would be easier to
steal it from the chief administrator when he had it
out.”
“Yeah, sure—with all those SPF and regular Center
security people around. I toyed with the idea of becoming
the chief administrator and then I found that there was just no
point at which he and I could possibly be alone and unmonitored for
enough time to do it and cover up the mess. He is never really
alone, and when he removes the ring, he always keeps it on his
finger until the ceremony or function is over, then puts it back. I
will get this information up to Thunder. The bottom line
is, I suspect, that we can get to the ring but we cannot remove it.
A way will have to be found to get around that weight sensor. I
wish I knew how much it took to depress it. Only the chief
administrator and chief of security can gain access to the details
of the museum security system, and for one reason or another both
are out of reach to me. You give me a precise list of what you need
that you can’t make for yourself, and I’ll get on
it.”
“It is odd,” Chow Dai said, “that with them
suspecting, at least, that we’re going after this ring and
having that whole army here and all, they didn’t put in all
sorts of extra security, extra systems it’d take Star Eagle
to beat.”
“No. I already know the answer to that one, and it works
in our favor this time. They believe their measures are adequate,
that the ring is safe, but they really do not care if it is not.
They are convinced that we cannot escape with it if we steal it. I
think the plan is that if we do manage to steal it they will shadow
but not apprehend us—at least not all of us, and not the one
with the ring. The one ring is unimportant—useless without
the other four. But out there in space, somewhere, are automated
fighting ships and perhaps a ship or two of SPF forces, as well,
under more than one Val. They want, they need, the
Thunder and all of us pirates.”
“If that is the case, then why do they not make this
easier to steal?”
He chuckled. “If they did that, we’d smell a rat and
would not lead them where they want to be led. That does not mean
that they leave it all to chance and our
overconfidence . . . ” He snapped his
fingers. “In fact, I think I know what they did. What
I would do. If I am right, then we can use it against
them. The getaway will not be easy, and not without peril, but we
might manage it. You steal it. I’ll get you out—if it
is at all possible.”
“We are still uncertain of what to do ourselves,”
Chow Dai admitted. “We—we find our thoughts confused
and muddied, our loyalties mixed.”
“Not too long ago you considered yourselves
monsters,” he pointed out. “Has this
changed?”
They looked at each other, then back at him. “No, not deep
down, although when we do not think of ourselves and allow Madowa
and Sedowa to take over, we are content. But, unlike you, we will
always be this way. On Janipur everyone is a monster of the same
sort as we. It is—comforting. Back out there—we and our
children will be monsters.”
“We are all monsters, in a way,” the shapechanger
said. “You are at least something, someone. You know who you
are and what you are. I do not. I can never be one person, one
thing, no matter how long I live or how content I am. It would be
nice to be human, to have children, to look forward to the future
and to some inner peace. I can never have that. Never. There will
be five of you on Thunder if we all survive this, then
seven soon after, and perhaps more. You might well become the
dominant race of the pirates. Your future, your children’s
future, might be bright and happy depending on our success. For me,
the game is the goal. I enjoy playing this game, but I have nothing
to win at the end of it. Master System or no Master System, I will
not change, or gain.”
His statement hit them with great impact. They had never thought
of that before, and it made their own problems and situation seem
far less important. Vulture in fact had no stake in all this; he
was playing the game for its own sake.
“For now, say nothing of this meeting to your husband
unless he asks where you can answer. I will get to work on the
problems and get back to all of you. Now—go.”
Madowa-Chow Dai stood and reached into her neck purse. She
removed three small objects from it, each wrapped in cloth, then
unwrapped them. “These are fragile,” she warned.
“Do not break or mishandle them.”
He stared at them, suddenly realizing what he was seeing.
“Impressions. You took impressions of all the mechanical
keys! How? . . . ”
“It was not too difficult,” she responded, although
he knew that it must have been. “Just make the
keys.”
He touched them. They were hard as a rock. “What did you
use to get them?”
She grinned, which meant, for a Janipurian, showing all the
teeth. “Bread dough. Very thick bread dough. It is a very
convenient medium if it is not set too long.”
He began to appreciate the level of genius he was dealing
with.
Vulture had much to do, and contacting the Thunder was
an early priority.
Hawks and the others listened intently to the details, and Star
Eagle immediately put his robots to work creating what was needed
from the digital data sent by Vulture on Janipur. They could
arrange a drop far easier than Vulture could risk getting the items
made himself, and take advantage of a higher technological
level.
Working out the full details of the plan, however, was more
difficult. Star Eagle was not of great help in this area; the
computer could allow for all the unknowns and come up with
predictions of success in the range of point three to about
seventeen percent. The only contributions of real value the pilot
could make were estimates of how Master System, its Vals, and its
forces might react at any given level, but even these had to be
only approximations. Vals and Master System might be eighty or
ninety percent predictable, but the SPF and its leadership were
humans with a great deal of autonomy. Those freebooters who had
ever had dealings with the SPF could only vouch for their
unswerving loyalty to the system and their love of action. Whether
or not their officers could overrule a Val in the field was
questionable, but certainly a good general could freely interpret
orders and directives to his liking. Rewards were great if he was
right; the penalty for failure was severe, but no general convinced
of the righteousness of his or her decisions would let fear of
punishment sway them. They were fanatics.
All of this information was gathered and compiled by those of
the Thunder’s crew who had experience in such
matters, and they began to formulate a new plan.
“All right,” Raven sighed. “So we get
’em the equipment and we get ’em in with the skeleton
keys and dummy stuff they want. Vulture has to be on duty in
security during the whole operation to cover the alarms.
Sabir—well, that’s one to worry about, but maybe we can
use this sudden infusion of male chauvinism on the part of our
former Hindu lady to good effect. If he knows what’s going to
happen, you can bet we’ll have a dedicated gun and watchdog.
So they get in, use Star Eagle’s gadget, get to the case, and
flip the keys. Now we got a pressure plate that somebody’s
got to stand on to get the ring out. How much
pressure?”
“Rats,” Manka Warlock said.
“Beg pardon?”
“The vast bulk of that Center’s population are still
the distilled classical Hindu types with a real reverence for all
lower life forms. I always thought Hindus were fascinating in that
they disliked killing flies yet they killed each other in about the
same numbers as everybody else in the world. Center has rats and a
few other pests. Not the usual rats, either, although they’re
bad enough. I asked. These are large, hairy things but rats all the
same. They live in the air ducts and ventilation shafts too narrow
and winding for Janipurians to use. They don’t kill them.
They just try to feed them at designated spots to keep them out of
real harm. They run from people unless concerned or in large
groups, but they are big.”
Raven followed her thinking. “In the museum?”
“It has air ducts and ventilation shafts, I am certain. It
is in the middle of Center’s main level. There are probably
gratings but I will wager that sooner or later a few get in and
have to be shooed out. They would break those light beams, would
they not?”
He thought about it. “Yeah, sure. They’d have to.
And that’d trigger the alarms—no. Probably not. A
class-one security alert would result and all hell would break
loose at regular intervals. Even if it was originally set up that
way, they’d have gone nuts and changed it by now.”
“Precisely. In fact, they are a nice little security
backup in case someone tried a robot tentacle, let us say, down the
shafts. You couldn’t use those shafts without disturbing the
rat colonies and that would result in alarms and an investigation
or perhaps a horde of rats being dumped into whatever room you were
trying to break into. Now that is a thought. Make such a
commotion the night before you break in, it would cause them to
assume any new signals were just more rats breaking through the
unrepaired areas.”
“Uh uh. Some of these people are as crooked as the next
guy. You don’t leave your museum vulnerable that way. You
either post a lot of nasty human guards as supplements or you work
through the night repairing it. Too risky. But I see what you mean
about the rat problem. I missed that in the reports. If
they’re big and they do occasionally get in, then those light
beams can’t trigger a general alarm. Then what do
they trigger?”
“The cameras and audio sensors. They must. A
break turns them on and sounds an alarm in the security center.
They check their screens, pan around, and see and hear rats, so
they—what?”
Raven thought a moment. “Well, either they’d have to
come in and get them, or they’d have to switch off the
beams . . . Say! We’ll have to
ask Vulture what the procedure is. If he can patch the outside
video he can patch that as well. A lot easier than moving some
cockeyed mirror contraption in that might not work and in a place
where we don’t have the precise angles to make sure it does.
Good girl!”
“But what does that say about the pressure platform under
the carpet as well?” she asked him, very pleased with
herself.
“Uh huh. I wonder how much one of those suckers weighs? Or
several? A kilo? Two? And they’re pack animals. Almost never
travel alone. Figure there might be as many as three running across
at one time. Allow some margin—some real
margin—and you might have a fair amount of weight required to
trigger that sucker.” He paused a moment. “Nope. Forget
it. They have some monkeylike creatures and a number of other pets
down there. You can bet the designer allowed for someone sending in
small trained animals. Even if we allow six or seven kilos,
it’s not enough. Besides, somebody’s got to close that
case. Odds are it has some kind of time delay if it’s open
too long, whether they spotted it or not. It might sound an alarm
when opened anyway. That’s the way I’d design
it.”
“But this is a lower level of security than we are
accustomed to. A lower technological level, Center or not. This was
designed by humans, not machines, and built by humans to stop
humans. It might sound a buzzer or ring a bell when opened, but if
it did it would probably have the effect of turning on the audio
and visual system so the duty officer could see if it were a real
problem or a false alarm. A lot of this boils down to a very few
true security systems. Almost everything except the pressure
platform and the locks themselves is designed to turn on the
audio-visual to see what is going on before a general alarm is
sounded. Block those channels and the security center is blind,
deaf, and dumb. It is a key weak point. They must not have much of
a true criminal element there.”
He nodded. “I don’t know about their crooks, but
clearly the system’s designed to discourage somebody from
trying. Beyond that, the thing really isn’t all that hot.
They seem pretty confident that nobody could escape even if they
did take the crown jewels, and they’d normally be right. I
mean, it’s a Center, damn it! Strict
computer-controlled access in and out. Codings, trackings, you name
it. Let’s face it—without Vulture we could steal this
sucker but we could never get it out. Having the deputy chief of
security on your side makes all the difference, and nobody is gonna
plan for that. The more you look at our group the more you realize
how much thought went into it. We’re supposed to have a
fighting chance to win, after all.”
“All right. But that doesn’t get us around the
pressure-plate problem.”
“Vulture has an idea on that. I don’t like it much,
but it might be the only alternative. We’re gonna run some
tests with that Janipurian pair and see if it works. Let’s go
on to the getaway. If they trip any alarms, even silent ones,
it’s all over.”
She nodded. “I think our deputy chief of security can be
counted on there. He will, after all, be in the security center and
will probably outrank anyone there. Either of us in his situation
could cover for quite a while if we had to. He can’t hide a
major exposure or alarm trip, though. All right—that has to
be their problem. Now they get out and head for a prearranged meet.
Where?”
“The clinic. He has some secure areas there, and it
wouldn’t be considered at all strange for folks to go there
at any hour.”
“Good. We will have to have some provisional diversions
ready—just in case. Some nasties Vulture could set off by
remote control if he needed to.” She smiled. “Ones
designed for maximum damage and casualties.”
“Vulture’s developed a whole line of hideouts along
his route, but that whole place will be swarming with searchers
once the theft is discovered. We can’t get to them until
they’re clear: Security’ll be looking for anything
coming in for a pickup. They’re gonna hav’ta lay low a
long time, but maybe we can buy ’em a little breathing space.
After Vulture gets this equipment from us, he won’t need the
fighter he’s got down there now, and anyway it’s too
far to reach. If we time it right, we might convince Center that
the fighter we take off has them aboard. They might even drop
everything to chase it and blow it away.”
She nodded. “We will try it, but if they do not buy it, or
are the least suspicious, there will be only one way to save
them.”
He sighed. “Yeah, Space battle. Ship to ship. They might
underestimate our strength, though.”
“Or they might overestimate it. We must recall
and outfit the freebooter ships and practice with our whole fleet,
such as it is. These freebooters are very good at running and
hiding. I wonder how good they are in a fight.”
Vulture had met privately with Jeruwahl-Sabir after the planning
had been firmed up. The “husband,” acting very much
that role, had been more than just upset that Vulture had met
secretly with both women earlier, and it had taken some politicking
to mollify him. Vulture, in fact, was as worried about Sabir as he
was the actual operation. This was someone he didn’t really
know well and was still having some problems understanding. It
wouldn’t take much to expose their whole plan and at the very
least abort the mission, perhaps at the cost of three lives.
“I do not like this one bit,” Sabir said coolly.
“Already it has been awhile since you first brought us out
from under the mindprint, and Madowa’s horns are beginning to
sprout. I do not think this is possible any more.”
Vulture gave a slight shrug. “It is possible. Willpower
can do a lot, and we aren’t out of time yet. They want to do
this thing, Sabir, and they are ready. I think now so are we. The
only question left for me is you.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“When this started, you weren’t all thrilled about
becoming Janipurian, I’m told, but you saw it as your duty
and a chance to participate and help in a great undertaking. If
you’d been a man at the start—say, Captain
Paschittawal—I might have followed your subsequent behavior
a bit better, but you weren’t. If you’d had a past like
the women had—stepped on, pushed around, raped,
tortured—I might understand. But I think you knew coming in
that the mission is everything. We—all of us—are at
tremendous risk and expendable. Only the mission matters in the
end. Not being the martyr types, we will all try to survive, but
there are no guarantees. You were born a freebooter, not a colonial
dirtcrawler. You must decide.”
“That is easier for you to say, and perhaps easier for you
to decide,” responded Sabir. “You may have little to
gain except satisfaction in your personal war against the whole
system, but you have nothing to lose. I did not expect this,
although we all should have allowed it. You see, up until now I
have had nothing. I was born the last of eleven children to parents
who looked a hundred when they were in their forties and scratched
out the bare necessities on a small rocky claim in the middle of
nowhere. When I was but thirteen, I came on to a mechanic on a
freebooter tramp ship just to get out of there, to have some sort
of freedom and life. When he was done with me, stupid and naive as
I was, he abandoned me in a small settlement. I was but a defiled
child, and I did whatever was necessary to survive and to get what
learning I could. I sold my labor when possible and my body when it
was not, but each time I learned something that was useful later
on. I was an extra hand on twenty different ships, one trip at a
time. I finally found the Indrus, which was owned and
operated by distant cousins, and they took me on although they did
not need me. I would not have remained, but it was comforting for a
while to be with my own kind. Both men are married and devoted to
their wives, and the only other crew member is Ravi’s
daughter. I had nothing. I have never had anything. That is why I
volunteered for this. Why not?”
He nodded. “I see. And now, all of a sudden, you have some
status, some responsibility, and two children on the way. You have
blended into a society when you never had one before. Never mind
the others, the mission, even the women. It is selfishness, is it
not?”
Sabir bristled. “And why should I not be selfish? Who has
ever given me anything? What do I owe you or them or
anyone?”
“I don’t give a damn what you owe to whom, and I
don’t give a damn what you want or think. Those two women
have had it far worse than even you and they are committed. If you
turned us in, they would not reward you and you know it. They would
pick your mind to pieces for information on us, and the
others’ minds, as well. Your body might live, as some
simpleton building his house out of his own dung and plowing
someone else’s fields, but your mind would die and your soul
would bear the burden of your crimes. You can do nothing, but that
buys you two years at most. When the time comes to take the next
mind-print—assuming they don’t catch you before
that—there will be no deputy chief of security to launder
your truths or protect your wife and children, and you don’t
have the rank to have it managed otherwise. If you wish to protect
what is yours and play your petty games, you are better off going
along with me. The real Peshwar is very loyal and dedicated to his
wife. You will have both the Chows, and the children, if we make it
out, and you will have a position of authority and power. You are
comfortable in this society. It is too bad you were not born to it,
but you were not. So, be selfish—see it through.”
Sabir thought that over and saw that Vulture spoke the truth.
“What you say is all well and good—if I thought we
could get away with it. I cannot believe that we will,
though.”
“You haven’t seen it all, nor will I show you
now,” he replied, “but I think it’s possible.
Let’s go for it. Let’s take a chance on
life.”
“When—if I agree?”
“The ‘when’—when you agree.”
He sighed. “Very well. If the Chows go along, I will not
stand in the way and will be what help I can.”
“Excellent!” Vulture responded. “Tomorrow
begins Holi. The chief administrator will need the ring
but has not taken it as yet. It will probably be far too late for
him to put it back tomorrow night, but it will be on his finger and
he will be surrounded by guards. He might wear it the whole
festival, but I think not. In past years he has returned it after
opening an utsava so people who come in from the field for
the festivals can see it on display. When he removes it, I will be
there, and this will give me a chance to see just how the case is
normally opened and the ring removed. No matter what night he
returns the ring, that night we will take it.”
Just because the Brahman class was privileged to know of Master
System, the wider universe, and some of its technology did not make
them any less people of their own culture. In point of fact,
Hinduism was particularly suited to the hierarchical Center
leadership, especially as that structure had been refrained and
reemphasized by Master System. Rta, the balance of forces,
the natural order, was supreme. Vedic prayers were to the
maintenance of order; to watch the natural order carefully, imitate
and perpetuate it. It was a short, perhaps heretical step, but an
easy one, to see one’s self as the maintainer of order,
stability, and balance. The order had been disrupted in Mother
India and the people had been corrupted, but now Indra had given
them another chance, on a new world, in a new form, and set the
highest of humans, the Brahmans, the holy task of maintaining the
Rta at all costs so that the chosen ones of Janipur could
find their own paths to salvation and immortality unencumbered by
external forces.
The role of the Center Brahmans, then, was to do just what
Centers were designed for—maintain the balance and eliminate
anything that might change the way the people and culture worked.
It was a system tailor-made for Master System’s own goals,
and it worked well, far better than in many other places where it
had been imposed. Unlike the cynical Centers of Earth and many
colonial worlds where knowledge destroyed faith, here the Center
elect were true believers. Until the SPF had landed, the only
contact Janipurian Centers allowed was with a few ships like the
Indrus, peopled by crew who shared much of their beliefs
and understood and respected them. To maintain stability and
balance, no matter what the cost, was a sacred duty.
They had the duty of dharma, of keeping the world and
its people on the right path, of maintaining things.
This was also a people who felt the necessity of
Bhakti, of devotion to and relationship with individual and
often personal gods; they placed enormous store in rituals and
ceremonies and had many deities. Their very form was a matter of
pride; on Earth it had been this part of Hinduism that had brought
the cow to a status of near or actual worship; on Janipur, they had
some of the form and characteristics of the sacred animal.
The Holi utsava, or Spring Festival, was an ancient
ritual devoted to Krishna, but it was also a time of joy and
produced a near-carnival atmosphere punctuated with spectacular
public ceremonies and rites open to all. Although it was
Krishna’s festival, the god Soma, and the fiery liquor named
for him, would not be ignored. It was one of the few religious
observances where all but the bare minimum of Brahmans from the
entire continent could come and enjoy a bit of Cochin
Center’s comforts. Many would come to join in the
celebrations by the masses, leaving only the ascetics and those
leaders with strong local ties and not much love for Center or its
comforts.
This was also the time when security had nightmares and the SPF
had fits. As members of the ruling caste, those from outside had
the right to enter Center and see it and visit their departmental
chiefs as well as look at the museums, libraries, and shops that
were outside the limits of normal purview. Security areas were
still off-limits, of course, but with such crowds, the mere task of
keeping them from unauthorized areas, breaking things or tapping on
terminals kept all the security force busy.
The SPF, with its own modernized religion compelling and vesting
them with the god-given responsibility of keeping order on pain of
their immortal souls, had a hard time dealing with this idea of
relatively open access to Center, even for a limited period of
time. They simply couldn’t check out everyone who arrived
with their families and cousins, since nobody actually had to be
invited and those who could showed up, often at the last minute.
Center could not accommodate or maintain such a crowd, so they
camped outside in what became a huge, temporary tent city.
Vulture balanced the increased security against the benefits of
the crowd and its confusion and anonymity. The festival lasted
several days, however he no longer had those days to spare, even
if he would have preferred to have dealt with an exhausted security
force and an even more exhausted and frustrated SPF. He decided he
could use the confusion of the festival far more than he could
afford to wait a week—if the C.A. put the damned ring
back.
The Brahmans in Hindu society controlled the spiritual levers of
power and authority, not the secular, but in practice the Brahmans
of Centers were more secular than they would have liked to admit.
Still, they saw their roles as purely spiritual. In the field, most
were affiliated with religious orders, but a few were involved in
the professions and everyday life. Some were doctors and some
lawyers or judges; often they earned their livings this way while
on call as duty priests when needed. Each Hindu was his or her own
church, so there were no formal churches on Janipur, but ceremonies
and rituals required priests, and the professional service class of
Brahmans was there to serve. Even those who weren’t needed or
had had their turns before were at the festival, as well.
Vulture couldn’t help but wonder what some of the
twice-born of lower castes would think if they could see how
unsaintly some of these secularized Brahmans acted when they were
entirely among their own. One of the security men remarked his
relief that so few ascetics had come this year; they were usually
trouble, since they spent most of their time berating and cursing
their more materialistic brethren. On those occasions, it took a
fair amount of soma in the belly to wash away the guilt
that always lingered in the back of the minds of even security
personnel. It was, in fact one of the most spartan of Centers, the
technology used only when it was essential to the holy mission,
but, still, when one was in an enclosed city with its own climate
control, electric lights, and computerized kitchen, it was hard to
convince yourself you were striving to go beyond material things.
There was little that could be done, though; fires, tents, and the
like would not be practical at Center, and they would most
certainly interfere with the computers and communications
networks.
And, of course, somebody had to clean up the place, stock it,
run the stores, and do all the other jobs that were beneath a
Brahman. In other circumstances, the lower castes would have done
it, but they were not permitted here, so a high degree of
automation was required to maintain Brahman purity.
To Vulture, who was a product of no culture and an amalgam of
many, it was just more proof that people would rationalize almost
anything in the name of religion.
The plain outside on the morning of the start of the festival
was a colorful sea of tents and a mobile sea of grayish-tan bodies.
It was impossible to judge immediately, but it was possible that
there were three or four thousand people in the temporary city.
There were firewalkers—on feet, not hooves—and
demonstrations of yoga and other powers of the mind and much
more.
Shortly after nine in the morning, Chief Administrator Namur
walked down the hall of the main level of the Center with his wife
and retinue. He was dressed simply in a white loincloth and his
wife in plain white silk, but what was impressive was that they
walked, upright, the entire distance of more than three
hundred meters that they were in public view, and they walked
rather well. Since such a thing required not only great practice
but great concentration and force of will, it was a gesture that
impressed even Vulture, who was one of the retinue.
They stopped at the great red doors to the museum. The curator
stood there, made obeisance in the time-honored way, then removed
the large key from around her neck and stuck it in the lock.
Vulture watched. One right, one left, another left, then right,
then left again. There was a click, the curator pushed on
the golden door latch, and the two doors swung inward. The C.A. and
his wife followed the curator inside to the second and more modern
security door, which opened when the curator inserted a small card
and then presented her right palm to the plate. The inner door
moved back silently, and they proceeded inside.
Vulture was several steps in back of the chief administrator,
but his eyes took in everything. He decided they needn’t
worry about the light beams; either they were switched off when the
inner door opened or they just turned on the monitors, as
suspected. What was more interesting was that the carpeted area in
front of the ring’s case was bulging upward perhaps fifteen
centimeters. Whatever it triggered was automatically turned off
somehow, but he couldn’t see how. Not the door. Why have the
damned thing at all if it’s turned off by springing the door?
A thief would have to do that just to get in. Then it struck
him—the combination! The palm opened the doors, but the
numerical code deactivated the pressure plate. Neither he nor the
Chows knew that combination, and the panel was recessed so that no
one could see what numbers the curator punched. It was a standard
enough system that it had been easy to figure out how to
temporarily circumvent it, but that wouldn’t deactivate the
plate. Clever.
The curator and an assistant went to the plate. When the curator
set one foot on the plate it depressed and wiggled but nothing
happened, but in the split second when the other foot came down a
bell began to ring. The assistant stepped on the other side, adding
enough weight to depress and lock it, and the bell stopped
sounding. There was no way to be certain, but he felt the bell was
important for the delay before it rang—that split second when
just part of the body weight was on the platform. Raven had been
right; the thing had been designed to halt a Janipurian thief and
to allow for Janipurian rats and other critters that might get in.
The bell did not worry him; if it went off they’d know
immediately that they’d blown it and then it would be time to
try to shoot their way out.
Vulture, as deputy chief of security, had been handed one of the
two keys to the case and told to take the left side. The chief
would take the right, and the C.A. would remove the ring. He had
been given the key only when he joined the party and would have to
surrender it almost immediately. It had been hell figuring out how
to take an impression of it but he’d managed. The impression
wouldn’t do much good at this stage, but, matched against the
key made from Chow Dai’s dough impression, it would
tell him before they were committed if they’d blown it.
On a nod from the chief administrator, both Vulture and the
chief of security inserted their keys and then turned, he to the
left and the other to the right. He had been instructed to hold it
there. There was a click, and the case, fully four meters
long and containing much more than just the ring, opened, the lid
comprising the entire transparent area moving back electrically and
merging with its back wall. There were solenoids along the sides,
he noted, although the Chows already had figured this out.
Interrupt one, by trying to reach in or climb into the case from
the side, and the lid snapped shut. Vulture figured about half of
the person who tried it that way would become a bloody part of the
permanent exhibit.
The C.A. leaned over, approached the ring with his right hand
from the back, carefully lifted it up off its peg mount and brought
it back, up, then out. He seemed to examine it, then turned to his
wife, smiled, and gave it to her. She nodded and as he held out his
hand she placed the ring on the third finger. It was a good fit,
which indicated that it had been relined in some way.
The chief administrator moved away, and with a nod from his
immediate boss, Vulture slowly turned the key back to straight
again. A mechanism clicked in, and the case lid moved forward and
clicked back into place. He then removed the key, placed it back
around his neck, and followed the boss back out the doors. He
reflected that it was almost a pity that the ring wasn’t
still there today, since the museum would have a couple of staff
people on but would be closed to the public. A perfect time for a
robbery—if he’d wanted anything other than the
ring.
The ceremony and rites themselves were indeed impressive and
quite solemn, lasting most of the day. This was a rare occasion for
communal worship, and much of it was spent fasting and chanting,
over and over, in unison,
“Krishna . . . Krishna . . . Krishna . . . ” The chief
administrator served as high priest for the rites, before a massive
statue of Krishna.
There was no physically possible way that a Janipurian could
accomplish the lotus position, but they could bend themselves into
incredible and impossible positions all the same.
The ceremony concluded late in the day, and the crowd broke up
into random groups listening to teachers relate various parables,
lessons, or philosophies, or participated in rites of faith
including firewalking and demonstrations of the power of the mind
over the body. This would continue for days—although not with
the chief administrator leading—to a steadily diminishing
number of the pious. Some would spend the whole time in prayer,
meditation, and learning, but for most, one day was enough.
The chief administrator walked among them, though, and at
various points demonstrated his own great mental control and at
other times his humility by sitting at the feet of a yogi or other
teacher, and occasionally by stopping to talk with this person or
that on an informal basis regardless of job or status. Vulture
couldn’t help but think how easy it would be to simply take
the ring at this point. Unfortunately, anyone who did so would be
brought down by several hidden but expert and well-armed SPF
forces, by security forces themselves, or, if that failed, by the
crowd. Stealing that ring was just about the most blasphemous thing
you could do around this crowd of faithful; they would all consider
it an attack on themselves.
By nightfall, it was clear that the chief administrator was not
going to return the ring that night, but Vulture hadn’t
thought he would. Tomorrow would be soon enough. By then some of
the holiest would have miraculously changed into tourists, and
others into bureaucrats trying to score points with their
superiors. It was a much better crowd to work with, anyway.
But the next day the museum opened without the ring. By the
close of the third day, Vulture was beginning to worry that
something in fact was wrong. Chow Dai-Madowa’s horns were
already out around a hundred centimeters and seemed to be growing
so fast one could almost see them grow, and she was complaining of
how tiring it was to stand for any length of time; Chow Mai-Sedowa
was in much better shape but her own horns had started to appear
and she was eating heavily. Those horns grew at an average
of almost ten centimeters a day, judging by Chow Dai. Time
was running out.
Worse, the chief administrator continued his public
appearances—with the ring nowhere to be seen. Finally, five
days later, when Vulture was already talking with Thunder
about improvising and making alternate plans, perhaps taking the
trio out of Center and getting them back up to Thunder
somehow for the births—hard but not impossible if the ring
was not in their hands and there was no hue and cry—when the
call came to attend the chief administrator and replace the ring.
It was done privately, quietly, near the end of the day and with
none of the fanfare that taking it out had occasioned. Still,
Vulture was reassured to see that the combinations and procedures
didn’t seem to have changed. Nick of time, he thought, and sent signals to the trio
and to Thunder. He was all prepared—in fact, he felt
overprepared. It was frustrating to have to wait until
night.