The Empire Of Time Part 14

The computer-terminal flickerscreen moved at a preset rate of sixteen pages per second, fast but comfortable for Pierce, and he felt jolted when it paused for a moment, flashed RESTRICTED MEMORANDUM, and resumed its normal speed with the next item. Pierce halted it at once and punched back to the restricted memo. He respected security, of course, but this was something about one of his own operations; he had a right to know.

His Training was thorough and up-to-date, so it did not take him long to outwit the computer's security barriers. Five seconds after doing so, he had read and absorbed the memorandum.

Filed by an epidemiological team on Luvah, it described the flare-up and control of a nasty artificial influenza called Strain Zeta. Pierce, visiting his mother in Puerto Cortines on Luvah, had witnessed an endo raid on the little resort settlement. On his return to Earth, he had recommended the introduction of Zeta to the endo tribes of the Yucatin. That had been just over a month ago.

Zeta, a usefully plastic virus, had been tailored for use against Luvah's endos; within a week of its deployment, it had virtually eradicated all the tribes within a hundred kilometers of Puerto Cortines. Then it had mutated-as sometimes happened with artificial viruses-and seventy two hours later everyone in Puerto Cortines was dead. AID had promptly sealed off the whole peninsula, and Strain Zeta died out, a victim of its own virulence.

Pierce sat quietly for a few minutes. When he lifted his ringmike to his lips, his hand was shaking.

"Dr. Suad?"

He was lying on the water bed, screaming, out of his mind, yet somehow aware that Suad was nearby, a dark presence in the shadows.

"It is very hard, Mr. Pierce," Suad said when Pierce's voice failed at last. "We sometimes must ask you to do some terrible things-terrible things. They are all in a good cause, but it is hard to take the long view when you are so close, eh? And you must do these things without reflection, without question, as if they were second nature. It is very hard.

"So we Brief you and condition you, and when you come back we Jock away the memories where they won't bother you. We even give you false memories. Where is your mother now, Mr. Pierce?"

"Dead. Dead."

"Of course not She is suffering from chronic bronchitis and emphysema, and you have sent her to the Inst.i.tute Respiratorio in Nuevo Judrez. You have been writing to her every week for almost three months, ever since she moved from Puerto Cortines. She writes you less often, because she is so weak. But she is happy there, and the treatment she gets is excellent- excellent!"

"That's a lie, G.o.d d.a.m.n you."

"Lies are only what we do not believe. You will believe me, Mr. Pierce. And when you do, you will feel very, very much better. You always do." He chuckled. "You come out of here a new man."

The injections began.

Occasionally, Pierce was aware of a little hollow among sand dunes where the sun was warm whenever the wind died down. He was holding a small, hard hand; it was comforting, but not as vivid, not as real, as the memories that burst in his mind like flares over a ravaged battlefield. He could smell the tobacco on the Afrikaner's breath, feel the deck of the Trident swaying under his feet, see the burning girl fall into the street.

Somewhere in the middle of the Clearing, Anita dissolved the block on his Briefing. Thickly, with a tongue that seemed swollen, he said: "That's it. Very, very interesting... Keep going."

Her hand tightened on his.

Then it was over. He rubbed his face while Anita dressed; her skin was covered with gooseflesh. About ninety minutes had pa.s.sed. She huddled next to him, pulling a blanket around them.

"You look terrible," he muttered.

"So do you."

"Well. That was some Briefing. Wigner didn't put everything in, but I can guess at what he left out" He paused, ordering his thoughts.

"He's got plenty of spies at the WDS. They kept him posted on Sherlock, and one of them learned that Seamus Brown figured out that the Sherlock field doesn't need precise alignment. Not if you just position it between the Sun and the Earth like a burning gla.s.s."

"Ah, ah-how could I be so stupid?"

"So Brown went to Gersen. And Gersen understood... Isn't that incredible? A Trainable teaming up with unTrainables like that."

"Not surprising, really. Brown saw the implications."

The implications. Pierce considered them. No solar flare would bring Doomsday to Earth. No alien invaders would pounce out of s.p.a.ce. There was no need now for superweapons against Outsiders. On Ore and Ulro, an experiment had gone terribly wrong, and that was all. Doomsday was caused by a human act.

So the International Federation, welding all humanity into a single unit, was not needed. The Colonies were not needed; the Agency and all its expedients were not needed. Separatism was now legitimate-and practical, since Ore possessed a weapon Earth would be unable to counter for some time.

"Wigner had three motives in sending me here," Pierce said. "He knew about Sherlock in general-and what it meant-but not how far it had progressed. So he wanted that information. He also wanted me to abort it, preferably by killing Gersen. And he wanted me to die. He wanted to keep Sherlock a secret, preserve the whole Doomsday myth, even if there was only one chance in a thousand of succeeding. And if that meant blowing me up-" He shrugged. "And he knew all about my freezing, of course... Oh my G.o.d, my G.o.d."

"What-" They block us all, for one reason or another. All Agents. And it's the blocking that makes us freeze. I remember Suad saying so, a few months ago. "Poor old Jerry. Twenty-six memory blocks. You'll be freezing solid in less than a year, old friend."

"If the blocks are gone-you may never freeze again."

"Never. I'll be a working Trainable all my life. All my life." He should have felt jubilant, but somehow he did not.

Anita nestled against him, warming him. "And now?"

He shuddered. " 'What are you doing about Doomsday?' "

-The burning girl. She fell, and fell, and fell. She would fall forever, suspended on the screen of the Afrikaner's Nikon binoculars, on the screen of memory.

After a time, he finally said: "I know what to do."

Chapter Ten.

They returned to the bus. The indents were enjoying their holiday, but cautiously: they gossiped, played cards, smoked, slept-all out of sight of Mrs. Curtice, who sat in the rear door of the bus with her hands tied behind her. Dallow sat nearby, his truncheon in his lap, smoking. He glanced up at Pierce and Anita, and his eyes widened in surprise.

"Man, you been doin' some extreme serious s.h.i.t."

"Well put." Pierce stood in front of Mrs. Curtice. "How's your arthritis?"

"f.u.c.k yourself, you G.o.dd.a.m.n-"

"Shut up.'"

There was so much danger in his voice, so much pent-up menace, that her voice cut off in a gurgle. Her pale eyes met his for a moment, then looked away. Absently, Pierce realized he must have a very crazy air about him, and exploited it.

He leaned forward. "I've just gone for a stroll down Nostalgia Alley. You wouldn't believe the number of corpses I saw there, Mrs. Curtice. Not even you. Be careful."

"Anight, arright-no harm intended-Tin just upset, that's all, just upset."

"Mm. How's your arthritis?"

"Much better, thanks. Lots better. Couldn't hardly stand bein' tied up if I was

feelin' bad."

"Good. You're going to help us do a job."

"Is that right? Uh, mind tellin' me what it is?"

"We're all going through that knothole your old friend Klein operates."

Her mouth fell open. She laughed; it was a most unpleasant noise. "He charges

ten thousand a body, one way. You got that kinda money?"

"He'll do it for free."

"Uh. Uh-huh. Where we all goin'?"

"Everywhere. All twelve chronoplanes. A couple here, a couple there."

"This is crazy." She regretted the word at once. "I mean, it's hard to understand,

y'know? What's all this about?"

"You'll know when you need to." Pierce looked at the Sun; it was mid-afternoon.

He turned to Anita. "Give me the wand."

A little reluctantly, she obeyed. Pierce whistled, and the indents began to drift

over.

"Listen up. We're going back into Little Frisco. You folks are going to do a job

for us, and then each of you gets his freedom. This time tomorrow, you won't have those bracelets on."

They did not exactly throw their caps in the air. A young Sicilian, arms folded

across his ma.s.sive chest, asked: "What kind of job?"

"A very safe, quiet job. All you have to do is mail some computer cartridges.

Then you're on your own."

"I rather stay with Mrs. Curtice," the Sicilian said, and most of the others nodded.

Pierce had half expected this reaction. He raised the wand. "We all got a good

taste of this today. Anyone want more?"

They were silent. Pierce hoped he was bluffing.

"If you people want to stay with this old b.i.t.c.h, that's fine. But first you're going to go through a knothole, hustle your a.s.s to a mailbox, register what you're sending, and come back with the registration."

"What if we don' come back, man?" asked a tall American Black. "What you gon' do then?"

"Your kids will stay with me."

He scanned their unexpressive faces for a few seconds, watching his remark sink in, watching mothers look at fathers, fathers look at children.

"All right? We understand one another? Okay, everyone in the bus. Let's get going."

They stopped in Farallon City en route to Little Frisco, and Pierce went into a replication shop. A cheerful Chinese boy, snapping a mouthful of Coca-Chew, sold him a blank computer cartridge and gestured to an empty console booth. Pierce inserted the cartridge, thought carefully for a long minute, and began to program. The whole thing took him fifteen minutes. He got up, handed the cartridge to the boy, and ordered two hundred copies.

"Oh, wow. Yeah, but it'll take like an hour, mister."

"I can give you twenty minutes. Get going." The boy looked distressed, but nodded.

While the cartridge was being replicated, Pierce hurriedly typed address stickers. The copies would go to laboratories, government offices, newsfiche publishers- all places plugged into a major computer network.

The boy stacked the copies in a cardboard box. "That must be some program."

"Not really-I just don't want to lose it." He paid and left, glad that Mrs. Curtice traveled with a sizable amount of cash. There was a mailbox outside. He dropped fifteen cartridges into it, addressed to destinations in Farallon, Glaciopolis, and Little St. Louis.

"What the h.e.l.l is all that?" Mrs. Curtice asked when he returned to the cab. She was stowed in the bunk, still tied up.

"Don't you worry your pretty head about h, love." He winked at Anita, who replied with an uncertain smile.

The trip back across the dunes was uneventful; there seemed to be fewer Copos around. Pierce pulled into a McDonald's on the edge of Little Frisco, and sent Dai-low in with a huge order. There was considerable excitement in the back of the bus over this unexpected treat. But Pierce allowed no one else out of the bus. As the afternoon turned into a golden dusk, the pa.s.sengers of El Emperador sin Ropa munched their hamburgers and fries in the parking lot.