Imperial Stars 2-Republic and Empire (44 page)

"Got it." Hong typed busily for quite a while. "Got to use hexadecimal, haven't smoothed the front end LISP out yet. Okay." He slid off the stool and stared at Derein.

There was a tiny click.

"Any time you're ready," said the Party Member, his eyes closed.

"That's it."

Derein opened his eyes. "What?"

"Hear the relay close?"

"I . . . thought something, too quick to catch . . . then I heard a click."

"That was it. You believe the slogan."

The Party Member looked confused. "Yes. I do. But then what?"

"As I envisioned the use of this device," said Terhune, his voice controlled, "the query would have been in the enemy language, oriented toward the military; for example, 'It is my mission to destroy American battle robots.' This would have enabled the robot to screen out civilians, even enemy civilians, and attack only enemy soldiers, even if ununiformed."

"Would it work on enemy battle robots?"

"They are rather easily identified visually," said Hong, smiling.

"But this is a wonderful device," said Derein. "Let's try it with something I disagree with."

"No problem," said Hong, typing again. After a moment he slid off the stool. "Try that?"

The relay did not click. "What did you ask me?" said Derein.

"The test statement was," said Hong, looking blank," 'Human beings who oppose the Party have a right to live.' "

He had gone to her cubicle without calling on the intercom. He found her in the cleaner. She was nude. The soap spray clung to her body like lace.

"Done soon?"

"Done now," she said. "Rinse!"

When the shower was finished with her she came to him wet and naked. He sat on the chair by her cot and stared at the wall.

"No roundup?"

"What?"

"I said, no roundup? The dogies are restless tonight."

He moved to the bunk and held her close to him. She felt damp and hard and strong, hugging him back so tight he found it hard to breathe. He closed his eyes.

"Problem?"

"What?"

"You have a problem, cowboy? Tell me about it."

"I can't do this, Kathryn."

He felt her begin to rock him. She said nothing. He held her as close as he could, feeling tears bite into his eyelids.

"What's the matter? Tell me. You can trust me."

"I know . . . that's the only thing that keeps me going sometimes. Kathryn, I can't go through with this."

She turned, reached automatically now. The evening Party Program surged into the room. "We discussed it, Mike. There's nothing else you can do."

"You know what this thing we're building will mean? It'll destroy any hope of a counterrevolution. They can use it to guard government buildings, to stop the Resistance walking in with bombs. Then it'll be in the airports, the sidewalks. And you can't trick it or lie to it!"

"You're destroying yourself over this, Mike. We're out of it, here. We're safe."

"That's not enough. I can't let this loose, not in their hands." He bent closer still, whispering into her ear. "I'm going to change the statement."

"The what?"

"The test statement. I don't care what they do to me. Or my family. Or even to us. There are too many others involved. I've got to change it."

"You can't, Mike. They'll find it."

"I can't do anything else."

"Why? Because of your family? Mike. Forget them." He felt her breathing slow, deepen. "You have me. Don't you?"

"I love you."

"That's right."

"I haven't seen my family for years."

"They'll get along. I think children do that. It's selfish of me. But I don't want you to do it, Mike. Please don't."

"We could stay here together."

"That's right."

"Do you love me?"

"More than anything. More than anything. Christ, Michael. I'm sorry for your kids. But sometimes, oh, Jesus, sometimes I think you don't understand how much a woman can love you."

"I love you too. A lot."

But she did not answer him.

Fourteen days later Lab D looked the same. The scientists gathered around the table, however, looked worn. Derein had driven them all eighteen hours, twentyurs a diurn. He had received orders to build and test a complete working model.

The finished prototype was considerably smaller than the square meters of ammonia-smelling bioelectronics that had covered the work table. Hong and Terhune had used the Center's Produktor line to design it, and it had discovered several production shortcuts. Dr. Hogue, pressed into service, had found ways to combine several functions within modules, and had miniaturized the power sources. The five of them stood now looking up at the completed device. The size of an old transistor-model television, it hung shabbily braced from the laboratory overhead, pointing down at a shallow angle. The chalked square was now a rectangle four feet by two.

"Here's the concept of operation," said Dr. Hong, resting himself against the bench, which now gave off the rankness of decay; he had let the breadboard go, and, unshielded, it had caught some random germ and started to rot. "Party Member Derein, you wanted something that could screen in real time. This unit can do it, if people don't come through too fast. You could set it up above an escalator, for example."

"That's ideal," said Derein. Of them all, he looked the best rested, though there were circles under his eyes as well. "The Secretary intends to use the initial installations to screen people going into offices in New Washington."

"Government offices?" said Terhune.

"And Party offices."

"A demonstration, Party Member?"

"Just a minute. Tell me again what happens when they fail."

"When the screeners fail?"

"No, no. I have confidence in your team's technical abilities. I mean, what will happen when the people going through fail."

"We incorporated a wiper," said Terhune. He looked dead. Not dead physically. He looked like a man who had lost his soul.

"Wiping? How does that work?"

"Uh. Dr. Levinson worked that out—he's the psychoradiomanipulator."

A heavyset, balding man stood up slowly. "Well, it's not unlike the wipes your courts order sometimes when somebody gets a death sentence. You know how those operate?"

"Just that they come out without a brain."

"Overstatement, Party Member Derein. It's a traumatic overload, a burnout on the subneural level, where memory and learned patterns are matrixed. The brain is operational, but as far as learning and life experience, identity, it's a
tabula rasa
." Derein looked blank. "A clean slate. Essentially they're no longer a human being, but a newborn. Of course, without the newborn's potential, entirely. Learning is considerably more limited the second time around."

"And this would be better than just firing a laser at them when the disloyalty circuit trips?"

"I believe so, Party Member."

"Why?"

"Because it preserves, at some level, a life." They stared at each other. Before Derein could respond, Levinson added heavily, "Or a soul. The Party would see it as another chance to, uh,
save
that soul, once it had been purged of—antisocial habits and thoughts."

"Of the devil, you mean to say."

"I guess that's the terminology, yes." Levinson sighed.

"That's good reasoning. That's defensible. Yet you seem unhappy about it, Dr. Levinson."

"Do I? How penetrating."

"Are you with the Party, Dr. Levinson?"

Levinson straightened. "Have I said something out of order? I didn't mean to."

"Answer me, Doctor."

Levinson looked at him. At last he turned the collar of his coveralls to show the yellow star. "I think this answers your question."

Derein stared at him. After a moment he turned to Terhune. "Let's get on with it."

"Sure. Step right up," said Terhune bitterly.

"Me?"

"I think you'll agree that you're the best choice for a test"

"Perhaps you'll precede me, Doctor."

"I don't think so, Party Member. You see, this prototype is fully operational."

Derein looked around the circle. "Refusal? That's practically an admission of disloyalty."

"So is yours," said Terhune. "Are you refusing the test, Party Member? It will be difficult. You'll have to terminate all of us to prevent your superiors from finding out you did. And if you do, you won't have the device, will you? The design is in the Produktor. But you can't operate it, can you? If it isn't quite right you can't fix it, can you?"

Derein stared at him. He looked at the overhead. "This is disloyal. This is all recorded."

"I jammed it," said Hong modestly. "Very simple."

"And even if you have a traitor on your side," said Terhune, not looking at Hong or Levinson, "he could produce this model—it's all on the tape—but he couldn't tune or improve it. Not without some months of study. And you don't have some months, do you? You've already notified them the shuttle will instation tomorrow."

Derein stared around once more. He was sweating, visibly.

"I know," he said.

"What?"

"I know what you plan to do to the device."

"I have no idea what you mean," said Terhune.

"Let me tell you, then." Derein looked around at them, all of them. He took a small pistol from the pocket of his coveralls.

"You changed the question."

Terhune's head came up. He felt dazed. Then he saw her eyes. They were wide, but steady on his. Green, with a touch of hazel. He felt his legs begin to tremble.

She was the one person he had never suspected.

After a moment Hong said, "That's absurd."

"Is it? You think he's on the Party's side, fully? Then you step forward, Dr. Hong. Take your place on your chalked-in square. Do it."

Hong looked at Terhune, weighing something in his mind. After a moment he said, "I'm afraid to. I think he is, but—I guess I'm just risk-averse."

"Dr. Levinson?"

"I'd rather not," said Levinson.

"Dr. Terhune?"

Terhune looked at the square. He looked at Hogue.

"No," he said.

"So," said Derein, looking around at them. "You won't do it. Not even if I threaten to shoot you. You know, I believe you. I believe you don't trust each other. And I can see you don't trust yourselves. Do you know how that makes me feel? That makes me feel that everything is right, that I have an operating device. But I'd rather be sure. Dr. Terhune. Step up."

"No."

"Move, Terhune. I'm out of forgiveness. You will prove yourself now. Step up, or your usefulness to the Party ends now." He raised the gun and aimed.

Terhune hesitated. He started to step forward.

Hogue pushed him back.

She positioned herself squarely in the center of the chalked outline. "Turn it on," she said.

"Kathryn!"

"Turn it on, Michael." Her green eyes were steady. Green eyes brushed with hazel. Eyes he had once trusted . . .

"It's too risky," he said. "Do you know what it can do to you? It can—"

"Do you think it will hurt me?"

He stared at her with hatred, knowing himself once more betrayed. They had all betrayed him, Levinson, Hong—and especially her. She had been the only one who knew his plans. The only one who had spoken the truth to him, bitter and unwelcome as it was, had been Derein.

"No," he said bitterly. "No, I guess it won't."

"You believe I betrayed you, Michael?"

"I know you did."

"Then I guess you'd better turn it on."

Now we know where we stand, he thought. The bitterness turned suddenly into rage: rage at a world enslaved in the name of God; at the men around him, for their weakness in aiding it; at her. But most of all it was at himself, for his foolishness and blindness in believing in another human being.

He nodded to Hong.

The screener hummed for a moment, subaudible, the power supplies she had designed warming up, sending a jolt of subawareness through the half-dead bioelectronics that knew nothing of the mercy of living things, that knew only the programming that men had imposed on their once-human DNA.

Her eyes widened.

She stood still, and said nothing.

"Kathryn?"

She did not answer, simply looked upward, at the blank face of the screener.

Terhune stared at her eyes. The pupils had widened, as they did in the dim light of her cubicle. At her shoulders, broad and strong, slack now under her coveralls in the harsh light of the laboratory.

He stared at her open mouth, at the corners of her parted lips. Lips that he had kissed. They were still there, still whole and firm and warm. Still the same. But not hers, never again
hers—

His hand crept up for a shot of Happy.

He had believed in her guilt, her treason to him. Yet she had not betrayed him. She had given herself, to convince him of that beyond any doubt.

To show him love that destroyed itself even as it proved itself, even as she parted from him forever.

His hand, numb, was on the trigger for the dispenser when it stopped. His eyes moved slowly up his arm to Derein's hand at his wrist.

"A beautiful piece of work," the Party man said quietly. For once, Terhune noted through the numbness, he looked sincere. "And so appropriate. We've suspected her attachment to the Party's goals for some time. But now"—the hand increased its pressure on his wrist—"she's proven that we have an operating device. God's ways are strange but wonderful! Prepare the plans for full-scale production."

"I don't understand," said Terhune. "It triggered on her. It shouldn't have—unless she was—"

"Disloyal? Exactly." Derein smiled. "You scientists are intellectual children. Competent in your fields, but hardly a match for a trained man. I didn't need a traitor, or a bug, to know that you would try to change that combination. I could see it in your eyes. Why didn't you? You became afraid, at the last minute. Don't worry, Doctor. You're useful. I won't take action against you. But you must accept it. You've been outthought, by me, the Party member you scorn as a bureaucrat, a fanatic, a technological illiterate. What about it, Doctor? Is your intellectual arrogance proof against that?"