Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail (44 page)

“No wonder, then, Kreegan became Lord.”

Morah nodded. “Local Altavar, bred for the conditions and for unobtrusiveness, try to discourage anyone from getting too close without blowing their cover, often masquerading as wild animals themselves. They mostly staff monitoring and control devices to keep tabs on the Coldah, whose signals increase consistently until they leave. By that monitor they can predict the Coldah’s eventual behavior and be ready for it.”

He thought a moment. “Then the ice demons weren’t the only ones. There were those nasty beasties in the Charonese desert with tentacles, too, if I remember.”

“Oh, the narils. Actually, they’re not Altavar, but Altavar pets, in a way. An attempt to breed an animal with their own biochemical structure that was sensitive to the Warden frequencies. It worked only slightly, though. Some got into the wild and adapted themselves to the desert, that’s all. The Cerberan bork is another botched attempt, only that time their result scared them so much they haven’t tried it again.”

“I still don’t understand why they’d go for Kreegan’s plan, though.”

“Oh, that’s simple. They still weren’t quite ready to tackle us yet. They were pretty sure he couldn’t succeed, but he hit it off with them for some reason, and they agreed to go along simply because, no matter what, it would give them the strategic and military information they craved. If it worked, so much the better. But they couldn’t stand for us in any event, a race with a powerful empire that also could reach, and even make use of, the Coldah and their symbiotes without a lot of mechanical aids.”

“So what will they do to the Confederacy now—and to us?”

Morah sighed. “They will use small but deadly forces to hit weakly defended planets throughout the Confederacy. Eventually the remnants of this fleet not concerned with the Medusan Coldah’s new habitat and settlement will join m scattered action. They will collapse the empire back into planetbound barbarism, but on hundreds of worlds. The Confederacy itself will continue to hold fanatically, all the while contracting to a defensible size and base, but they will be effectively neutralized for a long time. What they will eventually do, or become, you and I will never know, my friend. We’ll be long dead.”

“And the Diamond?”

‘The Altavar computers can stabilize the Medusan variety for a while, perhaps rebuilding Medusa or, more likely, just letting it go. We will settle the Medusans on Lilith and Charon, and progressively we’ll switch the programming on them over from Medusa to whatever new world they settle upon, if not with the current generation, then with their children. The Altavar will be around, but remain as unobtrusive as possible, for the next three centuries. Then, one after another, the Coldah will emerge in natural fashion, and, theoretically, our Warden powers will die out and we’ll be just plain folks again. Or maybe we won’t. Whether or not the Medusan young become Charonese or Lilithians or remain their own kind even with the Coldah gone and with subtle suggestion from the Altavar master computers will tell us a lot. If they
do
continue to breed true, then the Coldah’s leaving will have no effect. If we, in those three centuries, can learn how to keep those Wardens alive, or replace them with synthetic equivalents as the Altavar now could do if they wanted, we Warden Diamond races could emerge as true, spacefaring,
Homo excelsius.
The Altavar can make their Wardens do whatever they want by mechanical processes.
We
can do it with sheer willpower, and remake ourselves if we like.”

He nodded slowly. “And you were a biologist.” 

“I
am
a biologist. Sooner or later, working with the Altavar, I will know enough, or my staff will, aided by the computers of Cerberus, now free to expand their potential. We must build up our industry again quickly, and that is the first and vital task. We have the work force with the necessary skills in the Medusans, but we must rebuild the factories, out here first, then in space. The technological brains are all over the Diamond, and now the lid on technological development the Confederacy imposed is gone.” 

“You’re certain toe Altavar won’t interfere?” 

“So long as they perceive no threat from us, they win not. This is long-term planning, Mr. Carroll. It will take years to rebuild the industry and expand reasonable production. We have three centuries to do it all and learn what we have to learn. At the end of that time, if we have fathomed the full secrets of the Warden organism, we will sit here on our three remaining worlds in relative savagery and wave good-bye to the Coldah and the Altavar. Then we will go out ourselves, and see what of humanity survives and rebuild our civilization in strength, not ignorance. It is a challenge not only for us who will start this work but for our children and grandchildren who will complete it. And if we do our job right, they’ll do it without the mistakes of the past rising again to stupefy human civilization. A race that can, by force of will, become any creature it needs to, destroy mountains with a finger and a push of will, and change bodies, sex, or whatever it is at any time, will be a new type, of creature, or creatures.”

Yatek Morah leaned back, drained his drink, then pulled out and lit a Charonese cigar. Then he added, “Next time, we
will
be the demons—or the gods. And what about you, Mr. Carroll? Where do you fit in to this unique new future?”

He leaned back comfortably and put his feet up on the table. “I think I have some unique qualifications in your grand scheme, Morah. I think I’m going to fit in fine around here, all four of me. But first a little unfinished business, if you’ll do me a little favor.”

“We’ll see. Now that
you
know it all, I still have a nagging feeling that there’s something you haven’t been telling me.”

“Oh, it’s nothing important,” he assured the Security Chief, “except to me.”

9

He had spent a little time on Cerberus with Qwin and Dylan, who had been more than willing to take in Bura and Angi and delighted to add two children of a “close relative” to the family. Both Medusan children were finally delivered and looked like normal, healthy Cerberan children, although Dylan complained somewhat enviously over the easy and relatively painless way in which Medusans gave birth. At least children conceived on Medusa bred true to form despite the loss of the Coldah, although the Altavar were, of course, still feeding supplementary data the Medusan Wardens needed to everyone through the Snark computer network.

The Altavar, without asking, did in fact randomly cut a number of Medusans off from the computer, and were somewhat distressed to find that, while the subjects’ Wardens became inert, they did not die off at all. Clearly there was something different about the human-Warden relationship, or something brand new was developing in the system, some new and unique variation of human life. For now he depended on Morah and his staff to keep the Altavar from getting
too
distressed at that.

The huge picket ship had been brought in-system, to an orbit between Medusa and Momrath, and was now being converted into a massive space factory as quickly as could be accomplished, while new industries, with some grudging Altavar support, were rising on the natural moons of Mom-rath itself.

Dumonia had also been grudging as he assumed the public title and office of Lord of Cerberus, but it was now necessary. Working with much of Morah’s team, however, he tended to delegate much of the actual running to Qwin Zhang.

Park and Darva had taken a little, short vacation to a small island off the southwest coast of the southern Charonese continent on the suggestion of Mr. Carroll. With a little training and work with Dumonia-trained psychs, they would certainly soon be fully in position to assume control of Charon, something that Morah very much desired for them. As he’d told Park before, the security chief had higher goals than being Lord himself, and, in fact, running the place only got in his way.

Cal Tremon, too, got a sudden yen to get away for a while and do some exploring, first. He might, he was saying, go all the way to Lilith’s north pole. Then, perhaps, with an extended vacation back in the tropics talking with the scientific enclave there, he’d be ready for what he wanted to do next.

After keeping himself busy in this way, Mr. Carroll set course once again for Charon, against all advice. Talant Ypsir was still there, still very much alive, and still pretty vicious, all the more so because his people were learning a new life, one without omnipresent cameras and microphones and computer controls. Such things were needed elsewhere in the industrial rebuilding, and nothing new in that line would.be produced for years.

It was with a sense of
déjà vu
then, that Carroll eased his shuttle into the dock of Ypsir’s still vast and impressive space station, now in orbit around Charon. He had not really left it since the war, allowing his. less bitter alter ego, Haval Kunser, to organize things below.

The airlock signaled clear, and he walked into the tube and up to the second lock, getting into the small chamber and standing ready. There was the usual energy spray, but it didn’t bother him this time. He’d already checked with the Altavar and found that, in fact, his body was as infested with Wardens—Altavar-created and artificial and with a neutral program—as anybody else. Ypsir’s ray could do nothing to deaden or neutralize the already inert.

Two security monitors met him on the other side, more out of curiosity than anything else.

“Name?” one snapped.

“Lewis Carroll.”

“What is your purpose here?”

“I wish to pay a call on First Minister Ypsir,” he told them. “I represent the Four Lords in Council and we have need of your fancy computer here.”

They looked uncertain, and he knew how much the mighty had fallen by their reaction. He decided to go easy on them. “Call Fallen. She’ll know what to do,” he suggested.

They nodded and seemed appreciative of the buck-passing suggestion. He sat and waited calmly for fifteen minutes or so until she came. She had never met him before, but he knew her, and she had heard more than enough about him from Ypsir. “Well You’re either a very big fool or you really have nerve, coming here,” she told him.

He grinned, and it unsettled her a bit. At that moment an alarm rang, and a speaker broke in to state, “Administrator Kunser docking at Gate Three.”

Fallen frowned. “Damn! What does
he
want up here now, of all times?”

“Why don’t we go see?” he suggested. “In fact, I called him to come up. I’m representing the Four Lords in Council, with three votes already taken, and I’m here to arrange things with the fourth. Why don’t we go collect him and we can all save time and see the First Minister at once.”

She frowned. “Okay, but I still think you’re nuts.”

Kunser was as puzzled as Fallen, but right now, dependent on the goodwill of the other Lords, he was in no position to disobey an official request. He was surprised to see Carroll, though, although somewhat pleased. The agent could almost read his mind.
Morah’s getting rid of his only threat this way.
But both he and Fallen were civil to the agent, and that was for the best. Both seemed interested in what would happen when Carroll met Ypsir, though.

To everyone’s surprise, Ypsir, in a spacious office, was ell smiles and cordiality, the politician supreme. In a corner, on satin pillows, reclined the stunning Ass.

“Well, now, what’s all this about a vote and my computer?”, the First Minister wanted to know.

‘They need it. Its capacity is probably the largest in the Diamond, and it’s doing nothing but running this station right now,” he told them. “The fact is, this station can be maintained on a much smaller and more basic model Cerberus can and will supply. There are few manufactured goods right now, and we need them desperately. The picket ship is being quickly outfitted, but it’s going to need your computer to control the industry we’re putting into her. Nothing else will do the job, and we can’t make any more major computers until we have the picket running.”

“They had then: nerve, voting without me,” Ypsir complained.

He shrugged. “We tried. You didn’t answer the call. That’s why Morah sent me here.”

Ypsir smiled.
One of the reasons,
he thought, in accord with his two assistants, but he said, “Well, I don’t like it but I’m hardly in a position to object at this point. One hopes that the Cerberan techs can do it without having to shut down this station.”

“I’m sure they can.”

“Have you met Ass?” Ypsir asked suddenly.

He smiled and nodded. “Yes, I have. In more ways than one, First Minister. You see, using the Metron Process,
I
was Tarin Bid.”

Talant Ypsir’s face broke into a wide grin that became a real belly laugh. “Oh, my, but that’s perfect! That’s wonderful!” he chortled.

‘The matter of the computer is not the only reason I’m here,” Carroll added. “I’ve decided that I need a better position than errand boy for the Four Lords.”

Ypsir, savoring the irony, hardly heard him. Instead he turned to Ass and said, “Did you hear that, my pretty?
You
were once
him!”

Showing puzzlement and confusion, she looked up at the agent, but. said nothing.

“Ass?” the agent called to her. “Do you know who these people are? This is Haval Kunser, and
this
is Shugah Fallen, and
that
is Talant Ypsir.”

Her eyes grew even larger, and her mouth dropped a bit, and then she frowned, shook her head, and looked up again.

“I decided I’d either be dead or the Lord of Medusans,” Carroll told her, but she wasn’t really listening to him.

Talant Ypsir’s head was torn from his body before the bodies of Fallen and.Kunser had hit the floor.

About the Author

JACK L. CHALKER was born in Norfolk, Virginia, on December 17, 1944, but was raised and has spent most of his life in Baltimore, Maryland. He learned to read almost from the moment of entering school, and by working odd jobs amassed a large book collection by the time he was in junior high school, a collection now-too large for containment in his quarters. Science fiction, history, and geography all fascinated him early on, interests that continue.