Mute (68 page)

“This is pointless!” Piebald gasped. “No one gains if we all die!”

“How true,” Knot agreed, hanging on. He reveled in the fading light, knowing it spelled his victory, of a sort. CC was shutting off every nonessential power drain, conserving its rapidly dwindling resources for its key units, clinging to the facsimile of life it knew. But, like Finesse, it would soon be unconscious.

“You are a mutant,” Piebald argued. “A double mute, like me. You know the horrors of the present system. Ninety-nine failures for every successful mutation. Death for many, enclaves for the rest. All this is known—and deliberately fostered by the present CC program. Those mutations have to be stopped!”

“What do you care?” Knot demanded, “When you got control of CC, you didn’t turn it off. Now you’re fighting to preserve it—program and all.”

“I care! I am a mutilated mutant—a mute-mute—as all lobos are. I, unlike you, have lost the redeeming part of my mutancy. I know even better than you do, the evils of the system.”

“So why didn’t you turn CC off?” Knot demanded, bothered by the appeal of Piebald’s statement. It disturbed him deeply, this superficial similarity between them. Both had been born min-mutes physically, max-mutes psionically.

“Because the answer is not to destroy CC. Only the ignorant believe that. Many of those ignorant are lobos; we know that. We tell them what they are capable of grasping. But we leaders know better.”

“Like your wife?” Knot demanded, remembering her blithe insanity.

“Her most of all. She speaks for lopsi, our ultimate authority.”

Knot was astonished. “You believe that?”

“Of course I believe in lopsi! That belief motivates my whole life’s work! Everything I do is for the furthering of that reality!”

Was Piebald crazy too? “Yet you want to convert CC to your own aggrandizement! Why change the system, when suddenly it serves your selfish interests?”

“Our interests are close to your interests, if only you realized!”

“Oh, sure. I love to smash the noses of beautiful women, torture old men to death, burn down houses with sleeping people in them, feed women to monsters, kill people freely when—”

“We have tried to kill you,” Piebald said evenly. “You have been our most dangerous opponent, as the present crisis indicates. You destroyed our Macho headquarters, killing many of our people. I radioed a general evacuation, but not all could escape in time. I regard those losses as your responsibility, not mine. Just as you killed many mutants in the chasm enclave, in order to effect your escape. When balked you attack, always. Do you consider your own hands clean?”

That set Knot back. He had, indeed, killed many people in the course of this mission, and he was not proud of it. And Piebald had not, after all, callously left the lobos of the volcano villa to die; he had warned them from the truck, and saved many. Knot had been too ready to believe too much evil of his enemy. Piebald was bad, very bad, but not as bad as Knot had thought. “No, my hands are dirty, soiled with blood. I am not fit to govern. I’m fit only to stop monsters like you. The present system may not be perfect, but it is surely better than what your kind offers. If you will simply admit that, and let one of our number apply the new override code to make CC ours, your people on this planet may survive. Otherwise—”

“The present system is far from perfect—but it can be vastly improved,” Piebald said. “This is our intent. First we must cut off the generation of mutants. Then—”

“I tried that, in an alternate future sequence. It led only to the collapse of galactic civilization, and chaos.”

“Because you were equating civilization with empire. Like the ancient Romans, you thought the only future lay with the organization in power. But the Roman empire fell—”

“And led to the dark ages—”

“And thence to modern Europe, and on into the space age. Even in the depths of darkness, it was only Europe that suffered; the Arabian sphere and the Chinese sphere flourished in golden ages. This must happen again. The old CC program, like the decadent Romans, actually stands in the way of progress. It offers temporary political stability, at the price of ruinous mutation and grief. A mutiny against that order is essential. As the dinosaurs had to be eliminated before the superior mammals could rise.”

“You’re quite a scholar,” Knot said. “You should be happy CC has been turned off. There will certainly be chaos, and an end to mutation and successful mutinies all over the galaxy!”

“But the chaos can be greatly lessened if CC is
not
destroyed!” Piebald cried, and he seemed amazingly sincere. “If CC is used to direct the new order, shaping it sensibly, with long-range human history in mind, instead of allowing a crash—”

“We’ve been through that!” Knot said. “I have seen how you lobos direct things. I’d rather let there be chaos.”

“You have seen us doing research.”

“Research! I call it torture of innocents!”

“We use coercion to force psi talents to manifest.”

“Which you then extirpate by lobotomy!”

“And try to correct immediately by remedial surgery! Had we been successful, we would have had the key to restore all lobotomized psi-talents. But we have had no success with long-established lobos; our psi-connections are permanently gone, as far as present technology is concerned. So we had to go to new lobos, with strong wills, who might—”

“That’s what you had in mind for Finesse,” Knot grated.

“Yes, and for you. But how much better it would be to replace our necessarily crude methods with the sophistication only CC could employ. We could solve the problems of lobotomy!”

“So that’s your special interest! The death penalty was eliminated in favor of lobotomy, and now you want even that to be undone so criminals can get off entirely free! No restraint at all for crime!”

“We do not condone crime,” Piebald said evenly. “Lobos are the most law-abiding citizens. On many planets, we are the police force itself, and our record is excellent. Lopsi keeps us disciplined.”

Knot had to concede the discipline of the lobos; he had marveled at this himself. “But criminals who are not lobotomized will have no deterrent, no restraint; is that what you seek?”

“There will be restraint. A telekinetic who uses his power to kill a man by stopping his heart from pumping is a murderer who deserves punishment. I too abused my psi, and had to be restrained; I too deserved retribution. But they should not have abolished my valuable psi talent; they should instead have abolished
my criminal drive
! They did it backwards, preserving the criminal while sacrificing the psi.”

Knot, startled, almost lost his leverage. Eliminate the criminal aspect of man, not the psi! So obvious!

“We lobos seek a better way—for us and for everyone,” Piebald continued. “Research—not only to cure lobotomy and criminality, but to penetrate the mystery of mutation itself. So that man will be able to control mutation. To produce given psi powers at will, with
no
failures. Only the tremendous resources of the Coordination Computer can do this effectively. But that means removing CC from its present, unsound program, even if chaos results for a time.”

“I know. The dinosaurs and the mammals. I simply don’t believe—” But the lobo leader’s vision of the future threatened to overwhelm his doubt. The answer to the whole mutation problem—including the developing mutinies by the animals. Because this would put human mutation on a par with that of the more psi-evolved animals. Humans, too, would have controlled psi for every individual. Not the cessation of all mutation, with its attendant disruptions and further loss of power to the animals, but domination of mutation. All the good with none of the evil. Yet how could he believe that this murderer would really usher in such a miracle?

“Then believe this,” Piebald said. “Our prime initial ambition is to eliminate lopsi.”

Knot laughed. “To destroy the alleged source of your power? That disembodied alien force that makes all lobos cooperate? I doubt that.”

“It is a dangerous force. The only way to preserve civilization long-term is to control mutancy and psi, lest they multiply cancerously and destroy the parent body. Mutancy we can cut off only at the source, preventing mutant births. Lopsi we can drain away, like releasing the sluices of a dam about to burst from flooding. By restoring the individual psi powers to decriminalized lobos, making then complete and useful citizens again. What a golden age it could be, once mutancy in all its forms has been tamed to serve instead of to chasten man!”

Knot hated this ruthless lobo. But Piebald’s words were making a lot of sense. Suppose—

Then he looked at Finesse, lying still and bloodied, and his unbelief hardened. He knew that she, if she lived, would never be deluded by this glib package of promises. And if she died—

“I do not trust you or your dream. I can meet most of my commitments to the animals and to myself by letting CC die. This way is painful but sure.”

Piebald, seeing his persuasion fail, struggled desperately. But he could not free himself from the balk-position they shared. “You are deluded! It’s such a waste!”

“Yes, isn’t it,” Knot agreed, smiling as the wan light faded to darkness. The air was now almost unbreathable, too. They would die when CC did.

Suddenly the light brightened, and a fresh draft of air wafted across the room. Both Knot and Piebald looked up, blinking, startled.

A man stood by the master switch. He had just closed it, restoring power to CC, and the response had been almost instant. He was a CC teleport.

Then the chamber door opened and other CC psi-mutes entered. Damner the controller strode toward Knot and Piebald, closely followed by a mature woman.

Knot’s will left him. He released the lobo and stood up. Piebald did the same. They were in the power of two psi-controllers.

Drem the futurist was carried up. “Yes, we are interfering, when we had agreed not to,” he said without preamble. “Did either of you actually think we would stand idly by and watch our employer be pointlessly destroyed? We agreed to serve the winner, but there is not to be any winner, just two losers, and we all will perish, your way. We did not agree to that. So we are taking necessary action to break the deadlock. Now we shall release your bodies—but whoever makes an untoward move will be subjected to will-control again. Understood?”

Knot, released, nodded. So did Piebald. This was a new aspect of the situation; neither of them knew what it meant.

Behind Drem, other psi-mutants were reviving the healer and Harlan, and attending to Finesse. “How did you get in?” Knot asked. “We had most psi blocked out.”

“It took a concentrated effort to neutralize the psi of the baby, Drem said. “We had to use our psi to neutralize the neutralizer, as it were. Once we accomplished that, we were able to act, and we have done so, before it was too late. It was no easy chore, but it had to be done.”

“So you psis are taking over CC?” Piebald asked.

“Not so. Our compromise stands,” Drem continued. “We shall serve the victor. But to ensure that there
be
a victor, we are now requiring that this matter be settled by arbitration rather than physical combat. Each of you will select an arbiter, and these arbiters will review the facts of the case, discuss the issue, and come to an agreement, perhaps a compromise. Do you agree to abide by their decision?”

“No!” Knot said.

Piebald, after a moment, said, “Yes.”

“Why do you decline?” Drem asked Knot. “Do you feel the procedure is unfair?”

“I fear it is a trick to give the lobos control,” Knot said. “Or if not, that the lobos will violate the terms of the settlement and usurp control.”

“Rest assured: we shall not serve any usurper. Neither you nor the lobos will be able to penetrate CC’s defenses again, after this. Winner and loser will be protected from each other.”

Still Knot did not accede. He knew Finesse would not agree to anything less than complete restoration of the original program, regardless what any arbiter might decide.

“Do you fear an objective review of your case would defeat it?” Piebald asked.

That stung; that was exactly what Knot feared. How could anyone who had not experienced the horrors of the lobo villa understand how superficial Piebald’s logic was? Incalculable harm could be done in the name of objectivity—as the entire history of CC demonstrated. But how could he explain that—to these employees of CC?

“We prefer to have your agreement on this,” Drem said. “But we shall have a decision, which we shall enforce, regardless. If you will not choose an arbiter, we shall select one for you.”

Knot saw he had no choice. He would have to accede to this superficially reasonable disaster. “It is duress, but I will participate.”

“That suffices,” Drem said. He looked tired. The futures psi was physically weak anyway, and this event had not strengthened him. Knot could sympathize. “We have all made decisions under duress—the duress of events.” He turned to Piebald. “The arbiter for the lobos?”

“My wife,” Piebald said promptly. “The lady Hulda the Prophetess.”

A group of CC psis assembled and concentrated, reminding Knot fleetingly of the psi chickens. Suddenly a projection of the lady lobo formed.

Hulda looked about, startled. “You are here as our arbiter,” Piebald said. “The issue is at impasse; you must speak for the lobos.”

She nodded, grasping the situation with astonishing rapidity. “I always have.”

“Your arbiter,” Drem asked Knot.

Whom should he choose? So few understood the situation, or were in any position to argue the case if they did. Whom would Finesse trust? Hermine the weasel? But Hermine drew her intelligence from the one she communicated with, and might be unduly influenced by Piebald, whose mind was devious and unscrupulous. And Hermine—how could he have forgotten!—had been bitten by a poisonous viper. She could be dead by now.

It needed to be a human being. “I prefer to argue my own case,” Knot said.

“No. You attempted to forward your own case, and failed. It must be another party, one not involved in this present action.”