I had heard a few times from Sugal, who was digging into the comptroller’s post so solidly that it looked like the “acting” titles for all of the board would soon be removed and the positions made permanent. Khamgirt, as I predicted, had been convicted of the charge, placed on probation, and pastured to president of a regional shipping line that was also a Tooker subsidiary.
Things were going well for me, but I resisted the temptation just to let things slide. There was still Wagant Larao to catch, and all I could do was keep my eyes and ears open and wait for a new break.
CHAPTER TEN
A Bork Hunt
My worries over Dylan increased with each injury, and yet I understood her well enough to know that protesting was useless. Sanda, on the other hand, had gotten the bug bad from her exploit with me and was just dying for some more action.
We were sitting around the place one evening, just talking and relaxing, when Sanda brought the subject up after hearing a few new accounts from Dylan, who never tired of the subject.
“It sounds so thrilling,” she told us. “I’d give almost anything to go out just once.”
“You’d probably be bored stiff,” Dylan told her. “After all, we don’t have hunts and attacks every day—thank heaven.”
“Still—just to be out there speeding across the waves, with the feeling that danger could come from anywhere—I’ve heard all your stories so often I can see it in my dreams. Instead, well, my leave’s almost up. Next week it’s back to the House and the hormones.” The thought of that really depressed her.
“You know you can’t go, though,” I noted sympathetically. “You’re certified valuable to the state. No risks allowed.”
“I know, I know,” she sighed and sank into depression.
Though this wasn’t the first time the subject had come up, this had been the worst and most persistent round. I could see Sanda was getting to Dylan, partly out of friendship but also because she too had once been in the girl’s position.
Later that evening, after Sanda was asleep in the guest room, we lay there, not saying much. Finally I said, “You’re thinking about Sanda.”
She nodded. “I can’t help it. I look at her, listen to her, and all I can see and hear is me a few years ago. Anything on getting her out?”
“No, and you know it. Sugal’s pulled every string he can find and it just isn’t done. The only cases on record are ones in which a syndicate boss wants a private breeder, so to speak, to control his own kids—or for Laroo’s own purposes. It’s a dead end. Maybe I can come up with something of my own, but I’ve gone through all the possibilities and the system’s just against me. Unless I can crack that master computer I can’t do much, and to crack the computer I’d have to replace Laroo.”
“What about the drug angle? It’s the way I got out.”
“And they closed that loophole after you,” I noted “After your switch they had a big debate and decided that there was nothing in the rules to use against you, so they let you go, but then they made some new rules. Any switch from the ‘valuable to the state’ category has to be voluntary on both sides now or either one can seek a judgment to reverse it.”
“We could let her use one of our bodies now and then. That’s something.”
“Yeah, that’s true, but not for the boats and you know it. If anything happened to either one of our bodies under those conditions we’d automatically wind up in the motherhood ourselves—permanently, regardless of our Class I status.” I sighed in frustration. “That’s the hell of this system. In some places, in human history and even out on the frontier, motherhood’s not only voluntary but a normal and respected thing. Even on other Warden worlds, I hear. But the bosses are afraid that the birthrate would decline low enough that it wouldn’t sustain their need for new bodies as well as maintaining normal population growth. As long as they control and raise the babies they also control who lives forever and who dies—the ultimate control on this society.”
“Hey! Don’t forget, I was raised that way,” she reminded me. “So was Sanda. They don’t do a bad job.”
“No, they don’t,” I had to admit. “And don’t forget that my state raised me, too. It’s going through and picking the kids who’ll live and the kids who’ll die that gets to me. Sure, sixty percent get a good upbringing, but it’s that other forty percent that gets me. And as long as the system’s as depersonalized to the average Cerberan as the birthing centers are in the civilized worlds, they’ll never fully face up to what they’re doing—killing kids for their bodies.”
“Are you going to turn down a new body when your turn comes?”
I chuckled sourly. “Hell, no. That’s the heart of this system. Even its opponents can’t resist taking advantage of its benefits. Still, it probably won’t matter to either of us, anyway. I’ll probably get my fool head blown off in the next scam and you’ll wind up lunch for a bork. What you said about me is also true for you—our luck can’t last forever.”
“I’ve been thinking along similar lines,” she said. “I mean it—we’re two of a kind. My luck’s been astounding for the past few years, but it can’t hold out forever. And I know that one of these days you’re going to go off to do battle against Wagant Laroo, and one of these times it isn’t going to work out. That’s why I wanted this. Why I am, right now, having the time of my life. We’re doomed, the both of us, doing the jobs we love, and every day might be the last. You feel that, too.”
I nodded slowly. “I know.”
“So you see, if we’re professional risk-takers, why cant we take a risk with Sanda on the boat?”
“My instinct’s just go against it,” I told her honestly. “I can’t explain why.”
“Look, I’m going to tell you a story. It’s about a girl genetically tested and selected while still very young.
One that the genetic experts said had all the right and none of the wrong genes. So when she was very young, she was taken out of the normal group and put in a special school composed entirely of other little girls and isolated from the mainstream of society. She received no more formal education, but instead was subjected to ceaseless propaganda on the wonder fulness of having babies, the duty to society and civilization to do so, and how to have them and give them prenatal and postnatal care. By thirteen she was capable of having them, but didn’t yet, although she had been introduced to sex, sexual pleasures, and all the rest, while the mental conditioning reached such a fever pitch that she wanted desperately nothing but the life of the motherhood. She was also mentally and physically conditioned to a life of leisure and to the idea that she was in the most important class on all Cerberus.”
She paused for a moment, a distant, wistful look on her face, and I said nothing. Finally she continued.
“So the girl finally passed her preliminary nursing and midwife exams and reached her fifteenth birthday, and they sent her to Akeba House. The next few months were an absolute heaven—anything and everything she wanted, plus the excitement of new people, trips into the cities, the resort and all that. And of course they arranged for her to become pregnant. That wasn’t bad, either, although it’s pretty dispassionate in the doctor’s office. She felt lierself change and marveled at the miracle within her. And finally the baby came—pretty rough the first time, but that didn’t matter. And there was this beautiful baby boy, clinging, nursing, crying.