“The agent is commanded to report,” the computer ordered, sending the command deep into his own mind, a mind no longer his own.
What would happen, or so the techs had advised him, would amount to a sort of total recall from the mind of his counterpart down below, information his own mind would sort, classify, and edit into a coherent narrative.
Recorders clicked on.
Slowly the man in the chair cleared his throat several times. It still took more than three hours to get him to do anything beyond mumbling some odd words or sounds, but the computers were nothing if not patient, knowing that the man’s mind was receiving a massive amount of data and was struggling to sort and classify it.
Finally the man began to speak.
Chapter One
Rebirth
After Krega’s talk and a little preparation to put my own affairs in order—this would be a long one—I checked into the Confederacy Security Clinic. I’d been here many times before, of course, but never knowingly for this purpose. Mostly, this was where they •programmed you with whatever information you’d need for a mission and where, too, you were reintegrated. Naturally, the kind of work I did was often extralegal, a term I prefer to illegal, which implies criminal intent—and much of it was simply too hot ever to be revealed. To avoid such risks, all agents had their own experience of a mission wiped from their minds when it involved sensitive matters.
It may seem like a strange life, going about not knowing where you have been or what you’ve done, but it has its compensations. Because any potential enemy, military or political, knows you’ve been wiped, you can live a fairly normal, relaxed life outside of a mission structure. No purpose is served in coming after you—you have no knowledge of what you’ve done, or why, or for or to whom. In exchange for those blanks, an agent of the Confederacy lives a life of luxury and ease, with an almost unlimited supply of money, and with all the comforts supplied. I bummed around, swam, gambled, ate in the best restaurants, played a little semipro ball or cube—I’m pretty good, and it keeps me in shape. I enjoyed every minute of it, and except for my regular re-qualification training sessions—four- to six-week stints that resemble military basic training, only nastier and more sadistic—I felt no guilt at my playboy life. The training sessions are to make sure that your body and mind don’t turn soft from all that good living. Permanently implanted sensors constantly monitor and decide when you need a good refresher.
I often wondered just how sophisticated those sensors were. The thought that a whole security staff might see all my debauchery and indiscretions used to worry me, but after a while I learned to ignore it.
The life offered in trade is just too nice. Besides, what could I do about it? People on most civilized worlds these days had such sensors, although hardly to the degree and sophistication of mine. How else could a population so vast and spread out possibly be kept orderly, progressive, and otherwise peaceful?
But when a mission came up you naturally couldn’t forgo all the past experience you’d had. A wipe without storage simply wouldn’t have been very practical, since a good agent gets better by not repeating his mistakes.
So the first thing you did was go to the Security Clinic, where they stored everything you ever experienced, and get the rest of you put back so you would be whole for whatever they’d dreamed up this time.
It always amazed me when I got up from that chair with my past fully restored. Even the clear memories of the things I’d done always amazed me, that I, of all people, had done this or that. The only difference this time, I knew, was that the process would be taken one step further. Not only would the complete “me” get up from that table, but the same memory pattern would be impressed on other minds, other bodies—as many as needed until a “take” was achieved.
I wondered what they’d be like, those four other versions of myself. Physically different, probably—the kind of offender they got here wasn’t usually from one of the civilized worlds, where people had basically been standardized in the name of equality. No, these people would come from the frontier, from the traders, and miners and freebooters who existed at the edge of expansion, and who were necessary in an expanding culture, since a high degree of individuality, self-reliance, originality, and creativity was required in the dangerous situations in which they lived. A stupid government would have eliminated all such, but a stupid government degenerates or loses its vitality and potential for growth by standardization.
That, of course, was the original reason for the Warden Diamond Reserve. Some of these hard-frontier types are so individualistic that they become a threat to the stability of the civilized worlds. The trouble is, anybody able to loosen the bonds that hold our society together is most likely the smartest, nastiest, meanest, cleverest, most original sort of mind humanity can produce—and therefore not somebody who should be idly wiped clean. The Diamond could effectively trap people of this sort forever, allowing them continued creative opportunities which, when properly monitored, might still produce something of value for the Confederacy—if only an idea, a thought, a way of looking at something that nobody else could come up with.
And the felons down there were naturally anxious to please as well, since the alternative was death. Eventually, such creative minds made themselves indispensable to the Confederacy and ensured their continued survival.
The damned probe hurt like hell. Usually there was just some tingling followed by a sensation much like sleep, and you woke up a few minutes later in the chair once again yourself. This tune the tingling became a painful physical force that seemed to enter my skull and bounce around, then seize control of my head. It was as if a huge, giant hand had grabbed my brain and squeezed, then released, then squeezed again in excruciating pulses. Instead of drifting off to sleep, I passed out.
I woke up and groaned slightly. The throbbing was gone, but the memory was still all too current and all too vivid. It was several minutes, I think, before I found enough strength to sit up.
The old memories flooded back, and again I amazed myself by recalling many of my past exploits. I wondered if my surrogate selves would get similar treatment, considering that they couldn’t be wiped after this mission as I could. That realization caused me to make a mental note that those surrogates would almost certainly have to be killed if they did have my entire memory pattern. Otherwise, a lot of secrets would be loose on the Warden Diamond and many in the hands of people who’d know just what sort of use to make of them.
No sooner had I thought of that than I had the odd feeling of wrongness. I looked around the small room in which I’d awakened and realized immediately -the source of that feeling.
This wasn’t the Security Clinic, wasn’t anyplace I’d ever seen before. It was a tiny cubicle, about twelve cubic meters total, including the slightly higher than normal ceiling. In it was a small cot on which I’d awakened, a small basin and next to it a standard food port, and in the wall, a pull-down toilet. That was it. Nothing else—or was there?
I looked around and spotted the most obvious easily. Yes, I couldn’t make a move without being visually and probably aurally monitored. The door was almost invisible and there was certainly no way to open it from inside. I grasped immediately where I was.
It was a prison cell.
Far worse than that, I could feel a faint vibration that had no single source. The sensation wasn’t irritating; in fact it was so faint as to be hardly noticeable, but I knew what it was. I was aboard a ship, moving somewhere through space.