Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail

were attracted to a war by remote control, one with no seeming risk and a lot of rewards, including escape, since the Altavar demonstrated to them early on that they could control the Warden organism. Even those robots are totally operated by a variation of the same little creature, each responsive to its own self-contained programming so it can come and go as it pleases. You know, the Confederacy managed to bypass and even reprogram Laroo and others since, yet they really don’t know how the damned things work. Thanks to Merton and her colleagues we knew where the computer-control center was and figured a different but effective input-output system for it, but we still did it by counterprogramming, feeding self-canceling instructions. We couldn’t build one if we tried, nor create our own total-control mechanism.”

He nodded. “You joined our side—for which I’m eternally grateful, by the way—because you feared the aliens. Now what do you think?”

Dumonia shrugged. “Who knows? In science, one takes what is, not what one would like things to be. In the end, perhaps because of the actions of both of us, we’ve come down to war anyway. If the aliens lose, so do we—end of problem. If the aliens win, then we must deal with them and with our own future. Obviously, I am cheering for the aliens even though I don’t trust them one little tentacle-tip. You must understand, for a man who has devoted his entire life to learning what he can—and that’s precious little, I assure you—of the workings of the human mind and personality, to be suddenly faced at my age with the necessity of learning the workings of a wholly different complex creature, was and is a bit intimidating.”

“But if we survive—and have to go it alone—we must look forward. Suppose the Altavar really do let us alone on the three remaining worlds. What then?”

“I began my little operation out of a sense of personal survival,” the psych replied, “but it later expanded, as you know. Ultimately, I hoped for a better, more free and open society on all the Diamond worlds. Turn them lose, with these strange powers, and see what could be built. It’s more than enough challenge for an old man, don’t you think?”

He nodded and grinned. “And for a younger one, too, I think. But what about the Medusans? I wonder if the destruction of Medusa might not also destroy their own potential and actual power. And, if not, whether or not they’ll breed true to Medusa or to Charon or wherever else their children are born.”

“We’ll have to wait and see on that. However, I suspect that the computer for them is the same as the one for us. Probably one of those huge moons of Momrath, broadcasting and receiving on all four frequencies no matter what. In that case, they will retain their potential and breed true. Charon will become a biracial society, which will bear close watching. Eventually we must learn the Warden secrets and go out again from here, of course, but each of the three worlds can handle many times their present population. You could put half a billion or more on Cerberus yet, and perhaps three billion or more on each of the other two. The survivors will have several generations to solve the problems, and with far less ignorance than we’ve all had up to now. Show some bright minds that a thing is possible and sooner or later they’ll drive themselves mad until they learn how to do it. That’s what makes us humans something pretty special.”

It was almost time to leave, but he had one more question. “What about Ypsir’s girl? What if we could get her away from him—or if she freed herself?”

He sighed. “Jorgash is an expert on the Medusan variants. He tells me flatly that the process absolutely locks in the physiological design so that it cannot be changed at alL I suspect the computer treats them as trees or animals or such—things that must be kept stable. Remember, that’s what the Wardens are actually for. Now, assuming your computer would let us, we could take that Tarin Bul recording you used for your report and feed it back into her, but consider the consequences. That body, those revised genetics, that hormonal makeup would, I think, drive you nuts. Still, she was made out of Tarin Bill’s body, and the intellectual capacity is still very much there. The challenge is, at the moment, quite academic, but I’m fascinated by what could be done. Someone with her looks, moves, and drives and your superior intellect might potentially be running all our lives in a couple of years. It’s something to think about.”

“I think about it a lot,” he told the psych master, “but 111 think about it more if I’m still alive and kicking three days from now. I have to go.”

As he stood up to leave, Dumonia put a hand on his shoulder and added, in a concerned tone, “Watch out for Ypsir, boy. He was always for the war, remember—so bad is his hatred of the Confederacy—and now that war’s come, but at a price he never expected to pay. He’ll never forgive the Altavar for that, but he’s very smart and knows it might be a long time before he can get revenge there. Thus, all of his hatred, all of his frustration, almost certainly will be taken out on you and your brothers here. Right now he’s probably spending all his time thinking of how to get his revenge on you. Not by killing you—that’s not his style and would give him only brief satisfaction. It will be something horrible, and far worse than we can imagine.”

He nodded and shook the little psych’s hand warmly. “I know that and I’ll remember. If we’re still around.”

“Yes,” Dumonia repeated grimly, “if we’re still around. Empires never go quietly.”

He was back on Boojum on the night before the deadline expired, as instructed by both the Confederacy and Morah. He opened his secure channel to Krega, a channel so secure that the field enveloping him would not allow any recording device, or even someone standing right next to him, to understand a word either way.

“There has been no reconsideration?” he asked, hoping against hope. “They’re still behind in evacuation, and there are between fifty and a hundred thousand people we just can’t get off under any circumstances.”

“There has been no reconsideration on this end,” Krega told him. “In fact, it’s been difficult just to restrain some of our people, particularly the military, to this limited engagement. However, it’s going to be awfully bloody. We have monitored some traffic not on our control system at various random points around the civilized worlds. They duck in and out of light before we can get to them, but some of them are pretty big. They haven’t budged on your side?”

“Not a bit. I talked to Morah and to the Altavar and they’re both firm—you might say even eager, on Morah’s part. However, that unauthorized traffic gives me bad feelings. There’s been no sign of any fleet massing here—I still haven’t seen an Altavar ship, not even one to take off the party on Medusa. I don’t think they’re going to take on the task force head-to-head.”

“We have a computer projection on their potential, even assuming a tenth of our firepower, and it’s scary,” Krega admitted. “Security and Military Systems Command have used the week to shift to remote backup positions. Unless this is more bluff, we think they have dispersed rather than massed their forces for hit-and-run. If we had ten war stations we could destroy hundreds of planets. We have to hit them in one spot—yours, I’m sorry to say, but it’s the only one we have. They can hit us wherever we’re not. Come in, destroy a weakly defended planet someplace, then get out fast. Choose another equally vulnerable. We can’t guard them all. We’d need eighteen hundred cruisers to do a strong defense of all the worlds and we have less than three hundred. Sounded like a lot when we built them.”

And that was that “They’re willing to accept the possibility of a protracted bloodbath of those proportions?”

Krega chuckled dryly. “Son, maybe you’re still naive. The Council, the Congress, all the top people are in the best, most well-protected rear areas. They’ll die of old age before they’re ’an jeopardy. Face facts—they’ve got to win no matter what the cost.”

No matter what the cost.,. Yes, he reflected sourly, that was the bottom line. Fallen had been right. Korman had been right. They’d all been right. The Warden Diamond wasn’t the opposite of the Confederacy, nor were the Four Lords of the Diamond the opposites of the Council. No, they were merely reflections of the Confederacy, allowing for local conditions. That was it—the break was now complete, total, and irrevocable.

“Good-bye, Papa,” he said, meaning it.

“Good-bye, Control,” Krega responded and broke the contact.

He threw the security transceiver as hard as he could at the nearest wall. It bounced off and clattered and rolled back to his feet.

The task force was already alerted. There was only an hour to go.

Morah turned and nodded to him as he entered the cramped meeting room. “Welcome, Mr. Carroll,” he said calmly, sounding in a good mood. “Have a seat. Some of my staff are here and we thought we would make use of the transmission facilities and these-screens to watch what happens now. Unfortunately, Altavar ships are simply not built for such as us, and the command center itself bears little resemblance to anything we could make use of. I