in the military, attached to a mission section. Within that section were most of the grades, with grade reflecting rank and, therefore, power. The state, or your section of it, provided common meal facilities, food, clothing, and shelter, and also made available the amenities that could be bought with the money you made. The pay seemed relatively low until you remembered that all the basics were taken care of and anything you earned could be spent on luxuries.
There were three shifts a day, each running eight hours, with the hours adjusted for the differences from Confederacy norm. The work week was six days, with the seventh off, but different industries took different days off so there was no universal off day. To make sure all worked well and smoothly, there was the Monitor Service.
I suspected it was this Monitor Service idea that got Talant Ypsir his one-way ticket from the Confederacy to the Diamond. Though I doubt if it would work on a thousand worlds spread over a quarter of a galaxy, the system worked fine, it seemed, on Medusa, though none of us liked it, least of all me.
Every single room in every single city and town was monitored. Not just the rooms, but the streets, alleyways, buses, you name it. Just about every single thing anyone said or did was monitored and recorded by a master computer or, really, the huge computer bank that was actually in orbit around the planet. Whoever wrote the computer program should be tortured to death.
Now, obviously, not even the galaxy’s greatest computer could really analyze all that data, and this was where Ypsir was diabolically clever. The Monitor Service, a sort of police force that ran this system and was generally just called TMS, programmed the computers to look for certain things—phrases, actions, who except for them knew what?—that would cause a computer to “flag” you. Then a human TMS agent would sit down and with the computer’s aid review anything about you he or she wanted, then haul you in to see why you were acting so funny or being so subversive. Nobody knew what the flag codes were, and a certain amount of totally random harassment was maintained by TMS just so the bright guys couldn’t figure them out.
The system, as Kabaye pointed out proudly, did, in fact, work. Productivity was extremely high, absenteeism and shirking extremely low. Crime was almost nonexistent, except for the rare crime of passion which the computer couldn’t flag in time to stop. But even if you managed to commit it, as soon as the crime was discovered the TMS could call up the whole scene and see exactly what was what.
Violators were tried in secret by TMS courts, extremely quickly it seemed, and given punishment ranging from demotion to being handed over to the psychs—many of whom were Confederacy crooks and sadists sentenced here themselves—for whatever they felt like doing to your mind. The ultimate punishment, for treason, was what was known as Ultimate Demotion—you were snipped off on a very unpleasant one-way trip to the mines of Momrath’s moons.
It was an ugly system, and extremely difficult to fight or circumvent unless you knew exactly where the monitor devices were and what would and would not constitute a flag. That made it a near-impossible challenge, particularly for a kid whose background would suggest that he not be allowed too near any world leaders. In a sense, though, I liked it. Not only was this a real challenge, perhaps my supreme challenge; but Medusa was, after all, my type of world—technologically oriented and dependent on that technology. If I
But the more complex the challenge, the more I would have to know, and learn. This would not be easy by any means, and no mistakes would be tolerated by the system. It would take some time, perhaps a very long time, before I could confidently know-enough to act.
After Kabaye’s visit conversation was muted and sullen, to say the least. There were a number of attempts to figure out where the monitors were in the various rooms, but none of us found one that night.
Still, the third day’s lessons proved to be pretty instructive as, one by one, even our most private whispers of the day before were repeated back to us by our hosts. Here was an effective demonstration of how efficient the fixed system really was—it selectively picked up one whisper even when masked by other whispers as well as fairly loud sounds. I was most interested in seeing pictures to check the angle and, therefore, locate the monitors; but we were shown none. We reached a general consensus that we were in one hell of a planetary jail cell, but there was nothing, at least for now, that any of us could do about it.
On the fourth day, we were tested and interviewed. Various officious-looking clerks wearing the same kind of military garb as Gorn and Sugra subjected us individually to a battery of tests that took much of the day. They then conducted general interviews.
At the end of the whole thing, each of us was taken into a small room we hadn’t known about for a final interview.
She said her name was Dr. Crouda, and I knew immediately by her whites and her medical insignia that she had to be a psych. That really didn’t bother me—not only was I trained and fortified against the general run of psych tricks, but I was in some ways the creation of the best psychs in the Confederacy. What I needed, though, was a good performance that would cement my cover and do me the most good overall.
She motioned me to a chair, sat back behind a small desk, and looked over my files for a moment. “You are Tarin Bul?”
I shuffled with kid fidgets in my seat. “Yes, ma’am.”
“And you are fourteen?”
I nodded. “A few months ago. I’m not too sure of the time. It’s been a real long time since I could remember anything but prisons and psychs—beg pardon, ma’am.”
She nodded and couldn’t suppress a slight smile. “I understand perfectly. Did you know that as far as we can tell you are the youngest person ever sent to the Warden Diamond.”
“I sorta guessed that,” I answered truthfully.
“Your education and training and your genetic inclinations are toward administrative work, but you’re hardly ready at your age. You realize that, don’t you?”
Again I could only nod. “I understand.” Right now, in the normal course of things, Tarin Bul would still be in school.
She sighed and looked over her reports. Real written files, I noted. How novel. “Now, your tests show a true inclination for math and a strong grasp of computer principles and operations. Have you given any thought to what you’d like to be?”
I thought a moment, choosing the best tack. Finally I settled on the one I thought most in character. “Lord of the Diamond,” I told her.
Again the smile. “Well, I understand that. But, realistically, considering your abbreviated education and your likes and dislikes—is there anything you really find yourself drawn to?”
I thought a moment. “Yes, ma’am. Freighter pilot.” That wasn’t much of a risk, since it was right in character—but, oh how I wished I really
“That’s not unreasonable,” she said, thinking it over, “but you are a long way from the age at which you could even enter pilot training.” She paused and threw me the typical psych curve. “Have you ever had any sexual experiences either with girls or with boys?”
I acted shocked. “No, ma’am!”
“What do you think of girls?”
I shrugged. “Oh, they’re okay.”
She nodded to herself and scribbled something, then asked, “How do you feel about being here? Being sent here, I mean?”
Again I shrugged. “Beats bein’ dead, I guess. I haven’t seen enough of this world to tell otherwise.”
Again the nod and the scribble. “I think we have enough for now—Tarin, isn’t it? You may go. Tomorrow someone will be in to talk to you, and then we’ll know where you’re going.”
For now that sounded fair enough. I left.
I hadn’t really had any problems with that battery they threw at me earlier. I had seen such tests before and understood exactly how they were weighted and scored. I had skewed my aptitudes upward in certain specific areas, like electronics and mechanics, as well as computers, while keeping the Tarin Bul background as consistent with what would be expected of my breeding and training. I could see and understand their problem with me, though. The fact was, I was too old to fit directly into their fixed planetary training system and too young to go to work properly. The best I could do was present myself as some sort of smart-ass genius and hope for the
