Torch of Freedom

certain there aren't going to be any accidentally duplicated numbers. They've got a lot of reasons to want to be sure of that, including their own security concerns and the need tobe able to positively and absolutely identify any individual slave's specific batch in case some genetic anomaly turns up and they need to track down anyone else who may have it. Keeping the numbers straight—both before and after a slave is decanted—isn't a minor consideration, given that they produce slaves at so many different breeding sites, andthey've put a lot of effort into developing procedures to do just that.

'If they started screwing around with those procedures, they might poke a hole in them they don't want. Oh, they could set aside the occasional batch number. In fact, I think they probably do, if they need lots of them. But they'd have to set aside the entire batch each time, given their procedures, so I doubt they do it very often. If they did, the barcodes would have to 'clump,' and there'd always be the chance—probably a pretty good one, actually—that somebody might notice an association between batch mates doing suspicious things. It might not be too likely in any single agent's case, but statistics play no favorites. Sooner or later, somebody would be likely to notice the clumping—or, for that matter, just notice an age spread, or a genetic variation, or any number of little differences batch mates shouldn't have. And if that happened, then those agents would be sitting ducks. Manpower might as well have their tongues marked shoot me now.'

He shook his head again. 'And Manpower knows it, don't think they don't. No, there's a good reason they'd use duplicate numbers, especially from different batch numbers—whenever they could be certain the numbers in question were available, at least. Among other things, that would give them a lot more potential age variations, not to mention letting them randomize batch numbers to avoid that particular association. And how much safer could it be to reuse a given number than in a case where they knew the legitimate 'recipient' was already dead? Which, in this case, they did—or thought they did—since the aforesaid legitimate recipient was aboard a ship they knew had blown the hell up. It's really a pure fluke that we found out.'

Hugh had already reached that conclusion himself, but he had a rather more burning question on his mind.

'How?' he asked simply. He and Jeremy looked at one another in silent understanding, their expressions grim, and Berry frowned at the two of them.

' 'How' what?' she demanded after a moment.

'How can you use a person bred to be a genetic slave—and with no way to ever disguise the fact—as a counter-agent?' Jeremy asked in reply. 'How do you do that without running the constant and tremendous risk that he or she will turn on you—and a turned agent is far worse than having no agent at all. Anybody who's familiar with the ABCs of espionage and counter-espionage knows that much.'

Ruth interjected. 'Counter-espionage is to espionage what epistemology is to philosophy, Berry. The most fundamental branch. How do you know what you know? If you can't answer that, you can't answer anything.' She flashed a quick, nervous smile. 'Sorry. I know that sounds pedantic. But it's true.'

Hugh had only a fuzzy sense of the meaning of the term 'epistemology,' but he understood the gist of the princess' comments, and agreed with her. Manpower could obviously breed such a counter-agent. That would be no more difficult, biologically speaking, than breeding any other slave. And although it would be a nuisance—but no more than that—they could easily enough duplicate a number.

But, as Jeremy had just asked, how could they possibly be sure of retaining the agent's loyalty, once they sent him out?

Hugh could think of ways Manpower might try to retain that loyalty, to be sure. Threatening hostages would probably be the one with the greatest likelihood of success; sometimes the crudest methods really did work best. But keeping people close to the agent hostage and threatening to harm them wouldn't work as well in this sort of situation as it might in others. In the very nature of their origins and upbringing, Manpower's slaves didn't have people close to them. Except for the sort of adopted relations that Hugh himself had gotten, of course. He, of all people, was unlikely to ever underestimate how precious that sort of 'relationship' could become . . . yet every slave knew in his bones that those bonds were fragile. They existed only on the sufferance of others, and they were always subject to being torn apart by those same others—and always would be . . . so long as the institution of slavery itself survived. When an agent ended up confronting the sort of gut-wrenching stress inherent in betraying comrades dedicated to the overthrow of the monstrous evil threaning to do just that, 'reliability' went straight out the airlock.

In fact, that was true of just about every method Hugh could think of, in a case like this, and Ruth's basic point sat at the center of everything: a turned agent was the great disaster every intelligence agency did everything in its power to avoid. Unless the people Manpower had in charge of its counter-espionage against the Ballroom were complete fools—and there was no evidence that they were, and plenty of evidence that they weren't—there was no chance they'd take this sort of risk.

And if they had been inclined to, it would have bitten them on the ass a long time ago, he thought grimly.

There was a a long, still moment of silence as the question lay ugly and naked among them. Then Ruth inhaled audibly.

'Manpower isn't what it seems,' she said. 'It just can't be. We already suspected as much, and this is still more evidence—and powerful evidence at that. There is no way a mere corporation, no matter how evil and shrewd and influential and powerful, could have created the man we all just saw dying. Not the way he died. One or two, maybe. With the right psych programming, the right threats and bribes. Maybe. But there's no way—no way—they could create enough of him to justify sending him to Torch for what had to be no more than a routine penetration. We've put this man's life here on-planet under an electron microscope, and he did nothing—nothing at all—except the sort of things a simple, white-bread information probe would have required. No corporation, not even the biggest transtellar, could have enough of these sorts of people to waste one of them on something that routine. They just couldn't. Something else is going on.'

'But . . . what?' asked Berry.

'That's what we have to find out,' said Jeremy. 'And, finally, we're going to put the needed resources into it.'

Ruth looked very cheery. 'Me, for starters. Jeremy's asked me to . . . well, co-ordinate it, anyway. I'm not really heading it up, exactly. God, is this fun or what?'

Berry stared at her. 'You think this is fun? I think it's pretty horrible.'

'So do I,' said Palane forcefully.

'Well, sure. One of you was born and raised in the warrens of Chicago, in the proverbial desp'rate straits. And the other was born and raised in the serf hellhole of Ndebele, which isn't exactly desp'rate straits but is about as miserable as anything this side of . . . of . . .'

'Dante's third level of Hell,' Hugh offered.

'Who's Dante?' asked Berry.

'He must be referring to Khalid Dante, the OFS security chief for Carina Sector,' said Ruth. 'Nasty piece of work, by all accounts. But the point I was getting to is that I was born and raised in the comfort and security of the royal house of Winton, so I know the truth, which is that the ultimate horror is boredom.'

She sat back in her seat, looking very self-satisfied.

Berry looked at Palane. 'She's gone barking mad on us.'

Palane smiled. 'So? She was always barking mad, and you know it. Which only makes her an even better choice, when you come down to it. Who better to set on Manpower?'

Chapter Twenty-Six

'I think that just about does it, Jordin,' Richard Wix observed. He was obviously trying to keep his voice