This Alien Shore (15 page)

Varsav nodded grimly. “Destiny hates the Guild with a passion, for forcing the law of Universal Access down everyone's throats. If not for that, they say, they would have the homeland that was their birthright.”

A faint, tight smile flickered across the Prima's face. “That's the test of human tolerance, isn't it? How many stations are up in arms about the fact that they must let strangers pass through their space ... you'd think we were sending them through a Hausman jump, the way they squawked about it. Destiny Station's on top of the suspect list,” she confirmed, “and several others now listed on the screens before you.” She flashed the icon that would make the innernet change its display, and gave them a moment to shift gears and record what they were seeing. “Have these stations watched, and I mean, watched
closely.
I want every transmission, every visitor, every shipment accounted for.”

“That'll be—” Kent began.

“Costly? Difficult?” She paused. “Then I suggest you begin immediately, so we can settle this matter in all due haste. Before this virus has a chance to mutate again.”

“I note that you've assigned us stations in other nodes,” Ra pointed out. “I assume we can ask for help from the local guildmasters?”

“No.”

“No?” It was Varsav; his tone was indignant. “Since when don't we trust our own people?”

“She didn't say the issue was one of trust,” Delhi pointed out coldly. “Don't jump to conclusions.”

“If not trust, then what is it?”

The Prima waited until all eyes were upon her before speaking again, until that instant when the
nantana
in her sensed that there was no chance of interruption. “I told you Masada has been working on this project en route. Several days ago I received his latest report. It contained a suggestion I found most disturbing ... and I have decided that until we learn more, I would rather err on the side of caution.”

She looked them over, one by one, the four senior guildmasters and her Director of Programming. It was the look of a
nantana,
who knew how to analyze the slightest gesture—the briefest flicker of an eyelid, even—to render a human soul bare. She trusted these people as much as she trusted anyone; they had her highest security clearance, and lifetime records of impeccable service. But she had not gained her position by being careless, and would not endanger it by becoming so now. Even if none of them had launched the virus, that didn't mean that they might not choose to take advantage of it for some more private rivalry. Guildmasters were loyal to the Guild, but notoriously treacherous in dealing with each other.

She was recording the meeting, of course. Later she would study the holos of these people in painstaking detail, analyzing their reactions through her presentation. Especially at this next moment, her announcement; that was the kind of instant when someone might give themselves away.

She said it quietly, and without fanfare. “The Guild may have a leak.”

The reaction was immediate.

“Our own people?” Varsav asked incredulously.

“Who?” Delhi demanded. “Who is he accusing?”

“Impossible.” That was Kent. “Simply impossible.”

Devlin looked more shocked than any of them. “How does he know that?” he demanded. “How
can
he know that?”

“The man's weaving fantasies,” Varsav muttered. “This is the
Guild
we're talking about.”

Ra said nothing.

“If I knew more about this, I would tell you,” she assured them. “But Director Gaza and I made the decision early on not to trust certain kinds of data to transmission, in order to maintain top security on this project. As a result Dr. Masada is being most circumspect in what he tells me, and I have no way to question him thoroughly until he arrives in person. This much I will share with you: he says that his analysis of the virus has led him to believe that someone from our own Guild is involved in all this.” She paused, studying their expressions with a practiced eye. Nothing seemed out of place ... yet. “That means we must guard all our secrets until he arrives, ten times more carefully than before ... even from our own people.”

“You're asking us to believe that one of our own would sell out the Guild,” Ra said quietly. “I find that incredible.”

“I didn't say that. All I'm telling you now is that there's a good chance that someone wearing a Guild uniform has leaked information to the outside. Maybe he did so deliberately. Maybe he was just careless. When Masada arrives, he can give us more details, and we can assess the situation properly. Until then, we'll function on the assumption that the worst is true. And that means trusting no one.
No one,”
she stressed. “Not the other guildmasters.” She looked pointedly at Devlin. “And not your own department. I'm sorry, but some of your people have professional contacts outside the Guild. That makes them highly suspect.”

“I understand.” His expression was dark, and she knew him well enough to guess at the anger seething just beneath the surface. He was a proud man, and the thought that someone in his charge might have done such a thing must surely be eating him alive. “I assure you, if there is any kind of security problem in my department, I
will
find out.”

She nodded. “All right, then. You know what we're up against. You five are among my most trusted officers. All information will be channeled through you and Hsing, and that includes Masada's work. Anything you have to report to me should come by courier, or else give it to me in person; I want none of this transmitted, not even between our own offices. Remember, whoever is responsible for Lucifer has already bested our security once, let's not assume that was an isolated incident. Maximize your precautions at every turn. Understood?”

Looking them over, studying their responses, she knew in her heart that when she went over the tapes of the meeting, she would find a thousand things to question, a thousand places where suspicion might be anchored. She trusted them as much as she trusted anyone, but in matters like this, trust was a luxury she couldn't afford. She'd watch them all, and the slightest hint that anything was not as it should be would bring all the force of her office down on someone's head.

“If a situation arises where you must transmit, you'll use this for encryption.” She nodded to Devlin, who flashed an icon that would begin loading the proper programs into the guildmasters' brainware. She listened to the heavy silence as each of her guests envisioned the icons necessary to receive and store them. As she did so, she was intimately aware of the flaws in even that system, of that fragile instant in which the binary codes in one machine would slip through space to contact another. Could they be hijacked in that short a time? she wondered. What if there was an invading program in the room even now, collecting and recording their most private communications?

But she could feel the fear, a cold trickle of unease in her heart ... and she knew that the others did, too.

I
T WAS HARD to learn to take a back seat in your own head, to let someone else take control of your flesh and allow his sensations to invade your soul. The first few times it happened Jamie was so terrified she could do little more than cower in the one comer of her brain that was left to her, crying and screaming without sound, without comfort. Watching her body move as one might watch a viddie.

A few of the Others were gentle. A few of them seemed to understand what was needed. Even Derik, in his own coarse way, seemed to sense that this was not the time for macho display, that the fragile mind sharing this body with him could only handle so many challenges. So it was pretty much all right with him, so far. That was a surprise. She had expected him to be one of the worst. But if he was coarse-mannered and violent and full of pent-up rage, that was all on her behalf, and at least he wasn't self-destructive, like Zusu. No, he wasn't one of the bad ones.

Verina helped a lot. She was a cold presence, but she did know a lot, and sometimes when Jamie was most afraid, she would hear that measured voice whispering facts to her, to ease her fears. Like when Zusu took over for the first time, and Jamie watched in horror as her own hand reached for the utility knife, took it up in a trembling grip, and then began to scratch jagged lines into the flesh of her own arm.
Self-hate, induced by Shido's minions,
Verina whispered the words into her brain even as the blood began to flow.
If not for her existence, it would have no outlet, and you would

surely be overcome by it.
And as she watched in horrified amazement, the cool voice assured her,
Don't worry, we never let her go too far.

Why did they do it?
she begged them all. Struggling to put the pieces together, to understand what Shido had wanted. Oh, she knew now what had been done to her, that was no longer a secret ... but
why?

They never answered that.

The most amazing part of all was that these Others who shared her body seemed to know each other pretty well. It was like some secret club that everyone belonged to except her ... only now she had been taken in, and she was fighting to learn the rules before the very concept of what the club was about drove her crazy.

The worst of them all was Katlyn. Not because she was the most unstable; on the contrary, of all the many Others who crowded in Jamisia's head she was one of the sanest. And she never tried to take control if the moment wasn't right for it, which couldn't be said of all the others; in their hunger to experience life at its fullest there were more than a few who demanded prime time, pushing Jamisia to the back of her own brain at a time she most wanted to be in control. No, Katlyn always waited until the moment was right for her to take over. Jamie flushed as she recalled her last escapade, a meeting with the Captain-General's son in one of the hydroponic gardens. He'd managed to shut down the main portals so that no one would interupt them, and then, in the midst of all those exotic smells, heady high-ox air filling her lungs, Jamie had felt the raw heat of Katlyn's hunger filling her.... God, she thought, what shamed her more now, the memory of what her body had done, or the memory of how it had felt to do it? Even now it made her tremble.

It's really about power,
Verina explained.
Sex is just the vehicle. It's about connection, breaking through the walls that confine us, defying the doctors who meant to stifle our freedom.

But it was about sex, too, raw and clutching and wholly overwhelming to Jamisia's inexperienced soul. Yes, she knew now that her body was far from inexperienced, for Katlyn had shared stories of her adventures on the habitat ... but Jamisia had no real memories of those trysts, and so they didn't affect her. Not like these did.

We're a team now,
Katlyn whispered, in the same seductive tones she used to draw men into her web.
And this is so much better, no doctors to hide from, no more secrets to guard ... so relax. Sit back. Enjoy.

Hot memories. Shameful memories.

You'll have to function as a team,
her tutor told her in a dreamscape vision. It was one of many he had planted in her brain, to help her through this terrifying transition. She had them nearly every night now. Workshops in insanity.
It's your only hope.