02. The Shadow Dancers (40 page)

Brandy Two smiled. "How sweet."

"The idea was an eventual switch. Brandy Two would be primed and sent back as Brandy One. They were very impressed by
our
Brandy, and none too sure that she could or would carry out their orders implicitly, hooked or not. There were a few circumstances in the Vogel tests where people committed suicide rather than face an impossible
alternative. They couldn't take the chance. Brandy Two, as Brandy One, would have Aldrath's confidence here and Bill Markham's at home. She would also be an effective test case if they found the right element for their plot, since she could walk right into this world of yours on a security pass."

"Impossible!" Mukasa shouted. "You go too far. It is precisely because such twins exist that we have our unique security codes. Even twins from adjacent worlds who have precisely the same history and development will show up as different individuals under our system."

"And so would both of them-but they don't. They don't, because Brandy One's original code still has the security code and tracker superimposed on it and that drowns out and supersedes the old code. That code is intended to be temporary and so it's not in the master identification system as such."

"But only the security medical technician who imposed it would know that specific code and be able to provide it for duplication!" Mayar pointed out.

"Exactly so. Isn't that right, Chief Medical Security Advisor Jamispur?"

The doc jumped. "Look here, if you're implying that I'm a part of this conspiracy-"

"I apologize, sir. I was not implying anything. I am saying that you are the medical technician who knew and took Carlos under your wing when you were younger. I am saying that you were the ambitious and frustrated scientist tapped by our man to set this all up. That's why you got promoted to Chief Medical Security Advisor, so you could be in the best position for this."

"Now, hold on!
I
picked Jamispur!" Mayar said.

"How?"

"Why-computer records, job performance and proficiency, medical and psychiatric evaluations. The usual. He was the best man for the job."

"Of course he was. Because for several years our man had been letting the computer know all about Jamispur- exactly what they both wanted. He probably scored ninety-nine out of a possible hundred. Doesn't pay to be absolutely perfect. Your computer picked him from among the staff after that tragic flyer 'accident' killed his predecessor. Garbage in, garbage out. How does it feel to be garbage, Doc?"

"This is outrageous!" Jamispur stormed. "I will not sit here and allow any more of this insanity to continue!"

"Oh, yes, you will," said young Dakani softly, speaking for the first time. The tone left no doubt that the doc was gonna stay, whether tied up and muzzled or comfortable. Dakani and he was the same class; no political or jurisdictional problems there.

"It had to be Jamispur all along. He was the only one who could duplicate the security code. He was the only one who could feed that code to Carlos and his accomplices, via Addison, so that they could set their own tracers for the ambush. He was the only one who had the complete medical and psychiatric history of Brandy One and even had the opportunity right from the start to plant the seed in her mind that if anything happened to me she'd do what she did. As chief medical security advisor, he could tap into any of the Center's lines as well as just call security at the station and know exactly what to do to neutralize me-all by phone, or its equivalent, here, with his trusty little computer and all those wonderful access codes a top security position gives you. What was it, Doc? Ambition? Blackmail? Or did they just keep refusing to let you experiment on your own with people?"

"I have rights here. I do not have to answer to the likes of you," the doc responded kinda surly.

"No doubt. And no doubt you're good enough to have booby-trapped your own mind and memories. We start probing and prying and it all goes away. Don't worry, Doc. We're not even gonna
try
that stuff. We'll just walk you down to this little room, strip you, tie you to the bed so you can't hurt yourself, and give you as many jolts of this stuff you seem to love so much as it takes until you're hooked. We'll let the two ladies, here, handle it all. They know all about how to do it, thanks to you. All we need is a name. It's a name we already know, but your supporting testimony will give Dakani, here, the right of immediate arrest. I'm sure our big man hasn't booby-trapped
his
brain. We'll learn the rest from him."

Jamispur was sweatin' somethin' awful. I didn't even
know these people
could
sweat till then, and it looked mighty sweet to me. "Don't," he managed, his voice just a hoarse whisper. "I'll tell."

"Sorry, Doc, that ain't enough," Sam told him. "You could give any name here and then stall for time, hoping that you'd get sprung. It
has
to be our route, while these gentlemen here remain as the vice president's pampered guests."

Suddenly Jamispur leaped from the couch toward Sam. Me, my twin, and Dakani all moved 'bout the same time, shovin' him back so he fell right into that whole mess of Directors. There was absolute chaos, everybody strugglin' with everybody and shoutin' curses in two languages, nobody clear what was what, when, just like in one of them thirties thrillers, the lights went out and plunged the room into darkness.

There was more shouts, but the lights was back on in maybe a minute and we finally untangled. Well, most of us did. Considerin' how much melodrama we seen so far, I really wasn't all that surprised to see that Jamispur didn't get up. He had one of them fondue forks right through his throat, and he was gaspin' for air but not makin' a sound. By the time we did what we could, he was dead.

Sam looked over at Dakani, who was lookin' back at someplace in the hall. The young man then turned back. "Did you get it?" Sam asked him.

"I got it. But I kind of hoped it wouldn't be fatal."

"Sorry," Sam replied with an apology. "I thought he'd use one of the butter knives. I'm out of the wrong society to even
think
of fondue forks."

Basuti turned, sweatin' too, and wiped his face nervously. "All right-you've convinced us there's a true traitor here, but you've just lost your only identification of him. You'll never get any prints off
that
fork handle. It's a rough-grip handle."

"Nice of you to notice that. You might be a detective yet. Well, I admit I didn't really expect more than an
attempt,
but this will do nicely. I regret not being able to deliver a smoking gun, but I think a smoking fondue fork will do just as well, although from the sound of it I can see why nobody ever used it in the old stories."

I watched Dakani Grista vanish back into another room, then come back, lookin' real grave. I had to hand it to Sam. I never woulda believed that anybody this slick woulda ever gone for it. I mean, our man still had lots of friends around. Bide your time while the doc got juiced and make your getaway.

"I'm afraid you've all been the victim of a very melodramatic setup," Sam told them. "The fact was, though, I really couldn't lose by it. If Jamispur hadn't lunged at me, or tried for a getaway, we wouldn't have pulled it and we'd have taken three to five days to get our absolute evidence. Fortunately, none of you have ever seen a vintage detective thriller movie. I presented the motive, opportunity, and method to commit a murder here tonight, and after all was chaos, partly aided and abetted by my two lovely cohorts in crime here and the very dubious Dakani, we even killed the lights, an obvious setup if ever there was one, but since we had our man backed into a corner and made certain we didn't give him enough time to think about good fortune, he took what appeared to be a wondrous stroke of luck to do away with the only witness who could credibly finger him. And so we can all let Dakani do his duty and get it out in the open now, by fingering the man we-Brandy and I, at least-have known was behind this from the start."

"Mukasa Lamdukur," said the security man, "I hereby suspend your rights under the Security Act on the grounds of treason and murder."

Mukasa stared at him. "You are both insane. You have no right to do this."

"Well, it wasn't hard to figure out once both Brandy and I were thinking straight again," Sam told him. "At that first, brief, dinner meeting in this very room, before the Vogel affair, you made a slip and had to cover it. You betrayed a fairly complete knowledge of my world, something you shouldn't have known unless it had been of particular study and interest to you."

"I told you-I was there, or very near there, when I was young."

"Yes. World War II, I believe. But we were told that no one from your class is allowed to go to any world that does not have a full station and Company operation, for obvious
security reasons. The Company wasn't even there in the forties. It didn't establish its first outpost there until the mid-fifties, ten years after the war, and it didn't establish a full station until the sixties. We had been discussing war, so when you made your slip you covered with a war. The war Vogel's side won in his world and lost in ours. Why lie, unless you had something to hide? Unless you had been personally researching the world of Brandy and me with the idea of making a switch and eliminating a number of possible irritants at once? It wasn't enough to hang anything on you that would stick, but it was enough to tell us which one of you it was. When I was able to check, I discovered that, four years ago, you had the communications post now held by Director Basuti, the newest member and the cause of the musical chairs in the group. Communications-who would get the first frantic messages from that exploiter team. Communications-which, by its very nature, is the post that gets all the information fed into the computers first. And now, operations, where you can issue clearances, monitor all security personnel, and get any question answered with no problems."

"You are guessing. You can prove nothing," he snarled.

"Dakani?"

The security man clapped his hands, and a big paintin' on the wall over the fireplace winked out, much to my surprise. It was like some kinda big, flat, square TV screen. The scene on it was of lousy quality but it was clear enough. All of our clearly recognizable outlines was there, and then Jamispur lunges, we go into our act, forcin' him between Basuti and Mukasa, and there is Mukasa's hand, almost by accident, hittin' the fondue fork, takin' it out, and then rolling and stabbin' the doc in the throat while he pushed against the doc's head with his other hand. Then he rolls away.

"I'm not against high tech when it's useful," Sam told them. "We often use infrared and other means to get photos and information in the dark back in my world. I figured they'd have an even more improved model here. We mounted it last night behind the mantelpiece. At least five technicians in various places caught it independently on
their own machines. Two were witnessed by representatives of the President and the Chairman."

Mukasa seemed almost to wilt. In a flash he'd gone from the most confident man around to a scared little boy.

"Oh, relax, Mukasa," Sam told him. "The truth is, you just did yourself a favor. When is your mistress, Ioyeo, due back from visiting her sisters and mother in the colonies?"

"S-she's back. Oh, the curses of the Nine Hells, she's
dead,
damn it all. I had to do it. Don't you see? She showed herself to Brandy, here. They
knew
she was Addison. But Ioyeo played around, as she was told to. She's serviced everybody here except Basuti."

"Maybe it was all for .the best," I put in. "For her sake, too. Then she never got to make love to you one last time."

He looked strange. "Yes, she did. Last night. That's when I ... Oh, gods! She just looked up at me, her eyes wide, and even in death she had this look of total surprise."

"Not half as surprised as you gonna be in a few hours, honey," Brandy Two noted sourly.

Dakani was quick. "Did you make love to any other woman since? Or anybody else where semen was exchanged?"

"Why, yes. I felt-charged up. It was the first time I ever had to do anything like that myself and I got-a thrill. It was exciting. It was pure power. I slept like a log afterward, and after I woke up today I had the longest, most passionate session with my wife I've had in years. If she'd turned me on like that in the past ten years I'd never have even had Ioyeo."

Dakani was already on the communicator. I just hoped his missus wasn't feelin' so turned on she had a few boy whores on the side. Hell, this scheme of theirs might work anyways!

Sam looked at him. "It's almost a fitting punishment. You never knew just how much she hated you. You never even guessed how much she hated all of you, this Company, this world, this whole system. She was the fifty-first Typhoid Mary, and the first to come in. She hated you so much that she was willing to destroy her own mind, kill that brilliant if tragic intellect, just to make you the first victim. To spread
it beyond any hope of containment. This thing thinks that humans are only turned on for a few days a year, so every day it sees we can screw profitably, it forces us to do just that, early and often. It's just a virus; it doesn't think. Every day is just one of those few to it."

"Oh, my gods and demons!" Mukasa moaned. He knowed now what we already did.

"Carlos, too, sacrificed much," Sam continued. "You see, she loved him. He was-is-a genius, a brilliant man from apparently a very poor and very oppressed race. He had passion, commitment, and was everything she ever dreamed of in a man. He loved her dearly, yet he did this to her, at her request. He is one hell of a man, and, after this, if we can't track him down and pick him up through the agents here, he will be the most dangerous and deadly human being in all the universes."

An obviously shaken Mayar Eldrith got some of his composure back. "But-so she was double-crossing him?
Why?
She had everything. Everything!"

I looked around at all them silver-spoon, upper-class, First Royal Family types and I felt sick. "They ain't never gonna understand, Sam. Let 'em eat cake."