03. The Maze in the Mirror (17 page)

Pandross's security redoubt wasn't all that far, and I began to suspect that most of these old and abandoned lines and spurs were very close to the Company world. It made sense; they were built when competing companies started out and abandoned as they consolidated into one monolithic corporate and social structure. It was quite natural that they would be building lines all over the place near where it all started, and that there would be few or none much further up the line.

Still, the site of the unfortunate Pandross's murder was even more impenetrable than I had thought. For one thing, it wasn't inside one of the alternate worlds at all but inside a modified and enlarged abandoned switching station on another of those spur lines. They had, of course, changed all the security procedures and did not tell me what they were, but they preserved all of Pandross's old programs and left his devices in place. They said it was in case some investigator like myself might find them useful, but I suspected that they just didn't know how to get rid of them. Break for me, anyway.

I spent a great deal of time examining the whole setup and control center. It was an antique station, and I could never have figured out the esoteric
controls and the wall of antiquated switches and gages and the like there, but the superimposed security system was state of the art, the data computers well concealed. I didn't bother with them right now; I'd need somebody they'd talk to in order to get much out of them. By the time I finished with the security network itself, though, I was convinced. Nobody but someone authorized to enter the station could have gotten here, and there was no way in the world that this point could even be accessed, let alone penetrated, without the operator inside knowing about it.

Pandross had sat in his controller's chair, allowed the killer entrance, watched them come in, then probably talked with them for several minutes. More significantly, from the pictures there of the body and its placement, he'd gotten up and turned his back on his visitor, apparently to get some coffee or something else from the small kitchenette off to one side. The killer had used that to come up behind him, grasp him by the shoulders, and work the paralytic move. The rest was easy.

I had Maria essentially duplicate all the moves, with myself as Pandross, and up to the moment of the behind-the-back attack it all worked. She could not, however, work the move on me. Try as she might, she couldn't get the sort of grip on me to apply the proper pressure to the proper nerves.

"It is not possible," she told me after several tries.

"Sure it is," I replied. "It just means that the killer had to be taller than he was by, oh, three inches or more."

"But the body was clearly moved. Why could it
not have been done with him sitting in the chair? It has wheels on it, after all."

"Uh uh. For one thing, it would be under the glare of the active security monitors there and would have caused the computer to emit alarms and lock itself down. It wouldn't have prevented the murder but then the murderer wouldn't have been able to have access to the data banks to erase the record. The point there, give or take a couple of feet, in the kitchenette area, is the only spot where the monitors wouldn't pick anything up. You set your traps where the loot is. At the controls to the station,
as
you see, and at the computer access stations there. But not even a total paranoid puts heavy security on his refrigerator or his coffee maker, particularly when you'd be seen getting to and from. That was his blind spot and the killer knew it. But he didn't die because he forgot to put a guard on the ham sandwiches. He died because this whole place was designed to keep out or prevent access to any but nine individuals. It was never designed to protect him from them."

"But he was Security. He would have operatives in and out of here all the time. Why must it be one of the others?"

"Because they had full access to the computer and knew its esoteric ins and outs and just how to make it dance. In this business you don't give away all your secrets to
anybody,
since you can never be a hundred percent sure of your operatives. That's why he hardly batted an eyelash when they showed up to use the computer for something or other as they might occasionally do. Even if you had gotten to one of them, reprogrammed them, or switched them for a double, they still couldn't work the
computer itself. The data was safe and secure- except from the Committee. Let's see-Pandross was a hundred and seventy-seven centimeters tall . . . about five ten. I'd say that's about the same height as Voorhes, so while he's not off the hook it drops him down a notch. Some nice heeled boots would do it for him, though. We're looking for someone who's over six feet tall, at least wearing shoes or boots that wouldn't look unusual. It's going to be very interesting to see just how tall the other members of the Committee are."

She stared at me. "You enjoy this. You understand it so well. You must have many murders where you come from."

I shrugged. "And your people have none?"

"Crime is impossible in our society. Not unthinkable, I will admit, but impossible. We do not even have a word for murder in our language."

"Sounds boring. Still, I don't want you to get the wrong impression off the bat. There's clearly a vast cultural gulf between us. Now, let's see . . . How best to explain this?" I thought a moment. "Do you have fires in your world? Things catch on fire and firemen come to put the fire out?"

"Yes, of course we do," she responded in a patronizing tone.

"Do the firemen like what they do?"

"They take pride in it, yes. We all take pride in our functions."

I nodded. "Uh huh. And without fires they have no function. People who are very good at firefighting love their work. In effect, they love fires. They wouldn't start one, and they are horrified at the losses just as we are, but if there is a fire around, particularly a big one, then that's where
they want to be. The excitement, the pressure, the physical and mental challenges it represents- they are alive when there is a fire, even though fires are bad things."

"Well, yes, but. . ."

"No buts. Now, I don't like murders and I don't like dangerous puzzles to solve. I'm particularly unhappy with working with a gun to my head and one hand tied behind me as I am now. Still, if there is a crime, if there is a puzzle to be solved, evil to be unmasked, then I want to be in on it. I want to solve it. It's what I do. It's my-function. Very few people love their jobs, Maria, but some of us have talents others do not, and when those talented people have jobs perfect for those talents, they love their work. I love my work. It's what I've always dreamed of doing."

She accepted it, but didn't seem to understand it clearly.

"What about your world? How can you be human and there be no crime?"

"The human mind is animal," she explained, reciting the rationale just as it was drilled into her. "It must be controlled or it will cause destruction and misery. In my world there is absolute equality. We are born to the State and raised by it. We own nothing ourselves and everything in common. We serve the common good. We learn and are tested and our best function is determined and then we are schooled and trained for it. Then you enter the function at the lowest level. If you excel, you are promoted."

"Uh huh. Sounds fairly ordinary for certain kinds of societies. I assume with each level up you get more responsibility and more creature
comforts-privileges, a bigger apartment, that kind of thing."

"Yes, that is so."

"And what about the fellow whose function is to mow the lawn or wash the dishes?"

"The same. There are the same number of levels for each function, and the privileges are the same for each level."

"Interesting. And what about social life? Families, babies, that kind of thing?"

"Eggs and sperm are taken and classified and stored," she said matter-of-factly. "Then when particular functions are required the adjustment is made genetically, there is a match, and a child is produced. We do not have families, and we, ourselves, are sterile. Families are irrelevant in a proper society."

"What about sex?"

"If you would like it, I will provide it. It is a proper way of flushing the animal urges from the system."

"No, no!" I was startled. By god, she would do it and right here if I asked her! "Just curious. But you have no jealousy, no theft, no crimes of passion?" Even Marx, if memory served, said we'd never get rid of crimes of passion.

"One owns nothing so there can be no theft. All at the same level have the same things. One attains them by perfection in mind, body, and function. Exclusivity in cohabitation or relations is forbidden. In any event, jealousy implies the ownership of another, and we find that repulsive."

"And nobody ever beats the system, or tries to?"

"It is impossible," she replied, not ruefully, just matter-of-fact. "We must regularly go and account for all of our actions, our thoughts, our deeds, in the Confessional. When we are born we are born with a dependency, and the substance one must take is unique to the individual. The Confessor alone controls what we require. We meet regularly with our Confessor and we also attend self-criticism sessions. It is impossible to hold anything back without anyone knowing that you do, and if you do you do not get what you need to survive. There is no way around it-the pain is too great. No one can withstand it, so no one holds back when absolute confession can end it. After a while you understand that any urges against the system are crimes against society and you purge yourself completely of such things. Until one thinks only correct thoughts without deviation one can not be a whole member of society."

Holy shit!
I thought.
Now there's the perfect totalitarianism. Drug-dependent slavery for an entire civilization! Not even the worst of our society could have dreamed of such absolute control.

"How often do you need this stuff?" I asked her. "And, more important, when's the next time?"

"I must report within five days," she told me. "They always decide the interval."

"To whom and how?"

"I am not permitted to tell you that. However, I should tell you that I have been modified so that a certain pain threshold will kill me before I can tell anything."

Yeah, I thought sourly. And even if you grew real fond of me you 'd still kill me in an instant for your fix if so ordered. They weren't taking any chances on any kind of bond forming that would get in the way of her orders.
But aloud I said, "Well, look sharp.
We've learned all we can here for now. You are armed?"

"Yes. I am trained as a bodyguard among other things. I am well versed in every means of defensive combat. Why do you ask?"

"Because we're going to be going to some pretty rough worlds, I suspect, and meet some even rougher people, and I don't want anybody putting a slug in me or pinching my nerves or giving me a needle."

"My primary function is to see that you carry out yours. Do not worry."

Worry was one thing I had plenty of, though.

"All right, look sharp. I'm sure I haven't noticed anything here they didn't already know, but you never can be sure about a pre-emptive strike. I've been ambushed in the Labyrinth before, and part of my head had to be regrown. I don't want to have to go through that again."

"Where are we going?"

"You are gonna use whatever communications you have and find out where they suggest we go for an office, and then we're going there, and then I'll have a whole shopping list of stuff to get and a lot of work to do to feel safe there. By the time we're done with that, Voorhes or whoever should have our suspect list and just exactly what I need. C'mon, Amazon Princess. We got work to do."

Having a Girl Friday plugged into the rebel system was handy from my point of view, I admit, in that all I had to do was ask for something or complain about something and she saw that something was done about it. A combination secretary and bodyguard was a very handy accessory for any private eye. Only trouble was, she was not just my assistant but my jailer, too, making sure I didn't try anything funny or sneak funny messages back or in any way bypass this underground system they had. And with that nice little drug variation and her "confessional," we not only weren't about to get
too
close, but I had the uneasy feeling that, should I solve this thing or should they tire of me, her last job in this assignment was to polish me off no matter what.

It made for a less than cozy arrangement. Still, if I
did
solve the damned thing, I would be the one to pick the time and place to tell her and anyone else about it-and no matter how competent she was, I was pretty damned sure she wasn't immortal. Well, I'd have to cross that bridge later. It remained to be seen whether I could in fact help them. It was sure and certain that no matter what else happened their patience with me would be limited. I didn't know what kind of clock was running, but there certainly was one.

In another curious way, it freed me. I didn't have to worry about whether or not I should ask such-and-so a question, or if it was safe for me to find out this or that. Knowing it didn't matter, and knowing that they knew, too, and knew that I knew-if that makes sense-gave me a certain uninhibited detachment.

The place they found for me was another of those old, abandoned switching rooms, and it was fairly comfortable if a bit cozy. This one had only one large room and most of the furnishings had been cleared out long ago, giving it the look of an abandoned floor in some office building where once they had a bank or a lot of cubicles. The thing
was set on automatic to open for me and Maria; neither one of us could trigger it alone, although if one of us were inside the other could come and go. I quickly discovered that the other one was just Maria; I wasn't allowed out alone, and if she was out then I was stuck inside.

There was an override, of course, but of the eight survivors it took at least three of them for the gate to open automatically and for them to enter or leave. It was a neat trick; it meant that no one or even two of them could show up unannounced and do unto me what they did to the previous security chief.