All My Sins Remembered (18 page)

“I’m sorry. More, I am outraged. But please try to understand—”

“I think I understand more than either of you do.”

“No, I mean… you couldn’t be protected. Nor you, Colonel. I am surrounded by suspicious men and—” He was interrupted by the door sliding open. Julio Rubirez walked in, leading the whole entourage, guns ready. “I didn’t summon you,” el Alvarez said.

“But you did, sir.” Ironic emphasis on the “sir.” Julio scraped a place on the wall with his thumbnail; stucco flaked off, revealing a metal microphone plate. “Drop that pistol, whoever you are.”

El Alvarez gauged the faces of the men covering him and dropped the gun.

“This man is an imposter,” Julio said to the soldiers. “As good a copy of our beloved Alvarez as the man on the bunk is of Teniente Guajana.”

Guajana picked up el Alvarez’s pistol and handed it to one of the soldiers.

“I promise I will find out what he has done with our leader.”

The soldier to whom Guajana had given the pistol was already holding a rifle with both hands. He found it awkward and, not thinking, passed the pistol to the only man in the squad who had a free hand: Private Rivera.

“And as for these two…” Julio leered at Otto and Rachel and raised his gun.

Private Rivera slipped the safety off the pistol, held it to the back of the Commandante’s head, and fired. His skull exploded with a loud report and his still-smiling body pitched forward.

Otto hit the floor, dragging Rachel after him, and scooped up the Commandante’s pistol with his left hand. Guajana had just unholstered his own gun and was about to shoot Private Rivera point-blank when Otto fired and opened up the near side of his likeness from hip to ear.

“Drop
it drop it!”
Otto yelled and all of the soldiers except Rivera did, the whole thing having happened so fast that they didn’t even have their rifles unsafed.

“You too, Private,” Otto said quietly. He had the pistol pointed at Rubirez’s body and gave no sign of hearing. Otto took a careful point of aim; his pistol arm just below the elbow. “Drop it.”

Rivera let the pistol slip from his fingers and raised his hand to touch the stub of his ear.

“I’m confused,” he said. “What happened?”

“The first shots of a war,” Otto said. And
sotto voce
: “Maybe the last.”

9.

Terran Bureau of Investigation and Interference
M
EMO
Secrecy Class 5

T
O
: Planning

F
ROM
: J. Ellis, Ph.D.

R
E
: Debriefing agent McGavin (S–12, prime), mission SG–1746

       Following documents submitted:

1. Debriefing transcript.

2. Agent’s written report.

3. “The Juan Alvarez II Plan,” by Jose Alvarez III (described in documents (1) and (2)).

4. Various documents pertaining to leave problem.

It is my opinion that document (3) indicates a follow-up mission. Agent McGavin disagrees; I request that he not be assigned to this mission. An edited copy of this document may be of interest to the appropriate Confederación committee.

Agent McGavin was two weeks late returning from this mission. He claims to have accompanied his local TBII liaison, who suffered a nervous breakdown in the execution of this mission, to a nearby planet for rest and medical care, and submits documents in evidence. He claims further that this period should not be deducated from his annual leave, since he and the liaison were married for that two-week period. This would make his absence deductible from sick leave. Please forward documents (4) to his section leader.

(signed)
John Ellis, Ph.D.

Biographical check, please go
:
I was born Otto Jules McGavin on 24 Avril
Skip to age 12, please, go
:

That May we went to Angkor Wat to celebrate Wesak, it was so exotic and colorful, and the people were so strange, I knew I couldn’t spend the rest of my life

Skip to age 27, please, go
:

Two assignments that year, one was very pleasant, investigating Article Three violation on Jaica, turned out to have corrected itself while I was in PO, nothing to do but lie on the beach for three months, but then I had to take on the identity of Lin Su Po, Prime Minister of the Eurasian Hegemony, because he was going to be assassinated, nobody ever could explain how that was TBII business, it seemed like

Skip to age 40, please, go
:

Wanted to be on the team that adapted the Alvarez Plan, don’t understand how they could screw that up so badly, almost as if they had engineered a planetwide

Skip to age 42, please, go
:

Filed a formal complaint that I was getting nothing but shit assignments, plenty of seniority for a desk job, then had a PO breakdown when they tried to put me in a 22-year-old’s persona

It didn’t do you any lasting harm, did it?
Just to the boy I was in tandem with, I felt him die, sticky blackness with bright hot sparks burning into his brain, think the monitor died too, I never saw her again, when I got out of the hospital they made me a street beggar and sent me to Corbus, spy on a brothel that supposedly employed aliens, actually bioengineered human females, had to shoot my way out again, so tired of all the killing, the women could have been changed back, so tired of getting hurt, so

Kiwi
.

tired of getting new parts.

Elixir
.

Tired of being so many people.

Cloak-and-dagger. Frog
.

So tired.

Sleep
.

Ember: a red star slowly dying.

Carbon, a waste product of the sluggish nuclear furnace that gives Ember its feeble glow, percolates up to the surface of the star, cooling. It turns into merely incandescent vapor as it swirls into the star’s dim corona. When conditions are right, the vapor sublimes: lampblack snow falls back onto the star’s photosphere, and stays.

The drifts of carbon gather into shoals, shimmering black blotches that grow and touch and merge until the last crimson sliver of light disappears.

Its planets freeze over.

But the furnace inside the star keeps burning, insulated underneath the black shell. Its own heat doubles back and stokes it until it flares—not bright as stars go, but brighter than usual. Enough to vaporize carbon.

So the black sun shines white for a moment, and its corona fluoresces magnificently, fed by the vaporized drifts. But it ebbs quickly: yellow, orange, red… to a feeble carmine. Waiting for the black snow.

1.

“You are going to suffer for this.” He was an impressive-looking man, sharp aquiline features with severe creases and lines, hair and eyebrows tangled mats of white and black wires.

“We’ll take our chances.” The woman behind the desk had the bland but penetrating expression that’s the mark of one particular beast, the psychiatrist. She wore a gray suit cut like a uniform. “Somehow, I don’t think you’ll want to press charges.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Do you want a lawyer?”

He leaned forward in his chair. The guard behind him tensed. “I’m not talking about corporal punishment. It’s God’s will you’ve subverted, not just the law of men. ”

“ ‘Thou shalt not detain’?” She said. “I missed that one.”

“You know what I mean. You’ve done something to me. I’m not sure what. It was like a long dream.”

She nodded. “Two months long.” Someone tapped lightly on the door. “We can explain now.” She touched a button under her desk; the door buzzed and opened.

Two men entered: another guard and a tall, severe man in priestly robes, an exact duplicate of the prisoner.

He shot up out of his chair. The guard put hands the size of house pets on his shoulders and pushed him back down.

The duplicate looked no less startled. His guard clamped an arm and steered him into the office.

“Frog,” the psychiatrist said. “Dagger-and-cloak. Elixir, kiwi.”

The man’s expression changed subtly. He rubbed his eyes. “Jesus. That was a long one.”

“What… what devil’s work is this?”

The psychiatrist nodded at the duplicate. “You want to explain, Otto?”

He eased himself onto the edge of the desk and fingered the heavy cast-silver crucifix that hung to his sternum. “Well, Reverend. Where to start—”

“Start by telling me who you are.”

“That’s easy. I am you—Bishop Joshua Immanuel. Once known as Theodore Lindsey Dover.”

“No you are not.”

“In a real sense, I am. Ouch!” He put his finger to his lips and sucked, then inspected the small cut. “Forgot about that” The long axis of the crucifix was beveled to a razor-keen edge.

“I’m also Otto McGavin, a career agent for a certain bureau of the Confederación. You don’t have to know the name of the bureau; you don’t
want
to know the name. Among our functions, though, is the enforcement of the Charter’s third article. You know what that is.”

“I don’t concern myself with worldly—”

“You can’t lie to me, Father Joshua. Ted. I have all of your memories, all of your personality, laid over my own. You know the article.”

Otto’s double glared at him.

“It involves the protection of alien cultures: outlawing very specific modes of human interference.”

“But not missionary work!”

“No, not if it’s legitimate. You know as well as I do what the real ambition of your order is.”

He sat back and folded his arms. “So take us to court.”

“If that would work, you’d be in court right now.”

“Testimony obtained under hypnosis is not—”

“We have other evidence. We didn’t pick you up at random. But your order could tie up proceedings for five, ten years. Which might be too late for the S’kang.”

“Heathen monsters.”

Otto laughed. “Who know something you’d like to know. We keep a close watch on Cinder. A lot of people would like to crack that secret; the Confederación itself is working hard on it. Through archeology, though. Not subversion.”

“That’s why you’ve sequestered me. You’re afraid the S’kang will accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior—and tell us the secret out of gratitude and lovingkindness. So no profits for the Confederación.”

“Very few officials of the Confederación even know our bureau exists. We operate independently of anything but the Charter.”

“Independently of the law?”

“In a way.”

Father Joshua digested that for a moment. “I wouldn’t be afraid to defend my order’s work in court. Whatever the S’kang do, they’ll do of their own free will. We can—”

“Free will is a slippery concept,” the psychiatrist interrupted. “Guard, give the reverend your pistol.”

Joshua’s guard was the only armed person in the room. He unsnapped his holster and handed the heavy laser pistol to Joshua.

“Escape,” she said.

Joshua held the weapon awkwardly. He looked around the room with an agitated expression.

“Go ahead. No one will lay a finger on you. No one will pursue.”

“I… can’t.”

“Of course you can’t. For the same reason, you’ll never tell anyone what you’ve learned today. And the cell you’ll occupy for the next few months will be a plush suite with no locks, no bars. You are programmed not to escape, not to talk. This has become part of your ‘will,’ which is no more free than any other mortal’s.”

“That’s brainwipe.” Specks of sweat broke out on his brow. “That
is
against the Charter.”

“If it were brainwipe, I could tell you to stick your finger in your eye and you would, all the way to the last knuckle. Will you do that, please?”

“It’s only teaching,” Otto said, “very efficient teaching. The way you’re teaching the S’kang about death and resurrection.”

“Play with words. You have machines, unholy machines.”

“If you had the machines, they would be holy, no? And you would have succeeded by now.” She nodded at the guard. “Take him away.”

Joshua didn’t want to give up the pistol. The guard pried it out of his hands and jostled him through the door. The other guard followed them out and the door buzzed shut.

“Good to work with you again, Otto.” He murmured something polite. “Getting close to retirement, aren’t you?”

“Close. Haven’t made up my mind.” Prime operators were allowed to retire at forty-five, with full benefits, though few enough actually lived that long.

“Wish I had the option.” She slid a large sealed envelope across the desk. “This is four-day ink, some twenty thousand words. Any problem?”

“Guess not.” Otto knew the details of his mission as instinctively as he knew how to act in the Father Joshua persona. But both would fade with time; eventually, he’d have to rely on his memory. “Read it before I go?”