Cerberus: A Wolf in the Fold

CHAPTER TWO Transportation and Exposure

Except for regular meals there was no way to keep track of time, but it was a fairly long trip. They weren’t wasting any money transporting prisoners by the fastest available routes, that was for sure.

Finally, though, we docked with the base ship a third of a light-year out from the Warden system. I knew it not so much by any sensation inside my cloister but by the lack of it—the vibration that had been my constant companion disappeared. Still, the routine wasn’t varied. I suppose they were waiting for a large enough contingent from around the galaxy to make the final trip worthwhile.

All I could do was sit and go over the data again and again until I was comfortable with all of it. I reflected more than once that I probably wasn’t very far from my old body (that’s how I’d come to think of it). I wondered if he didn’t occasionally come down to take a peek at me, at least from idle curiosity—me and the three others who were probably here also.

I had time to reflect on my knowledge of the Warden system, the reasons for its perfection, as a prison. I had not, of course, swallowed that line whole—there was no such thing as a perfect prison, but this had to be close. Shortly after I was dropped on Cerberus I’d be infected with an oddball submicroscopic organism that would set up housekeeping in every cell of my body. There it would live, feeding off me, even earning its keep by keeping disease organisms, infections, and the like in check. The one thing that stuff had was a will to live, and it survived only if you did.

But it needed something, some trace element or some such that was only present in the Warden system. Nobody knew what and nobody had been able to do any real work to find out, but whatever it needed was found only in the Warden system. The element wasn’t in the air, because in shuttles run between the worlds of the Diamond you could breathe the purified, mechanically produced stuff with no ill effects. Not in the food, either. They’d checked that. It was possible for one of the Warden people to live comfortably on synthetics in a totally isolated lab like a planetary space station. But get too far away, even with Warden food and Warden air, and the organism died. Since it had modified your cells to make itself at home, and those cells depended on the organism to keep working properly, you died, too—painfully and slowly, in horrible agony. That distance was roughly a quarter of a light-year out-system, which explained the location of the base ship.

All four worlds were more than climatologically different, too. The organism was consistent in what it did to you on each planet, but—possibly due to distance from the sun, since that seemed to be the determining factor in its life—it did different things to you depending on which world you were first exposed to it. Whatever it did stuck in just that fashion even if you later went to a different Warden world.

The organism seemed somehow to be vaguely telepathic in some way, although nobody could explain how. It certainly wasn’t intelligent; at least it always behaved predictably. Still, most of the changes seemed to involve the colony in one person affecting the colony in another—or others. You provided the conscious control, if you could, and that determined your relative power over others and theirs over you. A pretty simple system, even if inexplicable.

I regretted not knowing more about Cerberus. This war far less briefing information than I was used to, although I understood their caution. It would cost me time, possibly a lot of it to learn the ropes there and find out everything I needed to know to do my job.

About a day after I arrived—four meals’ worth—there was a lurching and a lot of banging around that forced me to the cot and made me slightly seasick. Still, I wasn’t disappointed; the activity meant they were making up consignments and readying for the in-system drop of these cells. I faced this idea with mixed emotions. On the one hand, I wanted desperately to be out of this little box, which provided nothing but endless, terrible boredom. On the other, when I next got out of the box it would be into a much larger and more attractive cell—the planet Cerberus itself, no less a jail for being an entire planet.

Shortly after all the banging started, it stopped. After a short, expectant pause, I felt again a more pronounced vibration than before, indicating movement. Either I was on a much smaller vessel or located nearer the drives.

Still, it took another four interminable days, twelve meals, to reach our destination. Long, certainly—but also fast for a sublight carrier, probably a modified and totally automated freighter.

The vibration stopped, and I knew we were in orbit. Again I had that dual feeling of trapped doom and exhilaration.

A crackling sound and a speaker I’d never known was there came to life. “Attention, all prisoners,” it commanded, its voice a metallic parody of a man’s baritone. “We have achieved orbit around the planet Cerberus in the Warden system.” For the first time it occurred to me that others were also being sent down—logical, of course, but I’d never really considered it before. I knew what they all must be going through, considering my own feelings. Probably a hundred times mine, since at least I was going in with my eyes open, even if I was no more a volunteer than they had been. I wondered for a fleeting instant about Lord Laroo. Once he too sat here, naked in a common cell, feeling these same feelings and facing the same unknown future as we. He had started as low as I—lower, in fact, as a prisoner—and now he ran the place. Nobody had given the position to him on a platter, nobody had elected him. He’d gone in, naked and isolated as I was, and he’d conquered. And I certainly considered myself superior to such as Wagant Laroo.

That very line of thinking started me slightly. Was that me, aiming at becoming a criminal chief?

“In a moment,” the voice continued, “the doors to your cells will slide open and you will be able to leave. We strongly recommend you do so, since thirty seconds after the doors open they will close again and a vacuum pump will begin sterilization operations within the cells, operations fatal to anyone who remains.”

Nice touch, I reflected. Not only did it ensure against breakouts en route, but you moved or you died on their schedule. I couldn’t help wondering if anyone had chosen death.

“Immediately after you enter the main corridor,” the voice continued, “you will stand in place until the cell doors close once again. Do not attempt to move from in front of your cell door until it closes or automatic guard equipment will vaporize you. There will be no talking in the corridor. Anyone breaking silence or failing to obey orders precisely will be instantly dealt with. You will receive further instructions once the doors close. Ready to depart—now!”

The door slid open and I wasted no time in stepping out. A small white box, complete with marks for feet, showed you where to stand; I did as instructed, galling as all this was. There was something to being totally naked and isolated on a ship controlled only by computer that humbled you more than was right. It created a sense of total futility.

I could still look around and saw that I’d been right. The thing was basically a long sealed hall along the sides of which had been attached the little cells. I looked up and down and counted maybe a dozen, certainly no more than fifteen. The cream of the crop, I thought sourly. A dozen naked and bedraggled men and women—an equal number of each—beaten prisoners about to be dropped and left. I wondered why these had been chosen rather than wiped, considering the transportation expense alone. What had the computers and psych boys found in these dejected specimens that dictated they should live? They didn’t know, that was for sure. I wondered who did.

The doors snapped shut. I waited expectantly, perhaps to hear the scream of somebody who didn’t move fast enough as the air was pumped out, but there was no hint of melodrama. If anybody had taken that way out, the fact was not evident.

“At my command,” the voice barked from speakers along the ceiling, “you will turn right and walk slowly, in single file, as far forward as you can. There you will find a special shuttle that will take you to the surface. You will take seats from the front first, leaving no empty seats between you. Strap yourselves in immediately.”

I could hear some grumbling from the others, and suddenly small laser beams shot out, hitting the deck with an audibly nasty hiss down the line of people but hitting no one. The grumbling stopped.

The voice, pausing for this show of force, now took up its instructions with no reference to the demonstration. None was needed.

“Right turn now!” it commanded, and we did as instructed. “Walk slowly forward to the shuttle as instructed.”

We walked silently, definitely in no hurry. The metal floor of the corridor was damned cold, though, and this made the shuttle at least preferable to this damned refrigerator.

The shuttle itself was surprisingly comfortable and modern, although the seats weren’t made for naked bodies. I sat about six rows back and attached the safety straps, then waited until everyone had been seated and done the same. The shuttle itself could seat about twenty-four, but there were just thirteen of us, eight—no, seven males and six females. I kept forgetting who I was and what I was, and I scolded myself mentally for it. This was not the time for any lapses. The next day or two would be the most dangerous of all for me, since our new class would get a great deal of attention and they’d be particularly interested in any of those who didn’t seem to be what they appeared.

The hatch closed automatically, followed by the hiss of pressurization. Then without further fanfare came a violent lurch and we were free of the transport and on our way down. The shuttle was much too modern and comfortable for mere prisoner transport, I told myself. This, then, was one of the interplanetary ships regularly used for transportation between worlds of the Warden Diamond.

The overhead speakers crackled, and a pleasant, human-sounding male voice came on. It was a great improvement. “Welcome to Cerberus,” he said, sounding for all the world as if he meant it. “As has no doubt been explained to you, Cerberus is your final destination and new home. Although you will be unable to leave this solar system, once you get off below you will no longer be prisoners but citizens of the Warden Diamond. Confederacy rule ended when you entered this shuttle, one of many owned by the Warden worlds in common. The System Council is a corporate entity fully recognized as internally sovereign by the Confederacy and has its own seat in Congress. Each of the four worlds of our system is under its own sovereign and independent government.”

The voice paused for a moment, and I reflected that it was odd not to hear anyone commenting, cheering, grumbling, or anything else. You could cut the tension with a knife, and I admit I felt it as much as the others.

“No matter who or what you’ve been in the past,” the voice continued, “no matter what you’ve done or what your previous status was, you are now and forever citizens of Cerberus, nothing more—or less. You are no longer in any way prisoners and nothing you have done in the past will follow you here. You start with a clean slate and a clean record, and only what you do from this point on, as Cerberans, will matter.”

Fair enough, I thought. The contrast in tone between this and the mechanical horror we’d first been exposed to was startling.

“We will be landing shortly,’’ the voice continued, and I could feel the braking being applied and hear the whine as stabilizers deployed for in-atmosphere flight. “We would appreciate your getting off quickly after the hatch opens, as we must service this craft and return it to normal service. A government representative will meet you and take you to a place where you can get clothing, a good meal, and orientation. Please cooperate with this person and give no trouble. It wouldn’t be a bright idea to start oft on the wrong foot your first day on your new world.”

Even a psycho could go along with them when the instructions were put that way, I told myself. They had such a nice way of making threats. Well, this was a world made up of and run by people just like those on the shuttle.

We made a long, slow approach, the pilot taking no chances, then finally settled into a berth of some sort. The caution warnings blinked out and the airlock hissed; when the hatches slid open, we undid our safety harnesses and got up, moving slowly and quietly toward the open area. This was ill.

We filed slowly out into a long and modern passenger ramp, which was totally covered but not heated. It was chilly, and that sped us along. None of us could really think of the chill, though; all had been pushed out by a single, overriding fact.

The moment that chill had hit us, the moment that air reached our skin and nostrils and entered our bodies, we were systematically being invaded by a submicroscopic organism that was our new, and final, jailer. We were here, and free, but we were, from this moment on, also stuck…