"Sit down, Lajos," Jack McBryde invited. "Take a load off. How does a cup of coffee sound?"
"Coffee sounds good," Lajos Irvine replied. He smiled as he said it, yet there was a slight—very slight, perhaps, but undeniable—edge to his response, and McBryde reminded himself not to grimace.
Irvine wore the traditional gray smock of a general laborer genetic slave. The smock's shoulder carried the stylized image of a cargo shuttle, which marked its wearer as a ground crewman at the Green Pines shuttle port, and the three chevrons above the shuttle marked him as a senior supervisor—in effect, a trustee. Irvine had the heavyset, muscular build to go with that smock, and if he'd cared to open his mouth and display it, his tongue carried the barcode of a slave, as well. In fact, physically, he was a slave—or, at least, clearly the product of a slave-bred genotype. Except, of course, for the fact that unlike real genetic slaves, he had the enhanced lifespan of a gamma line.
It was a fact which the Alignment's star lines seldom discussed, even among themselves, that genetically, they were much more closely related to Manpower's slaves than they were to the vast majority of humanity. For centuries, the slave lines had been the laboratories of the Long-Range Planning Board—the place where newly designed traits could be field-tested, tried out, and then either culled or incorporated into those same star lines and conserved. The LRPB had been careful to work from far behind the scenes, even (or, perhaps, especially) within the Manpower hierarchy, but its access to Manpower's breeding programs had always been a major factor in its successes.
One consequence of that was that even the Alignment's alpha and beta lines shared a whole host of genetic markers with Manpower's slaves. None of those slaves had ever received the entire package of one of the star lines, of course, just as none of them had received prolong, yet there was an undeniably close relationship between them.
That relationship helped the Alignment's penetration of the slave community as a whole, too. Irvine was an example of that, given how little modification his basic genotype had required to suit him for his role. There were never as many deep-penetration agents of his type as Alignment Security might have wished, but that was the result of a conscious policy decision, not of any inherent limitation on the number of potential agents. There'd been the occasional discussion of increasing the numbers of agents like Lajos, especially as the Audubon Ballroom had grown in sophistication and audacity. There were those (and he knew Steven Lathorous was one of them) who believed the Ballroom's capabilities were reaching the point of genuinely threatening to uncover the truth of the Alignment's existence. The people who felt that way were most likely to press for the creation of additional deep-penetrators, yet however cogent their arguments might be, the considerations of the Alignment's "onion strategy" continued to preclude the possibility. The Alignment had always relied on misdirection, stealth—on not being noticed in the first place, rather than building the sort of rockhard firewalls which were likely to attract the very attention it sought so assiduously to avoid.
Ironically, the limited numbers of available deep-penetration agents was part of what had made them so successful for so long. Not even Manpower knew that some of its "slaves" were nothing of the sort. That had made life hard for quite a few of Irvine's predecessors and fellows. In fact, the conditions of their "slavery" had cost more than one of them his life along the way, despite everything the Alignment's penetration of Manpower's bureaucracy had been able to do to protect them. But it also meant their security was absolute. No one outside their controls and handlers even dreamed of their existence, and keeping things that way meant holding their total numbers down to something manageable. The Ballroom was aware of the dangers of counter-penetration of course. There'd always been some of that, just as there would always be human beings who could be bribed—or coerced by terror and threats against those they loved—to spy upon their fellows. At least some of the Alignment's agents had been identified as exactly that, over the years, and paid the price the Ballroom exacted from traitors. Yet all of them had died without anyone ever realizing who—and what—they actually were.
Which, to be honest, was one of the reasons McBryde and Lathorous found Irvine's constant efforts to escape his current assignment particularly irritating. McBryde could sympathize with the fact that living a slave's life wasn't going to be especially pleasant under any circumstances, but at least Irvine's present duties were downright cushy compared to what some of his fellows had suffered—or to what they were enduring at this very moment, for that matter.
McBryde gave himself a mental shake, climbed out of his chair, and personally poured the man a cup of coffee. Brooding on Irvine's unhappiness and how much less happy the man could have been wasn't going to accomplish much. Besides, in some ways it resonated too closely for comfort with his own unhappiness.
"So," he said, handing the cup across and parking himself on the edge of his desk with a deliberate air of informality, "is there anything going on out there I should know about?"
"I don't think so," Irvine replied. He took a sip of coffee, obviously savoring it as much because McBryde had fetched it for him as for its richness, then lowered the cup and grimaced.
"That batch of malcontents I reported to you and Lathorous a couple of months ago is still simmering away," he said. "Hansen's group. And I'm positive now that the Ballroom's managed to make at least peripheral contact with them."
"It has?"
McBryde's eyes narrowed, and he considered buzzing Steven Lathorous. His friend's more recent operational experience might be useful if Irvine was right. He started to reach for his com, but then stopped. Steve really loathed Irvine, he reminded himself, and he was already recording the interview. He could always show Steve the record, if it seemed necessary. For that matter, they could haul Irvine back in again if they needed to.
"I'm pretty sure it has," Irvine said in answer to his question. "I know the theory is that it's better to keep an eye on known points of contact. I even agree with that, more or less. But I'd really like to have this particular group at least broken up, if not eliminated outright."
"Why?" McBryde asked, watching him intently.
Irvine was right about Alignment Security's basic policy. Not surprisingly, the Ballroom's efforts to penetrate Mesa were unceasing. It would have been amazing if they hadn't been, and given the percentage of the planetary population which consisted of genetic slaves, the opportunity for that sort of effort was obvious. Despite that, the Ballroom had never managed any high level penetration. Part of that, McBryde admitted less than totally happily, was because of the brutal efficiency of the official Mesan security apparatus. He was just as happy not to be associated with that apparatus himself, yet he had to admit that sheer brutality and terror could be effective ways of cowing potential rebels.
Those same techniques, however, also produced rebels, and those were the people the Ballroom looked for. They were also the people Alignment Security's deep-penetration agents looked for, as well, and once they'd been found, it was far more efficient and effective to watch them—to let them attract other potential rebels into identified little clusters. Eventually, of course, any given cluster would probably reach a point at which it was sufficiently large and sufficiently well organized to become a genuine threat, at which point it would have to be eliminated. Until that point was reached, though, it was better to know who to be watching than to eliminate them and start over from scratch again and again.
"Why do I think they should be broken up? Or why do I want them eliminated?" Irvine asked in response to his own question.
"Both."
"Well, I guess it's really the same reason for both. I'm starting to think they're better organized than I originally thought they were, and, like I say, they're obviously in at least loose contact with the Ballroom." He shrugged. "The fact that they're better organized makes me wonder what else I might have missed about them, who else might be in contact with them. And the fact that they've established at least some contact with the Ballroom suggests they might actually manage to pull off some kind of sabotage operation. Maybe even an assassination or two."
"Directed here? At the Center?" McBryde asked more sharply, and Irvine shook his head.
"Except for the fact that you're under a tower that might have one or two offices they'd consider targets, I don't think the Center's in any kind of danger. There's absolutely no indication anyone in the slave community even suspects the Center exists, much less that anyone might be planning an attack on it. Believe me, if I saw any sign of that, I'd be in here in a heartbeat! No, I'm thinking more about managing to pick off a Manpower executive, or maybe blow up a Manpower or Jessyk office . . . along with its staff."
McBryde relaxed a bit, but he also nodded in understanding. The Ballroom's successes against Manpower throughout the explored galaxy could scarcely be kept a secret from the slave population of Mesa. The number of those successes in the Mesa System itself was minuscule, however, and the authorities had managed to suppress knowledge even of some of the Ballroom's successful efforts. Alignment Security found itself in general agreement with the normal planetary security forces in that regard, too. Enheartening the spirit of rebellion among the planetary slave population by allowing successful attacks here in the home system wouldn't be in any one's interests.
"What makes you so positive they are in active contact with the Ballroom?" he asked after a moment. "It's not that I doubt your judgment," he added hastily, as Irvine's eyebrows lowered. "I just want a breakdown on the evidence so I'll have a better appreciation of the situation."
"Well," Irvine's expression eased, "there've been quite a few little things over the last few months. But the kicker, as far as I'm concerned, is that two new people have turned up. And neither of them is a sutler. In fact, neither of them is a seccy."
"Ringers from outside, you mean?" McBryde asked with a frown.
"I mean two people I've never seen before at all, hanging around with Carl Hansen and his group. One of them is working as a waiter in Steph Turner's restaurant."
"Who's she?"
Lajos waved his hand dismissively. "Just a woman who owns a small restaurant that caters to the seccy trade. Divorced, one kid, a teenage daughter. I've never mentioned her before, as I recall, since I don't think she's more than vaguely connected to the underground, if she's even connected at all."
McBryde nodded. Given the fact that slaves made up sixty percent of Mesa's population and seccies made up another ten percent, the anti-slavery underground was vast and extensive. For the most part, the underground concentrated on activities that were not directly threatening to the Mesan order: smuggling slaves out and contraband in; maintaining a network of social services that made up to a degree for the lack of such services provided by the government; and so forth. Only a small percentage of the underground's members had direct and close ties to the Ballroom or engaged in violent activities. If Lajos had been in the habit of reporting every seccy who had any connection at all to the underground or even the Ballroom, neither he nor Jack would ever be able to get any sleep. You had to be practical about these things.
"But it's the other one that mostly makes me twitchy. He's a Havenite. Claims to be a former StateSec agent, and seems to have the credentials for it."
McBryde frowned thoughtfully. "What would an ex-StateSec be doing hanging around with that group you're watching?"
"Good question. The waiter might just be another malcontent, although I'm almost sure he's not a seccy—or an ex-slave of any kind, for that matter. I haven't been able to get that close to him, so I haven't seen his tongue or gotten any DNA samples. But he's got a very pronounced and unusual phenotype, and it's nothing like any line we've ever developed. Not that I'm familiar with, anyway. But the StateSec guy . . ."
Lajos took a sip of his coffee. "For starters, there doesn't seem to be any question that he's legitimate. Meaning, his background is in fact what he claims it to be. I know for a fact that Cloutier is eager to pick him up—eager enough that she's been willing to dicker terms with the guy for some time now."
McBryde's eyebrows went up. Luff's top recruiting agent didn't handle run-of-the-mill hiring. Still, he couldn't recall any instance where Inez Cloutier had allowed a prospective contractor to dicker for more than a couple of days. Admittedly, Jack hadn't tried to keep entirely on top of that situation.
"In short," Lajos concluded, "one of them is definitely from outside the system and the other—the waiter, that is—could very well be. And regardless of their origins, I can't think of any legitimate reason either one of them would have any contact with Hansen's group. I'm thinking one or both is likely to be a Ballroom agent. Pulling them in and breaking them could give us an additional peek inside the Ballroom's plans where Mesa is concerned."
"Not all that likely, though," McBryde observed, and Irvine grunted in sour agreement.
They might have kept Ballroom agents from establishing any significant presence here on the planet, but Ballroom operatives seldom provided anything useful in the way of information, either. Partly because the Ballroom understood operational security at least as well as anyone else in the galaxy. It compartmentalized information tightly, and it applied the "need-to-know" rule ruthlessly. More than that, any of its operatives who possessed truly sensitive knowledge were also provided with the means for reliable self-termination. More than one of them had chosen surgically implanted explosive devices, which had taken their share of security personnel with them over the years.
"I didn't say it was likely," Irvine said. "I only said it could give us some extra information."
"Have you managed to pick up anything else about them? Anything more than just the fact that we don't know who they are, I mean?"
"Not a damned thing," Irvine admitted frankly. "I did get a few images of them, though. These are from the one and only time I ever spotted the two of them together in the same place. The StateSec guy seems to be having breakfast in the same restaurant where the waiter works. Here."
He reached into the neck of his smock and flipped across a chip folio. McBryde caught it, extracted the single chip inside it, and inserted it into his desk computer. It took a moment for the computer's internal security systems to decide the data on the chip was acceptable, and then a holo image of two men appeared above his desk.
He gazed at them curiously. Whatever the StateSec man's purpose might be, if Irvine's suspicion that the other one also came from outside the Mesa System had any validity, then the waiter wasn't a seccy at all, even though he was working for one. McBryde had always wondered what went on inside the heads of escaped genetic slaves who voluntarily walked straight back into the lion's den. Unlike some of his fellows, he'd always respected their courage, and of late he'd begun to understand the kind of personal outrage which motivated many of them far better than he'd ever understood it before. Still—
His thoughts slithered to a halt. Somehow—he never knew how—he managed to keep his eyes from widening or his jaw dropping, but it was hard.
It can't be, his brain insisted quietly. Not here. Not even those two would be ballsy enough!
Yet even as his brain insisted, he knew better. The one sitting at a table was a thoroughly unremarkable-looking, almost slightly built young fellow. If Jack hadn't been told he was a Havenite, he would have assumed that the man was descended from any of several general laborer lines. But the other . . . At a glance, you might assume the other was obviously descended from a heavy labor line. But Jack knew Irvine was right. This was no line ever developed by Manpower. The guy was simply much too short for that incredible physique. When Manpower developed a line specifically for muscular power, they made them big all around. It would have been foolish not to do so, as a practical matter, and probably even genetically difficult.
McBryde studied the images, concentrating on the waiter. The facial features were different, but that could be done any number of ways. The things that were much harder to disguise . . . The coloring, that massive neck, that tilt of the head, those incredibly broad shoulders, like some dwarven mountain king—or troll . . . those McBryde recognized. Recognized because he'd seen them so recently, in a broad-distribution, priority memo, and he wondered how Irvine could possibly not have recognized them.
Because he never got the memo, he realized almost instantly. He's at too low a level, and it never would have occurred to anyone to look right here, on Mesa itself. The only reason Steve and I ever saw the memo was that it was distributed to everyone above Level Twelve, and Lajos isn't routinely cleared for anything above Level Three unless it's specifically related to his current assignment.
"Well," he said out loud, "I don't recognize them." He chuckled. "On the other hand, I don't suppose they'd send anyone they expect us to be able to pick out of a lineup, now would they?"
McBryde killed the images. "I'll pass it around, Lajos, but don't get your hopes up." It was his turn to shrug. "I don't imagine we're going to get a direct hit on the imagery, even assuming these two were stupid enough to come in without at least trying to disguise themselves. And, frankly, I'm inclined to doubt that anyone higher up the chain is going to authorize taking out the entire group, either. In fact, if they are in contact with the Ballroom, the decision's probably going to be that that very fact makes keeping an eye on them and seeing what they do even more important."
"I know." Irvine sighed. "I can hope, though."
"Oh, we can always hope," McBryde agreed. "We can always hope."