Mute (26 page)

Knot began to understand. Incorrigible criminals were lobotomized; it was the ultimate penalty. A telekinetic who used psi to cheat at gambling and “protected” herself when challenged—that could mean using her psi to interfere with the valves of the heart of the arresting officer. Power abused led inevitably to future abuse. Viveka had surely needed correction—and she had surely understated the case.

“All of you are lobos?” he asked. “I thought one man was a telepath but he couldn’t read my mind.”

“He was a telepath—before CC cut him. He had a little trouble about private information.”

Translation: the telepath had peeped for embarrassing secrets, and tried to extort money or favor in return for his silence. That kind, too, could be stopped only by lobotomy. This was an organization of vengeance-seeking psi-criminals. Deprived of their psi, they were now merely criminally minded.

“You realize I’m not a criminal,” Knot said cautiously.

“All you did was try to cover up the existence of your leadmuter, so CC wouldn’t take the money,” Viveka said. “There are those who would call that embezzlement, cheating, lying—”

“I was only trying to protect the welfare of my enclave!”

“We lobos are only trying to protect the welfare of our kind. CC is an alien force, conceived as the servant of man, now becoming the master. CC must be stopped before it becomes totally powerful and discovers that it can dispense with the directives of the Galactic Concord—not that they’re worth much. We are not criminals, we are patriots!”

She had a point. He couldn’t find it in himself to like her or her group, and did not regard himself as kindred in spirit, but perhaps this was a noble and necessary counterforce to CC. “That’s why you interrogated me with the drug; there is no psi in your ranks. You have no telepath.”

“We use neither psi nor electronic machines,” she agreed. “All psis are suspect because CC keeps track of them, and all computer-type machines are suspect because CC is one of them, and may have inputs. This way CC can’t spot us. We’re invisible.”

He seemed to remember something about CC searching for an invisible enemy. Could it be that it had not occurred to CC that any organized opposition could function without the use of electronics and computers and psis?

“But what can you do to stop CC?” he asked. “It spans the galaxy, while you are restricted to this planet.”

“Lobos are everywhere in the galaxy, in increasing numbers,” she said darkly. “Have you any idea how many psi-mutes are deemed unfit by CC every year? Millions! We have chapters on every planet, and our power is growing rapidly. Soon there will be more of us than regular psis.”

“More of you—” Suddenly Knot caught on. “The illegal lobotomies. The lobos are responsible!”

“We are responsible,” she agreed with grave pride. “Now we’re doing to CC psis what CC did to us. Making all mutants equal. When all the psis are gone, CC will be helpless.”

“But the galaxy needs CC to maintain the empire, to uphold the level of civilization. Only CC can coordinate interstellar commerce. Without CC there would be anarchy.”

“What’s wrong with anarchy?” she asked grimly. “Most individual planets are self sufficient; they don’t need to be part of any machine empire. Anarchy is merely another name for complete freedom.”

Knot felt
déjà vu
. He had argued a similar case, once, somewhere, somewhen. Now he found he agreed and disagreed. He liked freedom, did not like CC, but did prefer civilization on a galactic scale. To be forever trapped aboard a single planet, under the heel of whatever local ruler or warlord there might be—somehow that bothered him. He had a vague picture of a man locked in a stone cell, eyeless and tongueless, quarreling with rats for his food. This, to him, was the essence of anarchy, for what reason he could not fathom.

“I have some sympathy with you,” he said at last, suppressing the nightmare vision. “But not with your methods. Abducting people, lobotomizing useful psis—have you any notion of the grief you are imposing on these innocent people?”

“Yes,” Viveka said, smiling. “The same grief that was imposed on me. I have a good cure for it: vengeance. Soon those former CC psis will be joining us as anti-CC agents.”

“Why would they do that? They should hate you!”

“Because we’ll tell them that CC betrayed them. Found them unfit and lobotomized them without trial. They’ll be furious.”

“But that’s not true!”

“They can’t remember—and no one who is not one of our inner circle knows the truth.”

“
I
know the truth!”

“But you will be joining us.”

Once more the
déjà vu
—yet he was sure he had never interacted with lobos before. “I’m not a lobo!”

“Not yet.”

Then Knot realized with horror what they had in mind for him. Lobotomy. Forgetting. Recruitment. He would not remember the truth either; he would believe what they told him. As others evidently had.

In fact, they could convert normals the same way. How would a lobotomized normal know he had never had a psi talent? He would not trust CC’s statement, and in any event hidden talents did show up, sometimes, late in life. So a person could be a psi and not know it, and have that psi nullified by lobotomy before it ever manifested. With the entire range of normals to draw from, there was really no end to the possibilities the lobos had here.

Yet, given the choice between CC and the lobos, he now knew he would choose CC. The machine’s way, at least, maintained galactic civilization.

Now the lobo thugs were closing in again. They had him in their power; they would work their obscene will on him. If he offered no resistance, he would be lobotomized—which was, for him, a fate about as bad as death. If he fought, he might experience death itself.

He would go with them to the lobotomy unit, then make whatever break he could. The odds were against him, but it seemed his only course. At this moment he was tense but not afraid; fear was largely anticipation, and he knew he was at the crisis point now. Catch them by surprise—

No, Knot. They will drug you as you leave this room. They know no person goes willingly to his own lobotomy. You must fight here.

Who had said that? Surely not a lobo!

I am Hermine the weasel. You do not remember me or Mit, because CC erased your experience with us, but we are your friends.

Memory exploded at the perception of her name: a key concept.
I remember you now little friend, he thought back. Where are you?

With Mit, in the suitcase.

Knot made a mental picture of a light flashing on.
Of course! The control animals. They opened the suitcase, and I saw you in a cage—and did not know you! That was some blank!

CC did it so you would not betray yourself or us,
Hermine explained.
Do not leave us behind, this time.

Never that!
he assured her.
Ask Mit how we are to get out of this.

Distract Viveka. Step forward. Take Viveka hostage. Make the lobos drop their lasers. Start when I tell you.

Knot obeyed the gesture of his guards and started toward the door they indicated. Evidently they had not been alerted by his long silence; they must have believed he was assimilating his situation and coming to terms with his options. As indeed he had been—but his conclusion differed from their expectation. He had powerful psi on his side now—psi that he had not revealed during his drug questioning because he had not known about it. Mit, with his precognition, must have known exactly when to reveal that psi to Knot. After the interrogation, but before the lobotomy. Very neat integration of talents.

As Knot walked near Viveka, Hermine thought Now!

Knot paused. “Did it ever occur to you,” he inquired of the room in general, “That it might have been the lobos who lobotomized you?” Then, as the lobos reacted, he leaped to the side, flinging his left arm around Viveka’s fat neck and drawing her off balance. “Drop your weapons!” he cried.

The lobos turned to stare at him in surprise, but did not let their lasers fall. They did not yet believe that the prey had turned predator.
Make her scream,
Hermine thought.

Knot knew how to do this. He put the fingers of his large right hand over her shoulder, pressing hard on a nerve complex there. Viveka screamed in pain, not fear.

Now the lobos dropped their weapons. Knot had not damaged the woman, but the scream had lent the kind of primeval authority to his demand that moved them. Mankind, as a species, was conditioned to react to a scream.

Pick up the second pistol to your left,
Hermine directed.

But that one is awkward to reach. There is a closer one to the right.

The big lobo will kick your face as you squat near him.

Oh. Knot moved left toward one of the smaller and more nervous men, and stooped to reach for the pistol while keeping his right hand on Viveka. He got it. The big lobo to the right glowered but did not move.

Now make them walk ahead of you through that door,
Hermine thought, mentally indicating the door they had been taking him toward before.

“Single file, through that door,” Knot said aloud, indicating it with his pistol. What a difference the help of his psi-animal friends made! What had been a nearly hopeless situation had transformed into an even chance. “Move!”

They hesitated.
They know that passage is filled with stungas,
Hermine thought.
They were going to make you go first, then put on masks.

“If you don’t move, I shall ray you down one by one,” Knot announced. He pointed his weapon at the man nearest the door. “You have a free choice: the door or the laser.”

So now they knew he knew. Reluctantly, the man walked to the door. The others followed.

The third man is going to try a break
, Hermine warned.

Knot fired the laser, merely burning the third man on the shoulder. “I can score better than that when I try,” he said. The man reconsidered, and stepped on into the passage.

By the time they got to the far side of the hall, they were staggering. The gas did not knock them all the way out; it was diffuse, and only bemused them so that they lacked full coordination and free will. Evidently it was absorbed through the skin as well as the lungs, or they would have tried to hold their breaths. Knot noticed that the lobos wore fairly tight-fitting clothes that covered most of their bodies; no flesh showed beyond faces and wrists. Head mask and gloves would take care of that. Only Viveka would have needed more protection—and probably she would not have entered that hall at all. Her job was interviewer, not executioner. Quite a little system the lobos had here; they must have processed a lot of psis recently.

“Now where?” Knot asked.

Mit doesn’t know. It is beyond his range. There are many people, many passages; too many to fathom.

He’s only a little crab, after all,
Knot thought.
He doesn’t have your ability to borrow the brain capacity of the mind he deals with.

He does, a little, especially when I relay to him. But we could not free ourselves without you.

We’d better get ourselves to a good hiding place,
Knot thought.
We need to give the lobos time to forget me. Then escape will be easier.

Mit says there is a storage closet no one will check soon.

Good. A complex escape plan was beyond the crab, but a simple temporary hiding place was manageable. Knot walked to the closet, picking a route that Mit knew was clear of lobos for the moment. Once they were safely ensconced in the fairly spacious closet, he settled down for some catching up.
You say CC made me forget you?

And the full story came out: Knot had agreed to serve as Cc’s agent, being convinced at last that this was his necessary course. However, he would have been highly vulnerable had this information remained in his conscious mind. CC needed a secret agent, and with telepaths about, there could be no conscious secrets. His own psi talent could not be concealed from telepathic or mechanical observation, but it tended to protect itself by its very nature, and seemed largely harmless.

Knot’s CC-related experiences had, with his permission, been selectively edited, to be restored only by key thoughts or situations. Finesse had summoned him to Planet Macho by a key reference to chickens; a physical threat had given him recollection of the combat training be had received; and Hermine’s name, thought to him, had restored her to him.

His attitude toward CC had passed muster under the lobo drug interrogation because it was genuine—or had been, before he learned more about CC’s nature and problems. So many opinions of so many people were based on ignorance, and he had been among that multitude. Until now, his memory restored.

Finesse, too, had been selectively blanked. She had, it seemed, believed she was near a lead on CC’s enemy. So she had, without consciously realizing why, summoned Knot. He, in turn, was to serve as a lure for enemy contact. It had worked, though not precisely the way planned; the lobos had abducted him before revealing their nature. Now he had the answer; he knew who was lobotomizing CC operatives, and why. All he had to do was escape with the information.

So Finesse had not really forgotten him, any more than he had forgotten Hermine and Mit. The forgetting had been something other than personal disinterest. At any rate, each had played his or her part flawlessly; had any enemy snooped on either their words or their minds, that enemy would have acquired nothing of real value. The best traps were not at all obvious, until sprung.

Now he could share his love with Finesse. Except—

What would happen to her? Viveka had said Finesse would be picked up. The lobos surely had the ability to do it.
I must get to her and warn her, help her,
he thought.

It is not yet safe,
Hermine responded.
The lobos have not yet forgotten you. They have discovered the drugged ones, and know you are loose on the premises.