The Assassin

I

There is an ancient saying to the effect that nothing concentrates the mind so much as the knowledge that one has been sentenced to die in the morning. While I can attest to its validity I do not welcome the heightened sense of my own unique existence that it brings, nor the way it causes me to be assailed with doubts and uncertainties that I had resolved never to consider.

Not that I have doubts about the rightness of what I have done, but I find myself struggling to maintain the faith that these last few hours before death are not really the end, and that I will continue on in a better world. Paradoxically, I now wish more than ever I had managed to destroy myself as soon as the deed had been done, destroyed myself before these doubts could take root.

When they interrogated me it was in their power to make me say whatever they wished, but as they did not suspect the truth it was not in their power to make me say it. Now I have been allowed the tools to make one final "confession" in the few hours remaining before the ritual act of execution. Rather than the "truth" they are hoping for it will only confirm their worst unacknowledged nightmare.

II

It was just over two standard galactic years ago, as that unit of time is measured in Federation controlled space, that Kreshenko called me to his office overlooking a small park in an inner suburb of New York IV. Already seated in one of two deeply padded armchairs facing Kreshenko's ostentatiously huge desk of polished tallenwood was a man I had never seen before. Kreshenko introduced him simply as "Dr White" as the man heaved himself out of his chair into a semi-crouch to limply shake my hand before receding back into the depths of the armchair where he remained, silent and observant, while Kreshenko proceeded to explain the purpose of our meeting.

Kreshenko started by giving me a quick rundown on the the situation on Sirius III, better know as the fractious planet Virgana. Most of what he said I already knew from departmental gossip and what any reasonably discerning resident of the Federation would have been able to glean from a perusal of the major news sources. What it essentially boiled down to was that the long simmering campaign to remove the planet from the Federation by members of the Vingalian religious sect, who were the largest single population group on the planet, comprising nearly half of the total population, had lately been gaining in strength and effectiveness to an extent that was now ringing alarm bells in the upper echelons of Federation halls of power.

Attacks on installations and personnel had become increasingly more sophisticated and difficult to defend against while the political campaign by the Ving's legal political party now called for an independent Virgana that would be better able to manage its own affairs in accordance with its "unique mix of cultural values and economic interests". This was in place of the traditional goal mandated by their scriptures and prophets of a holy Virgana, populated exclusively by devout followers of their peculiar faith, that would become the capital of the Vingalian Holy Republic, a nearby agglomeration of impoverished star systems occupied almost entirely by their coreligionists.

That Virgana was a "unique mix" was certainly true. Mineral rich and fertile, within reasonable access to major trade routes, and with an agreeable semi-tropical climate over much of its land area, it had been a magnet over the eons for those in search of economic opportunity or refuge from chaos and persecution, particularly during the turmoil following the fall of the ancient Sol Empire when there had been little restriction on the movement of peoples. As a result, its population was a heterogeneous mix of races and cultures, most of whom managed to live in relative harmony with each other.

The chief exception to this were the ascetic and religiously puritanical Vingalians, who claimed to be the planets first inhabitants, generally kept to themselves, and predominated in the more arid and less hospitable regions of the planet. Like two tectonic plates grinding massively against each other beneath the surface of Virganan society the inevitable tensions between the Vings and their planetary co-inhabitants would periodically find release in spasms of violent conflict and retribution.

Such had been the case on Virgana from almost time immemorial. The Federation liked to flatter itself with the notion that since Virgana's inclusion almost a century and a half ago that the cycle of violence had been broken. Too short a period for ancient enmities to completely die out perhaps, but since inclusion Vingalian ire had been primarily directed at the Federation itself rather than their fellow Virganans. Leading to the present Vingalian position that it was the Federation that was the problem and if it would just leave, peace would reign.

This view seemed to cynically amuse Kreshenko. "No doubt they would wish us to forget Virgana's storied past before its inclusion in the Federation" he acerbically remarked. "The sectarian warfare, the pogroms and inquisitions, the torture and burning as the Vings tried to purge the planet of the heretics that outnumbered them but were too divided to effectively defend themselves. The Federation turned chaos into peace and stability by doing for Virgana what it couldn't do for itself."

"Perhaps," I said, more for the sake of being argumentative—Kreshenko could become quite tiresome once he got into lecture mode—than because I really disagreed with him, "they're just looking for a peaceful resolution to a situation we've never been able to completely resolve."

Kreshenko snorted dismissively, "Please, don't insult my intelligence, the Ving extremists would see to it that there would never be a peaceful final resolution. An extremely violent resolution perhaps where they got everything they wanted, but not a peaceful one.

"Their intolerance of others is part of who they are," he continued, starting to lecture again. "The rest of the planet takes for granted the benefits we've brought them and the Vings now seek to persuade them they can do without us. Has it not occurred to them that the violence now so cunningly directed at us can just as easily be turned against them once we are gone, as it was in the past?"

"It's been almost a hundred and fifty years now that they've been part of the Federation," I remarked dryly, "I don't imagine there's many people left alive who can remember what those times were like. To the present generation those events must seem like something from another place, something that has nothing to do with them. One of those things they learn about from an education module and then forget about as soon as they pass the exam."

"Those who ignore their history are doomed to repeat it," Kreshenko stated with pedantic conviction.

"And time heals all wounds," I said, countering one worn out aphorism with another.

"Not when you have a whole religious establishment, right from that pack of rabid wolves that calls itself the Holy High Council to the lowest flea bitten monk, making it their business to pick and scratch at every age old wound and scab with every sermon they make to the faithful." There was some bitterness now in Kreshenko's voice. I recalled that he had been on the Virgana file a long time, had lost a number of friends there.

"History is everything to religious fanatics like the ones who run things in Ving society," he went on, "it's their bread and butter—what they live by. Every past injustice and injury—real or imagined—is studied and picked over until it becomes the essence of who they are and the people they lead."

"On Virgana at least," I observed, "they seem to be saying they're willing to put the past behind them and get along with others. It's been awhile since they've made any public mention of Germiad and fulfilling his prophesies."

"Ah yes, Germiad," said Kreshenko sourly, "there was a singular character. A prime example of what I said about the Vings being fixated by the mythology of past injustice and martyrdom."

In truth though, Germiad actually had existed, though it was difficult to separate the fact from the legend of his existence. Emerging from unknown origins, he had risen some eleven hundred years ago as the messianic leader of an obscure religious sect that had taken root among the impoverished lower classes of a remote backwater sector of the then reigning Sol System Empire.

Calling themselves "Vingalians,"—which in the regional dialect of the time was a term apparently used to refer to anything or anyone "blessed by God"—Germiad and his prophesies had given the sect the sense of a glorious future destiny it needed to gain new adherents and expand its influence. Germiad went so far as to name thirteen so-called home planets that he claimed had been set aside for them by God for the purpose of creating a holy Vingalian nation free of the corrupting influence of non-believers.

Given the implications of his prophesies for the mostly non-Vingalian populations of the thirteen planets it is perhaps not surprising that Germiad had a short lived career. His ministry lasted less than five years before his execution on Kronos IV for fomenting insurrection among that planets Ving population.

His execution however had come too late to have the desired effect of stopping the spread of his messianic message. Instead the story of his martyrdom had merely served to immortalize it and became the main vehicle by which it was propagated further and new converts gained. Despite coming under increasing persecution by the authorities as the Sol empire itself began to collapse the Ving crusade to fulfill his prophesies gathered a seemingly unstoppable momentum. The first conquest of one of the thirteen planets did not occur for over a hundred years after Germiad's demise, but by a combination of relentless determination and unapologetic ruthlessness others soon followed until the non-believers had been driven out of all but one of the promised thirteen.

The one remaining unconquered planet was of course Virgana, by far the richest and most populous of the bunch, and as far as the Federation was concerned, the only one really worth having. It had now been almost two centuries since the conquest of the last of the twelve planets that formed the Vingalian Holy Republic but the inclusion of Virgana into the Federation—the eventual successor arising out of the ashes of the old empire—was the greatest barrier the Vings had yet faced in their quest to fulfill Germiad's prophesy.

Inclusion had effectively isolated the Vings on Virgana from their brethren in the Republic who dared not incur the wrath of the Federation by directly intervening in the political affairs of a Federation planet. Even covert aid to the insurrectionists on Virgana risked retaliation by the far superior forces of the Federation. For over a hundred years the Vings on Virgana had continued on with only marginal aid from outside in their so far futile quest to complete the prophesy while the prosperity brought by the Federation spread through the rest of the planet's population.

My suggestion that this futility had finally brought about a more compromising attitude towards the presence of non-believers aroused only scorn in Kreshenko."Their campaign against us continues, and if anything, is escalating," he pointed out derisively. "The more moderate propaganda may suck in a few of the more naive among the non-Ving population, but the Vings well know that most other Virganans will never consent to leaving the Federation. Historical amnesia or not, most Virganans have nothing to gain from such a thing. No—the Vings are mainly trying to influence public opinion in the rest of the Federation—maximizing the pain in terms of money and lives of Federation personnel lost while minimizing the consequences of Virgana going its own way. They're hoping that we'll throw up our hands in frustration and start looking for a way out, and if the majority of Virganans think they're being abandoned by the rest of the Federation then there's no telling what might happen, but if history is any guide it could get extremely ugly."

"So what then," I grudgingly inquired, "is being proposed? Past attempts to crack down have had little lasting success, while leaving a trail of havoc, bad publicity, and bloodshed in their wake."

"Quite the pessimist aren't you?" Kreshenko asked, then broke into a sharkish grin while exclaiming with relish, "But that is almost exactly what I told the Director and the Minister when I recommended a covert operation that will nip this current upsurge in Ving activity in the bud."

I silently sighed, I thought I had a pretty good idea of the kind of covert operation he was talking about: the kind we would rarely admit to but often ended up doing because it seemed to offer a cheap and easy solution to a difficult problem.

It was also the kind of operation Kreshenko loved, what he had excelled at as an operative and promoted with relentless gusto as an administrator. "We're going to strike at the very centre of their command structure," he enthused, "a single thrust to the very heart to incapacitate and demoralize them. It will set them back for years, and best of all, they won't even know what hit them."

"So," I said, keeping my voice carefully neutral while taking a discreet sidelong glance at the silent Dr. White—who sat slumped in his armchair—"you want to assassinate somebody, maybe this new Vingolo that's been rumoured, the possible successor to Germiad."

"I know," he said with a knowing smile, "you're going to say that getting somebody really important in the command hierarchy of a secretive quasi-governmental organization like the Vings is very difficult and very risky."

"Particularly to the operatives carrying out the mission," I said. "And we don't do suicide missions—I presume that hasn't changed."

"Of course," he said darkly, as though I had accused him of something. He hesitated then, as though he were about to say something more, but then thought better of it. A short silence ensued.

"All right then," he finally said with a sigh, as though something had just been settled.

"Even if you successfully remove this possible new Vingolo," I said, wanting to prolong the discussion, as though things hadn't already been settled and the decision made, because I was afraid of what was coming next, "you'll just be handing them another martyr for the cause, like Germiad."

"That's not the point," he retorted, a scowl returning to his face, "martyrs are for losers. The problem with Germiad was that they didn't put a stop to him soon enough."

"Maybe it's already too late."

Kreshenko chose to ignore this last remark and instead turned his attention to the patiently waiting Dr White. "It is because of the work of Dr White," he said, "that we now have the means of efficiently eliminating this threat before it gets out of hand."

"Actually director," the doctor demurred in a soft voice with a faint nasal undertone, "my work merely builds on that of many others before me who deserve much more praise than I."

He was a man of smallish size with somewhat delicate features and a generally nondescript appearance that was enhanced by the totally unremarkable light grey office suit he wore. His deep brown eyes however had unreadable depths that made me think he had capabilities that belied his unassuming appearance.

"You are much too modest, doctor," Kreshenko admonished him with an admiring smile, "it was your leadership and scientific genius that enabled the program to advance at a far quicker pace than anyone thought possible."

"Are either of you going to explain to me what you're talking about? Or am I on the 'not to know' list?" I was annoyed because I prided myself on keeping my ear close to the ground and knowing just about everything that was going on in the department, officially and unofficially, and yet I had never heard of Dr White or his program.

There was an exchange of glances between the doctor and Kreshenko. "Don't worry, Hardwicke," Kreshenko's smile turned wolfish, "you'll soon be very familiar with the doctor's groundbreaking work."

III

Dr White had put on the traditional white lab coat over his grey suit for the tour as we passed through the security entrance—which included the unusual feature of an actual human guard prominently armed with a nasty looking laser blaster in addition to all of the usual automated devices—deep in the bowels, not of the Department's research wing, but that of an obscure civilian agency, which partially explained how Dr White and his program had escaped my notice. Once through security we came into a small ante-chamber that contained nothing except a very standard-looking interface portal. The far wall was transparent and looked out on a far larger room.

White unsealed the portal with a retinal scan and interfaced with it for no more than a minute while Kreshenko and I stood waiting. Evidently satisfied with what he had learned, the doctor locked it down again and turned to face us.

"For eons," he began, "researchers have sought to understand how existing information is linked together and prioritized and new information integrated into that web that is both instruction code and data memory and comprises what is colloquially referred to as the human mind, the seat of human consciousness, and metaphysically, as the human soul.

"Please do not misunderstand me, gentlemen," White held out a hand as though to ward something off, "we don't claim to now understand how human consciousness is created or its essential nature; after all, artificial intelligence exhibiting all the characteristics of self-awareness has been routinely produced for centuries and yet that knowledge has proved as elusive as ever. However the ability to recognize the patterns of molecular brain cell connections and transmitters in which the information is encoded has long existed in medical science. All that I and my team have done is discover a practical way of translating their organizational structure into manageable quantities of information that could be used to guide a molecular splicer.

"Am I making myself clear?" White's fathomless eyes looked into mine for the first time.

In truth his impromptu lecture had left me scrambling to grasp what it was he was trying to say, but his mention of the molecular splicer had suddenly given me a good idea of what this was all about.

"Yes," I replied, "if I understand you correctly you're saying that you've developed a way to describe or encode the human mind that enables a splicer to replicate that mind elsewhere, presumably using the the brain tissue of another human. Essentially rewiring the consciousness of one brain into that of another."

"Yes … rewiring," said the doctor slowly as he considered what I had said, "that's a good analogy. Though rewriting might be a more complete description as it involves not just connections and transmitters but, most importantly, information carried within the structure of the molecules themselves."

"But the opportunity that some will see in this, to copy and transfer their mind in chronic old age to a younger brain and body, could only come at the expense of any mind already existing in that brain." I paused as I followed my line of thought, then continued, "Even individuals who were specifically cloned and grown for that purpose would have to develop their own personalities for proper brain growth. Those with sufficient resources and ambition might want to create many replicates of themselves, creating an army of like minded individuals, and requiring an equivalent army of victims."

For a moment I thought I saw a veil lift in those otherwise inscrutable eyes to reveal—what? Outrage? Sadness? I couldn't tell which, or perhaps it had just been cynical amusement I saw, mixed with ruthless ambition. If there had been anything, it was gone almost as soon as it had appeared, leaving behind indecipherable bottomless depths.

Kreshenko coughed, "There are many possible applications of the doctors work," he said, "the one that concerns us today is the ability it gives us to infiltrate the highest organizational levels of groups such as the Vingalian insurgency on Virgana."

"You've actually done this?" I demanded of White. "You've been able to rewrite a human brain with another mind whose wiring or coding you've copied from another brain? You know for a fact this procedure works?"

"We have successfully performed the procedure numerous times with animals with brain structures very similar to ours—most notably terrestrial chimpanzees, who are our closest living relatives on the evolutionary tree, very rare and difficult to obtain—and also a few times with human test subjects."

At the mention of human test subjects White's gaze involuntarily flinched away from mine. It was the first crack I had yet seen in the doctor's hitherto imperturbable bland demeanour. Under what circumstances human testing of such a procedure would have taken place, it was hard to imagine, and the memory of it evidently caused the doctor some distress, however I could see no point in pursuing the matter.

"All that remains now," the doctor said brusquely as he began to sum up, "are some relatively minor adjustments and fine tuning of the procedure to make it faster and more efficient. All of the significant scientific and technological hurdles to its use have been overcome. Any that remain are rather of a psychological nature." The last sentence was quick and abrupt, said with reluctance but said nonetheless, as though he felt obliged, or somehow compelled, to do so.

The ethical difficulties that some would see as being associated with the use of such a technology were obvious and of little practical interest to me then—I could sense Kreshenko's impatience to get the doctor's little lecture over with—but I wanted to explore a little further what the doctor saw as the psychological hurdles.

"Indeed," I said, "I imagine it would be quite trying psychologically to know that you were occupying the body and brain of someone else, someone whose personality had been quite literally written over to make way for your own; it would give one almost a haunted feeling."

"I was referring rather," the doctor replied a little sharply, as though dismissing what I had just said as being of no account, "to the possible impact on an individual personality of knowing that there is a duplicate of itself-not identical genetically in the way identical twins are—but a mind with the exact same memories, the same identity of being. Of knowing that another entity existed that knew its most intimate thoughts and desires, its most shameful secrets. To have your consciousness duplicated, creating another you, is in a way the most complete violation of privacy there could be.

"Would this situation lead to friendship and co-operation between two such entities, or to suspicion and enmity? Would somebody in a body about to die really feel they had truly extended their lifespan once another version of their self had started to have a separate existence of its own? There would then—"

The doctor had begun to ramble.

"Doctor," Kreshenko interjected, "this is all very interesting speculation and may have some future relevance, but for our present purposes it really has no—"

"But it has, Director," the doctor struggled to keep his tone at its usual mild professorial level as he differed with Kreshenko, "perhaps most particularly in this situation it is of particular— "

"I think it best if we move directly to showing agent Hardwicke how we plan to proceed," Kreshenko said firmly. "That, after all, is what directly concerns him and why he is here. Agent Hardwicke is more than capable enough to look out for himself and to ask any questions that need asking regarding his own self-interest."

White regarded me for a moment, as though trying to evaluate the truth of this statement, then shrugged his thin shoulders and motioned for us to follow him.

He led us through a door in the transparent wall into the adjoining room, which was the same width but much longer. At the far end was a row of narrow hospital style beds grouped in pairs. Between the beds of each pair was a low table on which was set a flat rectangular object with two rows of switches and dials set into the top surface.

Three wires led from each object: the shortest one, coloured red, connected to a port in the wall; the other two, coloured yellow and blue respectively, led to the beds on the left and right where they disappeared into clumps made of a dense mesh of fine silvery strands that lay on each of the beds.

Of the four pairs of beds in the room two were unoccupied, a pair between the two empty pairs was fully occupied, while the farthest bed at the end of the room was the only one occupied of that pair. The fully occupied pair held what I immediately recognized as two terrestrial chimpanzees, the first ones I had ever seen outside of a holo vid and likely the only ones, unless the doctor had some more somewhere, in this entire sector of space.

White halted us in front of the chimps. "I've prepared these two to demonstrate how the procedure is performed," he said. Both of the chimps had the fine mesh nets stretched over their craniums and appeared to be unconscious.

"The actual procedure of recording the data set of a mind and replicating it in the neural circuitry of a recipient brain can now be accomplished within a few minutes," he went on."Prior to performing it an electric current is sent through the sleep centres of both brains to put them in a coma-like state. This makes for a more stable data set and minimizes complications arising from additions being made to the data set while the procedure is taking place. Once the procedure is completed the subjects can be brought back to full consciousness almost immediately with a similar current."

I looked curiously at the two chimps; examining their odd-seeming proportions and prognathous faces, their hairy bodies with long gangling arms and short stumpy legs. They seemed completely at ease in their unconscious state, there was a barely perceptible rising and falling of their barrel chests and a slight fluttering of their wide nostrils as they breathed easily in and out in a regular pattern.

"When does the mind transference process start?" I asked, "Or has it already begun?"

White strode up to the terminal between the chimps and flipped a switch. "I am initiating the process now." he said. Areas on the surface lighted and changed in a seemingly random kaleidoscope of shifting colours and hues that White studied for a few seconds before making adjustments that seemed to moderate slightly the pace at which the patterns moved.

"I am reducing slightly the rate of transmission to a level the recipient chimp brain can more easily accommodate in order to reduce feedback," he explained.

"Feedback?"

"Data can be more quickly recorded and readied for transmission from the donor brain than it can be inscribed into the neural and synaptic structures of the recipient brain by the molecular splicer. If it is streamed to the splicer faster than the splicer can rearrange the molecules into their new patterns, it gets sent back, resulting in a lengthier and more inefficient process."

"But you can store the data from the donor brain, can't you? And then re-inscribe its mind back into it's original brain?"

"Technically yes, though how often brain tissue can undergo this type of procedure is something we're not sure of yet. For now," White gestured to the chimp on the left, "this one's data will remain on file."

The sleeping chimps showed no signs of any outward physical distress, their bodies and limbs remained limp and relaxed. It seemed difficult to believe that beneath its peaceful facade the personality of chimp on the left was being rapidly removed. The very essence of who it was as an individual creature that had resided within the unique and complex patterns of molecules of grey matter inside its cranium was being altered and replaced by those of another.

"It's just a chimp," I said to myself. A primitive semi-sentient being with probably no real sense of itself as a unique individual. Nevertheless, something about the silent and surreptitious nature of its usurpation appalled me. Almost better, I thought, despite the chance of some future resurrection, to die screaming in the jungle fighting a predator to the last. At least then the violation would be purely physical, it would be true to itself to the end.

The doctor may have sensed my unease. "The whole procedure is completely painless," his tone sounded almost apologetic, "and for the chimps, free of anxiety. For one it is like dying in its sleep, for the other like taking a nap after which its companion will have, initially at least, the exact same personality as itself."

"An exact duplicate that will be waking up in another body," I said. "For the duplicate at least that's bound to cause some disorientation."

"Initially it does, of course," the doctor replied, "but we've found they soon get over it. Perhaps for chimps one body and life is very much like another."

For chimps, perhaps.

The process completed itself within a few minutes and as the kaleidoscope of colours playing across the surface of the terminal box died out, we left the chimps sleeping quietly and moved on to the lone occupant of the farthest bed at the end of the room. As we approached I felt a rising sense of apprehension, a slight clenching in the pit of my stomach, as though steeling myself for the sight of something unpleasant.

What lay on this bed was not just humanoid but clearly human, a member of my own species: male, of regular build and height, round shaped head with a prominent forehead partially covered by locks of lank dirty blond hair. The flatish face possessed close set eyes above a ski-jump nose and a small prim mouth. Though clad in prison fatigues, given what I already knew about the operation Kreshenko had in mind, it was safe to assume he was a Vingalian native of Virgana.

Virgana is generally a bright and sunny world where anybody spending any amount of time outside has a well tanned complexion, however this fellow's complexion was sun-burnt rather than tanned, indicating recent unusual exposure without the benefit of sunscreen. Similarly the skin of the smallish, almost delicate, hands appeared raw and scraped as though recently subjected to rough usage of a nature they were unaccustomed to.

Judging by relatively smooth youthful-appearing skin and a full head of hair, I surmised his age to be early to mid twenties. I also knew he wouldn't be here if he didn't somehow represent access to the rumoured new Vingolo, the possible successor to Germiad, whoever he might be. Combined with his appearing to have led a sheltered existence until quite recently, this led me to guess he was probably a resident of one of their monastic seminaries, a young priest in training or aspiring theologian.

"So this is who you wish to transfer my mind into," I said. It was a statement, not a question.

"This is the recipient into whose brain a duplicate of your personality data set will be replicated," the doctor stated succinctly, emphasizing the words 'duplicate' and 'replicated'. "You yourself will be totally unaffected and can carry on with your life as before." He too was making a statement, not asking the question of whether I agreed to this; my cooperation was assumed.

"Who is he?" I inquired of Kreshenko, though I suddenly realized it really didn't matter, because as the doctor had said, it really didn't have much to do with me; I was simply going to give them a duplicate of my personality and then I would be done with it.

"Scort Bislortion," Kreshenko replied, "a rising star among their theological scholars. Intelligence sources had led us to believe he might have access to the reputed new Vingolo. As it turned out, his subsequent capture and interrogation confirmed this. He was for some time a student understudy of this potential Vingolo at the seminary where Bislortion still studies and lives. Though already a prominent and important figure, he apparently took a shine to the brilliant young novice and they became friends, something quite unusual between teacher and student in that environment. Bislortion confirmed that he still has occasional access to him."

"An impressive catch," I mused. "How did you manage to snare him, and isn't he likely to be missed, and they be suspicious of him once he reappears?"

"That's the advantage this new procedure of Dr White's gives us," Kreshenko crowed. "No time spent suborning someone to becoming your agent, no awkward hand holding or worrying about a double-cross. We just grab someone we think has the access we want, replace their personality with a replicate of that of one of our own agents in a procedure that takes less than an hour, and then send them on their way. It's the ultimate Trojan horse, and with no risk to our own agent, I might add."

"How long have you had him?"

"Just over twenty-four hours—subjective Virgana time. We picked him up after he went on a solitary retreat required of seminary students as part of their training—you know, fasting and meditating, communing with God and having visions, all of that—in a remote desert region not too far from where his seminary is. As soon as we got him we bundled him up to the fastest interstellar transport we've got and interrogated him in transit. He just got here a little over two hours ago."

"So then," I said, "when does he—or his body, rather, governed by a duplicate of my personality—go back to Virgana?"

"Right away," replied Kreshenko crisply, "Bislortion wasn't high enough up in the ranks for the Vings to think we would have any interest in him, so he didn't rate bodyguards, and he had no tracking device on him—part of the ritual of being totally isolated while on the retreat—so he won't be immediately missed while he's supposed to be meditating alone in the wilderness. He isn't due back from the retreat for about another week, but we don't want to take any chances, so he'll go back immediately as soon as the duplicate has been installed. The duplicate will be briefed on all the necessary mission details, including everything useful we could extract from Bislortion during his interrogation, during the trip back."

"That's not going to be much prep time," I protested, "for a mission like this there should—"

"We can't risk taking more time than that," Kreshenko interrupted impatiently, "we had to take advantage of this opportunity when it came up, and that means playing it by ear to a certain extent. You're the best operative we have for this kind of work, and I'm confident that your replicate will be able to deal with any contingencies that may arise. If you'll just lie down in the other bed, the doctor can get you prepped and ready in ten minutes and you'll be out of here within the hour."

"What?" I said, pretending to be taken by surprise, for I knew Kreshenko's style, his way of doing things, and had figured this was how he would do it; giving me as little time as possible to think about it. "Don't I, or my duplicate to be rather, get a last night on the town? A last chance to enjoy some female company before joining the ranks of the Vingalian holy orders?"

"You can spend tonight wherever and with whomever you want," Kreshenko replied with growing irritation. He gestured to the empty bed, "For you, this mission ends when you get off that bed in about an hour's time."

"For me it does," I said with a wave of my hand towards the unconscious Bislortion, "but what about what goes into him?"

I said this not out of any real concern for something that didn't even exist yet, but rather to simply show Kreshenko that I was well aware of what was going down. As for the duplicate itself, I thought of it as I would of someone I never had and never would meet and therefore could have no real feeling or concern for. Not even that, really, taking my cue from the doctor and Kreshenko, who continually referred to it as simply the 'duplicate' or as a 'replicate', as a thing rather than a person, I had likewise conveniently slipped into the habit of not thinking of it as a real person. It was the duplicate; bits of data copied from the neural patterns of my brain, similar to a computer program or robot, to be used as needed and then discarded.

"Yes," the doctor said, "that is my point, it is the the psychological rather than the technological hurdles that I believe will be the—"

"Yes, yes doctor, we know," Kreshenko hastily cut him off, "the psychological rather than the technological. But for Hardwicke, here, there will be no such complications, he will simply get up and carry on as before."

Kreshenko noticed my hesitation and slapped me on the back and said "Let me worry about him," gesturing toward Bislortion as though it was Bislortion he was going to be dealing with. "We just need you to do your part here, and then I'll take it from there." He gripped my shoulder. "You're one of our best agents. That's why I chose you for this. You've had experience on Virgana, you're familiar with the Ving language and culture, and you're quick on your feet, and that's what this mission calls for." He looked me in the eye, "I've always been able to count on you when it counted most, Morton, and the success of this mission is vital to the peace and stability of the Federation."

So I went along with what they asked me to do, not that I had ever had much choice in the matter. I did it partly because I was able to avoid thinking too much about the full implications of what I was doing. Mostly I did it because I was, and had always been, a loyal foot soldier in the never ending war to keep the Federation safe from its enemies. Kreshenko had chosen his template well, for he knew my unshakable belief in the virtues of the Federation and my willingness to do the sometimes hard things that had to be done to ensure its survival to the benefit of the greater good—things that more squeamish, less practical men, might sometimes flinch from.

IV

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was the blank institutional whiteness of the ceiling, which was the last thing I had seen before I had closed my eyes what had seemed only a moment ago. Despite this it looked strangely different from the last time I had seen it. This was of course because despite being roughly a decade younger Scort Bislortion's eyesight was not quite as acute and clear as Morton Hardwicke's had been.

I shifted my gaze down to the foot of the bed and saw Kreshenko and Dr White standing there. They too looked strangely different and were regarding me with an attitude of what I can only describe as wary expectancy. More importantly what I also saw was the lower half of a body that was definitely not my own, aside from being clad in prison blues rather than the street clothes I had worn when I had gone under, the lower torso and limbs were decidedly slimmer and less muscular than my own.

My mind moved sluggishly as I struggled to control the feelings of disorientation and panic rising up within me as I turned my head with an effort to gaze upon the bed I had previously been lying on. It was empty of course but there was still the faint impression imprinted upon the smooth white sheets of the body that had lain there. Drugged, I finally realized, they've drugged me to lessen the shock of waking up to find I'm the duplicate.

I closed my eyes as I struggled with the realization, struggled to adapt to it and not drown in fear and hysteria. I was the duplicate. I was not just going to get up and walk back to the life I had always known. I was the thing that I had not even been supposed to think about, the thing that was expected to go on a mission from which there would be no return, content in the knowledge my real self was safe back on New York IV. It was not only fear that I struggled with, but irrational anger and resentment. It was directed not only towards Kreshenko and Dr White, but most especially towards 'him', who had also been myself. How—goddamn him—had he—I agreed to this?

But of course I already knew the answer to that: I had willingly allowed myself to be put unconscious in the bed beside me because I had been thinking only of myself, knowing that I would shortly be waking up in that same bed and then walking away and never have to again see or have anything to do with Scort Bislortion and the strange cursed creature that would be inhabiting the shell of his body.

And in fact somebody I had once been had indeed done just that. Except I was no longer that somebody, I was the strange cursed thing, and as I struggled to come to terms with this without tipping over into a bottomless well of despair, I damned to hell the brutal callous man who had done this to me. He was the lucky one, the one who had won some strange metaphysical flip of the coin and who I longed to be, and who I now envied and hated more than I had ever envied or hated anyone before. I lay there, eyes shut, struggling to master the storm of emotions roiling within me, for what must have been only a few moments but seemed like an eternity.

Perhaps it was only due to the drugs that I did not give in completely to despair at that moment. When I regained some semblance of rational control over myself I cautiously opened my new eyes, different and not quite as sharp as the ones I had looked at the world with less than an hour ago. Kreshenko and the doctor were still there, watching with wary curiosity.

My drugged mind moved sluggishly as I struggled to think of what to do or say. During the adrenaline rush of the initial panic when I had realized my situation it had been as though my mental processes were fighting against a strong wind, now as the effects of that rush wore off it was as though they were wading through glue.

"Welcome to the land of the living, agent," said Kreshenko with a genial smile.

V

Scort Bislortion had been 23 years old ES when he had been spirited away by Kreshenko's agents, the son of a humbly devote factory technician and an equally devote but much less humble mother whose ambitions for her only son had been the dominate influence of his life. That and the relationship that developed between him and Atlar Vandor not long after arriving as a promising young novice at one of the most prestigious of the teaching seminaries maintained by the Vingalian church.

Those were the two most salient aspects of his life that I learned during the mere 10 hours I had been allotted—while in transit between star systems and while in cloaked orbit about Virgana waiting for night to fall in the region of the drop off point—to absorb all that Kreshenko's minions had been able to glean about the life and persona of Scort Bislortion.

Pushed by his mother, and with all his daily cares provided for by her and his three sisters, virtually every waking moment of his boyhood had been devoted to his studies; first at a local neighbourhood school and then later at a boarding school run by the church for youngsters who showed exceptional ability and promise. At the age of sixteen, two years sooner than usual, he had successfully passed the gruelling examination process to gain admittance to the seminary as an under novice, the first step on the long road towards becoming a high ranking official or theocratic scholar. There he had quickly attracted the attention of his instructors for his incisive grasp of matters both practical and theological. It hadn't taken long for him to come under the tutelage of Vandor, even then a figure of considerable charisma and importance, though not yet to the point of being considered by some to be a potential new Vingolo, the first in over a thousand years.

It was on Bislortion's relationship to Vandor that his interrogation had concentrated. Unfortunately the interrogators had not had all the time with him they would have liked and they were unsure to what extent they had been able to completely break him. According to what they had been able to extract the relationship had eventually bloomed to be more like that of two friends, even confidants, than that of teacher and pupil. But there had been limits; apparently the confiding had almost exclusively been by Bislortion, with Vandor giving the fatherly advice.

There have always been vague but persistent rumours and whispers of sexual liaisons within the walls of Ving seminaries. Bislortion vehemently denied that there was any sexual component to his relationship with Vandor, or to having any knowledge of any such relationship Vandor might have had with someone else. He did this well past the point where it would have been easier for him to just admit to such things whether true or not.

Bislortion had been equally adamant about his own sex life, claiming to have none. Those training for places within the hierarchy of the church were allowed to delay marriage, nearly always an arranged one, past the age considered normal in the society, but contact with the opposite sex until that time was usually kept to a strict minimum. That raised the knotty question of what outlets young men like Bislortion had for their sexual urges but if his claim to having no such relationship were true it would certainly make it easier for me in assuming his place.

The interrogators had also managed to obtain the names and brief profiles of those who Bislortion described as being the most important of his friends and others he dealt with on a daily basis at the seminary, such as instructors and maintenance staff. Due however to the relative brevity and uncertain validity of the knowledge we had about Bislortion, I was still going to have to wing it to a considerable extent.

On the plus side I was fluent in colloquial Vingalian and had a rudimentary familiarity with Musan, the archaic dialect of their religious texts. I also had a general understanding of what those texts contained and the basic tenants of the religion. Compared however with what Bislortion would know my knowledge was slight and I was clearly going to be out of my depth if drawn into a substantial discussion on such matters, something that Bislortion presumably did on a fairly regular basis but that I was going to have to avoid.

And so I boned up on Musan and the intricacies of Vingalian religious scripture and practice during the ten hours I had been given, as well as absorbing everything that Kreshenko's henchmen had been able to extract out of Bislortion about himself and his life at the seminary.

I learned the material quickly enough to surprise both my handlers and myself. Scort Bislortion was gone. I had no doubt of that. If he existed at all anymore it was only as a file Kreshenko had on hand somewhere. He had been thoroughly erased from the brain and body I now inhabited and there were no ghosts flitting through the back of my mind to haunt me like some avenging avatar. Rather it seemed to be a case of my inhabiting the flesh that had once been his, and assuming his identity making it seem natural to me that I should excel in the same areas that he had. I had always been good at languages, and theology is mostly just an exercise in a particular kind of logic, so the potential had always been there, it just took usurping the life of Scort Bislortion to bring it out.

By design I wasn't given many free moments for reflection while we waited in orbit about Virgana, but some thoughts intruded nonetheless. One was that what had been done to Scort Bislortion was beginning to bother me. Though it could safely be assumed that he had been anti-Federation simply because he had been Ving, and a religious one at that, as far as anyone knew he had never been involved even indirectly in any action against us. Nonetheless, because of somebody he knew, we had stolen his body and reduced his consciousness, the immaterial and indefinable essence of who he had been, to an inanimate lump of data on a storage device. Theoretically Kreshenko might bring him back should he ever see some use in doing so, but more than likely the data would just stay there for as long as the storage remained viable or until somebody saw fit to erase it.

And I was a copy of someone else. Which made me what? Was I no longer Morton Hardwicke, was he someone else to me now? Certainly there was now someone quite separate from me, though nearly identical in mind, back on New York IV who was quite indisputably Morton Hardwicke. As every moment passed since we became two we become a little more distinct from each other, as our differing experiences since that time shaped and moulded who we were.

I tried to ignore these thoughts as I prepared for the mission and waited for night to fall in the drop zone. I clung to the knowledge that my almost certain destruction as a result of carrying out the mission would only be the termination of a temporary facsimile of Morton Hardwicke that had been created for the very specific purpose of carrying out the mission. The original, the "real", Morton Hardwicke would still be alive back on New York IV and I was in essence Morton Hardwicke as well, so therefore I would not really be dying.

At least that is how I tried to look at it then and how I continue to try to look at it now. It was certainly how I had looked at it when I had let my mind be replicated, back when I had still been the original Morton Hardwicke. No, that's not quite true, the original me had not really thought about it that much. Perhaps the lack of empathy—the self-centredness—I had possessed then had been a necessary requirement in an occupation that could sometimes call for rapid decisions with deadly consequences for others. It had also led me to give little consideration to the ultimate fate of the not-yet-existing duplicate.

But there was no question of trying to back out. As Morton Hardwicke, I had lived by the credo that mine was a hard profession that sometimes required that hard things be done, and I had taken pride in being able to do those hard things when necessary, whatever the price to myself or others. I had known others who had paid the ultimate price and accepted it stoically as the risk of doing their duty. Surely I could do the same in the face of the destruction of something that wasn't even a permanent part of who I was.

VI

The small one-man insertion craft slipped over the dark mystery of the arid landscape while the auto-pilot homed in on the landing point co-ordinates of Scort Bislortion's last campsite. The craft had all the latest anti-detection technologies that rendered it invisible to not just any detection capabilities the Vings might possess but also to the Federation's planetary defence perimeter. The mission was as deep undercover as Kreshenko could get it and he wasn't going to risk informing planetary defence and having the mission put in jeopardy by Ving infiltrators within the the defence system.

I got a grim chuckle however out of the thought of one of Kreshenko's prized deep cover operations getting shot out of the sky by a Federation battery.

The flight went without incident however and roughly five hours before sunrise the craft slowed to a stop and hovered silently on its anti-grav units a hundred metres over the transmitter. I peered out the two small portholes on either side of the craft and visually surveyed the scene. Only one of Virgana's four moons was visible over the horizon; the nearly full ghostly blue Ahora, the ocean moon, casting its pale shade over the still landscape, throwing black shadows of cacti and prickly scrub against the transparent blue flooding across the land.

The craft's sensor array gave no indication of any type of human or artificial activity in the area and after receiving the all clear from the transport orbiting overhead and making one last visual inspection, I punched the button initiating the landing sequence. As it settled gently to the ground I activated the entrance unlocking mechanism and jumped out onto the surface of Virgana, stumbling slightly as I did so, feet uncertainly searching for traction in the loose dirt and gravel, still not completely at home in a body I had just recently occupied.

Recovering my balance I traced with a hand held receiver the almost microscopically small transmitter to where it had been deposited at the foot of a large cactus. Scooping it up with a handful of sandy grit I quickly took it back to the craft and exchanged it for Bislortion's pack sack containing his camping gear and personal effects. I then activated the outside locking mechanism and stood back as the entrance slid closed and the craft rose silently into the night. It was almost immediately lost to my sight, the optical camouflage field melding it seamlessly into the moonlit sky.

I was alone, more alone than I had ever been or had ever hoped to be, alone not only in unfamiliar territory far from home but alone in an unfamiliar body that was not my own.

Close by to the large cactus were the blackened remains of a small campfire in the centre of a small patch of ground that had been cleared of rocks and debris and scuffed smooth. Though the night was warm and it wouldn't be long till sunrise, I gathered some dry twigs and sticks and made a tiny fire on the ruins of the old.

Virgana's atmosphere has an oxygen content of nearly 24 percent and the fire crackled merrily—a bright comfort in a dark and shadowy world. I laid down on the bare ground beside the fire with a blanket over me and fed more sticks into the voracious flames. I stared into the tiny inferno, my mind running back over the events of the last twenty-four hours as I attempted to come to terms with my situation.

The mission objective was for me to remove a potentially deadly threat to the peace and stability of the Federation. Beyond that there was no real plan beyond an open ended directive to go into the seminary in the guise of Scort Bislortion and then pick my chance to eliminate Vandor when and however I could. There was no exit plan, not even a token one had been discussed. It was the lack of any need for a workable exit plan that made the mission possible at all.

I didn't even get the legendary poison pills, the hallmark of so many literary double agents, because the Federation didn't do that sort of thing. But I had the mind of a trained agent, I could get creative if I wanted to take that way out.

As I lay there beside the fire under Bislortion's blanket, shivering slightly despite the relative warmth of the night while staring into the flames, I told myself I should be content with how things were, happy for the chance to do a great service for the Federation.

VII

I slept fitfully through the few hours that remained till dawn, hours that seemed to stretch on interminably. At last dawn did arrive, first heralded by a slight lightening on the eastern horizon that gradually deepened into a spreading orange smudge that intensified in the middle until finally the edge of Virgana's sun, huge and hulking red, slipped over the horizon to throw the first rays of its warm, almost pastel light over the land.

After having waited impatiently for its arrival, now that dawn had come I felt a lethargy that urged me to continue lying there huddled by the remains of the campfire, dozing pleasantly in the warming morning rays. As the sun continued to rise I gradually fully awakened, and my spirits, in contrast to my sombre mood of the previous night, began to rise with it. Virgana is truly a blessed planet, for this was one of its most inhospitable regions and yet the morning had a pleasant crisp dryness to it and there was a slightly spicy tang to the air that, together with the relatively high oxygen content, caused me to feel as though I had just had a full night's sleep instead of just a few fitful hours.

For the next few days I wandered through the pristine scrub land in the general direction of where I knew Bislortion's pickup point to be, subsisting off of what remained of his meagre rations and a few small game animals that I was able to bring down with the slingshot he had been carrying with him. There was enough water to last me for a few days of sparing use, especially if I was careful not to overexert myself and sweat to any great degree, and I was able to supplement it with the moisture I obtained from the flesh of some of the larger cacti. It was a fairly pleasant and idyllic existence: the nights were dry and clear, the days warm and sunny, it never became either cold or hot enough to become seriously uncomfortable, and considering what was awaiting me, I was loathe to have it come to an end.

By mid-morning of the fifth day, however, I came within sight of the outpost where Bislortion was to go when he was ready to return to the seminary. It was a small featureless square tower no more than three stories high and about ten metres on a side. It's uniformly dun colouring caused it to blend almost seamlessly into the surrounding terrain. The directions the four walls faced corresponded exactly with the cardinal points.

As I cautiously approached I could detect no signs of any human habitation or activity. I knew Bislortion would by now have been out for some fourteen days, which would be considered an acceptable period for such sojourns into the wilderness to commune with the All Mighty.

As the intention was to be as isolated and apart from the rest of humanity as possible, that apparently making it easier to get closer to said All Mighty, he had carried no communication or tracking devices to let anybody know when he had arrived at the pick up point. That there didn't appear to be anybody waiting for him was reassuring in its way, certainly it gave no indication that the Vings had somehow gotten wind of anything being amiss with Scort Bislortion.

Once I got to the tower, the outline of a single door in the east facing wall became visible. There was a small shallow concavity set in the door's centre which I guessed to be the portal for a retinal scanner. Putting my left eye against the concavity there followed the sound of grating sand as the door slid up to reveal a single high-ceiling room occupying the entire space within the tower. Shafts of reddish gold sunlight from three tiers of polarized windows invisible from the outside filled the room with a soft ambience that appeared almost liquid.

The simple furnishings consisted solely of two lightly padded chairs with curving armrests, a small round wooden table and a narrow cot against the opposite west wall. The floor had no coverings of any kind and consisted of tightly fitted together blocks of grey pumice. Against the south facing wall was a low counter shaped from a single block of pumice out of which a bowl shaped sink had been hollowed, beside the sink was a small hand pump of dully gleaming brass.

I cranked the pump's handle and a clear stream of water splashed into the sink, darkly staining the grey rock before disappearing down the drain with a soft gurgle. Cupping my hands under the stream I washed my face with its refreshing coolness, experiencing a slight shock as I ran my hands over the still unfamiliar contours of Bislortion's visage.

There was a stone mug sitting on the counter which I filled to near brimming. In the ambient sunlight that filled the room the water had an almost viscous appearance but it slipped effortlessly down my throat as I quaffed it, and tasted exceeding pure in a way I find almost impossible to describe. It must come from an aquifer deep beneath the surface, I thought, where it had pooled pure and clean after filtering through seemingly endless rock, cleansed of outside impurities and corruptions, then brought to the surface for the refreshment of those who had been similarly purified by isolation and communion with the ultimate embodiment of purity and goodness.

I caught myself in the midst of this reverie; where had that come from, I wondered with a grimace. Outside impurities and corruptions? Ultimate embodiment of purity and goodness? It had made sense to immerse myself as much as possible into the persona of Scort Bislortion, but I couldn't let that kind of religious mysticism, something naturally inspired by the isolation of the stark landscape and the atmospherics of this place, to influence me to the point of affecting how I perceived things.

The water probably came from a tank buried just under the floor of this place, I told myself, the pure taste achieved by some combination of chemicals. It would be much easier to do that and bring in the small amount of water needed than drilling all the way down to an aquifer. As for Bislortion, instead of being purified by his lonely sojourn in the wilderness, he had ended up being emptied out and then filled up again with all manner of worldly corruption and malevolent intent.

I drained the mug and refilled it before sitting back in one of the chairs to wait. I waited for nearly two hours, content to sit in the comfortable warmth of the cathedral-like rays of sunshine, sipping the pure water and letting my mind slowly empty of thought, strangely at peace despite the future that awaited.

I may even have drowsed off, something very uncharacteristic of me in such a situation, when I heard a soft "swoosh" from just outside the open door. Getting to my feet I saw through the doorway a small flitter, similar to one of the ubiquitous air cabs of New York IV, already settled down on its landing pads less than twenty metres away.

The opaque canopy of the vehicle's cabin slid back to reveal a human driver dressed in a nondescript grey tunic and a matching grey cap with a peaked brim perched atop his closely shaven head. He remained sitting motionless in his seat, glancing noncommittally once in my direction before turning his head to stare into the horizon.

I turned to grab the pack sack and taking a deep breath like a diver about to dive from a great height into a pool of murky water, not knowing if rock lay a mere half a metre or fifty below the surface, I trotted out to the flitter and jumped into the seat beside the driver.

"Welcome back, Brother Bislortion, thanks be to God for returning you safe and in good health. May the Master of us all have favoured you with gifts of wisdom and insight." There was a formulaic aspect to his greeting; he barely glanced at me out of the corner of his eye as he uttered it, as though it were a formality that had to be dispensed with.

"Thank you Brother. May He who guides the destiny of us all have preserved you in good health and free of the temptation of sin," I replied in an equally formal way—reciting a standard salutation that I recalled from my previous mission on Virgana—that I hoped was appropriate. He hesitated slightly as though I had surprised him in some way but then nodded and without further ado the canopy slid shut over our heads and the flitter lifted and headed east away from the sun now in the western half of the sky.

Neither of us made any further attempt to communicate as I tried to appear interested in the desiccated brown landscape rushing by a hundred or so metres below us. After a while I leaned back and closed my eyes as though lulled to sleep by the low humming of the vehicle as it sped smoothly over the planet's surface. I had no definite course of action to pursue or think about; my advantage lay in the Vings having no inkling of who I was, and my course of action was simply to take advantage of the opportunity when it arose, so I simply left my mind free to drift, trying not to think of anything at all.

I must have dozed off because it seemed as though hardly any time had passed before I was aware of a perceptible slowing in the flitter's rate of speed. Rousing myself I saw that the landscape had noticeably changed while I had napped. The land now rolled gently beneath us with small forested hills and ridges rising between fields and lush meadows. Verdant green and olive had replaced drab brown and there were sizable trees with wide spreading crowns instead of stunted cactus and brush.

Resting on the horizon like a small ridge a few kilometres away was the low slung bulk of a substantial building. Made of a grey granite, it blended in with the surrounding landscape in a way that gave it an aspect of being extremely old and almost as much a natural outcropping as a work of man. This was despite it's roughly rectangular shape and the thin spires at each of the four cardinal points that flew the blue and orange banner of the Vingalian Republic. Tall grass came right up to the base of the rough-hewn three story high walls.

From the direction in which the flitter approached there was no visible entrance nor was there any kind of roadway or path leading up to the building. The rough uneven surfaces of the walls were unbroken by any apparent windows, though, as with the outpost tower where I had been picked up, I thought that likely to be an illusion.

There were no people to be seen in the immediate vicinity. Scattered around in the the distance I could make out a few clusters of what appeared to be farmhouses and barns. Off to the right, glinting in the early afternoon sun, was some sort of mechanized combine harvesting a field of golden brown grain.

The flitter continued to decelerate as it went into a spiralling descent that took it almost completely around the seminary before slipping over the wall to come to a rest on a small landing pad on the roof. Beside the pad, looking expectantly up toward us as we landed, stood a small group of three men.

The most prominent and oldest of the group was standing slightly in advance of the others. He was also the tallest, with a flowing grey streaked beard that came down to his chest, and on his head he wore the maroon felt cap of a high ranking church official.

My heart jumped as I regarded him. Could this be my target? Could Vandor himself have come out to welcome his protege back? I looked stealthily out of the corner of my eye for anything that might serve for a weapon. In the highly conditioned body of Morton Hardwicke I would have had the ability to kill almost instantaneously with my bare hands, but though I was growing more familiar with every passing day with the body of Scort Bislortion, I had little confidence in my ability to make it perform at that level of skill and strength.

I examined the two other figures in the little waiting group. Standing respectfully behind and to either side of the older man, they were of around Bislortion's age; one was thinly sallow and clean shaven, the other husky with a thick shadow of dark beard. They both wore the standard grey tunics and trousers of seminary students and had easy relaxed postures and expressions on their faces as they watched us land, quite unlike the alert stance and eagle eyed glances of bodyguards. I began to doubt my hypothesis about the possible identity of the older man. Surely someone rumoured to be the next Germiad, the leader they had been waiting for over a thousand years for, would rate bodyguards and have a larger entourage than this.

The flitter landed with a barely perceptible bump and the cabin canopy immediately began to slide open. My driver made no move, evidently waiting for me to get out first. Trying to show as little hesitation as I could I clambered out and walked briskly towards my little welcoming party.

The thin sallow one had his hands in his pockets as my two friends, if that was what they were, remained standing respectfully behind the older one, who remained standing where he was waiting for me to approach. This was the first real test of my ability to fit into the role of Scort Bislortion. I knew that Vings tended to be formal when addressing their older superiors so I bowed before the one in front and then went down on my knees before him as I had been told novices commonly do when approaching their masters.

There was a long moment of silence, from beneath my bowed head I glimpsed the three figures standing before me stiffen and lean back in surprise, the two in back began to shuffle their feet uncertainly. Not for the last time I inwardly cursed Kreshenko for sending me into a situation with so little time to acculturate myself to the milieu I would be entering.

After a pregnant pause that seemed to go on forever he reached out to put a hand on my bowed head and murmured "Yono ayay ab venestoyne mono ay"—"God protect and strengthen you his servant"—the standard benediction given by a religious official to one of the faithful. Then his hands were on my shoulders and I looked up to face him. He still looked somewhat surprised but, now that he had recovered, also not displeased at how I had approached him. His expression was mild and a slight bemused smile had creased his thin lips. He looked directly at me, eye to eye, and I stared back, not knowing what he could possibly be reading from them.

"Kone une asste ke slanei oniyi Ay"—"May you have brought God into our midst"—he said, then adroitly turned and walked away. I stared bewildered at his receding back and then stumbled to my feet as the husky young man with the heavy shadow rushed up and clasped me in a bear hug as he exclaimed with a wide grin "Oh ni yah!"—"Welcome back brother!" I stifled my instinctive stiffening to his strange embrace and returned it as vigorously as I could.

Grasping me by the shoulders he stepped back a pace to look me square in the face, on his broad features I thought I could discern concern mixed with his general happiness at seeing me. "How was it out there, eh?" he asked with some joviality, but again I sensed an underlying tone of concern. "Not too bad I hope. But you sure gave old Kama a start by going down to him like that. Whatever gave you the idea to do that, like you were still some first year novice?"

"Let him be, Bandar, can't you see he's dog tired?" The thin sallow one ambled up to us, his hands still in his pockets. "I'm sure he just wants to get a good meal inside him before sacking out in his quarters for the next day or two. Am I not right, Scort?"

A small lopsided grin upturned a corner of his thin lips as he shuffled up, as though sharing some private joke with me. Someone—likely within the seminary itself, I hadn't been told who, since there was no need for me to know—had betrayed Bislortion to the Federation, had told them about his connection to a potential new Vingolo and his vulnerability during the wilderness retreat. If there was some meaning to that small secretive grin, if he was expecting Bislortion to have been compromised or subverted in some way, he would still have no idea that it was, in effect, no longer Bislortion whom he was welcoming back.

To my relief he didn't move to embrace me as his companion had, instead simply greeting me with the traditional palms meeting gesture as his pale blue eyes met mine. "Welcome back, brother," he said in a conversational tone, "don't mind Bandar, you know how he likes to make a big thing out of everything. I think he expected you to come back from your retreat like the second coming of Germiad, leading a celestial horde of heavenly warriors to sweep the Worshim from the face of Virgana."

His grin widened to display even rows of yellow-tinged teeth as Bandar protested boisterously that he had expected no such thing, that it was Festi who was always exaggerating and twisting out of all meaning what he, Bandar, meant to say. Which was something, he went on to say, that I, Scort, well knew. I chuckled in agreement, happy for the attention to be taken off me for a moment, as the good-natured bantering between the two chums went on for a bit.

"Yea," Festi said, "I can remember how it was after my own retreat. I was so hungry and tired and sore I didn't do a thing for nearly a three day except eat and sleep. Yea, sleep and eat, that's the way it was." He laughed and I nodded tiredly in agreement.

"And as you rest," he went on, suddenly serious, "you can contemplate the meaning of what God has chosen to reveal to you, so that you may share it with us all. I am eager indeed to hear what He has blessed you with, for I can sense that you have been changed by it. As I was changed by communion with Him on my retreat."

He looked at me levelly as he said this, coming up to me until his face was only a few hands breaths from mine, seemingly examining me carefully for any clues as what had happened to me out there. At a loss as to how I should respond I nodded slightly and looked down from his searching gaze in a self-deprecatory way as I pretended to busy myself with picking up Bislortion's pack-sack from where I had dropped it.

Bandar quickly snatched it up before I could reach it. "Let me carry that for you, Brother," he said, as he gestured for me to go ahead of him through the doorway leading into the seminary.

"No, you go first, Brother," I replied, "I am tired and don't wish to slow you down. I will follow at my own pace."

"You will not be slowing me down, Brother," Bandar protested, "it is only a few minutes walk and I would not enter your quarters ahead of you."

Except I had much rather not to have to trust the directions to his quarters that Bislortion's interrogators had extracted from him, suspicious as I was of the validity of any of the information they had gotten. There had been no way to verify most of it and I was constantly aware of the possibility he might have seeded false information in with the true in order to trip up anybody attempting to use it. "No, you go ahead," I insisted, "you can wait for me if necessary."

"Go ahead, Bandar," Festi gestured impatiently when Bandar started to protest further, "can't you see he's fatigued and just wants to get back to his quarters so he can wash up and get some food in him, not stand around arguing with you?"

Bandar shrugged and with a still somewhat bewildered expression led us down the steps into the seminary's labyrinthine corridors. Dimly lighted and barely wide enough for two average sized adults to pass abreast of each other, they were plainly panelled in dark wood and floored with tightly fitted tiles of grey stone off of which our footsteps faintly echoed as we moved along.

Twice we come to intersections with Bandar leading us to the left each time before bringing us to a halt before a door on the right just before the hallway took another ninety degree turn to the left. It was precisely where Bislortion had described his living quarters as being.

One of the more peculiar and better known customs of the Vingalian religious communities was that no security devices of any kind, either biological or mechanical, were used to bar access to individual living quarters. It was part of the dogma of monastery life; of keeping no secrets from each other and living together as one.

The door was like nothing I had ever seen before. Like the walls it also was made of wood and was recessed a good ten centimetres or so into the wall. There was also a simple round knob of burnished metal protruding from its right side at about waist height. Most disconcerting of all was that it did not slide aside into the wall when I approached it like virtually every other functional door I had ever used in my life. What followed was almost comic as I literally walked into the door, stubbing my toes and bumping my nose against its rough wooden surface.

My first thought was that the door had malfunctioned, then I almost panicked as the thought flashed through my mind that perhaps during long absences they actually did lock their living quarters, that here was a trap that Bislortion had set to foil his interrogators by a simple omission rather than a stated lie. There was no retinal scanner or other means of recording a bio-signature that I could see but if I was expected to produce a password or even a physical key to get this door open then I was going to have a great deal of difficulty explaining my inability to do so.

I recalled that the Ving seminarians tried to live as simply as possible, eschewing as many forms of technology as practically possible. That might even include things as basic as motion detectors and automatic doors.

I grasped the metal knob sticking from the side of the door and found that it fitted comfortably into my hand, as though it had been made to do so. Since the knob was on the right side of the door I pulled on it to the left to try to slide it into the wall in that direction, but it wouldn't budge. Could it be it was supposed to slide up into the ceiling, or even down into the floor? I tensed my muscles against the knob, first up, then down, even to the right, but still it wouldn't move. Aware of the sweat now breaking out on my brow and what must be the puzzled stares of my two companions standing just behind me I began with mounting desperation to yank and pull on it in every direction, even irrationally pushing and pulling in and out on it.

The knob felt slightly loose in my hand and in desperation I gave it a quick twist to the left and then the right. When I twisted it to the right it turned with my hand and I heard a faint click. Ah, I thought with relief, some sort of simple catch mechanism, and again tried to slide the door aside while holding the knob twisted to the right. It still wouldn't budge. Once again I tried to slide the door in every direction with all the strength I dared without revealing my predicament to Bandar and Festi, from whom I was awkwardly trying to shield my fumbling manoeuvres.

After having tried to slide the door upward again for about the third time I gave it another vigorous push, more out of frustration than any expectation it would do any good, this time with the handle still held twisted to the right, and to my great surprise the door swung smoothly open into the room while still attached on its left edge to the wall like a sort of wooden wing.

More falling than stepping into the room I quickly recovered myself while casting a nervous glance over my shoulder at Festi and Bandar. The whole fiasco at the door had taken only a few seconds but they had obviously noticed something odd about my behaviour as they were exchanging puzzled looks with each other.

"Something wrong with the door, Brother?" Bandar said quizzically as he examined it, running his fingers along its edge. "I can see nothing wrong with it but perhaps we should call one of Brother Mazan's maintenance workers to come take a look at it"

"No need," I quickly said as I shrugged as though embarrassed and fumbled for an explanation. "I…I was merely…feeling tired and…it slipped my mind…that…"

Once again Festi came to my rescue as with his by now familiar half-grin he interrupted "These ancient old doors, they can still confuse you even after you think you've gotten used to them. Especially after you've been away for a while and are tired and fatigued. I don't know why our elders insist on keeping them, it is a silly tradition to keep."

Inwardly I cursed Bislortion's interrogators who had slipped up so badly. When he had confirmed to them that there were no locks of any kind in the residential quarters they had not bothered to probe any further, simply assuming that there would be normal auto-doors that operated like those virtually everywhere else. I wondered how many other little traps such as this lay in store for me.

Bandar and Festi remained standing awkwardly in the doorway—presumably waiting to see if I was going invite them in. When I said nothing, Bandar unceremoniously dropped the pack-sack inside the doorway and Festi said "We'll go now and let you wash and rest for a while. I'm sure you won't forget where the dining hall is," again that crooked grin, "when you feel like eating. I look forward to hearing about your retreat when you feel ready to talk about it. Farewell to then." Bandar also mumbled a farewell as they left, swinging the odd ancient door closed behind them.

I looked about, taking careful stock of what had been Bislortion's living quarters and were now mine. The main room was a fairly pleasant sitting and study room much like what any student at a college dormitory would have. There were brown drapes half drawn on a single large picture window facing the west through which afternoon sunshine was slanting to strike the mosaic patterning of the traditional Vingalian carpet, of the kind for which their craftspeople are rightly famous, that covered virtually all of the floor area.

A workstation and comp portal had been placed in the south east corner so as to give the occupant comfortable views both of the picture window and the large holo projection that covered most of the south wall opposite the door coming in. For the moment the holo was displaying an iconic still life, likely a scene from an early religious text I was unfamiliar with: a small band of terrified looking people clad in animal skins were on their knees with upraised arms before a tall prophetic looking man in white skins and a long grey beard, who also looked to be somewhat terrified and was pointing with outstretched arm and a long prominent index finger at what appeared to be an exploding super nova.

Scattered around the room facing the general direction of the holo were a couple of small armchairs, a small sofa, and a low table on which were stacked a number of holo disks. The only other rooms were a tiny washroom with sink, toilet, and narrow shower stall and a cramped bedroom containing little more than a small closet and dresser with a single narrow bed. On the bed was a thick hand-made quilt of many colours, possibly a gift from his mother or one of his sisters.

There was of course the possibility that individual living quarters were continually under close surveillance and that I was being watched at that moment. But I doubted it, such close levels of scrutiny were hardly conducive to maintaining the atmosphere of trust and fellowship that societies such as the Ving monasteries prized. Nevertheless I decided to continue to play the role of the exhausted returnee and did not make an immediate search or close inspection of the place, preferring to get to know it as I went.

After showering away the dust and grime of the last days I found what appeared to be some sleeping clothes in the second drawer of the dresser and after slipping them on lay down on top of the quilt for what I intended to be a chance to collect my thoughts and a quick nap. Perhaps because of the thick quilt that lay on top, I found the bed to be surprisingly comfortable, not at all the hard sleeping pallet I might have expected in a Vingalian religious training institution, and I must have been more tired than I realized because I almost immediately slipped into a deep and dreamless sleep.

VIII

I woke two and a half hours later, a good hour more than I had intended, and making a quick search of the closet picked from the meagre selection a plain pullover jersey and trousers made of some sort of natural fibre such as I had seen Festi and Bandar wearing. I slipped on what appeared to be the most well worn pair of plain walking shoes and then checked Bislortion's mobile comp, which I had found on the dresser where he had evidently left it before going on the retreat. There were no messages so evidently my having not yet shown up to eat hadn't unduly alarmed anybody. Pocketing the comp I set out on my first trip outside of my quarters into the rest of the seminary.

The foray and subsequent meal went easier than I had anticipated. The directions I had been given as to how to get to the dining hall two floors down proved to be correct and as I was still a little early for the evening meal I went to the counter opening onto the kitchen to request some immediate nourishment, which I felt might be due a recent returnee from a wilderness retreat. A middle aged man in a smock and apron stationed at the counter simply waved me over to go sit down.

Almost as soon as I sat down at one of the two long dining tables a human server—I had yet to see any servbots anywhere—came out of the kitchen and placed before me a bowl of thick meaty stew with a couple of hefty slices of dark bread and a large glass of milk. When combined with the added spice of my famished condition the simple meal tasted delicious.

As I sat with my back to the kitchen facing the other side of the dining hall, which consisted of large windows running almost from floor to ceiling looking out on an inner courtyard, other early arrivals for the regular evening meal began to filter into the hall and take their places at the tables. It occurred to me that each of them might have their own assigned place where they were supposed to sit. It was a little detail of Bislortion's life, like that of how to open the door to his quarters or greet the elder who would come to meet him on his return, that had been missed in the rush to prepare me to take his place.

Conscious of this I rapidly finished off the the stew and started to wander out of the dining hall, deciding to come back a bit closer to when dinner would be served, when more people would be already seated and I could get a better idea of correct dinning etiquette from observing others. I was just about to exit the hall when I was met by a group of five or six young seminarians that included Festi and Bandar.

"Ah, there you are Scort," they chorused as they crowded around me. "We were wondering when you were going to get down here for some extra grub," said one. "Yes, you must have been really worn out from your adventures in the wild to sleep in the middle of the day for so long," said another to good-natured laughter.

I allowed them to drag me back into the dining hall with them to a table where we all sat down together with no apparent concern to where we were sitting as either individuals or a group. As they continued to converse I took careful note of whenever somebody was referred to by a name and mentally checked it off against the list of friends and acquaintances that had been extracted from Bislortion. As I accumulated more names I grew more confident and began to insinuate myself more and more into the flow of conversation. Somewhat to my relief, aside from a few general inquires as to how it had gone nobody seemed inclined to question me too closely about what had occurred on my retreat, preferring instead to chatter and joke about the events of daily life in the seminary.

Once all the places at the table had been filled the evening meal was brought out from the kitchen on simple wheeled trolleys and trays. Once again the serving of the food was done by actual human beings, there were no servbots or food dispenser chutes in sight. Being served your meal by living beings is of course in the rest of the civilized galaxy a level of luxury unheard of in anything but the most exclusive and expensive of restaurants, but here it was something apparently taken for granted. However the meal itself did not measure up to the high cuisine standards of the service, consisting in the main of more stew and bread, this time with sour tasting beer rather than milk to wash it down, and a sweet tart for dessert.

As the meal progressed casual conversation mixed with subdued laughter flowed up and down and across the tables. At a short table that connected the long tables at one end sat a number of older men dressed in the somewhat more elaborate garb of instructors and administrators. I thought I caught a few of them glancing in my direction during the course of the meal but none made any attempt to directly address me. I was able to attach names to a few of them based on descriptions given by Bislortion.

After less than an hour the meal began to come to an end and people started to rise and leave. As I was about to leave the dining hall with my group of friends a kitchen worker came up and handed me a small sack inside of which were four of the dessert tarts, evidently a little something extra for one who has just returned. Noticing a few envious glances from my companions I tried to distribute the tarts among them but they all refused, saying they were meant for me and I was the one who should have them.

A few of them were going to Festi's quarters to watch holos for a while but as tomorrow was a regular day of classes and work at the seminary most were simply returning to their rooms to prepare or rest for the next day. Nobody seemed surprised when I said I was doing the same and I returned to Bislortion's quarters without incident.

Still somewhat tired I went almost immediately to bed and awoke the next morning fully refreshed a good hour before Bislortion's usual pre-dawn rising time. This gave me almost two full hours before breakfast was to be served and I used the time to tackle Bislortion's workstation. However the Ving's atavistic aversion to bio-signatures created a potential obstacle; instead of simply being able to gain access to Bislortion's files and the seminary net because I had hijacked his body I was going to have to rely, at least initially, on the passwords extracted during his interrogation.

All Federation operatives as a matter of course are trained to a high level of competency in computer skills and Morton Hardwicke had taken pride in his expertise in this area and had worked hard to maintain it and keep up to date with the latest developments in the field. I was confident my expertise was far beyond what Scort Bislortion's had been and, while my activity on the seminary net would doubtlessly be monitored, I was hoping they wouldn't be prepared for someone with my abilities in covering his tracks.

There were two basic sets of passwords; one to get on the seminary net, the other to access Bislortion's personal files. While his interrogators had pressed him harder on this issue than any other there had been no way to verify whether the passwords thus obtained were valid or false. Many of them, as I had expected, turned out to be flimsy fabrications that had all the hallmarks of being made up at the time under the pressure of interrogation. He had however thrown in a few valid ones granting low level access, likely in the idea that it would lead to my betraying myself when I attempted to use the fabrications to gain higher access.

However the low level passwords were all I needed to get started and once into the system I could bypass the need for the higher level passwords. I detected a spy program almost immediately upon entering the portal; however it was a fairly common, almost obsolete, program of its type which I had little trouble in subverting to provide false data back to its master program hiding somewhere in the depths of the net. I was already well into Bislortion's files before leaving for breakfast and returned immediately afterwards to continue the task. I had a few days off for rest and reflection before returning to Bislortion's regular duties and I intended to use the time as judiciously as possible to go through what he had left behind and then, if I thought it useful, delve into areas of the seminary net that had been inaccessible to him.

Kreshenko had urged me to strike quickly before anybody had the chance to suspect that anything was seriously amiss with Scort Bislortion—as though Kreshenko had expected Vandor to personally welcome Bislortion back. That hadn't happened, but as I delved deeper into Bislortion's life through his files and learned more of his relationship to Vandor I became increasingly confident that I was moving closer to the day when I would meet this reputed new Vingolo.

The most useful file was Bislortion's diary—kept redundantly encrypted and locked under a triple password key, thereby doing more to call attention to it than adding to its security—that he had faithfully kept up to date right up to the last entry occurring on the day he had left on the retreat. It also occurred to me to resume making entries, it was in keeping with the role I had assumed and I found it helped me in better understanding how Bislortion's mind had worked and how he had interacted with Vandor.

It was obvious from the diary that Bislortion had idolized Vandor, that he had no doubts about his legitimacy as another Germiad, and though he strove to be objective about it, the assumption that everybody else idolized him just as much as he did ran through just about everything he wrote about Vandor. Despite that I felt that I was able to draw a fairly clear, if still somewhat sketchy, objective picture of the kind of man my target was.

Bislortion had faithfully recorded practically every word that had passed between them during the nearly two years of their association together, first as teacher and pupil, and then as nearly equal friends. It was during the course of reading these conversations that Vandor's story emerged, the details of which I was largely able to confirm later elsewhere on the seminary net.

Vandor had initially risen to notice among his Vingalian brethren not through theological brilliance or as a religious visionary, as might have been expected though he was later to prove quite capable in these roles as well, but as a man of action within the Locoma Sharaun or "Sacred Sword", the underground army that does most of the actual fighting in the Vings struggle to liberate Virgana from the clutches of the Federation. A scion of a wealthy and well known family, he could have followed a prosperous career in business or within the highest levels of the church hierarchy but instead had opted to become a common foot soldier for the cause. Risking his life in numerous raids on Federation targets, he quickly rose through the ranks by proving himself to be both a brilliant tactician and inspirational leader.

After nine years in the Locoma Sharaun he had left to enter the seminary for nine years of study and teaching. It was there as an instructor that he had first encountered, and then became the primary influence and inspiration in the life of, the young novice.

Bislortion had naturally enough been in awe of Vandor but it became clear to me in reading through Bislortion's accounts of their conversations, and I was sure it was more than self-flattery on Bislortion's part, that Vandor in turn had been highly impressed with Bislortion's keen mind and quick grasp of the essentials of an issue. The teacher-pupil relationship had developed into something more, with tutoring sessions often becoming frank discussions between near equals about everything from the true essence of spirituality to how to best administer and run a monastic seminary.

These regular conversations had come to an end after Vandor had left the seminary a little over three years previously and Bislortion had been in only intermittent contact with him since that time. Their last face to face meeting had been over two months before Bislortion had left on his retreat and had consisted of little more than an exchange of pleasantries on one of Vandor's infrequent visits to the seminary. There was also no record of any electronic communications between them other than a polite welcome back I received the day after I returned from the retreat.

Vandor's nine years at the seminary had evidently been for the purpose of establishing his intellectual and spiritual credentials with the religious hierarchy, and as I pieced together the story of his time there from Bislortion' s accounts, references on the seminary net, and the casual conversation of seminarians reminiscing about his time there it became evident he had succeeded there just as much as he had in the Locoma Sharaum. By the end of his time he had apparently been practically running the place and it was considered a near certainty by everyone I met that he was now a member of the Holy High Council, the shadowy body of so called wise men or elders that sat at the pinnacle of Ving society. It was even rumoured that he had assumed leadership of that supposedly consensual body of equals, which would be an astonishing thing for such a relatively young man. It was no coincidence, I felt sure, that the time since he had left the seminary coincided with the recent period of heightened Ving activity and success against the Federation.

As I absorbed more about Bislortion and the kind of person he had been, I rapidly established myself in his persona. As I went through his past correspondence it soon became evident that one of his first actions upon returning would have been to inform his parents and sisters of his arrival back, a seemingly obvious thing to do perhaps but something he now appeared to be uncharacteristically tardy in doing since I had been unsure of how closely he had been in contact with them since he had come to the seminary. As soon as I did his parents and sisters immediately replied, welcoming me back and arranging a meeting for a few days later with his mother and youngest sister, in the market square of a small village not far from the seminary.

As a skilled operative trained and practised in the art of dissembling, I was not as apprehensive at the prospect of this meeting as one might expect. As I anticipated, I was able to keep the conversation mostly on how things had gone for me on the retreat. There were a few references to Bislortion's father—who had been unable to come because of work but called me on the mobile comp to say how proud he was of me in passing through this important stage of my career—as well as the inevitable recollections about incidents from Bislortion's childhood that it seems mothers everywhere are so fond of recalling. For the most part I simply responded to those things I was unfamiliar with by agreeable nods and smiles while keeping their attention diverted with accounts of mostly invented incidents from the retreat.

When the time came for us to part, they both remarked that my experience had changed me in a way that they claimed to be pleased with. That it had made me more "mature" and "grown-up" as well as more self-confident, which they seemed to think was a fitting result from an experience which was supposed to bring me closer to God. His mother, however, did remark she sensed a sadness in me that had not been there before. "Why do I feel this sadness in you that was not there before?" she cried plaintively. "This is everything that you've worked for your entire life. It should be an occasion for great happiness. Something happened you're not telling me about. Come, you can tell your Mama about it." "No, Mama," I reassured her as I put my arm around her stooped shoulders, "I'm not sad, really, I'm not. Just a little wiser than before is all," I said as I gazed earnestly into her tear-filled eyes.

As the days and weeks passed and I slipped more comfortably into the life of Scort Bislortion, the disoriented and bewildered seeming Bislortion who had stumbled back from his retreat—kneeling before a simple seminary warden and not even able to open the door to his own quarters—was gradually forgotten or dismissed as having been a temporary phenomenon if it was recalled at all. In his place emerged somebody who, it was occasionally remarked, was noticeably more self-assured and assertive, more dynamic and positive, if perhaps not quite as studious and introspective, as the still raw young man who had left on his retreat. Considering that Morton Hardwicke was nearly a decade older, a hardened Federation agent much more experienced in life than the cloistered Bislortion had been, it is perhaps not surprising that despite my best attempts to assume his identity, that some of that would have shown through. Fortunately, rather than causing suspicion, the change tended to be cited as an example of the beneficial effects of the retreats as part of the training that every aspiring novice must go through.

IX

Vandor had risen too far in importance for Kreshenko's hope that I would simply be able to meet and eliminate him soon after arriving at the seminary to be realistic. Even the sole contact I had received from him to that point, a very formal congratulations and welcome back in the form of a text message received on the mobile comp, had the stiff formulaic feel to it of a message sent routinely to all those returning from their wilderness retreats.

In the ensuing weeks there was no more word from him but that did not worry me. I was fitting well into seminary life and was confident that it would not be too long before Vandor would himself seek me out. The accounts Bislortion had left of their friendship had convinced me that this would be so. I did not have to seek him out, it could even raise suspicion if I were to actively do so, he would in the natural course of things come to me.

It was towards the end of my fourth week at the seminary that word began spreading through the seminary that he would soon be visiting to address a select group of seminarians and visiting dignitaries. Of course Scort Bislortion did not rank anywhere near high enough to normally be among that select group but I was nevertheless optimistic that Vandor would not leave the seminary before seeing his former protege and friend.

A few days later, after I had returned to my quarters from the mid-day meal and was preparing for an afternoon tutoring session, I heard a discreet knocking sound from the direction of the wooden door. I had quickly learned that this was the way that visitors announced that they were standing outside the door to somebody's quarters, rather than pushing an alert button or relying on automated detection systems, and in actual fact the old wooden doors carried the sound quite well.

Grasping the inside knob I remembered to twist it to the left and pulled the door open on its hinged side. As I had expected, somebody was standing just outside. He was a short middle-aged man with a straggly grey-streaked beard and clad in the grey garb of the seminary's maintenance staff, those who maintained and kept the place running while catering to the needs and whimsies of its spiritual inmates. They also had their pecking order and while I had seen this one before bustling through the corridors on seemingly urgent errands, I had never seen him at any of the more menial tasks such as running floor cleaners or serving food.

Raising his shaggy eyebrows he simply said "Come with me, Brother Bislortion" and turned and made his way down the corridor. I followed his rapid pace a few steps behind, he never varying his pace or glancing behind to see if I was following. We soon left the narrow corridors of the residential section and entered a much wider corridor with high ceilings and large windows running almost from floor to ceiling on the left side of the corridor. The windows illuminated the whole corridor with the natural light of a sunny early afternoon. This was where the classrooms were located and where I had spent most of my waking hours away from my quarters since coming to the seminary.

The classrooms were on the right; some of the doors were closed, indicating classes or tutoring sessions in progress, others were left open, some with sessions in progress, indicating that any who wished were free to enter to study or to listen in on what was taking place. The classrooms were relatively small, though fairly roomy for groups that never exceeded more than ten, and like the corridor were illuminated primarily by natural light admitted by large windows and skylights.

There was a constant flow of people passing in both directions, some of whom I now knew, but none called out a greeting or even waved as they might normally have. Whether the presence of my escort inhibited them or because they had some idea of where I was going and did not wish to delay me in any way, the most any of them did was to glance our way with perhaps a quick nod and smile of acknowledgement as we passed by.

We came to a bank of elevators that I had not used before but my escort barely slowed his pace as the door to the one nearest to us slid open at his approach. It slid closed as soon as we entered and then almost immediately opened again. I do not know exactly how many floors we went down in that brief interval of a second or two, there was no sensation of falling so the elevator had to have been fitted out with gravity compensators, a fairly expensive thing to do for a mere elevator. As we had descended from the the seminary's fourth and top floor above ground I later estimated we had descended eight to ten stories overall.

We stepped out onto the rough stone floor of what appeared to be a high ceiling natural cavern. All around us, chiselled out of the walls, were crumbling stone sculptures, reliefs and columns. The statures were largely of characters I could easily recognize from Vingalian scripture, though there were a few grotesque-looking winged creatures that appeared to be almost pagan in nature that I had no explanation for. Most of the statues however were recognizably human in their representations, done to life-size proportions in their niches carved into the sides of the cavern.

I knew where we were, though I had never been here before, and Bislortion himself only a few times. These were part of a system of caverns hollowed out by natural geological processes that underlay much of the surrounding countryside. The seminary had originally been built on top of a natural entrance to these caverns and legend had it that Germiad had sheltered here for a time evading the authorities of the Sol Empire before fleeing to Kronos II and his eventual final destiny.

I hurried after my guide through several passageways and caverns, all filled with statuary and niches. At a few of the niches were kneeling figures draped in the robes of high priests and officials, paying homage or praying to whatever the frozen statues represented to them. We passed by the narrow entrance of what looked to be a small chapel hollowed out of the rock, and inside, by the guttering light of candles I caught a glimpse of kneeling forms and heard the ritual drone of prayers said in unison.

We soon left the natural caverns however and entered an area of modern construction. Carpet and bright lighting replaced the rough stone floor and torch lit gloom of the caverns and the walls were a light sky blue. We made a left at a branching of the corridor and it shortly ended at a set of large double doors made of highly polished wood. Unlike the wood door to my quarters however, these doors had no handles and instead of having to knock to gain entry they swung inward at our approach like doors nearly everywhere. We entered a medium sized chapel occupied with what I soon realized were about fifty of the most eminent personages of Ving society on Virgana as well as not a few important guests from off planet.

The chapel was pleasantly roomy and airy despite being so far underground, and comfortable cushioned benches with backrests fanned out in a circular pattern before the central pulpit. The Vings made frequent use of churches for cultural and political gatherings as well as religious ones, and the atmosphere was one of relaxed expectation rather than the solemnity that usually surrounded their religious occasions. People stood in small groups conversing and, I noticed with a start, even a few women. Their presence in the usually all-male preserve of the seminary was a sure signal of the importance of this gathering.

But all I really cared about was that at last I was getting to see my target in person. I knew he was there, even though I had never seen him before and had not even been able to obtain a holo of him. I knew instantly the moment I saw him who he was. He was sitting in the front row directly in front of the pulpit surrounded by other eminent personages of the Vingalian universe.

Half a head taller than any of the other bigwigs around him as well as clearly the youngest, he was the obvious centre of attention of those around him. Such was the power of his presence and magnetism that it was as if he was an enormous sun and all the others in the chamber were his satellites—planets, moons and meteorites—tied inexorably to him by his irresistible gravitational force.

The man seemed to radiate an aura of suppressed energy like some kind of human dynamo even while seeming at the same time time to be consummately relaxed and at his ease. Like a lion lolling under the shade of a solitary tree in the rolling savanna, he epitomized power and grace, temporarily at rest, that nonetheless was capable on the instant of springing to sudden and overwhelming action.

For the first time I experienced a slight twinge of doubt about being able to complete my mission. It might not be easy, I sensed, to kill such a man unless taken completely unawares. He was the equal of anything Morton Hardwicke had ever been, and possibly much more.

Evidently I had been one of the last of the expected guests to arrive; the chapel was nearly completely full and the empty places on the benches were rapidly filling up as those who had been standing and conversing began to take their seats. My guide directed me to an empty seat at the end of a bench at the rear occupied by other relatively minor personages.

A hush soon descended over the chamber as the first speaker of two speakers before Vandor approached the pulpit and the session got under way. I, like virtually everybody else present, paid them and what they were saying little attention. All eyes were on Vandor in his position of prominence seated in the centre of the front row. He remained the epitome of grace under scrutiny, surely aware that he was the centre of attention of all who were there but betraying not the slightest apparent consciousness of this, the picture of relaxed study as he listened to the speakers before him.

After a seeming eternity, the second of those before him—the High Abbot of the seminary—finished speaking and introduced Vandor as simply a "returning scholar of high regard" who had once studied and taught at the seminary. There was no sound of applause for either the High Abbot or Vandor as he strode to the pulpit, just a quiet hush of anticipation.

Dressed simply in the dark flowing robes of a Vingalian scholar of the highest rank, his only splash of colour was a blood red scarf about his neck that crossed over his chest before extending down past his waist. His jet black beard was shorter and more closely trimmed than was usual for Vingalian males of his station while his hair was somewhat longer and even had a bit of a wave as it came down over his ears.

The features of his face were strong enough—an aquiline nose, full lips, square jaw—but not remarkably so. His eyes were as black as his beard but with an open and engaging, rather than piercing, aspect to them as they roamed over his audience.

His manner of speaking, in contrast to the rather pedantic sermonizing of his predecessors, was expansive and familiar, as though he were engaging in a personal conversation with each member of the audience. His topic was an obscure one, having to do with the tribulations of a legendary figure of early Vingalian lore from before the time of Germiad who was ultimately betrayed and destroyed by one of his own followers, but the way in which he developed a rapport with seemingly each and every person in that audience made the ancient fable seem like something happening as he spoke. I was held rapt as I felt myself become personally involved in the fate of the tragic martyr and I felt sure every other person in the breathless audience was held in similar sway.

Despite having come to know him from Bislortion's journals I had still been half expecting a classic religious demagogue, attempting to raise his audience to a fever pitch with lurid tales of infidel Worshim atrocities and calling for bloody retribution. Instead I was being confronted with something approaching a philosopher king. Could he at the same time also be the man of steel I had been led to believe he was, able to lead men and women into battle, plot and execute vicious campaigns of sabotage and destruction against the Federation? Everything I had been able to find out about him had seemed to indicate he could, and I now more than ever believed he could; despite the earnest and convivial manner in which he approached the audience, the sense of underlying strength and potency the man exuded in every movement and gesture was palpable.

After speaking for just over an hour he concluded his monologue by asking for questions and contributions from the audience, almost as though he were an instructor leading a tutoring session in Vingalian religious philosophy and we the audience, consisting of much of the cream of Ving society, were his rapt pupils. It was an unprecedented approach to take at such a gathering where the usual form was for leading elders to drone out the theological certainties before a polite but bored audience that was merely marking time before getting down to the private meetings and dealings that were their real reason for meeting together.

From the cream at the front there was no response, but from the back rows, where a few of the most accomplished of the younger up and comers had been granted privileged attendance, a few hands were raised in response to his invitation. Nothing any of them said directly challenged or contradicted either accepted orthodoxy or anything Vandor had said. The mere fact of his inviting them to participate at all was certain to cement his popularity with the younger cadres and signalled his willingness to have a younger more energized generation take a more active role in the direction of Ving affairs. This was a recognition of the discontent I had heard among many of Bislortion's friends—to whom Vandor was a hero—who often complained about the lack of progress towards advancing the cause of Virgana's inclusion in the Republic under the present ossified leadership of aged elders.

As he scanned the back rows I felt his eyes rest on me for just an instant. Perhaps it was my imagination but such was the power of the man's personality that I immediately felt he was expecting me to join in. Despite myself I felt an eager impulse to do whatever this man's bidding was. This was leadership at its most basic and raw level. I felt a shiver of fear go down my back; Kreshenko had been right, this man was a danger to the Federation and had to be eliminated.

I didn't have much time to think about it as I raised my hand. I had shied away from extended theological discussion since arriving at the seminary out of fear of betraying my ignorance, but I had learned enough since then to add considerably to the basic knowledge I had already possessed. I reasoned that a simple question wouldn't take that much knowledge and it would be a way of making initial contact with Vandor. When he nodded in my direction I plunged in.

"Learned Scholar," I began, "in the story you have related to us of Mostar's betrayal by his disciple Boudas it is clear that Mostar's resulting martyrdom at the hands of the barbarous Worshim was part of God's holy plan to spread the word of Mostar and confirm his divine courageousness. What, as a learned scholar who has pondered much on the matter, do you consider to be the correct interpretation of Mostar's state; a divine being who went willingly and without fear to the destruction of his mortal body that freed his immortal spirit to ascend to heaven, or alternatively, a god-inspired human who nevertheless in his lowly humanity went to an agonizing destruction, fearful both of physical agony and the judgment of God on his immortal soul?"

I knew from Bislortion's diary that he and Vandor had discussed this at length between them, the story of Mostar being a favourite of Vandor's, so the question was in a sense being served up on a platter for him, but he gave it the dignity of appearing to consider it for a few moments before replying.

"This is one of the central issues of the martyr' s story," he began, "and learned arguments have been made for both views, yet I believe that on full reflection we can say he was both, or rather that he began his existence on this side of heaven as human, yet at the end became divine. To say this does not in any way cast doubt on the truth of his teachings, that they were inspired by God has been demonstrated time and again over the ages, but merely points out his human origins from the union of a mortal father and mother and his own denial of supernatural origin.

"Some learned scholars argue to the contrary, partly out of the belief that such a holy figure could hardly be anything less than divine. I believe it is God's wish that great things be done by mortal humans both to demonstrate what we as his creations are capable of and to tell us that great things are only done through great sacrifice and suffering.

"If the definition of a divine being is, as you said, one who goes without fear to the destruction of his mortal being knowing that his indestructible and immortal spirit will ascend to heaven to sit by the side of God, then I believe that Mostar did indeed become divine at the moment of his martyrdom. All accounts of the events agree that he faced his torturers and executioners calmly and without fear, that nothing they could do to his physical form could affect him to any degree, and that of course he was supremely confident of his indestructible spirit ascending to heaven. In this way he became divine, immortal and impervious to any physical coercion. In this way he showed the path for all of us to the divine, for we all have immortal souls, and if we can but follow Mostar's example in facing those who persecute and oppose us with the same indifference to physical threats and danger, fully confident of our ascending to heaven upon our martyrdom, then we too will have become divine."

A round of wildly enthusiastic applause erupted from the back rows as Vandor concluded his reply. It was totally inappropriate for such a dignified gathering but nobody seemed to mind. I sat there stunned for a moment, before belatedly joining in the applause. Vandor had taken his discourse a step beyond anything he had shared with Bislortion and was now in effect promising divine status in heaven to anybody who died fearlessly for the Vingalian cause.

The question and answer session ended soon after and, as Vandor had been the last speaker for the afternoon, the audience quickly broke up into milling knots of chatting people. I looked around, my guide had left and nobody was paying any attention to me. It was evidently up to me to find my own way back to my rooms.

Around Vandor the milling knot was especially dense and convoluted, as acolytes, especially younger ones, crowded around to have a word with him or just to listen. I edged forward to take a place at the back of the crowd surrounding him but soon felt myself being nudged to the front.

"Brother Bislortion," he greeted me enthusiastically, his powerful hands clasping mine, "it has been too long since last we met. I am told you have come back from your retreat a changed man." He looked at me gravely with unfathomably dark eyes, the initial burst of enthusiasm suddenly gone like a burst balloon to be replaced with what was evidently concern, but also something else I couldn't quite grasp. "Yes," he said after a moment of subjecting me to that inscrutable gaze, "I can see that it is so."

"Learned Scholar," I said with what I hoped was appropriate humility, "if that is what you have been told and you agree with it, then it must be so."

At that he threw back his head and laughed uproariously, another abrupt mood shift that startled me though I did my best not to show it. "Ah, Brother Bislortion," he exclaimed, "you have sharpened the needle of that subtle wit of yours. I always believed you had the potential for it. Indeed it was a deserved riposte, I should not infer too much by appearance and hearsay. Still, I do not hear you denying it."

"I also," I replied carefully, "find that too much time has passed since last I was in the presence of your knowledge and wisdom. The experience of my retreat has led to much pondering and sometimes even puzzlement on my part as I seek to gain insight from it. Any guidance I might receive from one whose wisdom and judgment I have always held in the highest regard would be greatly appreciated."

He regarded me with an expression that I can only describe as being one of fond tenderness as he replied with a heartfelt earnestness. "The duties of this so-called 'Learned Scholar' are many these days and leave little time for those things that, in the end, matter the most. Such things as searching with a friend of a similar mind for our true place in God's scheme."

He sighed, in a slightly exaggerated and almost melodramatic, but nonetheless genuine way, and a look of weariness passed across his face, as if a mask had been deliberately slipped off for a brief moment to allow an old friend to see the genuine person beneath. The look was there for only the brief moment needed for his friend to recognize it for what it was before the mask was quickly slipped back on to present to the world, to allies and enemies alike, the impregnable and charismatic facade of an inspirational leader and nascent Vingolo.

"Of course," I allowed, "it is understandable that you have many more important duties to attend to than to waste precious time on the guidance of a dull novice such as myself, who doubtless cannot even see what is staring him in the face, though it would be obvious to one such as yourself."

His face broke into a broad grin of large even white teeth, really the first truly spontaneous gesture he had made, and with evident affection he replied "Ah, brother, you are truly becoming a master of sly ironical wit. Your retreat seems to have sharpened and refined what I always sensed was within you. It whets my appetite to discover what other changes it has wrought. One such as you can never be denied for long."

At my back I could fell the press of others eager for their moment with him and sensed that for now my time with him had come to an end. With what I hoped was a slight and knowing smile I nodded and bowed and took my leave, confident that the lion would shortly fall into the trap that had been set for him.

X

So easily in fact did he take the bait that it was with an almost dreamlike quality that it happened that very night. It was over almost before it began. First there was the quiet tap on the old wooden door, so discreet and soft I almost missed it, then the perfunctory search of my quarters and person after which the two bodyguards left to stand outside.

I wasted no time once we were inside alone. As soon as the door swung shut I gestured for him to sit in the furthest armchair on the other side side of the room and followed him in. With a smooth motion that I had been so adept at as Morton Hardwicke, and had practised till I was nearly as equally adept in the body of Scort Bislortion, I leapt upon him from behind.

The garrote which I had concealed under the thick cloth fabric of my pant's belt was fashioned from an almost microscopically thin length of graphene composite wire stripped from the gravity array of one of the flitters parked on the roof of the seminary. The handles were short lengths of flat steel chain taken from a medallion awarded to Bislortion for his high achievement in theological studies and they bit into the flesh of what had once been his hands as using both knees against the shoulder blades for leverage I quickly sawed through the throat of the one person he would have willingly died for.

Briefly Vandor's large hands dug uselessly at the wire already buried deep in his viscera as I bent him back almost double then fluttered down to his side as the wire cut through to the bone. The wire met brief resistance at the vertebrae as with hands crossed I continued with all my strength to tighten and pullback with a slight sawing motion. The wire's incredible thinness, as thin as the edge of the sharpest blade, and strength meant only a slight slowing in its progress at the bone until in a matter of a few seconds it had completely sliced through and came out the back of the neck.

The severed head fell back over my shoulder as the torso toppled over backwards with me under it and hit the floor with a tremendous thump that shook the very beams under the floor. The strong vibrant heart continued to pump blood in great gushes out the severed jugular for what seemed like an eternity but must have been only a few moments. As I lay stunned under the headless body watching the blood gushing out to soak the carpeted floor, I thought of how much blood there must been flowing through Vandor's veins and how reluctant the heart of such a man would be to give up the struggle, how it would never stop pumping as long as it still had blood to pump. I imagined his blood gushing out in an unending stream until the room and the seminary was flooded with it, until Virgana and the entire Federation had drowned in it.

It would have made things much simpler if I had been killed on the spot, but the guards, alerted by the crashing thump, rushed in to stare immobilized by horror at the last spurts of blood issuing forth as his heart finally sputtered and died, leaving a slow stream to trickle forth from the severed stump. By the time they had recovered enough presence of mind to do anything it was obvious there was nothing that could be done for Vandor and that I had no intention of trying to resist. They simply pulled my blood-drenched body out from under and placed me under arrest.

After a short and curious trial I was sentenced to be burned alive, the punishment of a possessed heretic rather than a traitor. The better to drive out the Devil possessing the soul of Scort Bislortion, whose soul they seem to think still exists somewhere in the labyrinthine pathways of what was once his brain. The soul that does reside there, that began as a copy of the soul of Morton Hardwicke, Federation operative residing on New York IV, is not recognized by anybody, neither Federation nor Ving alike.

During the interrogation it was in their power to have me say what they wanted to hear, and I obliged them, implicating several high ranking co-conspirators I have never met, to the advantage of my interrogators in the internal power struggle that has doubtless ensued in the wake of Vandor's demise. Since they did not suspect the truth of who I am they could not force me to tell it to them. It was not the particular truth they were seeking.

Now I have told it, not for those who would refuse to believe it, conveniently dismissing it as the delusional fantasies of a condemned madman, but for a better understanding of what sort of curious creature I am. More to the point, am I now able to face my impending destruction secure in the knowledge that the real me is safely back and enjoying life on New York IV? I had hoped so when I began this little narrative but to the contrary it has only served to point out to me how different from that other Morton Hardwicke I have become.

Can a few months make that much difference compared to the years of an entire lifetime, an entire childhood of formative experiences, experienced identically? Apparently it can, because I find myself increasingly unable to consider myself to be one and the same with that person back on New York IV. Can I simply console myself with the thought that I am giving up my existence for the Federation, perhaps the one thing I have ever truly believed in? It may have to do, for I have been given little other choice in the matter. I am as alone as any creature ever was.

THE END

Bio: J. Howard McKay lives in a small town in Northern Ontario, Canada where he gazes at the northern lights and embraces the winter by getting in as much back-country skiing and snowshoeing as he can.

E-mail: J. Howard McKay

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