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felt no guilt at my playboy life. The training sessions are to make sure that
your body and mind don't turn soft from all that good living. Permanently
implanted sensors constantly monitor and decide when you need a good
refresher.
I often wondered just how sophisticated those sensors were. The thought that a
whole security staff might see all my debauchery and indiscretions used to
worry me, but after a while I learned to ignore it.
The life offered in trade is just too nice. Besides, what could I do about it?
People on most civilized worlds these days had such sensors, although hardly
to the degree and sophistication of mine. How else could a population so vast
and spread out possibly be kept orderly, progressive, and otherwise peaceful?
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Lilith: A Snake in the Grass
But when a mission came up you naturally couldn't forgo all the past
experience you'd had. A wipe without storage simply wouldn't have been very
practical, since a good agent gets better by not repeating his mistakes.
So the first thing you did was go to the Security Clinic, where they stored
everything you ever experienced, and get the rest of you put back so you would
be whole for whatever they'd dreamed up this time.
It always amazed me when I got up from that chair with my past fully restored.
Even the clear memories of the things I'd done always amazed me, that I, of
all people, had done this or that. The only difference this time, I
knew, was that the process would be taken one step further. Not only would the
complete "me" get up from that table, but the same memory pattern would be
impressed on other minds, other bodies-as many as needed until a
"take" was achieved.
I wondered what they'd be like, those four other versions of myself.
Physically different, probably- the kind of offender they got here wasn't
usually from one of the civilized worlds, where people had basically been
standardized in the name of equality. No, these people would come from the
frontier, from the traders, and miners and freebooters who existed at the edge
of expansion, and who were necessary in an expanding culture, since a high
degree of individuality, self-reliance, originality, and creativity was
required in the dangerous situations in which they lived. A stupid government
would have eliminated all such, but a stupid government degenerates or loses
its vitality and potential for growth by standardization.
That, of course, was the original reason for the Warden Diamond Reserve.
Some of these hard-frontier types are so individualistic that they become a
threat to the stability of the civilized worlds. The trouble is, anybody able
to loosen the bonds that hold our society together is most likely the
smartest, nastiest, meanest, cleverest, most original sort of mind humanity
can
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Lilith: A Snake in the Grass produce-and therefore not somebody who should be
idly wiped clean. The
Diamond could effectively trap people of this sort forever, allowing them
continued creative opportunities which, when properly monitored, might still
produce something of value for the Confederacy-if only an idea, a thought, a
way of looking at something that nobody else could come up with.
And the felons down there were naturally anxious to please as well, since the
alternative was death. Eventually, such creative minds made themselves
indispensable to the Confederacy and ensured their continued survival.
The damned probe hurt like hell. Usually there was just some tingling followed
by a sensation much like sleep, and you woke up a few minutes later in the
chair once again yourself. This time the tingling became a painful physical
force that seemed to enter my skull and bounce around, then seize control of
my head. It was as if a huge, giant hand had grabbed my brain and squeezed,
then released, then squeezed again in excruciating pulses. Instead of drifting
off to sleep, I passed out.
I woke up and groaned slightly. The throbbing was gone, but the memory was
still all too current and all too vivid. It was several minutes, I think,
before I found enough strength to sit up.
The old memories flooded back, and again I amazed myself by recalling many of
my past exploits. I wondered if my surrogate selves would get similar
treatment, considering that they couldn't be wiped after this mission as I
could. That realization caused me to make a mental note that those surrogates
would almost certainly have to be killed if they did have my entire memory
pattern. Otherwise, a lot of secrets would be loose on the
Warden Diamond and many in the hands of people who'd know just what sort of
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use to make of them.
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Lilith: A Snake in the Grass
No sooner had I thought of that than I had the odd feeling of wrongness. I
looked around the small room in which I'd awakened and realized immediately
the source of that feeling. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]