Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail Read Online Free Page B

this body’s life, anyway. And then? When my job was done? I’d said it myself upon awakening, passed my own sentence. The things I knew! I would be monitored at all times, of course. Monitored and killed if I blew any of those secrets—killed anyway at the completion of it, for insurance sake.
    My training came into automatic play at that point, overriding the shock and anger. I regained control and considered all that I knew.
    Monitor? Sure—more than ever. I recalled Krega saying that there was some sort of organic linkup. Are you enjoying this, you son of a bitch? Are you getting pleasure from vicariously experiencing my reaction?
    My training clicked in again, dampening me down. It didn’t matter, I told myself. First of all, I knew what he must be thinking—and that was an advantage. He, of all people, would know that I would be a damned tough son of a bitch to kill.
    It was a shock to discover that you were not who you thought you were but some artificial creation. It was a shock, too, to realize that the old life, the life you remembered even if you, personally, didn’t experience it, was gone forever. No more civilized worlds, no more casinos and beautiful women and all the money you could spend. And yet—and yet, as I sat there, I adjusted. That was what they picked men like me for from the start—our ability to adjust and adapt to almost anything.
    It was not my body, but I was still me. Memory and thought and personality were an individual, not his body. This was no different from a biological disguise, I told myself, of a particularly sophisticated sort. As to who was really me—it seemed to me that this personality, these memories, were no more that other fellow’s than my own. Until I got up from that chair back in the Security Clinic I’d really been somebody else anyway. A lot of me, my memories and training, had been missing. That old between-missions me was the artificial me, the created me, I thought. He, that nonentity playboy that presently did not exist, was the artificial personality. Me—the real me—was bottled up and stored in their psychosurgical computers and only allowed to come out when they needed it—and for good reason. Unlocked, I was as much a danger to the power structure as to whomever they set me against.
    And I was good. The best, Krega had called me. That’s why I was here, now, in this body, in this cell, on this ship. And I wouldn’t be wiped and I wouldn’t be killed if I could help it. That other me, sitting there in the console—somehow I no longer hated him Very much, no longer felt anything at all for him. When this was all over he’d be wiped once more—perhaps even killed himself if my brother agents and I on the Diamond found out too much. At best he’d return to being that stagnant milquetoast.
    Me, on the other hand … Me. I would still be here, still live on, the real me. I would become more complete than he would.
    I was under no illusions, though. Kill me they would, if they could, if I didn’t do their bidding. They’d do it automatically, from robot satellite, and without a qualm. I would. But my vulnerability would last only until I mastered my new situation and my new and permanent home. I felt that with a deep sense of certainty—for I knew their methods and how they thought. I’d have to do their dirty work for them, and they knew it—but only until I could get around it. They could be beaten, even on their own turf. That was why they had people like me in the first place—to uncover those who expertly covered over their whole lives and activities, who managed to totally vanish from their best monitors. To uncover them and get them. But there’d be no new expert agent sent to get me if I beat them. They’d just be putting somebody else in the same position.
    I realized then, as they had undoubtedly figured, that I had no choice but to carry out the mission. As long as I was doing what they wanted I would be safe from them while still