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enough.
Remember the cells are programmable."
She considered what he said, and I was beginning to think we were going to
have to spell it out. Then suddenly I saw her mouth shape into an oval. "Oooh
. . .
Oh, my!"
"My only regret is that Dylan's going to have to do this all alone," I
grumbled.
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"I hate missing out on the climax of the big scam. After all, it was my idea."
"There's a way, you know," Dumonia reminded us softly, but I could see that
eager gleam in his eyes. "I set things up in case you wanted to do so."
Dylan looked at him, then me. "I I'm not sure I want to," she told us. "I'm a
little scared of it."
"I told you there was a big risk," the psych admitted. "And I understand the
cautions. First, you could split. No big deal there, as long as you wanted to
stay together forever, and that's a long time. You could merge into one new
personality. Or you could find out that deep down neither of you really like
the other. That's particularly the case in Qwin's mind, since he was a very
unpleasant person until he came here and found his humanity."
She nodded. "I know. That scares me the most, I guess. I love him the way he
is now, but I don't think I would like the old Qwin very much at all. He
sounds too much like Wagant Laroo."
I looked at her strangely. Her, too?
"There's another possibility," he suggested, sounding slightly disappointed at
her reluctance. I think he really wanted to pull off that merger or whatever,
strictly for professional curiosity or maybe just for fun. "I could manipulate
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the psych plants so that it would require both of you to complete the
programming operation."
I looked up at him accusingly. "That's what they recommended right along,
wasn't it? To make sure that neither of us could be held hostage to the
other's cooperation."
He coughed apologetically, then shrugged and gave a wan smile. "So would I be
a good doctor if I didn't point out all the interesting alternatives?"
"Then we go together, whether they like it or not," Dylan said firmly. "That's
good." She hesitated. "But won't this operation point an arrow straight back
to you? Won't they know who had to be the one to give us the information?"
"If it works, it's academic," he told us. "If it doesn't, or if anything goes
wrong, well, I have contingency plans. Don't worry about me. I cover myself
pretty well."
"I'll bet you do," I said dryly. "Well, let's get on with it"
As I predicted, Bogen didn't like the revised plan, not one bit.
"What could I do?" I asked him innocently. "Here we were going down the
elevator from Dumonia's office and suddenly, bang, out go the lights for both
of us. We wake up half an hour later halfway across town, with the briefing
identically planted in our minds and the blocks in place. You know your men
lost us."
He didn't much like that, either, but could only glower.
"Well, you got it, though?"
"We got it." I had already explained the terms and conditions, spelling out
the protections in pretty absolute terms.
"The boss isn't gonna like this," he growled. "Too much to go wrong. Tell you
what, though. Both of you come out to the island this afternoon. Bring your
things it might be a long stay."
I nodded and switched off.
"You really think Laroo will buy it?" Dylan asked worriedly. "After all, he's
putting himself in the Confederacy's hands."
"He'll buy it," I assured her, "although cautiously. He doesn't have any
choice, as you know who assured us."
"Imagine. The most powerful man on Cerberus, one of the four most powerful in
the Diamond, and maybe one of the most powerful men around today, period and
he's scared to death."
"Oro/ it," I responded. "Let's go pack."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Final Scam
Dumonia and his psych computers had built a tremendously impressive
psychological profile of Wagant Laroo over the years, back from when he first
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most powerful men throughout history, his one fear was assassination or even
accidental death. This fear had actually been compounded, on Cerberus, where
one had the potential of eternal life and that was the kicker. By now Laroo
felt almost omnipotent, but to feel like a god and know you were potentially
mortal was unthinkable. The robot was the closest thing to total security he
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