Jack L. Chalker - X 4 - Medusa - A Tiger by the Tail

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Medusa

Medusa:A Tiger by the Tail

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Medusa

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Medusa

A Del Rey Book

Published by Ballantine Books

Random House, Inc. New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 82-90893

ISBN 0-345-29372-X

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition: April 1983 Second Printing: April 1983 Cover art by David B. Mattingly

For Walt Liebscher, the elfish Puck of science fiction for over forty years. Those who haven't met him or read him have been

missing something unique and wonderful.

PROLOGUE:

Beginning of the End Game

There is nothing quite like the sensation of calling your worst enemy up for a friendly little chat. The face

appeared on the little screen, although such communication often dispensed with visuals. In this case,

both sides were curious to see what the other looked like.

He looked at the face on that screen and understood immediately why everyone who had seen it feared it.

It was the handsome face of a man in middle age, trim, lean, and somewhat military, but the eyes got you

right away^ They seemed hollowed, like a skull's eyes, yet not empty—they burned with an undefinable

something that seemed both eerie and impossible.

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Medusa

"Yatek Morah here," said the man with the strange eyes. "Who are you and why do you demand to speak

to me?"

The man on the other end gave a slight smile. He was on a huge floating city in space, a picket ship and

base camp for those who guarded the four prison worlds of the Warden Diamond, a third of a light-year

out and beyond the range of the Warden's own peculiar weapons. "I think you know who I am," he told

Morah.

The strange man's brow furrowed a bit in puzzlement, but, suddenly, he nodded and gave a slight smile of

his own. "So the puppet master is finally out in the open."

"Look who's talking!"

Morah gave a slight shrug. "So what is it you wish of me?"

"I'm trying to save a minimum of fifty or sixty million lives—including your own," he told the man with

the burning eyes. "Perhaps a great many more than that."

Morah's smile widened. "Are you certain that it is we who are in danger? Or, in fact, that anyone is."

"Let's not beat around the bush. I know who you are— at least who and what you claim to be. I have been

observing your behavior of late, particularly that in the Castle on Charon. You claim to be Chief of

Security for our hidden friends here in the Diamond, and I'm willing to accept you at your word—for

now. I certainly hope you're telling the truth."

Morah sat back and thought a moment. Finally he said, "It appears you know a great deal indeed. How

much do you know?"

"I know why your alien friends are there. I know pretty well where they have to be. I know the nature and

purpose of the Warden Diamond and its interesting little beasties. And I know for a fact that your'bosses

will fight like hell against any move against the Warden Diamond. Furthermore, I know that my bosses

will make just such a move when my report is analyzed. What I don't know is how strong a resistance

your bosses can put up; but they are defending a relatively small position against the resources of an

enormous interstellar entity, one which, if you are truly Morah, you know well. In the end, things could

become horribly bloody for both sides. Perhaps your bosses could get a number of our worlds and your

robots will mess up a hundred more—but we'd get the Diamond. And I mean totally. That means that, no

matter what we lose, you and your bosses lose more."

Yatek Morah remained impassive to the logic, but still appeared interested in the overall conversation.

"So what do you propose?"

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Medusa

"I think we should^talk. By 'we' I mean your bosses and mine. I think we'd better reach some

accommodation short of total war."

"Indeed? But if you know so much, my friend, you must also realize that the very existence of this little

exercise came about because my bosses, as you call them, in consultation with our people, determined

that the Confederacy can never reach an accommodation with another spacefar-ing race. So well have our

little conference, and both sides will say all the right things, and then we'll sign some sort of treaty or

somesuch guaranteeing this or that; but the Confederacy will not honor that any longer than it feels it has

to. They will send in their little missionaries, and they will find that they have come across a civilization

so alien that they won't be able to understand it or its motives."

"Do you?"

Morah shrugged. "I know and accept them, even if I do not completely understand them. I doubt if any

human ever will—nor they us. We are the products of two so totally alien histories that I doubt if even an

academic acceptance of one another's motives and attitudes is possible. On an individual basis,

perhaps—on a collective basis, never. The Confederacy simply cannot tolerate something that powerful

that is also inscrutably different, particularly with a pronounced technological edge. They would attack,

and you know it."

He made no reply to that, because he could find no flaw in the argument. Morah was simply presenting

human history from its beginnings. Such was the nature of the beast —as he should know, being human

himself. So instead he changed the subject slightly. "Is there another way? I am in something of a trap

myself, you know. My bosses are demanding a report. My own computer analyzer had to be, talked into

letting me out the door of my lab to come up here and make a call—and it never would have done so if it

thought I was going to call you. When I return, I will have a matter of hours, perhaps a couple of days, to

make a report. I will be forced to make it. And then the whole thing will be out of my hands. I am running

out of time, and that's why I'm coming to you."

"What do you want of me?"

"Options," he told the strange, powerful man. "Solving your little puzzle was simple. Solving the bigger

problem is something beyond me."

Morah seemed deeply impressed. Still, he said, "You realize that I could prevent you from making that

report."

"Possibly," he agreed. "But it would do no good. The raw data has already been shifted, and they have a

Merton impression of me. They could, with some trouble, go through this entire thing again in a very safe

area, and come up with the same report. Besides, I doubt if they would believe I died accidentally—so

killing me would tip more of your hand."

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Jack L. Chalker - X 4 - Medusa - A Tiger by the Tail

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