and forty kilometers southeast of here, but we got to chasing a big one. A real challenge. You get like that."
"You mean Wagant Laroo?"
" There's two?"
Suddenly I was very interested in bork hunting.
Carefully, though, I steered the conversation away from Laroo and back into her tales of the hunt, which she obviously enjoyed repeating to a new audience. I could see Sanda with stars in her eyes at hearing all this. Even if she didn't feel like hunting borks, Dylan Kohl was the embodiment of her ideal. The hero-worship went really deep.
Inwardly, though, I felt some excitement and mentally checked my programmed map of Cerberus—nothing marked "Laroo's Island " on it. Taking a look to the southeast of Akeba, I detected only a couple of possibilities, isolated groves of great trees separated from the main body by perhaps thirty or more kilometers.
I began to see an unseen overhand in my current position and location. The Warden worlds weren't as free of some Confederacy machinations as they liked to think,
I saw more of Dylan after that, generally but not always accompanied by Sanda, and eventually eked outj more information on Laroo's Island . The Lord of Cerberus was a secretive man, one who enjoyed power but not the celebrity that usually went with it. The island was neither the headquarters of the government nor his official residence, but he was there as often as possible.
The place was reputed to be truly grand, the ultimate in resorts. It was also constantly patrolled by air and ship, approaches monitored by just about every known surveillance system. If somehow you beat it, you then had to pass a brain scan to keep from getting creamed automatically. It was in fact as nearly impregnable a fortress as the Lord of the Diamond, Boss of all Bosses, Chairman of the Council of Syndicates, could design.
Like all absolute dictators, Wagant Laroo feared assassination the most—and more than any others, since that was the only way of getting rid of him or allowing his syndicate chiefs to move up to the top themselves. He himself had gotten the job by judicious and legally un-traceable eliminations.
Well, I didn't want to wait twenty or thirty years to move up the ladder. Not only did I not have that much patience, but there was. more of a chance that something would go wrong in such a slow rise than by the more direct fbute. But the challenge was becoming irresistible on its own merits. The little-seen political boss in'his impregnable fortress! Just perfect.
All the elements were now in place for a break when it presented itself, and it did so a bit sooner than expected, judging by the worried expression on Turgan Sugal's face. Sugal was the Tooker plant manager, a pretty good one who took an extraordinary interest in every facet of the business. Even those of us on the lowest end of the seniority scale knew him, for he was always about, checking on us, making suggestions, socializing, playing on all the company teams. He was, in fact, a very popular boss, and highly accessible. He'd been around a while, too. Although his current body was barely thirty, he was said to be almost a hundred years old.
He looked the hundred, though, when he dropped down to my department to tell me he wouldn't be able to play in the company cordball game that evening. I was captain of the team.
"What's the matter?" I asked him, genuinely concerned. "You look like a man about to have his head chopped off."
"Not quite that bad," he responded glumly, "but bad I enough. We just got the next quarter's production quota and allocations from the syndicate. They're sky-high. At the same time they're yanking several key people from me for some big project upstairs. Khamgirt's been out to get me for years, and he's dropped the whole load on my shoulders. I don't see how we can meet the quotas with a reduced force, and it's my neck if we don't."
"Can't you lay off some of the stuff to the other plants?"
"You mean Wagant Laroo?"
" There's two?"
Suddenly I was very interested in bork hunting.
Carefully, though, I steered the conversation away from Laroo and back into her tales of the hunt, which she obviously enjoyed repeating to a new audience. I could see Sanda with stars in her eyes at hearing all this. Even if she didn't feel like hunting borks, Dylan Kohl was the embodiment of her ideal. The hero-worship went really deep.
Inwardly, though, I felt some excitement and mentally checked my programmed map of Cerberus—nothing marked "Laroo's Island " on it. Taking a look to the southeast of Akeba, I detected only a couple of possibilities, isolated groves of great trees separated from the main body by perhaps thirty or more kilometers.
I began to see an unseen overhand in my current position and location. The Warden worlds weren't as free of some Confederacy machinations as they liked to think,
I saw more of Dylan after that, generally but not always accompanied by Sanda, and eventually eked outj more information on Laroo's Island . The Lord of Cerberus was a secretive man, one who enjoyed power but not the celebrity that usually went with it. The island was neither the headquarters of the government nor his official residence, but he was there as often as possible.
The place was reputed to be truly grand, the ultimate in resorts. It was also constantly patrolled by air and ship, approaches monitored by just about every known surveillance system. If somehow you beat it, you then had to pass a brain scan to keep from getting creamed automatically. It was in fact as nearly impregnable a fortress as the Lord of the Diamond, Boss of all Bosses, Chairman of the Council of Syndicates, could design.
Like all absolute dictators, Wagant Laroo feared assassination the most—and more than any others, since that was the only way of getting rid of him or allowing his syndicate chiefs to move up to the top themselves. He himself had gotten the job by judicious and legally un-traceable eliminations.
Well, I didn't want to wait twenty or thirty years to move up the ladder. Not only did I not have that much patience, but there was. more of a chance that something would go wrong in such a slow rise than by the more direct fbute. But the challenge was becoming irresistible on its own merits. The little-seen political boss in'his impregnable fortress! Just perfect.
All the elements were now in place for a break when it presented itself, and it did so a bit sooner than expected, judging by the worried expression on Turgan Sugal's face. Sugal was the Tooker plant manager, a pretty good one who took an extraordinary interest in every facet of the business. Even those of us on the lowest end of the seniority scale knew him, for he was always about, checking on us, making suggestions, socializing, playing on all the company teams. He was, in fact, a very popular boss, and highly accessible. He'd been around a while, too. Although his current body was barely thirty, he was said to be almost a hundred years old.
He looked the hundred, though, when he dropped down to my department to tell me he wouldn't be able to play in the company cordball game that evening. I was captain of the team.
"What's the matter?" I asked him, genuinely concerned. "You look like a man about to have his head chopped off."
"Not quite that bad," he responded glumly, "but bad I enough. We just got the next quarter's production quota and allocations from the syndicate. They're sky-high. At the same time they're yanking several key people from me for some big project upstairs. Khamgirt's been out to get me for years, and he's dropped the whole load on my shoulders. I don't see how we can meet the quotas with a reduced force, and it's my neck if we don't."
"Can't you lay off some of the stuff to the other plants?"
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