FUTURES RESEARCH

9030 - THE SPACE TRAVELLER'S TALE contd. - 1998

[As explained earlier, the stories were linked by an ‘operator’s’ narrative. The last two sections, therefore, contain this linking material]

OPERATIVE'S NOTES

THE INTERNET ENTREPRENEUR [9020]

Having heard the story of the 'fat hyena', and before I could say anything myself, the obvious question was asked for me.

"If life was so beautiful, why are you on your way to the asteroids?"

Abraha's answer was instantaneous, almost as if he had it ready-prepared: "My information machine from time to time produced some odd things, and - having an insatiable curiosity - I unwisely chased after them! A year ago, I started to find patterns emerging which suggested that what I thought were a group of fellow-hackers were trawling the databases almost as effectively as I was. Out of mischief as much as by design, I led them to me. I thought it would be great fun working with like minds after so long alone, and I had supposed they would enjoy the fun just as much. Unfortunately this was not the case, for they were working on behalf of the Cosa Nostra, and they didn't view my investigations into their affairs with the same degree of enthusiasm! If that wasn't enough, the Revenue also recognised my existence. I suspect they had been following the Cosa Nostra, and in the process had tripped over me. Whatever the reason, the effect was the same. They politely asked for my unpaid back taxes! Some of the ways in which I am unworldly have important consequences! So here I am, caught between the rock of the Cosa Nostra and the very hard place of the Revenue, the two opponents who can match my wiles; on the lam!"

"But, as I live more in cyberspace than in the real world, I have been able to bring enough with me on this very necessary journey to the stars. I have lost a fortune, several actually, and that seems to have bought off the Revenue; for their operatives can reasonably claim to have made one of the biggest hits on record. But, hidden in all sort of weird places, in thousands of accounts, I have still kept more than two thirds of my fortune. The mob were harder to satisfy, hence the reason I am on the way to the asteroids. On Earth, no matter how well hidden I thought I was, I would always be at risk. Out there, where the mob's remit does not run, I should be safe. In any case, they can see no profit in pursuing me. It would be too expensive - and I am unlikely to come out of hiding to testify against them if the Revenue still want me. No doubt they will eventually come to the asteroids, but by then I will be ready for them."

It was a melodramatic story, one that I could - and would - check thoroughly, but it was not impossible; and would the CIA invent such an exotic one, especially one which would undoubtedly require a great deal of money. On the other hand, his very last comment puzzled. How would he be ready for them?

My initial set of personal records had been totally wrong - they too would have had me believe that he was a junior manager of a Third World IT punch outfit. Why had nobody in the Agency asked how he could afford the trip? The central staff had slipped badly there. It was, though, very easy to check out his story. The Agency had speed links to the files of the Revenue, so that part of the information was with my mouse almost immediately. He was right; the Revenue was feeling very smug about its bust. When I saw the figures I couldn't believe any one person could be so rich - and, if he was telling the truth, that was less than a third of his total wealth! But, no wonder the Revenue weren't following him - in their place I wouldn't have though he could have had anything worthwhile pursuing. Even so, I couldn't believe that he was my target. Now that the loot had been recovered, nobody in government seemed to care about him any longer- not enough to put someone as high-powered as myself on his tail, and certainly not without a very specific brief to recover the rest of the money!

The Cosa Nostra connection was rather more difficult to follow. We had our links, of course, electronic ones to the databases they foolishly thought were impossible to penetrate and human ones to their various families. All of these links had to be used very discretely, for there were lives at stake - not least those of the informants in the families. Fortunately, the information I needed was almost in the public domain. The mob had put out a contract on him, and it was one of the biggest I had ever seen; though, considering the damage he could have inflicted, it was not unduly high; they clearly saw him as an embarrassment rather than a deadly threat. In any case, it had recently revoked - something I had not seen before - perhaps, with all his wealth, he had been able to buy them off! Even more unusual, though, was a rider offering a new reward for anyone finding him trying to return to Earth again. Assuming he did stay off Earth, and he seemed sensible enough to take the message, that seemed to be that. Maybe there was a deeper connection with the Cosa Nostra, our records weren't infallible, but there was no evidence of it - the scale of the funds he had received must have been detected by our analysts if it had come from that direction. Equally, if there had been an important mob aspect to the case surely the back-office would have briefed me on this.

So, it seemed as if I had my first strikeout. I could see no way he could be a threat to state security, or to the Agency. Not least, I could see no way that - with all that loot - he would agree to be anybody's pawn!

Even so, I was glad that I would be able to spend more time with him, over the succeeding months; just to dig that bit deeper into his story. I never accept anything a face value. Unfortunately, I rarely saw him except at our get-togethers. The rest of his time he was locked away in his suite, he needed a fortune to be able to afford one of those. In there, I discovered, he had set up the most sophisticated computer complex imaginable; it was more powerful than that of the colony! I knew that he spent his working - indeed his waking - hours communing with this kit; for the first thing I had done was to tap into it. What came out of it meant nothing to me, and didn't mean much to our experts back on Earth. We all agreed, however, that it was exactly what it purported to be. He was the nerds' nerd, the hackers' hacker, and had no life outside of cyberspace.

From time to time I, and my colleagues back home, dipped into what he was doing. It made our heads hurt, but otherwise seemed to pose no threat. One down and fourteen to go!

The second story was, literally, more homely:

THE NEW FAMILY AT CHRISTMAS [9038]

According to my records, Mo, the wife, was on board with her current partner. It was still, I was amazed to learn, John. I would have expected a wimp, as he clearly was, to have been sucked dry by half-a-dozen other partners by now. Looking into Mo's eyes, however, I realised that the story was not as clear-cut as that. It was obvious that he had indeed enjoyed such partnerships, but she had stuck to him anyway. I looked around to see what other conquests would come his way on this trip. Two years would be an impossible time for him to maintain any form of monogamy - even if, as would happen, his affairs would earn him the opprobrium of the rest of the group. I sighed involuntarily, for it was obvious that his first hit would be on me! What was worse, I would have to fall for his charms. In fact I loathed his type, all surface and no depth, but the rather naïve character I was playing would undoubtedly have fallen for his flattery. Never mind, bedtime is often when my targets are at their most vulnerable; and I am most easily able to probe their innermost thoughts - they are just as open to flattery themselves!

Getting the records about them was more difficult. It is true that any individual accumulates vast amounts of data on the various databases. At one extreme a small amount of this is formal; all the details of your official life - from your birth and death to your tax records - all nicely indexed. At the other extreme there is the swamp of informal records you build up with every superstore purchase, with every bank transaction, with every place your car goes, but it is a nightmare analysing these. This work is already done for individuals who justify a folder of their own, for important personages or villains or subversives or those we are tracking or for those who fall into our net accidentally, that is how we know so much about them. But ordinary individuals didn't justify this kind of investment; so, though the data was undoubtedly there - spread across millions of files, it was of no use to me. Even so, I set a couple of data trackers, back at Central, sampling records to see if they could unearth anything which smelled funny.

But I didn't really expect them to find anything I could well believe that Mo had dragged John out here to avoid Deirdre, which is what she claimed, but I couldn't see why he had acceded - unless he was an even bigger wimp than I thought. The one  question outstanding, and it was an important one, was how could they have afforded to make the trip. The answer came with their bank records - which of course we double-checked - an inheritance, quite a large one. It also explained the wimp's behaviour; she was the beneficiary!

All of this was confirmed in my bed, with the wimp accompanying his version of the tale with shouts of 'bitch'; and I had thought I was the one who was supposed to scream with the pleasure of it all! At least that made me feel a bit better; for the sexual event itself was abysmal. The net result was, though, another strikeout. Where the previous suspect had been too extraordinary, this pair were too painfully ordinary.

So, on to the next suspect. This one looked more of a possibility. Its narrator was clearly someone who carried authority; even if he was young. And he was young, and handsome; I hoped I would have to test this one in my bed for rather longer!

THE(US) UNDERCLASS BORDER TOWN [9005]

It was an interesting story, if at times a harrowing one. Above all, it gave a human dimension to the longest war in US history, that between its - white - middle classes and its - ethnic - underclasses. It was to a large extent a hidden war. It only emerged briefly, from time to time, as it produced dramatic excesses. The LA Incident could, for example, be seen as one of its most horrendous consequences, but the various massacres of Chicano groups had also featured - it was perhaps symbolic that the white supremacist groups had perpetrated the worst. But above all, as Che had described, it existed as the many minor incidents along the dividing line between the two communities. These actions, most often as small 'guerrilla' incursions in the form he had described, were now never reported; even those directly affected had long since become bored with the subject and - as they saw no solution in prospect - had immersed themselves in the rest of their lives.

What was particularly interesting, in the context of my own investigations, was the way he had chosen to tell it from three different viewpoints. This guy clearly had a well-developed social conscience. That alone didn't make him my number one suspect, but it inevitably put him near the top of my list. A social conscience is not far removed from social action, and that leads on to all sorts of things; besides which he had already admitted, in the story, his close contacts with the underground! They might be subverting the government of our 'enemy', but they were still subversives - and the Agency always saw these, no matter whose side they were on, as a threat. They could too easily change sides when it suited them. I have always had my reservations about such guerrillas - and, in particular, their inevitable designation as patriotic freedom fighters if they won and despicable traitors if they lost! Che, though, also had more dangerous characteristics; above all, he had the intellect, and management talents, to be an effective leader of such subversives. This man really could be a threat. For now, anyway, he had to be top of my list.

On the other hand, the covert economy he led was not really as subversive as it might have seemed. We knew all about it, and I assumed the CIA knew as much as we did - it was, after all, in their backyard. And it was not all that covert. The Federation traded almost openly with it; not to subvert the US but simply because it was a good trading partner. In any case, our records showed that the Federation had a tacit - albeit unpublicised - agreement with the US on this score. Indeed, the latter found the Federation's trade to be a convenient way of funding those underclass communities - hungry communities, as they were supposed to be, offered a much greater threat than comfortable ones!  I had always been cynical about the principles politicians enunciated. I had preferred to work in the security services where we never pretended that our actions were anything but covert.

So, maybe he was not leader of dangerous subversives, but he was an enigma. Above all, his profile was too obvious. If the CIA was going to build a cover story, why choose one which would immediately attract attention. Maybe it was a double bluff; I had seen those before. The cover story did, indeed, check out. But it would do either way. The CIA would not fall down on that. I found, to my personal pleasure, therefore that it would require further delving into his personal affairs. Accordingly, with much more gusto than with my previous victim, I became his lover. This time it was anything but a chore; sometimes the more degrading aspects of my job had their own rewards! I will not, though, add any descriptive material. That would add nothing to your knowledge of the chase, and would only distract some of you from it. Suffice it to say that it was a good, a very good, experience; and if you are desperate you can replay every second of it from my mouse's data records - as no doubt the porno addicts amongst you already have done!

It also more or less convinced me that he was innocent of whatever devious plot I was searching for; even though I, and central staff, had no idea what this was. His answers, even deep in my embraces, never deviated and never rang untrue. I have to qualify my confidence in him however, for not a few of my previous lovers had betrayed me; and, of course, not a few of them had been betrayed by me.

Even so, let's put him on the reserve list; rather than at the top of the main list.

The nest story was a strange one, almost too autobiographical. It could have been recent, for many of the development it described were to be seen in the recent politics of the developing nations, but I suspect it referred to events of some time ago - especially as the narrator was, let us say, 'mature'.

PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER [9062]

I won't sleep with this individual! But that will not necessarily be because I don't want to; I am equivocal about that. He was old, bald and paunchy - hardly the type I sought out - but even so his mind fascinated me. And I am much more attracted by the mind, rather than the body. But the simple truth was that I knew he wouldn't choose to sleep with me! He wasn't averse to women, his records showed he had been through one marriage and a number of affairs, but he had long since decided he was now unattractive to women - in my view possibly wrongly so - and he didn't even try his luck anymore.

You may ask how I knew all of this? The simple truth was that it was all in his copious records. It may have been many years ago that the events took place, but the Agency considered him to be one of our own - since he had grown up with one of its predecessors, MI6, and the Agency never let go of anyone. He may not have thought he was working with them, but he undoubtedly was. As a result, I was able to check every detail of his story, and add some facts he probably didn't even know about! Above all, once having become - unknown to him perhaps, one of our happy family, he had been tracked for most of his life. Every peccadillo had been noted - with relish - for the Agency liked to have some dirt on their operatives; it meant they were only human, and hence - in some perverted way - trustworthy! He had been positive vetted countless times - often at the highest level - for, every time the Agency had almost decided to close the book on him, he embarked on something new which impacted on national security. He had a knack for getting where the action, political or military, was. I was only surprised that he hadn't been honoured in one of the usual ways. I was disappointed when I read the simple note which explained why "Doesn't seem to ask for any reward, so don't bother - there are already enough ambitious bastards around demanding them." Maybe I should reward him myself, in the way I know best!

But, he was clearly not what I was looking for. God himself could not have had a cleaner record!

The next story is another account of subversion. I seem to be encountering rather a lot of these - is that what I am supposed to be looking for. But, then, the 'new frontier' was the place where you would expect to find more than your fair share of oddballs - escaping from what they saw as the stifling society on Earth - and that was where we were headed.

THE COVERT COMMUNITY [9015]

This particular subversive might not seem as dangerous as some, but ideas can be the most subversive weapons of all. The Agency is always exhorting us to remember that 'the pen is mightier than the sword' - usually to justify their pursuit of intellectuals in general! There may be some substance in their claim. Over the years it has more often been the writers who have ultimately proved to be the most effective revolutionaries. Marx, for one, created his own special revolution while working in the reading room of the British Museum; surely the most conservative of locations - where even an inappropriate whisper may result in your forcible removal! From our point of view, the worst aspect is that modern revolutionaries, such as these, now have immediate access to global media. Even worse still, they are often more expert, in manipulating the words and images, than our own propagandists! Even so, that group might be embarrassing for our control freaks in Central Staff, but their record was hardly blood-soaked. So they disapproved of the old political parties, but so - it was claimed - did the Agency; even though it had been created by them. It, too, had been very happy when they disappeared; for then it had been able to set its own agenda - without untoward interference.

Once again we had ample files on the community Audrey described. You had only to think you were a subversive - let alone be one - to justify space in the Agency's vast data-warehouses. But, like the commentator from central staff who had analysed the files, I thought they were probably innocuous. Indeed, unlike the commentator who was not allowed to evince any personal views, I supported their attempts to improve the world. But then it doesn't matter what I think either; I am at the Agency's beck and call, to do its bidding not my own. Even so, I gave it a clean bill of health.

The records also showed no inconsistencies for Audrey herself. She was one of their best web-site producers; and she would undoubtedly be better rewarded - in terms of money and influence - amongst the asteroids. She had no strange affiliations, and her ideas were her own, so she too went onto my reserve list.

The next story is slightly weird. I could follow the main story-line, but the extracts from the rather strange set of scriptures he kept including, never quite made sense to me!

THE COVERT HALLELUJAH [9035]

It was a sad story. Boy is alone, boy meets girl, they fall in love, and boy loses girl - to religion! Losing the love of your life to religion must be - quite literally - a form of hell. That explained why he was putting so great a distance between himself and the experience. Incidentally, we found that - despite his seeming naivety - he had not handed over the bulk of his money to the circle. Hurrah for him! Indeed, though his lifestyle was modest, he had over the years inherited quite enough to live in considerable comfort - if not, indeed, in luxury - which is how he could afford his passage with us. This was obviously one area where the Agency's investigators had been more thorough than those of the circle - for I couldn't believe they would have let him keep the money had they known about it!

So was he a religious fanatic, and was he a dangerous one? Or was he even more dangerous still, as a sleeper for the opposition? At times he certainly sounded like a genuine fanatic. He had certainly come on to me quite forcefully at times; but I must admit it was a pleasant change to have someone want your soul rather than your body! But, though he was clearly a committed believer in something - just what I didn't yet understand - I couldn't really see him as being dangerous. Indeed, I was beginning to think of him as something of a pussycat. Who, in any case, would be worried even by a genuine fanatic? I couldn't really see the Agency losing too many sleepless nights over one. Was religion a force which would, these days, undermine the fabric of society, or the economic or political systems? I doubted it would - though I sometimes wished something would!

To my surprise, he too had a full set of records on file. It seems that someone in staff thinks that fringe religions are still a threat of some sort! But I didn't - so he was also removed from my hit list.

I knew about the following narrator in advance, not least because he was the one character who had an unchallengeable reason for making the trip. He, alone of all of us, was going home.

CAT'S EYES & THE COMET [9094]

My comment on this one is very short. Once more we had extensive records, this time because he was an immigrant: we do seem to keep far too many records on far too many people! My god, is everyone expected to be a conspirator? What does the Agency fear? Is it so unsure of itself that it has to be so paranoid? [operative records deleted, but recovered by central staff; as allowed for by Rule 612.209]. His records showed no deviations whatsoever. At long last a normal human being! And he was going home. I wished I was! [operative records deleted, but recovered by central staff; as allowed for by Rule 612.209]

I will just let you read the next story, without comment

THE AGEING SPACE TOURIST [9046]

Despite his brusque approach, this story was a real weepy. In any case, I am a sucker for anyone old enough to be the grandparent I never knew. But the real pathos only emerges when you read his personal records. Yes, you are correct, our basement held full records on him. Even being a crusty old professor seems to qualify you for such star treatment!

The pathos came from reading between the lines in terms of his relations with his wife and children. I have no doubt that, as he said, he was not easy to live with - but with a mind like his, I would have given him a run for his money if I had been around at the time. But he had not told the truth, at least not the whole truth, when he said that his family were peripheral to his life. There was an element of truth in this, but it was not his choice. He had married young to someone who - it was obvious from the records - had chosen him purely as a suitable base for a comfortable life. I have no doubt that, at the time, he believed it was a love match, it certainly was for him - and he loved her, despite everything, for the rest of her life. But I think she was much more calculating; to be honest, I thought she was a cold calculating bitch!

Throughout their married life she regularly had affairs. She was quite attractive, well into old age, and she certainly knew how to pull the men she wanted - even our records seemed unsure about the exact number of these. Yet, every time he forgave her. That I could accept. These days many marriages are 'open' in that way. What I couldn't forgive was the way that she deliberately set about destroying him - seemingly just for the sheer pleasure of it. The details are not clear it is fair to say that the Agency does not bug the bedrooms of even the crustiest of old professors - but she seems to have used his forgiveness as a weapon. She used it simultaneously as an excuse to ratchet up her distasteful behaviour and to belittle him - even in front of others, from which our reports were derived!

Worst of all, she had spent her life suborning their children; turning them against him. It was he, she constantly told them, who had destroyed her life. The constant brainwashing inevitably worked, which is why they had abandoned him now; but, in the process, she had also destroyed their lives. They were bitter; unhappy and dissatisfied with their lot. I was not sorry to read, therefore, that she had died - just about a year ago - of a rather painful sexually transmitted disease - one of the 'sex' viruses which seemed to emerge from time to time, almost as a punishment to those who took the new personal freedoms to extremes. But, of course, it had destroyed the final remnant of his will to live. Sometimes even pain is preferable to loneliness.

When he took his final voyage I, at least, would be there to pray for him!

The next story is a variation on one you may have read a number of times before. It deals with a branch of law enforcement which we, in the security services, have our doubts about.

ILLEGAL GAMBLING [9055]

Police operatives always seem to get excited, even on routine missions. If we, in the secret services, worked the same way the world would have long ago disappeared in a cloud of dust. They always seem to be playing games - boys' games! Women don't get a look in - where we run much of the Agency's business. But the personal 'fun' element, Wayne just had to be in on the bust, is typical of the police. It was not his job, and it probably detracted from the job he was supposed to be doing, and got in the way of those who were really supposed to be running the bust! His switch from a hyper high to the lowest of depressions also seems typical; are they all manic-depressives?

Maybe I was just getting depressed myself. I was almost two thirds of the way through my list of 'suspects', and still hadn't got the vaguest idea what my mission was let alone who my target was! I didn't know what the hell I was looking for, or even where to start looking. Indeed, yet again, once I had the detailed records on Wayne to hand he also turned out to be whiter than white. That was unbelievable for a cop, where the dividing line between them and the criminals they are chasing is often a very thin one - and one which not a few of them stray across from time to time. Were my fellow passengers a company of saints on their way to canonisation? So, frustrated at my lack of success, I set several teams back home at Central to work on this unlikely paragon of virtue. To my despair, they reported back that he really was clean - possibly the only clean cop I had ever met!

On the other hand, despite my pique, I reasoned that he would have been an unlikely choice for an enemy agent. Despite popular opinion, as I have already suggested, security operatives and the police are at opposite ends of the spectrum. A good cop, and he apparently was one of the few who deserved this label, rarely - I would say never - made a good security operative. I couldn't see the CIA, or whoever, employing one. Yet another strikeout.

So far I had nobody anywhere near fitting into the frame. I had three on my list of definite rejects; no way could they even be considered. Beyond that I had one religious nutter, one eccentric trillionaire, and one of our own fringe operatives who had - in any case - been retired years ago. Finally, I had three borderline subversives who were so obvious that they should have worn neon signs! If I was planning to run any sort of covert operation I would never have chosen any of these. Covert was a word none of them understood. But maybe that was the genius of the CIA operation, maybe they were meant to be too obvious!

I just had to hope that the agent was in the declining group of travellers who had not yet delivered their stories. The problem was that I had now been mixing with them, in groups and face to face for almost three months, the longest I had ever spent on such an investigation, and I had not yet found a single inconsistency. We had never even experienced any major disagreements between group members; surely a record given the claustrophobic conditions of our shared imprisonment. We had a good cop, we had good people, a veritable band of saints. Oh my god, it was so depressing! I began to feel that maybe I would be the one to break down first. Maybe I was the agent, and of course I was, but was that the answer! I - not my target - was getting paranoid. So I sat down and wrote a list of the pathetically few facts I could so far muster:

1)      Surely the people back at Central should have been beginning to have second thoughts - there had been no confirmations of the initial rumours, but equally, I supposed, there had been no denials. On the other hand, though there was almost no evidence that anything was due to go down, my sixth sense now told me that something was indeed about to happen!

I don't know what made my whiskers twitch. Maybe it was that the ground was just too sterile. By now I should have found something, even if it was just a conspiracy to smear someone's reputation. Send me any half dozen people and I will find some dirt. But here I had a dozen saints!

2)      If there was something, then one of the group had to be at the focus of it - and I refused to believe I was me! I may have been an agent myself, and one who was about to come apart at the seams, but there had to be another one; if I could only crack their story!

3)      That was all there was, three months gone and eighteen more to go - and all I had was a set of tingling whiskers!

Perhaps the real reason for this depression was the story I knew was due to come next.

NUCLEAR TERRORISM [9009]

You should already recognise that this story was incredibly difficult for me to handle. Every word struck home, as I put it in the context of my own loss of family in the incident. I had lost my whole family then, and had lived with the guilt that it was only because I was away at university - something the family could ill-afford - that I alone was spared. Even so, I had never heard such a harrowing description of it. I had always been partially protected by seeing it from a distance; almost as a dream or, more accurately, a nightmare. Even then it had set the pattern for my life. It was, after all, the reason I had joined the Agency. That's all I can say about it at this stage. Anything more would just cause me to break down completely. Indeed, at the time I was already out of control.

I was so immersed in my misery that I could no longer think of my task. But maybe that was the intention. Maybe, instead of my looking for inconsistencies in others, they were seeking out inconsistencies in me. A Swiss girl, the cover chosen for me, would have been affected by the harrowing elements of that story - but she would not broken up the way I had. Only someone who was themselves a survivor would have experienced such a violent reaction.

When I did eventually regain some semblance of control, I felt more exposed than I even had. My cover story had fallen apart. Worse, when I examined it, the story was almost designed to come apart at the seams. You could almost see the fault lines which, when stressed, would cause my cover to disintegrate. What had the Agency been thinking of, to create such a flawed story? I knew they had been under time pressure, but surely they must have had a better cover on the shelf? It was the staple of our business after all! I am a good operative, but I still have my weaknesses. They are supposed to know those weaknesses and protect me against them. Instead, they had thrown me into a situation where all my weaknesses were exposed to the world at large - including my enemies. It was almost as if the story had been designed to explode!

So, here I was, exposed naked of my cover - to public view. If there were an enemy agent out there, then he or she would already have me under the microscope. They wouldn't take me out immediately. They would check all the facts first, exactly as I would do. I suspected that they would check them more thoroughly than ever, for it was too easy - it looked too much like a trap. From my point of view, however, it amounted to the worst fear any operative ever experienced. You were now the hunted, and you knew all too well that the hunter had you firmly fixed in his or her sights. Their finger was already on the trigger, and all you could do was wait for it to be pulled. You wouldn't even hear the muffled sound, it would inevitable be a silenced weapon, before the bullet struck home. Maybe, though, there was nothing to worry about. So far I had found no firm evidence that there was another agent involved. Maybe I would be lucky, and escape with my life after all. All I could do, therefore, was get on with my job; and wait for the inevitable.

Despite everything, I couldn't believe that anyone, such as Amy, telling such a harrowing story could be an agent. Yet, those same events, which she had described, had turned me into one. So why not another? Her personal records, when I eventually received enough of them to make sense, were even more harrowing. She had spent her later life in and out of psychiatric rehabilitation programmes. Reading the descriptions in these, I began to feel that my family was better off dead - the one saving grace was that they had died immediately. Thank god they had not survived to suffer as Amy had.

But the records graphically highlighted a major problem for me. No matter how much she wanted it, she could never have afforded to pay for this excursion to the stars. Instead, her ticket had been bought, anonymously, for her just before the departure date. Even so, I couldn't believe she was the agent I feared. But it was evident that she had been set up, by someone who was; as the means of undermining my position. She probably had no idea what sort of game her kind donor was using her for. She had almost certainly become an innocent pawn in what had turned into a very dirty game indeed. As far as she was concerned, someone had simply made it possible for her to run further than ever before from the nightmares which haunted her - and she had grabbed that chance. Who could blame her? But someone else, with a very warped mind, was out there; manipulating both her and me - for what purpose I didn't yet know.

So, my cover must have been blown even before I had started on the journey. Who it was I still didn't know, but they must have had access to the most confidential files within the agency - a fact that my mouse was even now frantically signalling back to the Agency. I imagined that there would soon be large numbers of very worried people searching for the source of the leak. That thought, accompanied by a vision of crowds of bit counters rushing hither and thither in the Agency, gave me some personal satisfaction. The problem which remained, though, was that it wasn't them out here facing death - there was no doubt that it was very much me! The agent facing me knew everything about me, and that was not a comfortable feeling. The rules of the game had changed; against me. At least, I now had the evidence that my instincts had been correct; I was not going mad! But I didn't know who, apart from myself, were the players in this macabre game. I knew my new role was to be the hunted, but by whom and for what purpose was just as much a mystery.

I was enough of a professional to decide I would carry on with the game. What choice did I have in the matter anyway? I couldn't exactly use an emergency exit - not for at least another year and a half - if I survived that long. Anyway, we were always taught that, in an emergency, we should get on with the job. Of course, the Agency would say that. They wanted to get - literally - the last drop of blood out of you before you became another statistic on their attrition board. The Agency did not like such attrition, it was expensive in losing the investment, which had been made in a fully trained operative, but it was one of the unavoidable costs of doing business - so it was budgeted for! From the operatives point of view the position was less sanguine, but - again - what other choice did you have? I might have only days, perhaps just hours, to live - but I still had a job to do. Maybe, if I was lucky, I could even get to the enemy before they got to me. But I wished I knew who that enemy was. It would make my task so much simpler!

THE NETWORK (BUBBLES) [9012]

Thank god some sense of normality had returned. Perhaps I was being too paranoid. But the planting of the survivor was too deliberate for me to pretend that I was not under attack - but, what the hell, until I can do anything about it let's get on with the job!

This was a refreshing story, which demonstrated the strength of our new democratic processes; even I, as a professional cynic, felt uplifted. Meg, the narrator, was clearly very intelligent, and very insightful - a much rarer talent. It was also obvious that she was now embedded deep in the Federation's policy-making processes. There was, therefore, no way that they, or the Agency which supposedly was one of its offshoots, would waste such talent on the relatively menial task of tracking down an enemy agent; nor would they expose her to the dangers involved. Indeed, I was surprised that she had even been allowed to join us on this potentially dangerous trip. I didn't really need her records, what she said had the ring of truth, but of course - as a conscientious operative - I did all that was expected to me. The files confirmed everything she had said. There was no way that this lady was my opponent.

As I have said, the story was uplifting. It didn't just describe where we were, but hinted at what our democracy might become. As such, it made me feel rather dirty. The Agency may be an offshoot of the present-day Federation, but it was a product of earlier times. As a result, our view of the world - as an on-going battle with our enemies - was deeply ingrained in the views of its management, in its operational structures and even in the way we operatives approached our work. But, I now mused, should not such views have been largely superseded by political developments? What, then, was I doing here acting as its hit-woman, or rather - in view of the changed circumstances - as its human target? That thought was even more discomforting. Should I have to die to protect such a dinosaur? Was it worth my sacrifice? I had already given it my body - used far too often on its business - and my soul. Had it earned the right to expect me to go further, and give up my life as well? It was a disquieting question. I guess I had let 'patriotism' - albeit to an organisation rather than a nation - to take over my life. I had been happy to lay down my life for my 'country'. But, for the first time, I was now examining this equation from the opposite direction - did the Agency deserve such unthinking loyalty on my part?

SEXUALITY? [9006]

It was nice to get back to a simple love affair; though perhaps - when you looked at the possible gender combinations it hinted at - it was scarcely uncomplicated. The equivocations it encapsulated, as much about our whole society as about gender, resonated with the doubts I was now personally facing. Of course, I never had any intention of becoming a dike; but then I was a woman, and like most of my sex was very happy with my lot. But I was, I realised, much more equivocal about the subservient role the Agency had chosen for me. I had been just a pawn, a throwback to a previous age, and I was starting to get angry about that. The thought of dying to protect the Agency's chauvinism was getting less attractive by the minute.

Once more, the records of this ordinary - at least in the sense of our rather confused society - couple were difficult to retrieve; once more because they were so ordinary! But I was certain that they too were innocent of any charge. Indeed, their great virtue was that they were innocent of almost everything. I wondered if they would keep that innocence for ever, but I knew they wouldn't - nobody was that lucky. I, too, was once an innocent; but the LA Incident had taken most of that away, and the Agency had taken the rest.

The narrator of the next story was also anything but innocent.

INTERNET JOCKY [9018]

This, I suppose, represented the other side of democracy; its freedom - of information, and of almost everything else. Jockys have been one of the great social inventions of our times. They are irreverent, they are popular, and they carry on the legacy of the yellow-sheets without the over-weaning power these grabbed; which ultimately led to their downfall - legislated out of business. The new jockys have no such power; they are ephemeral - they come and as their audience ratings rise and fall - but they still offer a formidable challenge to the establishment. The Agency, accordingly, hated them, but could do nothing about them!

This meant, of course, that his life was documented on its files - almost minute by minute. It was a disgraceful life, cynicism permeating every bit of it. It really was obsessed by that hunger to get into the top hundred list. Indeed, there was almost nothing else to it. He would have done anything, including selling his soul, to reach that pinnacle. Even now, locked for most of the day in his cabin, he was keeping his 'show' on the air. Without all the equipment necessary to project his huge personality there was no way that he could reach even the daily hundred. There were even some amateurs now ahead of him in the lists - but once he had reached his new home base in the asteroids who knew what he might achieve.

But I could not see how, obsessed as he was, he might be persuaded to turn his attention to me; to become an operative for the CIA. In any case, I no longer cared! I was living on borrowed time. I knew I no longer had a life of my own. I now realised that had long ago shrunk into non-existence and the substitute I had grasped - my love for the Agency - had just abandoned me to my fate!

THE AGEING SWINGER [9100]

This presentation was a big surprise, in two quite different ways. The first was actually meeting a legend. Gloria had been a heroine of mine ever since they taught us about her on the Agency's foundation school. The story she had told was one of the cases we had to run on that school. I had passed the test with distinction, but even I hadn't thought to add that wonderful touch - the sperm on her thighs. Of course, we did not know what had happened after that time. We had assumed that, after a surgical makeover - which was why I hadn't recognized her, she had been allowed to retire to the irregulars. The Agency never really let you escape its clutches, which must have been why she was there now - back on active duty. Full retirement was never on the cards. It even laid claim to your children, who had the best security clearance of all, if you were foolish enough to have any!

The second surprise was much less welcome. As I have already hinted, and despite the happy ending to her story, in reality there was no way she could have left the service of the Agency; and there was no way she was on this trip by accident. So, even if the Agency did not know exactly what was happening, it sure was worried. I had never known it put two top operatives onto the same operation, let alone one that might take two years out of their lives. Maybe an expendable sidekick was offered as back-up, but even that was rare; the Agency was very budget conscious! But the situation was even worse. It had not just exposed one agent - for it had now become clear that it was my own employers who had thrown me to the wolves - but they had then thrown in another top-ranker - Gloria - for good measure. Were they mad! My own unveiling might not have been quite so obvious, but Gloria's could just as well have been written in neon a hundred feet high. Did they think that our opponents were so inexperienced that they needed such broad hints; even the other passengers were no talking about her being a spy! Anyway, what sort of friends do that to you? How could they treat us this way? Why did they think it necessary?

The good news, I suppose, was that - despite the offer of myself as the first sacrificial victim - nothing had actually happened. Maybe the Agency was wrong to be worried. Perhaps nothing would happen after all. After weeks of despair I began to hope that I might live through the nightmare. But, even so, how could the Agency have put me through all that?

Immediately after the group broke up, I took Gloria back to my room. There was no longer any need for secrecy. The Agency had already identified us as victims; the goats staked out in front of the hunter to draw in the tiger. "What the hell's going on?" I demanded of her.

Her answer was obviously true, but much less helpful than I would have liked, "I probably know no more than you, for - believe it or not - you really were the lead operative, even if you were also scheduled to be the first victim!" She continued "I had even less preparation than you did. I was pulled out of semi-retirement, sunning myself on an Indonesian beach. Their attempt at a cover story was pathetic, I am supposed to be the faithful wife travelling to join her husband on one of the asteroids. At least he exists, and so does she; now under cover travelling on another liner to join him, that was the bribe for them to co-operate!" She paused for breath and to see how I was coping with the news "But my background briefing lasted less than a day. How do they expect you to get inside a character in such a short time? It told me just how expendable I had become."

"But what was your role to be?" I still didn't understand what was going on.

"I actually had no substantial briefing, certainly nothing like we used to receive. All I was told was that there was a situation developing - but quite what they didn't know." Her brief had been much the same as my own, and I couldn't help interjecting a heartfelt "The same for me" before she continued "They told me there was another operative involved, but they didn't tell me it was you. By the way I thought your cover was incredibly well maintained - until it was blown. I would have never guessed it was you." I suspected she was flattering me, especially as she then paused to obviously consider how she could deliver the next part without too much damage to my ego "They did, however, say that - if all else failed - they would force the other operative out into the open - as a target. My job would then be to see who, from the other side, responded to the opportunity; and, only then, come to your aid!" I shuddered, the Agency had to use whatever weapons it had at its disposal, but the coldness, the callousness, the sheer inhumanity to its own operatives, sickened me. It clearly had also sickened Gloria, for she added, "The level of treachery, to us as much as to our opponents, was an eye-opener. I must say I was shocked, and that is something - after a lifetime in the field - that rarely happens to me!"

She had waited until I had absorbed this information before she continued: "Of course I was horrified when I saw what they did to you. I doubt that most of members of the group saw anything out of the ordinary, but for an enemy operative it was a give-away. I, for one, immediately knew that the Agency had fulfilled its threat. Of course, you have just seen what they have also done to me since - but at least I knew that it was coming. Their instruction was simply to reveal my identity, if your own experience didn't work. Once you had set up your very clever ploy of the personal stories - which was brilliant, and even better I didn't realise you were its originator - it seemed the easiest way. It was totally under my control, I could expose myself to the whole group at the same time - and watch their reactions. This might have given me a slightly better chance of beating my opponent to the draw - but, as you saw, nobody even blinked! I don't know if it was any better setting up my own suicide bid, but the Agency knew me well enough that they were confident that I would do that exactly as instructed!"

"So, nothing happened. What does that mean?" This was my own question, and I continued with the obvious extension "Does that mean that there is nothing after all? Is the Agency chasing shadows?"

Her response reflected her experience of a good many years of covert operations: "It may look like that, but we can't be sure of anything. If it were an agent we were hunting I would have expected them to have shown their hand by now. No agent would expect there to be two top guns set against them. But maybe it is something else, a shipment of something especially important or an assassination say. In that case our own deaths would be peripheral; and our opponents would not show their hands for fear of jeopardising their main mission. So our lives are probably safe, but our mission may still be a failure!"

It was reassuring to think that we might live through the mission, but chastening to consider possible failure - the Agency would not be pleased that its investment of two top man-years had been wasted. I was not looking forward to that particular debrief! But, at least, a continuation of my life was now a possibility - and that was a distinct improvement on my expectations of just a few minutes ago.

The same thought then struck us both at the same time, but I guess I gave voice to it first: "But why did they need two sacrificial lambs? If I wasn't killed why would you be? Why did they need your death as a back-up?" Gloria showed her experience in the Byzantine ways of the Agency "Say you had been killed, and I hadn't been able to discover your murderer, then they would have needed me as another victim! The only surprising element is that mission was considered so important that they would commit the two of us for such a long period. My god, even if they don't know what they are looking for they must think it incredibly important."

The next though was also simultaneous, but this time she beat me to the draw "So there must be yet another operative to follow up the second sacrifice!"

The conversation then lapsed into a debate as to who he or she might be; the choice was reducing all the time - was everyone on board an agent? We must have trawled through the list a dozen times before Gloria, once again better appreciating the distorted logic of the Agency, solved the problem "What if we are looking at this from the wrong end? What if the other operative had already offered himself  - albeit very discretely - as a potential first victim?"

Of course, the facts fitted. David's story of involvement in African politics had presented him as a potential member of the secret services; and, indeed, my own investigations had confirmed that - as, no doubt, an enemy operative would also have found. I had ignored him because his affiliation, if it existed, was on my side! It was a gentle ploy, which would not have fooled an experienced operative, but an inexperienced agent might have fallen for it - and revealed himself. Now, we realised, it was also a double-bluff; despite his mature years, David was on active service for the Agency - there could be no other explanation!

Thus it was that we both descended on David's cabin for an explanation. I don't think he was really surprised to see us. Perhaps he had been expecting us to unravel the plan earlier; and was, even now, silently critical of our ineptitude! On the other hand, he accepted our conclusion that - now none of us had actually been targeted for removal, even after publicly unmasking ourselves - our roles no longer needed to quite so covert. We need not worry the ordinary travellers with the truth, but we need no longer try to fool any agent - a different level of cover. Of course, I still told nobody, not even my two co-conspirators, about my mouse. So we could work as a team to try and solve the puzzle, if there was one!

Although the Agency normally expected us to work alone, its research showed that - in complex situations such as this - a team approach was likely to be measurably more effective. My mouse immediately confirmed this - listing a least a dozen pieces of research that supported this conclusion - I told it to mind its own damn business and let me get on with mine! I guess I was angry with it for the deceptions which had been practised on me over the past months. It was fully justified in its immediate response. It had not lied to me. It was the controllers on Earth who had lied to me. Even so, I had to kick something!

So it was, that all three of us focused on the last of the stories. Maybe this one would answer our questions.

THE ENCHANTED ISLE [9013]

This was the last of the set-pieces; the conclusion of the process I had set in place almost six months before. But, after all those stories, and all that work, we were no wiser. Even before we had heard this last story, the three of us had not expected it to resolve our quandary. We had even called records in advance. There were enough of them to keep us busy for weeks. Tony had posed problems for everyone in sight, so the records covered every aspect of his life. Unfortunately, from our point of view, they showed that he was exactly what he claimed to be; a high-profile protester who had gone into retirement. The situations he described were indeed mysterious; even to the Agency. There was no doubt that the people had disappeared, but there was no adequate explanation as to how and why this happened - so the mystery had no solution. That was undoubtedly a mystery fit to challenge someone, but not us; there was no evidence whatsoever that it was related to our own problems. Of course, people had disappeared before; across the globe thousands did so every day. Most just walked away from problems which they could no longer face. But that didn't seem to be the case here. Just a few were the victims of violence, but that certainly was not the case - the families had been seen leaving. The police services had thrown everything they had at the mystery, they seemed to take it as almost a personal challenge, but without getting anywhere. But that was their problem, there was no way that the disappearance of a few unimportant individuals could threaten global security - so we moved on to consider other more important matters.

For a start, we didn't even know if we faced our own mystery, let alone what the solution might be. So far the only question was why the Agency had behaved so strangely. Indeed, our debate over the next few weeks came to focus more and more on the Agency itself, rather than on imagined enemies - for by now we were convinced that the latter almost certainly didn't exist.

On the other hand, our debate about the Agency proved, to put it mildly, unsettling. All three of us had been long-time loyal servants. We had given that loyalty uncritically, in the service of global security. We had never asked whether the Agency deserved all hat loyalty. Now we had been exposed to its recent strange behaviour, and perhaps more important, had been the targets of its very dubious morality, doubts had begun to intrude. It is quite difficult to love something which is happily arranging your death! In recent weeks it had done very little indeed to earn our loyalty. Perhaps we should have questioned our position much earlier!

Even ignoring our own position, our investigations - now that they had been widened - posed more general questions about the Agency. The various stories highlighted aspects of the Agency philosophy which we had never questioned, but which were - we now saw - as out-dated as those of the old political parties. After all, the Agency had been set up by those political parties; and didn't seem to have moved on much since those times. It was, to a large extent, still lodged in those previous times - when the establishment had the right to defend itself against the people regardless of their wishes, and regardless of the cost to them. It was true that it didn't kill millions. Indeed, as our own Gloria's successful defeat of those potential nuclear terrorists had shown, it could save lives. This was the aspect we, in our loyalty, had previously chosen to see. But, as we now could see, there was as powerful a set of evidence that its power had been just as often, perhaps more often, been used against the interests of the people it claimed to serve! It certainly didn't fit nicely into the package of democratic processes that Meg had worked with. It didn't seem to be capable, either, of matching up to the sorts of changes the other stories described. Even if it did subscribe to any values, and we were even beginning to doubt that, there was evidence that those values were falling further and further out of step with those of the real world; it was becoming a dinosaur.

The picture we were building was a depressing one. Worse still, there was nothing we could do about it. Nobody left the Agency! Like it or not, and we were beginning to dislike it quite markedly, we had no escape route. We couldn't dig a tunnel and disappear. In our modern society, where your activities every second of the day were captured by one or other computer system, you would be lucky to escape for an hour.

These depressing thoughts were, fortunately, overtaken a return to action. As we approached Saturn, and prepared for the imminent departure of Lucius, my mouse reported that it had detected some anomalies in the communications traffic in and out of the colony. If we hadn't had access to the Agency's massive computing power even then it might have eluded us. The only reason for the discovery was the unusual coincidence of a marginal increase in traffic to Earth, and to the other planets, when the path for these communications grazed the surface of one of Saturn's moons. This didn't make sense. Such a route would cause more errors, and hence retransmissions, and other - unaffected - routes were just as easily available. Once the facts were available, the conclusion seemed obvious; there was an illicit contact on that moon. Our records showed that there was no legitimate activity there. It could be from one of the many space vehicles, from rusty tugs to luxurious yachts, that now passed across the solar system. But, even so, the chances were that it had to be covert - and the remarkable coincidence of it occurring close to our own route caused us to assume it and our own problem were likely to be connected.

Needless to say, this discovery raised - once more - the possibility that the covert operation we were here to frustrate was that of a delivery operation; of what, and from who to who, was still an unknown quantity. But at least - heaving a sigh of collective relief - it meant we could get on with our job; and justify handing over our loyalty once more.

We still couldn't flesh out any of the details. But the most obvious link was to the Professor's journey in that direction. The coincidence was, again, to great to ignore. So, our attention turned to the promised ceremony celebrating his voluntary euthanasia.

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