Those who weave the web by logic alone, weave in only one dimension. They are baffled when chance seems to unloosen the purity of their threads. Their reaction is to remove the loose thread and begin to weave again, ever more vigilantly. They may even punish those who they perceived caused the break, for these people must be lacking. They know their new found vigilance will win the day because their logic tells them this.

Logic leads from one known place to another using only a single type of road. Everything seen is seen with only one type of eyes.

But it is the unseen places where the problems lie undiscovered. Everything looks perfect, the threads seem inviolable, and the result seems preordained. But since balance is always sought, the known places will always draw the touch of the furiously unraveling unseen places.

Archival notes:

Retrieved from a Merefant archival cocle, believed to be a diary of Kerishnikache.

Suzerainty Document # Urielle:Coc:00491:Sux - Sec. Class (Regent eyes only).

"Something's wrong," Luana muttered as she stared at her computer screen in one corner of a small clean room. She turned back to her special subject, an ex-Suzerain, lying prone on the table to her right, and quickly checked his connections to the computer. Darach was a remarkable man. Even though his life-recentering had taken place sixteen cycles previously, his unconscious psyche still clung to a kernel of its old identity. Fortunately, it had remained completely dormant, so the programmers hadn't needed to invade his mind any further.

None of that mattered now. For the first time in almost 3,000 cycles, the Suzerainty were directly confronting the Merefant. The life of one man meant nothing when everything was at stake.

The programming the Regent requested would push her abilities to the limit. She had to reactivate the Suzerain within and give it complete freedom without alerting the new person that Darach had become.

To complicate things further, this mission entailed an unprecedented level of custom programming in levels of the brain normally reserved for permanent, immutable, base-level Suzerain programming.

Her accompanying physician sat by the subject's head, monitoring his physical state and verifying the drugs were working before the conditioning program was downloaded into the Suzerain. He checked the subject one more time and then raised his head to respond to her. "I think Tondra is overseeing this personally, so I doubt there is anything structurally wrong with the programming. Even the operational orders have his signature on them. It must be the details of the level four that you developed."

She continued to tap keys at her terminal, stopping the program as she wondered about the problem. Why did a problem have to show up now, when the conditioning would be so critical? The Regent's active personal interest did not help things either. "Can you re-check the drugs, Eric?"

"They're perfectly balanced," he said crisply without checking.

Eric would be no help. He was the best the Suzerainty had, but his awareness rarely expanded beyond his expertise.

She decided to run a low-level diagnostic on the integrity of centering. The computer almost instantly returned the report confirming the broadest centering parameters of any agent she had ever seen. However, as extraordinary as they may be, they were also tightly integrated with no loose ends. This was not the problem.

She idly wondered why an agent would need such wide centering parameters? Why would anyone? It seemed contradictory that the highest security rating she had ever seen always accompanied the widest centering parameters. Much wider than her own. She wondered what it would be like to be allowed that level of... "Huh," she quietly grunted as she forcefully extinguished the uncentered thought.

"Have you found the problem, Luana?"

She shook her head. "I just ran a centering diagnostic on him and everything seems right. I can't find any independent lines or feelings at all. He's as tight as a newly re-centered citizen, but the mission programming isn't taking the way it should."

Eric gave her a flat stare. "Well, maybe the programming isn't consistent."

"I don't think that's the problem."

Eric frowned at her. "Your programming is unique and untested."

She felt a slight irritation creep in and she quickly centered herself, bringing about a non-emotional calm. "I sometimes make mistakes, but it's not the level four programming that I'm having a problem with, but the level three mission programming. The level three design has been unchanged for centuries. I don’t understand why it isn’t working now."

The computer alerted her as it found an inconsistency. "Ah, here it is: it's the new personality. There are interfering independent emotions evoked by his pilot. An emotional tie here needs to be re-aligned. If I can..." She went silent as she quickly did some reprogramming and emotional re-alignments that should eliminate the glitch. Then she re-entered the program and watched the emotional sensors to check for integrity in the subject. "I think I have it." She studied Eric for a moment. Was it worth the risk? Was it worth the risk not to? She made a rapid decision. "I think I'll have to do a sterile room check, Eric."

Eric looked surprised. "That is an outmoded routine. If something happens to him you don’t have the medical training to help him. And what if he becomes physical?"

She licked her lips. "Have there been any signs of physical stress? Will he be all right without you?"

Eric shook his head. "He's in excellent physical shape. But you just don't know when something might crop up when you’re fiddling this deep in someone’s mind."

She regarded him with level eyes. "This is too important not to get absolutely right."

Eric took a few deep breaths and quietly tidied up his area before getting up to go. He gave her a quick smile. "Good luck. I'll be right outside if anything happens."

As Eric left, she called up to the monitoring Suzerain. "Request a sterile room."

There was only the slightest hesitation. "Acknowledged."

The communicators powered down and the room went silent. The Suzerain who had been monitoring their activities severed all connection with her room. The magnetic locks on the outside doors clicked on, sealing her in and everyone else out until she opened them. The room speakers announced, "Room confirmed sterile, proceed."

Luana was completely alone with the subject.

After disconnecting all the sensors to the subject's body, she turned on the room's local recorder and then made her way around her subject and to the opposite corner of the room where a local shield generator would protect her should he became unstable. She adjusted her hand-sized memcorder to project data so she could easily read it without having to interrupt her interrogation with file searches. She was about to open him up to the deepest level of his psyche, and she had to make sure all inputs were sterile and centered.

When the Suzerainty were first developing re-centering and mission programming there had been an incident while they were perfecting the programming. One of the subjects being programmed heard one of the programmers whisper about how the Central Council kept interfering with their affairs and they would all be better off if the Councillors were dead. It was simply an expression, of course. But since the subject's psyche had been open on the deepest levels, within a week the first Councillor had been murdered. They immediately apprehended the Suzerain responsible but it had been an expensive and complex operation to keep the general population centered while they recovered from the murder. Of course, the public was never told it was a Suzerain that had done the killing.

She took a deep breath. Even with her elitist training, entering this deeply into a mind was a nerve-wracking affair. "VRIP:025689:9m9:Arb:NV, program check, level three."

The man's eyes snapped open. They looked blank, as they should at this stage. Good. She continued: "Current mission parameters." Normal conditioning took place on the upper levels, but this was such an extraordinary mission that all concerned felt a level four conditioning would be the only way to ensure he remained viable in the environment he would soon be entering.

His eyes never changed but his mouth moved. "Enter hostile area. Repair ship no sooner than twenty local days after landing. Ensure any sentient life encountered that our only goal is to leave. Record information, especially concerning Merefant, ships located in mountains, Darma, guidance crystals, telepathy, telekinesis. Note numbers and locations. Exit as soon as repairs complete and return to Isius for debriefing."

"Countermeasures?"

"Do not show any special skills unless my life, or my pilot's life, is threatened."

She nodded thoughtfully. That part about keeping his pilot safe was the part she had just added to keep his emotional integrity. The basics were in place. Now to see if the reprogrammed level four basic commands remained intact. Level four had been designed to be completely unalterable in the extremely unlikely chance that some uncentred group would discover a way to access an agent's mission programming. It had been totally successful. No one had ever reprogrammed a Suzerain.

Her orders to reprogram level four created an unprecedented integrity risk, even though the risk of external tampering was minimal since his destination planet possessed very low technology. As long as she did her job there would be no problems. This would a crucial test of her ability. "VRIP:025689:9m9:Arb:NV, program check, level four."

She paused a moment. Everything was silent except her own breathing load in her ears. "Basic command access, code..." she glanced down at her memcorder to read a code that only the Regent knew before today, "Duthail integration code 00134."

"Access granted." The agent's toneless reply seemed icy.

She licked her lips, tasting the salt of sweat. "Recite programming," she glanced down again, "mission discovery, action 937."

The man's face never wavered. "Kill the discoverer."

It worked! She felt giddy. She had just reprogrammed something that should have been unprogrammable, something that went against all the principles of all the other programming, and the computer confirmed absolute integrity. Nothing could go wrong. All she had to do was seal him up using another code supplied by the Regent. She read the final lines from the special file the Regent had released to her. "VRIP:025689:9m9:Arb:NV, seal level four, Duthail link, access total, links activated, feedback loop activated, end programming."

Then her monitor started to blink. His emotions were starting to run amok, just as if he were completely uncentered!

Luana's mouth hung open. With effort, she bit back an oath. It looked like a hidden sub-program had been accidentally activated. But she had seen all the schematics in preparation for this programming. There were none. She quickly scanned through her memcorder searching for a clue to what could be a fatal programming error. Nothing.

She stared at her subject. "System check, integrity."

The mask like face moved. "Link integrity confirmed. All connections confirmed."

She frowned. "System trace, emotional trigger."

"System trace activated.”

Luana watched as the indicators spiraled deeper and deeper into his subconscious.

"System trace interrupted. Emotional locks activated."

"Wha--?" She searched the memcorder. She tried re-using the level four access code. "Duthail integration code 00134."

"Caution, this is a guarded level. Attempts to over-ride will result in death."

Her mind reeled. The agent had just said she would be killed if she tried to access this information! The implications of what she had successfully programmed suddenly sunk in.

The agent on the table gave a quick physical shudder.

She hit the first level alarm. The Suzerain outside would go to standby. Even though coming in might endanger the man, they would risk it if he grew dangerous.

Her brilliant mind forged ahead. If the solution is not possible within current parameters, then broaden the parameters. Going to her programming panel, to shut down all operations and turned on all the monitors of his brain activity. Categorizing them between internal and external stimuli gave her the answer. The lines registering self-generated stimuli remained unmoving, but something was messing with the external lines.

Something, or someone, was trying to get into the agent's mind.

How could that happen in a sealed room?

Luana shook her head. It didn't matter. What mattered was to stop it!

The agent shuddered again.

"Initiate emergency closure, all levels."

The face twitched. "Fault, level 2."

His emotions were rebelling. She pressed the code to initiated re-centering program within the agent.

The agent arched. “No!”

He was fighting it.

She took a risk. Carefully modulating her tone to remain neutral, she asked his deep psyche, “Why do you fight the centering?”

“The Merefant! I have to kill, because of the Merefant!"

Luana blanched. Was he talking about killing Merefant, or did he feel the Merefant were making him kill? She scanned her monitors. She begin a manual re-centering process in the badly effected areas.

Something made a loud bang.

A hand grabbed her wrist. She screamed.

The agent stared down at her with a blank glazed look on his face but his strength was unbelievable. She cried out as her arm was twisted hard!

The door burst open. Several Suzerain leapt towards them.

The agent froze, growled, and then simply fell as if he was dead.

Everyone remained still, ready to attack.

The Regent marched into the room. It took him one moment to take in the room. "What happened?"

Luana rubbed her wrist while taking a few deep breaths. She noticed holes in the table where the restraints should have been bolted down. "I don’t know. He said something about having to kill because of the Merefant. Then he ripped out his restraints and grabbed me.”

The Regent looked at the agent lying awkwardly on the floor.

Eric came running in and immediately knelt by Darach's body. After a quick check he indicated to the Suzerain to lift him back to the table.

“Is his psyche still open?” the Regent asked Luana.

"I don't know, yet. I tried to seal him up but he had already been compromised. I don't know if his psyche was protected or not. I need to get him on the table again."

The Regent nodded, then looked at Darach. “Has he moved at all?”

“Not even a twitch,” one of the Suzerain said.

“Get another table. Make sure the restraints are sound. Find out what went wrong and sort it out.”

"Perhaps the Merefant found a way to get to him," Eric suggested. “Didn’t they do that during the Merefant Wars?”

Luana shrugged. Some believed in that sort of thing more than others. She got back to her instruments.

"Inform me as soon as you know," the Regent said and turned to leave.

Luana stopped him. "Sir, we've only 40 minutes before we have to get him back on the streets. What if I can't stabilize him before then?"

The Regent looked at her for a long time. He looked angry and very, very tired. "Forget the time limit. We have to get this right. You can use whatever resources we have. If we have to, we'll pull in his partner and re-program him as well." Then he left.