Cerberus: A WOLF IN THE FOLD Read Online Free PDF Page A

it just wasn't possible .. I knew who I was, remembered every bit, every detail of my life and work.
      The shock gave way to anger and frustration. Not only was this female body foreign to me and my personality, but that very mind and personality wasn't real but a copy, an imitation of somebody else entirely, somebody still around, alive, possible monitoring my every move, perhaps my every thought. I hated him then, hated him with a pathological force beyond reason. He would sit there comfortable and safe, in his man's body, watching me work, watching me do it all—and, when the mission was over, he'd go home for debriefing, return to that easy life, while I—
      They were going to dump me on a world of the Warden Diamond, trap me like some kind of master criminal, imprison me there, hold me there for the rest of my life— of this body's life, anyway. And then? When my job was done? I'd said it myself upon awakening—passed my own sentence. The things I knew! I would be monitored at all times, of course. Monitored and killed if I blew any of those secrets. Killed in any event at the completion of the assignment just for insurance's sake.
      Well, I told myself, the system worked both ways. I knew how he thought, how they thought. This monitoring worked both ways. I was going to be a tough son of a bitch to kill. No, I thought, suddenly morose once more, not son. Did I in fact want to live the rest of my life in this body? I really didn't know. Not now, certainly—and not ever, deep down. And yet the tiniest of suspicions rested in the back of my mind that my attitude might be just what they had in mind. The perfect double trap for me. If that was the case, they were mistaken. If I began believing for one minute that they did this to me just so I wouldn't want to outlive my .mission, I'd live a thousand years just to spite them. There was probably no such plot, though, I knew. Either they had an ulterior motive having to do with the mission that caused this, or they just didn't consider it one way or the other. I wished I knew.
      But what about now, in any event? For now I'd bide my time, hold my peace, and adjust as best I could. Odd, in a way, how very ordinary and normal I felt. Arms, legs, head, all in the same places. A lot lighter in weight, yes, .but that was relative; and being a-little weaker in the arms wasn't anything you really noticed, particularly not in a barren prison cell. Only occasionally did I feel protrusions where none had been before, or the lack of some thing that had always been there. I knew here in an isolated cell I wouldn't be aware of the differences. Only later, down there, on whatever hellhole they dumped me, around lots of other people— then things would get rough.
      I was very dry after waking ,and located a small water tap and cup in the wall just above the basin. I drank a good deal. Naturally, it went right through me, whereupon I discovered that having to piss was the same feeling only I now had to do it sitting down. I pulled down the toilet and sat and relieved myself—and got! yet another shock..
      The thing worked by skin contact—don't ask me how. I'm not one of the tech brains. It was not as good as a neural program, but it allowed them to talk to me in total privacy, even send me pictures only I could see and hear.
      "I hope by now you are over the initial shock of who and what you are," Krega's voice came to me, so loud and clear it seemed impossible that none of the monitors could hear. "As you recall, the Merton Process of personality transfer is rather wasteful of bodies—roughly thirty die for one take, as it were—and of the first four that did take, one was this woman. We decided to use her for several reasons. She will put any Warden authorities off their guard if there's been any sort of leak about you, and Cerberus, the planet to which you are being sent, has unique properties that make your sex and age totally irrelevant. To calm you down, I suspect,