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Cerberus. So even if you saw Laroo, had him pointed out to you and shook his hand, you could not be absolutely certain it was really he, and even less certain that it would still be he days, hours, even minutes later."
      That didn't really bother me much. For one thing, if Laroo had this kind of dictatorial control somebody always had to know who he was or he couldn't give the orders and expect to be obeyed. Furthermore, a man like that would love the actual trappings and exercise of power. Then too, Laroo couldn't be at all certain who / might be a few minutes, days, or weeks later, either.
      "At last count there were approximately 18,700,000 people on Cerberus," Krega went on. "This is not a large population, but it has a very high growth rate. There are more jobs and space than people even now. Since the advent of Laroo's rule the population has been expanding at a rate that almost doubles it every twenty years or so. We believe that only part of this population push is economic, though. Much of it, we think, is because, on a world of body switchers, the potential for immortality exists if there is a constant and available supply of young bodies. Laroo seems to have some control over this process, which is the ultimate political leverage. Naturally, this also means that, short of being killed, Laroo could literally rule forever."
      Immortality, I thought, and the idea sounded very pleasant. How long will you live, my other original self? I, sir, had an infinite answer to that one. Perhaps this was not such a terrible assignment after all.
      Krega had a lot more routine stuff for me, but finally the lecture was over and I simply got off the John and heard it flush. The next time I used it, I discovered that this time the message had been flushed as well. Because it had been a direct neural transmission, even with the interruption, it had taken only a minute or two for the whole thing.
      Efficient, the Security boys, I told myself. Even my ever-vigilant jailers on the other end of those lenses and mikes would have no idea I was anybody other than who I was supposed to be.
      As to who I was, that had come in a rush as well. I was Qwin Zhang, forty-one, former freighter loadmaster and expert smuggler, a virtuoso of the computerized loading and inspection system. A technological crook—that fit many of my own skills perfectly.
      I lay back on the cot and put myself in a slight trance to better sort out the information I'd received. Qwin did bother me a bit. I could follow her life and career without ever really getting a handle on her. Born and bred to her job, normal Confederacy upbringing, no signs of any deviation from the normal path millions of others followed, the path set out for them from birth that they were not only expected to follow but designed to follow. I mentally followed the steps in her routine life and found nothing unusual, nothing to show what I was looking for.
      And yet she stole. Stole expertly, methodically, and efficiently, even using the computer routing systems not only to shave cargo loads but actually to misdeliver them to waiting fencing operations out on the frontier. Stole almost from the start of her career, and so well she Was caught only when a freak accident on a freighter with a bit more cargo than it was supposed to have caused a total inventory and alerted Security. She'd been probed and poked and studied, but there seemed little there. She'd stolen because she could, because the opportunity was there. She felt no guilt, no remorse for^ this "crime against civilization," and didn't seem to have any clear idea of what she would one day do with all that money had she gotten away with it.
      Where was the corruption point? I couldn't find it, nor could the psych boys. What dreams had you had, Qwin Zhang? I mused. What event disillusioned you or turned you, from the paths of righteousness? Some exotic love affair? If so, it wasn't anywhere to be found in what they gave me.