Cerberus: A Wolf in the Fold

Last updated
Cerberus: A Wolf in the Fold
Four Lords vol 2 Cerberus front cover.jpg
Author Jack L. Chalker
Cover artist David B. Mattingly
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Genre Science fiction
Publisher Del Rey
Publication date
1982
Media typePrint (Paperback)
ISBN 0-345-35247-5
OCLC 277005501
Preceded by Lilith: A Snake in the Grass  
Followed by Charon: A Dragon at the Gate  

Cerberus: A Wolf in the Fold is a science fiction novel by American writer Jack L. Chalker. First published as a paperback in 1982, it is the second book in the Four Lords of the Diamond series. It continues the saga started in Lilith: A Snake in the Grass , and is followed by Charon: A Dragon at the Gate and Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail'.

Contents

Setting

The Confederacy is a collection of human-populated worlds in which all members are biologically and socially engineered to be perfect and docile citizens in a materialistic utopia. Any alien worlds that the Confederation comes across are assimilated or eliminated. Not wishing to stagnate, the Confederacy continually expands, and the worlds of the Frontier have humans of unaltered genetics.

Despite the Confederacy's best efforts, there are always criminals. Over-ambitious politicians, too powerful religious leaders, and the usual white-collar criminals and violent offenders. To track down such people, the Confederacy has bred Assassins, who are assigned to deal with such. Often that involves killing the offenders or giving them a brain wipe and new personality. However, the best of the criminal elite are exiled to the Warden Diamond - those with connections, or those who may have information that insures that powerful people will protect them.

The Warden Diamond is the Confederacy's penal colony. It is four human habitable worlds circling a single star, and that has a unique organism, the Warden Organism that is a microscopic symbiotic lifeform. When one is exposed to it, it takes up residence in each cell of one's body, generally improving it and seeing to the body's continued health. It can also give a person additional powers, that vary depending on which variety they have been exposed to and how well their mind can be in tune with the vague collective consciousness of the organism. Due to the fact that people die if they are taken out of the Warden System, it is thought to be the perfect penal colony, as escape is impossible.

The Confederacy has learned in the first book that an alien race of unknown power, size or location has discovered them. And has managed to have human looking robots infiltrate the Confederacy to access data on the military capabilities of mankind. The aliens are apparently getting inside information from the criminal bosses who run the Warden Diamond. An Assassin, whose name is never given in the entire series, but who calls himself "Mr. Carroll" in the last book, was called in as he is the best they have.

It was explained to him that his department will be taking a mindprint of him and placing it in the bodies of four condemned criminals. That way, one of "him" can be sent to each of the Warden worlds, with the plan of assassinating each of the Four Lords of the Diamond. This will destabilize things and buy the Confederacy time to prepare against the alien menace. "Mr. Carroll" will be in a picket ship outside the contamination zone of the Warden Diamond, and have each of the agent's experiences uploaded into his mind, by means of an organic transmitter that each carries in his brain.

In this way, he can collate all the data from each world, as from his perspective he will have "lived" on each through his surrogates. He is aided in this by a self-aware computer, who is his partner, and in some ways, his overseer.

Having received the first report from Lilith in the first book, the second book describes the report he now receives from Cerberus.

Plot summary

"He" wakes up on a prison ship, and discovers that "he" is a copy. But he receives another shock, as he discovers that he is in a woman's body, a criminal named Qwin Zhang, who was mindwiped so that his recording could be inserted. He quickly learns that this is not an insurmountable problem, as the Warden powers on this planet are such that everyone has them, but it manifests itself as body swapping, a process that occurs when both parties are asleep. The Warden Organisms exchange information pertaining to memories and personality, so that if given sufficient time, the two sleepers will fully exchange bodies. The agent arranges to sleep next to a male during the newcomer orientation, and so has a male body again. He also learns that Cerberus is covered completely in water, with the only "land" being the tops of underwater trees that grow tall enough to extend beyond the water's surface.

Given that Cerberus is a world of white collar criminals, and that their technology is 20 years behind the times, "Qwin" can do quite well, and quickly establishes himself as "president" of a minor subsidiary of a large company. He does this with the help of Dylan Kohl, a boat captain, and Sanda Tyne, a host mother. Host mothering is an important profession, as the body swapping allows for people to live forever, so long as there are enough new bodies to swap with.

After a series of improbable adventures that gain him the position of company president, he attempts to carry out his mission of assassinating Wagant Laroo, the Lord of Cerberus. In the process of this, he comes across Dr. Dumonia, a psychologist who is later revealed to be a part-time Confederacy agent, though not especially loyal at all times. Qwin also learns that the human imitating robots are given human minds on Cerberus, specifically on Wagant's island. With the help of his friends, he manages to get on that island, and even arranges to come up with the solution to a problem of Wagant's.

The problem Wagant had was that the robots are better in every way, and nearly immortal and invulnerable. But Wagant does not want to put his mind into one, as the aliens who provide the robots have hidden commands in them that make the person the slave of the aliens. Not being able to get rid of those commands, Wagant accepts Qwin's help in getting rid of those commands. Qwin does so by asking his over-Agent in the picket ship to do so, which not only gets him in good with Wagant, but lets the Confederacy have a sample of the robot body and brain for examination.

Wagant, while very untrusting of Qwin, does eventually transfer his mind into the body of a "cleared" robot. What Wagant doesn't realize is that it wasn't quite fully cleared, and when Qwin recites a Lewis Carroll poem in front of him, it places Wagant under Qwin's complete control. Thus assassination is not necessary, as Qwin and Dumonia are in effect the rulers of Cerberus.

The book closes with the Agent in the picket ship feeling more concerned, as he saw himself change again, this time putting other people above his own needs and mission. This increases his turmoil and soul searching.

The saga continues in the third book of the series, called Charon: A Dragon at the Gate .

Related Research Articles

<i>Buzz Lightyear of Star Command</i> Animated television series

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command is an American animated science fiction comedy television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation and co-produced by Pixar Animation Studios. It serves as a spin-off of the Toy Story franchise and presents a fictionalized account of the in-universe character Buzz Lightyear. The series was preceded by the direct-to-video film Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins. and aired on UPN and ABC from October 2, 2000, to January 13, 2001, as part of Disney's One Saturday Morning and Disney's One Too programming blocks. While the series is 2D animated, Pixar animated the CGI opening title sequence at the beginning of each episode.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Humanoid</span> Entity with human form or characteristics

A humanoid is a non-human entity with human form or characteristics. The earliest recorded use of the term, in 1870, referred to indigenous peoples in areas colonized by Europeans. By the 20th century, the term came to describe fossils which were morphologically similar, but not identical, to those of the human skeleton.

<i>Mighty Orbots</i> American/Japanese animated television series

Mighty Orbots is a 1984 Super robot animated series created in a joint collaboration of TMS Entertainment and Intermedia Entertainment in association with MGM/UA Television. It was directed by veteran anime director Osamu Dezaki and features character designs by Akio Sugino. The series aired from September 8, 1984, to December 15, 1984, on Saturday mornings in the United States on ABC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ABC Warriors</span> Feature in the UK comic-book series 2000 AD

ABC Warriors is a feature in the UK comic-book series 2000 AD written by Pat Mills. It first appeared in program (issue) 119 in 1979 and continues to run as of 2018. Art for the opening episodes was by Kevin O'Neill, Mike McMahon, Brett Ewins, and Brendan McCarthy, who among them designed the original seven members of the team. Since then, they have been illustrated primarily, though not exclusively, by Bryan Talbot, Simon Bisley, SMS, Kevin Walker, Henry Flint and Clint Langley. The A.B.C. Warriors are a team of war robots designed to withstand 'Atomic', 'Bacterial' and 'Chemical' warfare. They were built to take part in the long-running Volgan War, which Mills had described in several previous 2000 AD strips, including Invasion! and Ro-Busters. Each robot has a distinctive personality – often one programmed by its human creators – but each is more or less able to act with free will.

<i>Ware Tetralogy</i> Series of four science fiction novels by Rudy Rucker

The Ware Tetralogy is a series of four science fiction novels by author Rudy Rucker: Software (1982), Wetware (1988), Freeware (1997) and Realware (2000).

The use of nanotechnology in fiction has attracted scholarly attention. The first use of the distinguishing concepts of nanotechnology was "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom", a talk given by physicist Richard Feynman in 1959. K. Eric Drexler's 1986 book Engines of Creation introduced the general public to the concept of nanotechnology. Since then, nanotechnology has been used frequently in a diverse range of fiction, often as a justification for unusual or far-fetched occurrences featured in speculative fiction.

<i>The Fifth Head of Cerberus</i> 1972 novella by Gene Wolfe

The Fifth Head of Cerberus is the title of both a novella and a single-volume collection of three novellas, written by American science fiction and fantasy author Gene Wolfe, both published in 1972. The novella was included in the anthology Nebula Award Stories Eight.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silver Age (DC Comics)</span>

"Silver Age" was a twelve part storyline that ran through a series of one shot comic books published by DC Comics in 2000.

<i>Liliths Brood</i> Book collection by Octavia E. Butler

Lilith's Brood is a collection of three works by Octavia E. Butler. The three volumes of this science fiction series were previously collected in the now out-of-print omnibus edition Xenogenesis. The collection was first published under the current title of Lilith's Brood in 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mind uploading in fiction</span> References of mind uploading in fiction

Mind uploading, whole brain emulation, or substrate-independent minds, is a use of a computer or another substrate as an emulated human brain. The term "mind transfer" also refers to a hypothetical transfer of a mind from one biological brain to another. Uploaded minds and societies of minds, often in simulated realities, are recurring themes in science-fiction novels and films since the 1950s.

The Four Lords of the Diamond is a series of four science fiction novels by author Jack L. Chalker. Each volume of the series primarily follows a duplicate of a government agent as he lands on his prison planet and begins to both investigate the menace to the civilized worlds and find his position in his new society. The duplicates realize the stagnancy and corruption of the Confederacy, the intergalactic government in the series, and question their position as tools of the hierarchy. As the series progresses, the primary agent experiences each of his counterparts' divergent experiences and begins to question his beliefs as well. Like much of Chalker's work, the series deals with the effects physical transformations have on a character's personality.

<i>Splicers</i>

Splicers is a role-playing game using the Palladium Books Megaversal gaming system. The game is set in the midst of a war between humans and a world-wide computer intelligence alternately referred to as the N.E.X.U.S. or the Machine. Players take on the roles of humans engaged in the fight against robotic, android, and necrotic minions of the Machine, using technology that is primarily derived from highly advanced biotechnology. The computer intelligence has released a "nanobot plague" on the world; within a few seconds of a human touching non-precious metal, the item will begin to twist and attack the person, sometimes even animating into a robotic minion of the Machine. The result is that the nanoplague has effectively made non-precious metal allergic to mammalian life.

<i>Lilith: A Snake in the Grass</i> 1981 science fiction novel by Jack L. Chalker

Lilith: A Snake in the Grass is a 1981 science fiction novel by American writer Jack L. Chalker. It is the first book in his Four Lords of the Diamond series.

<i>Charon: A Dragon at the Gate</i> 1982 novel by Jack l. Chalker

Charon: A Dragon at the Gate is a science fiction novel by American writer Jack L. Chalker, the third book in the Four Lords of the Diamond. First published as a paperback in 1982. It continues the saga started in Lilith: A Snake in the Grass and Cerberus: A Wolf in the Fold and is concluded by the fourth and last book called, Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail.

<i>Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot</i> (TV series) American TV series or program

Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, also known as The Big Guy and Rusty, is an American animated TV series based on the comic book of the same name by Frank Miller and Geof Darrow.

Ash (<i>Alien</i>) Fictional character

Ash is a fictional character in the film Alien (1979) portrayed by actor Ian Holm who, while known in the UK as a stage actor, was at the time unknown to American audiences. Ash serves as the secondary antagonist of the first film. The character is the science officer of the Nostromo, who breaks quarantine by allowing Kane, a member of the crew, back on board after he has been infected by an alien life form. It is later discovered that Ash is not human, as he appears, but is a Hyperdyne Systems 120-A/2 android, a sleeper agent who is acting upon secret orders to bring back the alien lifeform and to consider the crew and cargo as "expendable".

"The Prisoner of Benda" is the tenth episode in the seventh season of the American animated television series Futurama, and the 98th episode of the series overall. It aired on Comedy Central on August 19, 2010. In the episode, Professor Farnsworth and Amy build a machine that allows them to switch minds so that they may each pursue their lifelong dreams. However, they learn that the machine cannot be used twice on the same pairing of bodies. To try to return to their rightful bodies, they involve the rest of the crew in the mind switches, leaving each member free to pursue their own personal endeavors in a different crew member's body. The episode is composed of multiple subplots, with the main subplot being Bender attempting to steal a crown, but ending up switching places with the Robo-Hungarian emperor.

<i>Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail</i> 1983 novel by Jack L. Chalker

Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail is a science fiction novel by American writer Jack L. Chalker, the fourth book in the Four Lords of the Diamond series. First published as a paperback in 1983. It concludes the saga started in Lilith: A Snake in the Grass, Cerberus: A Wolf in the Fold and Charon: A Dragon at the Gate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oats Studios</span> Independent film studio

Oats Studios is an independent film studio started in 2017 by Oscar-nominated South African filmmaker Neill Blomkamp. The studio was created with the goal of distributing experimental short films via YouTube and Steam in order to gauge the community for interest and feedback as to which of them are viable for expansion into feature films. Actors featured in the films include Sigourney Weaver, Carly Pope, Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, Kellan Lutz, Michael Rogers, Jose Pablo Cantillo, and Dakota Fanning.

References