Proteus in the Underworld p-4

by Charles Sheffield

  “But promise me one thing.” She leaned closer and ran gentle fingers around Bey’s jawline. Her soft, concerned voice was like another physical caress—probably all the excitement that he could stand in his present condition. “As soon as you feel well enough to receive a visitor, let me know. I’ve been planning a surprise for you for a while, but this certainly isn’t the time for it. I want you at your best. Just tell me when.”

  Bey had been gone from Wolf Island for only five days, but when he returned it felt like an alien place.

  Part of that was surely the change in him. He had left in good physical condition, except for the slight natural myopia that a routine form-change session would have fixed. He returned a wreck, wearing a mechanical exoskeleton provided by the Martian robodoc. It allowed him to walk and carry things while keeping his own broken arm and leg completely still, but at the price of turning him into a clanking metal-and-plastic automaton that had Janus and Siegfried growling and snarling until the hounds were close enough to the jetty to catch his scent. And even with the pain-inhibitors still on his neck he ached all over and had trouble thinking. He couldn’t wait to get to the basement lab and into a form-change machine.

  There were other changes, though, that were not in him and which he could not ignore. Jumping Jack Flash had the run of the island when Bey was away from it, but usually he stayed inside the house. It was clear when Bey got there that the chimp had been feeding himself and the two dogs regularly, but there was no other sign of him.

  Bey hobbled out into the fierce afternoon sunlight. He called “Flash! Flash!” as loudly as he could, but it was another five minutes before the pygmy chimp came wandering along, walking almost upright on the paved path from the island’s rocky center. Instead of the usual greeting, jumping up to Bey and perching on his shoulder, Jumping Jack Flash stood and surveyed him with brown, sad eyes.

  “Is it this?” Bey gestured with his right arm at the exoskeleton. “I don’t like it any better than you do. Come on. Let’s see how quickly I can get myself back to normal.”

  The three animals trailed quietly along behind as he went back into the house and descended to the basement level. He went into the lab and inspected the control panel for his preferred form-change tank. He knew what he wanted—the fastest repair program that he could stand. He also knew the risk of that. Once before he had used a form change that went far outside the envelope of accepted programs. It had almost killed him, and would have done so if someone else had not found his unconscious body. This time there was no one around to perform that favor.

  He turned, and found the three animals still there, watching closely. He shook his head.

  “Not you in the tank this time, my friends. Me.”

  They understood his body language if not his words. The two dogs flopped to their bellies on the smooth tiled floor, while Jumping Jack Flash approached and lifted his hand to run a rough knuckle under the exoskeleton and along Bey’s jawline.

  Bey reached up and gripped the chimp’s hand. “First Trudy, and now you. But at least I know that you don’t have a hidden agenda.” Bey studied the glowing brown eyes and serious face. “Or I think you don’t. It’s a shame you can’t speak, Flash. And you’re so close. Maybe if we humans hadn’t come along and taken over, in a few million years … ”

  Bey went back to his programming of the form-change machine. So close, so very close. It was far more than the ninety-nine percent of common DNA. Four hundred years ago, long before DNA had been dreamed of, almost a hundred years before Darwin, the great Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus had made up his mind. He didn’t dare to say that humans and chimps belonged in the same genus, because that would have created a religious fire-storm. Humans were supposed to be special, God-created, unique. But Linnaeus had confided his own true feelings in a letter to a friend:

  “I demand of you and of the whole world that you show me a generic character to distinguish between Man and Ape. I myself most assuredly know of none, and I wish somebody would indicate one to me. But if I had called man an ape or vice versa I would have fallen under the ban of all the ecclesiastics.”

  You couldn’t work with chimps for more than a week or two without sharing Linnaeus’s opinion. The line was hard to draw. But somehow, the form-change equipment could do it. No chimp had ever managed a form-change. Bey began to set up the final parameters for his own program. Maybe it was the purposive element that the chimp could not manage. The thoughts of a chimp—there was no doubt that Jumping Jack Flash had thoughts—were probably foggy and imprecise, a more extreme version of Bey’s own muddled thinking when the electronic pain-inhibitors were doing their job. Successful form-change implied a basic capability for precision of thought.

  That insight pulled Bey himself to a higher state of alertness. If his brain was operating at half-power, he had to be extra careful in setting up form-change sequences. He went over everything again, slowly and carefully. Only when he had made every check that he could think of did he turn again to the animals.

  “Six days, and I’ll be out of the tank again. All right? You have plenty of food and plenty of water. Flash, save a few of the papayas for me. I noticed there were lots of almost-ripe ones when I was coming up from the beach, and I know what a glutton you are.”

  He climbed laboriously into the tank. His exoskeleton had been designed for slow, linear movement, and climbing was not on the list of recommended activities. Getting the skeleton off was even harder work. Bey struggled free and dropped it in a heap outside the tank rather than neatly disassembling it.

  The pain-inhibitors at the nape of his neck came off last. Bey almost screamed when their action ceased. With the help of the exoskeleton he had moved as no man with multiple broken bones should ever move, and now he was paying for it. He made the interior connections of the tank one-handed, with trembling fingers. When he was finally done he swung the heavy door to and sealed it. His last sight of the animals showed that they were still outside and silently watching.

  He leaned back, waiting for the program to begin. He was proposing to do in six days what normal protocols would do in seventeen. His remedial program was safe enough, not pushing the limits in any area. It would even suppress all traces of conventional pain while it was operating.

  Unfortunately, there was such a thing as unconventional pain—pain deep down at the individual cell level; pain as the body’s operating parameters took an excursion far from normal to regions of internal temperature and chemical imbalance that meant death without the help of a form-change tank’s careful monitoring and adjustment of hormonal and nutrient levels; pain beyond belief or description.

  As that pain began, Bey asked himself why he was doing this—why wasn’t he taking the standard seventeen day route? What was the rush?

  That was when he realized, for the first time, that something would be waiting for him when he emerged. Something of thought, some analysis that would need every scrap of his brain-power undimmed by pain inhibitors. For such thought he needed to be in top physical condition. But thought about what?

  It was intuition again; intuition in its most maddening form, offering strong opinions and even orders without allowing the logical mind any justification or argument.

  Bey lay back in the tank and allowed deep pain to wash him away on its tide. When that tide came back in, maybe he would finally learn the reason for his suffering.

  CHAPTER 19

  Sondra’s first impulse was to call Bey and ask him what calls he had made in the past couple of months about the problem of the feral forms. Two minutes’ thought convinced her that was a terrible idea.

  First, the ship that she was on had no provision for a high-speed link to Earth or Mars. With a standard radio signal she would sit in Saturn orbit for many hours before any reply could possibly come to her. More than that, Bey didn’t know anything about the flight of Trudy Melford’s ship to Samarkand, a journey that Robert Capman had pronounced to be “curious and anomalous.” That must have some
thing to do with the problem.

  And finally there was the simple matter of pride. Capman had told her that she had enough information to solve this for herself, without assistance.

  Not enough brains—he had carefully avoided any such statement—but enough information.

  Which meant that if she didn’t solve it by her own efforts, everything that Bey had said about her would be true.

  Sondra ordered the ship to quit Saturn orbit, but not to head for Earth and the inner system. She had decided to head outward again, for the Kuiper Belt. She set her destination as the colony worldlet of Samarkand, but after a few minutes she changed that instruction. First she must head for Rini Base. Capman had told her that she needed to query the inner system’s general information bank and learn what calls Bey had made or received since she had first met him. The only efficient way to do that was through a rapid link, and Aybee on Rini Base controlled the only one she knew about.

  All the way out to the Kuiper Belt she pummeled her brains. There was a logical explanation to her problem. Knowing that, and knowing that someone else knew what it was while she did not, was worse than if there were no explanation at all—even if the other someone was a Logian form, She thought and thought; and got nowhere.

  By the time the ship reached Rini Base, Sondra had her tail thoroughly between her legs. Aybee did not seem to notice. He was tinkering with a little chain of silver elements, and he did not even look up when she drifted in through the jumble of cables and cabinets that defined what he called his office. But he knew she was there, because after a while he grunted and said, “Wouldn’t see you after all?”

  “Saw me. Listened to me. Left me.”

  “Figures. Most people don’t get far with Capman. What you want with me? I’m busy.”

  “What is that thing you’re working on?”

  “You wouldn’t understand if I told you.” He glared up at her for a moment. “What you want?”

  “If you’re as smart as you think you are, how come Capman hasn’t recruited you? He asked Bey Wolf to go to Saturn long ago, and become a Logian.” As a way to annoy Aybee, it was a total failure.

  “Sure he did.” Aybee looked smug and poked at the silver chain with a little metal awl. “Know why? ’Cause the Wolfman’s gettin’ way up there in age, that’s why. The Logians don’t take anybody ’til he’s well into geeze stage.”

  “You mean until he’s done something in the world— instead of only talking about it, like you.”

  Aybee just grinned and kept his attention on what he was doing. “We’re in a mood today, aren’t we? Anyway, the Logians don’t say they wait until you’re past it, because if they did no one would want to go. What they say is good high-flown waffle-you know, ’until someone fully knows what it is to be human, and has experienced a full human life with all its joys and sorrows, it is not right for that person to change to Logian form.’ That sort of rubbish.”

  “It sounds reasonable to me.”

  “Reasonable, but not true. Big difference. You can see why they say it. No one likes the idea they’re being taken because it’s drool time.” Aybee glanced up again. “Anyway, stop changing the subject. What you want?”

  “A real-time link to Earth, the way you did it for me last time.”

  “You think I got nothing to do but fix up message lines and chase you halfway across the solar system?” Aybee laid the silver chain down on his desk top. “Ah, nuts, I might as well give this up anyway. I can’t make it work. Experimental physics is for animals, it’s no better than plumbing.”

  “And after the call I want to arrange for a passage to Samarkand.”

  “A passage for one, right? You, not me. No worries. Just don’t tell ’em you’re from the Office of Form Control.”

  “Why not?”

  “Dunno, quite. But they’re dead against form control on Samarkand.” Aybee was poking at the control board on his desk, patching a line through to the inner system. “They don’t have much time for BEC, either. That’s why I said, it’s the last place in the Kuiper Belt that you’d expect to find Trudy Melford. Why you going there?”

  “Robert Capman’s suggestion.”

  “Then you better take it seriously.” Aybee tapped a key and waited. “There you go. Same message unit as last time, whenever you’re ready. How soon you want the ship?”

  “Whenever you can have one. I’m going to download selected files from the inner system data bank. Then I’ll call the Office of Form Control. And then I’ll leave here for Samarkand.”

  “Sooner the better.” Aybee picked up the awl and poked savagely and morosely at the silver chain. “Only this time, don’t expect me to come and haul you out of there. Damn thing, hold still there.”

  No better than plumbing. As Sondra left the room she crossed her fingers and wished that Aybee would encounter a blocked toilet on Rini Base. It was a rare event, but in low gravity it was supposed to be something spectacular.

  It was impossible to study file records at the rate that they streamed from the inner system general data base to Sondra’s local storage. All she could catch was an overview and an occasional rapid snapshot of the video.

  Bey was one of those rare individuals whose incoming calls outnumbered the ones he placed by at least twenty to one. Sondra caught fleeting multiple glimpses of Jarvis Dommer, all gleaming teeth and oozy charm-of Sondra, herself, earnest or determined or worried-looking-of Maria Sun, elegant and exquisite, and one of Bey’s few outgoing calls (Sondra resolved to take a closer look at that interaction)—of Trudy Melford, eating you up with her eyes, just like in real life.

  Somewhere in the visual and audio messages, racing in at a few hundred times real-time, Sondra was supposed to hunt down a clue. But not at this speed. She would study at leisure during the journey to Samarkand.

  As the flow of input from Bey’s open file came to an end, Sondra switched the destination to the Office of Form Control. She didn’t expect any help from them, but at least she ought to tell them that she was working hard and doing her best.

  It was no surprise that her Rini-transmitted call was routed again to Denzel Morrone’s office. This time she was ready for him.

  “Director Morrone.” She spoke at once, as soon as the office pick-up was made. He was apparently not ready for her, because the full mouth in his smooth baby face gaped open for a second. “This is Sondra Dearborn. I want to report that I am making great progress on the feral forms. My plan is to remain in the Kuiper Belt for just a few more days, then return to the inner system.”

  Morrone had caught up with her. His face now wore a scowl and his mouth was turned down in a grim line. “Stop it right there. I don’t know what your plan is, and I don’t care. After the wild story that you offered to me as your last report, I informed you that I needed time to consider what you have been doing—or failing to do. I have now completed such consideration. You will not remain in the Kuiper Belt. You will return to Earth.”

  “But I’ve almost solved it! I have enough information in my possession, right now, to explain what happened.” Morrone didn’t need to know that the source of that statement was Robert Capman, or that Sondra had no idea which information held the key. Sondra hurried on. “A few more days, that’s all I need, and I’m sure I’ll have the whole picture.”

  “Ms. Dearborn, you appear to have trouble hearing me and I do not believe that it is the quality of this outrageously expensive connection.” Morrone leaned closer, so that his face filled the whole image display area. “Don’t you understand, Ms. Dearborn? You have failed. I do not expect failures in my department. As of this moment you no longer have anything to do with the feral form problem. I am also relieving you of all other responsibilities within the Office of Form Control. I want you to return at once to the inner system. When you get here we will discuss what your new position—if any—is to be within this department. Now, that is all I have to say. I do not wish to talk to you again until we do so in person.”

  The con
nection was suddenly broken. Denzel Morrone’s face remained in the image display, slowly fading. Sondra stared at it until the last faint trace was gone. What had ever led her to think that the man had a pleasant face?

  Return at once to the inner system. The command had sounded explicit enough. It needed the help of Aybee to see it differently.

  “You got to pull it apart.” He had come on Sondra when she was still sitting devastated at the communications unit. “What’s Morrone mean, at once. In zero time? That’s impossible. Go on the fastest commercial ship you can charter? Cost a fortune, and the Office of Form Control’s too stingy to pay for that. On a Rini ship, which is faster still? The only way to get one of them is by filing a request with me, and you can tell Morrone that you asked me and I told you to shove it. No. What he means is a good, fast, cheap way on a standard commercial carrier that offers an out-and-back through the Kuiper Belt. There’s bundles of them, charter mostly, and I can arrange one for you.”

  “But what use is that?”

  “Trust me.” Aybee had given Sondra an exaggerated wink. “You didn’t mention Samarkand to Morrone, did you?”

  “Not a word.”

  “Good. See, it’s going to turn out that the best route for you to the inner system calls for a short stopover in Samarkand. Get it?”

  “I do. I don’t know why you are doing all this for me.”

  “Isn’t it obvious? To get rid of you, Sondra D., and let me go back to the good life. It’s my own fault, I should never have promised the Wolfman anything.” Aybee was hunched over his data unit. “Will one day at the colony be enough? It’s all I can guarantee.”

  “Then it will have to be.”

  But now Sondra, waiting for final entry permission to the Samarkand colony, wondered if it would be. On the three-day journey from the Rini Base she had studied the records of Bey’s calls over and over. She could describe the pattern on Maria Sun’s ear-rings, the inordinate number of teeth that Jarvis Dommer displayed whenever he smiled, the calculated imperfection of Trudy Melford’s nose in the form she had chosen especially for Bey Wolf.