He was standing up, brushing off sand, turning away.
She had offended him.
“Bey, wait! Don’t go.”
He reached out and took her hands in his, lifting Sondra easily to her feet. “I have to. You can come to the house with me if you like, or stay right here if you’d rather. I’ll be right back.”
“Why do you have to—”
“I’ve got to tell Robert Capman that I’m not going with him. Don’t you think we owe him at least that much?”
The communications center was still active, the display screen still turned on. But there was no sign of a Logian form within the imaging area.
“He’s gone.” Sondra stared at the control console as though expecting Capman to pop up out of the middle of it. “I can’t believe it. He said to take my time, there was no need to rush.”
“Because when he spoke to you he already knew he would be gone by the time that we got back.” Bey flipped to display the storage stack. “I thought so. New recorded message—and addressed to both of us. Here we go.”
Capman’s head and bulky upper torso were again filling the image area. If he was annoyed by the disappearance, first of Bey and then of Sondra, he showed no sign of it.
“The Logian reputation for perception is quite unwarranted, you know,” he said cheerfully, as soon as the display region had stabilized. “If I were really astute, Bey, I would have known your answer as soon as I saw that Sondra was with you for our conversation. That, and your and my shared tendency to masochism, should have sufficed. I can assure you that Saturn is great and the Logian form wonderful, and both statements are quite true. But you would rather remain on Earth and Mars, and bear those ills you have, than fly to others that you know not of.”
“I told you he just wanted you for chit-chat with him,” Sondra hissed. “Bey, he’s as bad with quotations as you are.”
“Shhh!”
Capman was continuing. “Remain there for the moment, that is. Next year, or the year after, who knows? The Logian form encourages a long perspective. I can wait. And if I am realistic, your presence on Earth and Mars will help to re-shape thinking about form-change better than you could do it on Saturn.
“As for you, Sondra Dearborn.” The great head turned toward her, as though even in a recording Capman knew just where Sondra would be standing. “You are young and perhaps incorrigible. But you have fire and courage and conviction. You do not allow yourself to be diverted or intimidated. The two of you will make an excellent team. And who knows? Perhaps Behrooz Wolf will yet bring you to enlightenment, and an appreciation of great literature.” The grey head bobbed in laughter. “But I won’t bet on it. And now I have work to do. I look forward to talking with you again in the near future. Both of you.”
A massive arm lifted. Luminous eyes flickered and danced with humor. And Robert Capman was gone.
EPILOGUE
It was long past time to go, and still he had not gone.
Bey, who claimed procrastination as a virtue, was taking it to extremes. Normally he dignified delay by saying that it was a way of keeping his options open. This time he had no real excuse. It was not that he was putting off joining Sondra on the mainland. He was keen to be with her again. After only a week together she was already a familiar presence in his life, and he had been sorry when she left two days earlier.
She had gone to find a place for them to live. She said she did not want him to be forced to share her cramped apartment with Dill and Gipsy. Actually, Bey knew she had a secret suspicion that he would take far too much interest in the progress of the Dill/Gipsy two- woman multiform. He was beginning to understand Sondra’s obsessions—and she his.
She had called just that morning to tell him she had found a perfect house, ready to move into. He could fly to join her as soon as he was ready.
And he was ready. He was also oddly eager to see the Form Control office again, the place he had thought himself happy to leave forever. He was quite ready to leave, except for one or two last details; those, and a strange, nagging feeling that somehow he was missing something significant on Wolf Island …
“You know how the food dispensers work, the same as usual. Push these two at once, see?”
Jumping Jack Flash, watching as Bey operated the food delivery system, grunted his agreement. He reached past Bey and pushed the two buttons. The two hounds moved forward expectantly as a handful of solid pellets rolled down the chute and into the dishes.
“And don’t let Janus and Siegfried push them with their noses, you know how greedy they are. They’ll eat until they’re sick. Just look at them.” The dogs had gobbled the food and were waiting for more.
“You can have all the fruit while I’m gone, Flash. The mangoes and papayas are nearly ready but let them get properly ripe, or you’ll have the runs same as last time.” Bey looked down at the chimp. “But I bet you don’t, you dumb ape. You’ll get as sick as you always do.”
Jumping Jack Flash stared back at him reproachfully.
“I know, I know, you learned your lesson last time. Anyway, I’ll be keeping an eye on all of you through the house remotes. And Sondra and I will come back in a couple of weeks. When we do, I’ll fix you up for another session in the tanks. We’ve been neglecting that, and just when I thought we might be making real progress. Meanwhile, you’re in charge. You’ve been on your own a lot recently, you know how everything works. Anything else you can think of that needs doing? If not … ”
Bey prowled slowly around the whole house one last time, with the chimp and the two hounds trailing along behind.
“I guess that’s it, then.” Everything was clean, everything was in order. He had run out of every last thing that might need doing. “Come down to the beach and see me off.”
Even the weather was obliging. It was perfect for the journey, blue skies overhead and the faintest breeze from the south. Bey crossed the sand and walked out onto the jetty.
“Stay there, all of you, unless you want to get wet. I’ll miss you guys, but don’t worry. I’ll be back soon.”
Bey waved as he stepped into the skimmer. Jumping Jack Flash waved back, one hound standing on each side of the chimpanzee. They all watched as the skimmer made a leisurely semi-circle in the little harbor. Then it accelerated rapidly in a great surge of spray, became airborne in seconds, and arrowed away to die northwest.
The little party on the beach stood silent and motionless until the skimmer was quite out of sight, even to the keen eyes of the hounds. Then Janus whined, pushing at the left hand of Jumping Jack Flash with her muzzle. When the chimp did not respond at once she did it again, more urgently.
He looked down at her with knowing brown eyes. After a few more seconds of waiting to make sure that the skimmer was far away, he led the hounds back across the sand, around the curving stone path and into the house.
They entered the main level, where the food and water dispensers were found; but they did not remain there. Jumping Jack Flash descended, until he was in the basement lab far below the surface.
Janus stepped forward at once into one of the specially constructed form-change tanks. She lay down there. Siegfried moved into another one next to her. Carefully and patiently, like someone who had done it many times before, Jumping Jack Flash made the connections for each of them. Both the dogs were quivering with eagerness when he at last closed the openings of both tanks.
The chimp grunted his criticism of their impatience. If he had to wait, so should they.
Finally they were ready and it was his turn. Jumping Jack Flash climbed into his own tank, carefully made all the necessary attachments and tank inter-connections, and slid the door closed.
There was a brief hum of drawn power. The dials and control panels on the outside of the form-change tanks came to life, then settled into stable readings. The lab became still and silent.
A visitor, walking in, would have judged it dark and empty. Three floors above, night was falling on Wolf Island.
In the basement lab it was close to dawn.
THE END
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Proteus in the Underworld p-4 Page 28