Proteus in the Underworld

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 something 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 connection 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.

Sondra also had Capman’s assurance that all of this would be enough. That was what had provided her, at last, a suspicion as to what had been happening. What she could not understand was why.

In particular, why had she, Sondra Dearborn, been thrown into the middle of all this mess? Samarkand was supposed to provide the answer. It was this or nothing. The opening door in front of her was her last chance.

She went on through with the fourteen others of the visiting group. Like them she was officially described as a tourist, a simple working type from the inner system who was spending ten years’ savings to come out and gape and marvel at the wonders of the Kuiper Belt. A few were on their way home, but most of them would be going farther out to sample the still-stranger expanse of Cloudland, with its vast open spaces, great Harvesters, and billion-kilometer thinner-than-gossamer Space Farms.

The tour guide was a native of Samarkand. If he was representative of the wonders to come it would be a dull day. He was short and dumpy, with a pale face and fair, straggly hair. He offered comments on what they were seeing in the monotone of one who had said the same thing hundreds or thousands of times.

“Established in 2160 by the League of Brethren, originally from the Central Asian region of Earth. The Brethren took as their guiding doctrine the sacred rights and natural goodness of all things, and that doctrine continues to be applied here in the Colony.” He was leading them through a long, spiral room that vanished into the distance. Groups of workers, fat and thin and tall and short but all seemingly cheerful, were standing at thousand after thousand of identical machines. They were chatting to one another, and it was clear that the equipment mostly ran itself.

“We honor the guiding doctrine.” The tour leaders nasal drone went on and on. His eyes were half closed. “Because of this we refuse to consume any living organism—not even the single-celled ones which form the basis of most food production through Cloudland and the Kuiper Belt. Here you see our food being synthesized from elementary inorganic components, water and minerals and carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Observe the steadily increasing complexity of the molecules at each stage, as higher order synthesis is performed.”

The other tourists were already bored. Sondra could see their attention beginning to wander. She sympathized, but she could not allow herself to blank out. Somewhere here was the clue that she needed.

Somewhere?

Where?

She glanced from the guide to the workers that they passed. They were worse than ordinary looking. Back on Earth they would have drawn attention by their ugliness. Not just the occasional man or woman, either, but every one of them. And not the standardized ugliness of Cloudlanders, whose elongated stick-thin bodies and arms and short legs were all ugly to Earth eyes in the same generic way. The workers here had customized ugliness, all different.

Sondra started, and looked at the people of Samarkand through new eyes. Could that be it? She had carefully remained at the back of the group, remaining as inconspicuous as possible. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself now, by asking their guide a question. As they moved on to another assembly line, she whispered to the bored-looking man next to her: “These people look as though they could really use a form-change session.”

“I know.” He nodded at a stooped man standing by one of the machines, and grinned. “See him? If I looked like that I’d be in a tank sharpish, before anyone else could have a look at me.”

“Me too.” Sondra took care to glance in all directions before she spoke again. “I haven’t seen any tanks, though. Did you notice where they were when we came in? Suppose one of us was taken sick and needed remedial change. Where would we go?”

A woman on the other side of the man had turned to listen to the muttered conversation. Sondra stayed in through a few more remarks about the unattractive appearance of the people of Samarkand, then allowed herself to drop out of the exchange. She stepped a little closer to the back of the group. She was not missed. A couple of others were now peering about them, examining the workers or looking for evidence of form-change equipment.

It took a few minutes, but finally as they moved through to a smaller chamber one of the more aggressive members of the group piped up. “Excuse me.” It was a big dark-haired woman, wearing one of Earth’s popular peasant girl forms. “I have a question.” The guide, in mid-sentence monotone, ground to a halt. He stared uncomprehendingly at the interrupter.

“We’ve seen a good bit of your colony.” The woman waved an arm at their surroundings. “But we’ve seen no sign of your form-change tanks. Where are they?” It was like watching someone return from the dead. The guide stood up taller, his eyes popped open, and his pale cheeks turned pink.

“Form-change tanks!” He glared at the woman who had asked the question. “You may search Samarkand from one end to the other, and you will find no such thing. We have no place for decadence in our world.”

“But what if you get sick? Hey, what if I get sick?”

“Weren’t you listening to me? I told you already, the guiding doctrine of the League of Brethren is based on die natural goodness of all things. That includes human beings. We have no need of form-change to cure sickness, because sickness is no more than a failure to allow innate goodness to triumph over evil. The rest of the system may choose an unnatural method to combat the evil within, but we prefer our way. Nature’s way.”

The tour guide had left his prepared script far behind. Sondra, drifting away from the back of the group, decided that she liked him rather better this way. He was a kook, but now he was a kook with his own principles and convictions.

The woman who had asked the question did not agree. She had not enjoyed the answer at all. Sondra heard her voice rising in pitch and volume as she slipped through into an adjoining room.

“Are you telling me what I think you’re telling me? That if I get sick when I’m here on your dumb colony, you’re going to tell me to argue with myself, instead of somebody dumping me into the nearest form-change tank? Well, let me tell you something, mister … ”

The chamber that Sondra had entered was empty. She moved through it rapidly. The argument would help, but there was no way of knowing how much time she had before her absence from the tour group was noticed.

She had apparently left behind the main manufacturing region of the colony. The turning corridor along which she was hurrying had many closed doors, one every few meters. At the end lay a larger open door leading to a much bigger room.

Sondra paused a few feet short of the entrance. She could already see what was inside the room. She had realized that many rooms like this must exist within Samarkand as soon as she heard the tour guide speak of decadence and the absence of form-change equipment But she did not want to go any closer.

The view from a distance was quite bad enough. The people inside the room were slumped in upholstered chairs or moving unsteadily from place to place. Sondra saw faces with sunken, bleary eyes and withered cheeks, topped by white and scanty hair. Limbs were bony and lacking muscle, skin was wrinkled and marked with moles and spots of dark brown.

It might have been a scene from the files of the Office of Form Control, showing the terrible end results of illegal form use. Sondra knew that it was not. It was a picture of the world as it used to be, before purposive form-change had banished the specter of aging. People—except on Samarkand—employed the machines in biofeedback loops that permitted them to remain in peak physical condition throughout their whole lives, until finally the brain lost its power to follow the biofeedback regime. At that point irreversible physical and mental decline began.

Death had not been banished from the solar system. But now it came quickly, in just a few days.

Except on Samarkand. Here on Samarkand death crept in slowly, stealing life a little at a time. Muscles weakened, senses faded, eyes and ears lost their sensitivity. Hearts and lungs faltered and failed. Life was a long decline, its end a long disease. Sondra had not noticed this on the tour, for a simple reason: very old people could not and did not work.

She paused, leaning against the wall of the corridor. No form-change machines. None. Not a single one, anywhere on Samarkand. It was not like the situation on some of the poorer worlds of the Belt, where for economic reasons machines were few and far-between and used only for urgent remedial medical work. Here it was a proscription, an outright ban.

But this was the colony, of all worlds in the Kuiper Belt, that Trudy Melford had chosen to visit The flagship of the BEC fleet, with Trudy as passenger, had been here just a few weeks ago. There had been other and earlier visits.

“Curious and anomalous” indeed. Robert Capman had clearly known how the people of Samarkand felt about form-change equipment. It didn’t make sense.

Except that suddenly it did—all of it. Because if this room was on Samarkand, what else must be here?

Sondra was filled with a sudden huge urgency. She had to get off this world as soon as possible. She must head for the inner system, exactly as Denzel Morrone has directed. She would call Bey on the way, and tell him that they had to meet.

But not this time on Wolf Island, nor at the Office of Form Control.

This time they must meet on Mars.