Proteus in the Underworld (7 page)

"Of course."

"A new form?"

"That, and much more." Trudy Melford leaned forward. "Will you help me? This is more important than I can say. It's not a question of money, but if you do help you will find me . . . more than generous."

The Melford reputation was of a woman remote and quite untouchable. It was hard to accept that idea as warm hands enveloped Bey's and aquamarine eyes, deep and knowing as the sea, transfixed him. "Will you help me, Bey Wolf?"

"How long will it take?"

"On Mars? Just one day. If that is not enough to interest and persuade you, a longer stay cannot help. Will you do it?"

"I'm not sure. I'll let you know."

"When?"

"Within one week."

"But you have nothing to—" She stopped and took a deep breath. Bey could see the angry response being bottled up. An Empress must be accustomed to instant gratification.

"If you're hoping I'll say yes," he added, "you'd better keep Jarvis Dommer out of my hair. I don't want him pestering me for an answer."

"He is loyal and hard-working." Trudy was still holding Bey's hands. "Why do you despise him so?"

"My Persian ancestors had a saying: 'A stupid man is one who is willing to die for a cause that he does not understand.' "

"That could also be a definition of a loyal employee. You are not like that?"

"I guess not."

"Ah. A pity. Very well. One week, and if I have not heard from you I will call you myself." Trudy finally released Bey and stood up. She took her grey bag, opened it, and handed him a silver card. "To reach me at any time, use this on your message center. It will give you direct access, wherever I am. It will also cover any travel expense in reaching Mars. Do you wish to discuss other compensation?"

"No."

"I thought that's what you would say." Trudy managed to smile, a rueful lop-sided quirk of the mouth that Bey found highly attractive. "What a pity. It is much easier, don't you think, to deal with people who are motivated by money?"

Bey found himself walking with her toward the entrance. "Easier, and in my experience less productive. What you don't pay for is usually more valuable than what you do."

"And certainly more enjoyable." She waited as he slid open the door and held it. The wind howled in and around them, molding her robe to her body. The storm had become more violent than ever.

"Do you think it's safe to travel while its like this?" He had to shout to be sure that she could hear him.

"Given the right staff and the right equipment, it's perfectly safe." Trudy gestured toward the beach. Bey saw, shining in the gloom, the pale violet outline of a mobile link entry point.

"I have to be back on Old Mars in half an hour." Trudy was leaning close. She patted Bey's arm in a proprietary way. "Goodbye. Next time we meet, I hope it will be there."

Bey watched as she bent low to face the wind and headed toward the beach. It was like a conjuring trick. Trudy reached and entered her carrier. There was a brief pause. Then the whole carrier lifted and moved into the Link portal. And finally the temporary portal closed, swallowing both the carrier and itself. There was nothing on the beach to reveal that either of them had ever been there.

Bey slid his outer door closed. That was what
real
money could do, as opposed to mere millionaire-class wealth. Trudy, bypassing the usual Link points, would have been transported instantly to Mars. Chances were she was already walking into Melford Castle, even as he headed to his living room.

He settled back into the chair where he had been sitting less than half an hour ago. His unfinished drink was waiting, its ice still only half-melted. Bey picked up the glass. The contents appealed greatly. He closed his eyes. He had been up all night and was beginning to feel it. He had earned a rest; and he had also earned the luxury of pondering a little bit on the curious behavior of Trudy Melford.

What did she
really
want? He was cynical enough to dismiss her compliments, and experienced enough to discount whatever oddities might be waiting on Mars. BEC kept a permanent staff to analyze just such future business potential. They could do anything that he could.

Well, almost anything. He smiled to himself. They couldn't say no to Trudy Melford.

He smelled Sondra before he saw her. A distinct, flowery perfume came wafting into his nostrils. He sensed that she was standing close to him.

He opened his eyes. And blinked.

He had told her to help herself to anything that she found, but her appearance went beyond eccentricity. She had found a short-sleeved purple shirt, long enough to cover her body only to mid-thigh. She had drawn it in tightly at the waist with a broad black belt, which made it even shorter. Her feet were bare, her long hair was carefully styled and piled on top of her head, and she was wearing make-up for the first time since he had met her.

Oddly enough, the combination worked perfectly. Bey nodded approval. "You didn't need to go to such trouble, you know, just for me."

Sondra gave him a withering glare. "Don't kid yourself. Where is she? Where did she go?"

"Trudy Melford?"

"Who else?"

"She already left. For Mars."

"Well, damnation." Sondra flopped into a chair opposite Bey. "All this for nothing. That bitch. Did you
invite
her to come and see you?"

"No."

"So what was she doing here?"

"Apparently not everyone who comes to Wolf Island waits for my invitation."

Irony was wasted. Sondra glowered at him. "What did she want?"

"To recruit me. To bribe me out of retirement. To get me to go to Mars and work for her."

"I knew it!" Sondra stood up again abrupdy. "That fancy form she was using, and those sexy clothes. She was
stalking
you, couldn't you tell? If I hadn't arrived when I did . . . I assume you told her to go to hell?"

"No. As a matter of fact I told her I would think seriously about her offer."

Sondra put her hands on her hips. "You did
what
! You'd consider leaving here to work for
her
, for BEC and all its money?—when you won't even help one of your own relatives."

"We can talk about relatives later. Meanwhile"—Bey sighed and stood up also. Any hope of peace was gone. "I didn't think you came here to feud with Trudy Melford. I thought you came here to tell me about the wild form that was shipped from the Fugate Colony. Was I wrong?"

"No. I have all the records." Sondra clutched at her waist, and was briefly panic-stricken until she realized that the data device was still in her dress pocket. "I'll get them now and we'll go over them together."

"No!" Bey had to call after her—she was already racing off along the hallway, a flash of purple shirt and long bare legs. "You give them to me, and I'll review them.
Then
we'll go over them together."

He muttered to himself while he was waiting for her to return. What was the Office of Form Control coming to? Hadn't she been taught standard operating procedure? Everyone knew that separate reviews were performed
before
combined reviews.

Or they knew when I was there.
Bey caught the logical next line before it could fully emerge, and grinned to himself.
The youngsters all knew better when
Bey Wolf
was running the show.

The standard old-timers' complaint and boast. It had certainly been right to retire when he did.

* * *

The Fugate Colony was one of hundreds of small groups scattered through a vast, near-empty region extending from the Kuiper Belt to the limits of Cloudland. All those groups were on the face of it extremely diverse; and yet in one way many of them were remarkably similar.

Bey had seen it happen a score of times. A colony would be founded because its core members shared some common oddity or belief that set them apart from the rest of humanity. After a generation or two, that singular world-view might fade. The colony would then dwindle and die, or be re-absorbed to the human mainstream. But sometimes separation
widened
the gap. Differences, physical or mental, became more extreme.

The Fugates were a fine example. Begin with the belief that the human brain could and should be bigger; add to it a requirement that bigger brains need bigger bodies; and after a century or two you would have—
this.

Bey gazed at the image swimming in the field of view. The shape was undeniably human, with a soft, rounded body and shortened limbs. Its head was large in proportion, like a typical human baby.

But now came the differences. The body was nine meters long and massed more than four tons. The head was three meters from the chin to the top of the cranium. Two-thirds of that length—more than Bey's own height—was above the eyes. X-rays showed that the fitted bony plates of a normal skull had been usurped by a web of soft cartilage, bulging slightiy from the pressure of the swollen mass within.

As Bey watched, the diminutive arms and legs moved in unison. The great head bobbed forward. His first impression was reinforced.
Swimming
was the right description. The immature Fugate form was curiously reminiscent of a whale, and he could imagine that in future generations those arms and legs might shrink away like rudimentary cetacean limbs.

The warning that had come from the Fugate Colony was also appropriate. The leviathan that Bey was viewing appeared so helpless, so harmless, so in need of care. But the record showed that the maximum-security chamber and the soft mesh of cables holding the form in position were fully necessary. The chubby body and dimpled limbs possessed a whale-like strength, while the bulging skull contained a brain of reptilian ferocity and random impulse.

It was fascinating; it was disturbing; and it was not at all revealing.

Bey finally sighed and leaned away from the viewer. He shook his head.

"Well?" Sondra had returned to his side, and she was looking at him hopefully.

"It's everything that you said it is. And I can't deduce anything more than you can."

"But you have so much more experience . . ."

"That's not the issue. If there has been post-natal form-change, what we are seeing is just the form-change
end-point.
There are a million ways to get to any given form. What you need is the whole record—every step of every interaction between the original form and the form-change programs. All the two-way information transfer. That should be in the permanent files. The form passed the humanity test, we know that. What we don't know is if there were marginal areas, places where the form showed definite oddities but just squeaked through. You also need something else that you don't have: you need to know the
typical
form and behavior of a Fugate Colony member. I think you have been regarding this one as a monstrosity. It isn't. Physically, I suspect it's very close to the norm for a standard Fugate modification. The differences are all in the brain—where we can't see them."

"So what do we do now?" Sondra's bright outfit contrasted with her dejected posture. She sat slumped forward in the chair, elbows on bare knees, chin in hands, staring at the viewer.

"We?
We
don't do anything. I told you already, this isn't my problem. It's yours. You have to find a way to persuade Denzel Morrone to let you make a trip out to the Fugate and Carcon Colonies."

"That's easy for you to say, but Morrone is already mad as a coot at me because I came out here to see you. A message just came through on your message center, chewing me out, while you were sitting here."

Bey was frowning at her, as though this was the most important news of the day. "For
you
? But I told you not to tell
anyone
that you were coming to Wolf Island."

"I didn't tell Morrone or anyone else. I chartered the flier myself. Seems Morrone found out anyway. But are you sure that going to the colonies is the right next step?"

"It's what I would do in your situation. Unless you have a bright idea?"

"I do. We should call Robert Capman on Saturn." And, when Bey did not respond, she went on, "I've read everything that you've ever written about him. According to you he was the absolute master of form-change theory, the greatest intellect of the century—and he became even more capable when he assumed a Logian form and moved to Saturn."

"All quite true. And all, I suspect, irrelevant. The Logian forms, deliberately, do not involve themselves in human affairs."

"Not the average human problem, maybe. But for a form-change problem, Capman's own special field—and if the request were to come from Bey Wolf, rather than Sondra Dearborn . . ."

"Ah. I see." Bey swung his chair around, to peer knowingly at Sondra through half-closed eyelids. "Why didn't you admit this earlier?"

"Admit what?"

"That you tried to call Capman,
yourself
, before you ever came to see me."

"It didn't seem relevant." Sondra would not meet his eyes.

"Why not? He is still alive, you know that. Messages beamed to Saturn reach him. Your message must have reached him. If he were interested in your problem he certainly had the means to reply."

"That's not the point, is it?" She sat up straight and glared at him with new energy. "You are the one who worships the fusty old writers. You are the literature and quotation junkie. So try and finish this one.
'I can summon spirits from the vasty deep.'
"

"Maybe you have been doing some homework—at least on me." Bey leaned back and thought for a moment. "It's Shakespeare. Glendower says it. And Hotspur answers:
'Why so can I, and so can any man. But will they come when you do call for them.'
I see. Anyone can
call
Robert Capman on Saturn—"

"But only Behrooz Wolf will get a reply. I sent a message and I didn't hear one word back. But you would. You were his fair-haired boy. If you called him, he'd talk to you."

"He might. He probably would. But I think I know what he'd tell me." "What?"

"Exactly what I am telling you. Go and solve it for yourself. I'm busy enough with my own work."

"You don't have any work. You've said it a dozen times, you retired three years ago."