Proteus in the Underworld Page 24

  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 had 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.

  CHAPTER 20

  The absolute certainty that she knew the answer had supported Sondra all the way in on the long return trip from Samarkand to Mars. Even Bey's cryptic reply to her message had not worried her, though she did wonder what he meant by the last part of it: "I have other business on Mars that I must complete in advance," it said. "Start the meeting without me if you have to—but whatever you do, don't finish without me. I'll be bringing visitors."

  Now, on the last stage of the journey, nervousness came rushing in. What real evidence did she have? Very little, and she was about to take on one of the most formidable forces in the solar system. She had better have her arguments in order.

  The autocar was creeping its way into the courtyard of Melford Castle. Didn't the very fact that Trudy Melford had agreed to meet prove that Sondra was right? She had offered no reason for wanting a private session with Trudy. The BEC staff member who took the message had seemed astonished that she dared to ask for it on the way from Samarkand—and dumbfounded when he contacted her after her arrival on Mars, to tell her that Trudy had said yes, they could meet in her private chambers.

  The knowledge of where she was added to Sondra's uneasiness as the elevator slid silently up from the courtyard and halted at the fourth floor of Melford Castle. For a century and a half this building had been the power center of the greatest economic force in the solar system. And the woman waiting for her as the elevator door opened formed the absolute hub around which all that power revolved.

  Trudy Melford wore a long, severe dress of black, unrelieved by any form of decoration. She nodded once to Sondra and turned to lead the way back through a long hallway to a dark-paneled office. Sondra slowly followed. There would be no formal niceties or offers of bogus hospitality at this meeting.

  Trudy gestured to Sondra to sit in a brocaded upright chair at a polished cherrywood table and placed herself in another one on the opposite side. "You think you have something to say of interest to me?" Dark eyebrows raised. "Very well. My time is valuable, so I would appreciate it if you will be as concise as possible."

  "Your time is valuable. But you can spare enough time to make trips all the way out to Samarkand, in the Kuiper Belt." Sondra saw the frown on the other woman's face. "I'm sorry, if I am to be concise that is not the place to begin. Let me start where I started: with a problem assigned to me by my superiors in the Office of Form Control.

  "At certain colonies in the Kuiper Belt, babies were born which after a couple of months took the humanity test. The humanity test in the Belt is no different from anywhere else in the solar system. A baby passes and is pronounced human if and only if it is able to interact with purposive form-change equipment.

  "In this case, however, there was something wrong. Three babies passed the test, but it quickly became clear that they should have failed. What I have been calling the 'feral forms' were not human. The humanity test, after a hundred and fifty years of successful use, was failing. I was told to find out why.

  "Do you have any questions about this?"

  Trudy Melford was listening intently, elbows on the table, her chin resting on her closed fists and her face impassive. She shook her head. "I am here only to hear what you have to say."

  "We'll see. Anyway, I discovered nothing useful in my examination of the forms, or of the data concerning them, when I was on Earth. So after I had consulted Bey Wolf I headed out to the Kuiper Belt to see things at first hand. Did you know, by the way, that I tried to persuade him to work with me on this problem? And he refused, because you had lured him here to work for you."

  "I have an important form-change project on Mars, one well-suited to Behrooz Wolf's unique abilities." Trudy's face gave away nothing.

  "An inconveniently timed project, from my point of view." Sondra realized that the two of them were still fencing, although the flashing rapiers remained out of sight. "So I went to the colonies alone. I learned even before I arrived that the colony mutation rates are naturally higher because of increased radioactivity. That would give more humanity test failures than usual, but it doesn't explain at all why things that should have been failing we
re passing.

  "I had no answers. So I dug into the actual form-change equipment, both hardware and software. Know what I found?" Sondra studied Trudy's impassive face. "I think you do know. I found nothing. The hardware was genuine BEC equipment with the original seals unbroken. The software showed no signs of tampering, and it checked out down to the last binary branch."

  Sondra paused and turned as she heard footsteps behind her. It was Bey Wolf. And in spite of his message, he was alone.

  On the other side of the table Trudy was standing up, her face pink. "Bey!" She looked right through Sondra. "I didn't expect you. I'm sorry, but at the moment I can't—"

  "It's all right. I'm part of the same meeting." Bey nodded to Sondra and sat down next to her. "Don't let me interrupt. Just carry on."

  Carry on—if she could. Sondra stared at Trudy. Could anyone blush on demand? Maybe Bey Wolf produced strange effects on both of them.

  "I was just saying that both the software and the hardware out in the colonies was perfect on the form-change equipment that produced the humanity test anomalies. So where did that leave me? I had run out of all the reasonable explanations."

  "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." Bey waved his hand. "Sorry, sorry, it's a bad habit that I don't seem able to kick. Keep going. This time I promise I'll keep quiet."

  Sondra was beginning to wish he had not shown up. Her job was hard enough, without random interruptions. Where was she?

  "I had to take what I had found to its logical conclusion. The hardware was exactly as it had been delivered from BEC. The software was error-free. There was only one other possibility: the hardware had a hidden flaw when BEC delivered it. It had been produced that way in the BEC factory. And knowing the BEC quality control procedures, that told me the change must have been deliberate."

  Sondra paused and waited. This was the point where Trudy should stand up and object. BEC's reputation for two centuries of reliable delivery was on the line. The other woman remained silent. Trudy was certainly tense, but it was the tension of someone who was also waiting. Sondra had to continue.

  "But of course, a deduction that makes no sense and explains nothing is just as bad as no deduction at all. Why would BEC—or anyone—want creatures to pass the humanity test that should have failed it? I didn't have an answer. There didn't seem to be an answer.

  "Then I wondered if maybe the target was not the colonies, as it seemed to be at first sight. Maybe the target was the humanity test. It has to be infallible, or it is useless. If it can fail three times, people would argue, who knows how many more times it might fail?

  "That seemed to lead to a bigger mystery than the one that I started with. Why would anyone possibly want the humanity test to be called into question?

  "And there I stuck, until it was suggested that I invert the problem." Sondra glanced at Bey. He looked as though he was about to speak, but he placed a hand over his mouth and waved at her to continue.

  "Thanks, Bey." Sondra turned again to Trudy Melford. "Invert the problem, and what do you get? Not that non-humans are taking the humanity test and passing it, but maybe that humans are taking the humanity test and failing. It's an awful thought, some poor human baby, taken and disposed of in the organ banks. But that is what would happen.

  "Or that is what would usually happen. There might be very special circumstances, under which someone with great money and influence could take a baby who had failed the humanity test and destroy all evidence that the test had ever been given. Of course, there would still be a problem. What would the parent do with the baby? The child could officially no longer exist. He would be unable to interact with form-change equipment, otherwise he would have passed the humanity test. And it would not be enough simply to establish a false identity for him. He would still be discovered, because form-change is used routinely through the whole solar system.

  "But it is not used everywhere. There are a few places, like the Samarkand colony, where form-change equipment is not only not used, it is banned from use. Naturally, such a colony also rejects any suggestion that humanity depends on form-change equipment. A child could grow up there, without fear of discovery. That child's parent could visit." Sondra met Trudy's eye. "If she had sufficient wealth, she could visit as often as she chose. Suppose that Errol Ergan Melford, the infant son of Gertrude Zenobia Melford, did not drown four years ago in the Aegean Sea before he had the chance to take the humanity test. Suppose that he had taken it—and he had failed. Suppose that he is alive today, and living in the Samarkand colony. And suppose that his mother has a long-term goal, of doing something that only the Empress of BEC could do: changing form-change equipment, to cast doubt on the humanity test itself—so that one day her son might return and lead a normal life in the inner system."

  This was the crucial moment, the place where Sondra was afraid that Trudy would dig in her heels. All she had to do was scoff, deny everything, and ask for hard evidence. Sondra had none, and she knew she was not likely to get any. Errol Ergan Melford's tracks were four years old and surely thoroughly covered, while Trudy was free to travel anywhere in the solar system that she chose to go. She was under no obligation to explain her visits to Samarkand to anyone.

  Sondra waited, suddenly sure that her trip to Mars had been for nothing. But Trudy did not act either annoyed or defensive. She seemed pleased, and she was actually smiling.

  "Suppose that I agree with you, Sondra, and tell you privately that everything you have said is correct? You are not recording this—I am sure of that, because you were scanned on your way into Melford Castle. So what do you propose to do now?"

  It was the last answer in the world that Sondra had expected. She glanced helplessly at Bey. Trudy seemed to be admitting everything. But she was also telling them: So what if I did what you say? You can't do a thing to me.

  And she was right. As soon as Sondra returned to Earth she was going to be fired or assigned to a basement-level job with nothing to do with feral forms. And even if Bey became involved, the Samarkand colonists would never cooperate with Earth's Office of Form Control for anything.

  "I don't know what I will do." Sondra felt she might as well be honest. No matter what happened, she had been given the satisfaction of solving the problem.

  "That's a good, honest answer." Trudy's attitude to Sondra seemed to have changed completely since the accusations were put out on the table. There was no sign of resentment as she went on, "Look, I know that if you don't produce an answer accepted by the Office of Form Control, your career will suffer. But I have influence there, and I'll make sure that it doesn't happen. All right? Is that all right with you, too, Bey?"

  "That part of it is fine." Bey's eyes were hard to see, his gaze directed down to the table-top. "And Sondra, you did a great job sorting out what has been going on in the Kuiper Belt. But some of us know that it's not quite the whole story."

  Trudy's smile froze. "What do you mean?"

  "Let's start with easy things." Bey turned to Sondra. "I have to say this with you present, even though I know you won't like to hear it. Trudy is right. She can certainly make sure that your career won't suffer at the Office of Form Control; because Trudy happens to have Denzel Morrone thoroughly in her pocket. Right, Trudy?"

  "You have no reason to say that."

  "Which is not quite the same as a denial. Morrone is on the take from BEC, and he has been for years. He has to go, Trudy, and quickly. You have to help me make that happen. The head of the Office of Form Control can have faults—God knows, I proved that often enough—but being for sale isn't one of them."

  "Lots of things go on in BEC at the detail level that I don't know about. Why do you think I had anything to do with Morrone? I've never even met the man."

  "Maybe; but he had to do something specific for you. You knew that there were going to be problems with the humanity test, because you had arranged them. So you passed the word to Morrone, probably through Jarvis
Dommer—a hint from you goes a long way in BEC—that someone junior and inexperienced was to be assigned to the feral form problem.

  "Morrone picked you, Sondra. Just a couple of years out of graduate school, not much practical experience of form-change and little knowledge of the Kuiper Belt."

  Bey lifted his head and stared at Trudy. "And you, Empress, you agreed with his choice. He didn't pick Sondra for what she might do, you see, he picked her out for what he didn't think she could possibly do. Morrone doesn't have the whole picture, I feel sure of that, but he knew that Sondra was supposed to see so far and no farther. You do have the whole picture. You thought that Sondra would probably find nothing, in which case the humanity test would become increasingly suspect. At the very worst, if she was extra smart or became extra lucky, she might realize that you had been making visits to Samarkand, and draw some conclusions from that. You were prepared for it.

  "But there was one piece of information that neither you nor Morrone had at first. You didn't realize when she was selected that Sondra Dearborn was related to Behrooz Wolf, and she might try to drag me in to help her.

  "And now here's the funny thing: I wouldn't have helped Sondra at all—I had already told her to go away and solve her own problems—if you hadn't heard that she had been to see me, and become nervous. You decided to be double safe and tuck me safely out of the way here on Mars. But you tried a little bit too hard. I began to ask myself, why am I being recruited? What can I do that a BEC employee can't do? And if I'm valuable, why now and not three years ago when I first retired from the Office of Form Control? It seemed like too much of a coincidence, Sondra and you appearing on the scene at just the same time. So I became a little bit more interested in what Sondra was doing."

  Trudy was not smiling at all. Her blue-green gaze was fixed on Bey's face with a total and fixed intensity. Sondra, watching both of them, suddenly understood Trudy's expression. The Empress of BEC, a senior force of the solar system, was frightened.