Sheffield, Charles - Proteus In The Underworld

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Proteus In The Underworld (v3.0)

Charles Sheffield, 1995

[01 oct 2001 -- scanned for #bookz]

[04 apr 2002 -- proofed for #bookz]

[12 apr 2002 - Anaerobic - Second proofing - lots of scan errors have been removed and the em-dashes

restored]

CHAPTER 1

How do you capture a legend?

Sondra Dearborn had rehearsed and varied her opening speech over and over as the

skimmer flew across the open expanse of the southern Indian Ocean. I have a question. I

have a difficult problem, I would like to show you something.

She was arriving unannounced, without invitation. From everything that she had heard

the first minute would be crucial. Excite his interest and curiosity, and there was no end to

his time and patience. Fail that first minute and there would be no second chance.

The water below the speeding skimmer was glassy calm, dark and gleaming in the April

sunlight like oiled fabric. At a height of ten meters and a speed of three hundred knots,

Sondra felt no sense of motion. Her destination lay in the most remote part of the emptiest

ocean on Earth. The nearest sea-city was five hundred kilometers to the north. All she saw,

ahead or behind, was the unvarying horizon. The operation and navigation of the solo

skimmer was wholly automatic. Sondra was left with nothing to do but brood on her options.

Show him. That had to be the answer. Words could fail, they could be badly delivered or

misunderstood. But once he had seen it ...

Sondra looked behind her and down to the fine-meshed cage in the bottom of the hold.

She could see movement within, a slow twisting of metal chains. When she listened hard she

fancied a rustling of rough skin against the grille. It could not escape. All the same, she was

constantly aware of its presence just a few feet behind her.

"We will be arriving in two minutes." The skimmer was merely providing its regular status

update, but it was almost as though it had sensed Sondra's desire for the journey to end.

"Wolf Island now lies directly ahead."

Less than twenty kilometers. But the island was small, a low one-kilometer circular

pinprick in the waste of open ocean. Sondra found herself seeking it anyway, at the same

time as she told herself that it was too soon.

Wolf Island. It had seemed a self-indulgent and even arrogant name when she first heard

it. Only later did she discover that Behrooz Wolf had not named the island after himself.

Rather, in a quixotic gesture he had upon his retirement sought out an uninhabited island

that had carried his name for four hundred years, since it was first discovered by the mad

explorer -- deemed mad in an age of madness -- Captain Guido Wolf. No relation to Behrooz

Wolf, so far as Sondra could tell; or indeed to her, Sondra Wolf Dearborn.

But there at last the island was visible, a flattened lop-sided pyramid of green and black

appearing against the metallic blue of sky and sea. As they came closer and descended to

surface travel mode the skimmer changed course, circling the green shoreline to make its

final approach to a narrow spit of black rock that formed Wolf Island's southern tip. The only

dock was there, with inland from it a small beach of white sand. A set of steps in the rock

led upward from the beach, ascending to a house whose brown rooftop was just visible from

sea level.

Sondra took a deep breath as the skimmer completed its arrival and halted at the jetty.

The moment of truth was almost here. She stepped down into the hold and lifted the cage

by its metal handles. It was heavy, at least twenty kilos, but she tried to hold it away from

her body, wrinkling her nose at the musky smell that came from inside. She heard a hiss, of

surprise or anger. She struggled across the beach and up the stairs with eyes averted, sand

and bare rock hot beneath her sandaled feet.

The house she came to was a mixture of solid strength and openness. It could take

advantage of balmy days of summer breezes, or close itself tight against the gales that

scoured land and sea at latitude thirty degrees south. Sondra approached the front of the

house and set down her burden. The sliding door was slightly open. She went to it, pushed

the tinted glass wide enough to put her head through, and found she was looking into an

empty room. It was sparsely furnished; by someone, Sondra decided, who valued

possessions for their utility and worried not at all about appearances.

"Hello. Mr. Wolf? Is anyone home?"

The room's high wooden ceiling echoed her voice. There was no other reply. Sondra

paused at the threshold, then went inside. This was something she had never anticipated.

Behrooz Wolf had returned to the island three months ago. There was no evidence that he

had left since then. But if he had, and she had come eight thousand miles for nothing, she

was the biggest fool on Earth.

"Mr. Wolf!"

Nothing. Sondra went on through the empty house until she found herself at another door

in the rear. That too was ajar. It led outside to a garden, surprising in the planned

luxuriance of its growth. To the far left stood an odd row of brown conical boxes, each about

two feet tall, while a paved path curved away to the right. Tall flowering shrubs bordered the

stones of the path and made its turning course invisible after the first thirty meters.

Sondra followed the twisting trail between the line of bushes. It was almost flat but it

curved steadily. She realized that it was leading her around the rocky outcrop that formed

the center of Wolf Island. She was ready to turn back, convinced that there was nothing to

be found in that direction, when suddenly she emerged from the shrubs and found herself

standing at the edge of another narrow beach of white sand. Before she could take another

step forward two mastiff hounds appeared from nowhere. They raced across to Sondra and

crouched at her feet, fangs bared. Their growl was a unison rumble of menace.

Sondra froze. She was usually not afraid of dogs, but the two huge specimens only a few

inches from her exposed toes were too big to take chances with.

"Janus! Siegfried! We can do without that noise." The quiet voice came from Sondra's left.

A moment later a man came strolling her way along the pebbled margin of the beach.

She recognized him at once from his pictures at the Office of Form Control. He was of

medium height, dark-haired, thin-faced and thin-lipped. His eyelids drooped, half hiding dark

eyes. He was barefoot, dressed in a simple outfit of uniform grey, and he looked about thirty

years old. Thanks were due there to the biofeedback machines of the Biological Equipment

Corporation, because Sondra knew that he was in fact seventy-eight, almost seventy-nine.

It was Behrooz Wolf: Bey Wolf, the legend. The former Head of the Office of Form

Control; the man who had solved the mystery of Robert Capman's disappearance; the man

who had pursued Black Ransome into the Halo, and vanquished him there in his own dark

stronghold; the only man whose messages to the Logian forms on Saturn were guaranteed a

reply; the sole inventor and developer of the multiform; the ultimate human authority and

undisputed master of practical form-change. The man who refused to work with anyone.

Sondra had left the heavy metal cage behind her at the front door. Every prepared word

vanished from her head. What she felt like saying would certainly do nothing to help her

case: But you look so ordinary, not at all like anyone special.

In any case, Wolf beat her to it. "You don't look like my mental image of Friday," he said.

"Or Crusoe, either. Don't worry about the hounds, they're just being playful." And, as the

dogs moved away from her feet in response to his snapped fingers he went on, "The last

shipwreck in this ocean was a hundred years ago. No one comes here by accident. I own the

island, and I'm sure you know that this is all private property."

"I'm Sondra Dearborn. Sondra Wolf Dearborn. We're actually related to each other." And

when that near-platitude produced nothing, not even a raised eyebrow, she had to keep

going even though she was convinced that she had already blown any chance she ever had.

"I'm with the Office of Form Control, I joined them a couple of years ago. I really need your

help."

"Do you now. I wish you knew how many people have told me that in the past three

years." He didn't sound interested, he didn't sound angry -- he didn't sound anything. He

just turned to walk down the beach toward the placid water with its rippling two-inch

wavelets. "Before you go any further, let me mention that I told all of them the same thing:

No. Your form-change problems are yours, not mine. I'm retired."

"I came a long way to see you." Sondra slipped off her sandals and hurried after him

across the soft sand.

"I know. Eight thousand miles." He pointed off to the left along the beach, almost directly

at the sun. "West 6 north-west, the Office of Form Control Headquarters lies right in that

direction. I didn't hear your flier. More to the point, nor did they." He pointed to where the

two dogs were running in and out of the water and scratching for something in the wet sand.

"I came the final fifteen hundred kilometers by skimmer."

At last there was a hint of interest, a puzzled expression. "Why? Why didn't you fly?"

It occurred to Sondra that this was his first direct question. And her opportunity.

"The pilot who was supposed to fly me here took one look at my luggage and refused to

carry it."

But Wolf didn't take the bait. He simply whistled to the dogs and turned back toward the

house. "The skimmer trip must take at least three hours," he said over his shoulder. "I was

going indoors anyway, for a cold drink and a bite to eat. If you like you can join me before

you start back."

"That would be nice." Sondra, walking along the path to the house right behind Wolf,

resisted die urge to jump up and down in triumph. "Can I at least show you what I brought

with me?"

"Why not."

Hardly an enthusiastic reaction. But at least part of Wolfs frozen old-man attitude was

contrived. He could move quickly enough if he wanted to. When the two hounds, Janus and

Siegfried, came close and shook themselves to spray both Wolf and Sondra with cold sea-

water, she saw his agile leap away from them. She was hugely pleased. She hadn't lost yet.

He would change his mind as soon as he saw what was in the cage.

When he went through to order food in the kitchen she hurried to the front door and

carried the cage through to the middle of the living-room. She peered in through the heavy

mesh to make sure that the chains were still secure. Gritting her teeth, she unlocked the

cage's top and slid it open. There was an immediate silent rush of movement within,

followed by the snap of taut links and a hiss of rage. Sondra took a deep breath, wishing

that she could somehow close her nose. Bey Wolf was going to change his mind about eating

or drinking when that smell hit him.

And then she realized that he was already present. He had come up silently behind her,

to lean over and peer right down into the cage.

"Mm. Yes, odd enough." He was casually straightening up again. "I ordered hot food, and

it will take a few minutes for the house to prepare it. But here's your drink"

He was holding a glass full of dark-brown liquid out to Sondra while he sipped his own.

"Don't you want to ... " Sondra gestured at the cage. "I mean, I'm sorry about bringing

this in just before we eat. I know it's disgusting. But if you want to take a closer look ... "

"I hardly think that will be necessary." Wolf settled down onto a rocking-chair that faced

the garden beyond. He had the look of a man who spent a lot of time sitting there.

" ... for you to really see what it's like ... "

"I already know what it's like." Wolf leaned back and closed his eyes. The wet dogs

padded forward to slump at his feet. "Physically: male, about eleven or twelve kilos.

Hypertrophied mandible and upper jaw, with enlarged incisors and sharpened super-

prominent canines. General body structure shows some achondroplasia -- typical dwarfism.

Ichthyotic skin in an extreme form, fully scaled on arms and legs and back. Enhanced

reactions, about three times as fast as a normal human. Behavior is clearly feral, and the

present form represents a purposive but regressive change. I judge that the chance of a

successful form-change correction is close to zero. That enough?"

"But you hardly even looked!"

"You are wrong." Wolf sighed and leaned back in the rocking-chair. "I have looked and

looked and looked, more than you are able to imagine. I have been studying the results of

purposive form-change for over fifty years. I have seen the avian forms, the cephalopod and

serpentine variations, the ectoskeletal forms, the wheeled forms, the Capman lost

variations, all the mistakes and mishaps and blind alleys of half a century." Wolf sipped

again at his drink, eyes still closed. "What you have there is well within the envelope of

familiar alternatives. Illegal, of course, but not even close to an extreme form. Why don't

you close the cage now? I can tell that you are uncomfortable with it open."

"I am. I'm afraid it might break the chains and get out."

Sondra slid the cover back into position. She had played a high card, and Bey Wolf had

not even opened his eyes. But she still had her trump card to play. "While you're in the

analysis mode, I'd like your opinion on two other things. How long do you think that this

form has been like this? And how old do you think it is?"

"I have no way to judge how long the form has been this way. But it would take about

four months in a form-change tank to achieve that shape. As for the age" -- Wolf shrugged -

- "for that I would need a longer observation period, to watch movement and reaction to

stimuli. It could be anything between nineteen and ninety years old."

Gotcha. "It could be." Sondra waited, holding the moment. "But it isn't. It's four months

old. And it's not an illegal form. It was born this shape, and it's growing fast."

Wolfs eyes blinked fully open and he offered Sondra her first direct look. "It failed the

humanity test? Then it should have been destroyed two months ago."

"No. That's the problem. It was given the humanity test two months ago. And it passed."

"Then it should have been placed in a form-change tank at once for a remedial medical

program."

"That's exactly what was done when it was shipped to us. But the programs didn't work

at all. No useful change took place during two whole months in the tank. That's why I came

to you." Sondra gestured again to the cage, where scaled skin was rasping horribly against

metal links. "The humanity test determines what's human, because only humans can

perform purposive form-change. We have something here that passed the humanity test.

That means it can't be destroyed and must be protected. But it clearly isn't human, and it's

immune to form-change. It's my job to find out what's going on."

Wolf had been sitting up straighter in the chair. For a moment, Sondra thought she saw a

real light of curiosity in his eyes. Then he was leaning back again, nodding his head.

"Very true. As you stated, it is your job to find out what is going on with a form-change

failure. If you were hoping that by coming here you might also make it my job, I have to

disappoint you. I told you once, I tell you twice. I'm retired."

CHAPTER 2

Sondra had lost. But Wolf would not help her. And because she had lost, she could at last

relax for a little while.

Ownership of a private island was proof of wealth, but a far more impressive proof came

to Sondra when she saw the quality of the house's food service. As Wolf led her through to a

dining room that faced out over the ocean toward the setting sun, she saw the settings for

the chef. The "bite to eat" that he had offered would be a banquet.

She sat opposite Wolf at a long table of polished ebony and watched him in puzzled

silence as a succession of elaborate dishes appeared. He had been gone from the Office of

Form Control for three years, but Behrooz Wolf anecdotes were told there all the time.

Sondra had built up a distinct mental image of the man who now sat facing her. He was

supposed to be cool, nerveless, and ironic, a man of immense mental energy who loved the

challenge of tough form-change problems better than anything in the world (except possibly

for his known obsession with the dusty and obscure works of long-dead poets and

playwrights). He was also an ascetic, as little interested in elaborate food as in clothes or

form-change fashions or social fads.

So how did a man whose energy had been legendary turn into a remote idler untouched

by a unique new twist on purposive form-change? How did the ascetic fit with the array of

epicurean courses that were appearing before them?

Sondra had no answers, but she noticed something during the seventh course. Wolf had

described every dish to her in detail and made sure that both of them were served generous

portions, but he hardly touched anything on his own plate. Instead he distracted Sondra

with easy, fluent talk about the island and its history -- and he watched her.

She finally pushed away her plate, the latest course untasted. "I didn't travel eight

thousand miles for you to study me while I eat. And I have no more interest in fancy food

than you do. I came here to talk to Behrooz Wolf."

"You can learn more about a person by watching them eat one meal than by listening to

them speak for a whole day."

"And?"

"You like food well enough, but you don't worship your stomach. That's good." Wolf

pushed his plate away from him but he kept his eyes turned down toward it. "You say you

came to talk to me, Sondra Wolf Dearborn." Her middle name was slightly emphasized. "So,

talk to me. Then it will be time for you to go home."

Since she had already lost, Sondra had nothing more to lose.

"I'm terribly disappointed in you." She blurted it out. "I'd heard about you from my family

ever since I was a small child. I've read about all your most famous cases, here on Earth,

out in the Horus Cluster, off in Clouding and the Kernel Ring. You're the reason I joined the

Office of Form Control. And you're still a legend in that office" -- there, she had used the

word she had sworn never to use -- "as a man who can solve any form-change mystery, no

matter how strange."

"I am not to be held responsible for office gossip, nor for your own preconceptions. If

that's all you have to say to me, you should go."

"I don't believe that it is gossip. I believe it's true. Three years ago you'd have had that

poor creature out of its cage and been examining it in two seconds. You've changed. I want

to know why you changed. You can hide away here on your island, but there's still a real

world out there with real problems to be solved."

"There is indeed." Wolf was smiling. She had hoped to break through to him, but he

remained as cool and unemotional as ever. "As there has always been. I have had" -- he

paused, and gave her another careful inspection -- "fifty-one years more than you to work

on such problems."

Evidence of humanity from Wolf at last, in the form of a touch of wounded ego. Like most

people, Sondra held her physical appearance at age twenty-two. She was actually twenty-

seven and a half, and somehow Wolf had read that. With his last statement he was just

pointing out to her that his mistake about the age of the caged form-change failure was an

exception.

But he was continuing: "You say I hid away. I say, I need solitude. It is also time for me

to move out of the way and allow the next generation - yours -- to spread its wings.

Crabbed age and youth cannot live together."

It was one of his damnable old quotations, she was sure of it. Sondra didn't know who

had said it-and she certainly didn't care. "That's rubbish. We need your experience. You talk

about being old, but unless you have an accident you'll be around for another fifty good

years. You developed the multiforms just four years ago, and that was your best work ever."

"In whose opinion? Yours?"

"Mine and everyone's. The multiforms add a whole new dimension to form-change. You

are still at your peak and it was criminal of you to retire. Do you think you are going to sit

loafing in your rocking-chair and staring at the ocean for another half century? Next thing

you know you'll dodder around in your garden, growing vegetables and keeping bees."

She realized that she was pushing hard, still trying to goad him to a response that was

more emotional than rational. And finally he was frowning. But it was in wry amusement,

not anger.

"You need my experience?" he said. "Very well, you will have it. And then you must go.

You said that the creature in the cage was shipped to you. From where?"

"From the Carcon Colony. Out on the edge of the Kuiper Belt."

"I know the region. Strange territory. Strange people. Have you been there?"

"No. It's a long journey and an expensive one. My cheapskate boss -- or rather, my

boss's boss -- is hoping I can find the answer here, without making the trip out."

"Who is your boss's boss?"

"Denzel Morrone."

"I know him. He smiles pleasantly, but don't turn your back on him." Wolf was standing

up. "Morrone knows me, too. Go back and tell him that you talked to Behrooz Wolf. Say that

Wolf told you the chances of solving your problem without visiting the Carcon Colony are

close to zero."

"Suppose he asks me why?"

"Just tell him that if it were my problem -- which it isn't -- I'd be on the next ship out.

You don't need to tell Morrone this, but chances are it's a software problem in the form-

change equipment used for the original humanity test. You need to check the routines first-

hand and in person. Until you do that you are lacking basic information. It is a capital

mistake to theorize before one has data." Wolf led Sondra toward the back door, where he

had placed the cage with its feral contents. Twilight was well advanced and the creature

inside was quiet, perhaps cowed less by coming darkness than by the presence of the two

mastiff hounds. They lay stretched out on opposite sides, guarding it.

Wolf picked up the cage without giving the creature inside a second look. As he led the

way around the house toward the jetty where the skimmer was moored, he jerked his head

to the row of brown conical boxes that Sondra had noticed when she arrived.

"Know what those are?"

"Not really. They look like bird houses, but I don't see any way in to them."

"There is a way in -- if you're small enough." And, when Sondra stared, first at him and

then back at the nearest cone, "You had it right earlier. Those are beehives. I keep honey

bees. And I do grow my own vegetables -- or at least, the garden servos do it for me."

"You live here alone? No regular visitors?" It was absolutely none of Sondra's business,

and she was not sure why she was asking.

"Alone. No regular visitors." They were approaching the jetty, its black rock almost

invisible against the dark water. "No irregular visitors, either, until you came." Wolf stepped

into the skimmer and lowered the cage carefully to die deck. "Go to the Carcon Colony,

Sondra Dearborn. That is my only advice."

"Sondra Wolf Dearborn. I'll ask Denzel Morrone if I can go. If I do, can I come back here

and tell you what I find?"

He remained silently crouched over the cage for so long that Sondra wondered if he had

seen something new inside. But at last he straightened and shrugged.

"Why not? If you wish to return, and if you believe that what you have will interest me.

And with one other condition: next time, give me advance notice of any possible visit. The

hounds are not dangerous, you know that." Wolf started the skimmer's engine, then quickly

stepped ashore. "But it could be fatal to assume that nothing on this island is dangerous to

an unexpected visitor."

Startled, Sondra glanced up at him. His face was no more than an inscrutable pale oval in

the near-darkness. She turned to gaze at the hulking deformed pyramid of rock that formed

the center of Wolf Island. It seemed larger than before, the island's dark heart looming black

against the evening sky.

The skimmer moved silently away from the jetty and began the long journey north; but

the brooding obsidian hill remained in Sondra's memory, long after the island itself had

vanished into the night.

Wolf watched the little vessel as it disappeared into the fading line between sea and sky.

As the day ended, his work could begin. The bees in one of the hives had swarmed that

morning. He had followed them up the rocky central hill of Wolf Island and carefully noted

the location of the tight swarmed cluster. Now with the temperature dropping and the bees

somnolent it was time for the next step.

Bey retraced his path up the hill with an empty container and a monofilament cutter.

When he returned he was carrying the swarm, undisturbed and in the precise order in which

it had been created. He had learned on his previous tries that it was not enough to follow

the normal beekeeping practice of shaking the bees of the swarm into the container. For his

plans, order seemed to be vitally important.

He went back into the house and descended two levels from the main floor. The lab that

he came to had been cut from the solid basement rock of Wolf Island. Bey had not lied to

Sondra. He did need solitude -- for the freedom from vibration and noise that it provided,

and for the absence of inquisitive neighbors which remoteness guaranteed. What he was

doing was not illegal, but it was certainly the sort of thing that might raise eyebrows.

Bey suspended the swarm of bees above a table, from which it could be moved directly

into any one of the waiting form-change tanks. Once the swarm was in position he paused.

Even with the aid of his miniaturized servos, what came next was going to be infinitely tricky

and tedious. He was not going to enjoy the next twelve to fourteen hours. He had to attach

tiny optical fibers for biofeedback control to every bee in the swarm, then network the result

into the computer so that responses were possible on both the individual and the composite

level.

No point in waiting. The work could not be split into shifts, it had to be done in one long

session. The sooner he began, the sooner he would be able to rest. Bey sighed, adjusted the

microscope, and settled to his task. It called for great care but little brain work. He had

plenty of time to think, and to wonder again if he really knew what he was doing.

The idea behind his new work derived from the multiform theory that Bey himself had

invented four years earlier, for the creation of human composites. Now he wanted to take it

far beyond the point that anyone else-Sondra Dearborn, or even the workers at the

Biological Equipment Corporation -- would believe possible. The use of biological form-

change for humans was two hundred years old, widespread, and almost universally

accepted. The corollary, that humans and humans alone could achieve such interactive

form-change, was embedded so deeply in society that it had become the definition of

humanity itself.

Sondra, like Bey himself, was too young to remember the great humanity debates. She

accepted their final outcome as a necessary and inevitable truth.

What is a human? The answer, slowly evolved and at last articulated clearly, was simple:

an entity is human if and only if it can accomplish purposive form-change using bio-feedback

systems. That definition had prevailed over the anguished weeping of billions of protesting

parents. The age of humanity testing had been pushed back, to one year, to six months, to

three months. Failure in the test carried a high price - euthanasia -- but resistance had

slowly faded in the face of remorseless population pressure. Resources to feed babies who

could never live a normal human life were not available.

And in time the unthinkable had become the unquestionable. The validity of the humanity

test had been established beyond doubt over the years, by attempts to induce form-change

in everything from gnats to whales to daffodils. Every one had been unsuccessful.

Now Bey was questioning the unquestionable. The development of the multiforms had

made him re-evaluate his own deepest assumptions about form-change -- things that

everyone "knew must be true," commonsense things like the earth being flat, or the sun

going round the earth, or atoms being indivisible, or nothing being able to travel faster than

light. Humans could operate as a multiform ensemble in a form-change environment, but

not if more than six people were involved. Therefore, composites behaved differently in

form-change than their individual units. Nothing surprising there. An individual cell from a

human being did not respond to form-change feedback stimuli at all.

But a colony of social insects, bees or ants or termites, was a single, functioning entity. A

hive possessed a complex structure and a survival capability that far transcended those of

individual-and expendable-bees.

Three years ago, Bey had examined the long history and literature of form-change and

found it wanting. The data he was looking for on social insects did not exist. He would have

to create it. What he had not expected was that it would take so long.

Bey straightened his aching back, leaned away from the microscope, and glanced up at

the wall clock. Sondra's skimmer journey should be over, and she would now be flying back

to Form Control headquarters. She didn't know it but she had been given a tough job, one

too hard for someone of her experience. The Carcon Colony was likely to eat her alive. While

he, of course, sat loafing around in his rocking-chair.

Bey smiled to himself. Sondra's energy and directness pleased him in a way that he found

hard to define. He began to examine the tendriled tangle of fibers, sprouting like white hair

from one side of the swarm's dark mass. The night's work was just beginning. By dawn, if he

were industrious and lucky, he would be finished with the connections. And then he would

be ready for the more difficult next stage.

Bey was industrious, but not lucky. Minor movements within the swarm forced him to re-

define part of the network. By the time that he placed the final assembly into a form-change

tank, adjusted the settings, and emerged from the basement lab, the sun was high in the

sky.

He peered out at a day that promised high wind and rain. He closed the house, helped

himself to a hot drink, and collapsed into bed. Before he closed his eyes he set the skull

contacts into position and programmed four hours of deep sleep. He would be awakened

early only if there were a disastrous failure in the lab, or a high-priority call was received at

Wolf Island.

Bey was forced back to consciousness by a house signal buzzing urgently at his ear. Even

before he sat up he knew that he had slept no more than two hours. His eyes did not want

to focus, his mouth was dry, and his whole brain felt grainy.

He removed the contacts from his temples and turned at once to the status monitors. If

the swarm was disintegrating so soon, after all his work ...

Everything in the lab reported as normal. There had been no change of status in the tank,

which was as it should be so early in the experiment.

It meant that the house had chosen to waken him based on some urgent external signal,

a call at a level high enough to override Bey's own demand for rest. He keyed die

communications system. An image popped into view instantly, projected into the viewing

area beyond the bed.

"Mr. Wolf!" The man wore one of the standard forms of BEC management. He was

handsome, impeccably dressed in a style new to Bey, and grinning broadly. "I have good

news."

Bey scowled back at him. "How did you get in?"

"Top priority interrupt circuit. My name is Jarvis Dommer. I'm with BEC."

"I can see that. What do you want?"

"To make you an offer you can't refuse." Dommer seemed to have more teedi than a

normal person, and now his grin widened even farther. "Mr. Wolf -- may I call you Bey?"

"No."

"Fine." The smile remained intact. "Mr. Wolf, you may have heard that BEC has a whole

new line of commercial forms on the drawing-board, planned for release two years from

now."

"The marine and free-space forms. Sure. I've seen the advertisements."

"Good. But what you haven't seen -- because we've kept quiet about it -- is the plans for

multiform versions of the new releases. We'll be using your own ideas, the ones that you

sold to EEC three and a half years ago. And we said to ourselves, who better than Bey Wolf

to be our exclusive consultant on this? No one knows as much as he does about the promise

and potential of the multiforms -- "

"No. I retired three years ago. I'm not interested."

"That's because you haven't heard what we can offer you."

"I said no. I have enough money. Forget it."

"I'm not talking just a high consulting rate, the way you are thinking. You'd certainly get

that, the most we've ever paid. But I'm authorized to offer you a royalty as well, one

percent of everything that BEC makes when one of these new forms is licensed. Nobody in

history has ever been offered that by BEC. You may think you're well off now, but compared

with what you can be you're a pauper. You won't just be a millionaire, you'll be a billionaire,

a billionaire, a jillionaire. You'll be so wealthy that you'll be able to -- "

Bey hit the disconnect. The image of Jarvis Dommer, still talking a mile a minute, faded

slowly away. Bey reset the house interrupt levels so that for the next three hours all

messages, no matter their priority level, would be recorded for his later review.

He lay down again and reset the controls to continue programmed sleep. In the two

minutes that the skull contacts needed to adjust his brain wave patterns, he thought about

the BEC proposal. Jarvis Dommer was absolutely right about one thing: the offer to pay

royalties for use of a form-change program to an individual was absolutely unprecedented.

And since BEC was the biggest business enterprise in the whole solar system, Bey would

surely become obscenely wealthy. He should feel flattered and overwhelmed by their offer.

He didn't. He was too cynical for that. Instead he wondered what horrible problems BEC

were having with the new forms. To promise so much, someone must be completely

desperate.

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ProteusInTheUnderworld(v3.0)CharlesSheffield,1995[01oct2001--scannedfor#bookz][04apr2002--proofedfor#bookz][12apr2002-Anaerobic-Secondproofing-lotsofscanerrorshavebeenremovedandtheem-dashesrestored]CHAPTER1Howdoyoucapturealegend?SondraDearbornhadrehearsedandvariedheropeningspeechoverandoverastheskim...

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Sheffield, Charles - Proteus In The Underworld

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