Charles Sheffield - Proteus in the Underworld

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 … ‘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.”

“To pursue my own interests. Not yours, or anyone else’s.”

“You were ready enough to run off to Mars, when Trudy Melford wandered in and blinked her big blue eyes at you. But you won’t help one of your own relatives.”

“That argument again?” Bey sighed. “Let’s dispose of it, once and for all. Then I need rest—you may not care, but I have been up all night. Working. Come on.”

He led the way along another hallway, to a part of the house that Sondra had not seen before. It was an odd combination of bedroom and study. The displays in the ceiling and the controls beside the bed would allow someone to work or sleep with equal comfort. Bey went to a wall unit, where a complex chart was displayed.

“You have assured me several times that you and I are related, as though this entitles you to special consideration.”

“We are related.”

“Indeed we are. But how closely? I took the trouble to determine that. Here is my genealogical chart, displayed together with yours. If we were identical twins we would share one hundred percent of our genetic material. If we were total strangers, unrelated in any way, we would share zero percent. From this lineage diagram you can determine for yourself our common genetic heritage.”

Sondra stared at the family tree. She shook her head. “I don’t know how to do that.”

That earned another stare, this one more puzzled than knowing. “I am suitably appalled by your ignorance. But let me tell you how. Assuming there has been no inbreeding between distinct lines, the procedure is quite simple. Let’s start with me. We go back through the tree, to every common ancestor that you and I share. Here we go.” He stepped up through the generations. “Your great-great-grandfather was my great-grandfather, Dieter Wolf. He is our closest common ancestor. I was actually quite surprised to find that we share another, nine generations back, but that’s so long ago I’m not sure I trust the results. Let’s ignore it for the moment. We start with you. You share one hundred percent of genetic material with yourself. Now we go back toward our first common ancestor. At each generation, we multiply by one half. Your father was Soltan Dearborn. One half. His mother was Amelia Wolf. One quarter. Her mother was Cynthia Wolf-Stein. One eighth. And her father was Dieter Wolf. One sixteenth. You have one-sixteenth of Dieter Wolfs genetic material.

“Now we come back down the tree. And at each generation, we multiply by one-half again. Dieter Wolf was my great-grandfather. Dieter Wolfs son was Seth Wolf. We’re now at one thirty-second, a half of one-sixteenth. Seth Wolfs son was Hector Wolf. One sixty-fourth. And finally we get to me, because Hector Wolf was my father. One one-hundred-and- twenty-eighth. You and I share less than one percent of our generic material. If I throw in the other common ancestor, nine generations back, I simply add that to the other number. It makes hardly any difference—one part in five hundred thousand. Do you follow this?”