Charles Sheffield - Proteus in the Underworld

Bey was smiling to himself by the time he had been through every room of the suite. What Trudy did not and could not know was that Bey didn’t care what his surroundings were like. He didn’t inhabit a material world. The decoration and arrangements of the house on Wolf Island owed more to prior occupants and gifts from friends than they did to Bey’s own tastes. The thing that he liked best about this castle suite was the view from his windows, of strange illuminated rock spires and spears that jutted up and down from the grotto floor and roof. And he liked that because it was so totally different from Wolf Island. Well, it was only money, and Trudy surely had oodles of that. She could afford to decorate a new suite or a new house for a visitor every day of her life and never notice the expense. But what were her own tastes? He would never deduce it from his immediate surroundings.

Bey decided that he had the time and inclination to see the rest of Melford Castle. Particularly, if he could locate them, Trudy Melford’s personal quarters.

He left his suite and headed for the nearest elevator. Up, or down? Would Trudy choose to be high up on the fourteenth floor among the glittering spires, like a princess in a fairy- tale, or would she prefer the greater convenience of the lower floors?

The second, if Bey was any judge. She might be the Empress, but she was a highly practical one. Wasted time was no more to her taste than wasted words; which again raised the question as to why she was willing to devote so much of the former to him.

He was no nearer to answering that than he had been before their first meeting on Wolf Island. The Martian surface forms were fascinating, but Trudy Melford had many others working for her who would jump at the chance to come to Mars and investigate them.

Bey arrived at the elevators, changed his mind, and headed for the stairs. He would still go down, but he wanted to see every floor.

It was impossible to do a thorough job in half an hour, or even half a day. Melford Castle was reputed to have a hundred and fifty rooms. Bey soon learned that this number did not include ante-chambers and bathrooms and interconnecting corridors. There seemed to be subsidiary staircases on every floor, walk-in closets the size of Bey’s Wolf Island study in every bedroom, little nooks and crannies everywhere that housed treasure troves of priceless curios of old Earth.

After the first few minutes he gave up the idea of a systematic tour and headed down from floor to floor by the most convenient staircases. By the time he reached the fifth story he had decided that the big surprise about Melford Castle was not its size, or its opulence, or even its odd setting in a Martian grotto. Its principal oddity was its emptiness. He had encountered plenty of cleaners and polishers, smart enough to roll out of his way and delicate enough to handle fine silver and eggshell porcelain. But he had met not a single human being, in eight floors of random wandering.

Just who lived here? Not Jarvis Dommer, who spent most of his time back on Earth. Not the EEC research staff, who remained in their superbly-equipped labs.

Bey was beginning to suspect the answer, and to add it to his growing list of mental queries, when he descended a little crooked staircase carpeted with a thick-piled green rug and found himself where he was not supposed to be.

The stairs were not intended for general use. They brought Bey down right into a little changing-room that formed part of Trudy Melford’s private wing. He saw the dress that she had been wearing when she met him at the link terminal, dumped unceremoniously on the floor together with underwear and shoes. The launderers would take care of those—they had stood waiting for Bey’s clothes until he shooed them away—but logic said that Trudy must be here, probably beyond the inner door of white enamel.

Bey was clearly in private territory. He should go no farther. He peered at the panties, which he was delighted to see bore a repeating printed pattern Empress of EEC. Trudy had a sense of humor. How many people got to appreciate this particular demonstration of it? He went to the white door.

It was still another ante-chamber, or maybe a study. A great wooden desk stood in one corner and the walls were lined with old paper books. Bey started for them—books were one of his own addictions—but he paused halfway. On the wall by the desk hung a series of framed pictures. One showed a baby, fat-faced and frowning at the camera. The next was the same child with a little more dark hair. This time it was smiling. In the final image it was clear from the clothing that the baby was a boy-child. But the same picture was black- edged, and bore along its lower boundary the grim legend: Errol Ergon Melford. In Memoriam, sweet baby. Sleep in peace.

Bey knew that he had intruded on a very private place. It was almost a relief when the inner door opened and Trudy Melford emerged. She saw Bey, gasped, shivered, and looked around her before she spoke.

“My God, you startled me. Where did you spring from?”

“I didn’t feel tired. I thought I’d look round the castle.”

“But this is my private suite. I mean, I had no idea you were even on this floor. This is my dressing-room. I might have wandered out here stark naked. That’s why I was so shocked.”

Nice try; but not persuasive. “I’m sorry.”

It was the conventional reply. Bey wasn’t sorry, not in the least. Trudy had been shocked, no doubt about it, but not at the prospect of being caught nude. She was not far from it now, when she presumably considered herself appropriately dressed for lunch and all she had on was a short and tight-fitting sleeveless blue tunic that left her arms, midriff, and most of her legs and breasts bare.

“I guess you’re not used to having people around here.”

Now Bey was fishing, but Trudy had recovered her composure. “Not usually. I’m like you. Company is fine, but unless it’s with just the right person”—those startling eyes stared into his—“it’s usually too much of a good thing.”

A deliberate distraction, intended to set his mind running along other tracks. Bey decided to play along and see how far it would go. He stared hard at Trudy’s body before he offered her his arm.

“I didn’t meet anyone on the way down,” he said. “Just how private is this place?”

“I’m like you.” Trudy slipped her arm through Bey’s and snuggled close. “I prefer to live alone. The castle is as private as you want it to be.”

So there you have it. Bey allowed Trudy to lead him down one more floor, to a small and intimate dining-room where a sumptuous meal stood ready for two people. The whole fairy- tale. Come and work for BEC on Mars. You will be given more money than you know what to do with. You will face the intriguing challenge of the Martian surface forms. You will live in a legendary castle, in a suite adapted to fit your personal tastes and convenience. And you will if you desire it enjoy the company, bed and gorgeous body of Trudy Zenobia Melford, Empress of BEC.

No one in all of history had ever been offered such a package.

Now for the big question: why was it being offered to Bey Wolf?

Although his day was no more than half over, Bey would have bet that there could be no more surprises. He had been given enough of them since breakfast to last a month or two. He would have lost the bet.

First it was Trudy Melford. She had deliberately dressed to show off her body to Bey, and used words in her private quarters to suggest that it was available to him. But as soon as the meal began she backed off. Although her voice remained warm, everything else about her said that her mind had moved somewhere else. She sounded thoughtful and abstracted, even melancholy. Bey knew of nothing that he had said to cause the change. There had to be another reason and he had an idea what it might be. He couldn’t wait to get to his data center and begin his own investigations. He ate and chatted about nothing, but as soon as he could politely do so he nodded at Trudy and pushed his chair away from the table.