Charles Sheffield - Proteus in the Underworld

Immediate issues, like Sondra’s new data about the peculiar failed form on the Carcon Colony. She had left a copy for him and it deserved at least a quick inspection. No help from the subconscious mind there, at least not until he had done the hard grind through a mass of detail.

Strangest of all, though, was the event that did not happen.

The car that had carried Bey from Melford Castle to the Mars link point was automatically controlled. Since the trip demanded no attention on his part he had time to look all around, including behind him, and to notice that he was being followed by another car for the whole second half of the trip.

At the link embarkation point Bey got out of his car and waited. The second car stopped fifty yards back. A short red-headed man with a bushy red beard stepped out and stood looking in every direction except at the car in front. When Bey headed for the transition zone, the other man trailed along behind. When Bey moved into the transition chamber itself, the man came closer.

But they had reached the point of no return. Bey heard the sudden blare of a siren and a loud warning message from hidden speakers: This chamber will seal in twenty seconds for air pressure and composition modification to Earth standard. Anyone inside when this chamber is sealed will be linked to Earth. LEAVE NOW, OR BE LINKED TO EARTH.

The man hesitated on the far side of the threshold. He lifted one hand toward Bey; and then the door between them slid into position with a hiss of finality.

It could be some form of Mars Underworld security, making sure that a visitor did not stray into dangerous areas—parts of the deep Underworld certainly had a bad reputation. It could be a BEC employee, sent by Trudy to make sure that he got to the link point without difficulty. It might even be a BEC act undertaken without her knowledge, Jarvis Dommer perhaps making sure that Bey was out of the way before he sought his own session at Melford Castle.

The last explanation was the most plausible. Bey had worked most of his life in a big organization, and he knew the ferocity of fights over turf and guaranteed easy access to the boss. But the red-bearded man’s final wave of the hand didn’t fit any of the possibilities. He had actually wanted to talk to Bey, but he had made his move a little bit too late. By implication, he was unfamiliar with the mechanics of the Earth/Mars link.

Bey sighed, and stared unseeing at the vanishing rim of the setting sun. Plenty to think about, and no clear place to begin.

So make it chronological order. First things first. Bey stood up and went over to his main data center. He tapped into the general banks and began his search. It took less than fifteen minutes to be sure that he was getting nowhere. Every key-word that he could think of came to a blind end. At least that explained why he had never heard before of the event that interested him.

It was time to consult an insider. Bey called Maria Sun’s old number at BEC and waited impatiently while the system tracked her to her present location.

She appeared on the imager frowning and rubbing her eyes. Her usually perfect make-up was smeared and she was dressed in an exquisite but rumpled brocaded robe. She nodded blearily at Bey. “What’s at?”

“Hi, Maria. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was the middle of the night for you.”

“It’s not.” She yawned and stretched. “Park Green came by. He heard I retired, so last night he dropped in from Luna City and dragged me off partying. The man’s a lunatic. I just got back. Tell me what you want quick, so I can get some sleep.”

“I need another favor.”

“Yeah? I’m keeping count.”

“Trudy Melford. Is she married?”

“Isn’t, never was. Why, are you getting ideas?”

“Not the ones I need. How about children? I saw a picture of a child in her rooms. The name on the picture was Errol Ergan Melford. I wondered about his relationship to Trudy.”

“You went to her rooms in Melford Castle? You are getting ideas.”

“The border of the picture suggested that the child was dead I never heard anything about a Melford baby.”

“No. You wouldn’t.” Maria pursed her lips and thought for a while before she went on. “It’s a sad story, and I’m not sure I should be telling it. You might say it’s something from the classics: the person who has everything, but fate still steps in and does what it likes to them. Trudy did have a child, a little boy, maybe four years ago. He died when he was just a few months old. People who know Trudy say that death almost killed her, too. She blamed herself.”

“Do you know how it happened?”

“Just from rumor inside BEC—the whole thing was hushed up. I guess if you’re willing to spend enough money you can switch off media interest.”

“I didn’t know there was that much money in the whole solar system.”

“You’re not Trudy Melford. It was apparently a freak accident. Not out in the Belt or Cloudland, either, where accidents are supposed to happen. Here on Earth, of all places. Trudy and the kid and a couple of nurses were on vacation aboard one of the Melford auto- yachts, cruising around the islands in the Aegean Sea. The weather was good, sea a flat calm. Trudy was up on deck, the baby in a carry crib next to her. Safe as you could get. Except there was a minor sea-floor quake a few kilometers away from the yacht. Not enough to be called dangerous, but enough to cause a big swell with no warning. The yacht rolled, the crib slid across the deck and tipped over the rail. Trudy and one of the nurses saw it happen, they jumped in after it. Got the crib, got the blanket. But no baby. Never found the body.”

“Terrible. Where was the father?”

“Wrong question. You mean, who was the father. Trudy wasn’t saying, and as far as I can tell no one ever found out.”

“Any suggestions?”

“Sure. Sperm bank.”

“The old Melford tradition.”

“Right. Keep the line pure, don’t admit outsiders into the family. That’s another reason you shouldn’t get ideas.” Maria was studying him. “What’s happening, Bey? You’ve gone cross-eyed.”

“That’s because I finally am getting ideas. Not the sort you think, either. Thanks, Maria.”

“Any time. Now I need sleep. Be careful, Bey. You’re playing out of your league.”

“I’ll remember that.”

As Maria vanished, Bey wondered what league she put him in. The league of cynical opportunists? The league of retired, over-the-hill form-change specialists? The league of nostalgic, backward-looking literature buffs?

Certainly not the Trudy Melford super-rich beautiful-people power-players league. Still less the league of love’s young dreamers. Maria might cast Bey in many roles, but that of Trudy Melford’s soul mate was not one of them.

He remembered Maria’s earlier comment. Whatever Trudy wants …

Except, maybe, the one thing that she had wanted most. And Bey could in no way see himself as a baby substitute. What could Trudy want from him?

Civilization ends at Ceres. Or should that be Saturn, Pluto, or Persephone? It all depended how deep you lived within the solar system. But when you came this far you’d better stop having thoughts like that—or at the very least, keep them to yourself. Out here, the inhabitants of the Outer System tended to see things the other way round.

Sondra glanced at the ship’s indicator board. All the familiar worlds of the inner system lay far behind. She was moving into the unknown—to her—region of the Kuiper Belt, three hundred and some astronomical units from the Sun, where a really “large” habitable object was a celestial peanut no more than fifty kilometers across and had a mass maybe one ten- millionth of the Earth. The preferred forms of the region were as alien to Earth humans as their preferred habitats. Half the hundred passengers on the hi-vee vessel Serendip had entered the form-change tanks before breakout from Earth orbit. They were intending long stays in the Kuiper Belt, or even farther off in Cloudland, and they wanted to make their personal form adaptation as soon as possible.