Charles Sheffield - Proteus in the Underworld

Sondra watched the first of them as they emerged from the tank compartment, and wondered again if she was really suited to a job in the Office of Form Control.

As a specialist she ought to be comfortable with and sympathetic to all legal forms; but the Cloudland standard, with its skinny elongated torso and arms and diminutive legs like a cross between a stick insect and a starved giant albino ape, left her profoundly uncomfortable. The hairless, eyebrowless head on the stalk of a neck didn’t help. But no one else seemed to notice.

By the time of the docking with Rini Base it was Sondra herself who seemed the oddity. Everyone else on board had changed, with the exception of the crew who would fly the circuit of the Belt and then head back for the inner system. Sondra noticed the stares of the other passengers as she disembarked and peered around her looking for Apollo Belvedere Smith.

Bey Wolf had described him to Sondra before she left. Typical of the man and his twisted sense of humor, Bey had not bothered to point out that his striking description would fit every second person in the entry lobby. Sondra stared around in bewilderment, until a great, gangling figure appeared from nowhere at her side.

“Hey! You gotta be Sondra Wolf Dearborn.” He was grinning down at her, white teeth and deep-set brown eyes in a skeletal face. “You’re little and fat enough, I’ll admit that, but you don’t look nothing like the Wolfman. Thought you’re supposed to be his relative?”

“Distant relative. I presume you are Apollo Belvedere Smith?”

“Presumed correct. ’Cept everybody calls me Aybee.” He was staring at her now with even more interest. “Distant relative, eh? Well, that explains a lot. Come on.”

“A lot about what? Where are you taking me?” Sondra hurried after him, uneasy in a gravity field that varied at every point.

“Gotta educate you, the Wolfman says.” Aybee glared at her, as though questioning whether that was possible. Teach you stuff about the Kuiper critters you’ll never find in books. Well, there’s lotsa that. You’ll see.”

If the Rini Base was anything to go by Sondra was seeing it already. That changing gravity field, she knew, could only be the product of kernels, the shielded black holes that formed the home of the Rinis after whom the base was named. According to Bey, Aybee Smith had actually been the first person to understand that the Rinis were a living and intelligent life-form, inhabiting the bizarre and unreachable interior of the kernels. Rini Base (RINI—Received Information Not Interpretable, the human first impression of the inscrutable life-form) had been established specifically to study them. It held the system s biggest concentration of kernels, communication links, computer hardware, and raw brains. Looking around her, Sondra could understand hardly anything of what she was seeing.

“Don’t let it get to you, Wolfgirl.” Aybee had noticed her confusion. “No need for you to cotton any of this. You’re not staying here, you’re heading first thing in the morning for Meatland.”

“The Carcon Colony … meat? I thought they favored inorganic components … ”

“They do. I mean meatheadland. I’ve looked at the results of their work. Useless. All right!” Aybee had somehow navigated his way through an incredible jumble of equipment to an open space where an empty desk and chair sat in isolated splendor. “Here we are—my office.”

“No computer? No data tap?”

“No way. They’re crutches for people whose heads don’t work right.” He motioned Sondra to a seat, while he prowled up and down. “We’ll use a display when the time comes. First, though, tell me how old Wolfman is doing.”

“He’s doing fine.” Sondra gave the conventional reply, then had second thoughts. “Except that he really isn’t. He’s retired, you know.”

“I heard that. Bad deal. You shouldn’t have let him.”

“I had nothing to do with that.”

“Glad to hear it. He’s not an idiot, you see, like most people.”

“You’re not the only one with that opinion. Gertrude Melford thinks so, too.”

“Trudy, the one and only.”

“You know about her? Anyway, she’s trying to hire him.”

“What for?”

“I hesitate to speculate.” Sondra bit back her next catty remark. “But I don’t think retirement’s good for Bey. He’s acting old now, really ancient since he left the Office of Form Control.”

“Physically old? You been wearing him down?”

“Mentally old.”

“No worries. Don’t let him fool you. He does that on purpose. His mind’s as young as yours—and I bet it works a whole lot better. But I got a question for you. What’s the Wolfman have to say about me?”

“He says you’re brash, arrogant, opinionated, and insensitive.”

“Ah.” Aybee smiled beatifically. That was the old me. Before I had sensitivity training.”

“But for some strange reason he seems to like you.”

“ ’Course he does. Why wouldn’t he? Just a moment, though, I have to do one thing before we get down to your business. Got a personal call waiting.”

Aybee sat down on top of the desk and fiddled with a dark band on his left wrist, while Sondra wondered what she was supposed to do now. He’d said it was a personal call, but she had nowhere to go. She stared around at the jumbled piles of cabinets and cables that formed—the barrier of his office, and decided that it was his own fault if she overheard private discussions. She heard a discreet buzz of comment from the wrist set, then Aybees loud reply.

“Sure, Cinnabar. I did it already. It’s on the way.”

Cinnabar? If that was Cinnabar Balcer, Sondra was impressed. Baker was the most powerful person in Cloudland. And Aybee Smith was on an easy first-name basis with her. What else about Aybee was Bey allowing Sondra to find out for herself?

“Sure, she’s right here.” Aybee winked at Sondra. He seemed to have his own idea of a private conversation. “I told you she was coming. That’s why I’m gonna be incommunicado for a few hours.” And then, after an inaudible comment from the other end, “I dunno, he never told me. The usual reasons, I guess. You know the Wolfman and his bimboes, seems he’s as bad as ever.”

Bimboes. Sondra didn’t bother with the rest of the conversation. She sat and seethed, waiting until Aybee fiddled again with the band on his wrist and she heard the beep of a severed connection.

“Is that what Wolf told you?” She was up out of the chair and standing right in front of him. “That I’m a bimbo? That he and I are-are sexual partners?”

“Hey, don’t get your knickers in a twist. The Wolfman never said one word like that. Never even hinted at it.”

“So why did you say it? ‘Wolfman and his bimboes!’ You and your sensitivity training.”

“Don’t knock the training. Maybe it don’t work for everything, but it sure works for some things. The Wolfman never said one wrong word, never talked about you—but I listen to what you say, and the way you say it. That means more than the words.”

“Bullshit! I never said a thing.”

“All right, all right.” Aybee held up his arms, enormously long and thin. “You never said a thing, agreed. Forget I spoke. We got work to do. Can’t do it when you’re up in the air.”

“I am not up in the air.” Sondra made a tremendous effort and lowered her voice to a normal speaking level. “Aybee, I came here to do a job and I am going to do it. I’m not going to let innuendos and insults put me off. We can start as soon as you are ready. But we’ll do it with one rule.”

“You name it.”

“No more talk about me and Behrooz Wolf, okay? No matter what you imagine we’re doing and not doing.”