Charles Sheffield - Proteus in the Underworld

“No problem. You got it. To work, Wolfgi”—he saw the danger signal just in time—“Sondra. I promise you, by the time you leave here you’ll know more than you want to know about the Carcon Colony.”

Aybee’s promise was easy to keep. Long before the Serendip went spiraling out around the Belt toward the independent colonies, Sondra had decided that she knew far more than she ever wanted to know about the dreadful Carcons.

“Carcon horribilis,” in Aybee’s phrase. His coaching had a special style that took some getting used to. Always he said it clearly, always he said it fast, and always he said it once. At first that wasn’t too bad, because what he was offering was more like a refresher course. Sondra had heard most of it before.

“Except you were probably told it with an Earthside spin.” Aybee wouldn’t sit down. He prowled backward and forward, never looking once at the imaging area where a sequence of tutorial materials would appear for a few seconds and then flash off. There’s a Cloudland joke for you. It shows an Earthling’s view of the solar system.”

The imager displayed a cartoon. A substantial Earth sat at the center of the frame, its continents clear and labeled. Next to it, quite a bit smaller, sat Mars, Ceres, and the moons of Jupiter. Saturn was a little misty ball with a Logian head sticking out from the mist. Far away at the edge of the image area, sketched at about a tenth the size of Ceres, little vague patches were labeled “Kuiper Belt,”

“Kernel Ring,” and “Cloudland.”

“Whereas if you drew it to physical scale it would look like this.”

The cartoon changed. At first sight Cloudland filled the whole scene, a vast spherical array of tiny dots. The Kernel Ring sat at the center, a little flat torus only a tenth as wide as Cloudland. The Kuiper Belt lay within that, a tenth as small again. Finally the planets of the solar system, everything from Mercury out to Persephone, formed a little bright dot at the very center.

“But empty space isn’t the important thing.” Sondra felt obliged to protest. “It’s people that count. The whole Oort Cloud is nearly empty.”

“You bet. Let’s hope it stays that way.” Aybee was a true Cloudlander. “Now, you’ll notice one other thing. In neither the Earthside nor the Cloudland view of things do you see the independent colonies. They’re little, unimportant to the big guys. But that’s where you’re going, so they’re important to you. Let’s take a look at ’em.”

The imager was gradually zooming in. The outer parts of Cloudland vanished from the edge of the image volume. The zoom continued, and soon the Kernel Ring was gone. The Kuiper Belt filled the screen, another donut shape with Rini Base marked as a dot on its inner left edge.

“The independent colonies.” A blurred patch appeared on the right hand side of the Belt. “Independent why? Because they fight to stay that way? Nope. Independent, because nobody in either the inner or the outer system wants to lay claim to a bunch of worlds inhabited by raving loonies. We’d both rather disown ’em.”

“Aybee, they can’t all be crazy.”

“Maybe not, but they come close. Trust me. I’ve been there. There’s nearly three hundred independent colonies, three fifty if you count the far-gone ones who won’t even talk to anyone else in the system. You only need to know about a couple of them, but you should see one or two others to get the flavor. I’ll save Carcons and Fugates ’til last. Here’s a goodie for you to start with. Be thankful you won’t be visiting the Socialists.”

The imager displayed the interior of a hollowed planetoid. A pink caterpillar stretched its way along most of the inner surface. It took Sondra a few seconds to realize that the segments of the caterpillar were individual humans, bloated in body and with each one’s arms and legs partially absorbed into the next section. Their heads were atrophied except for the very front segment, where a huge naked cranium with bulging white eyes swiveled on a long stalk of a neck.

“The Wolfman developed multiforms,” said Aybee. “He was smart and he did it right. This shows what happens when you’re dumb and do it wrong, try to use regular form-change methods to achieve form fusion. I give the Socialists another ten years. There there’ll be no more problem.”

“They’ll give up?” Sondra felt nauseated.

“Never. The Socialists are all true believers. They’ll exercise their right to die. There used to be eighty thousand of them. Now they’re down to about twelve hundred.”

“That’s terrible.”

“Nah. It’s evolution. Non-survival of the unfittest. Evolution never quits, even in the independent colonies. Their multiform dies off from the back. See?”

It was obvious once it was pointed out. At the tail end of the caterpillar the bodies were shriveled and brown and the heads had almost disappeared.

“Mind you,” Aybee went on cheerfully, “the Socialists haven’t done bad by independent colony standards. Some of the real losers went dodo-bird inside five years from colony formation. Not this next lot, though. They’ve been around for a long time. How’d you like to live in Heaven?”

Another image was already on the display. It showed a great hall, filled with gaudily- dressed men and women who whirled and swayed to the sound of a stately waltz provided by a score of musicians on a dais at the side of the room. Laughter and animated chatter competed with the music.

“Happy, healthy, and rich.” The display zoomed in on one couple, a man and woman a head taller than everyone else. “Especially the king and queen.” Aybee glanced across to see Sondra’s reaction. “What do you think? Look like a good place to live?”

“It looks like a great place if you like dancing and ceremony. Which I don’t.”

“Good for you. Me neither. But most people do. They think it’s the way Heaven ought to look. This one was started a century and a half ago by Tomas Dicenzo. He was a religious leader back on Earth who used Biblical arguments to prove to his followers that by definition Heaven and Earth had to be in different places, so an off-Earth colony out in the Kuiper Belt could actually become Heaven. Tomas was an honest, well-meaning man, and he was lucky enough to lead his flock to a big planetoid rich in volatiles and metals. Under his rule the place was probably as close to Heaven as people ever get. It was a couple of generations after his death before his descendants turned the succession into a monarchy. Then they introduced the Divine Right of Kings. Notice anything odd about them?”

Sondra was studying the scene closely. She noticed that one of the musicians had a withered leg, and another was peering near-sightedly at the music. They don’t seem to use form-change equipment.”

“Hey, that’s pretty good for a quick look. Maybe you are the Wolfman’s relative after all, and not a—” Aybee coughed. “Actually, they do use form-change, but it has to be consistent with their social standing. Notice that the king and queen are taller and better- looking than anyone else, and the courtiers are bigger and healthier than the musicians. Appearance has to fit pecking order. Even so, nobody is really sick or deformed and miserable.” There was a flicker of movement behind Aybee, and the display changed to become a blur of white. “Inside the palace, that is. It’s not so good outside. This particular, King of Heaven really likes winter. Keeps it year-round in the colony.”

Sondra was looking out across a bleak plain that seemed absolutely flat and endless. (“Curvature optics,” Aybee added. “Infinite depth and flat field effects. Pretty neat trick on something only forty kilometers across.”) The plain was thickly covered with snow, from whose untouched surface leafless trees jutted black against a white sky. More snow was falling, in big, soft flakes.