Charles Sheffield - Proteus in the Underworld

Over the generations, the bloodline had been diluted. That early drive and vision had been lost.

Question Four, then: Did the policy council really control such huge resources that they could outbid Trudy Melford and BEC for Bey’s services, no matter how much those services might cost?

They certainly believed that they could. At that point of the meeting Bey had seen nothing but total certainty on every face.

So. Question Five: Where was the funding coming from to support the Old Mars council?

Bey sighed to himself as he phrased the question. It was one he had been forced to ask again and again in his career. When in doubt, follow the money trail. People could He, motives could be disguised, even acts could be misunderstood. Money was as constant as human nature.

The auto-car had moved up and up. At last the road was leveling off, with the towering bulk of Melford Castle coming into view ahead.

Bey reviewed his list of questions one more time. Was he satisfied that it was complete? He had just about convinced himself that it was when he found another question poking its way unbidden into his mind.

Question Six: Is Sondra at risk, out in the Kuiper Belt Colonies?

Bey shook his head. What was going wrong with his—brain? The new question was totally ludicrous and irrelevant. Sondra’s assignment had nothing to do with the Mars surface forms, nothing to do with the warring factions of New Mars or Old Mars. It was unrelated to every thought that had gone before.

So ignore it.

The car pulled up in the deserted courtyard of Melford Castle. Bey prepared to dismount. Then he paused and leaned back on the car’s soft cushions. He had defined intuition for Sondra: it was what remained after all the facts had been forgotten. But intuition could also be something else. Sometimes it was the subconscious mind, establishing deep connections long before the thinking part of the brain could explain them.

Bey descended from the car and entered Melford Castle. The castle’s security system recognized him and allowed him in without hesitation, but no one was there to greet him. At the moment that was a relief.

Sneaking along in silence and feeling like a thief, Bey headed for the elevators. He did not, however, go to the suite prepared for him or to Trudy Melford’s floor. Instead he headed at once for the fifth floor-and the castle’s communication center.

Real-time conversation with the Kuiper Belt colonies was out of the question. The round- trip delay from the Carcon Colony, for example, was more than a day and a half even if the party at the other end responded at once. Bey didn’t have that much time, and anyway he didn’t know who to call. His best bet was a kernel-to-kernel connection with Aybee, working through the Rini net.

The only trouble with that was the unpredictable nature of the linkages. Despite Aybees best efforts to pin down the sources of uncertainty, response time still varied between seconds and weeks.

Bey set up a top priority six-node routing, Melford Castle to Mars link to Earth link to Earth-orbit, then kernel to kernel on Rini Base and into Aybee’s personal line. He initiated the message transmission. Then there was nothing to do but stare at the clock and wonder how long he would sit there before he gave up.

It felt like hours. It was actually less than six minutes before Aybee’s glowering face appeared in the display volume in front of Bey.

“Hey, Wolfman. What’s all this stuff about a high-priority chatline? You’re too cheap to pay for that level of service.”

Bey glanced at the monitor. The message had zipped through every node in a few seconds. Almost all the delay had been waiting for Aybee’s reply. “Assume I’m not paying for this call myself. What kept you?”

This time the reply came in a couple of seconds.

“I’m a busy man. The fate of the whole Outer System depends on my unceasing labors.” Aybee grinned. “Actually, I was on the pot. Got to keep the priorities in order. Anyway, what you want? Keep it short, because I really do have lots of work.”

“Did you brief Sondra Dearborn?”

“Better believe it. If she took it all in, she knows as much about the colonies as I do.”

“Have you heard from her since she left?”

“Not a thing. Was I supposed to?”

“I’m wondering if she got to the Carcon Colony all right, and what she found there.”

“I can check that for you easy enough. The transportation data bank for the Kuiper Belt will tell me who’s where.” Aybee paused, studying Bey’s image on his display. “Look, if there’s something funny going on here you might as well tell me now an’ get it over with.”

“I don’t know of anything going on that you don’t know already. But I don’t feel good about this. I was the one who told Sondra that she had to go to the colonies. I said she had to be there to find out why things are passing the humanity test that should be failing it. As for why I don’t feel good … ” Bey shrugged.

It was a weak and unpersuasive answer, but Aybee was nodding sympathetically. “It’s the wee, wee witch. The one who sits on your shoulder when you have a really tough problem to solve, and whispers in your ear, why not try this? I don’t know about you, but I never ignore her.”

“Well, she’s telling me that I should never have let Sondra to go out to the colonies alone.”

“It wasn’t just you, Wolfman. Sondra told me that her boss said the same thing to her.”

“If you knew Denzel Morrone, you wouldn’t take much comfort from that.” Bey studied Aybee’s intent face, and finally realized why he had called. “Would you do a favor for me—a big favor?”

“Probably. I’m known through the whole Outer System as a gullible idiot. What do you want this time?”

“I’d like you to take the fastest Rini ship in the fleet and zip on out to the Fugate Colony. Get there, if you can, as soon as Sondra.”

“Probably can’t do it that fast. She might be there already. What am I supposed to do when I get to Fugate Central? Protect her? I mean, the average Fugate citizen probably masses two hundred times as much as me, and I’m a theoretical physicist, not a professional bodyguard. Obviously I could beat ’em all up easy enough”—Aybee flexed a long, skeletally thin arm, and a tiny knot of muscle appeared at his biceps—“but then they’d complain formally, and I know you don’t want that.”

“If anything does happen, it won’t be official. I don’t expect you’ll need to do a thing. Just the fact that you are there, watching, should be enough to protect her.”

“Yeah. Or else I’m a witness, so Sondra and I both get killed.” Aybee shrugged wide, bony shoulders. “All right, Wolfman. I got a million things to do here, but I’m a sucker. I’ll do it. But can I ask you something personal?”

“Nothing ever stopped you before.”

“Are you having it off with Sondra?”

“Certainly not! What the devil put that into your head? She’s related to me, and anyway she’s fifty years younger than I am. I’m too old for that sort of thing.”

“Yeah. Sure. But to coin a phrase, nothing ever stopped you before. What am I supposed to tell her when I get there? She won’t be expecting me, and if she’s nothing special to you it’s weird for you to be trying to protect her. Come to that, why aren’t you on your way to the Fugate Colony, yourself?”

It was typical Aybee, asking a question so simple and obvious that anyone could ask it—yet no one did. And asking the right question usually clarified everything.

“I think Sondra might run into trouble out in the colonies, but I feel absolutely sure that the problem didn’t start there. I need to focus on the real cause. That’s somewhere here, in the Inner System.”