Charles Sheffield - Proteus in the Underworld

“It sounds reasonable to me.”

“Reasonable, but not true. Big difference. You can see why they say it. No one likes the idea they’re being taken because it’s drool time.” Aybee glanced up again. “Anyway, stop changing the subject. What you want?”

“A real-time link to Earth, the way you did it for me last time.”

“You think I got nothing to do but fix up message lines and chase you halfway across the solar system?” Aybee laid the silver chain down on his desk top. “Ah, nuts, I might as well give this up anyway. I can’t make it work. Experimental physics is for animals, it’s no better than plumbing.”

“And after the call I want to arrange for a passage to Samarkand.”

“A passage for one, right? You, not me. No worries. Just don’t tell ’em you’re from the Office of Form Control.”

“Why not?”

“Dunno, quite. But they’re dead against form control on Samarkand.” Aybee was poking at the control board on his desk, patching a line through to the inner system. “They don’t have much time for BEC, either. That’s why I said, it’s the last place in the Kuiper Belt that you’d expect to find Trudy Melford. Why you going there?”

“Robert Capman’s suggestion.”

“Then you better take it seriously.” Aybee tapped a key and waited. “There you go. Same message unit as last time, whenever you’re ready. How soon you want the ship?”

“Whenever you can have one. I’m going to download selected files from the inner system data bank. Then I’ll call the Office of Form Control. And then I’ll leave here for Samarkand.”

“Sooner the better.” Aybee picked up the awl and poked savagely and morosely at the silver chain. “Only this time, don’t expect me to come and haul you out of there. Damn thing, hold still there.”

No better than plumbing. As Sondra left the room she crossed her fingers and wished that Aybee would encounter a blocked toilet on Rini Base. It was a rare event, but in low gravity it was supposed to be something spectacular.

It was impossible to study file records at the rate that they streamed from the inner system general data base to Sondra’s local storage. All she could catch was an overview and an occasional rapid snapshot of the video.

Bey was one of those rare individuals whose incoming calls outnumbered the ones he placed by at least twenty to one. Sondra caught fleeting multiple glimpses of Jarvis Dommer, all gleaming teeth and oozy charm-of Sondra, herself, earnest or determined or worried-looking-of Maria Sun, elegant and exquisite, and one of Bey’s few outgoing calls (Sondra resolved to take a closer look at that interaction)—of Trudy Melford, eating you up with her eyes, just like in real life.

Somewhere in the visual and audio messages, racing in at a few hundred times real-time, Sondra was supposed to hunt down a clue. But not at this speed. She would study at leisure during the journey to Samarkand.

As the flow of input from Bey’s open file came to an end, Sondra switched the destination to the Office of Form Control. She didn’t expect any help from them, but at least she ought to tell them that she was working hard and doing her best.

It was no surprise that her Rini-transmitted call was routed again to Denzel Morrone’s office. This time she was ready for him.

“Director Morrone.” She spoke at once, as soon as the office pick-up was made. He was apparently not ready for her, because the full mouth in his smooth baby face gaped open for a second. “This is Sondra Dearborn. I want to report that I am making great progress on the feral forms. My plan is to remain in the Kuiper Belt for just a few more days, then return to the inner system.”

Morrone had caught up with her. His face now wore a scowl and his mouth was turned down in a grim line. “Stop it right there. I don’t know what your plan is, and I don’t care. After the wild story that you offered to me as your last report, I informed you that I needed time to consider what you have been doing—or failing to do. I have now completed such consideration. You will not remain in the Kuiper Belt. You will return to Earth.”

“But I’ve almost solved it! I have enough information in my possession, right now, to explain what happened.” Morrone didn’t need to know that the source of that statement was Robert Capman, or that Sondra had no idea which information held the key. Sondra hurried on. “A few more days, that’s all I need, and I’m sure I’ll have the whole picture.”

“Ms. Dearborn, you appear to have trouble hearing me and I do not believe that it is the quality of this outrageously expensive connection.” Morrone leaned closer, so that his face filled the whole image display area. “Don’t you understand, Ms. Dearborn? You have failed. I do not expect failures in my department. As of this moment you no longer have anything to do with the feral form problem. I am also relieving you of all other responsibilities within the Office of Form Control. I want you to return at once to the inner system. When you get here we will discuss what your new position—if any—is to be within this department. Now, that is all I have to say. I do not wish to talk to you again until we do so in person.”

The connection was suddenly broken. Denzel Morrone’s face remained in the image display, slowly fading. Sondra stared at it until the last faint trace was gone. What had ever led her to think that the man had a pleasant face?

Return at once to the inner system. The command had sounded explicit enough. It needed the help of Aybee to see it differently.

“You got to pull it apart.” He had come on Sondra when she was still sitting devastated at the communications unit. “What’s Morrone mean, at once. In zero time? That’s impossible. Go on the fastest commercial ship you can charter? Cost a fortune, and the Office of Form Control’s too stingy to pay for that. On a Rini ship, which is faster still? The only way to get one of them is by filing a request with me, and you can tell Morrone that you asked me and I told you to shove it. No. What he means is a good, fast, cheap way on a standard commercial carrier that offers an out-and-back through the Kuiper Belt. There’s bundles of them, charter mostly, and I can arrange one for you.”

“But what use is that?”

“Trust me.” Aybee had given Sondra an exaggerated wink. “You didn’t mention Samarkand to Morrone, did you?”

“Not a word.”

“Good. See, it’s going to turn out that the best route for you to the inner system calls for a short stopover in Samarkand. Get it?”

“I do. I don’t know why you are doing all this for me.”

“Isn’t it obvious? To get rid of you, Sondra D., and let me go back to the good life. It’s my own fault, I should never have promised the Wolfman anything.” Aybee was hunched over his data unit. “Will one day at the colony be enough? It’s all I can guarantee.”

“Then it will have to be.”

But now Sondra, waiting for final entry permission to the Samarkand colony, wondered if it would be. On the three-day journey from the Rini Base she had studied the records of Bey’s calls over and over. She could describe the pattern on Maria Sun’s ear-rings, the inordinate number of teeth that Jarvis Dommer displayed whenever he smiled, the calculated imperfection of Trudy Melford’s nose in the form she had chosen especially for Bey Wolf.

Sondra also had Capman’s assurance that all of this would be enough. That was what had provided her, at last, a suspicion as to what had been happening. What she could not understand was why.

In particular, why had she, Sondra Dearborn, been thrown into the middle of all this mess? Samarkand was supposed to provide the answer. It was this or nothing. The opening door in front of her was her last chance.