Charles Sheffield - Proteus in the Underworld

She paused, leaning against the wall of the corridor. No form-change machines. None. Not a single one, anywhere on Samarkand. It was not like the situation on some of the poorer worlds of the Belt, where for economic reasons machines were few and far-between and used only for urgent remedial medical work. Here it was a proscription, an outright ban.

But this was the colony, of all worlds in the Kuiper Belt, that Trudy Melford had chosen to visit The flagship of the BEC fleet, with Trudy as passenger, had been here just a few weeks ago. There had been other and earlier visits.

“Curious and anomalous” indeed. Robert Capman had clearly known how the people of Samarkand felt about form-change equipment. It didn’t make sense.

Except that suddenly it did—all of it. Because if this room was on Samarkand, what else must be here?

Sondra was filled with a sudden huge urgency. She had to get off this world as soon as possible. She must head for the inner system, exactly as Denzel Morrone has directed. She would call Bey on the way, and tell him that they had to meet.

But not this time on Wolf Island, nor at the Office of Form Control.

This time they must meet on Mars.

The absolute certainty that she knew the answer had supported Sondra all the way in on the long return trip from Samarkand to Mars. Even Bey’s cryptic reply to her message had not worried her, though she did wonder what he meant by the last part of it: “I have other business on Mars that I must complete in advance,” it said. “Start the meeting without me if you have to—but whatever you do, don’t finish without me. I’ll be bringing visitors.”

Now, on the last stage of the journey, nervousness came rushing in. What real evidence did she have? Very little, and she was about to take on one of the most formidable forces in the solar system. She had better have her arguments in order.

The autocar was creeping its way into the courtyard of Melford Castle. Didn’t the very fact that Trudy Melford had agreed to meet prove that Sondra was right? She had offered no reason for wanting a private session with Trudy. The BEC staff member who took the message had seemed astonished that she dared to ask for it on the way from Samarkand—and dumbfounded when he contacted her after her arrival on Mars, to tell her that Trudy had said yes, they could meet in her private chambers.

The knowledge of where she was added to Sondra’s uneasiness as the elevator slid silently up from the courtyard and halted at the fourth floor of Melford Castle. For a century and a half this building had been the power center of the greatest economic force in the solar system. And the woman waiting for her as the elevator door opened formed the absolute hub around which all that power revolved.

Trudy Melford wore a long, severe dress of black, unrelieved by any form of decoration. She nodded once to Sondra and turned to lead the way back through a long hallway to a dark-paneled office. Sondra slowly followed. There would be no formal niceties or offers of bogus hospitality at this meeting.

Trudy gestured to Sondra to sit in a brocaded upright chair at a polished cherrywood table and placed herself in another one on the opposite side. “You think you have something to say of interest to me?” Dark eyebrows raised. “Very well. My time is valuable, so I would appreciate it if you will be as concise as possible.”

“Your time is valuable. But you can spare enough time to make trips all the way out to Samarkand, in the Kuiper Belt.” Sondra saw the frown on the other woman’s face. “I’m sorry, if I am to be concise that is not the place to begin. Let me start where I started: with a problem assigned to me by my superiors in the Office of Form Control.

“At certain colonies in the Kuiper Belt, babies were born which after a couple of months took the humanity test. The humanity test in the Belt is no different from anywhere else in the solar system. A baby passes and is pronounced human if and only if it is able to interact with purposive form-change equipment.

“In this case, however, there was something wrong. Three babies passed the test, but it quickly became clear that they should have failed. What I have been calling the ‘feral forms’ were not human. The humanity test, after a hundred and fifty years of successful use, was failing. I was told to find out why.

“Do you have any questions about this?”

Trudy Melford was listening intently, elbows on the table, her chin resting on her closed fists and her face impassive. She shook her head. “I am here only to hear what you have to say.”

“We’ll see. Anyway, I discovered nothing useful in my examination of the forms, or of the data concerning them, when I was on Earth. So after I had consulted Bey Wolf I headed out to the Kuiper Belt to see things at first hand. Did you know, by the way, that I tried to persuade him to work with me on this problem? And he refused, because you had lured him here to work for you.”

“I have an important form-change project on Mars, one well-suited to Behrooz Wolfs unique abilities.” Trudy’s face gave away nothing.

“An inconveniently timed project, from my point of view.” Sondra realized that the two of them were still fencing, although the flashing rapiers remained out of sight. “So I went to the colonies alone. I learned even before I arrived that the colony mutation rates are naturally higher because of increased radioactivity. That would give more humanity test failures than usual, but it doesn’t explain at all why things that should have been failing were passing.

“I had no answers. So I dug into the actual form-change equipment, both hardware and software. Know what I found?” Sondra studied Trudy’s impassive face. “I think you do know. I found nothing. The hardware was genuine BEC equipment with the original seals unbroken. The software showed no signs of tampering, and it checked out down to the last binary branch.”

Sondra paused and turned as she heard footsteps behind her. It was Bey Wolf. And in spite of his message, he was alone.

On the other side of the table Trudy was standing up, her face pink. “Bey!” She looked right through Sondra. “I didn’t expect you. I’m sorry, but at the moment I can’t—”

“It’s all right. I’m part of the same meeting.” Bey nodded to Sondra and sat down next to her. “Don’t let me interrupt. Just carry on.”

Carry on—if she could. Sondra stared at Trudy. Could anyone blush on demand? Maybe Bey Wolf produced strange effects on both of them.

“I was just saying that both the software and the hardware out in the colonies was perfect on the form-change equipment that produced the humanity test anomalies. So where did that leave me? I had run out of all the reasonable explanations.”

“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Bey waved his hand. “Sorry, sorry, it’s a bad habit that I don’t seem able to kick. Keep going. This time I promise I’ll keep quiet.”

Sondra was beginning to wish he had not shown up. Her job was hard enough, without random interruptions. Where was she?

“I had to take what I had found to its logical conclusion. The hardware was exactly as it had been delivered from BEC. The software was error-free. There was only one other possibility: the hardware had a hidden flaw when BEC delivered it. It had been produced that way in the BEC factory. And knowing the BEC quality control procedures, that told me the change must have been deliberate.”

Sondra paused and waited. This was the point where Trudy should stand up and object. BEC’s reputation for two centuries of reliable delivery was on the line. The other woman remained silent. Trudy was certainly tense, but it was the tension of someone who was also waiting. Sondra had to continue.