Charles Sheffield - Proteus in the Underworld

“But of course, a deduction that makes no sense and explains nothing is just as bad as no deduction at all. Why would BEC—or anyone—want creatures to pass the humanity test that should have failed it? I didn’t have an answer. There didn’t seem to be an answer.

“Then I wondered if maybe the target was not the colonies, as it seemed to be at first sight. Maybe the target was the humanity test. It has to be infallible, or it is useless. If it can fail three times, people would argue, who knows how many more times it might fail?

“That seemed to lead to a bigger mystery than the one that I started with. Why would anyone possibly want the humanity test to be called into question?

“And there I stuck, until it was suggested that I invert the problem.” Sondra glanced at Bey. He looked as though he was about to speak, but he placed a hand over his mouth and waved at her to continue.

“Thanks, Bey.” Sondra turned again to Trudy Melford. “Invert the problem, and what do you get? Not that non-humans are taking the humanity test and passing it, but maybe that humans are taking the humanity test and failing. It’s an awful thought, some poor human baby, taken and disposed of in the organ banks. But that is what would happen.

“Or that is what would usually happen. There might be very special circumstances, under which someone with great money and influence could take a baby who had failed the humanity test and destroy all evidence that the test had ever been given. Of course, there would still be a problem. What would the parent do with the baby? The child could officially no longer exist. He would be unable to interact with form-change equipment, otherwise he would have passed the humanity test. And it would not be enough simply to establish a false identity for him. He would still be discovered, because form-change is used routinely through the whole solar system.

“But it is not used everywhere. There are a few places, like the Samarkand colony, where form-change equipment is not only not used, it is banned from use. Naturally, such a colony also rejects any suggestion that humanity depends on form-change equipment. A child could grow up there, without fear of discovery. That child’s parent could visit,” Sondra met Trudy’s eye. “If she had sufficient wealth, she could visit as often as she chose. Suppose that Errol Ergan Melford, the infant son of Gertrude Zenobia Melford, did not drown four years ago in the Aegean Sea before he had the chance to take the humanity test. Suppose that he had taken it—and he had failed. Suppose that he is alive today, and living in the Samarkand colony. And suppose that his mother has a long-term goal, of doing something that only the Empress of BEC could do: changing form-change equipment, to cast doubt on the humanity test itself—so that one day her son might return and lead a normal life in the inner system.”

This was the crucial moment, the place where Sondra was afraid that Trudy would dig in her heels. All she had to do was scoff, deny everything, and ask for hard evidence. Sondra had none, and she knew she was not likely to get any. Errol Ergan Melford’s tracks were four years old and surely thoroughly covered, while Trudy was free to travel anywhere in the solar system that she chose to go. She was under no obligation to explain her visits to Samarkand to anyone.

Sondra waited, suddenly sure that her trip to Mars had been for nothing. But Trudy did not act either annoyed or defensive. She seemed pleased, and she was actually smiling.

“Suppose that I agree with you, Sondra, and tell you privately that everything you have said is correct? You are not recording this—I am sure of that, because you were scanned on your way into Melford Castle. So what do you propose to do now?”

It was the last answer in the world that Sondra had expected. She glanced helplessly at Bey. Trudy seemed to be admitting everything. But she was also telling them: So what if I did what you say? You can’t do a thing to me.

And she was right. As soon as Sondra returned to Earth she was going to be fired or assigned to a basement-level job with nothing to do with feral forms. And even if Bey became involved, the Samarkand colonists would never cooperate with Earth’s Office of Form Control for anything.

“I don’t know what I will do.” Sondra felt she might as well be honest. No matter what happened, she had been given the satisfaction of solving the problem.

“That’s a good, honest answer.” Trudy’s attitude to Sondra seemed to have changed completely since the accusations were put out on the table. There was no sign of resentment as she went on, “Look, I know that if you don’t produce an answer accepted by the Office of Form Control, your career will suffer. But I have influence there, and I’ll make sure that it doesn’t happen. All right? Is that all right with you, too, Bey?”

“That part of it is fine.” Bey’s eyes were hard to see, his gaze directed down to the table- top. “And Sondra, you did a great job sorting out what has been going on in the Kuiper Belt. But some of us know that it’s not quite the whole story.”

Trudy’s smile froze. “What do you mean?”

“Let’s start with easy things.” Bey turned to Sondra. “I have to say this with you present, even though I know you won’t like to hear it. Trudy is right. She can certainly make sure that your career won’t suffer at the Office of Form Control; because Trudy happens to have Denzel Morrone thoroughly in her pocket. Right, Trudy?”

“You have no reason to say that.”

“Which is not quite the same as a denial. Morrone is on the take from BEC, and he has been for years. He has to go, Trudy, and quickly. You have to help me make that happen. The head of the Office of Form Control can have faults—God knows, I proved that often enough—but being for sale isn’t one of them.”

“Lots of things go on in BEC at the detail level that I don’t know about. Why do you think I had anything to do with Morrone? I’ve never even met the man.”

“Maybe; but he had to do something specific for you. You knew that there were going to be problems with the humanity test, because you had arranged them. So you passed the word to Morrone, probably through Jarvis Dommer—a hint from you goes a long way in BEC—that someone junior and inexperienced was to be assigned to the feral form problem.

“Morrone picked you, Sondra. Just a couple of years out of graduate school, not much practical experience of form-change and little knowledge of the Kuiper Belt.”

Bey lifted his head and stared at Trudy. “And you, Empress, you agreed with his choice. He didn’t pick Sondra for what she might do, you see, he picked her out for what he didn’t think she could possibly do. Morrone doesn’t have the whole picture, I feel sure of that, but he knew that Sondra was supposed to see so far and no farther. You do have the whole picture. You thought that Sondra would probably find nothing, in which case the humanity test would become increasingly suspect. At the very worst, if she was extra smart or became extra lucky, she might realize that you had been making visits to Samarkand, and draw some conclusions from that. You were prepared for it.

“But there was one piece of information that neither you nor Morrone had at first. You didn’t realize when she was selected that Sondra Dearborn was related to Behrooz Wolf, and she might try to drag me in to help her.

“And now here’s the funny thing: I wouldn’t have helped Sondra at all—I had already told her to go away and solve her own problems—if you hadn’t heard that she had been to see me, and become nervous. You decided to be double safe and tuck me safely out of the way here on Mars. But you tried a little bit too hard. I began to ask myself, why am I being recruited? What can I do that a BEC employee can’t do? And if I’m valuable, why now and not three years ago when I first retired from the Office of Form Control? It seemed like too much of a coincidence, Sondra and you appearing on the scene at just the same time. So I became a little bit more interested in what Sondra was doing.”