Charles Sheffield - Proteus in the Underworld

“Sure. You think that if you choose to, but I know better. Trudy meant exactly what she said.” Sondra felt the level of emotion flare inside her. “Listen, give her half a chance and she’d just love to jump your bones. Try telling her that you are too old, once she gets her hot little hands on you. See how much it slows her down.” She had told Robert Capman that she was coming outside to learn what was happening to Bey Wolf. Now Sondra was beginning to wonder what was happening to her. The internal pressure was rising.

And worst of all, Bey was laughing again. This time he was making no sound, but she could feel it in his thigh muscles. She snatched her hand away from his leg. “What did I say now that’s so funny? I’m being serious here.”

“Sorry. It’s just the alien idea of Bey Wolf as a sex object. I’m not used to that. I guess it really is time I went to Saturn, before women start to swarm all over me.”

“I don’t want you to go.” Sondra suddenly realized what she did want. “I want you to stay on Earth, and it has nothing to do with form-change or who runs the Office of Form Control. You keep saying you’re getting old, but you’ll be around for at least another fifty years. Half a century is enough time for a lot of excitement and a lot of fun. I’m going to quote one of your fusty old dead poets at you—and don’t dare ask me how many hours I’ve wasted reading the stuff since we first met, because I’m not going to tell you. Remember this?: Grow old alone with me, the best is yet to be; the last of life, for which the first was made. In case you don’t recognize what you’re hearing, I’ll spell it out. Bey, this is a proposition.”

He sat rigid. He did not move, he did not speak. Sondra waited, breathless. Her own words had surprised her, uttered before she knew they were present in her brain.

Finally he shook his head. “You’re my relative, remember?”

“Your remote relative. You taught me how remote.”

“It would never work.”

“It might not. But it might. How do you know, if you don’t even try?”

“Crabbed age and youth—”

“Bullshit! You said that to me before, to point out why you and I couldn’t possibly work together. And we’ve worked together just fine, better than I’ve ever worked with anybody. I don’t want to hear another word of stupid old poetry from you—unless you can make it romantic poetry.”

He was standing up, brushing off sand, turning away.

She had offended him.

“Bey, wait! Don’t go.”

He reached out and took her hands in his, lifting Sondra easily to her feet. “I have to. You can come to the house with me if you like, or stay right here if you’d rather. I’ll be right back.”

“Why do you have to—”

“I’ve got to tell Robert Capman that I’m not going with him. Don’t you think we owe him at least that much?”

The communications center was still active, the display screen still turned on. But there was no sign of a Logian form within the imaging area.

“He’s gone.” Sondra stared at the control console as though expecting Capman to pop up out of the middle of it. “I can’t believe it. He said to take my time, there was no need to rush.”

“Because when he spoke to you he already knew he would be gone by the time that we got back.” Bey flipped to display the storage stack. “I thought so. New recorded message—and addressed to both of us. Here we go.”

Capman’s head and bulky upper torso were again filling the image area. If he was annoyed by the disappearance, first of Bey and then of Sondra, he showed no sign of it.

“The Logian reputation for perception is quite unwarranted, you know,” he said cheerfully, as soon as the display region had stabilized. “If I were really astute, Bey, I would have known your answer as soon as I saw that Sondra was with you for our conversation. That, and your and my shared tendency to masochism, should have sufficed. I can assure you that Saturn is great and the Logian form wonderful, and both statements are quite true. But you would rather remain on Earth and Mars, and bear those ills you have, than fly to others that you know not of.”

“I told you he just wanted you for chit-chat with him,” Sondra hissed. “Bey, he’s as bad with quotations as you are.”

“Shhh!”

Capman was continuing. “Remain there for the moment, that is. Next year, or the year after, who knows? The Logian form encourages a long perspective. I can wait. And if I am realistic, your presence on Earth and Mars will help to re-shape thinking about form-change better than you could do it on Saturn.

“As for you, Sondra Dearborn.” The great head turned toward her, as though even in a recording Capman knew just where Sondra would be standing. “You are young and perhaps incorrigible. But you have fire and courage and conviction. You do not allow yourself to be diverted or intimidated. The two of you will make an excellent team. And who knows? Perhaps Behrooz Wolf will yet bring you to enlightenment, and an appreciation of great literature.” The grey head bobbed in laughter. “But I won’t bet on it. And now I have work to do. I look forward to talking with you again in the near future. Both of you.”

A massive arm lifted. Luminous eyes flickered and danced with humor. And Robert Capman was gone.

It was long past time to go, and still he had not gone.

Bey, who claimed procrastination as a virtue, was taking it to extremes. Normally he dignified delay by saying that it was a way of keeping his options open. This time he had no real excuse. It was not that he was putting off joining Sondra on the mainland. He was keen to be with her again. After only a week together she was already a familiar presence in his life, and he had been sorry when she left two days earlier.

She had gone to find a place for them to live. She said she did not want him to be forced to share her cramped apartment with Dill and Gipsy. Actually, Bey knew she had a secret suspicion that he would take far too much interest in the progress of the Dill/Gipsy two- woman multiform. He was beginning to understand Sondra’s obsessions—and she his.

She had called just that morning to tell him she had found a perfect house, ready to move into. He could fly to join her as soon as he was ready.

And he was ready. He was also oddly eager to see the Form Control office again, the place he had thought himself happy to leave forever. He was quite ready to leave, except for one or two last details; those, and a strange, nagging feeling that somehow he was missing something significant on Wolf Island …

“You know how the food dispensers work, the same as usual. Push these two at once, see?”

Jumping Jack Flash, watching as Bey operated the food delivery system, grunted his agreement. He reached past Bey and pushed the two buttons. The two hounds moved forward expectantly as a handful of solid pellets rolled down the chute and into the dishes.

“And don’t let Janus and Siegfried push them with their noses, you know how greedy they are. They’ll eat until they’re sick. Just look at them.” The dogs had gobbled the food and were waiting for more.

“You can have all the fruit while I’m gone, Flash. The mangoes and papayas are nearly ready but let them get properly ripe, or you’ll have the runs same as last time.” Bey looked down at the chimp. “But I bet you don’t, you dumb ape. You’ll get as sick as you always do.”

Jumping Jack Flash stared back at him reproachfully.

“I know, I know, you learned your lesson last time. Anyway, I’ll be keeping an eye on all of you through the house remotes. And Sondra and I will come back in a couple of weeks. When we do, I’ll fix you up for another session in the tanks. We’ve been neglecting that, and just when I thought we might be making real progress. Meanwhile, you’re in charge. You’ve been on your own a lot recently, you know how everything works. Anything else you can think of that needs doing? If not … ”