Sight of Proteus (27 page)

"But you did the experiments anyway," said Bey.

Capman nodded. "We both believed that there were two conflicting needs. Earth had to be stabilized, if we could do it. But we also had to have a new frontier, off Earth—more than the USF could offer. You know what we did. With Betha's help, we went underground. She financed the operations, and we had help from the rest of the Lunar Club. They were a small group of influential people, who shared a common worry about the future. They were modeled on the Lunar Club that flourished in England in the second half of the eighteenth century. Most of them are dead, now. Many of them died in the experiments. They were all willing volunteers for the work, as soon as they knew that a natural death was close."

He fell silent for a while. Larsen spoke softly to Bey, switching in a voice-circuit that would not include Capman's ship.

"He's lived with this for eighty years, Bey, one way or another, and yet it still gets to him, the death of the people who'd been age-reversed in the form-change tanks. I'll be in atmospheric entry in a few minutes, and out of contact. He needs to get all this off his chest."

"I don't understand how it could be eighty years, John," said Bey. "We only saw evidence that it went back thirty."

"That's when they moved the main base of operations to Pearl. Capman moved what was left into the facility under Central Hospital. Dolmetsch thought that was an acceptable danger, even if it were discovered. He calculated a limited social effect, one that he thought he could compensate for."

"John, how much of all this do you understand now? Will the general theory of stabilization really work?"

"Within limits. We still can't let people know that age reversal is possible. I understand most of this—I helped Capman when he was working out the theory, in the past few months. Make no mistake, Bey. You know how I've changed mentally since I became a Logian form—but Capman has changed just as much, and you know where he started from. I still can't follow his thinking. I can't describe the way this form feels. You should take the change yourself, and know it first-hand."

Larsen stopped speaking and looked across at the display screen in his control cabin. "I'm close to entry. We'll lose radio contact very soon. I should be able to re-establish it in a few hours." He switched back to a circuit that connected him also with Capman's ship. "Sixty seconds to signal black-out."

"John," said Bey rapidly. "I still don't know why you're going down there. There must be a big risk."

"Some. Less than you think, as we have calculated it. Why are we going down there? Come on, Bey, use your imagination. We think there's life down there, and we think humans in Logian forms can live there. It's our second beachhead, an area ninety times as big as Earth. If the collapse comes—and we hope it won't—we need some other options, off-Earth."

The quality of the voice transmission was rapidly deteriorating as Larsen's ship dug deeper into Saturn's atmosphere. Larsen obviously knew it too. He raised one heavy arm, and spoke his last words rapidly. "See you soon, Bey. Come on in, the water's fine."

Bey looked through the forward screen, watching the trail of ionized gases that glowed from Saturn's face behind Larsen's plunging ship. The entry was a daunting prospect. Saturn's surface gravity was almost the same as Earth's, but with an escape velocity more than three times as high, movement to and from low orbit was a difficult feat for any vessel.

"Don't worry, Mr. Wolf." Capman had come out of his reverie, and read the expression on Bey's face. "This has all been calculated very closely. Unless there are unknown forces at work in Saturn's lower atmosphere, the danger to John Larsen is very small."

"And you are intending to follow him down?" asked Bey.

"Perhaps. Let me answer the question behind the question. Obviously, we could have exchanged all the information between us by radio link. Why did I think it necessary to bring you all the way to Saturn, in order to talk to each other? After all, in my present form it is obvious that we cannot meet in person, even if there were reason to do so."

"That will do," said Bey. "I might have chosen different words, but the meaning is the same."

"Then since I asked your question, would you care to attempt to give my answer?"

Bey smiled. "There is one obvious answer. You want me to join you in this experiment. To change to the Logian form, and descend to the surface of Saturn."

"And then?"

"As I said, that is the obvious answer. Unless I am losing my ability to read a little deeper, it is not the whole answer. I can't provide the rest of it."

Capman was sitting perfectly still in his chair, big eyes unblinking. "It is not simple," he said. "Like many things, it involves a choice. Tell me, in your investigation of my background, did you ever see a psychological profile?"

Bey nodded. "An old one. When you were still in your teens."

"That would do. Did you notice anything peculiar about it?"

"You're joking, of course. As you know very well, it was similar to mine—more similar than I would have thought possible. I must say, I found it very encouraging in some ways. You showed low scores on some of the same things as I did—intelligence, for instance. Until I saw your profile, mine had always worried me a little."

"We don't fit well on the standard charts, either of us," said Capman, with the nodding smile of the Logians. "I doubt if I would fit them at all in this form. But we are a little different—not a lot, but enough to worry me that some people like us are failing the humanity-tests. You may be interested to know that you just squeaked through. Well, that is irrelevant at the moment. Shortage of people, even of people like oneself, is not Earth's current problem. Let me get to the point. I brought you here to offer you a choice. It is one that I would not make to anyone else. I can do it in your case only because we have that curious affinity of mind. Both branches call for self-sacrifice of a sort."

Bey began to feel again a rise of tension, a suspicion coming from the base of his brain. "To change to the Logian form, and explore Saturn . . ."

Capman nodded. "Or else?"

"To return to Earth, and continue the work on the control of form-changes? Laszlo Dolmetsch and the others need advice from somebody who really knows form-change theory. If I choose Saturn, you will return to Earth yourself."

"That is correct. If that is your choice, to remain here, I will borrow your outward appearance and go back to Earth. One of us must be there. No one would question Behrooz Wolf's return, or knowledge of form-change."

"It must be quite obvious to you that I would prefer to stay here. The mental advantages alone of the Logian form are enough to make me want to choose that alternative."

"I know." Capman sighed. "That cannot be denied. All I can say is that the return to Earth, and all its problems, would not be permanent. When Earth's troubles lessen, or become hopeless, or you find and train your own successor, the Saturn experiment will still be here. There will be other work to do—Betha was the first of the Lungfish series, not the last. But it is your decision as to the next step. I am prepared for either role."

"How much further can form-change be carried? Betha Mestel suggests that we are only at the beginning."

"We are." Capman bowed his head. "I am beginning to suspect that the boundary that we impose between the animate and the inanimate is an artificial one. If that is true, form-change has no real limits. We can conceive of a conscious, reasoning being as big as a planet, or as big as a star. It would have to be a mixture of organic and inorganic components, just as Betha is; but that presents no logical problems. I have a more fundamental question: at what point would the result cease to be human? If our tests for humanity are valid, any human—or alien—and machine combination that can achieve purposive form-change should be considered human. I can think of worse definitions. Tell me, have you made your decision?"

Bey was silent for several minutes, watching the clouded face of Saturn speeding by below the ship. "Tell me," he said at last. "Do you remember the time that we were in Pleasure Dome, waiting for the decision as to whether or not they would let us talk to the people who were in charge of the form-change operations?"

"Very well. Why do you ask?"

"Just before they showed us Newton, in the garden at Woolsthorpe, there was a scene of a torture chamber. If the Snow Queen was telling the truth, that scene showed something that one of us wanted. Would you agree that we were the victim, not the tormentor?"

"I believe so."

"Then who was the victim, Behrooz Wolf or Robert Capman?"

Capman sighed. "I have wondered that, too. I do not think the machine would tune to an interest that was not common to both of us. We were both the victim."

Bey nodded, his face intense. There was a lengthening silence, as the two forms, man and Logian, watched the brown and crimson thunderclouds of the planet rear and clash beneath their ships.

EPILOG

"The music stopped and I stood still, and found myself outside the hill."

Chapter 25

It couldn't happen again, but of course it had. Tem Grad and Alfeo Masti had been picked out for Farside Watch. The two men landed the runabout that they had flown over from Nearside next to the group of domes and went slowly over to the main entrance lock. They went inside and looked miserably about them.

"You know the problem, Tem?" said Alfeo, walking through from the main room into the sleeping-quarters. "This horrible place is beginning to feel like home. Another two tours of duty here and I'll be afraid to go back to Nearside."

"I know." Tem dropped his case on the bunk and patted it. "Well, this time I'm ready for anything. I brought a natural features listing to supplement the Lloyd's Register. If somebody puts a drive on Jupiter and brings it past here, I'll be able to slap the correct ID right on it."

"That might be your chance," said Alfeo. "Isn't that the com monitor over in the main area? Somebody's trying to call us. Want to grab it?"

Grad ran quickly back to the main communications room and was gone for a few minutes. When he returned he looked puzzled.

"Jupiter?" asked Alfeo.

"No such luck. It was a standard one. Long trip, though. She'd flown in all the way from Saturn orbit. It was one of the ships in the Melford fleet, requesting Earth approach orbit."

"That sounds routine enough. Why the frowns?"

"There was one thing about it I didn't understand—not the ship, the pilot. After he'd given me the ship's ID, I asked him to identify himself for our records."

"Was he somebody special?"

"Not really, I'd never heard of him. It was the way he put it, as though it was somehow supposed to be a joke."

"You never did have much of a sense of humor, Tem. Did he sound amused.?"

"Not at all. Sort of sad, if anything."

"So what did he actually say?"

"He said, 'This is the real Behrooz Wolf, returning to Earth duty'."

THE END