Sight of Proteus

by Charles Sheffield

  The reaction on-shore was somewhere between amusement and apathy. It had been Lin's first time out in a real environment with his new gilled form. Everybody knew there was a big difference between the simulations and the real thing. A little temporary hallucination, a minor trompe l'oeil from the central nervous system, that wasn't hard to believe on the first time out with a new BEC form. After all, the guarantees were on physical malfunction, not on sensory oddities. It took long, hard arguing before Maro could get anyone to show even polite interest. The local newsman who finally agreed to go out and take a look did so as much from boredom as from belief. The next day they swam out, Maro in his gills, the reporter in a rented scuba outfit.

  The monsters were still there all right. When the two men swam cautiously down to take a look at them, it became clear that Lin had been fleeing from three corpses. They swam around them in the clear water, marveling at the wrinkled grey skin, massive torsos and great dark eyes.

  When the story went out over the comlink connections, it was still a long way down the news lists. For three hundred years, writers had imagined Monsters of the Deep emerging from the Mariana Trench and tackling human civilization in a variety of nasty ways. Silly season reports helped to provide some light relief from the social indicators, the famines and the real crises, but they received scant interest from the professionals. Nobody reported panic along the coast, or fled to the high ground.

  The three monsters got the most interest from the Guam aquarium and vivarium. A party of marine biologists took a day off from plankton culture and went for a party off-shore. They inspected the bodies on the sea-bed, then lifted them—shackles and all—to the surface, quick-froze them and whipped them back to shore on the Institute's hovercraft for a real inspection. The first lab examination showed immediate anomalies. They were land animals, not marine forms. Lung breathers, with tough outer skins and massive bone structure. As a matter of routine, the usual tissue microtome samples were taken and the chromosome ID run for matches with known species.

  The ID patterns were transmitted to the central data banks, back at Madrid. At that point every attention light on the planet went on, the whistles blew and the buzzers buzzed. The computer response was prompt and unambiguous. The chromosome patterns were human.

  * * *

  The information that moves ceaselessly over the surface of the Earth, by cable, by ComSat link, by Mattin Link, by laser and by microwave, is focused and redistributed through a small number of nodes. Bey Wolf, after much effort, had finally arranged that the Office of Form Control should be one of them. His recent appointment as Head of Form Control entitled him to a complete interaction terminal in his office, and it was his peculiar pleasure to sit at this, delicately feeling the disturbances and vibrations in the normal pattern that flowed in the strands of the information web. John Larsen had suggested that Bey sat there like a fat spider, waiting for prey, and the analogy rather pleased him. His was, Bey would point out, only one of many webs, all interlocking, and not by any means the most important one. Population, food and energy all had much bigger staffs and bigger budgets. But he would argue that his problems called for the shortest response times, and needed a reaction time that some of the other systems could manage without.

  Bey was sitting at the terminal, studying a type of omnivorous form that promised to be truly an omnivore—plants, animals, or minerals. He was oblivious to the unscheduled fierce snow-storm that was raging outside the building, and when the priority override interrupted his data link with news of the Mariana Monsters (the Press' dubbing of the Guam discovery) his first reaction was one of annoyance. As the details came in, however, his interest grew. It looked very much as though some new group had been using the form-change equipment in unsuccessful experiments, and the results were nothing like any previous line of work.

  Although he was fairly sure of the answers, Bey ran the routine checks. Were the experiments authorized as medical research? Were the forms already on the forbidden list? Negative answers, as he expected, came from the data banks. Was quick action needed to stop the appearance of a potentially dangerous form? The answer to that was much harder. The computer pleaded shortage of data—which meant that the decision would have to be made by human judgement, and the human in this case was Bey Wolf.

  He sighed a sigh of hidden pleasure, and opened the circuits for more data. The physical parameters began to flow in. The cell tests were strange in both chemistry and structure, with a mixture of haploid and diploid forms. The lungs were modified, showing changes in alveolar patterns. A note added to the analysis pointed out the resemblance to animals that were adapted to life at high pressure. Strangest of all, the big eyes were most sensitive in the near infra-red—but another added note pointed out that this wavelength region is cut out almost completely under water.

  Bey began to gather printed output. He liked to approach a job by asking very basic questions. What was the objective of a new form? Where was it designed to operate most effectively? Most important of all, what was the probable motive of the developer? With answers to those questions, the next step in the form-change sequence could usually be guessed.

  The trouble was, it wasn't working. Bey swore softly and leaned back in his chair. The Mariana Monsters were breaking the rules. After looking at the physical variables of the forms for a couple of hours, it seemed to Bey that they were not adapting to any environment that he could imagine.

  It was time to drop that line and try another attack. All right, how had the forms reached their position on the sea-bed? Certainly, they had not placed themselves there. And how had they died? There was information on that in the medical records. They had been asphyxiated. It was a fair guess that they had been weighted with steel after they were dead, then dropped to the sea-bed. From a surface vessel, by the looks of it—the reports mentioned no sign of skin contusions.

  Where had they come from? Bey pulled out the list. He had a complete catalog of the world's form-change centers, especially the ones elaborate enough to include the special life-support systems the new forms would have needed. He was reading steadily through the list of sites, correlating them with the physical changes noted for the Mariana forms, when Larsen returned from a routine meeting on the certification of new BEC releases.

  He halted in the doorway.

  "How do you do it, Bey? You've only been in this office for a month, and it looks like a rubbish heap."

  Bey looked around him in surprise at the masses of new listings and form-change tabulations that cluttered the office.

  "They are accumulating a bit. I think they reproduce at night. Come in, John, and look at this. I assume you didn't get too much excitement out of your review meeting?"

  Larsen dropped into a chair, pushing aside a pile of listings. As always, he marvelled at Bey's ability to operate clearly and logically in the middle of such a mess of documents and equipment.

  "It was better than usual," he replied. "There were a couple of good ones. C-forms, both of them, adapted for long periods in low gravity. They'll revolutionize asteroid work, but there were the usual protests from the Belter representatives."

  "Naturally—there'll always be Luddites." Bey still had a weakness for outmoded historical references, even though his audience rarely understood them. "The law will change in a couple of years. The C-forms are so much better than the old ones that there's no real competition. I'm telling you, Capman has changed space exploration methods forever. I know the Belters claim they are losing jobs to the new forms, but they are on the wrong side of the argument. Unmodified forms are an anachronism for free space work."

  He switched on a recall display and pulled a set of documents from one of the heaps.

  "Get your mind re-set, and let me tell you about the latest headache. It has the Capman touch. If I weren't convinced that he's not on Earth, I'd be inclined to label it as his work."

  Bey ran rapidly over the background to the Mariana discoveries, finishing with the question of where t
hey had come from.

  "I suspect that they came into the general area of the Marianas through one of the Mattin Links," he concluded. "The question is, which one? We have twenty to choose from. I don't believe there is any way they could have come in from an off-Earth origin, otherwise I'd have thought they were aliens."

  "With human chromosome ID's? That would take some explaining, Bey."

  John Larsen went over to the wall display, which Bey had tuned to show the locations of the Mattin Link entry points.

  "No, I agree with you, Bey, they've come from a lab here on Earth. If they came through the Links, we can rule out a few of them—they're open ocean and they only act as transfer points. Have you correlated the big form-change labs with the Mattin Link entry points?"

  "I started to do it, but it's a big job. I'm waiting for more output on that to come back from the computer. I'm still waiting for the full identification of the three bodies, too. I don't know why it's all taking so long. I slapped a top priority code on the inquiry."

  He joined Larsen over at the wall screen. Working together, they reviewed the locations of the Mattin Links that formed the pivot points for Earth's global transportation system. They were deep in the middle of their work when the communicator beeped for attention. Larsen went over to it, leaving Wolf to record the analysis of the wall outputs. As the first words of the message scrolled onto the communicator display, Larsen whistled softly to himself.

  "Come over here and get a look at this, Bey," he called. "There's the reason that Central Records took so long to get you an answer. Are you still as sure that the forms didn't come from off-Earth?"

  The message began "ID Search completed and identification made. Individuals of inquiry are as follows; James Pearson Manaur, age 34, nationality USF; Caperta Laferte, age 25, nationality USF; Lao Sarna Prek, age 40, nationality USF. Biographical details follow. Continue/Halt?"

  Wolf pressed 'Continue' and the detailed ID records appeared: education, work, history, family, credit ratings. Bey noted with surprise that all three of the men had spectacular credit, up in the multimillionaire class, but his mind was still mainly occupied with the first item of background. The three men were all members of the USF, and that made for a real mystery. Since the USF had declared its sovereignty fifty years earlier, in 2142, its citizens had always been a relative rarity down on Earth. Surely the disappearance of three of them should have roused a loud outcry long before their bodies had been found off the Guam shore.

  The two men looked at each other. Larsen nodded in response to Wolf's raised eyebrows.

  "I agree. It makes no sense at all. The USF still have their ban on form-change experiments. If they won't accept the C-forms, I doubt if they'd be playing with completely new forms, even as part of their defense programs. And it's still harder to believe that they'd bring their failures down to Earth."

  "Even if they could get them here—you know how tight quarantine is since the Purcell spores." Wolf shook his head. "Well, we don't have much choice about what to do next. We have to get a USF man in on this—it's too sensitive for us to handle on our own."

  He had a reason to look gloomy. The investigation had just grown two orders of magnitude in complexity. To go further without USF concurrence would create an interplanetary incident.

  "I'll put a request in," said Larsen. "The less we can get away with telling them at this point, the better. I'll shove the bare facts at them, and let them decide who they want to send down from Tycho City. I hope they send somebody who at least knows how to spell 'form-change.' "

  While they talked, the communicator continued to pump out the information, in display and hard copy form. It had reached the point where the requested correlation between Link entry points and form-change labs was being presented—Bey had almost forgotten that he had asked for it. The day promised to be a long and confusing one.

  Not surprisingly, BEC was getting into the act as well. An incoming news release set out their official position:

  "Biological Equipment Corporation (BEC) today released a formal statement denying all knowledge of the human bodies discovered recently in the Pacific. A BEC representative informed us that the bodies had clearly been subjected to form-change, but that no BEC program developments, past or present, could lead to forms anything like those that have been found. In an unusual procedure, BEC has agreed to release records showing forms now under development in the company. They have also invited Government inspection of their facilities."

  "That's a new one," said Bey. "They must really be running scared. I've been waiting for them to plead innocent or guilty. I've never known BEC to release their new form secrets before. They must be losing their old commercial instinct."

  "Not quite." Larsen pointed at the final words of the message. "I wonder what it cost them to get that tagged onto the end of the news release."

  "BEC," continued the display, "is the pioneer in and world's largest manufacturer of purposive form-change equipment utilizing biological feedback control methods. The release of BEC proprietary information to assist in this investigation is voluntary and purely in the public interest."

  "There we go," said Bey. "That's more like the old BEC. Old Melford died a long time ago, but I'll bet his skeleton is grinning in the grave."

  Chapter 11

  Third generation USF men, like top kanu players, are usually on the small skinny side, built for mobility rather than strength. It was a surprise to greet a giant, more than two meters tall and muscled like a wrestler, and find that he was the USF man assigned to work with the Office of Form Control on the Guam form-change case. Bey Wolf looked up at the tall figure, and bit back the question on the tip of his tongue.

  It made no difference. Park Green was regarding him knowingly, a sly smile on his big, baby face.

  "Go on, Mr. Wolf," he said. "Ask me. You'll do it eventually anyway."

  Bey smiled back. "All right. Do you use form-change equipment? I thought it was banned for everything but repair work in the USF."

  "It is, and I don't. I came this way, and it's all natural. You can guess how hard it is, acting as a USF representative, and looking just as though you've been dabbling with the machines."

  Wolf nodded appreciatively. "I'm not used to being read so easily."

  "On that question, I've had lots of practice. I thought we ought to get rid of that distraction before we get down to work. What's new on the Guam case? I've had orders to send a report back to Tycho City tonight, and at the moment I have no idea what I'm going to say. Did you get a time and cause of death yet, from the path lab?"

  "Three days ago, and they all died within a few hours of each other. They were asphyxiated, but here's the strange part. Their lungs were full of normal air—no gaseous poisons, no contaminants. They choked to death on the same stuff that you and I are breathing right now."

  Park Green sniffed and looked perplexed. "They changed to something that found air poisonous. I don't like that one. How about the way they got to the sea-bed?"

  "They were dropped off twenty-four hours or less after they died. It must have been done at night, or we'd have had reports of sightings. That part of the coast is full of fishing herdsmen during the day. My guess is that they died a long way from there."

  "Excuse my ignorance, but I don't follow your logic."

  "Well, I'm conjecturing, but I think they were intended for the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Five miles down, they'd never have been found. So they were accidentally dropped a few miles too far West, and that suggests it was done by somebody who didn't know the local geography too well. Whoever did it was in a hurry, too, or they would have been more careful. That suggests it was an accident, with no time for detailed advance planning. Somebody was keen to hide the evidence, as far away and as fast as they could. You don't look very surprised at any of that," added Wolf, as Green slowly nodded agreement. "Do you know something they haven't bothered to tell me?"

  The big man had squeezed himself into a chair and was slow
ly rubbing his chin with an eleven-inch hand.

  "It fits with some of the things I know about the dead men," he replied. "What else have you been able to find out about them?"

  "Not much," said Wolf. "Just what I got from the data bank biographies. They were Belters, the three of them, all off the same ship—the Jason. They arrived here on Earth three weeks ago, rolling in money, and went out of sight. Nobody has any records of them again until they were found dead off Guam. We had no reason to follow them, once they had cleared quarantine. They had no trouble there, by the way, which seems to rule out anything like the Purcell spores or any other known disease. They were in the middle of a form-change when they died."

  "That's all correct as far as it goes," agreed Green, "but you are missing a few facts that make a big difference. First off, you said they were Belters, and technically you are right—they worked the Belt. But in USF terms, they were really Grabbers. They had been out combing on the Jason for more than two years when they struck it . . ."

  * * *

  Caperta Laferte, spotter for the USF Class B cargo ship Jason, watched the scope of the deep radar with mounting excitement. By his left hand, the computer print-out was chattering at increasing speed as it performed the final orbit match and confirmed its tracking of the find.

  Laferte wriggled his bare toes, and picked up a dirty cloth in his free hand. He wiped at the perspiration that covered his face.

  "It matches," he said to the other two. "Matches exactly, and it looks like a good one—a four percenter, or even more. I'll be able to get a radioactivity reading from it in a couple more minutes. No doubt about it, we've found us a real piece of old Loge."