Sight of Proteus (17 page)

"And there is something e'se. We on'y found out about it during the tests today. I suspected I had it, but I had no idea how we' deve'oped it is. Do you remember the troub'e I had with math? Even with ordinary arithmetic, even with an imp'ant?"

Bey sighed. "It would be hard to forget it, even without total recall. You were practically famous for it. 'Doughhead Larsen,' Smith used to call you in the theory courses."

"You don't know how often I wished he would form-change to a toad—it was his natura' shape. Anyway, ask me something that ought to be hard for me, something beyond John 'arsen's grasp."

Wolf frowned. He scratched his dark head thoughtfully. "John, almost everything was. How about special functions? I seem to recall that they were your big hate, whenever they came up in the form-change theories. Do you remember anything at all about the Gamma function?"

"How many figures would you 'ike? Suppose I give you six digits, and step the argument in interva's of a hundredth? 'ike this. Gamma of 1.01 is 0.994326, Gamma of 1.02 is 0.988844, Gamma of 1.03 is 0.983550, Gamma—"

"Hold it, John." Bey held up his hand in protest. "I don't want the whole table—even if you know it. What happened, did Capman fix you up with a calculator implant when he was working with you in that first couple of weeks?"

"No imp'ant." Larsen laughed again, and Wolf winced at the noise like shattering glass. "It is bui't in, comes free with the form if you are a 'ogian. I don't even now if it is ca'cu'ation or memory—a' I know is, when I want them the numbers and the formu'ae are there waiting. Do you see now why I am in no hurry to change back?"

The glass panel that separated them was thin, but it had to withstand a pressure difference of almost three atmospheres. Wolf was reluctant to lean against it, even though he was sure it would take the extra load with no trouble. He came close to it, and peered through at the alien form.

"Bottom, thou are translated. Much more of this, and I'll feel like a moron. I'm not sure my ego will be able to stand it unless you get started on that reverse-change."

" 'et me give it one more b'ow, then." Larsen leaned forward, scratching at his side, where the great, grey torso framed the oval central display in his chest. "You have been trying to trace Robert Capman for four years, and you have not succeeded. Now he has disappeared again and you do not know where you might find him—but do you rea'ize that you have more information now than you ever had before?"

He scratched the other side of his chest. "I think I wi' comp'ain about this skin, it does not fit right."

"More information?" Wolf had lost the last trace of sleepiness. "I don't see how I have more. We know that Ling is Capman, and I've tried to pursue that. I get no cooperation at all from the USF people. Either they don't want Capman extradited to Earth, or they don't care either way. I put a call through to Park Green this morning in Tycho City, and he has been told to get back to his other work and not waste time looking for Capman. So where's the new information supposed to come from?"

Larsen had stopped scratching and picked up a green wedge of fibrous sponge. "I have to eat this stuff to keep me a'ive, but I fee' sure it was never the standard 'ogian diet. It tastes 'ike the outf'ow from the chemica' factory." He touched it to the delicate fringes on his mouth, that served as both taste and smell organs. The expression on his face changed. He closed his eyes briefly, then placed the spongy mass down again on the rack by his side. "Now I know how they must fee' in the famine areas when they get their rations of five-cyc'ed pap. Maybe I wi' reverse-change now. It is ages since I had any decent food, I think I am beginning to forget what it tastes 'ike."

"New information, John," prompted Wolf impatiently. "I know you're doing it to annoy, and I know you're sitting there luxuriating in the thought that now you're three times as smart as I am. You ought to realize that anything about Capman puts me onto full alert."

Larsen moved his head forward in a self-satisfied Logian smile, but did not speak.

"How do we have new information?" went on Wolf. "We haven't had anything useful from the USF, and if you learned something during the weeks you were working with him around the clock, getting adjusted to the Logian form, this is the first time you've mentioned it. So, what's new?"

"A' right, Bey, no more sta'ing. 'et us app'y simp'e 'ogic, and see what we can deduce. First, think back to your origina' idea that Capman was somehow responsib'e for the 'ogian forms that were found in the Mariana Trench. That turned out to be wrong. So, it wou'd be natura' to assume that Capman shou'd have had no interest in 'oge before the arriva' of the unknown forms. On the other hand, Capman—as Karl 'ing—was a 'eading expert on 'oge, and everything to do with it, years ago. 'ong before the forms appeared on the scene. Where does that idea take you?"

Wolf peered into the poisonous atmosphere inside the tank. "Tokhmir, John, I hate these conversations in separate rooms. It's worse than a video link."

"Now who is sta'ing? You can come in if you want to, Bey, the air is fine—once you get used to it. Now, answer my question."

Wolf nodded. "It's a good question, and it's an obvious one. I must have been a lot more tired than I realized in the past few weeks. It's been hectic out here since you began to change. All right, let me think."

He sat down and leaned his head forward on his hands. "Capman became Ling. So, either he knew about the Logian forms before we called him in to help, or he had some other reason for being interested in Loge. I find I can't believe he knew about the forms before we went to Pleasure Dome—he really was working it all out for the first time there. That leaves only the other alternative: an interest in Loge, but one that was nothing to do with the Logian forms. That sounds improbable to me."

"Improbab'e or not, it is the on'y reasonab'e conc'usion. So now"—Larsen's voice rose in pitch, and the color of his oval breastplate glowed more intensely—"carry the thought to its end point. What is the next step for you to take?"

Bey was nodding, his head still bowed. "All right. You've got something. The added piece is one simple fact: Capman's prior interest in Loge. Now I guess I have to trace the background on that. I think I know the best way to do it. Park Green has access to all the USF data, and he should be able to trace Ling's movements and background." He looked up. "Maybe I should get into one of the tanks myself and switch to a Logian form. I could use the boost in brains."

Larsen nodded seriously, head and trunk moving together. "You may think you are joking, Bey, but it is an idea that you ought to be taking more serious'y. I can't describe how it fee's to be smarter than I was, but I 'ike the sensation. When we get a' the reverse-change p'otted out, there wi' be a 'ot of peop'e who wi' want to try this form."

Larsen opened his mouth wide, revealing the bony processes inside and the rolled, mottled tongue. "Excuse me, Bey. The 'ogian yawn is a 'itt'e disgusting, if I can be'ieve the mirror. If you are going to ca' Park Green, I think I wi' go back to the s'eeping quarters and try and get some rest. We sti' haven't pinned it yet, but the BEC peop'e now think I am on a seventeen hour cyc'e. A' these tests are wearing me out. Ten hours so far, just on my eyes! At 'east I know what the first reverse-change step wi' be—I want to be ab'e to say my own name." He stood up. "Say hi to Park from me—you know I cannot say he'o to him."

When Wolf had left for the comlink center, Larsen turned and walked heavily through to the inner room that contained the sleep area. His movement was silent but ponderous, gliding along on the round padded feet that ended the bulky lower limbs. In the screened inner area, he went at once to the communications panel that had been built into one of the walls. The thick rubbery pads on his digits were awkward for the comlink's small keys, but he managed to dial a scrambled connection for an off-Earth link. When the circuit was established, Larsen at once began transmission.

Expressions on a Logian face were not easily read by any human, but perhaps some of the BEC specialists who had been working with Larsen for the past few weeks would have seen the satisfaction on his countenance as he began his message. The comlink coded it and hurled it on its way as a tightly focussed beam, up to the relay by the Moon, then far on beyond to its remote destination.

Chapter 16

The social parameters were tabulated on color displays all around the offices of the General Coordinators. Eighteen key indicators, in a stylized map format, dominated the central office, and summaries in cued form were given by each chart. Next to the ninety day history was the current ninety day forecast, showing trends and rate of change of trends.

In the center of the room the six chief planners had gathered, grim-faced, around the circular table. The picture was clear. The perturbations to the usual stable pattern were unmistakable, and they were growing steadily in spite of all attempts to stabilize them. A certain level of statistical variation was tolerable—indeed, was inevitable—but perturbations beyond a certain size, according to Dolmetsch doctrine, would force a major change. The new steady state of the system was difficult to calculate, and there was not a general agreement on it. One school of theorists predicted a partial social collapse, with new homeostasis establishing itself for a reduced Earth population of about four billion. That was the optimist view. Others, including Dolmetsch himself, thought there could be no new steady state solution derived continuously from the old one. Civilization must collapse completely before any new order could arise from the ruins.

None of the planners was a theoretician. For practical people, it was hard to distinguish between theoretical alternatives, where one meant the death of ten billion and the other the death of fourteen billion. Both were unimaginable, but the indicator profile was not encouraging.

The group leader finally picked up his pointer again, and shook his head in disgust.

"I can't tell if we're even touching it. There are improvements here"—he gestured at the area centered on the Link entry point in Western North America—"but everything is going to hell again in the China region. Look at that violence index. I haven't looked at the computer output, but I'll bet the death rate from unnatural causes has tripled."

The woman next to him looked at the area indicated. "That's my home town, right at the trouble center," she said quietly. "Even if we don't know the best course, we have to keep on trying."

"I know that—but remember the rules when you leave today. No public comments unless they're optimistic ones, and no release of anything longer than the sixty-day forecast. God knows, though, that's bad enough all by itself."

They stood up.

"How long do we have, Jed, before we're past a point of no return?" she asked.

"I don't know. Three months? Six months? It could go very fast once it starts, we've all seen the snowball effect—on paper." He shrugged. "We can't say we haven't worried about something like this before. Half the papers on social stability in the past twenty years have predicted trouble at better than the fifty percent level. Well, there are a few positive things we can do in the next day or two."

He turned to the woman next to him. "Greta, I'll need a summary of the whole situation to send to the USF headquarters. Dolmetsch is up there now, and he can do the briefing. Sammy, I want you to see how the USF react to the idea of lending us an energy kernel for a few months, and orbiting it above Quito in synchronous station. If we beam the power down, it will help the local energy problem in South America for the next month or two. Ewig, I need the latest data from Europe. I have to brief the Council in an hour, and Pastore is sure to ask what's happening in Northern Italy. I'll be back to pick up the material in twenty minutes—I need time to study it before I go in there."

He hurried out. The noise level in the big room rose rapidly, as the planners redoubled their efforts to stabilize the world economy. One hope sustained them all: it was not the first crisis of the past half century. They had always managed to find the right combination of restorative measures to arrest the oscillations in the social indicators. But this one looked bad. Like a shore community bracing for the arrival of a hurricane, the planners prepared for a long, hard struggle.

* * *

Park Green, seated in the Permanent Records Center six kilometers beneath the surface, completed the listing he wanted. He looked at his watch, whistled, stored the output he had generated into his percomp, and signed off the computer terminal. He sat in silence for a few minutes, reviewing everything that he had found, then looked again at his watch. Bey would still be up, even though he was on Central Time instead of U.T., but if he didn't call him now he would have to wait another ten hours. Park decided to delay his return to the living sections, and put in a request for a comlink to Earth.

The connection was almost instantaneous—at this hour, traffic was light. When Wolf's image appeared on the holoscreen, sleepy-looking and irritated, Park decided he must have made a slight error in his time calculation. He concluded that it was no time for the conventional greetings.

"It's a mystery, Bey," he began. "A complete mystery. The records here look as though they are intact, with full data on Ling—personal data— going back for fifty years. I agree with you that Ling is Capman, but how can he be, if he has full records like this?"

Bey rubbed his eyes and came more fully awake. "Full records, eh? For most people, that couldn't be faked. But we had evidence a few years ago that proved Capman is a master at manipulating computer software. Stored data isn't safe when he's around. There's a good chance that most of Ling's 'history' is a constructed background, made up and inserted into the records by Capman. He must have had some cooperation to do that, though. There must be some leaders in the USF who are helping him—an ordinary Earth citizen would have no way to get started. Somebody up there with you helped Capman get access to your data banks."

"I don't see how they'd do that." Green looked at the computer terminal next to him. "Most of the files here are read-only memory. How could he affect those?"