Proteus Unbound Read Free Page A

my own mind . . ."
—Francis Thompson

    The average surface temperature of real estate in the Outer System was minus two hundred and fourteen degrees Celsius: fifty-nine degrees above absolute zero, where oxygen was a liquid and nitrogen a solid. The mean surface gravity of that same real estate was one four-hundredth of a g. Mean solar radiation was 1.2 microwatts per square meter, weaker than starlight, a billionth as intense as the Sun's energy received by the Earth.
    Faced with those facts, the designers of the Earth Embassy for the Outer System had a choice: Should they locate the embassy off-Earth and face extensive transportation costs to and from the surface for all embassy interactions? Or should they accept an Earth environment uncomfortable and highly unnatural to the ambassador and staff? Since the designers were unlikely to visit Earth themselves, they naturally took the cheaper option. The embassy that Bey Wolf was visiting sat five hundred feet underground, where temperature, noise, and radiation could all be controlled.
    Gravity was another matter. He dropped with stomach-wrenching suddenness through the upper levels. As he did so his surroundings became darker, quieter, and colder. Every surface was soundproofed. At four hundred feet the hush became so unnatural and disturbing that Bey found himself listening hard to nothing. He decided he did not like it. Humans made noise; humans clattered and banged and yelled. Total silence was inhuman.
    Leo Manx was waiting for him in a room so cold that Bey could see his own breath in the air. The Cloudlander remained upright long enough to shake Bey's hand and gesture him to a seat, then sank with a sigh of relief into the depths of a water chair that folded itself around his thin body. The head that was left sticking out smiled apologetically. "I used a form-change program to adapt me to Earth gravity before I left the Outer System." His shrug emerged as a ripple of the chair's black outer plastic. "I don't think it was quite right."
    A piece of your lousy software, by the sound of it, Bey thought. But he merely nodded and waited.
    Manx sat silent for a few moments and then said abruptly, "My visit to Earth, you know, is for a very specific reason. To see you and to ask for your help—as the head of the Office of Form Control and Earth's leading expert on form-change theory and practice."
    "You're a bit late. I'm not with that office anymore."
    "I know that is the case. I heard that you had . . . resigned your position."
    "No need to be diplomatic. I was fired."
    The pale head bobbed. "In truth, I knew that also. You may be surprised to learn that from our point of view, your dismissal offers advantages."
    "None from my point of view."
    "It is my task to convince you otherwise." Leo Manx stretched upward, his thin neck and hairless head craning like a turtle from the black supporting oval of the chair. "To do so, I must request your silence about what I am to tell you."
    "Suppose I refuse to go along with that?" Wolf saw the other man's discomfort. "Oh, hell, get on with it. I've spent my whole career not talking about things. I can do it for a while longer."
    "Thank you. You will not regret it." Manx subsided in the chair. "Mr. Wolf, there has arisen in the Outer System a problem so serious that all knowledge of it is given only on a need-to-know basis. In a few words, there has been a widespread breakdown in the performance of form-change equipment, to the point where the process is being undertaken only in cases of emergency, such as my own visit to Earth."
    "Widespread? Not just a machine or two?"
    "Hundreds of machines, with rates of malfunction that have been growing rapidly. A year ago, we could point to two or three cases of gross error in results. Today, we have case histories of thousands."
    "Then it has to be a general software problem. You don't want me for that. There are others who know more and can give you better guidance."
    Manx's eyes, startlingly