Free Proteus in the Underworld by Charles Sheffield Page A

is, and I'm glad to hear you say so. I'll leave it to you to explain why it's nonsense."
    It wasn't done simply to annoy. Sondra recalled another part of the Bey Wolf legend at the Office of Form Control. He was a unique teacher. Come to him with a problem, and he almost never provided a straight answer. Instead he did something apparently unrelated, something that made you think and figure out the answer for yourself.
    He was trying to make her think. And she was thinking—but not about genetics and probabilities.
    Sondra stared at the chimp, draped affectionately around Bey's neck. Jumping Jack Flash did not look quite right. His huge, grinning teeth were pure chimp, but his skull was higher than usual and his nose had more cartilage. Then she thought of the form-change tanks that they had passed as they walked through the basement lab, and another thought leaped into her mind from nowhere.
    "Bey." (She was calling him Bey, just as if she was on the terms of familiarity with him that she had pretended to Trudy Melford. Why?) "Bey, don't do it. Please. Don't even think of it."
    She expected an argument, perhaps a pretence that he did not understand what she was talking about. Instead she received a lightning flash from dark eyes that were suddenly wide open.
    "How do you know what I was thinking of doing?"
    "I'm a Wolf, too. I really am. All your genetic calculations don't mean a thing. I'm a Wolf."
    He was studying her again, as though he saw her for the first time. "Maybe you are at that."
    "Promise me you won't. It's a first step on the road to hell."
    " 'Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.' Sorry. Quoting is a lifelong habit, I find it hard to shake. All right, I promise you I'll put this experiment on the back-burner."
    "Not enough."
    Bey grimaced, with annoyance or resignation. "All right, I promise you I will not pursue experiments with Jack Flash—or with any other chimp that has been given a human DNA boost—unless I first discuss it with you."
    "Any other organism with a human DNA boost."
    "Any other organism ."
    "Thank you."
    "No need for thanks." Bey stood silent for a moment, the chimpanzee lying silent like a great fur scarf around his neck. "And if you can tell me why I would make such a promise, I will be most grateful."
    "I don't know." But I think I do. Sondra stared around the room. It was not anything like an animal cage. It was an apartment, as good as the one that she lived in. "I have to go now. I have to get back as soon as the weather allows. I'm going to change clothes, then I'm leaving."
    What she did not say, what she could not say, was that she was suddenly hideously uncomfortable with what she was wearing. She was revealing too much skin, too much length of leg.
    But too much for whom?
    She headed for the door. As she reached it she turned. "May I come back and see you again?"
    "If you wish."
    "I may not have results."
    Bey nodded. "I know. Come anyway. Keep me from the road to hell."
    The moment stretched. Neither spoke. Then Sondra had turned and was fleeing—back to the upper level of the house, back to the psychological safety of the murderous storm outside.

CHAPTER 6
    It was thirty-three hours since Bey had slept. He watched Sondra's departure, lifting off safely into dark afternoon rain clouds; and then he returned to his bedroom to rest.
    Or pretend to. He lay staring at the ceiling, while the overhead displays flickered in spiraling colored patterns designed to soothe and relax. One touch of his right hand to the control panel by the bedside would take a more direct step. He would be eased into programmed sleep.
    His hand remained at his side. Too many mysteries; they were creeping around the base of his subconscious mind. He needed to name and catalog them before he could relax.
    Begin with Sondra. He had checked her records at the Office of Form Control. She had done extremely well in everything theoretical, but her practical experience was woefully inadequate. And she was very