Part 10 (1/2)
Park Green looked as though a big weight had been lifted off him.
”Thank heaven for that. I've been worried ever since he gave himself that thymus injection. I thought he might have talked me into letting him do something where he had a big risk. I didn't know enough about all this stuff to argue with him.”
Bey smiled at the big man's obvious concern. ”Go over to the tank and keep an eye on him if you're at all worried,” he said, and signed off the connection.
He strolled back to join Karl Ling, who had now come out of his trance and accepted a cup of syncaff, ”compliments of Pleasure Dome.” Having broken their standard policy by letting them in free of charge, the staff of Pleasure Domehad apparently decided to adopt them. Ling had just politely refused a Snow Queen's offer of an age-old technique to relax him after all his hard work. He looked rather pleased at her suggestion and quite annoyed when she made the same offer to Bey.
”I think I have the answers, Mr. Wolf, and they are fascinating ones.
More than I dreamed. If I am right, this is a special day in our history.”
Ling sat back, relis.h.i.+ng the moment.
”Well, Park Green and John La.r.s.en think they have the answers, too,” said Bey.
”I've just been in video contact with them.”
”They do? Without the evidence that we have available to us here?” Ling's eyebrows were raised. ”I can't believe it. What do they think we are dealing with?”
Bey sketched out La.r.s.en and Green's theory. It sounded much thinner than it had when he had first heard it. He summarized the situation back in headquarters and finally mentioned that La.r.s.en was now putting the idea to a practical test.
”He injected an extract from one of the dead men and put himself into a form-change tank?” Ling's self-possession failed him. He turned as white as one of the Snow Queens. ”He's a dead man. My G.o.d, why didn't they consult us before they began?”
He sprang to his feet, hurled the records aside, and grabbed for his loose jacket.
”Come on, Mr. Wolf. We must get back as fast as we possibly can. If there is any chance to save John La.r.s.en's life, it depends on our efforts.”
He ran out of the room. Bey, bewildered and alarmed, followed him at top speed. When Karl Ling lost his dignity so completely, it was time to worry.
In the elevator, on the Martin Link transfers, and through the ground transit system, Ling rapidly explained the basics of his discoveries to Bey Wolf. By the time they reached the Office of Form Control it was hard to say which man was the more frantic. They went at once to the form-change tanks.
Park Green, alerted as they traveled, was waiting for them there. He looked at Ling as though expecting an outburst of insult and accusation. It did not come. Ling went at once to the tank containing John La.r.s.en and began to read the telltales. After a few minutes he relaxed a little and gave a grunt of satisfaction.
”Everything's still stable. That's good. If he follows the same pattern as the other three, we have about twenty-four hours to do something for him. The one thing I daren't do is stop this process in the middle. We'll have to let it run its course, try to keep him alive while it happens, and worry afterward about reversing it. Bring me the tank schematics. I need to know exactly how the circuits work that control the nutrients and the air supply.”
Wolf went for them and was back in less than a minute. Park Green was still standing by the tank, looking totally bewildered. When Ling had the schematics, Green took Bey to one side.
”Mr. Wolf, does he know what he's doing? He's an expert on the Belt, I realize that. But he doesn't know about this stuff, does he? Are we risking John's life by letting him do this?”
Wolf put his hand up to Green's ma.s.sive shoulder. ”Believe me, Park, he knows what he's doing. If anyone can help John now, he can do it. We have to give all the help we can and save the questions until later. I'll tell you my views on this when it's all over.”
Ling interrupted their conversation. His voice had a rea.s.suring ring of certainty and authority.
”One of you come over here and make a note of the equipment changes that will have to be made. I'll read off the settings as I find them on the charts. The other one of you, call BEC. I want their top specialist on interactive form-change programs. Maria Sun, if she's available, the best they can offer if she isn't. Tell them it's code word circuits, it that will move them faster.”
Wolf nodded. ”I can get Maria.” He hurried out.The equipment modifications began. At every stage Ling rechecked . the telltales. Maria Sun arrived, took one look at the monitors, and settled in by Ling's side. She swore continuously, but it did nothing to lessen her effectiveness as they sweated over the tank. La.r.s.en's condition inside remained stable, but there were big changes occurring. His pulse rate was way down, and there was heavy demand on calcium, nitrogen, and sodium in the nutrient feeds. Skin properties were changing drastically.
”They could have noticed all this in Pleasure Dome if they'd only bothered to look,” grunted Ling. ”Give them their due, they had no reason to expect anything peculiar. But take a look at that body ma.s.s indicator.”
Maria Sun swore a string of oaths. ”It's up to a hundred and twenty kilos.
What's his usual weight?”
”Eighty,” said Bey, absorbed in watching the indicators. He longed to see inside the tank, but there was no provision for that in the system.
The work went on. After many hours of equipment change and work on program modification with Maria Sun, Ling finally declared that he had done all that he could. The real test would come in a few hours time. That was when the records from the crew of the Jason had begun to go wild. It remained to be seen if the equipment changes could keep La.r.s.en's condition stable as the change proceeded further. The time of watching and waiting began.
As Ling made his final checks on the telltales, Bey realized the mental anguish that Park Green must be going through. He looked at the big man's unhappy face.
”Mr. Ling, have we done all that can be done here?” Bey asked.
”For the moment. The rest is waiting.”
”Then, if you will, would you explain all this to us, from the beginning. I got a quick overview on the way here, but Park Green is still in the dark completely, and I'm sure Maria is just as curious.”
Ling looked at the three of them as though seeing them for the first time.
Finally, he nodded sympathetically.
”You deserve that, even if I'm wrong. From the beginning, eh? That's a long story. I'll have to tell it to you the way that I imagine it. Whether it's true is another matter.”
He sat down, leaned back, and put his hands behind his head.
”I have to begin it sixteen million years ago, and not on Earth. On the planet Loge. Loge was a giant, about ninety Earth ma.s.ses, and it was going to explode. Now for something speculative, something you may find hard to believe. Loge was inhabited. It had living on it a race of intelligent beings.
Maybe they were too intelligent. We know that their planet blew up, and we don't know why. Maybe they were to blame for that. I doubt if we'll ever know.
The race had nuclear energy, but not s.p.a.ceflight.”
”Come on now.” Maria Sun was looking at Ling skeptically. ”You can't possibly know that. I'll buy your Logians, maybe, but you just said we'll never know much about them.”
”I know that much, all the same. How do I know it?” Ling was almost pleased by the questioning. ”Well, I know that they had nuclear energy because they made transuranic elements. Any natural source of transuranics would have decayed by natural processes since the formation of the planet. The only possible way we could find a source of transuranics on Loge-and only on Loge-would be if they were created there, by nuclear synthesis. We don't know how to do that efficiently ourselves, so there's good reason to think that the Logians had a more advanced nuclear technology than we do.”
”All right.” Maria nodded her dark head. She had changed her appearance since Bey had last seen her and was now wearing the form of an exquisite Oriental.
The terrible streams of swearing that came out of that petal mouth when she was hard at work made a strange effect that she was probably quite unaware of.
”So, they had nuclear energy. But how could you possibly know they didn't have s.p.a.ceflight?”
”Elementary, my dear Maria.” Ling was too engrossed in his explanation to note Bey's quiet reaction to that evidence of prior acquaintance. ”They couldn'tescape from Loge, not any of them, even when they found that it was going to disintegrate. They must have had some years of warning, some time to plan-but no one got away, not one of them.”
Ling rose from his seat. ”Wait one moment, I must check the status.” He went to the tank, nodded as he inspected the telltales, and returned. ”It is still all stable, and the change is accelerating. The next hour or two is crucial.”
”We'll stay here,” said Bey. ”So they could not get off Loge,” he prompted.