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“Do you now. I wish you knew how many people have told me that in the past three years.” He didn’t sound interested, he didn’t sound angry—he didn’t sound anything. He just turned to walk down the beach toward the placid water with its rippling two-inch wavelets. “Before you go any further, let me mention that I told all of them the same thing: No. Your form-change problems are yours, not mine. I’m retired.”

“I came a long way to see you.” Sondra slipped off her sandals and hurried after him across the soft sand.

“I know. Eight thousand miles.” He pointed off to the left along the beach, almost directly at the sun. “West 6 north-west, the Office of Form Control Headquarters lies right in that direction. I didn’t hear your flier. More to the point, nor did they.” He pointed to where the two dogs were running in and out of the water and scratching for something in the wet sand.

“I came the final fifteen hundred kilometers by skimmer.”

At last there was a hint of interest, a puzzled expression. “Why? Why didn’t you fly?”

It occurred to Sondra that this was his first direct question. And her opportunity.

“The pilot who was supposed to fly me here took one look at my luggage and refused to carry it.”

But Wolf didn’t take the bait. He simply whistled to the dogs and turned back toward the house. “The skimmer trip must take at least three hours,” he said over his shoulder. “I was going indoors anyway, for a cold drink and a bite to eat. If you like you can join me before you start back.”

“That would be nice.” Sondra, walking along the path to the house right behind Wolf, resisted die urge to jump up and down in triumph. “Can I at least show you what I brought with me?”

“Why not.”

Hardly an enthusiastic reaction. But at least part of Wolfs frozen old-man attitude was contrived. He could move quickly enough if he wanted to. When the two hounds, Janus and Siegfried, came close and shook themselves to spray both Wolf and Sondra with cold sea- water, she saw his agile leap away from them. She was hugely pleased. She hadn’t lost yet. He would change his mind as soon as he saw what was in the cage.

When he went through to order food in the kitchen she hurried to the front door and carried the cage through to the middle of the living-room. She peered in through the heavy mesh to make sure that the chains were still secure. Gritting her teeth, she unlocked the cage’s top and slid it open. There was an immediate silent rush of movement within, followed by the snap of taut links and a hiss of rage. Sondra took a deep breath, wishing that she could somehow close her nose. Bey Wolf was going to change his mind about eating or drinking when that smell hit him.

And then she realized that he was already present. He had come up silently behind her, to lean over and peer right down into the cage.

“Mm. Yes, odd enough.” He was casually straightening up again. “I ordered hot food, and it will take a few minutes for the house to prepare it. But here’s your drink”

He was holding a glass full of dark-brown liquid out to Sondra while he sipped his own.

“Don’t you want to … ” Sondra gestured at the cage. “I mean, I’m sorry about bringing this in just before we eat. I know it’s disgusting. But if you want to take a closer look … ”

“I hardly think that will be necessary.” Wolf settled down onto a rocking-chair that faced the garden beyond. He had the look of a man who spent a lot of time sitting there.

“ … for you to really see what it’s like … ”

“I already know what it’s like.” Wolf leaned back and closed his eyes. The wet dogs padded forward to slump at his feet. “Physically: male, about eleven or twelve kilos. Hypertrophied mandible and upper jaw, with enlarged incisors and sharpened super- prominent canines. General body structure shows some achondroplasia—typical dwarfism. Ichthyotic skin in an extreme form, fully scaled on arms and legs and back. Enhanced reactions, about three times as fast as a normal human. Behavior is clearly feral, and the present form represents a purposive but regressive change. I judge that the chance of a successful form-change correction is close to zero. That enough?”

“But you hardly even looked!”

“You are wrong.” Wolf sighed and leaned back in the rocking-chair. “I have looked and looked and looked, more than you are able to imagine. I have been studying the results of purposive form-change for over fifty years. I have seen the avian forms, the cephalopod and serpentine variations, the ectoskeletal forms, the wheeled forms, the Capman lost variations, all the mistakes and mishaps and blind alleys of half a century.” Wolf sipped again at his drink, eyes still closed. “What you have there is well within the envelope of familiar alternatives. Illegal, of course, but not even close to an extreme form. Why don’t you close the cage now? I can tell that you are uncomfortable with it open.”

“I am. I’m afraid it might break the chains and get out.”

Sondra slid the cover back into position. She had played a high card, and Bey Wolf had not even opened his eyes. But she still had her trump card to play. “While you’re in the analysis mode, I’d like your opinion on two other things. How long do you think that this form has been like this? And how old do you think it is?”

“I have no way to judge how long the form has been this way. But it would take about four months in a form-change tank to achieve that shape. As for the age”—Wolf shrugged—“for that I would need a longer observation period, to watch movement and reaction to stimuli. It could be anything between nineteen and ninety years old.”

Gotcha. “It could be.” Sondra waited, holding the moment. “But it isn’t. It’s four months old. And it’s not an illegal form. It was born this shape, and it’s growing fast.”

Wolfs eyes blinked fully open and he offered Sondra her first direct look. “It failed the humanity test? Then it should have been destroyed two months ago.”

“No. That’s the problem. It was given the humanity test two months ago. And it passed.”

“Then it should have been placed in a form-change tank at once for a remedial medical program.”

“That’s exactly what was done when it was shipped to us. But the programs didn’t work at all. No useful change took place during two whole months in the tank. That’s why I came to you.” Sondra gestured again to the cage, where scaled skin was rasping horribly against metal links. “The humanity test determines what’s human, because only humans can perform purposive form-change. We have something here that passed the humanity test. That means it can’t be destroyed and must be protected. But it clearly isn’t human, and it’s immune to form-change. It’s my job to find out what’s going on.”

Wolf had been sitting up straighter in the chair. For a moment, Sondra thought she saw a real light of curiosity in his eyes. Then he was leaning back again, nodding his head.

“Very true. As you stated, it is your job to find out what is going on with a form-change failure. If you were hoping that by coming here you might also make it my job, I have to disappoint you. I told you once, I tell you twice. I’m retired.”

CHAPTER 2

Sondra had lost. But Wolf would not help her. And because she had lost, she could at last relax for a little while.

Ownership of a private island was proof of wealth, but a far more impressive proof came to Sondra when she saw the quality of the house’s food service. As Wolf led her through to a dining room that faced out over the ocean toward the setting sun, she saw the settings for the chef. The “bite to eat” that he had offered would be a banquet.

She sat opposite Wolf at a long table of polished ebony and watched him in puzzled silence as a succession of elaborate dishes appeared. He had been gone from the Office of Form Control for three years, but Behrooz Wolf anecdotes were told there all the time. Sondra had built up a distinct mental image of the man who now sat facing her. He was supposed to be cool, nerveless, and ironic, a man of immense mental energy who loved the challenge of tough form-change problems better than anything in the world (except possibly for his known obsession with the dusty and obscure works of long-dead poets and playwrights). He was also an ascetic, as little interested in elaborate food as in clothes or form-change fashions or social fads.