That way. It was a generalized murmur. That’s where you are going.
“No. I don’t want to change.” He struggled, unable to move or speak as he tried to identify the source of the sounds. The argument had been going on inside him forever, and he was losing. The voices were invading him micrometer by micrometer.
This way. This way. Change. They were ignoring his wish to rest, pulling him, pushing him, twisting him, turning him inside out. He could feel them in every cell, growing stronger and more confident. Change. A trillion voices merged. Blood rushed through clogged arteries, organic detergents washing the dry, inelastic skin, the weak, flabby muscles, and the old, tired sinews. Change. Liver and spleen and kidneys and testicles, ion balances on a roller coaster, local temperatures anomalously high or low—too high, too low. He was dying… Change. The delicate balance of endocrine glands: testes and thyroid and adrenals and pancreas and pituitary. All disturbed, homeostasis lost, desperately seeking a new equilibrium. Change. Change. CHANGE.
He cried out, a silent scream. “Leave me alone.” The intruders ran wild in every cell. He was helpless, fainting, fading before the assault of a chemical army.
CHANGE. All over his body: fluctuations in thermodynamic potentials, in kinetic reaction rates, hormonal levels; energy rushing to dormant follicles, sloughing old tissues, redefining organic functions, thrusting along capillaries. A ferment of cellular renewal boiled within the changing skin. CHANGE. Solvents along sluggish veins and arteries, the sluice of plaquey deposits, the whirl of fats and cholesterol… CHANGE. Liver, spleen, kidneys, prostate, heart, lungs, brain… CHANGE. Fires along nerves, synapses sparking erratically, spasms of motor control, floods of neurotransmitters, flickering lightnings of pain, crashing thunderstorms of sensation, signals flying from reticular network to cerebral cortex to hypothalamus to dorsal ganglia. A clash of arms at the blood-brain barrier… CHANGE. SYNTHESIZE. ACCOMMODATE.
And then, suddenly, all voices merged to one voice and faded, weakening, withdrawing, drifting down in volume. He could hear it clearly. He listened to the murmur of that dying voice and at last recognized it. Knew it. Knew it exactly. It was the mechanical echo of his own soul whispering final commands through the computer link: his physical profile, amplified a billionfold, transformed in the biofeedback equipment to a set of chemical and physiological instructions, and fed back as final commands.
The tide was ebbing. The changes shivered to a halt. In that moment, senses returned. He heard the surge of external pumps and felt the wash of amniotic fluids as they drained from his naked body. The tank tilted, and the front cracked open, exposing his skin to cold air. There was a sting of withdrawn catheters at groin and nape of neck and a slackening of retaining straps.
He felt a growing pain in his chest and a terrible need for air. As the pertussive reflex took over, he coughed violently, expelling gelatinous fluid from his lungs and taking in a first ecstatic, agonizing breath. Its cold burn inside him was simultaneous with the sudden full opening of the tank. Harsh white light hit his unready retinas.
He shivered, threw up his forearm to protect his eyes, and sagged back in the padded seat. For five minutes he moved only to lean forward and cough up residual sputum. Finally he summoned his strength, stood up, and stepped out of the tank. He staggered forward two steps, caught his balance, and stood swaying. As soon as he was sure of his own stability he reached for the towel that hung ready by the tank, wrapped it around his waist, and turned back to the form-change tank itself. Another moment to gather his will, then he gripped the door and swung it firmly closed.
It was a final, ritual step, his first choice after the unspoken decision to live. He was rejecting the idea of tranquilizing drugs to ease the rigors of transition. Instead he walked across the room to a full-length mirror and stared hard at his own reflection.
The glass showed a nearly naked man about thirty years old, dark-haired and dark-eyed, of medium height and build. The new skin on his body still bore a babyish sheen, though it was pale and wrinkled from long immersion. Soon it would smooth and mature to deep ivory. The face that peered back at him was thin-nosed and thin-mouthed, with a cynical downward turn to the red lips and thoughtful, cautious eyes.
He examined himself critically, working his jaw, lifting an eyelid with a forefinger to inspect the clear, healthy white around the brown iris, peering inside his mouth at his teeth and tongue, and finally rubbing his fingers along his renewed hairline. He flexed his shoulders, inflated his chest to the full, moved his neck in an experimental roll back and forth, and sighed.
“And here we are again. But why bother?” He spoke very softly to his reflection. “ ‘What a piece of work is a man. How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty. In form, in moving, how express and admirable. In action, how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god. The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals.’ ”
“Very good, Mr. Wolf,” said a silky and precise voice from the communications device in the corner of the room. “The Bard wrote it, and perhaps he believed it. But do you?”
Bey Wolf turned slowly and cautiously. The unit was showing no visual signal. He stepped across and turned on its video and recorder. “You did not let me finish that quotation. It goes on, ‘Man delights me not, no, nor woman neither.’ And let me point out that this is my private apartment. Who are you, and how the devil did you get my personal comcode?”
“I brought you there.” The voice was unembarrassed. “I helped to carry you up out of Old City—for that, you may thank me or curse me. I set you up in that form-change tank. And I stayed, long enough to turn on your communications unit and note its access code.” The screen flickered, and a man’s image appeared. “I do not want to intrude on your privacy, and you will note that I was not receiving visual signals until you just activated that channel. I am sure you are still feeling fragile, but I must talk with you as soon as you are recovered. My name is Leo Manx. I am a member of the Outer System Federation.”
“I can tell that much by looking at you. What do you want?”
“That cannot be discussed over public channels. If I could return to your apartment, or if you would agree to visit me at the embassy—my time is yours. I came all the way from the Outer Cloud, specifically to seek you. Perhaps you could join me for dinner—if you feel able to eat, so soon after so full a treatment.”
Behrooz Wolf stared at the other man. Leo Manx had the piebald look of the fourth-generation Cloudlander, brown freckles on a chalk-white hairless skin. His build was thin and angular, with overlong arms and bowed, skinny legs. “I can eat,” he said at last. “Provided it’s Earth food—none of your rotten Cloud synthetics.”
“Very well,” Manx replied without hesitation, but there was a sudden half-humorous twist of the mouth and the flicker of an eyelid. Like any Cloudlander, Manx would be disgusted by the thought of food made from anything beyond single-celled organisms. Bey Wolf had insisted on an Earth meal more to gauge Manx’s seriousness of purpose than anything else. But now, on the basis of the flimsiest of evidence, he decided that he rather liked Leo Manx. Nobody could be all bad who recognized Shakespeare.
“Why not?” he said. “I’ll come and see you. I’ve nothing better to do, and I haven’t been outside for a long time.”
“Then I await your convenience.” Manx nodded and disappeared from the screen.