Every emergence was different.
Bey came out of this one dry-mouthed, wobble-legged, and furious. He knew the form-change process better than anyone. He could tell when parameters had been changed from their original settings, even when he was the subject, and this time he knew he had been through a lot more than simple tissue restoration.
The door of the tank sprang open, and he looked out. Sylvia Fernald was sitting by the control board, staring at him.
He roared with rage, a horrible squeal of unfamiliar vocal cords. “What the hell have you been doing to me?” The ionic balance of his body was still adjusting, and the chemical rush of anger was strong enough to propel him forward out of the tank in one movement. “Don’t try to lie. You’ve been meddling and you know it.”
“You call it meddling when somebody tries to help you?” She stood her ground. “I’ve just saved you. You’d have been cut to bits as soon as people in the harvester knew you were here. No one from Earth is safe now.”
“I can look after myself.” Bey tried to gesture in anger, but his fist would not close. His body felt terrible, a bad size, a distorted shape. “A form-change like that—you could have killed me.”
“I studied the change very carefully. It’s a standard type of form for the Outer System.”
“I didn’t need a change.”
“Wrong/ You need a change. More than a change—you need a damned keeper. I’ve had it with you, and I don’t care what Baker wants.” Sylvia stood up. “You’re an idiot, Bey Wolf, you know that? You come out here, an Earther, and you think you’re God’s gift to the Cloud.” She gripped him hard by the arm and pulled him along the room. He stumbled after her, still too weak to put up more than token resistance. She halted by the door at the end of the room. “Take a look there. What do you see?”
Bey found himself in front of a full-length mirror. He was facing a nightmare, naked and thin as a skeleton, tall and stooped as a praying mantis. All the muscles had gone from his arms and legs, leaving ugly tendons and sticks of bone that ended in taloned hands and feet. His rib cage jutted like a dry wooden frame under tautly stretched parchment. The hair was gone from his head and body, and his browless eyes glared demented out of hollow sockets. His hairless genitals looked vulnerable and ridiculous. He stood frozen, his skull-head mouth gaping open.
“What do you see?” She had gone on shouting at him, but he had not even heard her. “What do you see?”
“You did this to me!” He shook his arm loose. “You’re insane. You’ve turned me into a monster. I’ve got to get back in the tank, make this right again.”
“No!” She stood in front of him, blocking his movement, and he realized how tall he had become. They were suddenly eye to eye. “It’s time you learned something, Behrooz Wolf—if you’re still able to learn anything at all. I don’t know what you see, but I’ll tell you what I see, and it’s the way everyone thinks in the Outer System.”
She stepped back and swept him from head to toe with a searing glare. As his anger had calmed, hers had grown. “I see a passable-looking man for the first time since I met you. A man I would be pleased to know, a man whose company I might even enjoy. Not a damned monkey. Not a squat, hairy toad. Not a hirsute, jowly, Sun-sucking midget that no normal woman would be seen dead with. And yes, I did it to you. And no, I’m not sorry I did it. I sat by that damned tank for a hundred straight hours to make sure nothing was going wrong with the change I keyed in. And yes, I knew what I was doing. And no, I don’t expect you to appreciate it. You’re too graceless, too selfish, too self-obsessed, too wrapped up in your self-superior idea that anything from the Inner System has to be good and right.” She was screaming at him. “So damn you, Bey Wolf. If you want to get back into that tank, go ahead. I won’t stop you. And I won’t interfere when the people on the harvester grab you and spill your guts.”
Bey’s body chemistry change was complete, and his condition was stabilizing. He was beginning to feel almost normal, but he also knew that the mood swings might be far from over. He stared fascinated at his image in the mirror and shook his head. “I look like a form-change failure. Those legs—you actually programmed for those legs?”
“They’re great legs.”
“They’re revolting. Look at them! Too short, too white, too bowed.” He turned to face her. “You’re serious, aren’t you? You think I should thank you for this.”
“You should go down on your knees and kiss my hand. My God, I was doing you a favor.” She had stopped shouting at him. “You’re supposed to have brains. Use them. You asked Cinnabar Baker to announce that you had been killed on the space farm so you could explore the problem without people knowing who you were. How well would that have held up when people saw you? You had to change. I suppose you thought that you’d blend right in with the rest of us, with your ridiculous Earth body.”
“All right. But why didn’t you warn me?”
“Would you have agreed to this body if I had?”
“Never.” Now that he was not angry, Bey was feeling a bit guilty. She had sat by the tank for days, looking after him, and he could see how pale and tired she was. “But do you blame me for feeling that way? Would you have let me change you so you look like an Earthwoman?”
“Don’t be disgusting.”
“Well, then. But I’ll admit it, you’re right about one thing, and I want to apologize for shouting at you. It’s an odd thought, but in this stick-insect body I will be less noticeable here.” Bey took another look at his reflection and grabbed for a robe by the door. It was suitably long and full—when he had it on he could see nothing but his hands and head. “That’s better. I’d rather not see myself. But I still wish in some ways I could get back in the tank. I don’t seem to be done.”
“Are you feeling sick?”
“Not exactly. But I’m certainly feeling a bit Plantagenetish.”
“A bit what?”
“You know. Or if you don’t, you should.” Bey held the robe tight around him, stood up as straight as he was able, and declaimed: “ ‘Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time, into this breathing world scarce half made up, and that so lamely and unfashionable, that dogs bark at me as I halt by them.’ Richard the Third. One of my all-time heroes.”
She stared at him. Finally she laughed. “My God, Leo was right. You are insane. You’re worse than Aybee. Totally crazy.”
Bey considered her statement. He was a bit light-headed, definitely that, but it was not his strongest feeling. “More like totally starving. Whatever you did to me, it left me hollow. Can I get some food?”
“We can try. And you’ll have your big test. We’ll see if you can pass—as a Cloudlander. Here, wait a minute.” Bey was all ready to head out of the door. “You’ll never pass in that outfit.”
“You all seem to dress the same. There must be a uniform near.”
“Wrong again.” Sylvia gestured at her own gray suit. “I’m still just the way we came off the ship, but I wouldn’t dream of mixing with other people here like this—or in the old uniform. You seem to think all the harvesters are the same. They’re not alike, any two of them, in either their layout or their people. This harvester is super fashion-conscious. Nobody here would be seen dead in those yellow suits we wore on the Opik Harvester. If we want to be inconspicuous, we have to follow local ways. Come with me. It’s right next door.”