In the eighteen hours that followed Wolf moved only once from his chair, to find the bathroom drug cabinet and swallow enough cortamine to keep him awake and alert through the long night. It wasn't going to be too bad. The old tingle of excitement and antic.i.p.ation was back. That would help more than drugs.

In the hidden underground lab three miles from Wolf's office, two redtelltales in the central control section began to blink and a soft, intermittent buzzer was sounding. When the solitary man at the console called out the monitor messages, the inference was easy. Certain strings of interrogators were being used to question the central medical data files. His software that looked for such queries was more than five years old and had never before been called upon. He thanked his foresight.

One more tactic was available, but it would probably be only a delayer, and not much of that. The white-coated figure sighed and canceled the monitor messages. It was the time he had planned for, the point where the phase-out had to begin and the next phase be initiated.

He needed to place a call to Tycho City and accelerate the transition.

Fortunately, the man he wanted was back on the Moon.

"Sit down, John. When you hear this you'll need some support."

Wolf was unshaven, fidgety, and black under the eyes. His shoes were off, and he was surrounded by untidy heaps of output listings. La.r.s.en squeezed himself into one of the few clear spots next to the terminal.

"You look as though you need some support yourself. My G.o.d, Bey, what have you been doing here? You look as though you haven't had any sleep for a week. Did you work right through?"

"Not quite that bad. A day." Wolf leaned back, exhausted but satisfied. "John, what did you think when you found out that Rad-Kato was right?"

"I was off on another case all yesterday and this morning, so I haven't been worrying too much about it. I thought for a while that Morris must have done something like palming the sample and subst.i.tuting another one for it. The more I thought about that, the more ridiculous it seemed."

Wolf nodded. "Don't be too hard on yourself. That was the sort of thing that was going through my head, too. We were both watching him, so it was difficult to see how he could have done it-or why he would want to. That's when I began trying to think of some other way that it could have happened. I began worrying again about the computer failure and the loss of the records that we wanted the first night on the case. Two days ago, was it?"

Wolf leaned back again in his chair. "It feels more like two weeks. Anyway, I used the terminal here to ask for the statistics on the loss of medical records due to hardware failure, similar to the one that happened to us. That was my first surprise. There were eighty examples. It meant that the loss of medical data was averaging ten times higher than other data types."

"You mean that the medical data bank hardware is less reliable than average, Bey? That doesn't sound plausible."

"I agree, but that's what the statistics seemed to be telling me. I couldn't believe it, either. So I asked for the medical statistics, year by year, working backward. There was high data loss every year in the medical records, until I got back to a time twenty-seven years ago. Then, suddenly, the rate of data loss for medical information dropped to about the same level as everything else."

Wolf had risen from his chair and begun to pace the cluttered office.

"So where did that leave me? It looked as though some medical records were being destroyed intentionally. I went back to the terminal to ask for a listing of the specific data areas that had been lost in the medical records, year by year. The problem was, by definition, that the information about the missing areas had to be incomplete. Anyway, I got all I could, then I tried to deduce what it was that the lost data files must have contained."

La.r.s.en was shaking his head doubtfully. "Bey, it doesn't sound like a method that we can place much reliance on. There's no way that you could check what you deduce. That would need a copy of the missing files, and they are gone forever."

"I know. Take my advice, John, and don't ever try it. It's like trying to tell what a man is thinking from the shape of his hat. It's d.a.m.ned near hopeless, and I could only get generalities. I squeezed out four key references with twenty-two hours of effort."

He stopped and took a deep breath. "Well, here's something for you to chew on,John. Did you ever hear-or can you suggest any possible meaning-of research projects with these names: Proteus, Lungfish, Ja.n.u.s, and Timeset?"

La.r.s.en grimaced and shook his head. "I don't know about the possible meanings, but I can tell you right now that I've never heard of any of them."

"Well, that's no surprise, I'm in the same position. I got those names by going to the index files that define the contents of data areas, then querying for the missing files. Apart from the names I came up with, I found out only one other thing. All the four have one common feature-the same key medical investigator."

"Morris?"

"I wouldn't have been surprised if it had been that, John. But it goes higher: Capman. I think that Robert Capman has been purging the data files of certain records and faking it to make it look as though the loss is the result of a hardware failure. I told you you'd need a seat."

La.r.s.en was shaking his head firmly. "No way, Bey. No way. You're out of your mind. Look, Capman's the director of the hospital-you'd expect his name to show up all over the medical references."

"Sure I would. But he isn't just the overall administrator of those projects, John, he's the single, key investigator."

"Even so, Bey, I can't buy it. Capman's supposed to be one of the best minds of the century-of any century. Right? He's a consultant to the general coordinators. He's a technical adviser to the USF. You'll have to offer a motive. Why would he want to destroy data, even if he could? Can you give me one reason?"

Wolf sighed. "That's the real h.e.l.l of it. I can't give you a single unarguable reason. All I can do is give you a whole series of things that seem to tie in to Capman. If you believe in the idea of convergence of evidence, it makes a pretty persuasive picture.

"One." He began to check off the points on his fingers. "Capman is a computer expert-most medical people are not. He knows the hardware and the software that's used in Central Hospital better than anyone else. I asked you how we could get the wrong liver ID when Morris did the test. I can think of only one way. Morris put the sample in correctly-we saw him do it-but the data search procedures that handle the ID matching had been tampered with. Somebody put in a software patch that reported back to us with the wrong ID. Morris had nothing to do with it. Now, I'll admit that doesn't really do one thing to link us to Capman-it's wild conjecture.

"Two. Capman has been at the hospital, in a high position, for a long time.

Whatever is going on there began at least twenty-seven years ago."

"Bey," broke in La.r.s.en impatiently, "you can't accuse a man just because he's been in a job for a long time. I'm telling you, if you tried to present this to anyone else, they'd laugh you out of their offices. You don't have one sc.r.a.p of evidence."

"Not that I could offer in a court of law, John. But let me keep going for a while. It builds up."

Wolf had on his face a look that John La.r.s.en had learned to respect, an inward conviction that only followed a long period of hard, a.n.a.lytical thought.

"Three. Capman has full access to the transplant organ banks. He would have no trouble in placing organs into them, or in getting them out if he wanted to.

He could have disposed of unwanted organs there, and the chance that he would be found out would be very small. It would need a freakish accident-such as the test that Luis Rad-Kato did the other night, by sheer chance.

"A couple more points, then I'll let you have your say. According to the records, Robert Capman personally does the final review of the humanity-test results that are carried out at Central Hospital. If those results were being tampered with, Capman is the one person who could get away with it safely-anybody else would run the risk of discovery by Capman himself. Last point: Look at the hospital organization chart. All the activities I've mentioned lead to Capman."

Wolf flashed a chart onto the display screen, with added red lines to show thelinks to Capman. La.r.s.en looked at it with stony skepticism.

"So what, Bey? Of course they all lead to him. d.a.m.n it, he's the director, they have to lead to him. He's ultimately responsible for everything that's done there."

Wolf shook his head wearily. "We're going around in circles. Those lines I added end with Capman, sure-but not in his capacity as director. They end far below that, at a project level. It looks as though he chose to take a direct and personal interest in those selected activities. Why just those?

"There are a couple more things that I haven't had the time to explore yet.

One of them would need a trip back to the hospital. Capman apparently has a private lab on the first floor of the place, next to his living quarters. No one knows what he does there, and the lab is unattended except for the robo-cleaners. Capman's an insomniac who gets by on two or three hours sleep a night, so he usually works in the lab, alone, to three or four in the morning.

What does he do there?"

Wolf looked at his notes. "That's about it, except for a couple of points that are less tangible."

"Less tangible!" La.r.s.en snorted in disgust, but Wolf was not about to stop.

"Didn't you find it peculiar, John, the way that Capman 'dropped in' on our meeting with Morris? He had no reason to-unless he wanted to get his own feel for what we were doing on the investigation. I don't know how aware of it you were, but he looked at the two of us as though he had us under a microscope.

I've never had such a feeling before of being weighed and measured by someone.

"One final point, then I'm done. Capman has had absolute control of that hospital for forty years. Everybody there knows he's a genius, and they do whatever he wants without questioning it much. If I know anything at all about human psychology, he probably thinks by this time that he's above the ordinary laws."

La.r.s.en was looking at him quizzically. "That's all very nice, Bey. Now give me some real evidence. You have a lot of circ.u.mstantial points. With one piece of solid fact about the case, I'd even be convinced. But everything you've said is still guesswork and intuition. I'll be the first to admit that you're rarely wrong on this sort of hunch, but-"

He was interrupted by the soft buzz of the intercom. Wolf keyed his wrist remote and fell silent for a few seconds, listening to the private line accessing his phone implant. Then he cut the connection and turned to La.r.s.en.

"Real evidence, John? Here's your solid fact, as hard a one as you could ask for. That was Steuben himself on the phone, and he was relaying a message from two levels higher up yet. There is a request for our services-the two of us, specifically, by name-to help investigate a form-change problem for the USF on Tycho Base."

"When?"

"At once. We have orders to drop any other cases that we're working on-Steuben didn't say what they were, and I doubt if he even knows-and leave tomorrow for the Moon. Apparently the request came direct from the office of the general coordinators. When does coincidence get to be past believing?"

"I don't know anybody at all in the general coordinators' office, Bey, and I'm pretty sure they don't know me. Do you know people there?"

"Not a soul. But somebody there-or one of their special consultants, such as you know who-seems to want us off the case we're on now. So somebody knows us and what we're doing. Like to take a bet?"

La.r.s.en's face had begun to flush red. He looked again at the display of the Central Hospital organization, with its glowing lines leading to Capman, and swore softly.

"Bey, I won't take that twice. The business with Pleasure Dome was the last time I'll let them call me off. But they've got us trapped on this. We can't refuse a valid a.s.signment-and for all we know the Tycho Base job is a real one. If only we had more time here. What can we do in one day?"

Wolf looked pale, but he was ready for a fight. He rose to his feet. "We can do at least one thing, John, before they can stop us. We can take a look atCapman's private lab."

"But we'd need a search warrant from head office before we can do that."

"Leave that to me. It reveals exactly what we're doing, but that can't be helped. We have to get over there this afternoon, while Morris is still on duty. I don't know how far we'll get, but we may need some a.s.sistance."

"What are you expecting to find, Bey?"

"If I could tell you that, we wouldn't need to go. I feel the same as you do-I'm not willing to be pulled off a case so easily this time, no matter where the order comes from. I want to know how those projects in the missing files-Proteus and the rest of them-tie in to that unidentifiable liver in the Transplant Department. We don't have much time. Let's plan to get out of here half an hour from now."

CHAPTER 6.

On the way to the hospital, La.r.s.en became silent and uncommunicative. Wolf noticed that he was listening intently to his phone implant and guessed at the reason.

"Any change in the situation at home, John?" he asked when La.r.s.en finally cut the connection. He thought he could guess the answer.

La.r.s.en looked somber. "Only the change you might expect. My grandfather's still with her. She's going down fast, and she knows it. It won't be more than another day or two. d.a.m.n it, Bey, she's a hundred and six years old-what can you expect? She's still using the machines, but it's not doing any good."

He drew a deep breath. "We love Grandmother, but what can we say to her? How do you tell someone you love that the right thing now is to go gracefully?"

Wolf could not give him an answer. It was a problem that every family dreaded.

Just as BEC's work had provided an answer to the old question of denying humanity, it also provided a definition of old age. Life expectancy was still about a century for most people; fertile, healthy years spent in peak physical condition. Then one day the brain lost its power to follow the profile of the biofeedback regimes. Rapid physical and mental decline followed, each reinforcing the other. Most people chose to visit the Euth Club as soon as they realized what was happening. An unfortunate few, afraid of the unknowns of death, rode the roller coaster all the way down.

La.r.s.en finally broke the silence. "You know, Bey, I've never seen old age before. Can you imagine what it must have been like when half the world was old? Losing hair and teeth and eyesight and hearing." He shuddered. "A couple of hundred years ago, I suppose it was all like that. How could they stand it?

Why didn't they become insane?"

Wolf looked at him closely. With a difficult time coming at Central Hospital, he had to be sure that La.r.s.en was up to it.

"They had a different att.i.tude in those days, John," he said. "Aging used to be considered as normal, not as a degenerative disease. In fact, some of the signs used to be thought of as a.s.sets-proof of experience. Imagine living a couple of hundred years before that, if you really want to scare yourself.

Life expectancy in the thirties-and no anesthetics, no decent painkillers, and no decent surgery."

"Sure, but somehow you can't really think of it. You only really know it when you see it for yourself. It's like being told that in the old days people lived their whole lives blind, or with a congenital heart defect, or missing a limb. You don't question it, but you can't imagine what it must have been like."

They moved on, and finally Wolf spoke again.

"Not just physical problems, either. If your body and appearance were fixed at birth, think how many emotional and s.e.xual problems you might have."

The outline of Central Hospital was looming again before them. They left the slide ways and stood together in front of the ma.s.sive granite columns bordering the main entrance. Each time they entered, it seemed that old fearswere stirred. Both men had taken the humanity tests here, although of course they had been too young to have any memory of it. This time it was La.r.s.en who finally took Wolf by the arm and moved them forward.

"Come on, Bey," he said, "they won't test us again. But I'm not sure you'd pa.s.s if they did. A lot of people in Form Control say part of you isn't human.

Where did you get the knack of sniffing out the forbidden forms the way you do? They all ask me, and I never have a good answer."

Wolf looked hard at La.r.s.en before he at last relaxed and laughed. "They could do it as well as I can if they used the same methods and worked at it as hard.

I look for peculiarities-in the way people look or the way they sound and dress and move and smell-anything that doesn't fit. After a few years it gets to be subconscious evaluation. I sometimes couldn't tell you what the giveaway was on a forbidden form. I'd have to give it a lot of thought, after the fact."

They were through the great studded doors. The same receptionist was on duty.

He greeted them cheerfully.

"You two seem to have caught Dr. Capman's fancy. He gave me this code for you.

You can use it anywhere in the hospital-he said you would need it when you got here."

He smiled and handed an eight-digit dial code to Wolf, who looked at La.r.s.en in surprise.

"John, did you call and say we were coming?"

"No. Did you?"

"Of course not. So how the devil did he-"

Wolf broke off and walked quickly to a wall query point. He entered the code, and a brief message at once flashed onto the viewing screen.

MR. WOLF AND MR. La.r.s.eN ARE TO BE GIVEN ACCESS TO ALL UNITS OF THE HOSPITAL.

ALL STAFF ARE REQUESTED TO COOPERATE FULLY WITH OFFICE OF FORM CONTROL.

INVESTIGATIONS. BY ORDER OF THE DIRECTOR, ROBERT CAPMAN.

La.r.s.en frowned in bewilderment. "He can't have known we'd be here. We only decided it half an hour ago."

Wolf was already walking toward the elevator. "Believe it or not, John, he knew. We'll find out how some other time. Come on."

As they were about to enter the elevator, they were met by Dr. Morris, who burst at once into excited speech. "What's going on here? Capman canceled all his appointments for today, just half an hour ago. He told me to wait here for you. It's completely unprecedented."

Wolf's eyes were restless and troubled. "We don't have time to explain now, but we need help. Where is Capman's private lab? It's somewhere on this floor, right?"