Proteus in the Underworld

In the 22nd century biofeedback techniques to control by will the processes of one's own body have reached their ultimate expression: the ability to transform the body into virtually any viable form whatsoever. What began as an innocent technique to reduce anxiety without recourse to drugs has raised fundamental questions about what it is to be human, since form is no longer sufficient nor even relevant. Enter the Humanity Test: in a future when other techniques can change the forms of animals, so far it has been a guaranteed one hundred percent successful means of determining whether a life form started out as human. But now strange life forms, vicious and bestial, are proliferating throughout the Solar System. They are clearly not human, and clearly their nervous systems are too underdeveloped for them to have been human. But though the beasts threaten havoc and death to all the far flung isolated stations, the simple solution of shooting the varmints is impossible: for life forms that according to the Humanity Test started out human the law is very clear: Thou Shalt Not Kill.

About the Author :
Charles Sheffield (1935 - 2002) Charles Sheffield, born in the UK in 1935, graduated from St John's College Cambridge with a Double First in Mathematics and Physics. Moving to the USA in the mid 1960's, he began working in the field of particle physics which lead to a consultancy with NASA and landed him the position of chief scientist at the Earth Satellite Corporation. Best known for writing hard SF, his career as a successful science fiction writer began in response to his grief over the loss of his first wife to cancer in 1977; Sheffield has been awarded both the Hugo and Nebula for his work and won the 1992 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel for Brother to Dragons.. He also served as President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America between 1984 and 1986. For more information see www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/sheffield_charles