01. Midnight At the Well of Souls (26 page)

Skander opened her mouth but said nothing. The score was perfectly clear, except The Diviner and The Rel's role and side.

"That's all very well," Vardia said at last, "but won't these people think of that?"

"Oh, they will perform what is known as the double cross," The Rel replied casually in that same, even tone. "But The Diviner's talents are real. We will make it—all but one of us. We shall do this."

"Which one?" Skander asked quietly.

"I have no idea, and neither does The Diviner," replied The Rel. "Perhaps it's one of you, or the Akkafian. Perhaps it is we, for no Diviner can foretell its own demise."

They digested that awhile. Finally, Skander broke the new silence.

"You say you're not like us. But here you are, kidnapping me, trying for the same goal as all the other races would if they had the chance. Power is still the name of the game."

"You misunderstand us," The Rel said. "We have power. We have powers we choose not to reveal at this time. We have no wish to interfere in your petty goals, wars, sex, politics, or anything else. Our goal is simply to make certain that no one ever gets into that control center again."

"Well, so you say," Skander replied skeptically. "But the fact remains that, for now, you're our only hope of getting out of here and getting away from the bugs."

"Remember that!" The Rel said. "I am your only protection. And—oh, yes, for some additional measure of protection, I would suggest that Czillian Vardia change its name for the entire expedition, and that you both remember to use that different name. I will make certain that our companion does not know your identity, either."

"But why?" Vardia asked, particularly puzzled now. "Who is this companion?"

"A greatly changed and mentally preconditioned Datham Hain, the fat man of your party," The Rel told her. "It would be better if it did not know that one of our party knows everything about its past activities. Although a conditioned slave, deep down Hain is still Hain. I suggest you remember what it did to others before, what kind of person it is."

"Oh," was all she could manage. She thought for a moment. "Then I'll call myself Chon, which is a common name in Czill, and easy to remember and respond to."

"Very good," The Rel replied. "Remember it. We will leave as soon as possible. In the meantime, may I remind you of several facts. First, let me point out, Dr. Skander, that there is little water in this land. These people can move on the ground at close to ten kilometers per hour, up to twice that in the air; and they have nasty stingers. As for you, Czillian, move out of the sunlight, and you'll root. You know that. That lamp is all that keeps you awake. The light here is not intense enough on its own to keep you awake." And with that it glided out the door.

Skander beat her fist on the hard ground, and Vardia stayed still, but the message had been received and understood.

There was no escape.

MURITHEL—ONE HOUR FROM DAWN

WuJu had some trouble with the uneven, rocky ground, but they had managed to advance more than forty kilometers into the hex without meeting any of its dominant life form.

There was a flutter of wings and Cousin Bat landed just ahead of them. "There's a fairly good cave with rock cover a little farther up," the dark one whispered. "It's a good place to make camp. There's a small tribe of Murnies over on the other side of those trees, there, but they look like a hunting party, likely to stay on the plains and river basin."

Brazil and Wuju looked where the bat pointed, but could see nothing but pitch darkness.

Cousin Bat led the way up to the cave. It was already getting light when they approached it, and they lost no time at all in getting in. It was a good location, high up on the cliff atop some ancient rock slide. They could see for kilometers but, thanks to the shape of the rocks and boulders around the cave, could not be seen from the plain below. It was damp and had a small family of tiny, toadlike reptiles living there, but these were quickly chased. It wasn't all that deep a cave, but it would hide the three of them.

"I'll take the first watch," Brazil said. "Wuju's dead tired now, and you, Bat, have been flying around half the night. All I've been doing is riding."

They agreed, and he assured them he would call Wuju when he was too tired to carry on.

Brazil took a comfortable perch near the cave mouth and watched the sun rise.

Still light-headed over this air, he thought. It was obviously quite different in composition from what he was used to, although he had been through worse getting to Dillia from his own ill-fated Hex 41. Much richer in oxygen, lower in nitrogen, he decided. Well, the other two had gotten used to it and he would, too, in time.

The air was cool and crisp but not uncomfortable. Probably eighteen degrees Celsius, he thought, with high humidity. The threatened rainstorm still looked threatening, but hadn't materialized yet.

The sun was well over the distant mountains when he saw his first Murnies. There they were—a small bunch, less than a dozen, running with spears after a deerlike creature. They were over two meters high, he guessed, although it was hard to figure at a distance. They were almost rectangular, a uniform light green in color, very thin—incredibly so, for he almost lost ones that turned sideways. They were kind of lumpy, looking at the distance something like light-green painted bushes. Two arms, two legs—but they melted into a solid when one stood straight and still.

He was amazed that he could see some features from this far away. Their big yellow eyes must be larger than dinner plates, he thought, and those mouths—huge, they seemed to go completely across the body, exposing a reddish color when they were opened wide. And they had teeth—even from here he could see they were pointed daggers of white of a size to fit those mouths.

They were sloppy hunters, but eventually they cornered the brownish deer-thing, surrounded it, and speared it to death.

Don't they ever throw the spears? he wondered. Maybe those thin, wide arms couldn't get enough strength or balance.

As soon as the creature fell, they pounced upon it, ripping pieces of it and shoving it into their mouths, fighting each other to get extra bites. Those hands must have pretty good claws to tear like that, he thought.

In just a few minutes, they had finished off the entire deer-thing, which must have weighed at least 150 kilos, he guessed. They even ate the bones. When they finally picked up their spears and went off down the plains, there was no sign of the prey they had eaten except a torn-up patch of dirt and grass.

Seven days, he thought. At the rate we're going, seven days in
their
country. And that's if everything goes
right.
And there's bound to be lots more of them, a lot thicker group.

No problem alone, of course. Even easier with Cousin Bat, whoever he worked for.

Why the hell did I allow her to come along?
 

Why had he?

That act of courage in taking off her pressure helmet in Zone? Was that what he liked in her, deep down?

Pity, maybe. Certainly that had motivated him at the start.

Thinking back, he kept remembering how she had clung to him in Zone, looked to him for support, defying Hain even that close to the end.

What was love, anyway? he mused. She said it was
caring,
caring more about someone else than about yourself.

He leaned forward and thought a minute. Did he
really,
deep down, care if the Murnies got the bat? He realized he wouldn't shed a tear for the creature. Just one more in a long list of dead associations. Was he going to Czill because Vardia was kidnapped? No, he decided, luck of the draw, really. He was going to Czill because it was the only lead he had to Skander, and that project was—well, wasn't that caring?

What's it to me if Skander takes over and remolds the universe in his own crazy image? He had met a lot of nice people, happy people, old friends and new acquaintances, in his long life and here on the Well World. He cared about them, somehow, even though he knew deep down that, in a pinch, they probably wouldn't do the same for him. Maybe it's for that unknown one who would, he thought. Nathan Brazil, ever the optimist.

Had anybody ever cared?

He thought back, idly watching a much larger group of Murnies chasing a fair-sized herd of the deer-things. How many times had he been married, legally or socially? Twenty times? Thirty? Fifty? More?

More, he thought wonderingly. About every century. Some had been nice lookers, some real dogs. Two of them had even been men. Had any of them really
cared
about him?

Not one, he thought bitterly. Not one, deep down in their selfish little hearts. Lovers, hell. The only friends who hadn't betrayed him in some manner or the other were those who hadn't had the chance.

Would he really care if the Murnies ate
him
?

Just tired,
the centaur had said.
Tired of running, tired of jumping at every little noise.
 

I'm tired, too, he thought. Tired of running nowhere, tired of that tiny belief, often foresworn, that somewhere, somewhere, was someone who would
care.
 

If all that were true, why
did
he care about the Murnies? Why did he feel fear?

The wild ports, the happy drugs, the whores and dives, the endless hours alone on the bridge.

Why have I lived so long? he asked himself. Not aging wasn't enough. Most people didn't die of old age, anyway. Something else got them first.

Not him.

He had always survived. Banged up, bleeding, nearly dead thousands of times, and yet something in him would not let him die.

He remembered the Flying Dutchman suddenly, sailing the world's oceans with a ghost crew, alone but for one short leave every fifty years, doomed until a beautiful woman would love him so much that she would give up her life for him.

Who commands the Dutchman?
he asked the winds.

Who curses him to his fate?
 

It's psychology, he thought. The Dutchman, Diogenes—I'm all these people. It's why I'm different.

All those millions over the centuries who killed themselves when nobody cared. Not me, I'm cursed. I can't accept the universality of shallow self-interest.

That fellow from—what was the name of that country? England. Yes, England. Orwell. Wrote a book that said that a totalitarian society sustains itself by the basic selfishness of everybody. When the chips were down, his hero and heroine betrayed each other.

Everybody thought he was talking of the fears of a future totalitarian state, Brazil thought bitterly. He wasn't. He was talking about the people around him, in his own enlightened society.

You were too good for this dirty little world,
he had said, but he had stayed. Why? In failure?

Whose failure? he wondered, suddenly puzzled. He almost had the answer, but it slipped away.

There was movement in back of him and he jumped and jerked around.

Wuju came up to him slowly. He looked at her curiously, as if he had never seen her before. A chocolate brown girl with pointy ears welded to the working half of a brown Shetland pony. And yet it worked, he thought. Centaurs always looked somehow noble and beautiful.

"You should have called one of us," she said softly. "The sun's almost straight up. I thought you were asleep."

"No," he replied lazily. "Just thinking." He turned back to gaze over the valley, now seemingly swarming with Murnies and deer-things.

"About what?" she asked casually, starting to massage his neck and shoulders.

"Things I don't like to think about," he replied cryptically. "Things I hid away in little corners of my mind so they wouldn't bother me, although, like all ghosts, they haunt me even when I don't know it."

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "I do love you, Nathan," she whispered.

He got up and walked toward the back of the cave, patting her gently on her equine rump as he did so. There was a puzzled half-smile on his face, and he said, as he stretched out near Cousin Bat, in a voice so low it was really to himself, "Do you, Wuju? Do you, really?"

THE BARONY OF AZKFRU, AKKAFIAN EMPIRE

The baron was, if anything, more majestic than before, and Datham Hain was at her lowest ebb, at the brink of suicide from weeks now in the dung pits.

"You have your name back, now, Mar Hain," the baron pronounced in that godlike tone he had.

That was a small gesture, yet to Hain it was as momentous as being crowned supreme ruler of the galaxy, for it restored a measure of her self-respect. It also bound the Entry all the more to the baron, from whom all blessings flowed.

"I have now a task for you, of the utmost difficulty," the baron told her. "It will require loyalty and devotion, as well as all of your intelligence and cunning. If you fail me, you are lost forever; if you succeed, you shall sit beside me in an honored place as chief concubine of, not your baron, but at the very least the emperor, perhaps not only of this empire."

"You have but to instruct this humble slave and I will obey though there be no reward and the cost be my life," Hain groveled.

I'll bet,
the baron thought sarcastically. Once more he regretted having to trust such a one as this on so important a mission. Blast that Northerner! Yet, The Diviner had so far been a hundred percent correct on everything, and he dared not go against the creature, at least not until the final moments.

"Listen well, Mar Hain," the baron said carefully. "Soon you will meet three aliens. You will have a translation device implanted so that you can follow all conversations. Also, two of them are Entries, and may be able to communicate in the nontranslatable tongue of your old life—so it is better if you feign both ignorance and stupidity whenever possible.

"You will be going on a great journey together. Now, here is what you are to do . . ."

* * *

"Those filthy bugs!" Vardia, now calling herself Chon, exclaimed as they set her down on a road with the others and flew off, making irritating buzzing noises as they did so.