01. Midnight At the Well of Souls (33 page)

As he uttered the last word, all the meters fell to zero and the screens all showed a cessation of life.

As if on command, the body had died.

Brazil turned and walked out without another word, leaving Bat more confused than ever.

* * *

"There's no question that Skander solved the riddle," the Czillian project chief, whose name was Manito, told Brazil and Cousin Bat. "Unfortunately, he kept the really key findings to himself and was very careful to wipe the computer when he was through. The only stuff we have is what was in when he and Vardia were kidnapped."

"What was the major thrust of his research?" Brazil asked.

"He was obsessed with our collection of folklore and legends. Worked mostly with those, and keying in the common phrase:
Until midnight at the Well of Souls."
 

Brazil nodded. "That's safe enough," he replied. "But you say he dropped that line of inquiry when he returned?"

"Shortly after," the Czillian replied. "He said it was the wrong direction and started researching the Equatorial Barrier."

Brazil sighed. "That's bad. That means he's probably figured the whole thing out."

"You talk as if you know the answer, too," the project chief commented. "I don't see how. I have all the raw data Skander did and I can't make sense of it."

"That's because you have a puzzle with millions of pieces, but no concept of the size and shape of the puzzle even to start putting things together," Brazil told her—he insisted on thinking of all life forms that could do the act of reproducing, growing a new being, as she. "Skander, after all, had the basic equation. There's no way you can get that here."

"I can't understand why you let him use you so," Bat put in. "You—both races—gave him a hundred percent protection, cooperation, and access to all the tools he needed without getting anything in return."

The Czilian shook her head sadly. "We thought we were in control. After all, he was a Umiau. He couldn't exist outside his own ocean because he couldn't travel beyond it. And there was, after all, the other—the one who disappeared. He was a mathematician. Whose data banks was he consulting? Was he brilliant enough not to need them? We couldn't afford
not
to back Skander!"

"Any idea where they are?" Brazil asked.

"Oh, yes, we know where they are—fat lot of good it does us. They are currently being held captive in a nation of robots called, simply enough, The Nation. We received word that they were there, and, since we have a few informational trades with The Nation, we pulled in all our IOU's to hold them there as long as possible."

Brazil was suddenly excited. "Are they still there? Can we get them out?"

"Yes, they're still there," Manito replied, "but not for long. There's been hell to pay from the Akkafians. Their ambassador, a Baron Azkfru, has threatened to bomb as much of The Nation as he can—and he can do a good deal of damage if that's all he's out for. That's the line. They'll be released today."

"Who's in the party?" Bat asked. "If it's weak enough we might be able to do something yet."

"We've thought of that already," the Czillian responded. "Nothing that wouldn't get our person killed along with the rest. Aside from Vardia and Skander, there's an Akkafian—they are huge insects with great speed, the ability to fly, and nasty stingers, and they eat live prey—named Mar Hain, and a weird Northerner we know little about called The Diviner and The Rel. If they're one or two I can't find out."

"Hain!" Brazil exclaimed. "Of course, it would be. That son of a bitch would be in the middle of anything dirty."

"You know this Hain?" Bat asked curiously.

Brazil nodded. "The gang's all here, it looks like." He turned to Manito suddenly. "Did you bring the atlas I asked for?"

"I did," the Czillian replied, and lifted a huge book onto a table. Brazil walked over to it and flipped it open with his nose, then started turning pages with his broad tongue. Finally he found the Southern Hemisphere map and studied it intently. "Damned nuisance," he said. "Antelope don't need very good vision."

"I can help," the Cziillian said, and walked toward the stag. "It is in Czillian, anyway, which you can't read."

Brazil shook his head idly from side to side. "It's all right. I see where we are now, and where
they
are. We're about even—two hexes up on this side to the Ghlmon Hex at the northern tip of the ocean. They've gotten two up the eastern side of the same ocean to pretty much the same spot."

"How can you possibly know that?" the Czillian blurted out, stunned. "Have you been here before? I thought—"

"No," Brazil replied. "Not
here."
He flipped a few more pages, studying a close-up map of a particular hex. Then he flipped again, studied another, then to yet another. All in all, he carefully examined five hexes. Suddenly he looked up at the confused Czillian.

"Can you get me in touch with some Umiau big shot?" he asked. "They owe us something for Skander. They've got Slelcron, which is a nontech hex and so is fine from our point of view, and Ekh'l, which could be anything at all these days. We've got Ivrom, which I don't like at all, but there's no way around it, and Alisstl, which will make Murithel look like a picnic. We can contend with Ivrom, I hope, but if we went through the Umiau hex, on a boat of some kind, we could avoid the nasty one and maybe even gain some time on the others. If they stick near the coast—and I think they will, because those are the best roads by far—we might just beat them there and intercept them here," he pointed with his nose to the map, "at the northern tip of the bay here, in Ghlmon."

"Just out of curiosity," Bat said, "you said that the Umiau were warned the first time about a kidnap try on Skander. Now, you said you heard they were in The Nation. Who told you those things?"

"Why, we don't know!" the Czillian answered. "They came as, well, tips, passed in common printer-machine type in our respective languages, to our ambassadors at Zone."

"Yes," Bat persisted, "but who sent them? Is there a third set of players in the race?"

"I was hoping
you
could tell me that," Brazil said flatly.

Bat's eyes widened. "Me? All right, I admit I knew who you were back in Dillia, and that I joined you on purpose. But I don't represent anyone except myself and the interests of my people. We got word the same way the Czillians and Umiau did, at Zone. Said where you'd be, approximately when, and that you were going after Skander and Varnett. We couldn't find who sent it, but it was decided that we had a stake in the outcome. I was elected, because I've done more traveling than most of my people. But—me? The third party? No, Brazil, I admit only to not being truthful with you. Surely by now you know that I'm on your side—all the way."

"That's too bad," Brazil replied. "I would very much like to know our mysterious helper, and how he gets his information."

"Well, he seems to be on our side," Bat said optimistically.

"Nobody's on any side but his own," Brazil snapped back. "Not you, not me, not anybody. We're going to have a tough enough time just dealing with the Skander party. I don't want to reach the goal of this chase and have our helpful third party finish off the survivors."

"Then you propose to give chase?" the Czillian asked stupidly.

"Of course! That's what all this is about. One last question—can you tell me the last major problem Skander fed to the computer?"

"Why, yes, I think so," the Czillian replied nervously. She rummaged through some papers, coming up with two. "He asked two, in fact. One was the number of Entries into hexes bordering the Equatorial Zone, both sides."

"And the answer?"

"Why, none on record. Most curious. They're not true hexes anyway, you know. Since the Equatorial Barrier splits them neatly in half, they are two adjoining half-hexes, each side—therefore, twice as wide as a normal hex and half the distance north and south, with flat equatorial borders."

"What was the second question?" Brazil asked impatiently.

"Oh, ah, whether the number six had any special relation to the Equatorial Zone hexes in geography, biology, or the like."

"And the answer?"

"Still in the computer when the unfortunate, ah, incident occurred. We did, of course, get the answer, even though it was on a printout which the kidnappers apparently took with them. The material was still in storage, and so we got another copy."

"What did it say?" Brazil asked in an irritated tone.

"Oh, ah, that six of the double half-hexes, so to speak, were split by a very deep inlet all the way up to the zone barrier, evenly spaced around the planet so that, if you drew a line from zone to zone through each of the inlets, you'd split the planet into absolutely equal sixths."

"Son of a bitch!" Brazil swore. "He's got the whole answer! Nothing will ever surprise me again!"

At that moment another Czillian entered the room and looked at the bat and the stag confusedly. Finally she picked the bat and said, shyly, "Captain Brazil?"

"Not me," Bat replied casually, and pointed a bony wing at the stag. "Him."

She turned and looked at the creature that was so obviously an animal. "I don't believe it!" she said the way everyone did. Finally she decided she might believe it and went over to the great Murithel antelope, and repeated, "Captain Brazil?"

"Yes?" he answered pleasantly, curious in the extreme.
Captain
Brazil?

"Oh," she responded softly, "I—I realize I've changed a great deal, but nothing like
you.
Wow!"

"Well, who are—um, that is, who
were
you?" he asked, intrigued.

"Why, I'm Vardia, Captain," she replied.

"But Vardia was kidnapped by the bugs!" Bat exclaimed.

"I know," she replied. "That's what's really upset me."

A ROAD IN THE NATION

"Quarantine, hell!" Skander grumbled, strapped in again atop Hain's back, irritated by the yellowish atmosphere and the discomfort of the breathing apparatus. Her voice was so muffled by the mask that none could understand a word.

"Stop grumbling, Skander," the Rel responded. "You waste air and can't be understood by anybody but me anyway. You are quite right, though—we've been stalled."

Vardia, whose head and vocal mechanism were not related in any way to her respiratory system, asked, "Who could be responsible? Who knew we were here, would be staying at that particular hotel? Perhaps our people have tracked you down." There was hope in her voice.

"Don't get yourself that excited, Czillian," The Rel replied. "As you can see, the delaying action slowed us but did not stop or deter us—nor did it liberate you. No, this smells of darker stuff. Of the one who planted the hidden listening device in the baron's office at Zone and prevented our escapade weeks earlier."

This was the first Vardia had heard of that incident, and it made her think back to the many things that had happened to her. That distress signal where one could not have been operating. The vanishing of the two shuttlecraft on Dalgonia, and the disappearance of their lifeboat. The opening of the Well Gate only after they were all securely in it. Captain Brazil's firm belief that he was being suckered by someone.

That strange snakeman, Ortega. Over seven hundred chances, and Brazil is met by the only person at Zone who knew him. Coincidence?

She suddenly felt furious, thinking of all of it in detail. Someone
was
using her—using all of them—moving them like pieces in a game.

What about the hex assignments? Skander to a place where she had all the tools at her disposal, corrupting a peaceful people in the process. She to the hex next door, assigned—actually
assigned!—
to
work with Skander and kidnapped with her. By whom? Someone working for that bastard Datham Hain!

And Captain Brazil! She had gotten the word when Brazil had entered Zone, looking exactly the same as he had before. Why didn't the Gate change him? And that pathetic little addict—dumped into a hex almost perfect for getting back to being human without pressures. Brazil had been hung up on her, she recalled. Probably they were together now.

Why? she wondered. Sex? That was something the animals did, she told herself. She had never understood it, or why people liked it; and if her own twinning was any indication, it was a most unpleasant experience. Why was a distinguished, high-ranking person of such a responsible position as Captain Brazil willing to jeopardize his career and his life for the sake of some wasted girl he never knew—didn't know, in fact, even through Zone? Even if he had saved her, she wouldn't have contributed anything. She was practically an animal then. More sense to get her to a Death Factory where her remains would help fertilize a field.

Perhaps this was why the Com philosophy was developing and spreading, she thought. It was rational, planned. Like being a plant, or one of these robots. Even Hain's dirty crew couldn't stop the march of such perfection of order, she felt sure. The sane hexes here proved it.

"We will have better service, and a shorter stay, at other hotels," The Rel informed them, breaking Vardia's reverie. "I think we will be out of this place where we are so unpopular in two days. Slelcron will be no faster but easier. No one communicates with the Slelcron. We will be ignored but unimpeded. As for Ekh'l—well, I have no information there, but I feel confident that, no matter what happens, we will not be beaten."

"You seem pretty sure of yourself," Vardia commented. "More prophecy from The Diviner?"

"Logic," The Rel replied. "We were impeded for someone's purpose. Why? To what end? So they can beat us to the equator? I doubt it. It would be easier to kill us than detain us so. No, they will have to come out to us at the equator. They want to be there when we arrive because they know who and where we are, but not what Dr. Skander knows—how to get to the Well. They want in with us—indeed, they may be allies, since they will assuredly take steps to see that no one else beats us to the goal. And make no mistake about it, there is another expedition. The Diviner has said that we will not enter until all the recent Entries combine. That is fine—as long as we are in charge."