01. Midnight At the Well of Souls (46 page)

They said nothing for several seconds. Then, quietly, Ortega responded, "I'm not sure I believe all this. I've been a Catholic all my life, but somehow God to me has never been a little spunky Jew named Nathan Brazil. But, assuming what you say is true—which I don't necessarily accept—why haven't you scrapped everything and started again? And why continue to live our grubby little lives?"

"As long as that spark is present, I'll let things run, Serge," Brazil replied. "That random factor I talked about. Only when it's gone will I go, give up, maybe try again—maybe, finally die. I'd like to die, Serge—but if I do I take everything with me. Not just you, everybody and everything, for I stabilize the universal equation. And you are all my children, and I
care.
I can't do it as long as that spark remains, for as long as it remains you are not only the worst, but the best of me."

The
thump, thump, thump
continued, the only sound in the room.

"I don't think you're God, Nate," Ortega replied evenly. "I think you're crazy. Anybody would be, living this long. I think you're a Markovian throwback, crazy after a billion years of being cut off from your own kind. If you was God, why don't you just wave your tentacles or something and get what you want? Why all this journey, and pain, and torment?"

"Varnett?" Brazil called. "You want to explain it mathematically?"

"I'm not sure I don't agree with Ortega," Varnett replied carefully. "Not that it makes much difference from a practical point of view. However, I see what you're driving at. It's the same dilemma we face at that control board, there.

"Let's say we let Skander do what he wants, abolish the Comworlds," the boy continued. "Let's say Brazil, here, shows him exactly how to do it, just what to press and in what sequence and in what order. But the Com concept and the Comworlds developed according to the normal human flow of social evolution, right or wrong. They are caused by countless past historical events, conditions, ideas. You can't just banish them; you've got to change the equation so that they never developed. You have to change the whole human equation, all the past events that led to their formation. The new line you created would be a completely different construct, things as they would be without any of the crucial points that created the Coms. Maybe it was an outlet. Maybe, bad as it was, it was the only outlet. Maybe man would have destroyed himself if just one of those factors wasn't there. Maybe what we'd have is something worse."

"Exactly," Brazil agreed. "For anything major you have to change the past, the whole structure. Nothing just vanishes. Nothing just appears. We are the sum of our past, good as well as bad."

"So what do we do?" wailed Skander. "What can we do?"

"A few things can be done," Brazil replied calmly. "You—most of you—sought power. Well,
this
is power!" With that the Markovian moved toward the control panel.

"My God! He's going in there!" Skander screamed. "Shoot, you fools!" The Umiau fired its pistol at the Markovian. In a second, the others followed, pouring a concentrated energy pulse into the mass sufficient to disintegrate a building.

The Markovian creature stopped, but seemed to absorb the energy. They poured it into him, all of them, even Wuju, with great accuracy.

He was still there.

The Diviner's lights blinked rapidly, and searing bolts shot out, striking the Markovian body. There was a glow, surrounding the creature in stark outline, and then it faded.

Brazil was still there.

They stopped firing.

"I told you you couldn't hurt me," Brazil said. "None of you can hurt me."

"Bullshit!" Ortega spat. "Your body was torn to ribbons in Murithel! Why wasn't this one?"

"Of course! Of course!" Skander exclaimed excitedly. "This body is a direct construct of the Markovian brain, you fools! The brain won't allow it to be harmed, since it's really part of the brain itself!"

"Quite so," Brazil responded. "Nor, in fact, do I have to go in there at all. I can instruct the brain from right here. I've been able to do that since we first entered the Well itself. I merely wanted to give you a demonstration."

"It would seem that we are at your mercy, Markovian," The Rel said. "What is your intention?"

"I can affect things for anyplace from here," Brazil told them. "I merely feed the data into the brain through this control room, and that's that. It's true there's a control room for each type, but they are all-purpose, in case of problems, overcrowding when we built the place, and so on. Any control room can be switched to any pattern."

"But you said—" Ortega started to protest.

"In the words of Serge Ortega," Brazil replied, a hint of amusement in his voice, "I lied."

Wuju broke from them and ran up to him, and prostrated herself in front of him, trembling. "Please! Please don't hurt us," she pleaded.

There was infinite compassion in his voice. "I'm not going to hurt you, Wuju. I'm the same Nathan Brazil you knew from the start of this mess. I haven't changed, except physically. I've done nothing to you, nothing to deserve this. You know I wouldn't hurt you. I couldn't." The tone changed to one not of bitterness, but of deep hurt and agony, mixed with the loneliness of unimaginable lifetimes.
"I
didn't shoot at
you,
Wuju," it said.

She started crying; deep, uncontrollable sobs wracked her. "Oh, my god, Nathan! I'm so sorry! I failed you! Instead of trust, I gave you fear! Oh, god! I'm so ashamed! I just want to die!" she wailed.

Vardia came over to her, tried to comfort her. She pushed the girl away.

"I hope you're satisfied!" Vardia spat at him. "I hope you're pleased with yourself! Do anything you want to me for saying this, but don't torture her anymore!"

Brazil sighed. "No one can torture someone like that," he replied gently. "Like me, you can only torture yourself. Welcome to the broader human race, Vardia. You showed compassion, disregard for yourself, concern for another. That would have been unthinkable in the old Vardia. If none of you can still understand, I intend to do something
for
you, not
to
you. For the most part, anyway." He angled to address all of them.

"You're not perfect, none of you. Perfection is the
object
of the experiment, not the component. Don't torture yourself, run away from your fears. Face them! Stand up to them! Fight them with goodness, mercy, charity, compassion! Lick them!"

"We are the sum of our ancestral and actual past," The Rel reminded him. "What you ask may indeed be possible, but the well of fate has accented our flaws. Is it reasonable to expect us to live by such rules, when we find it difficult even to comprehend them?"

"You can only try," Brazil told it. "There is a greatness in that, too."

The
thump, thump, thump
continued.

"What is that noise?" Ortega asked, ever the practical man.

"The Well circuits are open to the brain," Brazil replied. "It's awaiting instructions."

"And what will those instructions be?" Varnett asked nervously.

"I must make some repairs and adjustments to the brain," Brazil explained. "A few slight things, so that no one can accidentally discover the keying equation again. I'm not sure I'd like to go through this exercise again—and, if I did, there's no guarantee that some new person might not take that chance, damage the structure, do irreparable harm to trillions who never had a chance. But, just in case, the Well Access Gate will be reset to respond only to me. Also more of an insurance factor has to be added, to summon me if things go wrong."

Skander gave an amazed chuckle. "That's
all?"
he said, relieved.

"It is most satisfactory to me," The Rel pronounced. "We were concerned only that nothing be disturbed. For a short while there, we lost sight of that—but we are back in control of ourselves again."

"Very minor adjustments are possible without disturbing anything," Brazil told them. "I can't do anything grandiose without upsetting a few things. I will, however, do some minor adjustments. For one thing, I am going to make sure that nothing like the Ambreza gas that reduced Type Forty-one humans on this world to apes will pass again, and I'm going to slap some local controls on technological growth and development, so that such an adjustment won't be necessary again, not here.

"And, because I can't bear to see them like that, I'm going to introduce a compound to the Type Forty-one atmosphere that will break the gas molecules down into harmless substances, while at the same time I'm going to make it a nontechnological hex absolutely. I don't know what they'll come up with, but I'll bet it's better than their current lot."

"What about us?" Hain asked.

"I will not change what you are inside," Brazil told them. "If I do that, you will not have lived at all. To do anything otherwise would be to invite paradox, and that might mess up everything. Thus, I have to deal with you as you are."

Brazil seemed to think for a moment, then said, in a voice that sounded as if it came from thunder, "Elkinos Skander! You wanted to save the human race, but, in the process, you became inhuman yourself. When the end justifies
any
means, you are no better, perhaps worse, than those you despise. There are seven bodies back on Dalgonia. Seven human beings who died trusting you, helping you, who were victims of your own lust for power. I can't forget them. And, if I alter the time line, bring them back, then all this didn't happen. I pity you, Skander, for what you are, for what you could have become. My instructions to the brain are justice as a product of the past."

Skander yelled, "It wasn't me! It was Varnett! I wanted to save the worlds! I wanted—"

And suddenly Skander wasn't there anymore.

"Where did it go?" The Rel asked.

"To a world suited for him as he is, in a form suited to justice," Brazil responded. "He
might
be happy there, he might find justice. Let him go to his fate."

Brazil paused a moment, then that huge voice came back. "Datham Hain!" it called. "You are the product of a horrible life. Born in contagion, you spread it."

"I never had a chance except the way I took!" Hain shouted defiantly. "You know that!"

"Most products of a bad environment turn out worse," Brazil admitted. "And yet, some of the greatest human beings came out of such miserable lots and conquered them. You didn't, yet you had the intelligence and potential to do so. Today, you stand as a contagion. I pity you, Hain, and because I pity you I will give you a localized wish."

Hain grew slightly larger, her black color turning to white. She saw it in the fur on her forelegs.

"You turned me noble!" she exclaimed, pleased and relieved.

"You're the most beautiful breeder in the kingdom of the Akkafians," Brazil said. "When I return you to the palace, you won't be recognized. You'll be at the start of a breeding cycle. The Baron Azkfru will see you and go mad with desire. You will be his brood queen, and bear his royal young. That is your new destiny, Hain. Satisfied?"

"It is all that I could hope for," Hain replied, and vanished.

Wuju looked at Brazil, a furious expression on her face. "You gave that son of a bitch
that?
How could you reward that—that monster?"

"Hain gets the wish, but it's not a reward, Wuju," Brazil replied. "You see, they withheld from their newcomer one fact of Akkafian life. Most Marklings are sterile, and they do the work. A few are raised as breeders. A breeder hatches a hundred or more young—but they hatch
inside
the mother's body and eat their way out, using the breeder's body for their food."

Wuju started to say something, then formed a simple,
"Ooooh,"
as the horror of Hain's destiny hit her.

"Slelcronian!" Brazil pronounced. "You present me with a problem. I don't like your little civilization personally, and I don't like you much, either. I've adjusted things slightly, so the Recorders now only work with Slelcronians, not with any sentient plant. But you, personally—you're a problem. You're too dangerous to be let loose in the technology of Czill; you know too much. At the same time, you know too much of what is here to go back to Slelcron. It occurs to me, however, that you've really not altered the expedition in any significant way. If you had
not
taken over Vardia, nothing would have changed. Therefore, you didn't—and, in fact, couldn't."

Nothing seemed to change, but there was a difference in the Czillian body.

"So what are you going to do with me and my sister?" Vardia the Czillian asked. As far as everyone in the room was concerned, except for Brazil, the Slelcronian takeover had never happened. Slelcron was merely the funny place of the flowers and the giant bees, and their passage had been uneventful. Even so, the human Vardia had found her sister the Czillian as cold as the Slelcronian had been. She had gone through the same mental anguish as she had before and felt alienated from her sister.

Everything was as it had been before.

"Vardia, you are your old self, and no longer your sister," Brazil pointed out. "I think you'd be happiest returning to Czill, to the Center. You've much to contribute, to tell this story the way it happened. They won't be able to make use of what you say to get in, but it may cause the thinkers there to consider what projects are really worthwhile.
Go!"
 

She vanished.

Now only Brazil, The Diviner and The Rel, Varnett, Wu Julee, Ortega, and the original Vardia were left.

"Diviner and Rel," Brazil said, "your race intrigues me. Bisexual, two totally different forms which mate into one organism, one of which has the power and the other the sensory input and output. You're a good people, with a lot of potential. Perhaps you can carry the message and reach that plateau."

"You're sending us back, then?" The Rel asked.

"No," Brazil replied. "Not to the hex. Your race is on the verge of expanding outward in its sector. It is near the turning point where questions of goals are asked. I'm sending you to your own people on their world with the message I gave you here. The Diviner's gift will distinguish you. Perhaps you can turn your people, perhaps not. It's up to you. Go!"