01. Midnight At the Well of Souls (49 page)

"Stop that giggling!" the man commanded, but it sounded so funny she giggled more.

The downstairs was a bar, some sawdust on the floor, a few round tables, and a small service bar to one side. It was dimly lit, and empty.

"Oh, hell," he said, almost sadly, reaching into a cash drawer behind the bar. "You ain't even earned your keep here, and you burned your clothes on the last flyer. Here—fifty
reals,"
he continued, stuffing a few bills in the lace panty. "When you come to out in the street or the woods or the sheriff's office, buy some clothes and a ticket out. I've had it!"

He picked her up as if she weighed nothing, and, opening the door with one hand, tossed her rudely into the darkening street. The chilly air and the hard landing brought her down a bit, and she looked around, feeling lost and alone.

She suddenly didn't want to be seen. Although there were few people about, there were some nearby who would see her in a few moments. She saw a dark alleyway between the bar and a store and crawled into it. It was very dark and cold, and smelled a little of old garbage. But at least she was concealed.

Suddenly the streetlights popped on, and deepened the shadows in which she sat confused. The shock of where she was and her situation broke through into her conscious mind. She was still high, and her body still tingled, particularly when rubbed. She still wanted to rub it, but she was aware of her circumstances.

I'm alone in a crazy place I don't know, practically nude and with the temperature dropping fast, she thought miserably. How much worse can things get?

As if in answer, there was a rumbling and a series of static discharges, and the temperature dropped even more.

Tears welled up in her eyes, and she started crying at the helplessness of her position. She had never been more miserable in her life.

A man was crossing the street, walking toward the bar. He stopped suddenly. Lightning flashed, illuminating her for a brief moment. He looked puzzled, and came toward the alley. She was folded up, arms around her knees, head down against them. She rocked as she cried.

He saw her and stared in disbelief. Now what the hell? he thought

He reached out and touched her bare shoulder, and she started, looked up at him, saw the concern on his face.

"What's the matter, little lady?" he asked gently.

She looked up with anguished face and started to speak, but couldn't.

She was, even in this state, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

"Nothing's that bad," he tried to soothe her. "Where do you live? I'll take you home. You're not hurt, are you?"

She shook her head negatively, and coughed a little. "No, no," she managed. "Don't have a home. Thrown out."

He squatted next to her. The lightning and thunder continued, but the rain held off still.

"Come on with me, then," he said in that same soft tone. "I've got a place just down the road. Nobody there but me. You can stay until you decide what to do."

Her head shook in confusion. She didn't know what to do. Could she trust him? Dare she take this opportunity?

A strange, distant voice whispered in her brain. It said,
"Can you feel it? Fear, greed, horror, ambition, burning within you, consuming 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. . . ."
 

And trust? she wondered suddenly. Oh, hell! What have I got to lose if I go? What do I have if I don't?

"I'll go," she said softly. He helped her up, gently, carefully, and brushed the dirt off her. He's very big, she realized. I only come up to his neck.

"Come on," he urged, and took her hand.

She hesitated. "I don't want—want to go out there looking like this," she said nervously.

"There's nothing wrong with the way you look," he replied in a tone that had nothing if not sincerity. "Nothing at all. Besides, the storm's about to break, I think. Most folks will stay inside."

Again she looked uncertain. "What about us?" she asked. "Won't we get wet?"

"There's shelter along the way," he said casually. "Besides, a little water won't hurt."

She let him lead her down the deserted street of the town and out into the countryside. The storm continued to be visual and audible, but not as yet wet. The landscape seemed eerie, illuminated in the flashes.

The temperature had dropped from about fifteen degrees Celsius to around eight degrees due to the storm. She shivered.

He looked at her, concerned, feeling the tremors in her hand.

"Want my shirt?" he asked.

"But then you'll be cold," she protested.

"I like cold weather," he responded, taking off his shirt. His broad, muscled, hairy chest reactivated those funny feelings in her again. Carefully he draped the shirt around her. It fit her like a circus tent, but it felt warm and good.

She didn't know what to say, and something, some impulse, caused her to lean into him and put her arm around his bare chest. He responded by putting his arm around her, and they resumed walking.

Somehow it felt good, calming, and her anxieties seemed to flee. She looked up at him. "What's your name?" she asked in a tone of voice she didn't quite comprehend, but was connected, somehow, in its throaty softness to those strange feelings.

"W—" he started to say, then said, instead, "Kally Tonge. I have a farm not much farther down the road."

She noticed the bandage on the side of his head. "You're injured."

"It's nothing—now," he replied, and chuckled. "As a matter of fact, you're just what the doctor ordered—literally. He said somebody should be with me through the night."

"Does it hurt much?" she asked.

"Not now," he replied. "Medicine's pretty advanced here, although as you know the place is rather primitive overall."

"I really don't know much about this world," she replied truthfully. "I'm not from here."

"I could have guessed that," he said lightly. "Where
do
you come from?"

"I don't think you've ever heard of it," she replied. "From nowhere now, really."

"What's
your
name?" he asked.

She started to say "Nova," the name the man had called her, but instead she said, "Vardia."

He stopped and looked at her strangely. "That's a Com name, isn't it?" he asked. "You're not from any Comworld!"

"Sort of," she replied enigmatically, "but I've changed a lot."

"On the Well World?" he asked sharply.

She gasped, a small sound of surprise escaping her lips. "You—you're one of the people from the Well!" she exclaimed. "You woke up in that body, as I did! That head wound killed Kally Tonge and you took over, as I did!"

"Twice when I needed someone you comforted me, even defended me," he said.

"Wuju!"
she exclaimed, and an amazed smile spread over her face. She looked him over critically. "My, how you've changed!"

"No more than you," he replied, shaking his head wonderingly.
"Wow!"
 

"But—but, why a man?" she asked.

His face grew serious. "I'll tell you sometime. But, good old Nathan! He sure came through!"

The storm broke, then, and the rain started coming down heavily.

They were both soaked through in seconds, and her fancy hairdo collapsed. He laughed, and she laughed, and he picked her up and started running in the mud. Just ahead he saw his shack, outlined in the lightning flashes, but he misjudged the turn to his walk with his burden. They both tumbled into
the road, splashing around and covered with thick black mud.

"You all right?" he shouted over the torrent.

"I'm drowning in mud!" she called back, and they both got up, laughing at each other.

"The barn's closer!" he shouted. "See it over there? Run for it!"

He started off, and she followed, the rain getting heavier and heavier. He reached the door way ahead of her, and slid it aside on its rollers. She reached it, and they both fell in. The place had an eerie, hollow sound, the rain beating on the sheet-metal roof and wood sides of the barn. It was dark, and smelled like the barn it was. A few cows mooed nervously in their stalls.

"Wooj?" she called.

"Here," he said, near her, and she turned.

"Might as well sit it out here," he told her. "There's a pile of hay over there, and it's a thousand meters to the shack. Might as well not go through the deluge twice."

"Okay," she replied, exhausted, and plopped into the hay. The rain continued to beat a percussion symphony on the barn.

He plopped beside her. She was fussing with her lace pants.

"The mud's all caked in them, and the sequins are scratching me," she said. "Might as well get them off, for all the good they'll do as clothing anyway, even if they are all I've got in the world."

She did, and they lay for a while side by side. He put his arm around her and fondled her breast.

"That feels good," she whispered. "Is—is that what I've been feeling? I thought it was still the pills. Is this what you felt with Brazil?"

"I'll be damned!" he said to himself. "I always wondered what an erection felt like to a man!" He turned and looked at her. "I'll show you what it's really like, if you want," he said softly.

"I—I think that's what he wanted," she replied.

"Is it what
you
want?" he asked seriously.

"I think I do," she whispered, and realized that it
was
what she wanted. "But I don't even know how."

"Leave that to an expert," he replied. "Although I'm not used to this end of things." He put both arms around her, kissed her and fondled her.

And he kicked off his pants, and showed her the other side of being a woman, while discovering himself what it was to be a man.

* * *

The rain was over. It had been over for a couple of hours, but they just lay there, content in the nearness of each other.

The door was still half-open, and Vardia, still dazed and dreamy from her first sexual experience, saw the clouds roll back and the stars appear. "We'll get you some clothes in the morning," he said at last. "Then we'll tour the farm. This rain should do everything good. I was born on a farm, you know, but not my own farm."

"People—non-Com people—they do that
every
day?" she asked.

He chuckled. "Twice if they're horny enough. Except for a couple of days each month."

"You—you've done it both ways," she said. "Is it different?"

"The feeling's definitely different, but it's the same charge," he replied. "An important part, male or female, is that you do it when you want with someone you want."

"Is that love?" she asked. "Is that what Brazil was talking about?"

"Not the sex," he replied. "That's just a—a component, as he would say. Without the object—without love, without feeling for the other person, without
caring,
it's not pleasant at all."

"That's why you're a man now," she said. "All the other times—they were the wrong kind, weren't they?"

"Yes," he replied distantly, and looked out at the stars. She clenched his hand tightly in hers.

"Do you think he was really God?" Vardia asked quietly.

"I don't know," he replied with a sigh. "What if he wasn't? When he was in the Well he had the power. He gave me my farm, a good, healthy young body, a new chance. And," he added softly, "he sent you."

She nodded. "I've never lived like this," she said. "Is it all as wonderful as tonight?"

"No," he replied seriously. "There's a lot of hard work, and pain, and heartache—but, if it all comes together, it
can
be beautiful."

"We'll try it here," she said resolutely. "And when the fun is gone, if ever, or when we're old and gray, we'll take off for a Markovian world, and go back and do it again. That's a good future."

"I think it is," he responded. "It's more than most people ever get."

"This world," she said. "It must never become like the others, like the Com. We must make sure of that."

At that moment there was a glow far beyond the horizon, and suddenly a bright arrow streaked upward in the dark sky and vanished. A few seconds later, a distant, roaring sound came to them.

"Poor Nathan," he said sadly. "He can do it for everyone but himself."

"I wonder where he is now?" she mused.

"I don't know what form he's in," he replied, "but I think I know where he is and what he's doing, and thinking, and feeling."

They continued to gaze at the stars.

ABOARD THE FREIGHTER
STEHEKIN

Nathan Brazil lay in the command chair on the bridge and gazed distantly at the fake starfield projected in the two window screens. He glanced over to the table atop the ancient computer.

That same pornographic novel was there, spread open to where he had last been reading it. He couldn't remember it at all, but, he reflected, it didn't matter. They were all alike anyway, and there was plenty of time to read it again.

He sighed and picked up the cargo manifest, idly flipping it open.

Cargo of grain, bound for Coriolanus,
it read.
No
passengers.
 

No passengers.

They were elsewhere now—the rotten ones in their own private hells, the good ones—and the potentially good—with their chances. He wondered whether their dreams were as sweet as they had imagined. Would they forget the lessons of the Well, or try for change?

In the end, of course, it didn't really matter.

Except to them.

He closed the manifest and threw it across the control room. It banged against the wall and landed askew on the floor. He sighed a long, sad sigh, a sigh for ages past and the ages yet to be.

The memories would fade, but the ache would remain.

For, whatever becomes of the others or of this little corner of the universe, he thought, I'm still Nathan Brazil, fifteen days out, bound for Coriolanus with a load of grain.