Shadow of the Well of Souls

Ogadon

There was no good place to house the Dillians in the Gekir coastal town of Port Saar, and since Erdomese, too, were basically unsuited for the network of steps and ladders which the catlike natives found no trouble at all, they set up a camp on the edge of town, along the road between the town proper and the port up at the Ogadon border.

The chief, in the tradition of her people, invited them all to the royal guest quarters and to a banquet, but Mavra explained some of the problems the others might have in attending. The governor seemed to understand and instead issued them something of far more value: a provincial conscription note, which was basically an account with local merchants that guaranteed that they would be paid by the local treasury.

As was common in many smaller port towns everywhere, businesses closed promptly at sunset, so they all took advantage of the conscription note in the couple of hours of sunlight remaining.

Port Saar was not the same sort of town as the big seaports they’d seen. Rather, it seemed more like the small rural market towns of much of Central and South America, minus electricity and modern conveniences.

Like their underwater neighbors, the Ogadon, Gekirs were basically carnivores, but nonetheless they spent a good deal of time on small- and medium-sized farms growing fresh fruits and vegetables for export to the railhead just inside Itus or by coastal ships to other nearby hexes. It was, one merchant noted, actually very practical; in the farming business the pickers and other help never ate the profits.

Although adding to and freshening their provisions was the main idea, Lori, with Mavra Chang’s permission, used some of the credit on Alowi, as Julian now insisted on being called. In fact, the few times Lori had slipped and said “Julian,” she hadn’t even responded, convincing him that wherever she was stuffing her past had absorbed even the memory of that name. In fact, it was becoming next to impossible not to think of her as a native-born Erdomese female.

He bought her a necklace she seemed to fancy, some sweet-smelling perfumes, and a set of combs that while clearly not designed for Erdomese, worked rather well on the hair and tail and in cleaning the short fur. There were also some nice-looking and modestly priced clips that were the right size for tail clips; Lori didn’t know and didn’t really want to know for whom or what they were actually intended.

At Mavra’s suggestion, they also looked at heavy coats, since they would be going into unknown climates and might well need them. There weren’t too many available for non-Gekir types and none that were really great fits, but a sufficient number of races were to one degree or another humanoid that even the Erdomese found rough fits. The Dillians, it appeared, had brought their own along, and Anne Marie insisted that she could alter the new coats to some degree to make them fit better.

They also finally met a Gekir male.

He was pretty easy to spot; thin, gaunt-looking, and smaller than a female, he was a sort of faded gray color all over except for his outsized lionlike snow white mane. He had a medium-length tail that ended in an explosive puff of white fur, further contrasting him with the tailless females. He also wore matching bracelets and anklets of a golden color with ornate designs in them and a large golden oval nose ring and appeared to be perfumed.

The people had overall been quite friendly, and so Lori couldn’t resist trying to strike up a conversation with him in the street.

“Your pardon, sir, but you are the first man we have seen since coming to Gekir, and I was just curious. I mean, it began to look like there were no men at all here.”

The Gekir seemed amused. “Oh, yes, there be a lot of us, only not nearly in the same numbers as women. The average be about fifteen women to one man. It be different where you come from, I suppose.”

“In some ways, yes, in others, no. In Erdom there are ten females for every male, but as you can see from my wife here, the men are larger, and because of the hand development and upper muscle strength, men run the affairs while the women run the household and bear and raise the children.”

“Huh! Think of that! Dunno if I’d like that or not! Got enough trouble just doin’ me male duties.”

It turned out that the males, smaller, far weaker, and fewer in number, ran nothing at all. They also tended to be uneducated and limited in what they could do. What they could do was have sex, apparently in nearly unlimited amounts, and they tended to do that essentially as a profession, often doing a “circuit of me regulars” and spending their time at those “regulars’ ” homes. They also performed services from shopping for busy women to baby-sitting and took little interest in much outside this life. If the male they met was as typical as he said he was, they liked it that way.

“See, all the time they likes us around, and once a month they needs us, so they keeps us pretty happy,” the Gekir male told him. The general feeling among the women, he explained in a low voice, was that men were stupid and incompetent except at the one thing they were needed for, and the men had a vested interest in maintaining those attitudes. “They even cook for us,” he told Lori. “Think we don’t know how.”

The male begged off further talk, since he had a “real important appointment just after sunset,” but he’d revealed enough.

In Gekir, the women ruled and the men were small and weak, considered inferior, and used entirely as sex objects. It was even more extreme than Erdom by a great deal, and it disturbed Lori almost as much as the reverse would have. It answered one of those nagging questions in a way he hadn’t wanted it answered.

The parallel seemed to be with many Earth insects. The black widow was obvious, but many male spiders existed only for one purpose and then died, not to mention male bees and many other examples. A lot of women he’d known back on Earth would have loved this kind of arrangement, but he wasn’t so sure. Was his distaste, though, just because he was now a man himself, or was it because the same offenses committed in reverse felt no more moral?

It was a question he pondered as they went back to the camp and set up to cook dinner as the sun went down. After determining that there were quite a number of things both Erdomese and Dillians could eat in common, Lori did not object to Alowi and Anne Marie preparing the meal, with him translating as needed. It did not in fact come out bad at all.

Mavra had remained in town, she said to talk to some people before her official dinner later that night. She told them that they should not wait for her and that they should get some sleep.

Alowi did the cleanup, then insisted on using her new combs and brushes to get the last vestiges of grime from Lori’s fur and tail, and he even allowed a little perfume to be used to cover the mild but remaining swamp odor.

The Dillians excused themselves and went off into the shorter, greener grass nearby and eventually seemed to lock themselves for sleep.

With his hand still bandaged and saying by occasional aches and sharp pains that it should remain so for a while longer, there wasn’t much for the Erdomese to do but try to sleep themselves. Alowi cuddled up close to him and was soon out cold; after the previous night with so little sleep she had to be exhausted. Still, Lori would have liked to have discussed the oddly different sexual balance of Gekir and perhaps talked about the old days, as they always had, but he couldn’t. Those conversations had been with Julian, and Julian, it appeared, no longer existed for all practical purposes.

He felt doubly guilty for that somehow. He’d treated her as less than a partner, all along driving home the division that must have raged within her no matter how much she suppressed it, and it had been his own stupid injuries that had caused the final break.

Nobody else had gotten even a scratch. Not even Jul—Alowi. Mister Macho had to leap before he looked, jump too fast, not notice an embankment. He had to be out first, since he was going to look out for the others. The poor, defenseless others. The girls.

Yeah, right.

Damn it!he thought, furious with himself. When the hell did I turn into every guy I ever loathed in high school?

It was not exactly the kind of grand commercial vessel that both the Dillians and the Erdomese had used to reach Itus. It was in fact small, low but with big masts, and had a central funnel so that it could be used under steam where possible. It was built for silence and speed, not for comfort and convenience, and for its ability to run with a minimal crew.

It was also painted a dull black, and even the sails and ropes had been dyed to a very dark gray hue. The bridge was actually exposed as in the ancient sailing ships of Earth, but there was a small secondary cabin between the main wheel and the funnel with a duplicate wheel that could be engaged and that had some very exotic-looking, if now totally turned off, electronic gear.

The captain was from Stulz, far off to the south and west across the great Ocean of Shadows, farther from his own hex than the travelers were from theirs. He was in many ways a fearsome sight, with a dark gray foxlike face filled with sharp little teeth. His beady, reddish brown eyes seemed to dart this way and that without ever settling on any one thing or person, and he had great furry wings that formed almost a cape and a hairy pair of arms terminating in fingers with very long, sharp claws. His bowlegs terminated in prehensile feet that essentially duplicated the hands, while from his back came a long whiplike leathery tail that seemed to be always under total control.

The trouble with Captain Hjlarza, Mavra decided, was that he looked exactly like a drug-running scoundrel in this part of the world should look.

The first mate was from Zhonzhorp and resembled nothing so much as a bipedal crocodile with long, thin arms and rubbery four-fingered hands that terminated in what appeared to be suckers or suction cups. The fact that he wore britches, a sash, a vest, and a tricorner hat with a feather in it did nothing to make him look less fearsome.

The five other crew members did little to reassure by their appearance. Two were giant hairy spiderlike creatures that seemed to be able to use any combination of their eight legs almost as tentacles. Two more were short and squat but looked as if they were humanoid caricatures carved out of very ugly rocks. The fifth was a purple and red creature with a somewhat humanoid face and torso, forelegs resembling a goat’s, and a main body that the two legs dragged around, much like a sea lion.

Only the captain and mate had translators, so for most of the passengers it was going to be a pretty nervous trip.

Alowi was horrified at the menacing menagerie, and Tony and Anne Marie hardly looked thrilled, but Lori was concerned only when she sensed that even Mavra Chang was nervous.

The Zhonzhorpian, “Just call me Zitz,” was the one who was to get them squared away.

“Could be a rough trip,” he warned them.

“Are you expecting trouble?” Mavra asked nervously.

“Oh, no, not that kind. The captain knows what he’s doing, and we’ve been at this a long time. Your Dillians, though, will have to sleep up top on the afterdeck, since they just won’t fit below, and if we get into a bit of bad weather, it can be pretty nerve-wracking up here, not to mention cold and wet.”

“I’ve briefed them as much as I could about such things,” she assured the mate. “I think we’ll lash them down if we get into rough seas.” She looked aft. “The way you’re rigged, we might also be able to set up some kind of tent or at least a shelter if you have some sailcloth to spare. They can rig it themselves if they have the materials and a few tools. If we stretch it between the afterdeck and the main deck, it will have extra support while being out of the way of the mainmast.”

Zitz was impressed by her knowledge. “All right. I think we can manage that. You’ve sailed before, I think, and not as a mere passenger.”

She nodded. “A very long time ago, though. If you need an extra hand in weather, let me know. I’m not that good at hauling sails, but I know the basics and I can handle whatever’s needed if it doesn’t take a lot of strength.”

“Very good! I may take you up on that. Weather’s been less than great of late, particularly in the northern ocean. We tend to use sail whenever possible regardless of the hex properties and save the steam for weather when we can use it or if the wind’s too much against us.”

“You’re going with cargo full?”

“Not quite, but heavy enough. We’ll top it off with a stop at sea. The only nonweather problems we might encounter are in Kzuco, which we can’t really bypass. Otherwise we’ll be staying on the northern side, which means all nontech and semitech hexes.”

She nodded. “That’s all right with us. The less attention we get, the better for our own purposes. We have no interest in your cargo or activities so long as this is yet another trip when you have no problems. In fact, I’d prefer not to meet any authorities at all.”

The Erdomese and Marva followed Zitz down into the ship. It stank and had that “lived in too long by pigs” look and feel about it. The few cabins were small and narrow, but they would do. Two small cabins that might have been used for storage had been cleared out and were essentially bare; the bedrolls would have to serve both for the Erdomese in one room and for Mavra across the corridor. When Zitz left to go topside, Mavra came over to the Erdomese.

“Not exactly first class,” she commented a bit apologetically, “but it will do. It’ll have to.”

“I wouldn’t feel comfortable with this crew if they were carrying Bibles,” Lori said nervously. “How long will we be cooped up on this tub?”

“With a decent wind they can make twenty knots, I’d say. Under steam, probably half that. Assuming some foul wind and allowing for the usual lousy conditions for at least some part of the trip, that probably means an average of a day and a half to two days to cross a hex depending if we’re going along a single edge or across the center. That’s four, maybe five days to Agon, but since they’re headed past there to Lilblod or even Clopta, it might well be a week if we don’t get off at some place along the way. Call it a week.”

“A week! I’ll never stand it! And the others…”

“We’ll do what we have to do. If we can bypass Agon and land in Lilblod near the Clopta border, we’ll not only save several days’ walking, we might be able to bypass the high-tech hexes and their communications systems almost entirely.”

“What about the crew? Can we trust them?”

Mavra grinned. “Not one bit. Not that I’d trust a crew looking like angels, singing like a choir, and carrying that load of Bibles you mentioned, either. In fact, watch out for the Bible carriers more than anybody. Every slave ship that ever sailed back when I knew them carried Bibles on the outbound trip; the crew all had prayer meetings and thought themselves holy and got blessed by the priests, some of whom came along. Give me a good crew of honest crooks any day. You’re never surprised, and they’re usually honorable if you’re not worth the trouble, and the profits these guys turn in one trip make us not worth the trouble.”

“Yeah? Then how did you get them to take us at all? We’re really in the way.”

“Well, if they’re stopped, the fact they have multiracial passengers will make them seem legit, since the kind of cops who go after these types know that they wouldn’t jeopardize an illegal, high-profit cargo by having innocents aboard. Also, we’re not known in the region and so are unlikely to be crooks. That’s one reason. The other reason is that they’ve been highly paid, but in order to keep that payment, they have to deliver us.”

“Huh? What are you talking about? And where did you get anything valuable enough to make them consider us as precious as their cargo?”

Mavra chuckled. “It was nice to see how it all came back to me. My original profession and one I always loved. It’s paid off quite a bit over the years when I needed it. Of course, I felt bad about doing that to the chief when she was so nice, but not being able to return to Gekir for a few generations is a small price to pay.”

“What in the world are you talking about?” Lori wanted to know.

“My original profession and first love, learned out of necessity and refined to a fine art before I ever left the planet where I grew up, let alone heard of the Well World. I was the best damned jewel and art thief in the whole galaxy, I’ll have you know!”

Lori laughed, finding it hard to believe. “You? A professional thief?”

She nodded, grinning with pride. “That’s the third reason. These kind of folks can sense when they’re dealing with one of their own.”

“But—what did you steal?”

“Basically, some of the lesser state jewels kept in the governor’s vaults. Not a big deal, but the few I picked were whoppers. They won’t discover it for another month or two, though, when their big religious festival comes up and they need to take the things out. By then this business will be done.”

“But you said they had to make sure they delivered us! If they’ve got the jewels…”

Mavra nodded. “I know, but they are also aware that I sent a sealed and secured packet with a courier into the Gekir capital and from there to Zone. The package is to be held for my pickup by the Glathrielian delegation, and if I don’t pick it up in six months, it’ll be opened and these boys will be fingered to the Gekir as the thieves. Simple, really.”

“Um, yeah, except I thought that the Glathrielians didn’t—”

Mavra put her hand up to his mouth, then put a finger to her lips. “Shhhh! What they don’t know won’t hurt us.”

Lori decided to let it drop, but he wasn’t at all thrilled with the news. If something went wrong and the Gekir somehow discovered the theft before they were out of the country, then nothing could save them.

“I see now why you were a little nervous coming aboard,” he said.

She shook her head from side to side. “Uh uh. No problem with that. It’s just that I’ve never had good luck on ships, and even worse on the Well World, so I’m always a little spooked when I’m on them, that’s all.” She turned to leave. “I’m going topside and help the Dillians. Come on up when you want to.”

“Um—Mavra?”

“Yes, Lori?”

“Just out of curiosity—you said you’d been in the Brazilian jungles something like three hundred years or more. How did you get there way back then?”

“I was sold to a Portuguese ship’s captain in Macao for a beat-up old musket. The captain took a fancy to me when I was loaned out to him for some hospitality. He wanted something to relieve the tedium of a Pacific crossing. When he grew bored with me, he gave me to the mate. I went down in rank rapidly. I think if he’d been a couple of years older, I would have been with the cabin boy by the time we rounded the Horn and reached Brazil.”

“How horrible!”

“Yeah, I thought he was going to Africa. Pretty hard to escape when you’re in the middle of the Pacific. By the time we reached Brazil, I was so flipped out, I couldn’t even think. They painted me up, stripped me naked, claimed I was an Indian, and sold me to a sugar plantation for a couple of bottles of private-stock rum, I think. I wasn’t in any shape to pay much attention. For the next several years I cut cane and planted and harvested rice along with hundreds of black and Indian slaves. Slowly I absorbed the local languages, and some of it came back to me. It was okay, but the ownership changed and the new people were pretty vicious; they decided we should be whipped and worked into the ground until we dropped dead. There was a revolt—I don’t know the details because the men didn’t exactly take us women into their confidence—but somehow I wound up in the middle of it. I got picked up, and they decided to have some fun with me. I flipped out—it was as if the ship’s crew had suddenly reappeared. This time I fought, but it was hopeless. When they were done with me, they had revenge for my fighting and threats. They cut out my tongue, cut off my hands, and threw me in a swamp to die slowly.”

“My God!” he said.

“Instead, of course, I survived, made my way into the jungle, and managed on my own somehow, with no voice and just stumps for hands, until I was discovered by some hunters from a local Indian tribe. They took pity on me and took me in even though I was nothing but a burden on them; by their traditions they should have left me to die. It really wasn’t bad, and I was getting to like them, when, of course, I began regenerating, slowly, until it became apparent that I was growing new hands and a new tongue. It frightened the hell out of them. They decided I was some evil spirit and came to kill me, but I escaped back into the jungle, which by that time I knew very well.”

She paused for a moment, and Lori said, “You don’t have to say any more if you don’t want to. I understand.”

“No, that’s all right. You’re one of the few people who has a right to hear this out. Anyway, I lost all track of time, so I can’t say how long I lived alone in that jungle, but eventually I came across two Indian girls fleeing from another tribe who’d captured them in an intertribal squabble. We never asked each other questions and just sort of banded together to survive. Those two were the start of my own little tribe. They never asked who I was or what I was or anything, even later. Of course, as they continued to age and I did not, and particularly after I lost another limb out of carelessness to a crocodile and it grew back, they decided I wasn’t human but some kind of goddess. I spent some time long ago in Athens at its peak and in Sparta, and I remembered the legend of the Amazons, and it just seemed fitting. After that we searched out girls who’d been cast out. Centuries later we were still doing it. Frankly, you’re the first sentient male I’ve had any sort of conversation with, let alone friendship, in all that time.”

Lori sighed. “I see. You certainly make immortality sound positively repugnant.”

“Oh, it has its moments. I think I did some good in that jungle or I wouldn’t have stayed, but how long do you think I would have survived there without my special situation? Why did a tribe that threw out its deformed and maimed suddenly take pity on me and take me in? And there were some brief decent periods. Greece was pretty good, and Rome was really even better than its reputation. Sheba was pretty nice, too, and some of the early Hindu Kush tribal groups were okay. It wasn’t all bad, but I tell you, if you have to live through the history of Earth, make sure that you’re a man. It won’t guarantee a pleasant trip, but it’s a damned sight more fun than being a woman.” She paused, then said, “I think I better get up on deck. It feels like they’re getting under way, and I want the Dillians settled.”

She went off, and Lori looked at Alowi. “You heard and understood all that?”

“Yes, my husband.”

“What do you think of it?”

“I heard, but I could not completely understand it. The nearest I could follow was that she has lived a very long time, and many of our lifetimes ago she left her husband and went out on her own in the world. She was thus without status or protection, and bad things happened to her for still more lifetimes. Then she took up with some other wild females, living with them in a wild place, and she blames all men for her misfortune.”

He shrugged. “I suppose that summarizes it. But he wasn’t her husband. As far as I can tell, she never had one. I’m not sure what the relationship with this man was, but he, too, is here, and they are no longer friends but enemies. Still, you seem to be blaming her for leaving him when we don’t know the reason. We don’t even know if she left him or some accident separated them and they never again found one another.”

“All I can see is that she wants to be a man and cannot accept the idea that she is not. She has the same kind of demon that made my life so horrible, and she will stay miserable, unstable, perhaps dangerous, until she accepts what she is as I did and casts that demon out.”

“She doesn’t want to be a man,” Lori responded. “If she did, she might well have become one, if the powers of that Well are what she claims, and she didn’t. She simply wants to be self-sufficient and have the same degree of independence, the same choices and respect, that the man had.”

“Perhaps.”

He was irritated. “Remember, she came from a civilization we would think of as far advanced, a civilization with ships that sailed between the stars and one that did not have the same attitudes that we have. She was unprepared for the primitive early history of Earth.” He paused. Did Alowi even remember Earth?

She didn’t seem to, but she answered. “I know only that their race is much like ours. There are males and females. They have different bodies and lives and each can do things the other cannot, but they need each other to do those things. I can cure your ills and bear and raise your children. You cannot do these things, but you protect me from the evil that is everywhere and you provide for my own needs. When each does what he or she does best, there is contentment. When each tries to do the other’s role, there is no contentment, and no one can really perform another’s role. You did not make yourself, your role, or this way of life. Neither did I mine, nor do we truly have the choices we might like. But to pretend that you are what you cannot be leads to madness. This I believe.”

Lori started to continue the argument, then realized it was useless to do so. Even Julian might have thought along those lines, although perhaps a bit more sophisticatedly. He’d never been an Earth-human woman.

Still, Alowi had made a practical point he’d been wrestling with all along. Here at least, as an Erdomese, on this world, did he really have that many choices in how to act, how to live, and what he could do? The priests, the whole culture, wanted stasis. Everyone and everything in its proper place. Biology was stacked against the Erdomese, too, almost forcing on them the ancient traditional roles. What was it Tony had told him? She could adjust to being a woman, but she could never become what Anne Marie wanted. She couldn’t still be Tony, the gentleman pilot from Brazil; to avoid madness, she had to accept and become what she now was. Hell, Lori Ann had never wanted to be a man. Never. And yet, now that she was a he, there were more basic differences than Lori Ann would have thought, yet few practical differences in day-to-day terms. When one became a different species of animal, the sexual differences seemed even more trivial, anyway.

The practical differences, the ones that crossed from the old species Homo sapiens to the new, were in social terms: the ability to walk freely down strange streets without more than pragmatic caution, for example. A whole level of fear was removed from the simplest social interactions, as well as the constant uncertainty of whether the strangers one met were seeing one as another person or as an object. That far outweighed the physiological differences, and it mattered. He was quickly becoming accustomed to the physiological change, as was Tony, but it was the sociological change that had made him feel somehow free. There was much about being a man he didn’t like; in its own way it was as confining and restrictive a role as the female’s. Yet he wouldn’t want to trade this absence of a massive layer of tension for anything.

Maybe that was it, he thought. Compromise. Fully accept what one now was and the role and situation one was now locked into but never forget the values and achievements of who one once had been. Tony still had those skills and that knowledge from the past and maybe could appreciate things more because she’d been on both sides of the coin. She could retain her kind heart, too, and the love of Anne Marie’s spirit and inner strength that she masked with that little old lady act. Tony wasn’t his old self, and she wasn’t Anne Marie, either, no matter how identical they were; she was compromising, no, synthesizing into a whole new person. Maybe Lori had to finally do that, too. Accept, become Lori of Alkhaz, an Erdomese male and husband, keeping what was valuable and universal but not letting Lori Ann torture him every time he did something that she might disapprove of. Julian couldn’t synthesize, and so she broke instead, retaining only the pragmatic part.

Might that, in the end, be the problem of the two immortals? To go so long, through so many lifetimes and cultures, not only unchanging but unable to change. Somehow he suspected that if somehow ancient folk long dead could be resurrected and taken to either this Brazil or Chang, they would instantly recognize them and find them much the same. Even growing up a person changed, often radically—from helpless infant to dependent child, through rebellious teen years and hopeful twenties and thirties, into middle age, when life’s course had been set and for the first time death became a reality as the years passed subjectively at a faster and faster clip, and finally into the combined wisdom and resignation of old age. Just as pictures in the photo album showing the same person at all those stages somehow also showed completely different people, life was a constant series of radical changes.

But not for these immortals. They hadn’t changed in so long, they could remember being no other way. Endless, unchanging life—probably passing at breakneck speed to them but never getting them anywhere—had made even the chance of new experiences slim. They could fight against the system as Chang had and suffer, or they could roll with it and drift as this Solomon, or Brazil, apparently did. Eventually, even Mavra Chang had stopped fighting and had withdrawn to the most basic of all human existences. Now she was racing the fellow with an idea to making the next time different.

But would it be?

Just the little he’d seen of the Well World—and his understanding of it as a laboratory for founding new races and seeding the vast numbers of worlds in the universe—-had convinced him that those Ancient Ones had probably thought of just about all the themes and variations that could be imagined. In Gekir, women ruled and the men were bimbos. He hadn’t yet seen one, but he’d heard that there were asexual and unisexual races here, and other races with more than two sexes. Dillian society sounded as if it was like the better places on Earth, but Tony could never be regarded as “one of the boys” and there would always be a social-sexual separation no matter how equal the opportunities and how safe the roads.

There were 1,560 races here, from the radically different to the fairly similar, and who knew how many had been developed before this final batch was left at the end? And after all this time, had any of them developed the true Utopia? If so, he hadn’t heard of it.

Mavra might well be able to radically change the race of Earth. But if she did it too much, would it still be human or just another experiment? And if but little, would it make a difference? One might well be able to program all sorts of physiological stuff, but who was smart enough to program social development, attitudes, and cultures over the life span of a race of people? Maybe even this Brazil still believed deep down that there must be a better way but knew he wasn’t omnipotent enough to create and maintain it. Greece, Rome, but also the Mongol hordes and the Vandals and Visigoths. Jesus and Buddha and Mohammed, but also Attila the Hun, Napoleon, Stalin, and Hitler.

One might well get something different, but how would one ensure that it was superior when even a race that was close to godhood as evolution could produce couldn’t figure that out?

Could it be that the dark side of the human soul was just as essential to the evolutionary development and growth of a race as the beautiful side? Depressing thought, but otherwise why did the Ancient Ones leave it in?

And if he could think of this, why hadn’t Mavra Chang? Perhaps confusing immortality with wisdom wasn’t a smart thing to do. He began to get the eerie feeling that he was better qualified to play god than she was, and he had no real desire to take on that awesome and impossible responsibility. He knew he just wasn’t smart enough to do it. Nobody was.

Maybe this Brazil knew that, which was why he always remade things the same. The fact that Mavra Chang apparently didn’t see this trap was unsettling. She wasn’t really out to correct humanity; she was out to avenge herself against the forces that had hurt her.

And that was the most uncomfortable feeling of all. When push came to shove, as it inevitably would if they got to this Well, on which side of this strange race should his sword fall?

He looked at Alowi. “I think I’d like to go on deck. I can hear all sorts of noises up there, and I’d like to see what’s going on. Do you want to go or stay here?”

“I will do as you wish.”

“No, this is not one of those kind of decisions. Do you want to go up there or remain here?”

“I do not like those creatures above,” she admitted, “but if it is my choice, I will go where you go.”

“For the record, I don’t like them much, either, but come on. We’re going to have to live with them for a while, it seems.”

Darkness had fallen, and the lights of the city market area were still very close, but they had definitely pulled away from the small private dock and were in the process of turning the ship toward the channel. The two spiderlike beings were up in the twin masts, and the rest of the small crew were tending ropes on the starboard side of the ship. Lori stayed as far from the action as possible and peered over the side. There, in the darkness, two huge longboats filled with very large Gekirs pulling on oars were guiding the ship like tugs in a big harbor. The captain, barely visible in the darkness, was on top of the wheelhouse getting a view of the entire area. Clearly the creature was basically nocturnal by nature and saw well in just the starlight and the reflected glow from the city. The crocodilelike mate was at the wheel, looking at some basic instruments and taking cryptic cues from the captain and the crew on the lines.

“Away all lines!” the captain shouted. “Clear ship!” The commands were repeated even louder by the crew on the lines, and the ropes, expertly tied, were loosened and thrown into the water to be reeled in by the longboats. “Engage rudder! All hands to embarkation stations!” Now the mate turned and began winding hard and fast on a wooden wheel, which went around and around for a while and then held firm. The mate checked something, pulled up a large lever, then turned back to the main wheel, which had been essentially free but which now seemed to have a mind of its own. The rest of the crew scurried to positions on either side of the sails. Only one small sail was dropped, but the wind caught it and the ship slowly began moving out of the harbor at a crawl, following what appeared to be small oil-fed lamps floating in the water. Just ahead, on spits of land on either side, twin lighthouses gave off amazingly bright beams, easily marking the limits of the entrance to the bay.

The port area was going by on the right-hand side, the buildings suddenly changing in character from dark, closed shops to a small harbor filled with activity just ahead. At the moment where there seemed to be nothing on the shore, between the dark buildings and the lighted dock or warehouse beyond, Lori felt a sudden tingling sensation and started. It felt as if something incredibly thin had brushed against his full body. It was gone in a moment, but suddenly the wind shifted direction and picked up considerably, and the temperature dropped from a tropical twenty-six degrees Celsius to perhaps no more than ten or twelve. Summer had turned to spring in an instant, and the wind did not help the feeling at all.

He looked at Alowi, who was clearly uncomfortable. “Do you wish to go below or perhaps get one of the jackets?” he asked her.

“I am all right,” she told him, but she didn’t look it.

Mavra came over to them, still dressed only in the thin black clothing and boots she favored and appearing not at all uncomfortable.

“It’s pretty impressive when you think about it,” the Earth woman commented. “The Well World has no moon and so very little in the way of a tide. That’s hell for a sailing ship and cuts off a lot of harbors as too shallow. Magnetic compasses are useless, too, since there’s no magnetic pole. The instruments they were using to get out of there are incredibly clever but unique to these conditions. Now, however, they’ve got full instrumentation. That’s a computerized compass that always points to true north in the wheelhouse, and they’ve got something similar to, but much better than, mere radar. It may look like just water, but it’s high-tech water now.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it,” Lori responded. “Still, all that fancy navigation equipment only helps in a third of the hexes they sail.”

“True, but a good sailor has a hundred means of setting course and position and only needs those instruments in familiar waters to confirm things. You’ll note they’re going in steps to full sail, even though they could use the main engines. When you have this kind of wind and it’s in your favor, you take it.” She looked up as the crew made a series of by-the-numbers calls, and there were sudden loud, deep crackling and rippling sounds. “Yep. There come the mainsails.

The ship was clearly at sea now, the water choppy and causing significant spray forward, some of it reaching the deck. There was a pitching motion now as well, often in more directions than one, and Lori found he had to hold on tight to the railing with both hands.

Mavra grinned. “Yeah, I’m having to get used to sea legs as well. It’s been a long time. You’ll find the motion a lot more pronounced aboard this small ship than on that giant you came up to Itus on.” She turned and gestured. “See those ropes? They’re well secured with steel clips, and they run all around the deck. Use them to keep yourself steady in rough seas.” She grinned. “Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it. Promise.”

Lori wasn’t so sure. “That’s a lot easier to say, built like you are, but hooves designed for sand and rough ground don’t do all that well on slick hardwood decks. I think for now we’ll be better off below.”

Mavra nodded. “Suit yourselves. The Dillians have things fairly well set up back there, but they’re also going to have to get used to balance.”

“Yeah, well, they’ve got four feet! I think if I had four, I might at least be able to stay upright.” And with that he gestured to a very relieved Alowi, and hand over hand, using the ropes, they made their way below.

For Mavra Chang, however, it was something else, something quite different. Looking aft at the rapidly receding lights, feeling the lurch of the ship, the smell of salt air, the rustling canvas above, and the strong breeze pushing them on, two sets of opposing thoughts and emotions rose within her.

In a positive way she felt home somehow, alive once more. The only thing that would have made it better would be if this were her ship and she was in the wheelhouse charting courses and giving commands. In some ways, perhaps, she would prefer that even to commanding the bridge of a starship, where one was in command of a vast but lonely structure in which the crew was wholly automated and the silence and stillness were ever-present.

But there were darker memories as well, of other ocean voyages where she had been not in charge or even a passenger but cargo, and disposable cargo at that, where the days were full of pain and the nights full of horror.

Theywould never do that to her again. She would see to that.