The Return of Nathan Brazil

Nautilus—Underside

Mavra Chang’s suspicions about gypsy’s unwillingness to meet with Nathan Brazil proved unfounded. The strange, dark man returned within half a day after her return from Meouit, though he would say not a word about what he had been doing in space except to note that he “felt a need to be alone for a little while.” Somehow he seemed much different; he still talked like an old con man and was outwardly unchanged, but there was something deep down, something that anyone who’d known him any length of time sensed but couldn’t pin down. Until now there had been a touch of the child in Gypsy; he wasn’t feared for his talents and was generally liked because of this puckish humor. All that seemed gone now; only the mannerisms and act remained.

They were all gathered in the control room waiting, for what they weren’t quite sure. It had been Obie’s show from the start and Obie was still very much in charge. He was telling as little as he could get away with. If he had questioned Gypsy about the strange trip, he hadn’t told anyone his results.

Brazil hadn’t remembered Gypsy but when reminded of a few incidents that had occurred many years earlier—neither could remember just how many—he vaguely recalled the strange man.

And now here they were, at Obie’s bidding. Brazil, Gypsy, Marquoz, centauroid Mavra Chang, and, interestingly, Yua.

“Prepare for drop,” Obie warned. Mavra always wondered why the computer bothered; there wasn’t anything you could do to prepare for it. There was the blackness, the drawn-out sensation of falling, and then back to normal once again.

Obie had asked them to gather in the control room to monitor televisor screens of the big dish, the giant Zinder radiator that was a large part of the lower surface of the planetoid.

They were seeing a world mostly blue-green and white but with patches of red, yellow, and other colors. Yua recognized it at once and gasped. “That’s Olympus!” she exclaimed.

The image of the planet shifted a bit, first this way and then that as Obie oriented the huge antenna so that the planet was in the center of the screen. He matched orbital velocity with the planet’s rotation so that he stayed in the same position relative to it.

“We need the Olympians,” Obie’s voice told them. “They can be brought into line with a minimum of alteration. I propose to do so at this time. I have rarely used the big dish except to drop to various locations by reversing the field; however, time is pressing and I must use it now. I also selected Olympus because I know the pattern of its inhabitants without further study. After all, I designed the race. I—” He broke off in midsentence, pausing for almost a minute and a half. What the hell was going on? They wondered.

“Sorry,” Obie’s voice returned. “I just intercepted a mass of messages from Olympus. The only real problem I had has apparently been removed without me. Nikki Zinder is dead.”

Yua gasped. “The Holy Mother? But that’s impossible!”

“No, not really,” the computer responded. “Brain cells wear out, malfunction, and die even in the best of setups—and this was the best, believe me. A massive stroke, it appears. No signs of foul play—the techs say she just blew a gasket for some reason—except they found a cigarette on the floor of her chamber. Extraordinary!”

Gypsy sat back and lit a cigarette, inhaling deeply.

“No sign of forced entry, no way for anybody to get in and out,” the computer continued. Their medical people have fed the medical monitor data through and I’ve analyzed It. Amazing. I would swear she was frightened to death!”

Mavra Chang sighed. “Poor Nikki. I feel so sorry for her. She never had a chance at a real life.”

To her surprise, Nathan Brazil spoke. “She’s better off now. Life’s a tragedy anyway.” He seemed genuinely sorry.

She turned and looked at him. Now, divested of his makeup, he looked quite ordinary. A small man, almost tiny, with fine-chiseled features and black hair and eyes. Though he was not handsome, except for his diminutive size and build there was something classic about him, like a Greek statue in the old records.

“You’re supposed to be god,” she muttered. “Is there an afterlife where she might find happiness?”

To her surprise he answered. “Truthfully, I don’t know, since I can’t escape this one,” he said quietly. “The math allows for the possibility of such a thing, but—who knows? The evidence is ambiguous. It doesn’t matter, anyway—even that would be wiped out when this sector goes.”

Thatwas depressing, so nobody pursued it.

“You won’t see much on the screens,” Obie told them. “I am reprogramming the Olympians. Nathan Brazil has been found and is in command, and he has new tasks for them to perform. They will follow his orders—they will do whatever we tell them, gladly. You others are taking on the role of saints. They’ll worship you as they would him.”

“You know, this has possibilities,” Brazil murmured. “A whole planetful of superwomen who’ll do anything I tell ’em to. The hell with porn.”

All of a sudden they heard a tremendous hum; vibration filled the great shaft outside and shook the walls of the control room. Only the image of the planet on the screen remained steady. The great power of Gil Zinder’s full creation was being employed.

And then a great shudder was felt all over the Nautilus. The planetoid started to move. The vibration was so great that they were aware of the movement only because the planet on the screen appeared to revolve slowly. It seemed to be bathed in a glow. The vibration continued for some minutes, until Obie had completely circled Olympus, then slowly died.

“It’s done,” Obie announced. “We have willing workers now—millions of them.”

“There seems to be something vaguely immoral in all this,” Brazil commented sourly. “One zap and instant racial slavery.” He looked genuinely disturbed. “If I’d realized the full power of this thing, I’d have gone to that party at Trelig’s.”

Mavra gave him a dark look. “Now’s a fine time to find it out,” she snapped.

“Is it true?” Yua asked wonderingly. “Am I now a goddess among my people?”

“It’s true,” Obie assured her.

“But—how will anyone know me from the others?”

“No one left on the planet has a tail or any memory that anybody on Olympus save you ever had a tail,” Obie told her. “Your tail is your sign of godhood.”

Marquoz gave a low chuckle. “It seems our little liberated chick is taking all too well to a wider Universe than she was born to,” he muttered. Gypsy chuckled.

“Please, now, everyone come into the old lab,” Obie invited. “I have some things that must be done and some things that must be said. Watch yourselves as you round the small corner to the doorway; the main shaft is very hot.”

It was. It was like an oven; those who could sweat were soaked in just the time necessary to cross the few meters from the control-room door to the lab entrance.

The old lab felt almost frigid after the steambath, and they all stood gasping for a few moments.

Mavra, coughing, looked around and noted a number of rifle-carrying crewmen lining the walk. She grew apprehensive; Obie had been acting strangely since the problem in space-time began and she didn’t like the look of this development at all. She began to fear that the effect of the rip in space had somehow unhinged him.

“Please move down to the lower level,” Obie ordered. They complied, all eyeing the armed guards and wondering what the hell was going on. Soon they were facing the dais on the lower level. They could see the little dish, the original Zinder creation that had started everything so many centuries before.

“Please pardon the strong-arm stuff,” Obie said, “but I expect some resistance to what must be done and, as I expect to die today, I want no one able to change things.”

“Obie! No!” Mavra screamed.

“I must, Mavra,” he replied, almost pleading. “I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to die, Mavra. Nobody does. But… I must, I think. I… I don’t know. Maybe I won’t. We’ll see. But I have to act as if I will.”

Nathan Brazil didn’t seem very upset by Obie’s statements. “Why all the histrionics, Obie? I’m not going to do it and you know it—and you know you can’t force me to.”

“You speak with your heart, Brazil,” the computer responded, “for which I envy you. I, too, have a heart in the poetic sense, but I am cursed by my realization as an enormous machine. Machines are designed to think logically, to cut through all the crap at impossible speed and with all the information needed. We machines can’t ignore the facts or the logic. It’s always there, always right at your metaphorical fingertips. I can do quintillions of different calculations at the same time. I have no subconscious mind—just an infinitely large conscious one. I can be sad, I can be happy, I can mourn the death of my poor sister, I can fear for my own self, I can feel love and hate and pity. But I can’t use my emotions to run from the truth as the rest of you can. You all cope because of your ability to shuffle things in your brain, reinterpret them through your emotions—be a bit psychotic, if you will. I cannot. I was not designed to do it, much as I envy the trait. I am always perfectly sane. That is my curse. That is the factor that makes my thing different—not just faster—than yours.”

They said nothing; it was clear that none knew where Obie was headed.

“I say that Nathan Brazil must reenter the Well of Souls,” Obie continued. “He must disconnect the Well from the power source. This will undo the last, say… roughly the last ten billion years, at once. All that we know will cease to exist. Then Brazil must repair what is broken and allow the Well to repair itself, too. He must do this because, if he does it right now, or in the immediate future, he will most assuredly be able to use the Well World to recreate the Universe. It will start back at square one, of course, for the Markovian races and for the forces of evolution that produce new forms in response to their preset natural laws. If he waits, as he now wishes to, Brazil risks a twenty-one percent chance that the Well will short out within the next few decades. That means a seventy-nine percent chance that it won’t, which is what he clings to. I submit that a one-in-five chance is too great a risk to play with.

“You see, if the Well shorts out it will then be damaged beyond repair. There can be no re-creation. There will be only darkness, and life of any sort will exist only upon the Well World itself. Forever.”

Marquoz, Yua, Gypsy, and Mavra all looked at Brazil. “Is this true?” the little dragon asked.

“I’m willing to take the risk,” Brazil replied calmly. “It’s four to one that most of the races of the Universe will have the millions of years they deserve.”

“But is there a one-in-five chance of what he says happening?” Marquoz pressed.

Brazil nodded. “Something like that. I think he’s probably exaggerating for effect. Five to eight percent—one out of twelve at the outside—more likely, within the next one to three million years, anyway.”

“Those are better odds,” the Chugach said to Obie and the others. “At five to eight percent I’d take the risk.”

“He refuses to face facts,” Obie came back. “Twenty-one percent. Now. This minute. Thirty percent in another century or two. Fifty percent in another two to five thousand years. Any moment after that. A race can accomplish a great deal in five thousand years—but it cannot achieve greatness. It’s too short a time to produce even a minor evolutionary change; it’s time enough to lose wisdom, but not time enough to earn it. So Mr. Brazil asks us to give the races of the Universe a few thousand years—at the risk of total oblivion for the entire Universe beyond any hope of reconstruction. I submit that the potential to be gained by immediate inaction are outweighed by the greater risk we take allowing it. The Well must be repaired. Now.”

“I know more about the Well than he does,” Brazil pointed out. “I think he’s wrong.”

“I’m a far better and faster computer than you, Nathan Brazil,” Obie retorted.

He chuckled. “If you know more about it than I do, then you turn it off and fix it.”

It was a good point, but Obie was ready for it. “You know I can’t. I know what has to be done, but I’m a part of the equations. The moment the power is turned off I, too, will cease to exist. The Well will not recognize a surrogate, since only one of the older Markovian equations can open the Well and get inside. I can tell you what to do—but only Brazil can do it. And he knows it.”

They looked at the strange little man. His expression seemed anguished. “I couldn’t do it, anyway,” he said defensively. “My god! Do you realize how many people I’d be murdering? I will not accept that kind of responsibility! I won’t!”

“Standoff,” Gypsy muttered.

“Not quite,” Obie responded. “As I said, Brazil has an advantage: Human in his thoughts and soul, he can continue to run from the truth. I cannot. Therefore, he must be made to see things as I do. He must be forced to face the truth. In a moment I will swing the little dish out, I will enfold him and we shall merge. He will see what I see. He will be forced to see what I am forced to see. Then let him refuse.”

“But—Obie!” Mavra protested. “You can’t! Just trying to analyze him damaged you!”

“I expect the experience might be fatal,” the computer replied, a note of apprehension creeping into his all-too-human voice. “I am not sure. I do know that it is possible, and I do know that the Well will keep him from being killed by the experience. But he will be forced to recognize the truth.”

Brazil chuckled nervously. “Now, wait a minute! Ain’t no way I’m going to go through with this. If you think—”

“You have no choice,” Obie cut in. “The men with rifles will see to that. You will either do what I say or we will shoot hell out of you and they will throw you on the platform.”

Brazil looked genuinely upset. He disliked pain as much as the next man. “Okay! Okay! I’ll do it!” he practically yelled. “You don’t have to go on with this!”

“I’m sorry, Brazil, I truly am,” Obie responded. “I wish you were telling the truth, but you and I know you are not sincere. The dish is the only way I can make sure. Do you think I would take this course if there were any other way? If you were me and i you—would you believe it, even if it were true?”

Brazil sighed and seemed to collapse a bit. He looked totally defeated. “You got me there.”

“I would like to speak with each of you in turn, in private, before I deal with Brazil,” the computer said gravely. “Mavra, will you please step onto the platform?”

Forcing back tears, Mavra somehow made it up to the platform.

With the violet glow enveloping her she had no conception of time. But she knew she had to talk Obie out of it.

“Mavra, don’t say it,” his voice came to her. “For one thing, I agree with you a hundred percent. I don’t want to do it. But I have to. Try to understand.”

“I’m trying, Obie—but I just can’t accept it.”

“Look, Mavra. It’s not the way Brazil says. I have no desire to be a martyr. With the death of Nikki, I’m the last of the Zinders. I hadn’t expected her to die, Mavra. I had hoped that she could be helped by me, given the fresh start she deserved.”

“If it’s any comfort to you, Obie, I don’t think you could have done a thing unless you wanted to wipe her mind.”

“I know, I know. Still—it’s kind of strange, isn’t it? Her going today, that is. The both of us…”

“It doesn’t have to be, Obie! Come on! We’re partners. Fifty-fifty. You don’t have a majority to dissolve the company.”

“It’s dissolved in favor of a new one. You know that. It was dissolved the moment they used the Zinder Nullifiers. I know—both of us thought it would go on forever. New challenges, new worlds. I guess the biggest mistake was in not checking back here regularly. If we had, we could have handled the Dreel and none of this would have happened.”

“You don’t know how many times I’ve thought about that,” she admitted ruefully.

“But we didn’t, Mavra. It’s done. What hurts most is that we did a lot of good out there. No matter how fouled up they were going, we managed to turn them around, put them on the right track. It was surprising how similar we were to most of the rest—although I guess when you consider they all sprang from the same Markovian roots, it’s not that odd. Still, we saved a lot of lives, a few planets, maybe a civilization or two.”

She nodded and smiled. “It’s a record to be proud of. And, most of all, it was fun, too.”

“It was. But for what? When Brazil pulls the plug on the Well, Mavra, they’ll all be gone. They will never have been. The space and time that have been superimposed on the Markovian Universe will vanish. Such a waste. ”

“You sound like Brazil, Obie. Why not give them a chance, then? As he wants to?”

“They don’t have a chance, Mavra—and neither do I. Either we destroy it all, for all time, with no hope of restarting, or we restart now. Either way I shall die. It’s better this way.”

“But must you die?” she pressed. “Why now? We’ll need you.”

“You should never need me,” he came back. “That’s the trouble. All of you have been too dependent on my big and little dishes. You’ve grown rusty from playing god, Mavra. And, no, I need not die. Truthfully, I do not know what will happen. I might go mad, I might just injure myself. I will probably short out. There will be no danger; I have already disconnected life-support and maintenance from dependence on me, so it’s like old times again there. Nautilus will survive and work—for a while. Who knows? I’m not god, although sometimes it was easy to think myself so. I don’t know what will happen. I only know that while I do what I must, I find I regret a surprisingly small amount of my own life. I regret none of our association, Mavra. The others—to them I am a machine, or a powerful, alien entity to be feared. Only you, Mavra, see me otherwise. Only you have been my confidant, my close, dear friend.”

He paused for a moment. She was too choked up to say anything, and she had the oddest feeling that Obie was feeling the same very human way.

Finally he said, “I will tell you what needs to be done and everybody’s role in it. It’ll be a memory readout; you are already strong enough to resist all the extraction methods known to me. In a sense I give you more than that, a little part of me, the most human part, that will rest back within the dark recesses of your mind, but when you need me I’ll be there. Still partners, Mavra.”

“Still partners, Obie,” she managed.

She was suddenly back in the chamber and the others were staring at her. She stepped down.

“Marquoz, please,” Obie summoned. The little dragon sighed, got up on the platform, and looked around at the empty air. “Mind if I continue to smoke?” he asked. The violet beam descended.

“Marquoz,” Obie said, “you are not here by accident but by design. Not mine, though, I am not clear whose. Perhaps there is some power greater than we. Still, in my estimation you are the absolute best person for the job. A great deal of work is to be done, and you must bear part of the responsibility.”

“You seem awfully certain that Brazil will do it,” the little dragon pointed out. “You also seem awfully certain that we’ll do it, whatever you have in mind for us, anyway. Suppose Brazil comes back and still says no? Suppose he doesn’t come back?”

“He’ll come back,” Obie assured him. “You must understand that only his body is a part of the reality you and I know and accept. His spirit, his soul, that part of him that is his personality and memories—it’s not part of our Universe at all. It is so alien that I cannot begin to understand it. It is as if he is made of antimatter. You see it—it looks real, acts real, is normal in every way. But touch it and you explode. I understand antimatter; I can even become antimatter. He is of a past Universe and an alien form that is beyond me, for I have no frame of reference, nothing against which to compare him.”

“That’s what’s going to happen?” Marquoz asked worriedly. “You and he are going to combine and explode?”

“No, nothing like that. He is adapted to our Universe; he can accept ours. You might say, though, that we are just a part of his reality. He is a bucket and we are water. You can fill a bucket with water but not water with a bucket. He will receive my data and see that there is no course open to him but mine. Believe me. But I will also get his data, and it will be in a form and amount that I cannot handle. It shouldn’t harm him, except perhaps to shake him up. It will harm me.

“Listen well. I will tell you your role in what is to come. Brazil will be in charge, but I already know the basic idea that must be used. Accept his leadership—but never think of him as a god. He’s not—he is a very human being, something which puzzles me a great deal. Think of him as the only known repairman for a broken machine. Act accordingly. Your job is to get him to the Well. On the Well World yourself, you will survive. Receive the information.”

Yua received much the same instruction, although when she emerged from the violet glow she seemed a different person, more knowledgeable, more worldly, more self-confident. Obie had given her what he thought she’d need.

Gypsy was next. He didn’t want to go, but the riflemen gave him little choice. He sighed and let the glow take him.

“Hello, Obie,” he said casually.

“Hello, Gypsy,” the computer replied. “I am giving you the least instruction and the least well-defined role in the coming drama because I believe you are the most resourceful of the bunch.” He hesitated. “You agree with what I am about to do and what I am forcing?”

All the playful pretense was gone now. “Yes, Obie. You know, don’t you? How?”

“You couldn’t hide it from me forever. Yes, I know—and I think I understand, in a way. I didn’t ask you anything about your motives or your own ‘how.’ I only asked you if you agreed.”

“This is very hard on me,” Gypsy said hesitantly. “Academically, yes. I guess I’m more like Brazil than like you, Obie. I—I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t insist somebody else do it, either.”

“You did once,” the computer said.

He nodded absently. “I guess I did at that. I suppose we know our own selves the least of anyone.” He looked up, although there was no one to see. “Obie? Do you forgive me?”

“I forgive you,” the computer replied softly. “There is little to forgive. Help them, though, won’t you?”

“I’ll do what I can,” he promised. “Who would have thought it would have come down to me, eh?” The chuckle was without humor.

“Good-bye—Gypsy.”

“Obie—there must be another—” he began, then stopped. “So long, Obie,” he said at last. The glow was gone.

“It’s time, Nathan Brazil.”

Brazil looked around at the others, all staring intently at him. “You’re all crazy! “he muttered. “Crazy!” He turned and faced the pedestal. “Obie—it means this much to you?”

“It does,” the computer responded.

Brazil hesitated a moment. “Then I’ll do it. Now. Get me to the Well World, shoot me down to an Avenue, and I’ll do it.”

The computer hesitated—Brazil could feel it—and his hopes rose. They were quickly dashed when Obie replied, “I would like to believe that. I really would. But, once in, you could simply wish me out of existence and do nothing else. You could turn us all into toads. Anything but what must be done. We’ve been through this discussion before, Nathan Brazil. Besides, what you ask is now impossible. I am injured. I am in great pain. I can no longer handle the type of drop necessary for the Well World with any certainty. The hard way, Brazil. Try not to kill me.”

Nathan Brazil sighed. “Now, damn it, I’m not going to do this and that’s that!”

“On the count of three those riflemen will shoot you,” Obie said flatly. “It’s set on needle stun. It will hurt—hurt a lot. And when you’re disabled and in pain they will come down and throw you up here. This is the time for us both, Nathan Brazil. One… two…”

Brazil looked uneasily at the riflemen and jumped up on the podium. “What a bunch of melodramatic bullshit,” he muttered defiantly; but he looked nervous.

The violet glow reached down and surrounded the little man and then he winked out.

“Obie! No!” Mavra Chang screamed, rushing to the podium. But it was too late. Brazil was already gone.

They waited. Mavra listened for explosions, vibrations, or other signs of terrible things happening to Obie, but she heard only the smooth, ever-present hum of a machine-world. Perhaps Obie would be all right.

Obie, who could remold a planet in an hour or two, spent four with Brazil locked into him with no visible sign of an end. It got hard on the observers’ nerves; Yua paced, Marquoz and Gypsy played gin rummy but neither’s mind was on the game, and Mavra finally became so irritated that she started berating the guards for their actions even though she realized they were under mental compulsion from Obie. They took her outburst patiently, then, when she’d run down, two of them went Topside for food and drinks for the rest.

More time passed. Yua suggested they try to rest, but the others, even Gypsy, refused. “I don’t know about you,” Marquoz told the rest of them, “but I’m staying here until Hell freezes over. I have to know the end of this.” He looked idly at Mavra. “You know, if something does go wrong with Obie you’re going to be a Rhone woman from now on.”

She hadn’t even considered that. “It doesn’t matter,” she decided at last. “If Obie can’t get us to the Well World we’ll have to go in through a Markovian gate anyway. That means going through the Well and being changed into another creature, anyway. And this time whatever it makes us we will be for the rest of our natural lives.”

It was a sobering thought.

Gypsy chuckled. “Yeah, Marquoz. They’ll change you into a human.”

“Heaven forbid!” the little dragon sniffed. “The odds are one in seven hundred and eighty, I believe. Don’t bet on it. Remember—you could become a Chugach.”

“Oh, my god!” Gypsy responded, mock-stricken. “Still, it would give me an easy way to light cigarettes. Or don’t they have cigarettes on this Well World?”

Yua got into the discussion turning to Mavra, whose equine body towered over them. “You’ve been there,” she said. “What is it like?”

Mavra smiled wanly. “Like anyplace else, really. Just imagine a planet that was a lot of little planets—fifteen hundred and sixty of them, in fact, each roughly six hundred and fifteen kilometers wide at the Well World’s equator—they get a little distorted as you go toward the poles. Each one is shaped like a hexagon—the Markovians were nutty about the number six. Each one with its own plants, insects, you name it, and all with different dominant races. All the carbon-based ones are south of the equator—seven hundred and eighty in all. The ones north of the equator are non-carbon based. They can be anything.”

“And you can walk between them?” the Olympian pressed.

Mavra nodded. “It’s like an invisible, intangible wall. It can be freezing on one side and hot as hell on the other. But things like rivers, mountain ranges, and whatnot run through them without regard to the borders. It sounds like a boxy place but it’s not—the coastlines are irregular, erosion, deposition, and volcanic forces all work there as elsewhere. But each hex is an artificial area ecologically perfect for that form of life specified by the Markovians. Supposedly each was a little laboratory. Markovian technicians dreamed up the places, established them, watched them develop to see if they’d work. Weather, climate, atmospheric conditions, all optimized for a particular set of planetary conditions. There are handicaps, too—in some of them no machines will work that are not muscle-powered. In others, only limited machines, like steam engines, work—and in some everything works, like here. This ranking of technologies was supposed to compensate, I think, for resources—or the lack of them—the new races would find on the planets they’d be seeded on. Magic, too, in some instances—the ability to control some powers through the Well. Artificial magic, yes, but no less real because only the one race can use it. Other handicaps might have existed too, I guess.”

“You’d think they’d fight like hell—or overpopulate,” Marquoz commented.

“The Well controls population, maintains it at around a million or so per hex,” Mavra explained. “If something comes up—war, plague, natural disaster—that decimates a batch, then they reproduce like bunnies until the loss is made up. As for wars—well, there have been minor skirmishes. The humans there developed a high technological civilization that finally ran out of resources so they attacked the nontechnological Ambreza next door. The Ambreza found a gas from a strange Northern Hemisphere race—although all the Northerners are strange, even by Well World standards—and gassed the humans back into the stone age, then swapped hexes with them. The humans are primitive and tribal—were the last time I was there, anyway—and are kept on that level by the Ambreza, who enjoy the resources of their former land and the technology of the human’s past. One big export is tobacco, Gypsy. It’s not common but it’s known and prized there. It can be an expensive habit, though.”

“But there must be bigger wars, too,” Marquoz prodded. “I would think it’d be natural.”

“Natural, maybe,” Mavra admitted, “but there have been only two that I know of. There was a famous conqueror who had problems because his high-tech weapons wouldn’t work in a majority of hexes—a nonworking laser pistol is a poor match against a well-trained crossbowman—and some hexes were uncomfortable enough that his supply lines became too long, impossible to maintain. That was the big lesson—you can’t conquer the Well World. Then, when Obie and I were there last, a war broke out to get to the shuttle spacecraft that brought some of us down. The object was to reach and control Obie. Space travel simply won’t work on the Well World if developed from scratch, but here was a ready-made vessel. The war was bloody and brutal but settled nothing because the spacecraft engines were destroyed by a hermit race who didn’t believe anybody should have them.”

Marquoz nodded. “I’ve read the Com records.”

“You said you crashed there,” Yua noted. “That means you have never been through the Well of Souls transformation yourself.”

She nodded assent. “That’s right. A very nasty race called the Olborn had stones that could change any other creature—or themselves—into beasts of burden, like tiny donkeys. I got half the treatment, so I spent many long years facing down, on four hooved feet, with no hands and no way even to look up.” There was an angry gleam in her eyes. “They kept me on ice in case they needed a pilot. They couldn’t afford to let me go through the Well since they had no control over what or where I’d come out.”

“They?” Marquoz prompted.

She sniffed. “A bastard named Serge Ortega. A giant creature with a head like a walrus, six arms, and a long snakelike body. An ex-human, it’s told, and a former freighter captain. Somehow he found a way to make himself virtually immortal as long as he stays in Zone, the normal entryway to the Well World and a sort of embassy. He practically ran the Well World. Probably still does.” She chuckled dryly. “You know, if there’s any man I still truly hate it is probably Ortega. I swore I’d kill him someday, as I killed the men who murdered my husband. He had no right to do what he did to me!”

The sudden violence of her tone alarmed them. It was Gypsy, heretofore silent, who said, “I’d have thought you’d have gone to the Well World and done him in long ago.”

“Obie wouldn’t permit it,” she responded. “Obie had no power over the Well World and wasn’t about to put me back on it just to settle an old score. I have the funny feeling he always liked Ortega for some reason. I don’t know. Ortega and I were bound up together for years yet I never once met him. Strange.”

Clearly old wounds were being reopened; half-forgotten experiences were creeping out from the dimly lit back halls of her brain.

“And we’ll all be going there,” Yua breathed. “It sounds incredible. Exciting. I can hardly wait.”

“Enjoy it while you can,” Mavra said sharply. “The Well World is anything but romantic. It’s dangerous and deadly. I never missed it.”

“Well, even so, I—” Yua started to respond, but at that moment there was a sharp crackling noise as if a great bolt of lightning had struck near them. They all jumped, startled, and turned.

White-faced and shaking Nathan Brazil stood on the pedestal. He stared straight ahead, looking at empty space. They didn’t move for a moment, just watched him apprehensively.

He tottered slightly, still looking vacantly ahead. Finally he said, “I need a drink. No, check that. I need to get very, very drunk.”

And then he collapsed into an unconscious heap.