03. Gods at the Well of Souls (13 page)

"Corvette Swiftwind Thunderer, carries two survivors, unknown species, one in  critical condition." 

The colonel snapped to. "It's them! I know it is them! Captain, tell them to  approach and lay to next to us. My companion and I are going to board that ship  and ride it back in." 

"Might not be who you're looking for." the officer pointed out. "It is. I will chance it anyway. Just give the order before they get so close  that they pass us." He paused a moment, then called, "Gus? You hear?" "I heard. Might as well see what they caught." 

The two corvettes were nearly identical, and when alongside they secured to one  another with grappling hooks and lines, close enough that a metallic plank could  be laid between them. 

Watching the colonel move fast when he wanted to was an education. While he  normally seemed to just ooze across the floor or deck, his great translucent  blob now seemed to shrink, and then an object the size of a basketball extruded  and fairly shot across the gangway. The rest of the body followed as if the  whole were a rubber band that had been stretched and now was released. It was a  bit harder for Gus, but his feet gave him a good grip on all but the smoothest  surfaces, and he was able to leap the last meter or two. 

"I'm here," he told the colonel, who signaled for the two ships to disconnect. Captain Haash oozed down from the wheelhouse himself as soon as they were again  under way. "What the blazes is all this about? And who are you?" he demanded to  know. "I am Colonel Lunderman of the Royal Leeming Forces, currently assigned to  South Zone Council duty. My orders and authority are at the patrol base at  Deslak, if you have any doubts." 

Haash thought a moment. "Well, I doubt if you'd be on old Shibahld's ship unless  you were who you said. Still, can't say as I can figure out if you're comin' or  goin'." 

"Neither, Captain. I was headed out for another search for certain creatures  wanted by the council. I am looking for two Glathrielians, and you have two  unknowns from the right region. Am I correct?" 

"Glathrielians? Never heard of 'em. So that's what they are!" 

"Perhaps. If we can just see them? That is the only way to make sure." "Sure. No problem. 'We,' you say? More'n one of you in that blob?" "He is referring to me, Captain," Gus put in. Haash proved that a Macphee could  move even faster than a Leeming-and up a bulkhead, too. Then the huge head  peered back over, and two enormous but very human-looking eyes peered down.  "Don't do that to somebody like me! Don't ever do that again! I'm likely to take  your head off!" 

Gus decided that it was the better part of discretion not to point out that the  captain's reaction had been not to fight but to flee. After all, it was his  ship. "Sorry. Can't help it. A defense mechanism that's just built in. I  couldn't turn it off if I tried. You haven't noticed this sort of thing with  either of your survivors?" Gus was beginning to worry that they'd just blown it  on a wild-goose chase. 

"No! And from the looks of things it's gonna be touch and go if one of 'em don't  disappear into the grave." 

The colonel felt impatient. "May we just see them. Captain?" 

"Infirmary below. At least the one that's wracked up is there. The other one  roams all over the place but generally stays out of the way. Anybody can point  you the way." 

As they went below, led by a crewman, Gus wasn't at all sure that he wanted it  to be they. If it was Terry who was down there, near death ... It was pretty clear, though, in the small infirmary that they hadn't wasted any  time at all and that Gus's fears had not been realized, either. Hooked up to a forced breathing apparatus and submerged in a fluid tank that at  least insulated the injured man from the effects of the sea was clearly a  battered, bruised, and cut Nathan Brazil. 

"Jeez! He looks awful!” Gus noted, examining the man through the plastic casing.  "What the hell did they do to him?" 

The colonel, too, stared at the man floating in the tank. "He's survived many  weeks, probably with very little, on a tropical atoll." he noted. "I doubt if he  had a comb, razor, or medical kit. However, note the scars." 

"I'm trying not to," Gus responded. 

"Be observant! The scar tissue is brown but of roughly the same uniform age,  shade, and thickness. The bruises and black and blue areas also look to be  rather similar. This says that most of what, we see happened in a relatively  short period of time. I think that Captain Brazil might very well have been on  that island when it exploded and was somehow blown away with the debris. Strange  ... He seems, well, so much smaller, more frail-looking than I remembered him. I  suppose, like many small men, his personality and energy are in inverse  proportion to his real size and strength." 

A Mosicranz, looking something like an anemic and sickly angel to Gus, although  with a more birdlike head, came into the room. "I am the doctor," she told them.  "I understand you know who and what this is." 

"He is a Glathrielian," the colonel told her. "Not likely to be an extensive  entry in your medical books, I fear. They are generally a very closed and  primitive society and do not travel. This man was an exception to the rule." "I can believe the primitive part," the doctor responded. "The female seems to  be totally ignorant of the simplest things, almost like a little child." "She is not so badly hurt?" Gus asked anxiously. Predictably, the doctor started  but recovered quickly. Clearly she'd seen that trick before. 

"She's not hurt at all. She apparently made it to a nearby island with a  lifesaving chest and beacon and apparently triggered it by accident. That's the  only reason we knew she was there and picked her up. She seems very concerned  about the male-they were mated, perhaps?" 

"In a way," Lunderman acknowledged. "Although I don't think it was necessarily  mutual. This man is quite sophisticated about things, while the girl seems about  as primitive as you can get." 

"You knew them before, then?" 

"Yes, indeed. We both did," the colonel told her. "My companion goes back even  further with the girl." 

"Is that so? Well, I'm afraid that might not count for much anymore," the doctor  told them. 

"Why? Something happen?" Gus asked. "You said she wasn't hurt!" "Not physically, no. But we Mosicranz are very good healers, sir, with our own  set of inborn attributes. I am mildly telepathic. Only surface thoughts, no deep  probes, but sufficient to read and respond. She, too, has this ability-to what  depth I can't say, although it appears to be very similar to mine. When I say  she is like a child, I mean that literally. She has no memories at all before  waking up on that island. None. She doesn't know who she is, where she is, what  she is, or how she got there. She is here only because she has a permanent  connection of some sort to the male and sensed that even on the island. It is  impossible to say where they were when the eruption took place, but I would  think it was quite close. They became separated in the water. She made it to the  island; he did not, struggling in the channel until he found a large tree  floating there and managed to wrap himself in it. That is all deduction but is  probably correct. He was so badly injured that it's incredible he managed as  much as he did. As for the female, there is no clear evidence of head trauma, so  I can only suspect that the memory loss was due to either shock or internal  concussion when the thing blew-literally a shaking of the brain inside the  skull. I should like to examine her more thoroughly when we get to a high-tech  port to see if there is any brain damage or internal hemorrhaging that I can't  now detect." 

"Huh? You mean she might really be hurt, after all?" Gus asked her. "Perhaps. I would have kept her here, but I had no knowledge of what she was, so  sedation was out of the question. What dosage? Which drug? You see? And she's  not one to be kept lying down without forcible restraint." 

"Where is she now?" Gus asked her. 

"Somewhere aft and almost certainly topside. She doesn't like to be inside for  long. But don't expect too much from her. If she. is capable of vocalized  speech, I haven't been able to get anything out of her." 

"She is, but she may have forgotten how," the Dahir replied. "Still, I'll see  what I can do. Maybe later you can act as a bridge for us and I'll see if I can  stir up anything in her memories." 

"That might be a very big help," the doctor agreed. Gus went out to find Terry,  leaving the colonel with the doctor. 

"So, Doctor, what is your best guess, and I realize that it is only that, on  this one?" he asked her. 

"Frankly, I can't understand how he's still alive. Just looking at the external  injuries, I can well imagine what is inside. If he lasts long enough, I hope to  be able to do as much for him as possible, but frankly, unless he can somehow  heal himself of mortal wounds, I would be shocked if he lasts more than a matter  of days." 

The colonel thought for a moment, then said, "Perhaps he may surprise you,  Doctor. In any event, if you wish to stick with him, I certainly have no  objections, but even in the terrible shape he is in, I will insist that from  this moment there be a guard posted here or just outside and that he not be  moved or treated anywhere without a guard being present." 

"That man is not going anywhere!" the doctor pronounced confidently. "Period!" "If he were on fire and we were watching him bum, I would not trust 'that man,'  " the colonel told her. "You and your ship are going to be a little bit famous,  I think, Doctor. You see, that man is Captain Nathan Brazil." 

There was a long pause, and then the doctor asked, "Who?" 

"Nathan Brazil. There's been an all wants and warrants out on him since he stole  a sailing ship and vanished many weeks ago." 

"I don't pay attention to that. I have enough trouble keeping up with the  medical biology of the nine different races represented on this crew alone, let  alone others I might have to patch up, regardless of tech level. It keeps me  busy." 

The colonel was still a bit incredulous. "You have never heard the name before?" The doctor gave a mild shrug. "Well, seems to me that there's a name that sounds  something like that in ancient mythology, but I'm afraid I didn't pay much  attention to myths and legends." 

A pseudopod oozed out and gestured toward the man in the tank. "Well, there lies  a genuine mythological legend, Doctor. Nathan Brazil, the immortal who alone  remains to work the great Well World machine." 

"You're joking, of course." 

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. Let's just say that there is ample evidence that such a  person exists. Enough to satisfy the Zone Council that he exists, anyway. And  this man, who came through the Well Gate from another world far from here, not  from ancestral Glathriel, knew an awful lot about the Well World for one from a  civilization still not really even into space." 

The doctor stared at the man in the tank. "An ancient god? That one? Here?" "Wiser heads than we believe it. Certainly it will be a moot point if he dies,  won't it? But if he doesn't ... If he in fact makes a full and complete recovery  ... What then?" 

"You kind of expect your ancient mythological deities to be, well, a bit larger,  more imposing, to say the least." 

The colonel chuckled. "Only if they want to be noticed, Doctor. Not when you  want to sneak in." 

She hadn't entirely lost her fear, but she was much more relaxed now, convinced  at least that she'd done the right thing by coming to the other, hurt though he  clearly was. Everything on the boat was so interesting, so new. She understood  that the crew members got a lot of amusement at her ignorance. Of course they  were sometimes not so amused, like when she'd just taken a piss on the deck, but  she didn't mind. A lot of it was too confusing to worry about, anyway. What did  it matter if some had clothes and some didn't? What did it matter how one ate,  or slept, or whatever? 

And they kept going around and working all these things on the boat that didn't  make a lot of sense. Some of them even did things that seemed silly on the face  of it, like washing the deck when they were on an ocean-when it got rough, the  waves washed it anyway. That was why she didn't understand why they got upset  when she peed on it. Either they or the waves washed it anyway, and it seemed  like she had to pee a lot. 

They also had a lot of gadgets and gizmos that made no sense to her. They'd  sometimes try to show her the simplest things, at least to them, and she'd try,  too, really try, but she just couldn't figure out how to work them. She had  finally managed to figure out how to open doors, but then they got mad when she  kept practicing on every door on the boat. Doors seemed stupid, anyway. All they  did was block her way from one place to another. If they didn't have doors, they  wouldn't have to bother opening them all the time, she reasoned. She couldn't figure out why the boat didn't sink, either. One threw something in  the water, it sank. Why didn't this big, heavy, ugly thing sink? It didn't make  any sense. Well, she didn't worry much about things she couldn't figure out.  From observing and listening to the surface thoughts of the crew, she'd gotten  the idea that there were smart people who understood or could figure out most  anything, there were others who understood some things, and finally there were  dumb people who just couldn't figure out things. Some of the crew members whom  others in the crew considered stupid didn't seem so stupid to her, but they also  didn't seem to be sad or upset that they might be stupid. All of them thought  she was pretty stupid, even the ones the others thought were stupid, too, so  maybe she was. She'd asked the nice doctor about that, and the doctor, who  everybody said was the smartest one on the boat, had told her that people who  tried their best and didn't worry about what they knew or didn't know were  happiest, and that seemed like good advice. She'd just try her best and learn  what she could and not worry about the rest.