03. Gods at the Well of Souls (20 page)

"Well, get 'em down here when you can. Let 'em see this, photograph it,  broadcast it. Even though it'll make every viewer sick to their stomach, it'll  legitimize this raid and your government more than anything else. Some of those  corrupt bastards who protected this place all these years should watch it, too.  And if they don't know how to cover it right, call me. I'm an expert." He reached the jail door at the other end. Knowing where the locking mechanism  was, he fired the rifle on full blast, holding it steady until the lock turned  first black, then red, and finally white. He released the trigger, then reared  back on his tail and kicked with both powerful feet. The door resisted the first  time, but the second kick saw it move back. He had been so angry, he saw he'd  actually bent the material. 

The secondary door had been left open, since it was never designed to be more  than a security lock for people wanting in. As he went through it, shots rang  out all around and tracerlike needier rays rained down on him. For a moment he  thought they could see him, but then he realized that they were just firing  blindly at the sound. 

"Hold your fire, you idiots!" somebody called. "Don't waste energy! Wait until  they actually come through!" 

Good advice, Gus thought with nervous release. They wouldn't have had to do much  more of that before they'd have winged or even killed him. Blind shots were his  worst enemy. 

They'd overturned tables, beds, sofas, everything they had, and made a pretty  fair barricade. This was not going to be easy, and he was suddenly acutely aware  that he was between them and the commandos he'd just urged to come down behind  him. 

There didn't seem to be much of a choice. He picked a weaker and less sturdy  part of the barricade, went over to it, took a deep breath, then simply charged  in with a roar, making furniture and appliances fly all over the place. The gunmen were so startled that the ones closest to him pulled back in total  fear, while the ones on the other side again opened fire on the now-deserted  corridor. 

He didn't wait for them to figure out what was going on. He was, after all, a  very large target even if invisible. He opened up on the fleeing men with the  rifle, forgetting he still had it on maximum. The whole corridor was bathed in  white energy, and those caught directly in the beam were disintegrated, while  those farther away found their clothing and skin in flames. 

He turned to the others who were just turning to bear on him and charged into  them with a hideous roar that echoed terrifyingly down the corridor, so close in  and so violent that they had no chance to use their weapons. There was no rifle  this time; Gus's huge reptilian jaws opened and closed with savage fury as his  targets futilely struggled and fought to break free. One down ... Two ... Three  ... Where the hell was four? 

Running down the hall right into the cells, where he would undoubtedly find a  welcoming party by now. 

His mouth was dripping with blood in three colors, and there were pieces of  people from three races all over the place, but nothing alive. And the funny thing was, he felt great! He looked around on the floor and didn't  see his own rifle but saw a furry dismembered hand still clutching a nearly  identical one and pried it away. 

Staff living quarters and kitchens. He could just walk right through them to  where he really wanted to go, but he didn't think he would. 

He wondered what the current record was for the Agon commandos for killing these  turds and also whether it was possible for him to break it. The ghost of his old  Lutheran pastor shattered in his mind. Hell, he was really starting to enjoy  this! 

Julian's walk back to what they had called the "stable" entrance had calmed her  somewhat, and she was finally able to relax enough to stand on two legs again. She wasn't sure just what they were bringing her this far away to look at, and  when she saw, she still wasn't quite sure. 

"What are they?" she asked an Agonese sergeant. 

"Beats us, ma'am. We were told maybe you could tell us. We ran 'em through our  own system by shooting video up to the command center, but they can't place  them, either, at least not by species or hex." 

They looked mostly like horses and mules, but not quite. No two were nearly  alike beyond the basic form, but no two rang exactly true, either. She could see  what the Agonese meant and why they hadn't really been able to explain it. There were tall ones and short ones, big ones and little ones. They divided  first into two classes which she thought of as equine and elephantine. The  equine had thin legs of varying lengths, balanced torsos, and heads on long  necks. They tended to have camouflagelike colors, dull and mixed, with lots of  browns and olives. Hair was short or long; tails were optional and of varying  lengths and designs. The heads, though, were what caught her attention. They all  looked different, and many of them looked unsertlingly like caricatures of the  faces of some Well World races. 

The elephantine were more bizarre, with very thick legs; wide, round padded  hooves; and large, squat bodies that tended to be hairless and dull-colored,  with pink or gray or mottled variations, as if they'd once had hair but it had  fallen out. They, too. had faces, but the faces-again all different and with  some hint of familiarity-were virtually looking out from the top front of the  torsos without distinct heads or necks. She couldn't imagine how they fed. The worst thing was, they all looked at her and the others with eyes that seemed  very intelligent indeed and expressions, when they were capable of them, of  extreme sadness. 

"Did you capture anybody alive from this area?" she asked them. "Yeah, but they haven't been too talkative yet. We asked them what these things  were and why they were here, and all they said was that it wasn't their area but  they thought they were couriers." 

"Couriers!" 

"Yeah. Apparently this is a fairly new batch still being trained. They have some  that run through Liliblod to Clopta, but most of them go to other areas where  they can run stuff by night through backcountry areas without being seen." "Do they make sounds?" 

"Uh huh, but they're just crazy screeches or bellows. Nothing intelligible, even  on translator, if that's what you're thinking." 

She was thinking worse than that. She was thinking of those two doctors she'd  gone to see with their miracle experiments and records that had included  information on Glathrielians and Erdomese. 

I actually let them put something into me, too! My God! Am I going to turn into  one of these things? 

She told herself to calm down, that they wouldn't have been crazy enough to try  anything like that and risk exposure, but she couldn't quite convince herself.  I'm going to be a paranoid hypochondriac for months, she admitted ruefully to  herself. 

She tried to pull herself together. "Are they-natural? I mean, do they seem,  well, normal in the sense of being put together right?" 

"Well, as far as we can tell, they're all sexless," the sergeant told her. "Of  course, with those, who could tell what's really missing? 

Julian thought of Lori and Mavra Chang. Couriers? Like these monsters? "I want to talk topside if I can," she told the sergeant. "They told me that my  Dillian companion couldn't get down here. I'd like to contact her if I could. I  need to compare some notes. Is that possible?' 

"Could be. I'll call the command center and see if they have a channel open." Inside of five minutes she was talking to Tony. "Where are you?" she asked the  centaur. 

"If you're where they said you were, I'm probably about five meters on top of  you," Tony told her. "What's the situation?" 

As quickly and as adequately as she could, she described what she'd seen and her  thoughts on the missing pair. 

"I agree, but we must remember that these poor wretches were probably their own  people being punished for failures, while Lori and Mavra were objects of  revenge. I can see them perhaps making Lori one of these poor creatures, but I  cannot see Campos doing that to Mavra Chang. If I remember Lori's account of his  adventure in the jungle, I can see why Campos would want some revenge, but not  the kind of long-term suffering that would be due to Mavra. I know something of  the code and the way people like Campos think. It was that sort of person that  caused me to stay away from my native country until democracy was restored  there. Lori was a point of honor, a detail, even though an important one. But  Mavra Chang by direct action impacted personally on Campos. She stopped his  attempted rape, she kidnapped and dragged him in the jungles, and then she  caused him to wind up here. No, Mavra Chang would be special, someone who would  have to be in permanent hurt and humiliation, available for frequent lifelong  scorn. Considering what you have told me, who knows what these people were  capable of?" Tony thought for a moment. "A pet, perhaps. A dog or cat or  whatever would be appropriate but not too obvious. Something that could be  walked on a leash through a public park. You see what I am getting at?" "Yes, I'm afraid I do," Julian replied. 

"Someone should be able to remember Lori and what they turned him into," Tony  said confidently. "They are still in a state of shock, but interrogations should  bring results. That is a big place, but it is not that big, and I would suspect  that the permanent staff knows pretty much what is going on throughout the  place. But Mavra-I fear that unless we can get into that computer and find out  precisely what they did or unless we can crack those two butchers open, we will  have to reach Mavra by going through Juan Campos." 

"I've never met this person," Julian told her, "but I am beginning to think that  I want to meet her. Preferably in a nice dark alley ..." 

In a hex with the kind of technology that could put a very powerful computer  into something the size of a claw, the computer center was incredibly huge. How  much information did they have here? What could these rooms of memory cubes,  each capable of holding trillions of facts, possibly contain? More than, merely  all the data on the drug business, that was for sure. Blackmail on thousands of  leaders in every hex they went to? Biological information on every single race,  with details on how to make something for each that would addict them? Probably,  Gus thought. At least that.  

He was as surprised by the size of the place as he was by its emptiness. He'd  expected at least a few people here, just to make certain that this stuff didn't  fall into anybody's hands, but the place was completely deserted. Or was it? 

Over there-a terminal of some sort and something, something large but  indistinct, sitting at it ... 

Colonel, what the hell are you up to? Jeez! The Leeming was huge, a blob fit for  the horror movies almost. At least twice the size he'd been a few hours earlier,  anyway. 

The large projection-type screen above the terminal booth was alive with  flashing data. Gus couldn't read any of it and was surprised that the colonel  seemed to be able to do so. Come to think of it, even if the old boy had somehow  mastered the writing, how the hell had he gotten past the security system and  inside to the data? 

And suddenly, with the cynicism born of covering countless wars and tragedies,  it all fell into place. 

"I always wondered how you got so much authority and power so fast, Colonel,"  Gus said loudly, his deep voice echoing slightly off the walls. The colonel was startled. "Gus? How did you get here so quickly?" "This is Education Day, Colonel, at least for me. Today I found out things about  myself I never knew before, and I also found out why the Dahir have such a  strict and pacifistic religion and don't want their people wandering all over  this world. We're killers, Colonel. Natural killers. It's in the blood, in the  genes, the hormones. We enjoy it. I enjoy it. It's a tough thing to keep down  once you've started doing it. That's why the Dahir faith is so strict and life  there so god-awful boring. It's the only way to keep us civilized. Nothing worse  than a natural killer you can't see wandering around, is there?" "You are a rational man, Gus. You only have killed your enemies." "That's true, but I have a strange feeling that it's going to be very easy to be  defined as an enemy of mine from now on. But I haven't told you the whole story  yet, Colonel. Education Day is still ongoing. I learned the best part just by  stepping in here and watching you." 

"What do you mean?" 

"Nothing this big, no operation this slick and this huge, could possibly get to  be this way on its own, and I don't care what drugs they sell or how much money  they spread. We ain't talkin' just a gang here. We're talking governments, or  parts of governments, at the highest levels. Presidents and kings and dictators  and probably South Zone councillors as well. Not that they were in on the  details, of course. I doubt if they were ever here or even imagined how some of  their money was spent, but in on the top levels of control. Not all of 'em,  sure. Not even a majority, 'cause what sense would that make? They didn't care  about the details. They were busy using that power to weaken and take over  governments of hexes they didn't even know how to pronounce. Control economies,  trade, you name it. Pretty soon the whole Well World's workin' for them and it  don't even know it. It must've drove 'em crazy when they figured out they had to  sacrifice this place, but their little underlings did something, and they can't  afford to even let their own people know what it was. Uneasy lies the head, huh,  Colonel?" 

"Go on, Gus. You are quite entertaining." 

"So it's going along really good, and then, suddenly, wham! Here's the legendary  Nathan Brazil unmasked, and he's headed for the internal works sooner or later.  They can't kill him, so they try and slow him down, make him feel comfortable,  that kind of thing, while they consult and figure out what the hell to do. I  mean, they can't let him get inside, can they? If they do, he'll see their  racket right away and queer it. I can just imagine the nightmares. And then it's  not just one of 'em but two. Either one's the worst thing anybody could imagine.  Both together might be unbeatable. Two unkillables. But they're pretty clever.  The two clearly haven't seen each other since the last ice age on Earth, so it's  easy to make each of 'em think the other's out to get them. They won't get  together then even if they could. But how to keep them from getting up to the  equator? That's the other problem."