03. Gods at the Well of Souls (37 page)

The Dillians, too, felt less than noble about the help they'd been in all this  and were pretty well defeated and resigned. A few times one or possibly both  might have escaped, but they could hardly have taken Gus and Terry with them,  and they had no doubt that either Campos or the colonel would make them pay for  any transgression by Tony or Anne Marie. 

In point of fact, Tony for one was surprised to be alive at all. It didn't make  a lot of sense not to have killed them, but since they hadn't, there was at  least the possibility of getting out of this with a whole skin. Whether the same  could be said for Terry, Mavra, or Lori remained to be seen, but as Anne Marie  had commented, "We started this as grown-ups. It would be maddening not to be  there at the finish." 

On Taluud's sturdy horses and with well-provisioned pack mules, they made the  Verion border in just three days. 

"It would be tempting to run our trackers all the way down this border and see  if there is a scent now," Campos commented, "but whether or not they have gotten  here yet is something we cannot say. We wasted so much time back there trying to  find them that it is not worth it at this point. Let us push on to this Avenue;  I want to see what the devil this setup is." 

"Shall we cross over to Ellerbanta? They are high-tech over there, you know. It  would be much easier to travel. We might well be able to ride up on something  that has real power and eat decent food again." 

"It is tempting," the colonel agreed, "particularly considering what these  Verion hogs think of as high cuisine, but I think not. Our odds of making  headway with any guards are far better on this nontech side than on the other,  and they will have to come this way." 

In another three days they reached the point where the Avenue intersected the  equator. None of them had ever actually seen a Well World wall before; its scope  and sheer sense of permanence awed them all. It rose from the ground as if  placed there by the hand of some enormous giant, rising up, up, as far as the  eye could see. There was a top limit, of course, but it was impossibly high up,  and beyond that there rose an energy barrier that still stopped any sort of  passage across it. 

The southern hemisphere of the Well World was dedicated almost entirely to  carbon-based life; the few exceptions were primarily silicon variants that still  required much of the same ranges of environment for life and sustenance. The  northern hemisphere, on the other hand, was entirely non-carbon-based and in  fact had so many varieties that they had their own separate lexicon up there.  Most of the northern races, it was said, were so alien that they made little  sense to those in the south. Ammonia breathers gazed out on methane oceans, and  sulfur oxide breathers found it chilly at a mere ninety degrees Celsius. There  were whole regions up there where even crossing from one hex to the next would  be lethal to the native of the first, and not a single condition there would  support any of the life in the south without an artificial environment. The only way back or forth was by a special gate in the two Zones, north and  south. The equatorial barrier kept everybody else, and everything inside the  hemispheres, from mixing. 

If it wasn't for the Avenue, there would be no way to tell that this was any  sort of unusual place along the otherwise totally smooth, impenetrable wall. The  Avenue simply went up to it and essentially merged with it, with no apparent  sign of a seam. It was almost as if it continued on through, although there was  nothing to show that it did or didn't. 

When they reached it, it was certainly impressive. The border ran right to the  edge of the Avenue entrance, and there were cuts every few kilometers where  sloping ramps switchbacked down. Campos went a little down one ramp, through the  border, and found that the other border, for Ellerbanta, was along the opposite  side. The Avenue was a place all its own, broad, smooth, and finely machined,  which showed the otherwise invisible artificial nature of this world. Campos took out one of the energy pistols she had, which hadn't been anything  more than a weight since leaving Clopta, and fired it at an angle to the  opposite wall, which was impressively far away. The shot hit and seemed to be  absorbed by the material. There was no ricochet, not even of the light from the  energy beam. 

Impressed, Campos tried it on a section of wall right next to the ramp. The same  thing occurred, and she then gingerly touched the spot, which showed not even a  scorch mark at a beam level that would have atomized the horse. It wasn't even  warm to the touch. 

There was no question that even by the standards of the Well World, the Avenue  was beyond any of the technologies here and stood like an artifact, perfectly  preserved, running straight as an arrow due north as far as the eye could see.  Campos had had the same sort of feeling when seeing the great Incan cities and  those of the Aztecs and Mayas as well, somehow out of place in their junglelike  settings, suggesting another world, another time, and a civilization that could  barely be imagined. 

At night the Avenue glowed with an eerie light, this one a golden yellow,  revealing a pattern in the Avenue floor and walls not so obvious in daylight. By  night, by this internal glow, the "street" level seemed to be made up of  hexagonal blocks of absolutely uniform size. 

"Gives you the creeps, does it not?" Campos said to the colonel, looking down in  the darkness. 

"I find it astonishing. What incredible creatures they must have been! So far  beyond us that we could probably not even imagine their civilization and way of  life. This whole world nothing but a laboratory for them. It must have been like  Mount Olympus or the angels around the throne of heaven." 

"But still they died out, just as the Incas, but not by conquest," Campos noted.  "Maybe things were not so heavenly, after all, I think. They are dead. Gone. All  we are doing is looking at their toys." 

The colonel wasn't so sure. "Perhaps. But if they left at least one gatekeeper,  as I believe they did, then they didn't think they were going to die out, and  they certainly didn't die out due to external or accidental forces. To reach  that height, they had to have destroyed themselves somehow. What was it that  they did, I wonder, and why? They certainly didn't think of it as an end, else  why leave a gatekeeper? I wonder if we can even conceive of what they did. I  doubt if we could understand it even if one of them explained it to us. Why  build a laboratory, set it up this way, and then leave? And where did they go?  And why?" 

"Such power they had," Campos breathed. "They would never have given it up  willingly. Still, we will never know, eh? Not unless your Captain Brazil wakes  up and decides to talk about it." 

"Oh, he has. Gus told me all about it. He claims he's nothing more than a man  who accepted a bargain with the previous keeper, who was so sick of immortality  that he simply wanted to die. And that our captain finally had reached that same  point himself and had chosen Mavra Chang as a candidate replacement. Apparently  she flunked the initiation." 

Campos thought about it. "You know, if that is true, I almost wonder if we could  still make some sort of deal with her. What does she owe him or the builders?  Think of getting inside, in the control room of this whole thing. It must be  like nothing we can imagine, yes?" 

"Indeed. But I hardly think she'd be in any sort of mood to keep a deal struck  with you, not after what you did to her," the colonel pointed out. "Even if she  kept her word, it would be, I think, like making a deal with the devil. She  might make you a queen, all right, but a queen who looked like she does now and  with the same limitations. No, I don't think I'd like to trust her on that. Our  original plan is far more practical. In that case, we know the sort of minds we  are dealing with and the limits on their power and authority." "I think you are right," Campos agreed. "Still, I have to admit that if your  captain is telling the truth, then perhaps he did not pick so badly, after all.  Consider how far she has come and under what circumstances she has managed to do  it. I keep wondering if, considering all that, she will not somehow manage to  slip inside." 

"Not if we get there first," the colonel responded firmly. The soldiers  stationed here were Verionites; there had been a larger and more mixed force  earlier, but it had been discontinued because of its expense, because of the  complaints from other races about the tedium and lack of amenities to no  apparent purpose, and because the Verionite government wasn't exactly thrilled  with the idea of any foreign troops on its soil for any length of time. They were almost laughable, these troops, except that they had a certain  imposing look about them up close. Those pig snouts and big, ugly hog faces and  tiny, nasty-looking eyes were atop large mouths from which lower canines often  protruded, giving them a very fierce look indeed. Their arms were thick,  powerful, and muscular, and their hands had very long fingers that ended in  sharp black nails. 

They were, Juana Campos decided, really wean-looking. They wore metal helmets  that came to points and uniforms of a filigreed wool-like material that included  crimson jackets, gold buttons, and black trousers with gold stripes. There were  perhaps fifty of them at any given time, under a single officer and two NCOs,  and they were rotated frequently. 

And they considered their orders to be a very big joke. "We're to stop anybody  from going in there" Major Hjazz, the current officer in charge, told the  newcomers. "As if they could!" 

"There is nothing really there at the end of the Avenue, then?" the colonel  asked him. 

The major chuckled. "Well, yes. Every night at midnight you'll see it. It'll  click on, a kind of glow-the usual hexagon, you know. But you can go up to it,  bang on it, butt your head against it, anything you want at all. It won't make a  damn bit of difference. It's still just wall." 

"Indeed. But tell me, when this light is on-can you see anything? Anything  inside?" 

"You can see for yourself any midnight. There's tourists come up to see it all  the time, both from our own people and from Ellerbanta. Most of the nonlocal  races, they come in on tours through Ellerbanta, though, where they got that  stuff that makes you soft and lazy. When it's turned on, you can sort of see  something in there, but you can never really make out what it is. They been  tryin' since a lot longer than I been alive, I tell you! Hey, it's just a light  on one of them timers like they use in Ellerbanta. It turns on, stays on maybe  fifteen minutes, it turns off again. No big deal. Most folks don't come back.  It's not much of a show." 

"Well, with your permission, we'll camp near here for a little while. We were  supposed to meet some others here, and it is pretty clear they haven't shown up  yet. They were coming in via your country and on foot, so it might well be a few  days, even a week or so, until they get here. It's vital that we speak to them,  so would we be in the way if we stayed around a bit?" 

"Naw. Feel free. It's the off season, anyway. Still, if your friends are  recognizable, I could see if they've been spotted anywhere along the way and how  far they might be from here." 

Hardly, I think, the colonel said to himself, but aloud he said, "'Indeed? Any  runners or riders you might send might not cross their path, and we don't know  their route in any event. We might ask if things drag on, but it's not necessary  at the moment." 

"Oh, we wouldn't send runners or riders," the major replied. "We send and  receive mail every day by air." 

"By what?" 

And thus it was that the party learned of the aerial accomplishments of the  Verionites. 

It was the source of endless fascination to the party to watch them take off and  fly like that, and the bored soldiers were more than overjoyed to show off,  explain things, and particularly emphasize the problems and dangers of doing it  so near the barrier and the border, where wind and such could cause serious  problems or even disasters. "We've scraped up more than one from the bottom of  the Avenue," one private told them. "Messy." 

"I'd think you'd just sail right over to Ellerbanta," Tony commented. "Oh, sure, that's what you try to do, but it's not that easy 'cause you don't  have a lot of height from this point. That area right in there between the  borders ain't all that wide when you're flying, it's true, but it's dead air.  You start to sink like a stone, and you don't have much tolerance between those  walls for landing. You hit one, or the barrier, and it's all over." Tony and Anne Marie had been given a good deal of freedom, and they made some  use of it. Even Campos seemed to have tired of them as prisoners; she and the  colonel more than once tried to talk them, rather nicely and almost as equals,  into simply heading over to Ellerbanta. taking a train to the capital, and using  the Zone Gate there to go home. There was nothing more here they could do and  very little that they could do to Campos or the colonel, in spite of all. "And Terry and Gus?" Anne Marie asked them. "Gus knows that as soon as he's  recovered enough, he's out of here," Campos told her. "As for Terry, she remains  here with me. We are old acquaintances, she and I, and I feel sorry for her." "She of all people should be sent home now!" Tony argued. "She's going to have  that baby any day now!" 

"She is a strong, healthy girl. She will do all right," Campos told them both.  "Back home in Peru I have been at many home births. It is the way of my people  in the backcountry. More than once I assisted doctors of Shining Path with such  things. What few things are needed I have had brought here thanks to the  ingenuity of our host countrymen." 

"Well, I'm not about to leave until she's through it!" Anne Marie told her  adamantly. Campos shrugged. "Suit yourself." Terry had ridden with them and  watched all this in growing confusion and uncertainty. At least Gus seemed  better, although still in great pain, and it almost seemed as if the two  centaurs were completely out of danger. She knew she was still in danger, but  she could do little about it. Running away wouldn't do anything but maybe make  them hurt Gus. Besides, she couldn't run or even ride right, not anymore. She had trouble sleeping; every time she changed position, it woke her up. She  couldn't walk far or easily; it was more like a waddle, and it was very tiring  with this big, hard, increasingly heavy lump in her belly. Her nipples hurt, her  breasts seemed swollen, and she had to pee every ten minutes. It didn't take  anybody smart to see that she wasn't going anywhere.