Chalker, Jack L. - Well of Souls 02 (48 page)

"Look," he said, trying to soften it, "maybe another Type 41 Entry will come in. Then we'll be able to do something. There's hope."

The Czillian kept staring at the photograph. "You know the figures. One time there were lots of human Entries; what have we had in the last century? Two? And we lost track of both of those."

"One's dead, the other's in a salt-water hex and is the wrong kind of pilot," Ortega mumbled. The plant-creature hardly heard. Once it, too, had been a human female. That was why it was picked as the liaison with Ortega.

"I'd still kill myself," Vardia said softly.

Aboard a Ship

Just off Glathriel

They had taken her first south from Dillia through Kuansa to Shamozan, the land of great spiders. She had no fear of spiders, and found them charming and very human.

The ambassador was very kind, but he explained the situation to her in graphic detail, concluding, "The only thing we can do right now is make it as easy as possible. Understand, we have no choice."

She started to say something, but a needle from someone behind pierced her skin, and things had blacked out.

They took her to a medical section with a strange machine. The ambassador explained it to Renard and Vistaru, who still accompanied her. Hosuru had gone to report and was home already.

"Basically, it reinforces the effect of a hypno," he explained. "It doesn't work on many races, but she's still Type 41, although modified, and it'll work on them and her. What it does is to do a more or less permanent burn-in of a basic hypno treatment, so it doesn't wear off. We know it works, because we took data on her in Lata using a similar device and then blocked all memory, and it held."

"But what will you tell her?" Vistaru worried. "You won't change her, will you?"

"Only a little," the ambassador replied. "Just enough to make her comfortable, adapt. We can't do anything serious; the whole reason for this is that we must keep her on hand for the skills and qualities she possesses. I think she understands that."

The process began.

"Mavra Chang," said the device, preprogrammed carefully. "When you awake, you will find your memories and personality unchanged. However, while you will remember being human, you will be unable to imagine yourself that way. The way you are now will seem natural and normal to you. This form is how you are comfortable. You cannot conceive of being any other way, even though you know you once were, and you wouldn't want to be any different than you are."

The thing went on for a bit, feeding her various bits of information, methods, skills she would need in order to cope, and then it was over.

She had awakened a few hours later, and felt strangely better, more at ease. She tried to remember why she had felt different before, but it came hard. Something to do with being in this form, she recalled.

She remembered being human. Remembered it, but in a curious, lopsided kind of way. It seemed like she'd always had four legs. She tried to imagine herself walking upright on two legs, or picking up things with hands, and she just couldn't. It was just not right somehow. This was right.

Vaguely, in the back of her mind, she knew that they'd done something to her, something to create this situation, but it didn't seem important, somehow, and she quickly forgot it.

But she remembered the stars. She knew she belonged there, not here, not in any planetbound existence anywhere. She would sit there, topside on the ship as it crossed the Gulf of Turagin, sometimes by sail, sometimes by steam, depending on the hex, head and forelegs propped up on some crates or a hatch cover, looking at the stars.

She chuckled to herself. They thought she wanted to go through the Well. Or maybe they thought she'd settle down and forget in this new existence. But the stars came out every night, and those she would never forget. It went beyond reason and logic; it was a love affair. A love affair now forcibly broken by circumstances, but not beyond repair while both lovers lived.

And now, as the sun came up, there was a shoreline out there. It looked green and pretty and warm; sea birds circled offshore, diving occasionally for fish and clams, then took their catch to rookeries in the hillsides overlooking the beach.

Renard came on deck, stretched and yawned, then went over to her.

"Not an unpleasant-looking place for an exile," she said calmly.

He stooped down so his head was level with hers. "Very primitive. A tribal culture, not much else. They're human— what we think of as human. But this wasn't our ancestral home. They had a war with the Ambreza; the big beavers gassed them back into the Stone Age and swapped hexes, so it's a nontech hex."

"Suits me fine," she replied. "Primitive means small population." She looked straight at him, head to one side. "And soon your job will be done, and Vistaru's too. They've built a compound for me to my requirements, with a fresh water spring and everything. Once a month a ship will drop off supplies in little plastic pouches I can open with my teeth holding them between my forelegs. There are hostiles and water all around except on the Ambreza side, and they'll keep Zone Gates 136 and 41 secure. The primitives have been effectively tabooed from the compound. No risk to me, and no chance I'll escape. You and Vistaru can go back through the Zone Gate, tell them all is well, and then try and find new lives or pick up old ones. I understand the Agitar are so pissed off at the war fizzling out that you're some kind of hero."

He was hurt. "Mavra— I— "

She cut him off. "Look, Renard!" she said sharply. "You don't owe me anything and I don't owe you anything. We're even now! I don't need you any more, and it's about time you learned you don't need me, either! Go home, Renard!" She was almost screaming now, and the look she gave him said it even more eloquently.

I'm Mavra Chang, it said. I was orphaned at five and again at thirteen. I was a beggar who became the queen of beggars, a whore when I had to be to buy the stars I craved, and I got them! I was a thief they couldn't catch, the agent who snatched Nikki Zinder off New Pompeii and kept her and you alive until help could come. And against all odds, I reached Gedemondas and saw the destruction of the engines.

I'm Mavra Chang, and no matter what comes along, I will cope.

I'm Mavra Chang, bride only of the stars.

I'm Mavra Chang, and I don't need anybody!

* * *

The Wars of the Well will be concluded in

Quest for The Well of Souls .

Appendix:

Races Referred to in

Exiles at the Well of Souls

N=Nontechnological hex. S=semitechnological hex. H=high-tech hex. A parenthesis (for example, (N)) denotes a water hex. The addition of an M to the hex designation (i.e. SM) means it has what would be regarded as magical capabilities by those who don't have them. Uchjin, the only hex in the North, has an atmosphere that's mostly helium and other useless stuff.

AGITAR H Diurnal Males satyrlike; females reverse animalism of males but are smarter. Males can store and control electric charges.

ALESTOL N Diurnal Moving, barrel-shaped plants that are carnivores and shoot a variety of noxious gasses.

AMBREZA H Diurnal Resemble giant beavers. Used to be N until they beat the Glathriel in a war and swapped hexes with them.

BOIDOL NM Diurnal Giant sphinxlike creatures. Look fierce but are peaceful herbivores.

CEBU S Diurnal Resemble pterodactyls with prehensile apelike feet.

CZILL H Diurnal Asexual plants who duplicate; mobile by day, root at night. Pacifistic scholars with a huge computer center.

DASHEEN N Diurnal Basically minotaurs. Females are much larger and dumber than the males, but males need their lactose/calcium to live.

DILLIA S Diurnal True classic centaurs. Peaceful folk who hunt, trap, farm. Can eat anything organic but are basically vegetarian.

DJUKASIS S Diurnal Giant beelike colonies where citizens are bred physically and mentally for their jobs.

GALIDON (N) Giant, tentacled manta rays who are bad-tempered carnivores.

GEDEMONDAS N Diurnal Large, thin, hairy Apelike creatures with round feet and doglike snouts.

GLATHRIEL N Diurnal The ancestors of humanity; very primitive since the Ambreza gassed them back into the Stone Age and swapped hexes.

JIIHU (H) Large clamlike creatures with lots of tentacles, but they rarely move once full grown.

KLUSID N Diurnal Thin, delicate birdlike creatures in a land of great beauty. Atmosphere is much too high on the ultraviolet for most others.

KROMM (S) Diurnal Huge flowers that spin across their shallow swamp.

LAMOTIEN H Diurnal Small lumpy creatures who can imitate anything, even by combining to build bigger imitations, but can not change their mass.

LATA H Nocturnal Very small humanoid hermaphroditic pixies who can fly and have nasty stingers. Can also glow by secreting chemicals in the skin.

MAKIEM N Diurnal Large reptiles resembling giant toads who need some water daily though land-dwellers. Cold-blooded and have sex only ten days a year during one period.

NODI N Nocturnal Resemble giant mushrooms; thousands of tendrils drop from their "caps" when needed.

OLBORN SM Diurnal Resemble huge, bipedal pussycats with the ability to create their own beasts of burden.

PALIM H Diurnal Resemble great hairy mammoths with remarkably prehensile trunk with fingers all around.

PORIGOL (HM) Dolphinlike mammals who can stun or kill with sound.

QASADA H Diurnal Large ratlike creatures with long tails, whiskers, and hivelike communities.

SHAMOZAN H Diurnal These huge, hairy tarantulas like alcohol, melodic music, and games of skill.

TELIAGIN N Diurnal Great cyclopses; carnivores who raise their own sheep to eat and are bull-headed but not dumb.

TULIGA (S) Giant, rather repulsive sea slugs, neither nice nor communicative.

UCHJIN N Nocturnal Look like giant paint smears flowing down glass.

ULIK H Diurnal Great six-armed snake-men that live in a desert hex at the Equatorial Barrier.

XODA NM Diurnal Resemble four meters of praying mantis, and have a hypnotic way of inviting you to dinner.

YAXA S Diurnal Females who eat their husbands after sex. Look like giant orange-and-brown butterflies with hard shiny black bodies, eight prehensile tentacles, and a death's head for a face. Visual system is quite different from Southern norm.

ZHONZORP H Diurnal Large, bipedal relatives of the crocodile given to dressing up like grand opera, capes and all, but are solid technicians.

THE END

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Exiles at the Well of Souls