Quest for the Well of Souls wos-3

by Jack L. Chalker

  He flipped on the interspace radio and called, “Obie? Is that you?”

  “Yes, Ben,” came the reply. “How have you been?”

  “Obie—how the hell? Are you alone down there?”

  “Oh, yes, quite alone,” responded the computer. “It’s been a long time, Ben. A lot longer for me than for you. I’ve followed some of your progress through the Well, though. Who wound up on the ship? I can’t tell that from here.”

  Yulin told him, then asked, “Topside—what are the conditions there?”

  “You know I have no voluntary circuits Topside,” the computer reminded him. “The atmosphere, pressure, and temperature have been maintained, and the electrical system is functioning normally. Beyond that I can’t say. I’ve nothing with which to monitor.”

  Yulin thought for a moment. The ship was closing on the spaceport airlock as they spoke. “Obie—have you been incommunicado all this time? I mean, if you can talk to me, do you talk to others?”

  There was silence at the other end.

  “Obie? Did you hear me?”

  “I heard you, Ben. We’ll talk again when you get here,” the computer said.

  He tried to raise Obie several more times, but there was only silence. He sat back and thought for a moment. The computer was fully capable of deceit; it was as human as he in many ways. The fact that it had refused to answer his question was in itself an answer. The computer had been talking these past years with someone—and there was only one person who would know how to build the proper receiving equipment.

  Dr. Gilgam Zinder, discoverer of the Markovian mathematics and creator of Obie, was still very much alive back on the Well World.

  But back there, Yulin told himself confidently. He knew all the Southerners aboard, and Zinder would not have been processed as a Northerner. Zinder could talk with Obie, even consult the great machine, but he couldn’t actually operate it, change the programming. Only someone at one of the control panels inside Obie itself could do that, and even if Zinder were there, he did not know about Ben Yulin’s innovative circuit design. When he’d used it, he’d stunned Zinder to unconsciousness.

  No matter what surprises Zinder and Obie had planned for him, they were in for a nasty shock, Ben Yulin thought confidently.

  He watched the console. The ship closed gently. The first of the two locks was damaged; he probably had done that himself in his panic during the flight from New Pompeii, he reflected. The other was fine, though, and the computer headed for it.

  A sudden scraping sound forward, and a wrenching jerk as the ship slipped into its berth and straightened itself heralded their safe landing.

  They were back on New Pompeii.

  He switched the ship to external power, drawing from the New Pompeii power plant. The instruments flickered briefly and it was done. The last step in the chain.

  He undid his straps and stood, for the first time realizing the brutality of the takeoff.

  Painfully, limping slightly, the minotaur made his way aft to see about his passengers.

  New Pompeii

  The airlock hissed, then the big amber stand-by light flashed off and the green went on. Ben Yulin threw the levers, pulled open the hatch, and walked to the other side. The proper light was on, so he opened that end as well. A breeze wafted back at them as the slight differences in pressure equalized. The group followed the Dasheen into New Pompeii’s spaceport.

  To Mavra, despite her distorted, black-and-white vision, it looked very familiar. Renard, too, looked around in wonder at the familiarity of it all. To the others it was new, a plush, luxury lounge.

  Yulin was cautious. “Funny,” he said. “Looks almost like somebody cleaned up here, doesn’t it? I’d expected it to be dirty. The carpet isn’t even stained—and I know a lot of shit went on in here just before I left. I don’t like this at all.”

  They took the hint. Wooley and Vistaru drew pistols.

  “An odd construction,” commented the medium-size Bozog. “I may have some problem getting my two-and-a-half meters through the door.”

  “I think it’s wide enough for you to get through,” Renard said.

  Yulin, who was unarmed, declined to lead the way. Finally Wooley volunteered. The door slid open before her.

  The rest followed cautiously. Vistaru took advantage of the atmosphere and uncluttered corridor to fly; her race was not really built for walking, and she was otherwise too small to keep up. The lower gravity, which made the others feel wonderfully relieved, proved a problem at first, but she found the condition tolerable as long as she didn’t get fancy or ambitious. No use in slamming full tilt into a wall, she scolded herself.

  Outside, the terminal looked like a Roman ruin. The grass was high, and the lawns were dotted with flowers. The walks were just about overgrown, and trees were more abundant and less perfectly manicured than those who had previously been to New Pompeii remembered. Ivy, ferns, and mosses had overgrown some of the buildings, giving them a haunted appearance. Antor Trelig had dreamed of a new Roman Empire with himself as God-Emperor, Caesar. New Pompeii reflected this; its architechture was Greco-Roman, with lots of columns, arches and domes. As a ruin, it was in some ways even more impressive and awesome than it had been.

  “It’s incredible,” Wooley breathed.

  Yulin nodded. “In its own way a great achievement. Under the dome, this world is completely self-sufficient. The plants have probably added too much carbon dioxide to the air, but the animal-plant balance was about perfect in the old days. The air’s clean, pure, and it’s cleansed continuously. The automatic monitors keep the oxygen-nitrogen-trace-gas balance from deviating too far from optimum. Water vapor is injected from the subsurface tanks, and reclaimed. Trelig even had his own rainfall in there—on demand.”

  “That’s a pretty thick forest over there,” Vistaru noted, pointing to the left, beyond the buildings.

  He nodded. “A nice forest, yes. And somewhere in there are glades where exotic fruits were grown. Some deer and minor wildlife have probably survived. Insects, too. You can hear them if you listen.”

  They could. It was eerie.

  “Bozog, you having any problems?” Renard asked.

  “None,” responded the creature. “If necessary, I can feed on one of the buildings.”

  They walked on, heading for the largest structure in sight, the great hall where Trelig had held court and entertained guests—willing and unwilling.

  “Yulin?” Mavra called.

  He stopped. “Yes?”

  “I’m sure it’s occurred to you that at least a few people could survive here on the animals and fruit.”

  Yulin nodded.

  “The sponge. would have polished them off long ago,” Renard retorted.

  “You forget, Renard, there were others for Trelig’s big show—councillors and councillors’ representatives. Some of them were pretty tough people.”

  Yulin reconsidered. “Could be,” he admitted. “If the spongies didn’t kill them off.”

  “A couple of those people were professional agents like me,” Mavra noted. “They’d have been a lot harder to take, and time was on their side. I think we’d better assume that somebody’s still around.”

  “That clean lounge,” Yulin said softly, now suddenly alert again, looking around. “They sure haven’t taken care of the rest of the place.”

  Renard agreed with her the more he thought about it. “That’s true, but you have to figure that they’d be pretty normal for a while. But it’s been twenty-two years now, without hope, without communication. Who knows what kind of life they’d develop, what would happen in their minds?”

  “I think you’re right,” Renard agreed. “There are no bodies. No skeletal remains. Organic material decays slowly here because of the purification system used to filter out microorganisms.”

  “No graves that I can see, either,” Vistaru pointed out.

  “They’d be overgrown,” Mavra responded. “No, I think we’d better assume we’re not a
lone here and treat this as we would a hostile hex.”

  Yulin had a sudden thought. “The ship! It’s not secure! Maybe we’d better—”

  “Yes, maybe we’d better,” Wooley agreed.

  After securing the ship, they returned to explore the ruins. Power was still available, even the video equipment that spied on people everywhere. But aside from the fact that a kitchen area had been cleaned out, which was to be expected anyway, there was no sign of current use. The guards’ quarters had been used, although not recently.

  “Not many survived, that’s for sure,” Renard noted. “Maybe three, four people at best. That’s enough for this place to support. I wonder where they are?”

  The weapons locker had been sealed shut by an energy weapon. Mavra had done that twenty-two years ago, and it was clear it hadn’t been opened since. A few weapons were found scattered about, all discharged and useless.

  Some time passed before Renard, who knew the world better than anyone else, discovered signs that someone had attempted to leave a message in a small room below the combination guests’ quarters and library. The door had been broken in from the outside and whoever did it had fantastic strength because the ornate wooden doors were very thick. Inside Renard found signs of a struggle before the communications gear built into the far wall. A recording module was in place, and the panel still worked, so they anxiously crowded in as Renard ran it back to start.

  “This was the monitoring room for Trelig’s recording studio,” he told them. “He sometimes brought in musicians for private sessions, and he’d listen here to what was being recorded. You can see the hundreds of modules in the wall case. Whatever happened, this module is the last one made here—and might tell us something.”

  It stopped, and Renard deftly manipulated the controls, then punched play. A screen flickered, and a realsound field enveloped them.

  The face was that of a young woman, very attractive and soft, with a gentle face and voice.

  “Gossyn!” Renard exclaimed. It was all coming back, after all these years.

  “I am Gossyn of Estuado,” she said, her voice so true, the projected holoimage so clear, that they felt as if they were peering through a doorway at her. “One of Antor Trelig’s former slaves. I am leaving this record in case one of the ships that left here returns, as I expect them to. No matter—it’s too late. This afternoon we gathered all of the weaponry in the main courtyard, keeping the guests back. We are all addicted to sponge, and without it we will die painfully, and by bits and pieces. I can feel it eating at me even as I speak. We, the last of Trelig’s slaves, will not face that sort of death. When the weapons were gathered, the others stood among them, and I—” her voice broke, and tears appeared in her eyes—“I fired full beam with the rifle beside me. Nothing remains of them now but a brown spot. Soon I will place the rifle charge on feedback overload, and go as well—the last slave, the last weapon.” She paused, overcome with emotion, and then continued.

  “I do not care what becomes of the guests. They know that this little world can feed only a small number of them. I leave it to them, with the hope that, if it is Antor Trelig who returns, those who survive will somehow rip him slowly limb from limb, as befits a demon and a monster. I don’t even know why I’m making this… except—oh, hell, I guess I don’t want to die.” She muffled a sob. “I’m only seventeen,” she managed, and pushed forward, blanking out the picture.

  Mavra sighed. “Might as well switch it off,” she said, but, at that moment, the screen flickered to life again.

  It was a different person now, a strong-looking woman of perhaps thirty dressed in a utility uniform. She was not terribly attractive, but something extraordinary was revealed in her face and movements.

  She was terrified.

  “Anyone! Oh, Lord! If you came back and got this far!” She stopped as a hard thud reverberated behind her. It was so realistic that all the listeners’ heads turned toward the ruined door. The ghost of a moment was very real in the room.

  She hurried. “He’s crazy! Listen! Yesterday the guards destroyed the weapons and themselves. Then somebody started killing the rest.” The sound of pounding was clear in the background, and she turned again, then back, getting frantic now.

  “One of us—Belden, his name is. He’s a plant. One of Trelig’s people, put in with us as a spy. When his boss deserted him he went crazy—if he wasn’t already.” More pounding and some slight splintering noises. “He’s mad. Killing off the Comworlders, finishing off the men. Some of the women—Trelig has a Chamber of Horrors in mind-control devices here. He’s using it, wiping their minds, turning them into animals. He’s mad. I may be the only one left. No time. Watch it. Get the bastard in my name. Please!”

  The screen went blank. Renard sighed, switched it off. “She ran out of module before he got in,” he said.

  “Well, now we know.” Wooley added. “Did anyone else-notice her as she turned around?”

  “The tail,” Yulin responded almost apologetically. “Yes, Trelig gave everyone a horse’s tail.”

  “But that was twenty-two years ago,” Vistaru pointed out. “Who knows what became of them?”

  Yulin was thoughtful and concerned. “I think we better find out.”

  The natural spy was the Ghiskind. A thorough and careful search of the building complex showed no signs of recent habitation, but it was a large world. Yulin pointed out areas of abundant wildlife and groves of fruit trees on a map from the control room files, and the Yugash made for that area while the others camped out on the portico of the main hall, from where they could see anyone coming and prepare themselves.

  New Pompeii’s rotation was fairly rapid, and not a little disconcerting. The Well World filled half the sky, but it was eerie, distorted by the atmosphere and plasma skin through which it was viewed, and the stars in the brief night periods were equally nebulous.

  It took the Ghiskind less than an hour to return. As agreed, it merged with the Bozog for communications purposes.

  “They are there,” it told them. “A small colony, mostly young and all looking and acting quite wild and animalistic. Two males, five females, four young. Very strange.”

  “No sign of Belden, then,” Mavra noted. “Interesting. I wonder if he died? An accident, or maybe that woman took him with her somehow. I hope so. We’ll leave them there. Did they seem hostile?”

  “Frightened of their shadows,” the Yugash responded. “But definitely without much more than rudimentary reason, which probably explains why there are so few young. Few would survive.”

  They nodded. Yulin sighed. “Well, then, I propose we leave them, keep on guard just in case this Belden is still around someplace, and go Underside. That’s safest anyway.”

  They were tired and still sore, but they agreed. Underside was much more defensible, and it was where they had to be anyway.

  Mavra walked with them to the large stone structure to one side of what was once a park in front of the main hall. It, too, was overgrown now, but both the former syndicate scientist and Renard knew its operation.

  “It’s pretty cramped in there,” Yulin warned them. “I’d say Mavra and Wooley by themselves, and we’ll take the backup car. Bozog, you’re going to have a rough fit.”

  The face of the seemingly solid marble cube vanished after a series of carefully spaced taps on the outside. The grass, moss, and vines didn’t vanish, though, and had to be pulled off.

  The car before them had eight seats designed for humans. Wooley managed to fit in back by scrunching down and flexing her wings uncomfortably. Mavra managed to sprawl across the front three.

  “See you down there—and be careful. Belden would know about this, too,” Yulin warned, and punched a new combination.

  “Now I understand why Yulin wasn’t eager to be on the first car,” Wooley noted sarcastically. “Our big brave bull is about as cowardly as I have known.”

  Mavra said nothing. The drop was too uncomfortable. It was a long way to Underside, and a
lthough the rate of descent was controlled, it felt as if they were falling at all times—an uncomfortable sensation, and it was a long, long ride.

  Above them the others clambered into the service car, which was not quite as roomy as the first one. The Bozog managed, with great difficulty, although if the Ghiskind had had feet or if Vistaru and Renard had been larger, it would have been stepped on the whole way. Yulin was scrunched up trying not to step on the strange creature.

  Finally it ended, and the front of the car dissolved again. Mavra climbed out with difficulty, and Wooley almost snagged a wing, doing the same. They found themselves in a sterile, brightly lit hall, resembling any of the tens of millions of halls in the stark technological centers common since the dawn of technical civilization. The others arrived almost immediately; the smaller car’s speed was determined by the larger one, and let out a floor above.

  Yulin’s bull’s head nodded and he looked around in satisfaction, tail swishing back and forth in anticipation. This was his element—the metallic walls and artificial lighting, the bowels of a great machine. He had helped design the place and supervised its construction. It seemed a part of him.

  They walked along the hall, ready for anything. After a bit, it opened to reveal a broad platform and an overlook from which stretched a great wide bridge across a huge, impossibly deep pit.

  “No bodies again,” Yulin noted, surprised. “Then Belden has been here.”

  “Look!” Renard called. “Out there—across the bridge! Isn’t that a body?”

  They all strained. The Yaxa had the best vision, and her death’s head nodded. “Yes. A man. Outlandishly dressed, too. Very dead, I think—maybe for an awfully long time. A good deal of decomposition is evident.”

  Yulin considered it. “Looks like he tried for the computer. In the defense mode he’d just about get across before the lethal charges hit him. Even at this end, it’s got fifty volts as a discouragement, so he was nuts, driven, or determined. Probably all three.”