Midnight At the Well of Souls

by Jack L. Chalker

  An officious-looking dinosaur, in ornate red livery, came up to them. "You are the alien party from Orgondo?" he asked gruffly.

  "They are," their driver replied. "All yours and welcome. I have to see to my sharks. They've had a tough journey."

  "Which of you is Mr. Brazil?" the official inquired.

  "I am," Brazil replied.

  The official looked surprised, since Brazil was, after all, still a giant stag, but he recovered quickly. "Come with me, then. The rest of you will be taken to temporary quarters." He motioned to some other Ghlmonese, also in the red livery, and they came up to escort the party. Although the smallest of the humans was a head taller than any of the guards, no one felt like arguing.

  "Go with them," Brazil instructed his group. "There'll be no problems. I'll join you as soon as I can."

  They had no choice, and walked to the tower nearest them. Brazil turned to the official. "What now?" he asked.

  "Ambassador Ortega and the other alien party are camped out near the base of The Avenue," the official replied. "I am to take you to them."

  "Lead on," Brazil urged, unconcern in his voice.

  The Avenue proved to be a broad trench, thirty or more meters across, that was just beyond the towers and spires. It was also more than fifteen meters below ground level, but, despite only the most rudimentary stone buffers, the sand didn't seem to blow into the obviously artificial culvert, but over and past it.

  Broad stone stairs led down to the flat, almost shiny surface below. Brazil had some trouble negotiating the stairs, but finally made it. The buildings of Oodlikm seemed to line The Avenue on both sides, like medieval castles used to be built into the sides of steep river valleys back on Old Earth. There were many stairways and hundreds of doors, windows, and even ports for defense along both sides of The Avenue wall. As for the valley itself, its level, jewellike surface seemed to stretch to the ocean on Brazil's right, and off to the horizon on his left.

  Brazil's hooves clacked on the shiny surface. He towered over countless stalls selling all sorts of things and over the crowds which gaped at him and made way as he passed. He and his escort walked toward the ocean, past the last shops, and finally to what was obviously a more official, less commercial section, across which had been hastily erected a barricade with a heavy wooden gate and armed guards.

  The official approached the gate, showed a pass he produced from his coat pocket. After the guards inspected his pass carefully, the gates opened and they passed through. Inside were more guards—huge numbers, in fact. In the center of The Avenue were an Akkafian, a Czillian, a Umiau in what looked like a square bathtub, and—something else.

  Brazil studied The Diviner and The Rel, and the last pieces fit into place. The role of the Northerner had been unclear to him from the start, and he knew nothing of the creature's hex, physically or culturally. He was certain that the thing was at the heart of much of the mischief that had been worked, though.

  Darkness had fallen, and the stars started showing through. Small gaslights had been lit, giving the entire scene an eerie glow.

  "Remain with the others," the official instructed him. "I will get Ambassador Ortega."

  Brazil went over to the alien creatures, ignoring all except the Umiau.

  "So you're Elkinos Skander," he said flatly.

  The mermaid gave a puzzled look. "So? And who or what are you?"

  "Nathan Brazil," he replied crisply. "That name means little to you? Perhaps it will be better to say that I am here to avenge seven murders."

  The Umiau opened her mouth in surprise. "Seven—what the hell do you mean?"

  Brazil's independent eyes showed Skander on the right, and the interest of the other three on the left. The others were all watching the two tensely.

  "I was the captain of the freighter who found the bodies on Dalgonia. Seven bodies, charred, left on a barren world. None of them ever did you harm, nor was there any reason for their deaths."

  "I didn't kill them," Skander responded in a surly tone. "Varnett killed them. But, what of it? Would you have preferred to open this world to the Coms?"

  "So that was it," Brazil said sadly. "The seven died because you feared that their governments would get control. Skander, you know who killed them, and I know who killed them, but even beyond that is the fact that they needn't have died even for so dubious a reason. The Gate would not have opened for them."

  "Of course it would!" Skander snapped. "It opened when Varnett and I found the mathematical key to the computer. And it was still open for you and your party to fall through!"

  Brazil shook his head slowly. "No, Skander. It opened only because the two of you wanted it open. That's the key, you know. Even though you didn't know that the Gate didn't lead to the Dalgonian brain, but to here, you knew that some sort of Gate must exist and you wanted desperately to find it. You had already decided to kill Varnett and the others before you found it. Varnett knew it. He had a desire to find the Gate, and the fear of death to fix it. That's what opened it up, not your mathematical discoveries. It hadn't opened since the Markovians, and it wouldn't have opened again unless the conditions were right."

  "The how did you fall through?" Skander retorted. "Why did it open for you?"

  "It didn't," Brazil replied evenly. "Although I should have known it was there."

  "But it did open for us, Brazil," Hain put in.

  "Not for you, Hain, or for me, or for Vardia, either," Brazil told them. "But, within our party, there was one person who had lost all hope, who wanted to die, to escape fate's lot. The brain, sensitized to such things, picked this up and lured us to Dalgonia with the false emergency signal. We went up to where the shuttles left by Skander and Varnett were still parked, walked out onto the Gate floor, and, when Wu Julee was well within the field, the Gate triggered—sending all of us here."

  "I remember you, now!" Skander exclaimed. "Vardia told me about you while we were imprisoned in The Nation! She told me how the ships seemed to vanish. When I heard all that, I assumed you had engineered the whole thing, that you were a Markovian. The evidence fitted. Besides, it stands to reason that you don't leave a control group like those on the Well World without someone to monitor the control."

  "The fact that it was the girl and not Brazil who triggered the Gate doesn't necessarily invalidate your conclusions, Doctor," came a smooth, husky voice behind them. They turned to see the huge form of Serge Ortega, all five meters of snake and two meters of his thick, six-armed body.

  "Serge, I should have known better," Brazil said good-humoredly.

  All six arms of the Ulik shrugged. "I have a pretty good racket here, Nate. I told you I was happy, and I am. I have most of the embassies at both zones bugged, and the conversations recorded. I find out what's happening, who's doing what to whom, and if there's anything of interest to me and my people I act on it."

  Brazil nodded, and would have smiled if the stag body allowed it. "It was no accident that you were the one who met us, was it? You already knew I was there."

  "Of course," Ortega replied. "Small cameras installed in two or three points around the Well go on whenever someone comes through. If they're old-human I get there first. Nobody cares much, since the Zone Gate randomly assigns them to other hexes."

  "You didn't meet me when I came through," Skander pointed out.

  Ortega shrugged again. "Can't live in the damned office. Bad luck, though, since I then lost sight of you for a long time. These others were already in and assigned before I managed to track Varnett down, although the Umiau are so lousy at secrecy your cover was blown about a month after you came."

  "You've been following me since Czill, haven't you, Serge?" Brazil asked. "How did you manage it?"

  "Child's play," the Ulik replied. "Czill has a high technological level but no resources, and some problems in handling hot metal anyway. We supply parts for their machines—we and many others—only ours have slight modifications. A resonator for the translator, for example, takes only one al
most invisible extra circuit to broadcast—if yow know the right frequency. The range isn't fantastic, but I knew where you were, and in most instances mutual back-scratching, past IOU's, and the like were all that was needed. I think I know what you are, Nate, and I think you know you should play the game my way."

  "Or you'll kill the others?"

  The snakeman locked hurt, but it was exaggerated. "Why, Nate! Did I say any such thing? But, regardless, I have Skander, here, and, if all else fails, Varnett. I'd prefer you, Nate. I don't think you're any different from the Nathan Brazil I've known all these decades. I'm willing to bet that that personality of yours isn't a phony front or a construct, but the real you, no matter what your parents were. You know me better than anybody, so you know my actions and what I'll do in any case. Will you lead the party in?"

  Brazil looked at his old acquaintance for a moment. "Why everybody, Serge? Why not just you and me?" he asked.

  "Ah, come on, Nate! What do you take me for? You know how to get in; I don't. You know what's in there—I don't. With the others I get an expert check on your actions and descriptions, and a little insurance from their own self-interest. The Northerner, here—it's working for a group so different from any of us I can't figure out anything about them. Nonetheless, like Hain, here, and the plant, they're all looking out for their own interests. So are your people, really. Nobody's going to let anybody else get the upper hand. You'll all even be armed—armed with pistols that can kill any of you, but can't kill me. I've taken immunity shots from Hain's stinger, so that's no threat, and I am so much physically stronger than any of you that I'll be happy to take you on. Nate knows how quick I can move."

  Brazil sighed. "Always figuring the angles, aren't you, Serge? So tell me, if this was your game all along, why did we have to fight and walk so far? Why not just get us all together and bring us to this point?"

  "I hadn't the slightest idea where you were going," replied Ortega honestly. "After all, Skander was still looking, Varnett had given up, and nobody else knew. So I just let the expeditions lead me here. When it became clear where both expeditions were headed, I arranged to slow things down until I could get here ahead of you. Easier than you think—Zone Gate to Ulik, then over. Hell, man, I've been to that Equatorial Zone hundreds of times. There's no way in that anybody's ever found, and a lot have tried over the years."

  "But we now know that the entrance is at the end of The Avenue," The Rel said suddenly. "And, from Skander, I perceive that the time of entry is midnight."

  "Right on both counts," Brazil admitted. "However, that knowledge alone won't get you in. You need the desire to get to the Well center, specifically, and a basic equation to tell the Well you know what you're doing."

  "The Varnett relationship," Skander said. "The open-ended equation of the Markovian brain slides. That's it, isn't it?"

  "Sure," Brazil acknowledged. "After all, it wasn't supposed to keep any Markovians out. The conditions of this world are such that the relationship is simply indecipherable. It's only one in a million that the two of you discovered it, and almost one in infinity that you'd get to where you could use it. You could never have used it on Dalgonia since it requires an answer for completion, an addition. It's sort of 'What is your wish?' and you have to give that wish in mathematically correct form. In this case, though, the simple completion is done by the brain if you ask the question—the reverse."

  "But if he is a Markovian, why could he not just contact the brain and save himself all the problems he's had here?" the Slelcronian asked.

  Brazil turned to the plant person, a puzzled tone in his voice. "I thought you were Vardia—but that tone just doesn't sound like her."

  "Vardia merged with a Slelcronian," The Rel explained, telling of the flower creatures and their strange ways. "It is possessed of a good deal of wisdom and some fairly efficient mental powers, but your friend is such a tiny part of the whole that the Czillian is essentially dead," The Rel concluded.

  "I see," Brazil said slowly. "Well, there were too many Vardias here anyway. Ours is the original—back to human, again." He turned to Serge again. "So are Wuju and Varnett."

  "Varnett?" Skander sat up suddenly, spilling water. "Varnett is with you?"

  "Yes, and no tricks, Skander," Ortega warned. "If you try anything on Varnett I'll personally attend to you." He turned back to Brazil. "That goes for you, too, Nate."

  "There will be no problems, Serge," Brazil assured him tiredly. "I'll take you all inside the Well, and I will show you what you want—what you all want. I'll even answer any questions you want, clear up any uncertainties."

  "That suits us," Ortega responded, but there was a note of caution in his voice.

  THE AVENUE—AT THE EQUATOR

  The journey up The Avenue had been without event, and none had tested Ortega's defenses. They were all going where they wanted to go, and, as the Ulik had said, each one had his own selfish interests at heart. All during the journey Brazil had been talkative and friendly, yet there was a sadness deep within him they could all feel, although he tried to laugh it off. The four members of Brazil's party kept to themselves. Hain kept looking at Wuju strangely, but bided her time, and Skander seemed resigned to Varnett's existence in the party.

  And now, in the afternoon's waning sun, they stood at the Equatorial Barrier itself, imposing and seemingly impenetrable.

  It was like a wall, partially translucent, that rose up until it merged with the deep blue, cloudless sky. The barrier itself didn't look thick, and felt smooth and glassy to the touch, yet it had withstood attempts by many races on both sides to make as much as a mark on it. It went off to each side of them from horizon to horizon, like a giant, nonreflecting glass wall.

  The Avenue seemed to merge into it, and there was no sign of any small crack, fissure, or even juncture of the odd paving of The Avenue with the surface of the barrier. They seemed to become one.

  Brazil went up to the wall, then turned to face them. They waited expectantly.

  "We can't enter until midnight, so we might as well be comfortable," he told them.

  "Do you mean twenty-four hundred?" the real Vardia asked.

  "No, of course not," Brazil replied. "For one thing, the Well World's days are about twenty-eight and a quarter standard hours, as you know, so the time twenty-four hundred has no meaning here. Midnight means exactly that—the middle of the night. Since a total day is exactly twenty-eight point three three four standard hours, and since the axis is exactly vertical, that means the light period is fourteen point one six seven hours, and so is the darkness. Midnight, then, comes seven point zero eight three five hours after sunset. The figures were determined by physical necessity when building the place. They just came out that way. Believe me, Markovian clocks were quite different from ours, and the time could be precisely determined."

  "Yes, but how will we determine it?" The Rel asked. "There are a couple of timepieces here, but they are by no means that exact."

  "No need," Brazil assured the Northerner. "Hain, fly up to the surface there and watch the sun. When it vanishes to the west, then tell us immediately. Be conservative—err on the side of sunlight. We'll check watches for seven hours from that point. After that, we can simply wait to open the wall. We'll have only about two minutes, so it's important that everyone goes as soon as the wall opens. The ones who don't will be left out here."

  "What about the atmosphere inside?" Skander asked. "We have only a few pressure suits here."

  "No problem there, either," Brazil responded. "All of us are compatible with the oxygen-nitrogen-carbon mix that's common, in one sense or another, with the sectors on both sides of The Avenue. There will be a compromise adjustment, but while the mixture might make a few of us temporarily light-headed, it shouldn't pose any problem. This system will automatically follow us, section by section, as we go down. The only problem we might have, and it's minor, is some strongly differing gravitational pulls due to the lines of force flowing from here. None will be a real
problem, just uncomfortable occasionally."

  His explanation seemed to satisfy them, and they sat down or otherwise relaxed, waiting for the proper time.

  * * *

  "Are you really—really me?" Vardia hesitantly asked the Slelcronian, who was awake only because of a small, lamplike gadget fastened over the headleaf.

  The Slelcronian paused and thought carefully. "We are you, and we are more than you," it replied. "All your memories and experiences are here, along with the millions of the Slelcronians. You are a part of us, and we are a part of you. Through the Recorder, you are a part of the total synthesis, not just the isolated portion in this body."

  "What's it like?" she asked.

  "It is the ultimate stage to which any can aspire," the creature told her. "No individuality, no personality to corrupt. No jealousy, greed, anger, envy, or those other things that cause misery. All alike, all identical, all in communion. As plants we require nothing save water and sunlight, and carbon dioxide to breathe. When another is needed, we make a seed and mate it to the Recorders; it grows, and immediately after bloom becomes as we. The Recorders do not think, and get their food from our bodies."

  "But—what do you do?" she asked curiously. "What is the purpose to your life?"

  "Universal happiness in a stable order," the Slelcronian replied unhesitatingly. "Long have we yearned to spread the synthesis. Now, through this body and your experience, we can return to Czill and multiply. We shall work with the devices of Czill to create a synthesis of animal with plant. We shall expand, eventually, to the Well World, and, with the aid of the Well, to the corners of the universe. All shall become one with the synthesis, all shall enjoy perfect equality and happiness."

  She thought a minute. "And what if you can't do it with the animals?"

  "We will," the Slelcronian replied confidently. "But, should it not be so, then the superior shall eliminate the inferior, as it is in the laws of nature since the beginning of time."

  This isn't me, she thought. This can't be me. Or—or is it? Is this not what my society strives for? Is this not why we clone, why genetic engineering is eventually planned to make everyone identical, sexless, equally provided for in every way?