Midnight At the Well of Souls

by Jack L. Chalker

  "I tried to give mankind rules for living which would avert a second disaster like the first, would keep it from self-destruction. Nobody listened. Nobody changed. Type Forty-one was badly flawed—and it beat the odds anyway, this time. It made its way to the stars, and that was an outlet for its aggression, although, even there, even now, its component parts are looking at ways to dominate one another, kill one another, rule one another. And the drive for domination is there even in the nonhumans, you, Northerner, and you, Slelcronian. Look at you all now. Look at yourselves! Look at each other! Do you see it? Can you feel it? Fear, greed, horror, ambition burning within you, consuming you! The only reason you haven't killed one another by now is your common fear of me. How dare you condemn a Hain, a Skander—a society? How dare you?

  "How many of you are thinking of the people these controls represent? Do you fear for them? Do you care about them? You don't want to save them, better their lives. That fear is inside you, fear for your own selves! The basic flaw in the set-up equation, that burning, basic selfishness. None of you cares for any but yourself! Look at you! Look at what monsters you've all become!"

  Their hearts pounded, nerve ends frayed. The Diviner and The Rel were the first to respond.

  "What about yourself, Nathan Brazil?" The Rel chimed. "Isn't the flaw in us simply a reflection of the flaws in yourself, in your own people, the Markovians, who could not give us what we lack because they did not themselves possess it?"

  Brazil's reply was calm, in contrast to his previous outburst.

  "The Markovians wanted to live in this universe, not run it. They had already done that. Destiny was a random factor they believed necessary to the survival of us all. That's why they closed down the Well. None of us would be here except for a freak set of circumstances."

  "Where are the controls, Nate?" Ortega asked.

  "We'll find them ourselves," Hain snapped. "Varnett cracked the big code, he should be able to crack this one, too."

  Brazil's voice held deep sorrow. "Pride is a weakness of all things Markovian, and you're a reflection of it. Now, if you'll ease up and allow me one touch on the panel in back, I'll show you the controls. I'll tell you how to operate them. Let's see what happens then."

  Ortega nodded, pistols at the ready. Brazil reached out with a tentacle and touched a small panel behind him.

  The large black screen went on—but it wasn't exactly a screen. It was a great tunnel, an oval stretching back as far as the eye could see. And it was covered with countless tiny black spots, trillions of them at the best guess. And between all the various black spots shot frantic electrical bolts in a frenzy of activity, trillions of blinking hairline arcs jumping from one little black area to another.

  "There's your controls," Brazil said disgustedly. "To change the ratios, all you have to do is alter the current flow between any two or more control spots."

  He looked at them, and there was the deepest fear and horror on their faces. They're afraid of me, he thought. All of them are in mortal fear of me! Oh, my God! Wuju who loved me, Varnett who risked his life for me, Vardia who trusted me—all afraid. I haven't harmed them. I haven't even threatened them. I couldn't if I wanted to. How can they ever understand our common source, our common bond? he thought in anguish. We love, we hate, we laugh, we cry, live—that I am no different from themselves, only older.

  But they did not understand, he realized. I am God to the primitives, the civilized man of great power at a point where knowledge is power, surrounded by the savages.

  That's why I'm alone, he understood. That's why I'm always alone. They fear what they can't understand or control.

  "One control panel," he said softly. "One only. What are a few trillion lives? There is their past, their present, their potential future. All yours. Maybe their equation is the basis for one or more of you in this room. Maybe not. It's somebody's. Maybe it's yours. Okay, anybody, who wants to touch the first and second control spots, change the flow? Step right up! Now's your chance to play God!"

  Varnett walked carefully over to the opening, breathing hard, sweat pouring from his body.

  "Go on," Brazil urged. "Do your stuff! You might cancel out somebody, maybe a few trillion somebodies. You'll certainly alter someone's equation in some way, make two and two equal three in somebody's corner. Maybe none of us will be here. Maybe none of us will ever have been here. Go on! Who cares about all those people, anyway?"

  Varnett stood there, mouth open, looking like a very frightened fifteen-year-old boy, nothing more. "I—I can't," he almost sobbed.

  "How about you, Skander? This is where you wanted to be. And you, Hain?" His voice rose to a high, excited pitch. "Diviner? Can you divine this one? Vardia? Serge? Wuju? Slelcronian? Any of you?"

  "In the name of God, Brazil!" Skander screamed. "Stop it! You know we don't dare do anything as long as we don't understand the panel's operation!"

  "He's bluffing!" Hain snarled. "I'll take the chance."

  "No!" Wuju screamed, and swung her gun around on the great bug. "You can't!"

  "I'll even show you how," Brazil said calmly, and took a step.

  "Nate! Stay away from there!" Ortega warned. "You can be killed, you know!"

  Brazil stopped, and the pulsating mass bent toward Ortega slightly. "No, Serge, I can't. That's the problem, you see. I told you I wasn't a Markovian, but none of you listened. I came here because you might damage the panel, do harm to some race of people I might not even know. I knew you couldn't use this place, but all of you are quite mad now, and one or more of you might destroy, might take the chance, as Hain just showed. But none of you, in your madness, has thought to ask the real question, the one unanswered question in the puzzle. Who stabilized the Markovian equation, the basic one for the universe?"

  There was a pumping sound, like that of a great heart, its thump, thump, thump permeating them. Their own hearts seemed to have stopped, all frozen in an eerie tableau. Only the thumping seemed real.

  "I was formed out of the random primal energy of the cosmos," Brazil's voice came to them. "After countless billions of years I achieved self-awareness. I was the universe, and everything in it. In the aeons I started experimenting, playing with the random forces around me. I formed matter and other types of energy. I created time, and space. But soon I tired of even those toys. I formed the galaxies, the stars, and planets. An idea, and they were, as congealed primal energy exploded and flung transmuted material outward from its center.

  "I watched things grow, and form, according to the rules I set up. And yet, I tired of these, also. So I created the Markovians and watched them develop according to my plan. Yet, even then, the solution was not satisfactory, for they knew and feared me, and their equation was too perfect. I knew their total developmental line. So I changed it. I placed a random factor in the Markovian equation and then withdrew from direct contact.

  "They grew, they developed, they evolved, they changed. They forgot me and spread outward on their own. But since they were spiritually reflections of myself, they contained my loneliness. I couldn't join with them as I was, for they would hold me in awe and fear. They, on the other hand, had forgotten me, and as they rose materially they died spiritually. They failed to grow to my equal, to end my loneliness. Their pride would not admit such a being as myself to fellowship, nor could their own fear and selfishness allow fellowship even with each other.

  "So I decided to become one of them. I fashioned a Markovian shell, and entered it. I knew the flesh, its joys and its pains. I tried to teach them what was wrong, to tell them to face their inner fears, to rid themselves of the disease, to look not to a material heaven but within themselves for the answers. They ignored me.

  "And yet the potential was there. It is still there. Wuju's response to kindness and caring. Varnett's self-sacrifice. Vardia's need for others. Other examples abound, not just about us, but about all our people. The one who sacrifices his life to save others. The compassion there, sometimes almost buried by the overlying d
epravity. It peers through—isolated, perhaps, but it is there. And as long as it is there, I shall continue. I shall work and hope for the day when some race seizes that spark and builds on it, for only then will I no longer be alone."

  They said nothing for several seconds. Then, quietly, Ortega responded, "I'm not sure I believe all this. I've been a Catholic all my life, but somehow God to me has never been a little spunky Jew named Nathan Brazil. But, assuming what you say is true—which I don't necessarily accept—why haven't you scrapped everything and started again? And why continue to live our grubby little lives?"

  "As long as that spark is present, I'll let things run, Serge," Brazil replied. "That random factor I talked about. Only when it's gone will I go, give up, maybe try again—maybe, finally die. I'd like to die, Serge—but if I do I take everything with me. Not just you, everybody and everything, for I stabilize the universal equation. And you are all my children, and I care. I can't do it as long as that spark remains, for as long as it remains you are not only the worst, but the best of me."

  The thump, thump, thump continued, the only sound in the room.

  "I don't think you're God, Nate," Ortega replied evenly. "I think you're crazy. Anybody would be, living this long. I think you're a Markovian throwback, crazy after a billion years of being cut off from your own kind. If you was God, why don't you just wave your tentacles or something and get what you want? Why all this journey, and pain, and torment?"

  "Varnett?" Brazil called. "You want to explain it mathematically?"

  "I'm not sure I don't agree with Ortega," Varnett replied carefully. "Not that it makes much difference from a practical point of view. However, I see what you're driving at. It's the same dilemma we face at that control board, there.

  "Let's say we let Skander do what he wants, abolish the Comworlds," the boy continued. "Let's say Brazil, here, shows him exactly how to do it, just what to press and in what sequence and in what order. But the Com concept and the Comworlds developed according to the normal human flow of social evolution, right or wrong. They are caused by countless past historical events, conditions, ideas. You can't just banish them; you've got to change the equation so that they never developed. You have to change the whole human equation, all the past events that led to their formation. The new line you created would be a completely different construct, things as they would be without any of the crucial points that created the Coms. Maybe it was an outlet. Maybe, bad as it was, it was the only outlet. Maybe man would have destroyed himself if just one of those factors wasn't there. Maybe what we'd have is something worse."

  "Exactly," Brazil agreed. "For anything major you have to change the past, the whole structure. Nothing just vanishes. Nothing just appears. We are the sum of our past, good as well as bad."

  "So what do we do?" wailed Skander. "What can we do?"

  "A few things can be done," Brazil replied calmly. "You—most of you—sought power. Well, this is power!" With that the Markovian moved toward the control panel.

  "My God! He's going in there!" Skander screamed. "Shoot, you fools!" The Umiau fired its pistol at the Markovian. In a second, the others followed, pouring a concentrated energy pulse into the mass sufficient to disintegrate a building.

  The Markovian creature stopped, but seemed to absorb the energy. They poured it into him, all of them, even Wuju, with great accuracy.

  He was still there.

  The Diviner's lights blinked rapidly, and searing bolts shot out, striking the Markovian body. There was a glow, surrounding the creature in stark outline, and then it faded.

  Brazil was still there.

  They stopped firing.

  "I told you you couldn't hurt me," Brazil said. "None of you can hurt me."

  "Bullshit!" Ortega spat. "Your body was torn to ribbons in Murithel! Why wasn't this one?"

  "Of course! Of course!" Skander exclaimed excitedly. "This body is a direct construct of the Markovian brain, you fools! The brain won't allow it to be harmed, since it's really part of the brain itself!"

  "Quite so," Brazil responded. "Nor, in fact, do I have to go in there at all. I can instruct the brain from right here. I've been able to do that since we first entered the Well itself. I merely wanted to give you a demonstration."

  "It would seem that we are at your mercy, Markovian," The Rel said. "What is your intention?"

  "I can affect things for anyplace from here," Brazil told them. "I merely feed the data into the brain through this control room, and that's that. It's true there's a control room for each type, but they are all-purpose, in case of problems, overcrowding when we built the place, and so on. Any control room can be switched to any pattern."

  "But you said—" Ortega started to protest.

  "In the words of Serge Ortega," Brazil replied, a hint of amusement in his voice, "I lied."

  Wuju broke from them and ran up to him, and prostrated herself in front of him, trembling. "Please! Please don't hurt us," she pleaded.

  There was infinite compassion in his voice. "I'm not going to hurt you, Wuju. I'm the same Nathan Brazil you knew from the start of this mess. I haven't changed, except physically. I've done nothing to you, nothing to deserve this. You know I wouldn't hurt you. I couldn't." The tone changed to one not of bitterness, but of deep hurt and agony, mixed with the loneliness of unimaginable lifetimes. "I didn't shoot at you, Wuju," it said.

  She started crying; deep, uncontrollable sobs wracked her. "Oh, my god, Nathan! I'm so sorry! I failed you! Instead of trust, I gave you fear! Oh, god! I'm so ashamed! I just want to die!" she wailed.

  Vardia came over to her, tried to comfort her. She pushed the girl away.

  "I hope you're satisfied!" Vardia spat at him. "I hope you're pleased with yourself! Do anything you want to me for saying this, but don't torture her anymore!"

  Brazil sighed. "No one can torture someone like that," he replied gently. "Like me, you can only torture yourself. Welcome to the broader human race, Vardia. You showed compassion, disregard for yourself, concern for another. That would have been unthinkable in the old Vardia. If none of you can still understand, I intend to do something for you, not to you. For the most part, anyway." He angled to address all of them.

  "You're not perfect, none of you. Perfection is the object of the experiment, not the component. Don't torture yourself, run away from your fears. Face them! Stand up to them! Fight them with goodness, mercy, charity, compassion! Lick them!"

  "We are the sum of our ancestral and actual past," The Rel reminded him. "What you ask may indeed be possible, but the well of fate has accented our flaws. Is it reasonable to expect us to live by such rules, when we find it difficult even to comprehend them?"

  "You can only try," Brazil told it. "There is a greatness in that, too."

  The thump, thump, thump continued.

  "What is that noise?" Ortega asked, ever the practical man.

  "The Well circuits are open to the brain," Brazil replied. "It's awaiting instructions."

  "And what will those instructions be?" Varnett asked nervously.

  "I must make some repairs and adjustments to the brain," Brazil explained. "A few slight things, so that no one can accidentally discover the keying equation again. I'm not sure I'd like to go through this exercise again—and, if I did, there's no guarantee that some new person might not take that chance, damage the structure, do irreparable harm to trillions who never had a chance. But, just in case, the Well Access Gate will be reset to respond only to me. Also more of an insurance factor has to be added, to summon me if things go wrong."

  Skander gave an amazed chuckle. "That's all?" he said, relieved.

  "It is most satisfactory to me," The Rel pronounced. "We were concerned only that nothing be disturbed. For a short while there, we lost sight of that—but we are back in control of ourselves again."

  "Very minor adjustments are possible without disturbing anything," Brazil told them. "I can't do anything grandiose without upsetting a few things. I will, however, do some min
or adjustments. For one thing, I am going to make sure that nothing like the Ambreza gas that reduced Type Forty-one humans on this world to apes will pass again, and I'm going to slap some local controls on technological growth and development, so that such an adjustment won't be necessary again, not here.

  "And, because I can't bear to see them like that, I'm going to introduce a compound to the Type Forty-one atmosphere that will break the gas molecules down into harmless substances, while at the same time I'm going to make it a nontechnological hex absolutely. I don't know what they'll come up with, but I'll bet it's better than their current lot."

  "What about us?" Hain asked.

  "I will not change what you are inside," Brazil told them. "If I do that, you will not have lived at all. To do anything otherwise would be to invite paradox, and that might mess up everything. Thus, I have to deal with you as you are."

  Brazil seemed to think for a moment, then said, in a voice that sounded as if it came from thunder, "Elkinos Skander! You wanted to save the human race, but, in the process, you became inhuman yourself. When the end justifies any means, you are no better, perhaps worse, than those you despise. There are seven bodies back on Dalgonia. Seven human beings who died trusting you, helping you, who were victims of your own lust for power. I can't forget them. And, if I alter the time line, bring them back, then all this didn't happen. I pity you, Skander, for what you are, for what you could have become. My instructions to the brain are justice as a product of the past."

  Skander yelled, "It wasn't me! It was Varnett! I wanted to save the worlds! I wanted—"

  And suddenly Skander wasn't there anymore.

  "Where did it go?" The Rel asked.

  "To a world suited for him as he is, in a form suited to justice," Brazil responded. "He might be happy there, he might find justice. Let him go to his fate."

  Brazil paused a moment, then that huge voice came back. "Datham Hain!" it called. "You are the product of a horrible life. Born in contagion, you spread it."

  "I never had a chance except the way I took!" Hain shouted defiantly. "You know that!"