Exiles at the Well of Souls wos-2

by Jack L. Chalker

  They entered a side door of the palace, and went into a gas-lit room that was peculiar indeed. A guard was on duty, and nodded slightly to his leader as they entered.

  Two walls of the room held a great many strange-looking similar devices. There was a top part that resembled giant padded headphones, and a rubbery suction-cup device with a hole in the center underneath. They were on spring-loaded coils of tubing of the same material. Above each of the dozens of such devices was a plaque with something in that crazy writing.

  Trelig watched curiously as the guard took the headphones and placed them over his head, just behind the jaw joints where the tiny ear openings were. Then the suction cup was attached almost to the center of the tattooed insignia on its chest. The guard expanded his chest, letting go an extremely loud and annoying rumble.

  Trelig understood the thing now. It transmitted direct sound to various points in the palace, the hollow tube itself moving the air. He suspected the voices sounded hollow, tinny, and terribly far away, but it worked. A primitive, nontechnological telephone.

  Nontechnological, hell! he corrected himself. These people were tremendously advanced technologically. Everything that could work they had created, ingeniously.

  “Yes, sir,” the guard literally shouted, so loud that Trelig wished he had ear flaps to match the nose ones. “Says he knows of an Entry, yes, sir.” Pause. “No, nothing odd.” Pause. “Personally, sir? But—” Pause. “All right, sir. Right away,” the guard completed the call, detached the suction cup, which coiled back into its built-in holder, and replaced the headphones on their rack. He turned to Trelig.

  “Come on, you,” he grumbled. He followed the guard out.

  There were no stairs or ramps, and Trelig had a bad time when they reached a high opening, four walls of bare, smooth stone, obviously a junction for the hallways on the multistoried castle, and the guard simply started walking up the wall.

  Trelig hesitated, then decided, hell, why not? If it doesn’t work I think I can survive the fall. What he had to do, he saw from the guard, was press his finger-cups solidly on the stone, pull himself up, then use leg-cups on the webbed hind feet to support him while he reached farther up. If he managed it in a smooth series of motions, like climbing a ladder, it would be effortless, but doing so proved awkward and slow for Antor Trelig. He was conscious of the guards’ stares and chuckles in the corridor below, and heard the guard above growl, “Come on, you! Can’t keep the old man waiting!”

  He made it, with difficulty, to the third story, thankful that they didn’t have to go any farther. That took some getting used to. Getting down, looking down the whole way, would be worse. He put the thought out of his mind.

  They passed by great rooms, some sumptuously furnished with silks and fancy rugs and woven tapestries. A few doors were closed, but, no matter what, the place reeked of opulence. There was a lot of fancy metal art, too, and most of it wasn’t brass or iron, either—it was solid gold, often encrusted with jewels of amazing proportions.

  Finally they entered what had to be some sort of reception hall. It was rectangular, but too small to be the king’s regular place. The ceiling was still a good ten meters high, and the walls were draped with maroon and gold velvet curtains. There was a thick rug of some soft fur from the door sill to every corner of the room, and a slightly raised dais near the far wall with the most comfortable-looking of those strange cushion-chairs he’d ever seen. He looked around, mentally betting himself that there was another entrance somewhere, probably just behind that dais.

  He was right. The curtains behind the chair moved, and an elderly Makiem walked in on all fours, got up on the dais, and turned, settling back onto the broad cushion-chair. The effect was remarkably human, as if a man, leaning about forty-five degrees forward in a chair were sitting there. The old man even crossed his huge legs a little, and rested his arms on two small wooden adjustable rails.

  The old one looked at the newcomer critically, then looked over at the guard. “That will be all, Zubir. I’ll call you if I need you.” The guard bent its head slightly and withdrew, closing the big wooden door behind him.

  The old man turned back to Trelig. “You know the whereabouts of an Entry?” he asked, his voice crackling with energy. His skin was blotched and old and bloated, but this was a very lively individual, Trelig decided.

  “I do, sir,” Trelig responded carefully. “He has sent me here to find out what is in store for him before he turns himself in.”

  The old man chuckled. “Insolent, too. I like that.” He suddenly leaned farther forward and pointed. “You’re the Entry and you know it!” he snapped, then his tone softened again, became friendlier. “You are a terrible wall-climber, although a smooth liar. I’ll give you that. Now, come! Who are you really?”

  Trelig considered his answer. He could be any one of several people, and perhaps be the better for it. Either Zinder was out—he was too mature to be the daughter and not versed well enough in technology to be the father. The same for Ben Yulin, and that wouldn’t be much of an improvement, anyway. Renard or Mavra Chang? The former wouldn’t hold up—too slick at the start to pretend to be a guard now; this old guy was no fool—and Mavra Chang would be conspicuous if alive. So the best he could do was try and get into their good graces by the truth.

  He imitated the guard by flexing his elbows so that his body lowered to the floor, then came back up again. “Antor Trelig, at your service, sir,” he said. “And who might I have the honor of talking to?”

  The old man smiled slightly. A Makiem smile was far different from a human one, but Trelig recognized it. “Consider all the angles before you act, don’t you, Trelig?” he said offhandedly. “I could see all the possible lies going through your head before the truth came out. As to who I am, I am Soncoro, Minister of Agriculture.”

  Trelig barely suppressed a chuckle. “And the man who really makes all the decisions around here,” he stated flatly.

  Soncoro liked that. “And what brings you to that conclusion?”

  “Because the guard sent me to the minister of agriculture, not the prime minister, king, or even state security. You were his first and only choice. Those types know who’s who.”

  Soncoro nodded. “I think I’m going to like you, Trelig. We’re two of a kind. I like you—and I’ll never trust you. You understand that. Just as you wouldn’t trust me, in reversed circumstances.”

  Trelig did understand. “I’m much too new to be a threat, Soncoro. Let’s say a partnership until then.”

  The old man considered that. “Quite so. You understand what you have that we want, don’t you? And why we are delighted and relieved that you are who you are?”

  “Because I can pilot a spaceship,” the former syndicate boss replied easily. “And because I’m able to open up everything on New Pompeii.” Trelig felt vastly relieved. He had been afraid that he would wind up in a water hex, or, if not that, in a hex whose government had neither designs on New Pompeii nor people like Soncoro. But then, he reflected, if we have a common beginning, the odds were always in my favor.

  Trelig looked at the old man. “You’re going after the one in the North?”

  Soncoro shook his head. “No, that would involve almost insuperable obstacles. We looked at it, of course. You went down a good ways in, in a nontech hex, so we would not only have to get to it, and no Southerner has ever been into the North, we would somehow have to move it close to two hundred kilometers to make it flyable, then set it straight up so it would be well away before the Well could snare it. And—this is equally important—to do it one would have to pass through a number of hexes with life so alien one couldn’t understand it, control it, or trust it; and in some atmospheres that are lethal. No, I’m afraid we leave your ship to the Uchjin.”

  “But the other ship isn’t in one piece!” Trelig objected. “It was my own ship. It would break up on the way in. The nine modules would be spread over half the Well World!”

  “They are,” Soncoro admit
ted. “But, tell me, would you need all the modules to make it fly again? Suppose you had a fabricating plant capable of building an airtight central body? And a couple of good electrical engineers to help do it right? What would you need then?”

  Trelig was genuinely amazed. “With all that—probably the power plant and one or two modules to make certain you fabricated the new parts correctly. And the bridge, of course.”

  “Suppose you had the power plant and modules, but not the bridge?” Soncoro prompted. “Could it be done?”

  Trelig thought about it. “Not impossible, but a hell of a lot more difficult. The computer guidance is there.”

  The old man nodded again. “But we have access to pretty good computers here. If I understand it, it’s not the machine itself, it’s just its abilities, programs, memory, and action time.”

  “And interface with the power plant,” Trelig added.

  “Not insolvable,” Soncoro pronounced. He smiled wickedly. “Welcome to the family.”

  “But where are you going to get all this?” Trelig protested. “I would guess that if you could have a machine shop and computers here, you’d have them.”

  “Good point,” Soncoro agreed. “But we won’t be alone. What would you say if I told you that four the modules were within six hexes of this one, and the power plant was seven hexes away? And that we had allies—a semitech hex and a high-tech hex, with complementing abilities?”

  Trelig was intrigued. “But you’re talking about a war!” he objected. “I thought war was impossible here!”

  “For conquest, yes,” the old man admitted. “But not for limited objectives. Dhala proved that you couldn’t hold ground for any length of time here. But we need only take it, take it long enough to get what we want, and move on. Some of the hexes are simple anyway. They will yield to us or just ignore us. Only a couple of them will be problems.”

  Trelig considered this, getting excited now. This development was beyond his wildest dreams! “But the ship should have come in at a definite angle. If five are attainable, then all of them should be. Why limit it?”

  “We’re not the only ones in the game,” the old Makiem told him. “Others are moving now. Perhaps we can deal later, but the power plant is the one thing completely beyond our ability to construct. We have lots of spacefarers, but they are technicians. You know how to pilot—but do you know how to build a ship?”

  “No,” he admitted.

  “We haven’t had a Type 41 pilot, though, in a very long time. None we can get our hands on. I assume that progress has made much of their skill obsolete anyway. Correct?”

  “Probably,” Trelig told him. “The power plants and therefore the knowledge of what to tell the computers to do, have changed radically just in my time.

  “Then it’s safe to say that only you, this associate, Yulin, and the woman, Mavra Chang, could possibly pilot the ship properly?”

  Trelig nodded honestly, although he was aware of how much that increased his value. “If there are no human pilots here from as recent as a century, I’d say, almost definitely.”

  Soncoro seemed tremendously pleased. He leaned forward again. “This fellow Yulin. Is he trustworthy?”

  Trelig grinned. “As trustworthy as I am.”

  Soncoro hissed. “As bad as that. That means there’s little chance of a deal there, then, unless we get the power plant.”

  “You know where he is?” Trelig asked, amazed.

  “He is a Dasheen, and a male, damn it all! That will give him power there. The Yaxa are already well along with their own plans, perhaps a bit ahead of us, and he will naturally ally with them if he can. So, we go and as quickly as possible. Whoever owns the power plant owns it all.”

  “Tell me two things,” Trelig said persistently.

  “Go ahead,” the old man agreed.

  “First, what would have happened if I hadn’t materialized here as a Makiem? You’re talking as if you were going to war anyway, it was all set up. Did you know?”

  “Of course not!” responded the secret ruler of Makiem. “The way things worked out only simplifies matters. We would have seized the modules anyway and waited for one of you to come to us. You would have had to.” His logic was unassailable. “Now, what’s the other thing?”

  “How do you have sex in this place?” he asked.

  Soncoro roared with laughter.

  Dasheen

  Ben Yulin awoke with a start and opened his eyes.

  His first thought was that the pain was gone, and he had feeling over his whole body again. That was a big relief in and of itself. But—where and what was he?

  He sat up and looked around. Things were definitely different. He was slightly nearsighted and totally color-blind. But he could see well enough to tell he was in farm country; there was baled hay over there, nicely if crudely done, and fences and small roads stretched off for miles in squarish patterns. It was flat country, too; although his vision blurred beyond five hundred meters or so, he could tell where the land and horizon met.

  He looked down at himself. Broad, muscular, hairy long legs that looked somewhat human, although the feet were strange—very wide and oval-shaped and made of a hard, tough substance. There were breaks in the front of each foot, but he had no toelike control of them. They were obviously just there to provide some flex when walking. He reached out and saw that his arms were wrestler’s arms—tremendous, bulging muscles overlaid with a thin covering of stiff brown hair. The fingers were short and thick and seemed to be made of that tougher material in the foot, but they were jointed in the right places and had an opposable thumb. He reached down to feel his feet and tapped them. They had a dull, thick, hard feel and sound to them. He had almost no feeling in his hands or feet, although the rest of his body felt normal.

  His skin was brown and mostly covered in that short, wiry hair, although he perceived it as dark gray. One look at his crotch told him that he was not only a male but one of gigantic proportions. That pleased him, even if the thing was jet black. It was the biggest he’d ever seen.

  His chest was covered with a milky-white coating of the same kind of hair; it was an even shape that followed his torso. The body, too, was thick-set and powerful-looking; he flexed a little and the muscles bulged.

  This wasn’t going to be so bad, he told himself.

  One reason for the nearsightedness, he realized, was that his eyes were set differently. He put a hand up to his face—and found more. He felt it carefully.

  It was a huge head but perfect for his body. A thick, short neck, and a snout! Not a huge one, but it jutted out from his face. He tried to focus in on it and saw it, a white-furred oval with a flat top, jutting out maybe ten centimeters from his head. It contained a soft, moist, broad nose—incredibly broad, almost the width of the snout—which he thought was probably pink, and two huge nostrils with some kind of flaps. There were also whiskers flanking the nose—sharp, fairly long, like extremely long white pine needles.

  His mouth, under the nose, went the whole length of the snout. He felt around it with a broad, flat, thick tongue. Lots of teeth, none of them sharp. He opened it, then closed it, then tried a chewing motion. He found he could only chew from side to side, which told him that he was a herbivore. He knew now why they raised hay and wheat and the like and who it was for.

  The eyes were large, set back from the snout, and wide apart. Ears were sharply pointed, and could be turned at will, he found. On top of his head was an enormous pair of horns. They were part of his skull, no doubt about it, and they extended into wicked points from areas of the base bone a good five centimeters out from either side of his head.

  He rose shakily to his feet and found that his head didn’t feel abnormally heavy or out of balance, although he couldn’t turn it in any direction quite as far as he remembered being able to do.

  There was a last touch. He found he had a tail on some sort of ball joint, a tail he could wag and even whip to an extent. It was thick and emerged from his spine, was pr
obably an extension of it. It was brown like the rest of him except his chest and snout, and it ended in a thick tuft of soft dark hair. It was long, although it didn’t quite reach the ground. He reached around, took hold of it, and looked at it curiously.

  I wish I had a mirror, he thought.

  He started walking, first over to the road and then down it. He wanted to find some civilization, somewhere.

  It was a chilly day, although only the parts of him with no hair, his nose, inner ears, and genitals, told him so. There was some kind of natural insulation here.

  He spied a large number of what looked like people working in a field, but they were too far away for his reduced vision to really see. He considered going over and introducing himself, but he decided that that sort of thing could cause trouble, too. This might be private property, and they might not like trespassers. He decided to press on until he came to a town or until he met someone on the road.

  Despite the visual limitations, his other senses were tremendously heightened. Every little sound, from the rustle of an almost imperceptible wind to small insects off in a nearby field, were sharp and clear and could be localized with unerring accuracy. Smells, too, both pleasant and unpleasant, were much fuller and richer.

  He was hungry and wondered what he was supposed to eat. The fields contained the fodder, of course, but they were also obviously private, and the high, thick barbed wire discouraged casual snacking.

  He came to a small intersection; a minor road went off at a right angle to the main one. He could see it led up to a large complex of buildings, maybe several stories high with rounded roofs of straw or some other material over good hardwood frames. He wondered where they got the wood; certainly not from around here.