Twilight at the Well of Souls wos-5

by Jack L. Chalker

  Obie chuckled. “Sorry. I thought you of all people would be a bit stronger than that. Think about it. The women have the numerical superiority, for one thing, and just as many brains as the men. Maybe more. And, of course, they have the biggest stake in a change. The men would fight you, probably kill you outright. They have a nice, neat, packaged little world that exists for their own pleasure and enjoyment. They are opposed to all change—more conservative types you cannot possibly imagine. Almost all creativity and progress in Awbri come really from the women, nurtured secretly and then sort of put into the minds of a young male here and there. A composition whistled while you work, an idea for a simple spring-loaded mechanism instilled in a young male while still at his mother’s knee that, later, he miraculously ‘invents’ and really thinks he did. You name it. Without the women the place would have stagnated into unthinking animalism, nothing more. But when push comes to shove and the Awbrians have to choose sides between joining the forces of Brazil or stopping him at all costs, the men of Awbri will be right there with the stop-at-all-costs faction. They have to be. He could upset their little applecart, their nice little world.”

  She was beginning to understand. “But not the women.”

  “Exactly! They have the most stake in change. Never was a place more ripe for, or deserving of, revolution. Tell me, do you think the women would revolt if they could?”

  She thought a moment, remembering particularly the ancient female’s comments on lost opportunities.

  “Not all of them, of course—but the leadership, certainly. The ones with an ounce or more of brains.”

  “The ones who count,” Obie noted. “The rest will follow like sheep whoever wins and cheer that side. Now, what’s stopping them? What’s kept a revolution from happening?”

  “The Time,” she responded quickly. “When you go into desperate heat every six weeks, there’s not much you can do.”

  “Uh huh,” the computer agreed. “And so what do we have to introduce to produce a revolution the way we want it—on schedule, on time, just waiting for the load of new Entries?”

  “You’d have to kill off all the males,” she responded, then stopped. “No. That wouldn’t work. That would only put us all in unending heat.”

  “What you need,” Obie continued, “is something that will keep the Time from coming. You need the one thing a race that reproduces so slowly it still has females in heat would never consider, not even the most intellectual of them. You need a birth-control device—or, rather, a birth-control chemical, something that would fool your body into thinking it wasn’t the Time.”

  The thought excited her. “Yes! Of course!” Then she hesitated, considering the idea. “But there are two problems there. One is the psychological addiction to the experience. Obie, it’s unbelievable! The direct pleasure center of the brain is stimulated. I don’t know if anyone who has had the experience could bring herself to deny it again.”

  “Not even you?” the computer shot back.

  She considered it. “Of course I could, but I could see becoming so addicted I couldn’t stop. Most of the women in Awbri have been through this so many times it would be impossible. And, of course, there’d be the other problem—that with a race reproducing this slowly, there would be some hesitancy in giving women this out, even by the female leaders. They wouldn’t want to wipe out their race.”

  “True on both counts,” the computer admitted. “Now, I chose Awbri for a number of reasons. One is geography—you can get where you’re needed quickly. Another is mobility combined with agility. Don’t underestimate the potential of your race as fighters, and their ability to fly is combined with a toughness and flexibility not found in birdlike species. Unlike the bird, you are not fragile. A lot of protection is built in. And the final reason is that the choice of Awbri converts a certain enemy into an ally. In order to do this I had to analyze the Awbrian biochemistry and the biome of the hex and see if what I wanted was possible. If it were not, you wouldn’t be there.”

  “There is a way out, then!” She was excited now, the dream becoming more real than her true situation —lying, asleep, on a straw pallet above a dung-heap on the Well World.

  “Yes. Indeed. If there weren’t, this conversation would have been wasted and, frankly, you would be somewhere and something else.” Obie had a nervous pause right now. “Um, that’s assuming you are in Awbri and I didn’t foul up. Oh, my. If that’s the case, tell me what you are and I’ll switch to a different set of messages that might not be of as much help but should do something, anyway.”

  “I’m in Awbri,” she assured him. “Otherwise, how could we have had the earlier conversations?”

  “My dear, you fail to understand that this conversation, for me, never even happened at all. It’s a stimulus-response thing, with your own mind filling in the gaps from my multitudinous leads. Well, anyway, let me continue. First of all,” Obie said, “there is a potion created out of seven different plants that will cause what would medically be a hormonal breakdown, but won’t actually impair you and will free you of the Time. The potion is easy to make and should be terrible to drink but such sacrifices for a revolution are necessary.” With that, into her mind came a complete set of ingredients, where to get them and how to mix them properly. Some heat was required, she noted, and she didn’t like where two of them came from.

  “Those are Floor fungi!” she objected. “Obie, do you know how dangerous that Floor is?”

  “No,” the computer responded. “Do you? But, so what? A little risk is required. Now, to continue, I should warn you of several side effects. One is that the stuff is physically addictive. But I wouldn’t worry too much about that—a little goes a long way, as you can see from the recipe. Take a dose every day for a full six-week cycle, then, when Time should come and doesn’t, you’ll know it’s effective. The effect on the women who take it should be electric. After that, a dose every five to seven days will keep it that way. Fortunately, you needn’t keep a calender; your body will crave the stuff when necessary—and an increased dosage is not required after the initial period. You’ll need a supply to travel with, but I’m including the complete chemical formulae for each ingredient. Nothing’s so odd or rare in biochemical terms that a high-tech hex couldn’t whip up a batch, maybe even in pill form, in a matter of weeks. Make that requirement known as soon as you link up, even just for communications purposes, with the others. And, finally, I should warn you that the drug will cause a physical attraction between women. I shouldn’t think this would bother you, considering Olympus, and I doubt if it will be a major problem with the Awbrians. It’ll stimulate, in a much milder way, those pleasure centers and make breaking the psychological habit easier.”

  “But will the ancients go for it?” she asked, still not convinced. “I mean, we’re spelling the end of their race.”

  “Not at all,” Obie responded. “First of all, they will be in control of who ultimately gets the drug, and there’s that extra power they’ll love. Second, the Well regulates population. Centuries ago they had a war— one in which I had a part—and a large number of races were decimated. All that happened was that the survivors bred like flies until the numbers were back to normal again. The same will happen here. Those who do not get the formula will get pregnant a lot faster, and there will be a lot more multiple births.

  The Awbrian female is designed to give forth a litter of six. That’s why there are six nipples. On a planetary scale and in a horribly hostile environment, they would need it so even a few survive. Here they would crowd out your small hex, so births are rare and hard. The grandmothers all know this. They remember what it was like in times of famine, flood, whatever.”

  She considered this. “But what of the men? They aren’t going to stand idly by while all this goes on. Surely they’ll try to stamp it out.”

  “Hm… you overestimate them,” the computer responded. “They have done so little over the years they couldn’t take a bath without help from women. Who prep
ares all their food? Women. Add this to the food of key people—the ugly-looking brew should be disguisable somehow, I’d think.”

  She had another thought. “Obie, what will the potion do to the men? Anything?”

  “It’s double duty,” he informed her. “Only some of the ingredients are needed to produce the effect on the females. The others…? Well, let’s put it this way. Suppose the tables were turned. Suppose for a number of weeks they couldn’t do with you and then for a few days they couldn’t do without you? I’d think that one or two cycles of that and you’d have the men eating out of your hand.”

  “Some of the matriarchs will think that’s enough,” she pointed out. “They might use it only on the men.”

  “I can’t do everything,” he retorted. “You have to do some, you know. Part of it is political, of course. Besides, you don’t need the current population. You only need the Entries that will be coming in. There should be a suitable compromise. No reason Awbri should fight our war—although if they want to help they’re welcome. That part is up to you.”

  That sounded reasonable. There was only one other question, but it loomed big in her mind. “Obie, tell me, what happens if we run out of the stuff despite all precautions? On the trail, I mean. What would withdrawal be like?”

  “Unpleasant,” he said gravely. “It would be increasingly physically painful, bordering on the excruciating. You see, the substance replaces hormones produced naturally by the body. The body, in reaction, stops producing them. Withdrawal would cause some breakdown, since it occurs faster than the body can recover and replace not only the hormones but the cellular enzymes replaced as a by-product of the drug. Eventually, after a few days, it would break and the body would overreact once more. The Time would then come with full force, but, this time, for a long, long time. Depending on the body, constitution, and the like, it might take weeks. In a few cases it might never go away. So there is a risk.”

  She shivered, and a part of her mind wondered how you could shiver in a dream like that. But that was a terrifying thought—all the more so to one who had gone through it—to be in that kind of heat forever!

  “That’s all,” Obie told her cheerfully. “If I can be of any help to you in the future, I might pop up like this. I’ve placed a number of contingency positions and possible solutions in your brain just in case, so we may meet again. But let’s hope we do not, for, if we do, it will mean something has gone terribly wrong.”

  Yua awoke with a start and looked around. The others were still there, snoring away. It was not yet morning. How long, she wondered, had the whole dream lasted? Not very long, most likely—if, in fact, it had taken any time at all. She sank back down on her straw mat and tried to relax. She would have a busy day tomorrow, she’d need her sleep. In the early part, she would work in a compost heap; later on, she would see an old woman about overthrowing the underpinnings of her society…

  Dillia

  It was the start of spring in Dillia, the best time of year. The air was warm, the sun bright and cheerful, although there were a few cool breezes from the direction of the high mountains to the west that felt, sometimes, like gentle silk caresses.

  Mavra Chang had stood still for a long time, staring at the reflection in the waters of the stream, one with the birds, small river animals, wind and nearby waterfall sound, one with her own thoughts. It was not her reflection, of course, but she hadn’t expected that after going through the Well—and, yet, she knew it was her reflection, not only as she now was but as she could have been, would have been, had not events in her life taken such a strange turn so long ago. Not the tiny, slightly built Oriental woman the back-alley surgeons had changed her into, disguising her from her enemies but also erasing all connections with her early childhood and ancestry, but, instead, the way it might have been had her native world not fallen into the hands of the dictatorial technocracy that was the Com in those early days.

  Oriental. That word had lost its meaning many thousands of years before, when mankind spread out to the stars from Old Earth. A third of mankind perhaps more, had been of one race and they had gone in search of the land Old Earth no longer could give them and the space in which to breathe and live and grow beyond teeming, packed cities and communal farms. Almost everyone looked a little Oriental after a while, and that had been something of a leveler; those purely of the other races of man were very few and far between and tended to stand out in any crowd.

  Brazil, of course, and the small, scattered, but hearty band of Jews on many worlds, and the other odd ones bound together for racial survival like the gypsies. Very few and very rare.

  Her face now was an exotic face, a sexy face, not one reflecting.the racial mix usual on human planets. Amost none there had pure golden-blond hair, except by coloring it, nor deep, icy-blue eyes except with lenses. Without blemish, her skin, too, was very pale, although she knew it would darken with the sun, and her breasts were large, much larger than they had been before, and perfectly formed. They moved when she moved, and she was somewhat conscious of the fact.

  She was not, of course, human; only the face and torso were that, memories of might-have-been. The human part blended into the equine form perfectly matched to the human body, also covered in shorter hair of golden blond with a tail that was almost white.

  Obie had made her a centaur twice now, although she was aware, in the back of her mind, that this time it was for keeps. She had stood there, thinking after a while, trying to understand the computer’s point. Finally her gaze was drawn from her reflection in the pool upward toward the nearby mountains, cold-looking and purple, wrapped in clouds and capped by snowy peaks that would be a long while melting. That was not Dillia, she knew, but Gedemondas, mysterious Gedemondas, which only she remembered—and even that memory had now been dimmed by centuries of experience and life. A strange, mystic, mountain race that had enormous powers yet kept, hermitlike, completely to itself in its mountain rookeries and in its volcanic steam-heated caverns far beneath the placid surface. Their thought processes were—well, nonhu-man, really, was the term, she supposed, when the rest of the Southern hemisphere, at least the parts she had seen, tended to think along more familiar paths, no matter how bizarre their form and life style. The Gedemondans had known her and been interested in her once. Perhaps again?

  She turned and walked away from the stream and waterfall, down the path toward the small village she knew was there, conscious of the fact that she was traveling down the same route that her grandfather had so very long ago, and with the same ultimate destination in mind: the Well of Souls computer itself. Her grandparents had gone there with Brazil, although not really by their own plan.

  The village sat at the source of a great glacial lake, far removed from the mainstream of Dillian life. It had remained relatively small, still something of a wilderness community, despite the passing centuries —mostly because the population of the hex was kept relatively stable. There was no overpopulation on the Well World, and therefore none of the pressures that would long ago have forced this area to develop. Nor were there resources here worth despoiling the land; this was a semitech hex, nothing more than steam power allowed, and the deposits of seemingly inexhaustible coal and crude oil were far to the south.

  What resources there were here were of greater import to the local population. Fish spawned here throughout the myriad streams that fed the lake, creating a bountiful and carefully managed industry that fed, in more than one way, the food, fertilizer, and special-oils industries elsewhere—Downlake, as the rest of the hex was known to these people. That, and the bountiful game of the Uplake forests, were the resources that counted up here.

  Still, she saw, things had changed quite a bit from the last time she had been here. The village was larger; there seemed to be more cabins in and between the forest groves, and things seemed a bit more modern. Torches had been replaced by gas lamps, apparently fed from a huge natural-gas canister, near the lake itself, that had connectors for marine refilling
. There also seemed to be a large number of small boats moored in neat rows around the small harbor; almost a marina, she thought. The buildings, too, looked newer, not merely the log cabin style of earlier times but some prefabricated units as well. Change was slow to come to places on the Well World, yet change was inevitable everywhere. Still, it disappointed her in a way. Some of the personality seemed to have gone.

  Her nakedness didn’t bother her; with the coming of warm weather most of the centaurs went without clothing, and only her pale complexion really set her apart from the more weathered bodies moving about.

  She sought out the office of the local constable, the only real government they had up here. No sense in going around ignorant and alone when these people had always been a friendly bunch.

  She couldn’t read the signs, of course, but only one small building, a prefab, had official-looking seals on both sides of the door, seals that could only be the Great Seal of the hex. That meant officialdom, and unless they had really changed, that meant who she was looking for.

  Things had changed, but it didn’t matter. The town, it seemed, had become incorporated, mostly to keep the tourists under control, and this was city hall. A mighty small city hall it was, too; if all four officials the mayor, treasurer, clerk, and constable had decided to be in at the same time, there would have been no room even for furnishings. But, the clerk assured her, that never happened. Things changed, but not all that much. The three others were all on the lake, fishing.

  The clerk, a sharp-nosed, businesslike woman with mottled gray-and-white body hair, proved pleasant enough. “My name is Hovna,” she told Mavra. “Somehow, when we heard there were a bunch of Entries from your part of space, we expected at least one of you to show up here.”

  Mavra’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Oh?”