Exiles at the Well of Souls

by Jack L. Chalker

  They stirred slightly, nodding. They all knew who he meant.

  "Dr. Gilgam Valdez Zinder," Trelig went on, "thought that our failure to solve the Markovian riddle stemmed from our too orthodox view of the universe. First, he postulated the concept that the ancient Markovians did not need artifacts because, somehow, they could convert energy into matter merely by willing it. We know that deep beneath the crust of each Markovian world was a semiorganic computer. Zinder believed the Markovians were directly, mentally linked to their computers, which were, in turn, programmed to turn any wish into reality. So he set to work on duplicating this process."

  There were murmurings now. Trelig was confirming the rumors that had brought them here, rumors too horrible to believe.

  "From this point, Zinder went on to postulate that the raw material they used for this energy-to-matter conversion was a basic, primal energy, the only truly stable component in the universe," Trelig explained. "He spent his life searching for this primal energy, proving its existence. He worked out its probable nature mathematically, designing his own self-aware computer to help him in this end."

  "And he found it," a woman who looked no more than a child but was an elder of a Com race interjected.

  Trelig nodded. "He did. And, in the process, produced a set of corollaries that are staggering in their implications. If all matter, all reality, is merely a converted form of this energy, then where did we come from?" He sat back, enjoying the expressions on the faces of those who were able to grasp the implications.

  "You're saying the Markovians created us?" the red-bearded man called out. "I find that hard to accept. The Markovians have been dead for a million years. If their artifacts died with their brains, why didn't we die, too?"

  Trelig's face showed surprise. "A very good question," he noted. "One with no clear answer, though. Dr. Zinder and his associates believe that some sort of massive central computer was established, somewhere out there among the other galaxies, that keeps us stable. But its location is neither here nor there, since it is almost certainly beyond our capability to get there in the foreseeable future, even if we knew where 'there' is. The important fact is that such a computer does exist, or we wouldn't be here. Of course, it allows, shall we say, local variations in the pattern. If it didn't, then the local Markovian worlds would never have been able to use their own godlike computers. And, what they could do Dr. Zinder has discovered how to do! It is the ultimate proof of his theories."

  Several in the audience looked uneasy; there were a couple of nervous coughs.

  "Do you mean, then, that you have built your own version of this god machine?" Mavra Chang asked.

  Trelig smiled. "Dr. Zinder and his associate, Ben Yulin, the child of a close associate of mine from Al Wadda, have built a miniature version of it, yes. I persuaded them to move their computer here, to New Pompeii, where it would not fall into the wrong hands. The timing was perfect. They were just completing the hookup of a much, much larger version of the machine as well." He stopped a moment, frowning slightly, but his overall expression was playful.

  "Come with me," he invited them, rising from the table. "I see disbelief and skepticism. Let us go to Underside and I'll show you."

  They all got up and followed him out the entrance, across the grassy plaza, and toward a small structure that looked something like a solid marble gazebo, off by itself to the left.

  Although its housing was built to blend with the Neo-Grecian and Roman architecture, it was clear when they reached the little house that it was some sort of high-speed elevator.

  Trelig selected a smooth, bare area and placed his hand, palm down, on it. His fingers tapped out a pattern too rapid for any of them to catch, and, suddenly, the wall faded, showing the interior of a large high-speed car. There were eight seats with head rests and belts in it.

  "We will have to make two trips," Trelig apologized. "The first eight of you, here, please take the seats and fasten the straps. The descent is extremely fast and very uncomfortable, I'm afraid, although some gravity compensation has been built in to minimize the effect. Once the first group is away, the smaller maintenance car can be used for the rest of us. Don't worry—there's a two-level exit on Underside."

  Mavra was in the first group. She took a chair, relaxed, and fastened the straps. The door, actually some sort of force field with a wall projection over it, solidified again, and they felt themselves dropping quickly.

  The trip was uncomfortable; small plastic bags had been provided for the two or three who needed them. Mavra was amazed at the little car system; she'd heard of such a thing but had never seen one, let alone been in one. They had been designed for a few of the planets whose surfaces were uninhabitable but where, for one reason or another, life at levels below the surface was possible.

  It took over ten minutes to reach the other end, and, even at that, they traveled at a tremendous rate of speed. Finally they felt the car slow, and then crawl to a stop. They waited three or four minutes, nervously wondering if they were stuck. Then they heard the sound of something above them, and, less than a minute later, the force field and solid projection in front of them dissolved, and Trelig was there, smiling.

  "Sorry about the delay. I should have warned you," he said cheerily, sounding not the least bit sorry.

  They unbuckled their belts and got up, stretching, and walked out into a narrow corridor. They followed their host down the steel-clad pathway. It turned and ended on a large riveted metal platform with railings all around. Ahead of them was an enormous shaft that seemed to have no top or bottom. The size of the round gap dwarfed them to insignificance, and they gasped in awe. All around the shaft were panels, countless modules with even, small gaps between.

  A long bridge led from the platform across the shaft; a wide bridge of the same metal flooring as the platform but with 150-centimeter sidewalls of a plastic substance. They realized that they were somewhere in the bowels of a great machine.

  Trelig stopped in the middle of the bridge, and had the party gather around him. Everywhere, were the hum and crackle of active circuits opening and closing, echoing off the shaft walls. He had to raise his voice to be heard.

  "This shaft runs from a point about halfway between the theoretical equator and the South Pole of New Pompeii on the rocky and unprotected surface, almost to the core of the planetoid," he shouted. "It is fusion powered, indirectly, through the solar and plasma network. For almost twenty kilometers in all directions around us is the computer—self-aware of course—which Dr. Zinder calls Obie. Into it we have been pouring all of the data at our command. Come."

  He continued the dizzying walk, past a shining copper-colored pole that ran lengthwise through the center of the shaft and seemed to disappear in both directions, and onto a platform identical to the first one. To their left a window opened on a large room filled with myriad apparently inactive electronic instruments. A door like that of an airlock stood directly before them. When it slid open with a hiss, there did in fact seem to be a slight change in pressure and temperature. They entered and found themselves in what seemed a miniature duplicate of the larger machine. A balcony and several control consoles surrounded an amphitheaterlike floor below, on which was a small, round, silvery disk. Overhead, what looked like a twenty-sided mirror with a small projecting device in its center was attached to a mobile arm that was suspended from a mount on one wall.

  "The original Obie and the original device," Trelig explained. "Obie is attached, of course, to the larger one, which is just nearing completion. Come! Fan out around the rail here so that you may all view the disk below." He glanced over, and they saw a young, good-looking man dressed in a shiny lab tech uniform sitting at the far control panel.

  "Citizens, that is Dr. Ben Yulin, operations manager here," Trelig told them. "Now, if you'll look below, you'll see two of my associates bringing a third out and placing her on the disk."

  They looked down and saw two of the women Mavra recognized as guards gently leading a
frightened girl of no more than fourteen or fifteen toward the disk.

  "The girl you see is a victim of the addiction known as sponge," Trelig explained. "Already the drug has rotted her mind so that she is no more than a childlike idiot. I have many such poor unfortunates here; they will soon be cured. Now, watch and be quiet. Dr. Yulin will take it from here."

  Ben Yulin flipped a couple of switches on his console. They heard the crackle of some sort of speaker and could hear his cool, pleasant baritone clearly.

  "Good morning, Obie."

  "Good morning, Ben," came Obie's pleasing tenor—no longer coming from the console transceiver, but seemingly from the air around them. It was not a big voice or a threatening one, but it seemed to be all around them, every place and no place in particular.

  "Index subject file code number 97–349826," Yulin intoned. "Record on my mark—now!"

  The mirror swung into place over the terrified girl, and the blue light shone from it, enveloping her. They saw the girl freeze, flicker, and wink out.

  Trelig grinned and turned to them. "Well, what do you think of that?"

  "I've seen holographic projectors before," a little man said skeptically.

  "Either that or you've disintegrated her," another put in.

  Trelig shrugged. "Well, what will convince you?" He brightened. "I know! Tell me, name a creature of the common forms! Anybody!"

  They all remained silent for a second. Finally, someone called out, "A cow."

  Trelig nodded. "A cow it is. Did you hear, Ben?"

  "Very good, Councillor," Yulin responded through the speaker. His voice changed tone, and he called to his computer.

  "Index RY–765197–AF, Obie," he intoned.

  "I know what a cow is, Ben," Obie scolded gently, and Yulin chuckled.

  "All right, then, Obie," he replied, "I'll leave it to you. Nothing dangerous, though. Docile, huh?"

  "All right, Ben. I'll do my best," the computer assured him, and the mirror swung out once again, the blue light shone, and something flickered in.

  "Magician's tricks," scowled the red-bearded man. "Woman into cow."

  But what materialized below was not a cow; it was a centauroid: a cow's body—hooves, tail, and udder—and the girl's torso and head, unchanged except that her ears stuck out as a cow's ears would, and from the area around her temples grew two small, curved horns.

  "Let's go down and examine her," Antor Trelig suggested, and they all moved single-file down a small staircase nearby.

  The cow-woman stood there, looking blankly forward, hardly paying them notice.

  "Go ahead!" Trelig urged. "Touch her. Examine her as closely as you want!"

  They did, and the girl paid them little notice except when one observer touched the udder nipples, provoking a mild and annoying kick that missed its target.

  "Good lord! Monstrous!" grumbled one councillor. Others were stunned.

  Trelig then led them back up to the balcony, explaining that the viewing area had invisible shielding that was necessary to screen out the effects of the small mirror.

  He nodded to Ben, who gave another series of instructions to Obie. The girl-cow vanished and was replaced, only moments later, by the girl. Again they went down, looked at her, found her dull-eyed and fearful but otherwise perfectly human—and unmistakably the same girl.

  "I still don't believe it," the bearded man uttered. "Some kind of monstrous genetic cloning, yes, but that's all."

  Trelig smiled. "Would you like to try, Citizen Rumney?" he prodded. "I assure you that we will not harm you in any way. Or, if not you, then anyone else?"

  "I'll try," the red-bearded man replied. The girl was guided down from the disk and taken out a door below. Rumney stepped up, looked around, still trying to figure out the trick. The rest returned to their perch.

  Yulin was ready. Rumney was encoded quickly, winking out and then, almost immediately, winking back in. They had made two slight alterations in him: he had a donkey's long ears and a large, black equine tail emerging just above his rectum and covering it. Since reality was kept consistent for him, he was quickly aware of his change. He felt his long ears in wonder, and moved his tail. He looked stunned.

  "What do you think, now, Citizen Rumney?" Trelig called out good-naturedly.

  "It's—incredible," the man managed, voice cracking.

  "We can adjust all reality so that you and everyone else will believe you have always been that way," the master of New Pompeii told them. "But, in this case, I think not."

  "Did it hurt?" Someone called to the man. "What did it feel like?" another asked.

  Rumney shook his head. "It didn't feel like anything," he replied, wonderingly. "Just saw the blue light, then you all seemed to flicker, and here I was."

  Trelig smiled and nodded. "See?" he told them all. "I said there was no pain."

  "But how did you do it?" someone gasped.

  "Well, much earlier, we fed Obie the codes for various common animals, plants, and the like. He used the device overhead to reduce them to an energy pattern that is, mathematically, the equivalent of the creature. This information was stored, and when Citizen Rumney was on the disk it did the same for him. Then, using Dr. Yulin's instructions, it blended the ears and tail of the ass to the physiognomy of Rumney; it re-encoded the cells as well to make it his natural form."

  Mavra Chang felt the same chill run through her that ran through the others. Such incredible power—in the hands of Trelig.

  The councillor of New Harmony relaxed, savoring the expressions and the thoughts he knew were troubling them. Finally, he said, "But this is only the prototype. Right now we can take only a single individual at a time. We can, of course, make our own individuals, but there are some things we haven't figured out how to get into Obie so they come out whole people, mentally. That's only a matter of time and practice. And, of course, we can create anything known that is no larger than the disk and whose code we've first stored in Obie. Food of any kind, anything organic or inorganic, absolutely real, absolutely indistinguishable from the original."

  "You said this machine was a prototype," Mavra Chang noted. "May we assume that things have advanced beyond that stage now?"

  "Very good, Citizen Chang," Trelig approved. "Yes, yes indeed! You saw the large tube going through the center of the big shaft?" They nodded. "Well, it has just been connected to a huge version of that little energy radiator you see in the center of that little mirror, there. I had the parts built in a dozen different places and assembled here by my own planet's people. The same with a huge version of that mirror, slightly different in shape and property, of course. And huge—it fills most of the surface of Underside. If the power is sufficient, and we believe it is, it should be effective from a distance of over fifteen million kilometers on an area at least forty-five to fifty thousand kilometers in diameter."

  "You mean a planet!" someone gasped.

  Trelig looked mock-thoughtful. He was enjoying this. "Yes, I suppose so. Why, yes, I do believe you're right! If there is sufficient power, of course."

  They thought over what he had just said, each realizing that what they'd feared most of all was true. This madman possessed a device that could alter planets to his design in limited ways. Limited, perhaps, but he certainly wouldn't be going to this extreme just to give the inhabitants funny ears and tails.

  Trelig looked down, saw that Rumney, who could hear the conversation, hadn't moved off the disk. He was waiting to be changed back.

  "Now I'll show you the full potential," Trelig whispered, and nodded to Yulin.

  Before he could do anything, the man with the ears and tail was captured again in the blue glow. When he winked back in a few moments later there had been an additional change. He still retained the ears and tail, and even his beard, but through the thin robe they could clearly see that he was now sexually a female despite the retention of the rest of his large, masculine body.

  Trelig grinned evilly at the others, then called down. "Tell me, Cit
izen Rumney, do you notice any other changes?"

  The person on the disk looked and felt all over, then shook his—her?—head. "No," the person responded in a voice that unmistakably belonged to the same person but was now a half-octave higher in tone. "Should I?"

  "You are female, now, Citizen Rumney."

  Rumney looked bewildered. "Why, yes, of course. I always have been."

  Trelig turned back to the group, a smug expression on his face. "You see? This time we altered something basic in the equations that created him. We made him a her. A simple thing, really—easier than the reverse since he is now XX where, in the opposite way, we have to postulate the Y factor. The important thing is that only we know a change has taken place. He doesn't—and, if you returned with him like that, you'd find that everyone else remembered him as a female, too, that all his records were those of a female, that his whole past was adjusted to show he'd been born that way. That is the real power of the device. Only the shielding and our close proximity to the change allow us to be exempt from this change ourselves."

  They thought it over. New Pompeii, of course, would be shielded, probably something added to the plasma shield. When the big mirror did its work on a planet, no one in the whole galaxy would even know that anything was changed. The victimized world wouldn't know it, either. The inhabitants would become his playthings and his property as a part of the natural scheme of things.

  "You monster!" one of the councillors spat. "Why show us this at all? Why expose yourself, except for ego?"

  Trelig shrugged. "Ego, of course, is part of it. But such power is no fun unless somebody knows what's going on. But; no, there's more to it than that."

  "You need the Council Fleet to move New Pompeii and protect it," Mavra guessed.

  He smiled. "No, not really. According to the calculations, if a reverse bias is applied to the device, it would be possible to envelop New Pompeii in the field and then transport it anywhere it wanted—sort of picking itself up by its own bootstraps. No, this concerns our own limitations. You can't remake a planet into something else without knowing exactly what you want and then feeding the information into Obie. The ears and tail wouldn't have been possible unless Obie had first had the code for the ass. It will take much time and research to remake a world properly, and I am an impatient man. If I tried a planet now, or in the next few years, the results would probably be monstrous. No, I need access to all the information, the best brains, the best of everything to carry it out. I need the resources of hundreds of worlds. To get the resources I need, I'll need the Council Fleet under my control."