Exiles at the Well of Souls

by Jack L. Chalker

  Putting on the boots gave her more than a literal lift; she felt bigger, stronger, more invincible with them on.

  Her eyes; she noted, adjusted to whatever mode was needed. She saw clearly and perfectly regardless of light conditions. She also saw things slightly differently; other colors, far outside the human spectrum, gave new and subtly different blends of a wider spectrum to all things. The sharpness and detail also amazed her; she hadn't really realized, until Obie corrected the problem, that she had been growing nearsighted.

  Her hearing, too, had improved dramatically. She heard insects in the grass and trees, and could isolate them. Scraps of conversation, a few people talking and moving far away, she could hear. The din, which included more of the ultrasonic and subsonic than normal, was irritating, but she found, with a little thought, she could tune parts of it out.

  She moved swiftly and silently through the grounds, as familiar to her, somehow, as if she had been born and raised there, and she looked, in her movements, more like the cat she always fancied herself than she could know.

  She had no chronograph to tell her the time remaining to her. There was a sixty-minute one on the front of the belt that could be activated, but she didn't bother. She was moving as fast as she could; if she didn't make it, all the chronometers in the world would make no difference.

  She deplored the time spent on the survey mission the night before. But, on reflection, she decided it hadn't been a waste after all. She was able to see what Trelig did to human beings, she retrieved the pistol, and, she felt certain, her success at her initial foray had been what made Obie pick her.

  She made the guard quarters without incident, but here was where things would get rough. Two guards would be on duty here, and perhaps four more, relaxing, on call. They had all been processed by Obie, unbeknown to them, and so she recognized them all, knew their looks, strengths, and weaknesses.

  They were all sponge ODs, kept that way carefully. There were three males—two with physical characteristics of overdeveloped females but with their genitals intact, one that the sponge had made into a gorilla-like muscleman, hairy and with muscles like rock. The others were females—three with totally male characteristics except in the important place, the rest with totally exaggerated female characteristics. Those like Nikki, who reacted to the overdose differently, were not considered for guard duty.

  As guards they accepted their lot; they hated Trelig, yes, but they knew the hopelessness of their position and they had plenty of models around them of what would happen if they incurred their master's displeasure and their dosages were dropped to a fraction or none at all. They were loyal to the man who controlled the sponge, and they lived fairly well because of it.

  They would be dangerous.

  At the guard building, Mavra's newly acute hearing told her that there was no one near the entrance. She went inside, descended to the ground-level laundry room, and slipped in. Although she now knew the code for the elevator, she decided not to risk using it unless she had to. The building had three underground floors, each story ten meters high—not enough distance to matter.

  There were pressure-sensitive treads on some of the stairs, though, and she carefully gripped the rail and lifted herself past them. She had always been a good gymnast, and the lighter gravity and Obie's toning made doing so as easy as taking a step forward.

  The sensors would be the main line of defense for the building; cameras were positioned only inside the secured weapons locker and in the prison rooms themselves.

  That last was what worried her. There would be no way to fool the camera that watched Nikki Zinder, for the girl had no devices to deceive it as Mavra did. It might not notice the intruder, but it would certainly notice Nikki walking out.

  Mavra took time to check out the rest of the building. Two guards—whom she didn't recognize—were inside the weapons locker with the camera monitors. Armed to the teeth, they would respond quickly. Two others, it appeared, were sleeping on the second level. They were unarmed, but formidable enough, and, once the alarm sounded, she would have no way of knowing where they would be. She decided to take the risk.

  Flexing her new poison apparatus, she saw the conscious muscle movement necessary to allow a tiny drop of the fluid to reach the point of the nails. Satisfied, she crept into the room where the two guards, both females like the one she had hypnoed the night before, were sprawled on bunks, sound asleep. One was snoring loudly.

  Mavra acted quickly, almost without thinking, releasing venom concealed in the fingers of her right hand in the one that was quiet first, then turning and puncturing the arm of the snoring guard. Incredibly, neither woke up, even though there was a tiny spot of blood where the sharp nail had penetrated.

  Professionals they weren't, she decided with some relief. That ought to teach Trelig not to be so cheap and so confident with his security.

  She bent over one and whispered: "You will sleep deeply and restfully, and dream happy dreams, and nothing, no person or sound, shall waken you." She did the same to the other.

  That would hold them until the venom wore off.

  Next she set out for the third-level weapons locker. Trelig thought he was smart putting the duty office inside the locker; an outer office, really. It made them unassailable.

  The vault door would take a ton of explosives to blow, yet it could be opened by a safety lock on the inside in seconds. But vaults were designed to keep people out.

  Mavra drew her purloined pistol and fired at the lock junction, a continuous burst that caused the hard surface to start to bubble, slightly deform. It was designed that way; the strongest energy weapons would only reinforce the door by causing a more malleable outer layer to seal the locking mechanism. Great for storing jewels and art; terrible if someone was inside.

  Before those two could get out or anyone else could get in, Trelig would have to blow his own safe.

  Confident, almost cocky with her success, Mavra Chang went down to the other end of the hall and punched the code for Nikki Zinder's room.

  The door slid open. Nikki was there all right, sprawled out on the bed.

  Mavra hardly had time to react before a stun bolt froze her stiff.

  Underside—1040 Hours

  Trelig's communicator buzzed. He reached under the folds of his white robe and unclipped it from a little stretch-belt, then held it up to his mouth and pressed a stud.

  "Yes?" he snapped, annoyed. This close to his triumph he did not like interruptions.

  "Ziv, sir," a guard reported. "We awakened the representatives as you ordered. One of them is not in the assigned room."

  Trelig frowned. Even less than interruptions did he want complications, not now. "Which one?" he asked.

  "The one called Mavra Chang," Ziv replied crisply. "It's simply amazing, sir. There's a holographic projection of her on the bed so real it fooled even us—let alone the camera. And it had no apparent generation source!"

  The master of New Pompeii didn't like what he heard at all. He tried to remember which one she was—oh, yes, the real tiny woman with the strong Orchi features and the silky smooth voice.

  "Find her at all costs," he ordered. "Shoot to stun if you can, but if there is any blatant threat to life or property you have my permission to kill her."

  He reclipped his communicator and looked around at the master control board. Gil Zinder, sitting in a folding chair, noted Trelig's worried expression and smiled a bit. This irritated the councillor all the more—Zinder should not be so bold on this of all days.

  "What do you know of this?" Trelig snapped angrily at the little man. "Come on! I know it's some of your doing!"

  Gil Zinder hadn't the faintest idea what the man was talking about, but he couldn't help a touch of satisfaction at seeing that something was obviously wrong.

  "I don't know what you're talking about, Trelig. How could I have anything to do with anything, kept cooped up here and away from the controls?" Zinder responded with a trace of amusement.


  Trelig towered over the small scientist, face becoming red. For a moment Zinder was afraid that he was about to be torn limb from limb. But Antor Trelig had not gathered his power by losing complete control, ever. He stopped, held back for a moment in frozen fury, and gradually normal breathing and color returned to his face. His expression, however, was still dangerous. "I don't know, Zinder, but you and that brat of yours will pay dearly if anything goes wrong," he warned.

  Zinder sighed. "I've done everything you want. I've designed and built your big dish and massive storage, linked it, and checked it. Your creature Yulin has kept the only controls, and I see my daughter only under guard. You know full well I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about."

  That last remark triggered something in Trelig. He stood dumbstruck for a moment, then snapped his fingers.

  "Of course! Of course!" he mumbled to himself. "It's the girl she's after!" He grabbed for his communicator.

  "Cameras in full deployment," Obie's voice came to them. "Asteroid target in position in seventy minutes."

  Topside—1100 Hours

  Nikki Zinder stared at the frozen figure in wonder. "She's cute," she said, almost clinically. "And she's got a tail!"

  The guard nodded as he stripped Mavra of her pistol, then backed away. It was one of the female-looking males. He resembled the women upstairs except in two departments: the genitalia and his height, which was more than 190 centimeters with the body proportionately large.

  "Stay over on the bed, Nikki," the guard told her. "She's coming around now and I don't want you to get hurt."

  Mavra felt a tingling sensation, as if circulation that had been cut off was gradually coming back. Her eyes hurt, and she managed to blink them, then continued to blink, releasing watery tears of relief. She had been frozen with them open.

  She shook her head slightly to clear it, then looked at the guard. She was still too shaky to try anything, and the guard's drawn and aimed pistol was more than a match for any moves or powers.

  "All right, woman—or whatever you are—what are you doing here and how did you get here?" the guard demanded.

  Mavra coughed slightly, bringing saliva back to a dry throat. "I'm Mavra Chang," she told her captor. "I was hired to get Nikki off New Pompeii before the big test." There was no use lying; the evidence was all around, and the truth might buy time for an opening.

  Nikki gasped. "My father sent you, didn't he?"

  "In a way," Mavra replied. "Without you they have no hold on him."

  The guard looked angry. "You louse! You common sewer rat! Her father wouldn't have sent you. He'd know that Nikki would succumb to the sponge if she left here."

  Nikki's boldness and the guard's obvious concern for the girl heartened Mavra. As was common in cases of kidnapping, guard and captive had become friends. Such friendship could sometimes be exploited. She decided to take a chance on the complete truth. Time was running out anyway, and she had little to lose. This guard was more competent, which meant more cautious, than the others.

  "Look," she said sincerely, "I'm going to level with you. That test—it won't go as Trelig expects. Zinder has held out some information. When it gets switched on, the odds are it'll destroy this little world. I have enough sponge in my cruiser, parked outside the limit, to give her what she needs, and there's an antitoxin I know how to make."

  "Oh, god! Daddy!" Nikki exclaimed excitedly. "You've got to save him!"

  The guard thought for a moment, trying to sort things out. Before he could, there was the sound of heavy footsteps coming down the stairs. Into the room burst an incredible figure, pistol drawn.

  He was fully two meters tall, solid muscle, tremendously hairy, and scary as hell. He saw that the situation was well in hand, then looked down on Mavra. He towered over her.

  "So, half-man, you caught the prize, eh?" he growled in the deepest resonant bass voice Mavra had ever heard. Nikki's expression was horror-struck; she feared this man most of all.

  "Get out of the way, Ziggy," the guard ordered softly.

  The big man sniffed. "Ah, shit! What can this tiny little thing do to anybody now? I kill her the hard way, poke a hole right through her," he boasted, leering.

  "Get out of the way," the guard repeated.

  Instead, he moved up to Mavra and put out a huge hairy hand, lifting her face up slightly and mildly stroking her cheek and neck.

  Mavra flexed the muscles in her left hand, felt the venom rise to her fingertips. All five in him for sure, in another two seconds, she thought.

  She was about to make her move when she suddenly heard a high-pitched whine. The big man screamed, seemed to freeze, then fell over. Mavra jumped quickly to miss being crushed under the mountain of muscle.

  The guard sighed, then pointed the pistol at Mavra again. She'd been too stunned to use the precious time.

  "Is it true what you said?" the guard asked. "You have sponge, and you have an antitoxin?"

  Mavra nodded numbly, still looking at the fallen man.

  "Here, catch!" the guard said, and she looked up. The guard tossed her pistol back to her. She caught it, looked undecided for a moment, then holstered it again.

  "You wouldn't happen to know what time it is?" Mavra asked woodenly. The guard looked at an area on the back of his holster. "Eleven fourteen," he said.

  "Come on, then!" she snapped, coming out of it. "That gives us just sixteen minutes to steal a spaceship."

  * * *

  On the run, Mavra got the guard, whose name was Renard, to radio that the fugitive was caught and under restraint in the guard quarters. Trelig acknowledged the report and, in a tone that was more vicious than any he'd used before, the kind reserved for anticipating taking people apart cell by cell, ordered her brought to him.

  They approached the spaceport. Nikki had received a treatment from Ben only a few days before, but she was still very fat and very slow. It couldn't be helped; Mavra couldn't take off without her.

  The spaceport was quiet. "One guard, Marta, inside, and that's it," Renard told them. "Trelig figures even if you steal one, the robot guardians will shoot you down. You do have a way past that, don't you?"

  Nikki looked a little upset. "Now's a fine time to ask that one!"

  "Yes, it's okay," Mavra assured them. "If Nikki's aboard the code will come to me. Posthypnotic." I hope, she added silently.

  "I'll enter the terminal alone," Renard suggested. "Marta won't suspect me." He paused, then added, "You know, she's not really a bad person, either. We might take her."

  "You're more than I bargained for," Mavra replied. "No more. Stun her when I hit the weapons detector. Then get into the ship. Get the two stewards if you can."

  "No problem," Renard assured her. "They're like robots themselves. They just can't handle anything outside their own experience."

  "Time's wasting!" Mavra snapped. "Go!"

  She counted down from thirty after Renard entered the terminal. Then she walked brazenly out in the open, up the terminal walk, with Nikki waddling behind, removed her pistol, and shot the control box on the weapons detector.

  "Now, Nikki! Run for the door!"

  Nikki didn't move. "No!" she replied stubbornly. "Not without my father!"

  Mavra sighed, turned, and hypnoed Nikki with the nail of her right index finger.

  "Hey! Wha—" the girl managed, then stiffened and relaxed, all thought gone from her. Mavra took a precious second to admire the new stuff, much quicker than the old.

  "You will run as fast as you can after me," she told Nikki. "Do not stop until I tell you!" And, with that, she took off for the doorway. Nikki followed, doing the best she could.

  "You weigh ten kilos!" Mavra screamed at her. "Now, run!"

  Nikki's pace picked up, and she ran through the door at a speed much faster than anyone would have believed possible from one of her bulk.

  Mavra took only a second to see the unconscious form of the guard Marta out cold on the floor, and then turned to Nikki. "Get into the shi
p," she ordered, then turned, anxious. "Renard!" she called.

  Two quick whines answered her from the far ship, and, a moment later, she saw the rebel guard dragging a New Harmonite out the hatch.

  "Come, Nikki!" she ordered, and Nikki followed like an obedient dog.

  Renard, puffing slightly, hauled the second, identical form out, and gestured for them to get in.

  It was Trelig's private cruiser, complete with bedroom, lounge, even a bar. Ordering Nikki into one of the lounge chairs, Renard strapped her in while Mavra went forward. A quick fine-line shot with the pistol blew the flimsy lock, and she opened the door to the cockpit.

  Renard dashed in after her, took the copilot's chair, and strapped himself in. Mavra was at work in seconds, flipping switches, punching orders into the activated computer, setting procedures for emergency lift.

  "Hang on!" she yelled to Renard as the ship hummed and vibrated with full power buildup. "This will be rough!"

  She punched E-Lift, and the ship broke free of its mooring pad and rose at near-maximum power.

  "Code, please," a mechanical voice demanded pleasantly over the radio. "Correct code within sixty seconds or we will destroy your ship."

  Mavra grabbed frantically for the headset, tried to put it on, found it so large it wouldn't stay on even at its smallest setting. Still, she got the mike activated and close to her mouth.

  "Stand by for code," she said into it, and then paused. Come on! Come on! she thought urgently. Nikki's aboard and we're away! Give me the goddamned code!

  "For god's sake give the code!" Renard screamed at her.

  "Thirty seconds," the robot sentry pointed out politely.

  Suddenly she had it. The words burst into her mind, suddenly, so strangely that for a moment she doubted they were correct. She took a deep breath. That had to be, or that was it anyway.

  "Edward Gibbon, Volume I," she said.

  No response. They held their breath together. The seconds ticked seconds ticked off in their minds, five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . zero . . .