Jack Chalker - Ghost of the Well of Souls

“Perhaps too high a price,” Tann Nakitt noted. “Is there any word on him? I thought that if he’d lived we’d at least have heard that he’s alive.”

“Nothing, but that means little. Do not underestimate him. If he wanted to remain hidden, I believe he could do it, no matter what the complexity. And if he is alive out there, he’s definitely going to be madder than hell. At Josich, at us, at the whole universe, even as he would revel in starting off young and in perfect health again. With Kincaid also out there, we’d have three insane megalomaniacs running around loose, untroubled by morals, ethics, those sorts of things. No, for all our sakes, I certainly hope he did not survive, but I have always gone under the assumption that he’s out there somewhere. If he is, I do not want to meet him or speak to him.”

“Huh? Why not?”

“Because I was created as his slave. I did much that was evil in his name and by his orders because I could not disobey him. I have no idea if the programming string was snapped when I came here or not. Certainly he probably was and perhaps is unaware that I am what I am. But if he should find out, I have no way of testing whether I would be forced to be his unwilling slave once again.”

“We have word out all over,” the Ochoan ambassador assured Core. “If he’s out there, we’ll find him. All newcomers, no matter how capable, stick out for a little while, unless they become a creature immobile and alien enough to be incapable of becoming a threat.”

“Indeed? Then you know what Kincaid is?”

The ambassador hesitated a moment. “Yes, I do. And Chalidang will either dig it out or figure it out as well. Not that it will give Josich any comfort, but it may make her even more impatient and desperate. Kincaid is a hell of a threat to the Emperor, perhaps more than we are, but as they gain knowledge, they may be able to contain or even trap him.”

“So? What is he?” O’Leary and Nakitt asked almost as one.

“That remains a secret for now, in the hope that it will cause Chalidang to remain nervous for a while longer. Eventually they’ll figure it out, but until then it keeps them on their guard and perhaps throws them off. We made an agreement with Citizen Kincaid. He does no more revenge in Zone, and we few keep his secret.”

“You can’t trust his word,” O’Leary warned. “He’s a lunatic with only one mission in life.”

“He’ll keep his word to us. Otherwise, we’ll exchange his invisibility for a very large target and drop him at the Chalidang embassy.”

Now that was a ride! Ming’s enthusiasm was not matched by Ari, who shared everything with her except her soul.

I feel like I’ve been beat up, stuck in a garbage disposal, and run through a grinder, Ari grumped.

The steam-powered cars had pretty obviously not been built for Kalindans, but even if they had been, he doubted that he’d have liked them. He had never been much for simulators, roller coasters, or anything else that wasn’t extremely comfortable. While he’d always understood why people like pilots had to go through stuff like that, he’d never understood why others thought people like him would enjoy such things just for laughs.

Party pooper! I sure won’t get any fun sharing a body with the likes of you!

Maybe not, but you’ll grow older and also keep your dinners down.

Traveling in the cars was like being packed into an aerated tin can and shot from point to point out of pressurized guns, and it was fast. Abudan, the capital city, was almost in the dead center of the hex, or roughly two hundred kilometers from the border. Under normal circumstances that was quite a swim. With all this murky soup they called water, it would have been several days of slow and miserable work. Now, here they were in only six hours, although the aches and pains were beginning to show.

Nor were they the only Kalindans to take this route. Possibly because of the slow going and low visibility, almost all the neighboring hexes seemed to use it. Since the Kalindans were fabricating and assembling a good deal of both the large and local systems, there were a lot of them around.

The city itself was huge, at least on the scale of Kalinda’s own capital of Jinkivar. It seemed even larger because it was low to the ground. Few buildings rose more than four stories, yet the population was approaching a million of the lobsterlike Yabbans. They were by no means reclusive, either, going to and fro in such great numbers that they seemed a steady stream filling the streets. They tended to keep to the bottom. Rising only as required allowed fish and related creatures who preferred swimming—a group that included Kalindans— the upper reaches.

Where are they going? Ari wondered.

Maybe it s rush hour, Ming responded, taken aback herself. The place seemed so damned busy, even by the most active and crowded of Terran standards, let alone Kalindan ones.

“First time in the city?” a voice asked them. They turned and saw a portly Kalindan with both a backpack and large travel case emerging from the station.

“Yes,” Ming responded. “It’s all so—overwhelming. What do they all do ?”

The other laughed. “ That is a question no one dares ask, not because it’s any mysterious plot but because one of them might stop and try and explain it all to you. I assure you, after that you will be totally confused. I think our translators and certain common traits involving commerce and trade blind us to the fact that all of us are truly alien species to the others. Cheer up! They’re friendly!”

She laughed. “I gathered that much.”

“Where are you staying? Do you know your way around the city?”

Ming hesitated. They had no plans. “We hadn’t really thought of it. The budget is tight, though.”

“I see! You young people! I suppose the parents decided while you waited for some university slot you should see a bit of the world, eh?”

“Something like that.” It was also hard getting used to having a teenager’s body—albeit a very different body than the ones they’d grown up in. The Well World essentially reset newcomers, not to a child—that would have insulted their intelligence and been another hurdle to handle—but as a postpubescent young adult. The others had been similarly deaged, as it were, although with a few races it was hard to tell.

“Well, this is certainly the direction in spite of the problems. Come with me! There’s a sort of Kalindan colony here under a filtered dome. I’ll take you there. If worse comes to worse, you won’t be the first or last to sleep at the top of the dome!”

They followed the Kalindan, wondering about the friendliness of their fellow country people.

I don’t remember folks back in Kalinda being all this friendly and helpful, Ari noted.

Me, neither. I have memories of being tossed around and locked up a lot. It might just be that we’re all in a foreign land, or it might be something else.

You think we’re being led?

Maybe. Or maybe both of us have just been in the undercover business too long. Either way, it gets us where we need to go.

“You lead and we’ll follow, Citizen… er?”

“Mitchuk. I’m an engineering technician specializing in epoxies.”

“Epoxies?”

“Glues. Cements. Sealants. Things that stick to one another forever. You just rode one of the trains. Can you imagine what would happen if any of those seals had come apart in transit?”

You mean they didn’t? “ Uh, yeah. I suppose. I never really thought about it.”