Jack Chalker - Ghost of the Well of Souls

Looking like nothing in particular in that condition, their form quickly became apparent under Josich’s knowledgeable assembly, the first two fitting into the grooves and holes in the base, then others fitting into each one.

When completed, it was a hexagonal-shaped frame atop the plain cream-colored base.

Jaysu frowned. “That’s it ?” she said.

“That is all that is required, and it was hard won and gained with blood,” the Empress responded. “And now I will show you how to use it.”

The Empress of Chalidang moved right up to the device and placed her two primary tentacles out, one on each side.

There was no sound, no humming or crackling, no sudden lighting up and glowing of the entire machine, but suddenly the hexagon boundary was filled with the sight of something not anywhere on the Well World. It was neither a picture nor a projection; it appeared to be just on the other side of the thing if you reached through that hexagon.

Jules Wallinchky looked at the vision from his overhanging position, having moved closer to the door to get a better view. “Why, it’s my entrance hallway!”

“We, too, see a hallway on this side, but leading to a conventional airlock,” Josich noted. “This is not inside a police cruiser.”

“Somebody’s moved it!” O’Leary exclaimed. “They took it from my ship and brought it inside!”

“But who?” Wallinchky asked, sounding less confident. “The few people we left there couldn’t operate the airlock with the defenses on, and they wouldn’t have much use for that thing anyway.”

Josich turned and looked at Ming and An. “You! Do you always wish to be together as one, as you are now?”

The question was so out of context with what was going on that they were startled and answered honestly. “No.”

“All right, then, come up here. Roll up to the base here, darlings. Yes, just so. Now, if you can pull yourself up and go through, you will find yourself where you see. Go ahead. We do not fear you. There is nowhere you can really go in there, is there? Go ahead.”

We’re not gonna go very far in air only and with just arm power, either, Ming noted. Shes taking no chances.

Yeah, and what do we have to lose? And with that Ari rose from the wheelchair and, with a strong muscular push from the tail, launched them straight at the hex and its eerie vision beyond.

He didn’t quite make it, but managed to grab onto the base of the hexagonal opening as he toppled. Then, with one mighty pull, he pulled the body completely through the opening.

Type Forty-one reset, both of them heard from an eerie, emotionless, truly alien tone that was simultaneously in their minds.

There was a sense of extreme dizziness and disorienta-tion, and then they both fell onto the plush rug on Jules Wal-linchky’s world.

Ari picked himself up and said, “Hey! What…?”

Ming did the same at almost the same instant. Then she rolled over, sat up and looked at him and started laughing.

“It still got it wrong!” she laughed.

They were separate people again, and Terrans as well. In fact, they were better than they’d left, for now each one of them had a body that looked as it did when it was in its late teens, perfectly healthy and as yet unabused.

The trouble was, Ming was looking at her sixteen-year-old body from Ari’s sixteen-year-old body, and he hers.

“Cheer up,” Ming laughed in Ari’s voice. “At least if we go nuts like this, we can go through the Well again!”

“You really had hair this long?” Ari managed.

There was a sound between thunder and a hiss, and they both turned and their expressions faded. There was the mirror image of the Straight Gate, and, on the other side, Josich of Chalidang, looking less than amused.

“You now have a sample of the power of this device,” the Empress told them. “And we do not have to make you what you were, so please remember that. We did this as a demonstration of power and as a convenience to our purposes. If you want to be restored to your own bodies, and, particularly, if you want to get off that desolate rock in your next lifetime, you will do what I say.”

“What do you want us to do?” Ari asked her.

“Young nephew of Wallinchky, you know this compound. We wish you to survey it and check it out and ensure that it is still secure, that no one else is there, and you will try and determine how the Gate got to be where it was. The other will help you. When you find out things, send the other with a report, even a partial report. We will be waiting.”

Jules Wallinchky watched the whole thing in astonishment. This was better than he ever imagined, and his real problem was not letting Josich know it. Still, he couldn’t help commenting, “You could send me over. I could find out everything in there in minutes.”

“Yes, dear Jules, we are sure that you could, but we find you in person to be, well, a bit more like us than we expected, and we would not send us if our positions were reversed without a lot more need.”

Ming and Ari were happy to be out of sight of the monstrous creature, and happy as well to suddenly be individuals again after all this time, even if Josich had deliberately scrambled them.

“She might have made a mistake,” Ming commented. “If I could shut this down right now, it wouldn’t bother me at all to stay this way. Jeez! I was good-lookin’!”

“Before the past year and a half or so, I would have fought like hell against the idea, but frankly, right now I’d go along with it.” All of Ari was inside this new mind, but from the Kalindan time, when thoughts and even dreams were shared, there was a fair amount of Ming mixed in as well, and the reverse was also true, as they both knew. In fact, it was still fairly easy for both of them to know what the other one was thinking.

Ari went into the computer control center, which was also a very comfortable lounge, and while Ming dialed up some drinks from the old days, Ari sat at the console.

“Computer, Security Code Picasso Seven, Michelangelo Four-one, Titan Six-twelve,” Ari said to the console.

“Access denied,” the computer responded. “Invalid eye, hand, and voice print.”

“Argh! Ming, you’re going to have to do it. It’s looking for my body or Uncle Jules’s original one.”

Ming sipped on a favorite cocktail she’d long reconciled to never tasting again and handed another to Ari. She then sat down and, with his prompting, went through the same sequence.

“Access denied,” the computer responded. “Eye and hand information does not match voice print on file.”

Ming sighed. “I suppose we could sit here and try my acting abilities at getting the voice right, but I’m not sure we could. It can tell there’s something wrong with me. I think that’s what it was designed to do.”

“Right. Tell you what. I’m going to check on the old human staff area and see if they’ve been stuck here all this time or got polished off or managed to get out or what. I’ll meet you back at the thing in a few minutes. Okay?”

“Go ahead. I’m gonna finish my Zerian smokehouse here, and then I’ll head back up. Doesn’t taste quite the same as I remember it, but it’s still good enough. I think your taste buds aren’t as high-class as mine.”

“Says you,” Ari retorted, patting Ming on the behind, and then he was off.

Ming got up, walked around to the console, and saw in it a reflection of the young Ari’s body. “God!” she said aloud. “I’m back to being Terran again, I’m in a young guy’s sexy body who’s hung like a horse, and ten to one I’m gonna wind up back on the Well World turned into a fish.”