Jack Chalker - Ghost of the Well of Souls

“What are you going to make me?”

“Oh, nothing serious. Just a bit of incentive.”

The big spider didn’t like the idea, but he knew he had no choice. One shot into his body by any of those tentacles and he was history.

He very much wanted to be writing more history than being consigned to it, so he went.

And, like O’Leary, fell on his face. Only Jules Wallinchky wasn’t a Kalindan. The body was that of a mammal, and the fin was parallel to the torso, but the upper face and body were very, very Terranlike and female, in spite of the blue-green hair.

“Why did you do this to me?” he yelled back at Josich in a melodious female voice.

“You need water to survive in that dry, hostile atmosphere. We think this will give you an incentive not to stall,” the Empress responded. “The race, by the way, is called Umiau. In spite of appearances, the race is single-sexed.”

Jules Wallinchky rolled over on the floor and sighed. “Oh, great! This is gonna be one big pain in the ass. I still have an ass, don’t I?”

Ari looked at all of them. “What a mess! We came off best of the lot, it seems, except for… Hey! Where is Jaysu, anyway?”

They all looked around, and the angel-like creature was nowhere to be seen.

“There’s something very odd going on here,” Wallinchky said. “Find her!”

Back in the conference room on the Well World, Josich was feeling pretty good about things so far, but still insecure. “We wish we could move this to our own embassy,” she said, more to herself than to Core. “This is not a good situation, being in your territory. Fortunately, it should be necessary only for a few days, until proper security elsewhere can be arranged for it.”

“Oh? You are going to move it, then?”

“Yes, of course. But we need a situation like this, with both air and water-breather access, and it must be in Zone. We are arranging with an old ally for that situation. It will make life much easier.” She shifted uncomfortably. “I wonder what is keeping General Mochida?”

“Mochida will come and get his in his own good time,” said a deep, rasping voice from above. Both Core and Josich, startled, looked up, where a form emerged from the ceiling and ran down the wall before solidifying into a squared, humanoid-shaped creature with the texture of stone.

“What are you? How did you get in here?” Josich snapped.

“When you’re a plasma being, you can ride in,” the creature responded, “and that’s what I did. It was a simple agreement, one that was quite satisfactory to me. I get Josich, the Empress, in the hour of her great triumphant return to power, and he gets control of the device.”

“Kincaid! You’re Kincaid !”

“At last we meet, Josich, butcherer of worlds. Clever device, that.” He paused a moment. “Kalindan! You stay out of this! This is not your fight!”

“I am a statue,” Core responded, not at all sorry to be one.

“You can’t be here! Not here ! Not now!”

“I am here and I have finally come for you, Josich. Go through the portal and they will cut your water recirculator off. Otherwise, come here and I’ll give you the same mercy that you gave my wife and daughters so long ago! God has allowed this, and I have kept His trust!”

Josich scrambled up onto the Gate with the intent of going through, but Core had never seen another being in air move as fast as Kincaid did, almost flowing at the speed of a cannon shot around the wall and striking the power pack and recircu-lators in the environment suit.

Water began to gush out of the suit, and as it did, Josich tried hard to grab Kincaid with any tentacles she could, but the creature retreated as fast as it had approached. In the meantime, Core had jumped forward out of the chair and now lay flat on the floor, wriggling to avoid Josich’s thrashing.

To Josich, the rupture of the suit environment was the same as being caught in a vacuum. Death came, but it came knowingly, and not nearly fast enough.

Core almost got caught by two of the flailing tentacles, but managed to avoid them, the suit saving the Kalindan from bad sucker burns. By the time she’d crawled enough to reach the door, Josich was over in one corner, the flailing and movement becoming progressively slower. As Jeremiah Wong Kincaid had vowed a very long time ago and half a universe away, he watched Josich shudder and the life in the eyes slowly fade as life seeped out of the big squidlike creature until it was gone.

Core managed to pull up to a sitting position and prop herself in the opposite corner. She looked over at the creature who’d just killed the monster of many worlds.

“Would you mind telling me just how you did it?”

“Oh, it wasn’t all that hard.”

“But they did a complete scan, and they knew what you were by then.”

“Right. And that is why I couldn’t come in as a simulation of someone else—everyone sort of knew everyone else in this, or at least somebody knew somebody, and their security was tight. So I came in au naturel, as it were, after the sweep. I came in with the rest.”

“What? How is that possible?”

“I came in on Wallinchky’s back, of course. You didn’t think he’d play second fiddle to Josich, did you? Or that Josich planned on letting him live any longer than he was needed to get Hadun ships down there to pick up the other Gate? So we made a deal. I was the only one who had both motive and a crack at getting to Josich, and he was the only way I could get in.”

“Just exchanging monsters,” Core told him, “and I don’t mean appearances.”

“I know what you mean. But Josich destroyed whole worlds and took from me all that I ever cared about. Wallinchky is a crime lord. He’s a miserable excuse for a person, but he’s kept his word to me.”

“Like he kept his word to Josich.”

Kincaid gave a wry chuckle. “Yes, that is a point, isn’t it?” He looked back over at the dead Josich. “You know, it’s funny. My whole life, my whole being, waking, sleeping, dreaming, has been for this moment. And now that it’s past, it seems like nothing at all.”

“Well, at least I believe you did more than avenge yourself here. I think you may have prevented crimes more heinous than those that drove you to this.”

“Perhaps. I would like to think so.”

“You can complete the task if you will disassemble that Gate and give me at least some of the pieces. It can’t be destroyed, but I think I can buy another thousand years, since with the other one, Wallinchky can only get back here.”

“I understand your position but I cannot do it.”

“What! Why not? Think, man! This in Wallinchky’s hands could make another Josich probable!”

“I gave my word and he gave his. And both of us have kept ours. I cannot betray him like that. I won’t help him, and in fact I will gladly take care of General Mochida on the way out, but the Gate stays up.”

The door opened then, and Mochida was there, carrying something in a box. He started to say, “Your Majesty—” suddenly saw Kincaid and the dead Empress, and with a speed that absolutely astounded Core, he dropped the box and shot backward to the balcony. When Kincaid came out, Mochida pulled a hidden pistol and fired point-blank at him. Kincaid moved with the same speed he had in the conference room. The shot went wide and hissed, melting a piece of wall just to the right of the door.

“Shit!” Mochida swore. Pivoting an eye, he saw the water entrance below, and leaped off the balcony and down to it. It was shallow and he hurt himself going in against the ramp, but he managed to get below while Kincaid was still moving toward him.

“Oh, well,” Kincaid sighed. “He wasn’t that important anyway.”