Jack Chalker - Ghost of the Well of Souls

Quickly, Wallinchky filled him in on what had happened. Ming listened, realizing that the old crook had either had a mental lapse or hadn’t heard about Josich’s body switch trick. Well, if he was going to be Ari for a while, so be it.

“Tann Nakitt, your duty is to return to the Well World, and now, through the Gate,” Ming told the creature. “We will take care of the rest.”

Wallinchky went up to the far side of the Gate and waited while Nakitt obediently went through on the front side. Immediately, the Ochoan form she’d accepted was back, and so was the old Tann Nakitt.

Ming walked around to the side of the gate and shook his head. “I wonder how it works ?” he mused. On the far side you could see the same entry, just like a window, into the same conference room but from the reverse point of view.

“Core could probably tell us, couldn’t you, Core?”

“I have no idea. The physics is beyond anything I can comprehend,” the Kalindan said from the other side. “It is one thing to almost grasp the bizarre physics of the Well energy strings that allow a near instantaneous matter transmission from the old Well Gates to the Well World, but this, an open, live channel, defies understanding. It is as if it punches a hole directly through. As if, somehow, both Gates are not where we perceive them to be, but standing just outside, like a single entity, so that the Gates are in two places at once. It is unnerving to see it work, but it is not totally surprising. We are talking about a product of an ancient race that could build all this and who were, in a very real sense, the gods who created the races of the universe. Creatures who controlled that sort of power by sheer force of will. What is such a thing as this to them? Only a proof that even they needed machines now and then.”

Wallinchky, never a technological genius, laughed. “Yeah, see? Whatever it said. The important thing is to always know how to work something and be the guy with the controls. The folks who understand it, you can hire.” He grinned at the one he thought was his nephew. “Find the angel yet?”

“No. Ar—Ming’s still out there looking. I’ll go back and join her now that I know things are all right here. With your permission, of course.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ve still got a little business to discuss with the other side here, and then I’m gonna go into the lounge and find out what’s what in this place.”

Ming left him there, thinking that maybe the new young Wallinchky was setting up his own little godhood. No matter what happened, that could not be permitted.

He found Ari just coming from the med lab. “Nothing. Nothing at all. This is getting spooky. Where’s Nakitt?”

“Sent back.” Again the story of what took place was told.

“Uncle Jules always wins. It’s incredible. He might as well be a god. He’s already infallible.”

“Not quite. He thinks I’m you. Say—where’s your room in relation to here?”

“I doubt if a lot of the clothes would even fit!”

“I wasn’t thinking of anything elaborate. Maybe just a robe.”

“Down there. Third doorway on the left. Probably still has my old pants there someplace.”

It wasn’t pants that Ming was looking for, but what might still be there. He went in, searched the room in a methodical fashion, tried searching the memory overlays left by Ari’s own sharing of minds, and found that Ari’s habit was to put his gun in a small holster just inside the main closet. Yes! There it was! A small needier, just exactly what was required for this job.

Putting on a robe, he slipped the needier into the pocket and walked back out. Ari was standing there, staring at him.

“You going to kill him?” Ari asked softly. “Many have tried, and this is the spider in his own web.”

“I don’t think your needier would do it, but it might knock him out. Then we push him through the Gate and dismantle this end. Core will dismantle the other side, and he’ll be long dead of old age before it works again.”

“Interesting plan. Do you think you can get away with it? That’s my body you’re risking, you know.”

“He’s still stark naked. Here, I’ll bring him a robe, too. Are you gonna give me away?”

Ari took a deep breath. “No, I don’t think so. But I’ll believe that this works when I see it.” She looked up at Ming in his body and sighed. “You know, I never realized just how short you were. This takes some getting used to.”

“Tall doesn’t, at least if you don’t hit your head,” Ming responded.

Ming realized the spot he was putting Ari in. First, they were lovers in a way that probably no one else, not even telepaths, could ever be. So connected that, even now, separated in body and mind in a practical sense, they were more connected than identical twins. Worse, he had Ari’s body. Anything happened, it would be this body that suffered.

Wallinchky saw them coming. “What’s the matter? You get cold or something? It can’t be shyness. Not after you shared a body with her all those months.”

Ming walked steadily on, Ari following nervously. “I brought you a robe yourself, if you want one.”

“Don’t matter much here. I hope you’re not thinking of becoming the new heir to the Wallinchky fortune, though, ’cause if there’s a gun or something like that inside one of your pockets or in your hand, you’ll find it won’t work here. They’re all processed through a computer locking mechanism when they come in so nothing like that will fire.”

Ming’s heart sank as Ari’s ghost memories reinforced this as true. He handed the spare robe to Jules.

Wallinchky grinned. “You know, I couldn’t figure out if your slightly different way of talking and your full hip walk was an artifact from that unusual dual existence you two led or if I’d missed something. Having Kincaid covering half my body was distracting to say the least. Then I recalled Josich saying something. You’re not my nephew, are you? It seems I have a niece now? How charming.”

“You’re right, Uncle, as usual,” Ari told him. “You want to use that gizmo to switch us?”

Wallinchky smiled. “Well, actually, no, at least not now. I do believe we’re going to have to adjust the mister, here, but I think I like you like that, Ari. You’re not only much easier to look at, but you also would have one hell of a time establishing an inheritance.”

Ming sighed. “Here we go again,” he muttered.

Wallinchky reached over and removed the needier from the robe, then pulled the rest of the robe off of Ming. “Sorry. I’m going to let you walk back to the Well World. You will arrive a solitary Kalindan, no double mind. I’ll even make it a male now that the problem with Kalinda is taken care of. Stay there, or come right back here. Your choice. But we are going to close down this conduit soon, so it’s up to you.”

“Why should I climb back? You yourself said that the gun wouldn’t fire. And even if you had security programmed to exempt you, I bet it doesn’t recognize you as valid at the moment. You’re too young, your voice will be wrong.”

Wallinchky’s face went red. He pointed the needier and pulled the trigger.

It wouldn’t fire.

“Oh, the hell with it,” he grumbled. He walked up to Ming and, without warning, standing nose-to-nose, his fist came around with lightning speed and knocked Ming down. Ari was so upset that she jumped on her uncle, but he laughed and pushed her off so hard that she landed, rolling, almost five meters away.

Ming started to get up, but Wallinchky struck him again hard, and then expertly lifted the almost equally built man using his back and shoulders and propped him halfway in and halfway out of the device. Then with a firm bare foot, he pushed Ming back into the Kalindan conference room.