Jack Chalker - Ghost of the Well of Souls

“Smart lady,” Wallinchky responded. “Deal?”

Angel did not reply, but the winged figure moved away from the door, allowing access to the hall.

Ari got up and followed them, determined that wherever Ming wound up was where she would wind up, too.

The Gate was still there, and she allowed Wallinchky, who was almost picking her up with the wrestling style grip, to continue toward it. She wanted Wallinchky over there, with the Chalidangers spoiling for revenge after the story of the double cross came out, unable to get off the Well World, unable to hide forever from so many enemies. For, indeed, Jules Wallinchky had made one mistake at the end.

He’d turned traitor on his friends without making peace with his enemies.

Ming had the odd feeling that Angel could stop him, could do almost anything she wanted with any of them, but that she was allowing this to happen.

It wasn’t until they were practically to the Straight Gate that Ming realized she was looking through the Gate not at the conference room but at the airlock beyond.

Wallinchky saw it almost as soon as she did, and stopped. “So! The bastards think that’s going to stop me? They shut the other end off? Well, they forgot the lesson of Josich. This thing will still work, one way!”

Ming suddenly jerked her body in a way that hardly seemed human at all, then made a move that sent the much larger Wallinchky flying in the air, landing on his shoulder and against the Gate.

He gave out a terrible roar and yelled, “It’s been decades since I had to do my own dirty work as a Terran, but, by God, this is it!” He launched himself at her, and, to his surprise, she sidestepped at the last instant and he went sailing and then crashing down on the carpet.

She stood in position just in front of the Gate. “When you’re very small and in a dangerous profession and walk dangerous paths, you must find other ways of self-defense to compensate,” she told him, barely breathing hard. “When you were that age you are again, you were beating up women, and men, too. But you don’t get me twice.”

“You and me, we’re going through that gate. My spineless relative hasn’t the guts or skill to save you, and this bird girl of a computer wants me gone. So, come! Let’s get out of this place!”

He launched himself at her with all his speed and force. At the last moment she dropped to the floor, caught his torso with her feet and rolled, pushing him on through the air.

He didn’t quite make the gate, only the base, but he stirred a moment, then dropped, out cold with a bad and bleeding gash where a corner of the base had caught his forehead.

Ming looked up at Angel. “Can I get some help at throwing out the trash?”

A male voice behind her asked, “Will I do?”

She turned, startled, as Angel smiled. It was Genghis O’Leary, also stark naked, but very much his old mustachioed and muscled self. “ Genghis! But you went back!”

“While you all were preoccupied, I decided that my business and future were over here. Core obliged, operating the device. But let me get this going before he regains his wits. He’s stirring now!”

O’Leary was a huge man; she’d forgotten just how big and how strong he’d been, and, she had to admit, she’d never seen him in this body with nothing on. He was also much younger, without losing any of that bulk, and concerning his normally private part, well… Oh, my!

He had no trouble lifting Jules Wallinchky up, and though the old criminal chief came to, he was unable to react before his body went through the Gate. There was a sudden darkness in the hexagonal center, like a Zone Gate, as Wallinchky’s head hit it, and then the body vanished.

The hex was clear again.

“I had hoped if all else failed I could catch him by surprise and do that anyway,” O’Leary told them.

“Where did he go? Back to the conference room?” Ari asked.

“No, I doubt it. There would be no reason to go there now that the other Gate is dismantled. If Josich’s experience is any guide, he would have landed in the middle of the hex where our people, the Terran people, originated. Whether as a boy or a girl, I don’t know, but it won’t matter. Word was, our relatives didn’t acquit themselves very well and are pretty primitive there. And, male or female or whatever, he’s going to have to keep a very low profile regardless for a very long time. It’s academic anyway. Core swears that it will be twice a thousand years before anyone who might know of the Gate will be able to find all its pieces again.”

Ari looked at the surviving Gate. “What about this one?”

“I will disassemble and keep it here, in the most secure of vaults,” Angel told them. “Outside of those in this room, no one will even know that it ever existed, or at least what it was for. I do expect a lot of company here, for I cannot go forth very far, but I expect a large number of people of many races will eventually come here. Many will come to see the works of art, others to learn of the history and traditions represented here, but most will come to study for a better way. This, I believe, was always my destiny. This is what I believe, in the end, all of this was really about.”

Ari sighed. “Great! So I’m stuck like this?”

“What’s so wrong with this ?” Ming wanted to know. “We’re still a team, only now I’m gonna have to teach you some of the tricks.”

“I am sorry, but while you are capable in your own way, and I know Ming loves you, you are not a very impressive person when it comes to action,” Angel told Ari. “When it comes to standing up against evil and taking a principled stand, you watch. In every case you watch, as you did just now. You were sincere enough to decide to follow Ming wherever she went, but you could not bring yourself to act to save her. I don’t want a genetic Wallinchky close at hand, one who might be anointed an heir apparent by that vast organization that will, unfortunately, go on, even with all of the information that I can and will supply to destroy it. I alone have the pass codes and keys to much of the vast personal fortune, and most of that will be used to develop the center here. I will arrange for an annuity that will require you both to access, and it will be sufficient for your comfort and needs, and you are always welcome here. But the Wallinchky empire stops here.”

“What will you do here?” Ming asked her, as awed as she knew Ari was disappointed.

“You have no idea what sort of powers and understandings have come to me, both as the knowledge center here and as Jaysu. They complement each other. The word will go forth, and pilgrims will come here, and I will teach them and send them forth so that good may supplant evil. It is a slower way, but a better and more lasting one.”

O’Leary stared at her. “So this is the new Vatican, the center of a new religion?”

“And of the synthesis of many old ones. I hardly think the Pope will come, but one may hope. At least I believe this form will give them a familiar anchor to Heaven. And one day, when all things are possible, we will restore this world to its pre-Maker state, and perhaps before I die, I might well be able to step into a true atmosphere and fly once more.”

Ming and Ari looked out the window at the dark and desolate landscape and could not imagine it.

“You are welcome to stay and be a part of God’s new plan,” Angel told them.

O’Leary cleared his throat. “I think not. I think I’d like to get back to taking on evil on a smaller, more direct scale. And I wouldn’t mind having a couple of very sexy partners with me in that, particularly ones that had an independent annuity!”

“I will give a hyperspace call for a private transport,” Angel told them. “Please, though, return often and tell me of your adventures!”