Jack Chalker - Exiles at the Well of Souls

She was almost back at her room when she spotted someone she needed. True, the woman looked and dressed much like the others, but she had a conspicuous difference: she wore a shoulder strap and a pistol. The woman was moving slowly down the hall, checking on doors and the like, when Mavra crept in. There was no one else around.

Like an animal stalking prey, the tiny agent seemed to move with dead silent liquidity, closer, ever closer to the tall woman with the pistol. Now, only a few meters away, she pounced. The big woman turned at the movement, her face registering extreme surprise at the black, sleek visage running toward her. Mavra was so fast that the guard’s hand had only started to move to the pistol when her attacker leaped and kicked full force into her victim’s stomach.

The guard had the wind completely knocked out of her. Mavra, landing and somersaulting, was on her feet again as if by magic and back to the guard. Both the index- and middle-finger nail injectors of her right hand found their mark while Mavra’s left hand grabbed the woman’s gun-hand. The double dose weakened her opponent rapidly, and, although the larger woman was winning her battle, the hypnos took hold before she could draw the pistol.

Mavra relaxed and rolled off her quarry, now frozen in a strange position.

“Get up!” Mavra ordered, and the other complied. “Where is a room where we will not be disturbed or interrupted?”

“In there,” came the mechanical reply. The woman pointed to a nearby door.

“No cameras or other devices in there?” Mavra asked crisply.

“No.”

The small woman ordered her drugged victim into the room, and she followed. It was a small office of some sort, not currently in use. Mavra sat the woman on the floor, then kneeled down, facing her.

“How are you called?” she asked the drugged guard.

“I am Micce,” the other replied.

Mavra sighed. “Okay, Micce, tell me, how many people are there on New Pompeii?”

“Forty-one at the moment,” the other responded. “Not counting the wild folk, the living dead, and the guests.”

“Counting everyone but the new guests, how many?” Mavra prodded.

“One hundred thirty-seven.”

Mavra nodded. That told what she was up against. “How many armed guards?”

“Twelve.”

“Why are no more precautions than this taken?” the dark agent asked. “Surely greater security is called for.”

“They rely on automatic sensing in the important areas,” the guard explained. “As for the rest, no one could get off New Pompeii without the proper codes.”

“Who knows the codes?” Mavra asked.

“Only Councillor Trelig,” the guard responded. “And they are changed daily in a sequence known only to him.”

Mavra Chang frowned. That would make things a little harder.

“Is the girl Nikki Zinder here?” she asked.

The guard nodded. “In the guard quarters.”

With more questioning, Mavra established the location of the guard quarters, the general layout of the building, who was in there at any given time, Nikki’s exact room, and how to get in and out. She also established that everyone on New Pompeii was on sponge except Trelig himself, and the supplies were brought in daily by a computer-controlled ship so that no one could get a large quantity and rebel against Trelig. That piece of information was interesting. So the sponge was brought in on a little scout, made for four passengers if need be. The guard’s description suggested that it was a Model 17 Cruiser, a craft Mavra knew well. It would be perfect.

She took the guard’s pistol and shoulder belt after determining that the guards themselves checked their equipment in and out of a small guard locker. She suggested to the guard that the pistol and belt were still in place, so the gun would not be missed. It would be checked back in and perhaps not discovered gone for days. Mavra smiled; she was armed again, and luck was breaking her way due to Trelig’s conceit about his security.

“Where is Dr. Zinder?” she asked the guard, after giving her another jolt of the hypno.

“He is on Underside,” the guard replied. Of the forty-one people, one was Trelig, one was Nikki, one was Zinder, twelve were guards, five were assistants to Zinder, and the other twenty-one were slaves of one kind or another. That was enough to tell Mavra Chang that she hadn’t a prayer of getting Zinder himself out, but a good chance at Nikki. Ten million wasn’t “anything,” but it sure beat nothing.

After getting the guard routine from the hypnoed woman, Mavra told her to forget about her totally and resume her normal routine. The guard did so without further comment, and treated Mavra as if she weren’t there.

It took another forty minutes to return to the main building, avoid the cameras, and get back to her room. The strips were still in place on the door, and, after closing and relocking it, she carefully removed them. The holographic memory projector was still in place, so the camera was still showing an empty, quiet room with a meditating figure on the bed.

Tidying up, removing the blackface, reassembling the boot, and reloading and reforming the belt took more time. As soon as she finished, she edged over next to the projector on the bed, careful not to jiggle it too much, until she was next to it, almost touching it. Infinite patience is the best tool of a burglar.

Assuming the correct position, she took the little device, quickly palmed it, and slipped it out of sight when the camera was directed elsewhere. When the camera swung back, only a few seconds later, it photographed the same nude woman in the same meditating position. Only a fanatical observer, which no guard was—watching sleeping people was an incredibly dull job—would have realized that the figure was seated in a slightly different position at a slightly different angle.

Suddenly her breathing became more rapid, and then she stirred, flexed, stretched out on the bed, and turned over. Her right hand dangled just over the edge of the bed for a second, as she dropped an unseen object onto black cloth.

And only then did Mavra Chang sleep.

If anyone knew of her roamings, they did not betray that fact the next morning. The major dispute was over Trelig’s requirement that they all take showers and then don light, filmy garments and sandals. He apologized and offered to launder their own garments during their trip, but it was clear what he was doing. He could both examine their garments and make certain that little if anything was taken to Underside.

Mavra was confident that the shielding in her boots and in the belt would be sufficient to escape detection; however, if anyone did try to open them, there would follow a hard-to-explain and quite messy violent explosion. She doubted if Trelig’s people would go that far because of the defense mechanism risk; but her tools were to be denied her when they would do the most good. The pistol was not particularly hard to conceal; she’d hidden it against a hall cornice affixed with putty outside the room.

She saw the surprised expressions when she entered the hall for breakfast; without the boots she was even tinier than usual. They all noticed, but no one was tactless enough to mention the subject.

After eating, Trelig addressed them. “Citizens, distinguished guests all, may I now explain why you were all invited here, and what you will see today,” he began. “First, let me refresh your memories a bit. As you all no doubt know, we are not the first civilization to have colonized worlds far beyond the one of our civilization’s birth. The artifacts of that earlier, nonhuman civilization have been found on countless dead worlds. Dr. Jared Markov discovered them, and so we call them the Markovians.”