Jack Chalker - Exiles at the Well of Souls

“Why are you telling me this?” Mavra asked, chilled both by the fate described and by the calmness with which Obie was dismissing the possibility of the end of all existence.

“When I record, I record everything,” the computer explained. “Since memory is chemical in nature and is dependent on a mathematical relationship with self-generated energy, when I recorded you yesterday I knew what you know, have all of your knowledge and memory. Of all of them, you alone possess—so far—the only qualities for even a slight chance of escape.”

Mavra’s heart leaped. Escape! “Go on,” she told the machine.

“The sponge delivery ship will not fit your needs,” Obie told her. “It has no life-support system in the cockpit. However, it is possible for you to get aboard one of the two craft currently docked. I shall program you now, I shall give you all the details of New Pompeii as I have them, all the information you will need. I shall also modify you slightly, give you a visual range and acuity that will obviate the need for mechanical lenses and power packs. Small glands soon to be inside you will replace the need for nodules of chemicals; the fingers of your right hand will be able to inject the most powerful hypnotic from near-invisible natural injectors. Your left hand will produce a different venom; one touch and it will paralyze for an hour; two touches and it will kill any known organism. I shall also heighten your hearing and reshape, invisibly, your muscle tone so that you will be much faster, much stronger—that will give you unparalleled control of your body. The uses of all these modifications will come naturally to you.”

“But why?” she asked. “Why are you doing this for me?”

“Not for you,” the computer responded, a sad tone in its voice. “The price laid upon you is a demand, something you must do or you will find yourself unable to leave. You must fulfil the first half of your mission. You must take Nikki Zinder with you or you will stay with us. And, with the two of you goes an additional gift.”

Mavra was stunned, and nodded dully, thinking of all this.

“Also within your brain is a precious secret. There is an effective agent against the sponge. It will not cure an addict, but it will permanently arrest the mutant strain in the human body. It will save Nikki, and it will save countless thousands of others. You must get it to higher authority.”

She nodded. “I’ll try.”

“Remember!” Obie cautioned. “The activation is set for thirteen hundred standard hours. When you awaken from this dream, it will be four hundred hours. I cannot delay and hope to succeed. You must be at least a light-year away from this place by then, with Nikki. Anything less, and you will still be within the field. That means you must take off not later than eleven hundred thirty hours! When you have lifted off, if Nikki is aboard, the code you require to bypass the protection circuits will be given you. If Nikki is not aboard, it will not be given. Understand?”

“I understand,” she told the computer grimly.

“Very well, then, Mavra Chang, I wish you good luck,” Obie told her. “You have powers and abilities undreamed of by others; do not fail me or yourself.”

Mavra Chang awoke.

She looked around in the darkness, and tried to focus. Suddenly the whole place came in, clear as a bell, although the room was plainly still dark. She turned slightly on her back, and felt that tail, still there.

That, and her incredible night vision, told her that everything she had dreamed was true. She possessed other facts now—the complete knowledge of the construction and layout of New Pompeii, down to the smallest detail. She could rebuild it from memory, she knew.

She relaxed and concentrated. She didn’t know how she was doing what she was doing, or on what principles the trick worked, but she knew how to do it. In exactly three minutes she came out of the trance, looking at the little camera. It was fixed squarely on her lying on the bed, naturally. It was an automatic type that should follow her movements.

She rolled off the bed in a flash, and lay there, for a moment, on the side. Landing on the boots was uncomfortable, but it was another half-minute before she risked a look back on top of the bed.

The camera was still focused on the center of the bed—and why not? There was the nude form of Mavra Chang, tail and all, sleeping peacefully.

Mavra marveled even though she knew she was staring at a holographic image. It had been created by her own mind and by some powers she didn’t understand that had been added to her body, but she hadn’t the slightest idea how such a thing was possible. It didn’t matter, she thought pragmatically. The fact that the illusion was good up to six hours was the only important thing.

The pullover was no problem, but the body stocking proved a real nuisance. It wasn’t designed for a tail. She considered a moment about what to do, then discovered that they hadn’t merely laundered the garment, they had tailored it. The alteration included a hole through which the tailbone fitted and through which the thick, wiry hair would slip easily.

Good old Trelig, ready for everything, she thought sardonically.

Only the boots now remained a problem. She didn’t want to leave them, yet she couldn’t use them until she was outside the main building. She decided she’d just have to carry them.

They did seem much lighter to her, and for a second she wondered if they had been tampered with. She spent a couple of minutes assuring herself that they were the same. So what else could account for the change? Then she remembered Obie’s words: she was stronger by far than she had been. She accepted that.

She left in the same manner she had the night before, leaving the seals in place, face and hands blackened and energized against the infrared lenses of the cameras.

She retrieved the pistol which was, to her relief, where she had left it. She put on the holster and quietly slipped out. The forty-meter dash seemed even easier now; she wasn’t certain that she hadn’t broken a new track record.

She used the second suction ball, first dropping the boots over. She hoped there would be no further need for the wall-climbing trick; she had only two more of them.

Putting on the boots gave her more than a literal lift; she felt bigger, stronger, more invincible with them on.

Her eyes; she noted, adjusted to whatever mode was needed. She saw clearly and perfectly regardless of light conditions. She also saw things slightly differently; other colors, far outside the human spectrum, gave new and subtly different blends of a wider spectrum to all things. The sharpness and detail also amazed her; she hadn’t really realized, until Obie corrected the problem, that she had been growing nearsighted.

Her hearing, too, had improved dramatically. She heard insects in the grass and trees, and could isolate them. Scraps of conversation, a few people talking and moving far away, she could hear. The din, which included more of the ultrasonic and subsonic than normal, was irritating, but she found, with a little thought, she could tune parts of it out.

She moved swiftly and silently through the grounds, as familiar to her, somehow, as if she had been born and raised there, and she looked, in her movements, more like the cat she always fancied herself than she could know.

She had no chronograph to tell her the time remaining to her. There was a sixty-minute one on the front of the belt that could be activated, but she didn’t bother. She was moving as fast as she could; if she didn’t make it, all the chronometers in the world would make no difference.

She deplored the time spent on the survey mission the night before. But, on reflection, she decided it hadn’t been a waste after all. She was able to see what Trelig did to human beings, she retrieved the pistol, and, she felt certain, her success at her initial foray had been what made Obie pick her.