Jack Chalker - Midnight at the Well of Souls

“My—ah, niece, Captain, is very shy and quiet,” Hain said smoothly. “She prefers to remain in the background. You do prefer to remain in the background, don’t you, my dear?”

She answered in a voice that almost cracked from disuse, in a thin voice that held no more tonal inflection than Vardia’s.

“I do prefer to remain in the background,” she said dully, like a machine. A recording machine at that—for there seemed no comprehension in that face.

“Sorry!” Brazil told her apologetically, turning palms up in a gesture of resignation.

Funny, he thought to himself. The one who looks like a robot is conversational and mildly inquisitive; the one who looks like a real girl is a robot. He thought of two girls he had known long ago—he could even remember their names. One was a really sexy knockout—you panted just being in the same room with her. The other was ugly, flat, and extremely mannish in manner, voice, and dress—the sort of nondescript nobody looked at twice. But the sexy one liked other girls best, and the mannish one was heaven in bed.

You can’t tell by looks, he reflected sourly.

Vardia broke the silence. She was, after all, bred to the diplomatic service.

“I think it is fascinating you are so old, Captain,” she said pleasantly. “Perhaps you are the oldest man alive. My race, of course, has no rejuve—it is not needed.”

No, of course not, Brazil thought sadly. They lived their eighty years as juvenile specialist components in the anthill of their society, then calmly showed up at the local Death Factory to be made into fertilizer.

Anthill? he thought curiously. Now what in hell were ants?

Aloud, he replied, “Well, old or not I can’t say, but it doesn’t do anybody much good unless you’ve got a job like mine. I don’t know why I keep on living—just something bred into me, I guess.”

Vardia brightened. That was something she could understand. “I wonder what sort of world would require such a survival imperative?” she mused, proving to everyone else that she didn’t understand at all.

Brazil let it pass.

“A long-dead-and-gone one, I think,” he said dryly.

“I think we shall go back to our rooms, Captain,” Hain put in, getting up and stretching. “To tell the truth, the only thing more exhausting than doing something is doing nothing at all.” Julee rose almost at the same instant as the fat man, and they left together.

Vardia said, “I suppose I shall go back as well, Captain, but I would like the chance to talk to you again and, perhaps, to see the bridge.”

“Feel free,” he responded warmly. “I eat here every mealtime and company is always welcome. Perhaps tomorrow we’ll eat and talk and then I’ll show you how the ship runs.”

“I shall look forward to it,” she replied, and there even seemed a bit of warmth in her flat voice—or, at least, sincerity. He wondered how genuine it was, and how much was the inbred diplomatic traits. It was the sort of comment that was guaranteed to please him. He wondered if he would ever know what went on in those insect minds.

Well, he told himself, in actual fact it didn’t make a damned bit of difference—he would show her around the ship and she would seem to enjoy it anyway.

When he was alone in the wardroom, he looked over at the empty dishes. Hain had polished off everything, as expected, and so had Vardia and he—the meals were individually prepared for preference and body build.

Julee’s meal was almost untouched. She had merely played with the food.

No wonder she’s wasting away, he thought. Physically, anyway. But why mentally? She certainly wasn’t Hain’s niece, no matter what he said, and he doubted if she was an employee, either.

Then, what?

He pushed the disposal button and lowered the chairs back to their floor position, then returned to the bridge.

Freighter captains were the law in space, of course. They had to be. As such, ships of all lines had certain safeguards unique to each captain, and some gimmicks common to all but known only to those captains.

Brazil sat back down in his command chair and looked at the projection screen still showing the virtually unchanging starscape. It looked very realistic, and very impressive, but it was a phony—the scene was a computer simulation; the Balla-Drubbik drive which allowed faster-than-light travel was extradimensional in nature. There was simply nothing outside the ship’s energy well that would relate to any human terms.

He reached over and typed on the computer keyboard: “i suspect illegal activities. show cabins 6 on left and 7 on right screen.” The computer lit a small yellow light to show that the instructions had been received and the proper code for the captain registered; then the simulated starfield was replaced with overhead, side-by-side views of the two cabins.

The fact that cameras were hidden in all cabins and could be monitored by captains was a closely guarded secret, though several people had already had knowledge of the accidentally discovered bugs erased from their minds by the Confederacy. Yet, many a madman and hijacker had been trapped by these methods, and Brazil also knew that the Confederation Port Authority would look at the recordings of what he was seeing live and question him as to motive. This wasn’t something done lightly.

Cabin 6—Hain’s cabin—was empty, but the missing passenger was in Wu Julee’s Cabin 7. A less-experienced, less-jaded man would have been repulsed at the scene.

Hain was standing near the closed and bolted door, stark naked. Wu Julee, a look of terror on her face, was also naked.

Brazil turned up the volume.

“Come on, Julee,” Hain commanded, a tone of delightful expectancy in his harsh voice. There was no question as to what he had in mind.

The girl cowed back in horror. “Please! Please, Master!” she pleaded with all the hysterical emotion she had hidden in public.

“When you do it, Julee,” Hain said in a hushed but still excited tone. “Only then.”

She did what he asked.

Less-experienced and less-jaded men would have been repulsed at the sight, it was true.

Brazil was becoming aroused.

After she finished, Wu Julee continued to plead with the fat man to give it to her. Brazil waited expectantly, half-knowing what it was already. He just had to see where it was hidden and how it was protected.

Hain promised her he would go get it and then donned the toga once more. He unbolted the door and appeared to look up and down the hallway. Satisfied, he walked out to his own cabin and unlocked the door. The unseen watcher turned his gaze to Cabin 6.

Hain entered and took a small, thin attache case from beneath the washbasin. It had the high-security locks, Brazil noted—five small squares programmed to receive five of Hain’s ten fingerprints in a certain order. Hain’s body blocked reading the combination, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway—without Hain’s touch the whole inside would dissolve in a quick acid bath.

Hain opened the case to reveal a tray of jewelry and body paint. Normal enough, and the tray seemed deep enough to fill the whole case. No customs problems.

Working a second set of fingerprint-coded combinations through the thin plastic which hid the additional guards, the tray came loose and appeared to be floating on something else. The fat man lifted the tray out.

For the first time Brazil noticed that Hain had on some thin gloves. He hadn’t seen them being put on—maybe they were already on during the scene he had just witnessed—but there they were.

The fat man reached in and picked out a tiny object that almost dripped with liquid. The rest of the case bottom, Brazil could see, was filled with the stuff. His suspicions were confirmed.