Jack Chalker - Midnight at the Well of Souls

Darkness had fallen, and the stars started showing through. Small gaslights had been lit, giving the entire scene an eerie glow.

“Remain with the others,” the official instructed him. “I will get Ambassador Ortega.”

Brazil went over to the alien creatures, ignoring all except the Umiau.

“So you’re Elkinos Skander,” he said flatly.

The mermaid gave a puzzled look. “So? And who or what are you?”

“Nathan Brazil,” he replied crisply. “That name means little to you? Perhaps it will be better to say that I am here to avenge seven murders.”

The Umiau opened her mouth in surprise. “Seven—what the hell do you mean?”

Brazil’s independent eyes showed Skander on the right, and the interest of the other three on the left. The others were all watching the two tensely.

“I was the captain of the freighter who found the bodies on Dalgonia. Seven bodies, charred, left on a barren world. None of them ever did you harm, nor was there any reason for their deaths.”

“I didn’t kill them,” Skander responded in a surly tone. “Varnett killed them. But, what of it? Would you have preferred to open this world to the Coms?”

“So that was it,” Brazil said sadly. “The seven died because you feared that their governments would get control. Skander, you know who killed them, and I know who killed them, but even beyond that is the fact that they needn’t have died even for so dubious a reason. The Gate would not have opened for them.”

“Of course it would!” Skander snapped. “It opened when Varnett and I found the mathematical key to the computer. And it was still open for you and your party to fall through!”

Brazil shook his head slowly. “No, Skander. It opened only because the two of you wanted it open. That’s the key, you know. Even though you didn’t know that the Gate didn’t lead to the Dalgonian brain, but to here, you knew that some sort of Gate must exist and you wanted desperately to find it. You had already decided to kill Varnett and the others before you found it. Varnett knew it. He had a desire to find the Gate, and the fear of death to fix it. That’s what opened it up, not your mathematical discoveries. It hadn’t opened since the Markovians, and it wouldn’t have opened again unless the conditions were right.”

“The how did you fall through?” Skander retorted. “Why did it open for you?”

“It didn’t,” Brazil replied evenly. “Although I should have known it was there.”

“But it did open for us, Brazil,” Hain put in.

“Not for you, Hain, or for me, or for Vardia, either,” Brazil told them. “But, within our party, there was one person who had lost all hope, who wanted to die, to escape fate’s lot. The brain, sensitized to such things, picked this up and lured us to Dalgonia with the false emergency signal. We went up to where the shuttles left by Skander and Varnett were still parked, walked out onto the Gate floor, and, when Wu Julee was well within the field, the Gate triggered—sending all of us here.”

“I remember you, now!” Skander exclaimed. “Vardia told me about you while we were imprisoned in The Nation! She told me how the ships seemed to vanish. When I heard all that, I assumed you had engineered the whole thing, that you were a Markovian. The evidence fitted. Besides, it stands to reason that you don’t leave a control group like those on the Well World without someone to monitor the control.”

“The fact that it was the girl and not Brazil who triggered the Gate doesn’t necessarily invalidate your conclusions, Doctor,” came a smooth, husky voice behind them. They turned to see the huge form of Serge Ortega, all five meters of snake and two meters of his thick, six-armed body.

“Serge, I should have known better,” Brazil said good-humoredly.

All six arms of the Ulik shrugged. “I have a pretty good racket here, Nate. I told you I was happy, and I am. I have most of the embassies at both zones bugged, and the conversations recorded. I find out what’s happening, who’s doing what to whom, and if there’s anything of interest to me and my people I act on it.”

Brazil nodded, and would have smiled if the stag body allowed it. “It was no accident that you were the one who met us, was it? You already knew I was there.”

“Of course,” Ortega replied. “Small cameras installed in two or three points around the Well go on whenever someone comes through. If they’re old-human I get there first. Nobody cares much, since the Zone Gate randomly assigns them to other hexes.”

“You didn’t meet me when I came through,” Skander pointed out.

Ortega shrugged again. “Can’t live in the damned office. Bad luck, though, since I then lost sight of you for a long time. These others were already in and assigned before I managed to track Varnett down, although the Umiau are so lousy at secrecy your cover was blown about a month after you came.”

“You’ve been following me since Czill, haven’t you, Serge?” Brazil asked. “How did you manage it?”

“Child’s play,” the Ulik replied. “Czill has a high technological level but no resources, and some problems in handling hot metal anyway. We supply parts for their machines—we and many others—only ours have slight modifications. A resonator for the translator, for example, takes only one almost invisible extra circuit to broadcast—if yow know the right frequency. The range isn’t fantastic, but I knew where you were, and in most instances mutual back-scratching, past IOU’s, and the like were all that was needed. I think I know what you are, Nate, and I think you know you should play the game my way.”

“Or you’ll kill the others?”

The snakeman locked hurt, but it was exaggerated. “Why, Nate! Did I say any such thing? But, regardless, I have Skander, here, and, if all else fails, Varnett. I’d prefer you, Nate. I don’t think you’re any different from the Nathan Brazil I’ve known all these decades. I’m willing to bet that that personality of yours isn’t a phony front or a construct, but the real you, no matter what your parents were. You know me better than anybody, so you know my actions and what I’ll do in any case. Will you lead the party in?”

Brazil looked at his old acquaintance for a moment. “Why everybody, Serge? Why not just you and me?” he asked.

“Ah, come on, Nate! What do you take me for? You know how to get in; I don’t. You know what’s in there—I don’t. With the others I get an expert check on your actions and descriptions, and a little insurance from their own self-interest. The Northerner, here—it’s working for a group so different from any of us I can’t figure out anything about them. Nonetheless, like Hain, here, and the plant, they’re all looking out for their own interests. So are your people, really. Nobody’s going to let anybody else get the upper hand. You’ll all even be armed—armed with pistols that can kill any of you, but can’t kill me. I’ve taken immunity shots from Hain’s stinger, so that’s no threat, and I am so much physically stronger than any of you that I’ll be happy to take you on. Nate knows how quick I can move.”

Brazil sighed. “Always figuring the angles, aren’t you, Serge? So tell me, if this was your game all along, why did we have to fight and walk so far? Why not just get us all together and bring us to this point?”

“I hadn’t the slightest idea where you were going,” replied Ortega honestly. “After all, Skander was still looking, Varnett had given up, and nobody else knew. So I just let the expeditions lead me here. When it became clear where both expeditions were headed, I arranged to slow things down until I could get here ahead of you. Easier than you think—Zone Gate to Ulik, then over. Hell, man, I’ve been to that Equatorial Zone hundreds of times. There’s no way in that anybody’s ever found, and a lot have tried over the years.”