Jack Chalker - Midnight at the Well of Souls

“And you accepted, of course,” Skander put in.

“Oh, yes. I went into a new world. I found that the rich whom I’d envied dreamed of greater riches, and that power came not from obeying the law but from not getting caught. I rose in the organization. I ate well, grew fat, ordered people around. I have—had—my own estate on a private world of the bosses. Staffed all by women, young women, held to me by sponge. Many were slaves; others I had reduced to animals. They roam naked in the forest on the estate, living in trees, eating the swill I put out for them like barnyard animals.”

Skander had an eerie feeling in his stomach, yet he followed Hain’s statement with morbid fascination. “But that’s gone now,” Skander said as calmly as he could manage.

“Not gone,” Hain replied, agitated. “I will be mother now.”

There was nothing Skander could say. Pity was for what Hain was or could have been, not what the creature was now.

“What do you want out of all this, Skander?” Hain asked suddenly. “Why all this trouble, all this effort? What do you want to do?”

“I want to restore humanity to itself,” Skander replied fiercely. “I want to get rid of the genetic engineers, the philosophers of political sameness on the Comworlds. I want to turn us around, Hain! I want to make people human again, even if I have to destroy civilization to save mankind. We’re becoming a race of robots, Hain. We wipe out the robots or we abdicate the universe to other races. The Markovians died of stagnation, Hain, and so will we unless it’s stopped!”

Hain had never liked fanatics, saviors, and visionaries, but there was nothing else to do but talk. “Tell me, Skander. Would you go back? If you could, I mean. Suppose you get your wish. Would you go back or stay here?”

“I think I could end my days here if I got what I want,” Skander replied honestly. “I like this place—the diversity, the challenges. I haven’t had time to enjoy being Umiau. But, then, I’d like to see what our little race would be if my plan were fulfilled. I don’t know, Hain. Would you go back?”

“Only as the Queen Mother of the Akkafians,” Hain responded without hesitation. “At the side of my beloved Lord Azkfru. Only to rule would I return, Skander. For nothing less.”

Ortega slithered over to them. He had small pistols in his hands, and he put one next to Skander and the other in front of Hain.

“Pistols for all,” he said lightly. “Nice little energy jobs. They will work in there, like in any high-tech hex. They’ll work on everybody except me. A dandy little circuit prevents that.”

Skander reached over, picked up the pistol, felt it. Suddenly the Umiau scientist looked into Ortega’s wide brown eyes.

“You expect us to kill each other, don’t you?” he said softly. “You expect all hell to break out after we get to the Well and learn how it operates. And then you’ll finish off the winner.”

Ortega shrugged, and smiled. “Up to you,” he replied calmly. “You can compromise with me, or with each other, or do as you say and shoot. But I will be in at the payoff no matter what.” He slithered away to distribute guns to the others, chuckling softly.

“That bastard,” Hain commented. “He hasn’t seen what The Diviner and The Rel can do, has he? Wonder what sort of defense he has for that?”

“I think he knows,” Skander responded. “That’s one slick pirate there. He’s counting on us to take care of the Northerner. And, damn his eyes, we have to! We have to, or that blinking little son of a bitch will zap all of us!”

“Just be thankful that snake did get transported to the Well World,” Hain said flatly. “Otherwise, he’d be running the whole damned galaxy by now.”

Varnett came over to Brazil, who was still standing facing the Equatorial Barrier. “Brazil?” he said softly. “You awake?”

Nathan Brazil turned slowly, looking at Varnett.

“Oh, yes, I’m awake,” Brazil told him. “I was just thinking. I’ve enjoyed this escapade, you know. Enjoyed it a great deal. Now it’s over, ended. And it ends like all the other episodes in my life. So I have to pick up and keep on once again.”

Varnett looked puzzled. “I don’t understand you at all, Brazil. You’re in the pilot’s seat. You alone know what’s in there—you do know, don’t you? You have a girl who loves you, and a future. What’s eating you?”

Brazil shook his head slowly.

“I have no future, Varnett,” he replied. “This part of the great play is over. I already know the ending, and I don’t like it. I’m trapped, Varnett. Cursed. This diversion helped, but not much, because it brought back too much pain and longing as well. And as for Wuju—she doesn’t love me , Varnett. She has a deep need to be loved. She loves a symbol, something that Nathan Brazil did to and for her, something in the way he reacted to her. But she wants of me what I can’t give her. She wants her dream of normality.” He shifted, stretching his legs out in front of him. He continued to face not the others, but the barrier.

“I’m not normal, Varnett,” he said sadly. “I can give her what she wants, needs, deserves. I can do it for all of you. But I can’t participate, you see. That’s the curse.”

“Sounds like grandiose self-pity to me,” Varnett said derisively. “Why not take what you want if you can do all that?”

Brazil sighed. “You’ll know soon enough. I want you just to remember this, Varnett. I want you to keep it in your head throughout all that happens. Inside, I’m no different from the rest of you.”

“What would you want, if you could have anything at all?” Varnett asked him, still bewildered.

Brazil looked at the other seriously, sadly. There was agony and torment within him.

“I want to die, boy. I want to die—and I can’t. Not ever. Not at all. And I want death so very much.”

Varnett shook his head uncomprehendingly. “I can’t figure you, Brazil. I just can’t figure you.”

“What do you want, Varnett?” Brazil asked sharply, changing tone. “What would you wish for yourself?”

“I’ve thought a lot about that,” the other replied. “I’m only fifteen years old, Brazil. Just fifteen. My world has always been dehumanized people and cold mathematics. I’m the oldest fifteen of my race, now, though. I think, perhaps, I’d like to enjoy life, enjoy a human life—and somehow make my contribution to progress. To stop this headlong rush of the human race into a Markovian hell and try to build the society they hoped would evolve from their tens of thousands of cultures and races. There’s a greatness here in the Markovian Well, a potential unrealized, perhaps, but great nonetheless. I’d like to see it reached, to complete the equation the Markovians couldn’t.”

“So would I, boy,” Brazil replied earnestly. “For only then could I die.”

“Seven hours!” Ortega’s voice broke through the stillness. “It’s almost time!” His voice cracked with excitement.

Brazil turned slowly to face them. They were all scrambling to be near the barrier.

“Don’t worry,” he assured them. “It’ll open for me. A light will go on. When that light comes on, walk into the barrier. When you do, it’ll be as nothing. Only I will change, but be ready for it. And understand something else— I will lead. I have no weapons, but the Well will give me a form unfamiliar to you. Don’t be upset by it, and don’t get trigger-happy with each other. Once we’re all inside, I’ll take you down to the Well of Souls, and I’ll explain everything along the way. Don’t do anything hasty, because I’m the only one who can get you down with certainty, and I’ll not forgive any breaches. Clear?”