Jack Chalker - Shadow of the Well of Souls

A bargain. Under the circumstances and considering what she’d just been through, who wouldn’t take such a bargain? As in the jungle, what was the alternative?

It explained everything—and nothing. A bargain with whom? Or, more properly, what! There weren’t any creatures like that on the Well World. At least no creatures designed and created here. The Well protected them from external influences, anything that would be a contaminant. It couldn’t be an external force; even if it somehow got by the Well, such a thing would have caused the system to summon him long before it got this firmly established. Whatever it was, whatever had happened to the Glathrielians that had made them what they were, was homegrown, of that he was certain.

“There’s what looks and smells like several kegs of beer, some fresh water, and those charts you wanted,” Gus’s voice suddenly said next to him.

Brazil jumped and lost the wheel again for a second. Wrestling it back, he yelled, “Now cut that out! You do that one time too often and we are going to capsize!”

“Hey, sorry! I told you I couldn’t exactly turn it on or off.”

“Well, make some noise, then! Yell at me as you’re coming up! Something! At least when we’re not in dangerous territory.”

“Hey, I’ll try, but it’s always turned on. I practically have to shout in your face for you to consciously notice me.”

And that, of course, was it. Somehow, something inside the Dahir broadcast something that could be received on some mental level by just about every other organic race. Something that made other beings simply not notice them. That was why he’d almost always been able to tell that somebody was there, following him. He could see Gus, would even give way for him, maybe with a “Beg your pardon.” So could the girl; so could everybody else.

But some signal in the mind said, “Pay no attention to him. Don’t notice him at all. He’s not interesting or important.”

Gus, he decided, for all his worldly experience and ambitions, was a bit too much the product of his roots to see the real possibilities here. Why, with a little technical help, Brazil thought, the Dahir could become the greatest bank robber in history.

Still, for all the problems a being he never noticed until it yelled for his attention presented to his nerves and his longstanding paranoia, he was glad to have the big creature along. In one being Gus gave his team physical strength, unparalleled scouting, and spying potential, and most of all, Gus gave him somebody to talk to.

“How long can you keep this up?” Gus asked him worriedly, watching the small man fighting the wheel and seemingly doing three things at once all the time.

“Oh, a good while. I’ve had a lot of rest these past several weeks, and I’ve seen worse than this. If I can get us around the storm to where we can use it, you might spell me. Until then you’ll probably have to find me something to serve as a chamber pot before long. Until then, could you get me a tankard or mug or whatever they use of that beer?”

“Sure. You want some of the bread, too? It’s hard as nails, but it looks edible. At least, I’d have eaten it if I were hungry enough and still my old self.”

“Yeah, thanks. You didn’t mention the bread. That will help. But make sure those charts don’t blow off anywhere! We’re gonna need them bad as soon as I can get a look at them.”

“I’ll be sure. I’ll leave them below until you want them. Beats me, though, how they’ll do you much good here. I mean, how the hell do you know where you are now? We could be going in circles for all we know.”

“No, I’m a better sailor than that. You’re right, though,in the sense that we’ll need to see the sun or stars to get a bearing and figure out exactly where we are. You see that little dome atop the wheel housing?’

“Uh, yeah, now that you mention it.”

“Well, that’s the equivalent of a compass here. That bubble is always at true north in this hemisphere. That’s how I know we’re not going in circles. We have been going farther west than I’d planned, but I couldn’t guess at our speed or how far we’ve come, but against this wind it hasn’t been all that much. That’s why I’m trying to get the western edge of the storm. If I can catch it and keep steering forward with the wind at our back, we can hoist some real sail and make good time. Now, how about that beer and bread or whatever it is? And if you can, find me something to sit on!”

The wind was brisk but behind them, and under nearly full sail they were making excellent time in a north-northwesterly direction. Although he was more than a little hesitant, Gus took the wheel after some basic coaching by Brazil and found that it wasn’t that hard, provided that little changed in the weather conditions and the seas remained fairly steady. Gus still didn’t really want to do it, but he knew that Brazil had been at the wheel and fighting the storm for the better part of a day and into the night; he had to be totally exhausted.

Still, the little man hadn’t gone down for a rest yet. He had taken the opportunity to inspect the ship from bow to stern and to inventory the supplies below, but he insisted on remaining near the wheel in case Gus should run into problems and need him in a hurry. Protesting that he was literally “too tired to sleep,” he now used an oil lamp and sat there going over the charts and navigational books about the region.

Although they were out of the rain, the sky was still completely overcast, and in the darkness the stars could give him no guidance. He knew the bearing they were now on and had a fair estimate of their speed, but the hours of battling the storm itself gave him no clue as to just where on the charts he’d started from. He particularly worried that they might have gone far enough west to cross the Mowry border, though he thought he would have felt the passage through the hex boundary. While that wasn’t in itself a problem, Mowry was a high-tech hex with all the sophisticated technology for locating almost anything on, above, or below its surface, and it was dotted with thousands of small volcanic islands, some of which were submerged and could easily wreck a ship.

Dlubine suited him far more. While he probably couldn’t outrun a sleek steamer without a wind at least this good if not better, both mass communications and navigation were far more basic. Before he could be caught, they would have to know that it was he and immediately engage the chase.

Dlubine, too, had a number of islands, both volcanic and coral, but they would be more handy than a threat, or so he hoped. He wasn’t at all sure what the Dlubine looked like, but the chart showed small harbors on some of the islands, indicating that they did a direct trade with surface ships. He was willing to take the risk.

If Gus could continue to bury his moral qualms, there should be little problem picking up what they needed on one of those. He hoped the natives were at least initially friendly, but that was a secondary concern. First, of course, he had to find them.

Finally, in spite of everything, he drifted off into a deep, deep sleep.

When he awoke groggily, feeling as if someone had beaten the hell out of him and he’d just recovered consciousness, he grew suddenly aware that the wind was down and there was direct sunlight hitting his skin. He opened his eyes, and for a moment sheer panic went through him as he saw no one at the wheel.

“Gus!” he called.

“Oh, you’re awake,” the gravel-voiced Dahir responded, and in the blink of an eye the huge, colorful snakelike form was there, less steering the ship than kind of leaning lazily on the wheel. “I was thinking of waking you up, considering I haven’t had much rest myself.”