Jack Chalker: Shadow of the Well of Souls

“Does she not speak?”

“I don’t think she speaks or understands a word anybody says. Sometimes I’m not even sure she thinks the way most of us think. The Ambreza said that they did have a small number of sounds that were consistent, but not enough to be considered a language. I’m not so sure it’s more than the equivalent of the sound codes used by many animal species. You know—warning the tribe of danger, warning enemies off, sounds that relate to fear, and things like that. A scream, a warning cry, a sigh, a purringlike hum—that’s about the range of it. If they communicate more complex information, and I’m convinced that they do, it’s by means other than what we think of as language. I hope she was one of the Stone Age Amazonians. I’d hate to think of the frustration I would have, let alone anyone from a more civilized and technological culture, under those limitations imposed on her.”

“She is definitely not a native,” the colonel noted. “However, she looks like many people in my old native land for all that. It is not unheard of for such tribes to find or adopt lost children of outsiders and raise them as their own. I pray that it is so, for then she is probably better off and will live longer by coming here. It would be terrible if, say, she was one of the missing television crew. I mean, I may look, even be very different but inside, in my mind, I am still Jorge Lunderman. But like that, not even as you say thinking as we were raised to think, how much of either of us would be truly left after a period of living that way? I am the same man that I was, living a different life in a very different place and as, frankly, something very different than what I was. Still, there is continuity, is there not? The mind and soul are my own. I would much prefer that to retaining my body and losing my mind, my memories, my very way of thinking. I would not be me anymore. I would be someone entirely different, but perhaps with just that lurking suspicion somewhere telling me that I was once someone else. Terrible, sir! Terrible!”

Brazil glanced at the girl, who was still looking at the creature with some disdain on her face but with no hint that she’d comprehended, or even tried to comprehend, any of the discussion.

“Well, she seems neither tortured nor unhappy,” the captain noted, “so I will continue to just accept her as she is.”

The colonel shifted a bit, the human statue distorting a bit eerily. “You must tell me what you are doing and why she is with you instead of remaining back there!” he said enthusiastically. “And about all the rest of what you know as well. It seems like ages since I was able to speak to anyone with a common frame of reference to my past! But sir, I apologize! While the cold is of some little discomfort to me and apparently none to her, you must be freezing! Forgive my manners. Have you a hotel?”

“Yes, I’m at the Grand. You?”

“I am currently living out of my cabin aboard the ship I used to get here. It will be in port here for three days, so there is little reason to consider my course of action beyond that until then. My cabin is, of course, at your service, but I’m afraid it would be neither spacious nor comfortable to one not of my new kind. Shall we go to your hotel, then?”

“Might as well,” Brazil sighed. “It doesn’t look as if I’m ever going to get out of here.”

They begin walking, or, rather, Brazil began walking, as did the girl, a bit behind, while the colonel sort of oozed along next to him.

“That is a good question to begin with as we walk,” the colonel noted. “Why are you in this inhospitable and out-of-the-way place?”

“Well, if you must know, I’m in a far worse position than either you or the girl there. I can’t set up anything permanent in Glathriel—the human hex—unless I want to take on her ways and life style. The Ambreza could be strung along just so much, but they’re still paranoid about humans, particularly the kind who can talk and know technology like me, and they’ve basically barred me from returning. I’m the man without a country. I am not, however, without a good deal of experience and skills that even the Ambreza found useful, which is how I have any cash at all. By the time you can command the kind of ships I did, you became something of an expert in almost everything practical and useful. Way up north around the equator there are two high-tech hexes separated by a narrow strait, neither of which has ever seen or heard of the likes of Glathriel, and both are highly dependent on shipping and import-export trade at this stage. They’ve both been looking for qualified ship’s officers and as usual aren’t particular about the race or nationality involved. They also serve as flags of convenience for hundreds of coastal hexes, particularly the nontech and semitech ones that have to get ships and crews from high-tech places. It’s my best shot at a life here.”

“Yes, I understand,” the colonel said. “But you have been frustrated?”

“I can’t get a ship north for love or money. It’s driving me crazy—not to mention quickly broke before I’ve started.”

The colonel thought a moment. “Tell me, Captain, do you think you could handle the sort of ship they must use here?”

The Well World did require rather bizarre ships, since there were water hexes as well as land ones and those water hexes had the same technological limitations as their dry counterparts. Thus, a large ship had to be able to move entirely by sail through nontech waters, switch to basic steam fed by manual labor or ingenious cog-drive mechanisms for the semitech, but could use an efficient fusion plant for the high-tech regions.

“I began in sail, if that’s what you mean,” Brazil told him. “And I’ve got— had— a master’s license for steam as well. My latest ships were big diesels, but the power source of a modern plant isn’t relevant if the power’s fed to the engines in the amount the bridge demands. I’m a little out of shape to climb rigging myself, but I could handle most anything else.”

“Then why do you not sail there yourself?”

“For the same reason you, as an air force colonel, didn’t have your own personal supersonic transport. That would take an incredible amount of money, and I’m afraid I’m still a wee bit short.”

The colonel chuckled, a very eerie sound. “Yes, I see. But there are much smaller craft making the runs. Private and government yachts, ferries that are built in one place and must be sailed to where they are needed, smaller fishing boats or their equivalents, that sort of thing. Like many other high-tech coastal hexes, Hakazit has a very competitive shipbuilding industry, you know, and they often have only skeleton crews to take those ships to their customers, as most experienced crew live on and have a share in their own ships. Forget shipping agencies, sir! Try the shipwrights! Why, I managed to finagle passage here because they needed someone familiar with government-type contracts to check on an overdue naval vessel my nation has on order. Permit me to ask around when I go down there tomorrow morning. Perhaps I can find something for you. One-way, of course, and probably not precisely to where you wish to go, but sufficient, I would expect.”

“I have no papers for this world,” Brazil reminded him, “so I never even thought of that route. But, if you can find somebody who’ll take me north, I’ll be glad to sign on.”

“Done, sir!”

“You sound very confident,” Brazil noted dryly.

“Why, sir, I am first and foremost a Brazilian! In my country you learn very quickly how to deal with mosquitoes, however large they are!”