Jack Chalker - Shadow of the Well of Souls

The head sat atop what appeared to be a very thin, short neck; it was large enough to match the body and began with long, straight black hair parted in the middle and going down to the shoulders on either side; the eyes were huge and oval-shaped, with the longest points vertical rather than horizontal as on Earth-human eyes, and contained large, round jet black pupils. These sat atop a long, curved ducklike orange-colored bill that extended a good twenty centimeters out from the head and was wide enough to be hinged on the sides of the lower face. Two small black slits atop the bill served as the nostrils; no ears were obvious.

Not Daisy Duck, Lori decided. More like Donald’s wet dream. Even so, the effect was comical enough that somehow the figure did not seem threatening.

The bill proved amazingly malleable, almost like a human mouth at its front, and helped the creature shape its words. These words, however, came after it stood there for a very long time and just stared at each of them in turn, but particularly at Mavra, to whom the huge black eyes kept coming back.

Finally it said in a deep, throaty feminine voice that seemed to come from somewhere far back in the head, “This is a surprise I hoped for but one that I did not really expect to catch. In fact, I was actually not expecting to catch up with you at all. The net was basically out for Brazil and still is, but you will do nicely. Very nicely.” That last was said with just enough menace to chill them.

“Who are you?” Mavra asked in as confident a voice as she could muster. “What is this place, and what do you want with us?”

One of the oversized fingers came up and gently stroked under the beak. “Who am I? I am hurt at the question, but I will answer it in due course. What I am is a Cloptan. It is not far. Right now you are in an underground laboratory on the border with Lilblod. It is in Agon, but above there is something more—ordinary. To get in and out one must go through a tunnel into Lilblod. It solves not only the technical but the jurisdictional problems rather nicely. You might have guessed that what is processed and packaged here is not exactly popular among most of the world’s governments.”

“Drugs,” Lori sniffed.

“Yes, drugs. Specifically, two types. One is of little interest to you, but the other is the one you knew was in those containers aboard the ship that brought you to us. It has many names, but in the form we process it here we call it ‘rhapsody.’ It has different effects on different species. In fact, for a number it is lethal, for others it causes brain and nervous system damage, while to yet others it is simply a tasty spice. When processed into slightly different forms, however, for those races that are similar enough in brain chemistry and share some common enzymes in the cells, it is a drug. A wonderful drug, in fact. You take it, and all of your pain goes away. All of your physical pain, if any, and much of your mental pain as well. All the bad, negative things, the psychological scars of a lifetime, they all have little effect on you. It’s all there, but it can’t hurt you. I am told that the initial effects are like nothing else imaginable, but as your body gets used to it, you just sort of settle down into a situation where life is—simpler. The effects last for varying periods, the average being eight to ten hours before it gets down to where you’ll need some more—but slowly, very slowly.”

“I’m sure you’ll spell it out in excruciating detail for us,” Mavra commented dryly.

The Cloptan ignored the comment. “First the little aches and pains start returning, then full physical awareness, and looming on the horizon is every single horrible thing in your mind, all your worst fears and nightmares. You can feel them, almost see them coming. Fear turns to desperation, desperation to terror. There is nothing at all you can do. The only way is, of course, to take more rhapsody. Eventually, of course, your system gets used to it, and you level out, becoming more normal on a regular basis and with only one big overriding fear—that the supply will stop and you will face the horrors of your own mind.”

“How horrible,” Lori muttered. The bitch was enjoying this!

“Even the strongest minds cannot withstand it forever. Some can fight it off for hours, a few for days, but they tell me no one succeeds in breaking it completely. The depression becomes so absolute, you will kill yourself first. It keeps the business—profitable.” She walked over and stood right in front of Mavra.

“They say you are possibly immortal, that you cannot be killed. I am not certain I believe that anyone can’t be killed, but I think it will not make much difference. It would be a nice experiment, though, to see just how long you could go without it. If you could not even kill yourself, would your mind crack? What form would the insanity take? I wonder… It is tempting, but I think I have other plans in the end. Oh, yes, the blood tests say that one form of it will work quite nicely on you. Sutton, on the other hand, is sufficiently different from you to require a different formulation, but the science folks say that it will work on him as well.”

“For God’s sake!” Lori cried. “What do you want! What are you doing this to us for? We’re thousands of miles from home and surely can’t be of any use to you here!”

“I should think it would be obvious to you by now,” the Cloptan replied. “Because of this ,” she said, gesturing down her body with her hands. “ She made me like this!” she snapped, pointing to Mavra. “And you— you went along, Doctor Lori Sutton. And you—you became the man! The big macho hunter with his little devoted four-titted bitch! I do this for revenge! Venganza! Revenge for daring to drag into hell Juan Alfonso Campos de la Montoya!”

“Oh, God!” Lori sighed, feeling all hope vanish.

“So that’s why they wanted only the two of us,” Mavra said.

’The Dillians are nothing to me and too large to have handled in any case. What are they going to do? It will take them days just to find their way out of Lilblod. Then what? Report to the authorities? They are already looking for you and would find you now if they could. As for Sutton’s crazy little bitch, she, too, was nothing to me and just so much excess baggage. Do not worry, Doctor Sutton. The computers here are excellent. We know of the deficiency in your system, and we have the means to fix it. If I had wanted you dead, I would have just had them kill you.”

Lori shook his head in wonder, unable to understand this kind of thinking. “What is it with you? I didn’t pick this body any more than you picked that one. I’d trade you if I could. There are times I would have killed for a shape like that. But look at you! Is it so awful being a woman? You’re young, probably very pretty by the standards of your race, and in an incredibly short time you’ve managed to get this far up in the drug trade. Some new start, but I guess it’s what you know. I’m broke and helpless in a backward medieval desert, for god’s sake!”

“Being a woman is bad enough,” Campos responded angrily. “It is hell to me! And yes, I am very beautiful by Cloptan standards. Do you know how hard it was to adjust to that? To have every lecherous Cloptan man pawing you? Do you know what I had to lower myself to do to get to this? I do not own this lab, nor do I control it. Finding the Cloptan underworld was not difficult, and they were interested in me because I came from the same business but on a different world. No, getting inside was not difficult, but once there I was just another girl, just another piece of furniture to them! Me! The son of the greatest patriot of modern Peru, the man who could strike and corrupt and bring down the most evil and powerful oppressor of all Latin peoples with a weapon as simple and impossible to fight as common coca! I had to defile myself! To swallow all pride and self-respect and put myself in the gutter! I am nothing in this organization except a powerful man’s current favorite toy! But now, now, it is all worthwhile. Here you are. If I can get the others, too, it will be complete. Brazil and that other bitch. Even if fortune does not smile, however, it has smiled enough. For a while yet we will play games so that I may have the satisfaction to repay my humiliation! Then, when the time is right, you, ‘ goddess of the trees,’ will willingly and cheerfully beg to let me let you put things right. It may take weeks or months yet, I hope not years, but one day you will put things right for me and repay all the suffering that you have caused! Once you are under the drug’s spell, you will willingly tell me anything and everything. If you are what some say you are, then one day we will take a trip, just us girls, and you will go inside this world and put me right! ”