Jack Chalker: Shadow of the Well of Souls

“We’ll always be closer than any other two women of our race,” Tony noted, taking her hand and squeezing it. “But no matter that we see each other in a living mirror, we are two different people who will lead at least slightly different lives.”

“Agreed. And if you want to go back and have all those silly fools swoon over you, be my guest. I suppose, if all else comes out in the end, I’ll wind up doing it, too, but I’m not so eager to start as you.”

“Anne Marie! What can you do ? It is like the man said—it is over for us!”

“For you. Go on, I understand completely. But I know how skin-deep those lusting fools are, and they certainly weren’t there when I needed them, going off chasing some—some dumb blond like you. I’m having fun, dear! For the first time in my life I’m living it instead of watching life go by! I very much hope that I’ll come through in one piece, but, in the end it really doesn’t matter to me. Perhaps it was because I was so devoted, to charities, to the unfortunate, to you. Perhaps it’s just divine grace. But God gave me, at the end of my half life, a chance to live a full one, at least for a little bit. I shall probably give up in disgust and go home after a few days, but if there is anything perhaps I can do, if there’s just one little thing I can add, I’ll stick it out.” She looked around at Alowi. “Oh my! The poor dear’s cried herself to sleep!”

“Exhausted, probably. She’s been throwing a tantrum for three days now.”

“We should stop chattering and build that fire, then.”

The next day proved tough going through the thick and ancient trees of Lilblod, but with no sign of who or what was the dominant race there or why they were feared.

Still, before midday they reached a road that, while direct, seemed very well traveled by the depth of the wheel grooves and the marks of all sorts of feet in the clay.

“Runs pretty much straight, northwest to southeast,” Tony noted. “I guess this is the main highway to civilization. He said that place—Clopta or some such—was closest, which would mean we might well make it at a trot before dark.”

Anne Marie raised an eyebrow. “But Agon is where they took the pair of them. If nothing ate us last night except the bugs—goodness! I itch all over!—then I doubt if anything will eat me if I spend one more night by this road. Give me the poor little darling and we’ll head south.”

Tony stared at her. “So this is it? Already?”

“I suppose so. It had to come sometime. It might jolly well be now.” She gestured with her arms to Alowi to get off Tony and climb up somewhere on her back.

After a few moments’ confusion Alowi figured it out enough to act, slid off, and managed, with a little help from Anne Marie, to get up on the other twin.

“Good-bye, Tony,” said Anne Marie. “I’ll see you in a few weeks, I suppose, unless we have a lot more luck than we have had in this matter so far.” And without another word she started off southwest, toward Agon, at a brisk trot.

Tony stood there and watched her go until she was almost out of sight, then muttered, “Oh, hell,” and trotted off southwest after them.

The Kraang was not at all pleased. What had looked from the start to be a fairly straightforward affair had now turned into a series of Gordian knots that threatened all its plans.

Nathan Brazil, happily and stupidly diverted making flower garlands for his girlfriend on a desert island well removed from the action, was nicely out of the game, although the Kraang understood the Well sufficiently to know that this would not, could not be allowed to become a permanent condition. Still, thanks to a race playing with powers it was not capable of handling or comprehending, the first job had been accomplished.

The Watcher had been diverted from the Well.

That should have provided more than enough time for the other to reach it first, but instead that mad, sick interloper had captured her and placed her in a situation where she, too, was no longer in control of events but which, instead of representing the Kraang’s interests, now threatened to do horrible, irrecoverable harm.

Not that the Kraang didn’t have a grudging admiration for Campos. If the vengeful cutthroat succeeded in destroying Mavra Chang’s last vestiges of ego and will, she would open the entrance for him but be unable or unwilling to interface with the master control center. That would leave Campos free to roam those vast corridors unhindered, and after realizing that he could not comprehend, much less activate anything inside, he might well do terrible harm in his inevitable rage. Once he was inside its bowels, the Well would be helpless to control events concerning its own welfare.

And because she could still draw on the Well database to the limits of that primitive ape brain, she might even be able to tell him how to do some simple things that even so limited a creature could manage.

Probability was too complex to allow that. As a tiny stone in a pond made great ripples, even a very minute alteration of the basic matrix might, just might, create a series of alternatives that would take the whole universe into uncharted and unpredictable realms. Without one capable of handling and manipulating such power, like the Kraang itself, the results could be disastrous.

Even the Watcher, whom the Well would undoubtedly summon with great urgency if such a thing occurred, might not be able to fully straighten things out.

And yet without Mavra Chang to open the way, the Kraang could not reach those controls itself.

Why hadn’t they simply hibernated, as the Kraang had, until they were needed? What could possibly be gained by a Watcher, or even two, living out meaningless lives on some distant dirt ball until rather crudely summoned in time of need?

Perhaps, it reflected, the judgment of eons had been wrong, after all. It had always thought of the Others as wrongheaded and foolish, but until now their competency had not been called into question.

Something would have to be done, and quickly. It was not used to thinking in such terms, but this was clearly not the time to ponder but to act.

But how?

Accessing Chang or even Brazil was out. It had managed a brief access while she was in transition, but once on the Well World, access to either her or Brazil was blocked. As for the rest, so far they were accessible only as viewers, strictly one-way communication. They were neither mentally strong enough to be used nor tied into the Well matrix.

There had to be some way, somehow, to break this apart, to create a flood from the logjam. Options had to be weighed, possibilities explored if they existed, and risks taken, even if it used up precious energy it could ill afford to squander if things didn’t go just exactly right.

It was a question of divine intervention in a situation where there was no god.

More than ever, though, it was convinced that it was right, that it had been right all along.

This universe required a god and was instead stuck with two incompetent repair technicians.

There had to be a way. There had to be something that could be done.

But after four billion years of meaningless existence driving to and fro among the stars, finding even vast blocks of time meaningless, it wasn’t used to thinking that time, any time, was quickly running out.