Henry Kuttner - The Well of The Worlds

The rock shivered under him in answer to the wild timbre of alarm-bells in the city. He thought of Jericho and the shivering walls. It might have been coincidence, or it might have been a faint premonitory tremor that made him think “Jericho!” for in the next instant a still, small, far-off quiver, terribly familiar, moved between his brain and his skull…

“Alper!” he thought. “Awake. The bells—did they rouse him? Now he’s sitting up, looking around the cell, trying to remember.” He could picture it very clearly. “Now he’s thought of me. Now he has his hand in his pocket, feeling for the transceiver control. Now he’s found the note…”

He could imagine Alper struggling up in the glass cell, his face dark with anger, hand in pocket, finding there the unexpected crackle of paper. In a moment Sawyer would know if his note was going to save him. His life was in Alper’s pocket. Alper could kill him with the motion of one finger as dead as if they stood in the same room with a loaded gun between them. If anger made Alper’s hand clench before he fully took in the import of the note—

“Alper!” Sawyer said sharply. “Do you hear me? Listen!”

The tremor shivered in his brain for an endless moment. Then very softly it ceased to be. Alper was listening.

“What is the Firebird?” Sawyer asked distinctly. And he could almost imagine that at the crown of his skull the transceiver quivered with listening intentness. That question of all questions Alper would most want to hear answered. To make the situation perfectly clear, he added, “What is it, Nethe?”

“The key,” Nethe said impatiently. “The key between worlds. Also, it’s the lens of the Well. Lens? Shutter? I don’t know your language well enough. There may be no equivalent. What does it matter to you, anyhow? You can’t use it. Let me warn you—don’t try. You could unlock powers even the Isier can’t control. Tell me where it is and I—I promise you safety.”

“Ha,” Sawyer said, and swung his foot over the abyss. “That’s the hollowest promise I ever heard.” He laughed. He felt a little light-headed. For the moment at least both Alper and Nethe were in his hands. While the moment lasted he meant to make the most of it.

Nethe’s eyes blazed. “Listen, Khom! My life depends on getting the Firebird back. The Goddess hates me. In three more days she must give up her place to me. It was my plan to wait in your world until the three days were over and she automatically lost the Double Mask to me.

“But you and your friend Alper spoiled that plan. Through your clumsiness I was drawn through into Khom’ad without the Firebird. For that I’ll kill Alper when I get to him. It was dangerous enough here in Khom’ad for me with the Firebird. But at least, while I held it, I could escape whenever I chose. There are gates to a long, strange pathway we Isier travel, through many worlds and forms. With the Firebird, I can pass them. Without it, I’m helpless.

“The Goddess’ guards are watching for me, and if they catch me I’ll have to face her at the Ceremony of the Unsealing. One of us will die. If I have the Firebird, I’ll win it. If I don’t—”

“Maybe I’d better get in touch with the Goddess, then,” Sawyer said cheerfully. “Alper, are you listening?” This last was sotto voce.

“Khom!” Nethe said furiously. “Animal!”

“Stand back,” Sawyer warned her. “I’m perfectly willing to bargain. For instance, could you send me back to the world I came from?” He added hastily, “With Alper, of course. And Klai too, if she wants to go.”

“Klai is being hunted by the guards now. She’ll go as a sacrifice at the Unsealing. But you I could send back. And Alper too. Now give me the Firebird and—”

“Not so fast,” Sawyer advised her. “What can you do for me the Goddess can’t?”

“I can let you live!” Nethe said violently, and surged forward a little without actually leaving her place. “The Goddess knows nothing! Nothing! Only I could send you back.”

“Interesting, if true,” Sawyer murmured, and turned his head to glance for a second down the abyss where the islands rose and fell. Light from the fire was beginning to touch the uppermost, and on these a vague stirring of motion among the trees was visible.

“If you make it clear enough,” he said, “I might be persuaded. Go on, convince me.” It was in his mind that with Alper listening—and he hoped Alper was—something might emerge which the old man’s trained brain could make sense of even if Sawyer’s could not.

Nethe gave him a long, hating look and said, “The Isier are gods. Why should I talk to you, animal? No, no—I will. I’ll make it clear. Once we were mortal, long ago. Never human, like you lower orders, but mortal. Until we made our great discovery and our great change. That happened a thousand years ago on another world—the world you see below us. It turns inside the vast outer shell which is Khom’ad, and these islands rise and sink on great gravitational currents flowing between the Under-Shell and the world above.

“In the ancient days our wise men made the Well of the Worlds, and after that we became gods. It worked a change in us so that our appearance—altered. Our bodies altered both inside and out, and yet we were the same. I can only explain it by a thing I learned on your world—the creation of isotopes is very like what the Well did for us. We became isotopes of our earlier selves. And the isotopes were gods, except for one thing—we need energy.

“All the power we need we draw out of the Well. It gives us immortality. We can resist all bodily harm, we heal instantly, we never eat or drink or sleep. I’ll tell you how the Well works, as nearly as I can, and then perhaps even your limited animal mind can understand the danger in the Firebird.

“There are many worlds in creation. Many states of matter. You know that? You know your sun, for instance, differs from the solid Earth? Well, there are many such states, far more than you would ever dream. Worlds of a vapor, for instance, attenuated not necessarily in space. States of matter inconceivable to you but no less real than your own planet.

“Khom’ad is a world of such other-matter. Your sun and worlds are invisible to us, as we are to you. Just as there are colors beyond the two ends of the visible spectrum, so there are states of matter above hydrogen and below the transuranic elements you know.

“But though these worlds and stars are invisible to us, they’re accessible through the Well. As your sun radiates energy to your world, so we draw energy from the vast seas of other-space. The Well drains it as we drift and the energy is radiated to us as we choose to take it, much or little, according to the need of the individual Isier. You have the transmission of energy through the air in your own world. We receive it in a similar way, regulating our intake as we need.”

“Transformers,” Sawyer murmured. “Built in, I suppose. An X-ray photo of an Isier ought to be very informative. I wonder if you’ve got coils of wire inside. Never mind. Don’t tell me. You haven’t come to the Firebird yet.”

“The Firebird is the energy-control from the Well. It belongs in the Well. It should be there now. It was stolen—” Nethe paused and then said firmly, “The Goddess stole it. And then all our troubles began. You see, we drifted near your world, which happens to have rich deposits of uranium near its pole. Our world’s pole is the Well. It is, incidentally, our south pole, which helps to explain what happened when the Firebird was—stolen.

“The uranium made your world too strong a power-source for us. I think there’s a great deal your people don’t understand yet about what you call fissionable substances. And not uranium alone.