Exiles at the Well of Souls

South Zone

“But it just isn’t right,” Vardia, the Czillian, objected: “I mean, after all she did and tried to do.” It pointed a tendril at a photograph. “Look at her. A freak. A pretty human girl’s body, always facing head downward, supported by four mule’s legs. Not even able to look straight ahead. No protective hair or body fat. She’s so vulnerable! Eating like an animal, face pushed into a dish; eating food she can’t even prepare herself. She must have normal sexual urges, yet what will have her, from the ass-end at that? She almost has to wallow in her own excrement just to relieve herself. It’s awful! And so easy to cure. Just bring her here and send her through the Well Gate.”

Serge Ortega nodded, agreeing with all the other ambassador said. “It is sad,” he admitted. “There is nothing I have done in my whole foul life that pains me like this. And yet, you know why. The Crisis Center of your own hex came out with the cold facts. Antor Trelig will never forget that there’s another ship down on the Well World; neither will Ben Yulin. Both can see New Pompeii on clear nights. And if Yulin settles down, the Yaxa will push him into it. We can’t control them or the Makiem—and they can pass through Zone as safely as we. We haven’t the right to stop them. Nations that would not lift a finger in the war would act against us if we militarized Zone. I still hold to the idea that the Northern ship is beyond anybody’s reach, and, Lord knows, both the Czillian computers and I have tried every angle! Some of the Northern races are interested, but the Uchjin are completely opposed, and there’s no way to get a pilot there physically, anyway.”

He paused, then looked at the plant-creature, eyes sad. “But can we take the chance that it is impossible? Your computers say no, and so do my instincts. A Northerner once got South, remember. If we can find how… Trelig won’t stop. Yulin won’t stop. The Yaxa won’t stop. If a solution is possible, no matter how complex and off the wall it may be, even shooting a pilot over the Equatorial Barrier with giant sling shots, somebody will come up with the solution. My channels are pretty good, but so are theirs. If anybody comes up with the answer, we’ll all have it, and it’s a miniwar all over again. And if we aren’t to leave it to Yulin or Trelig, then we’ll need somebody who knows how to tell that computer to take off and land and such—and who can reprogram it for the almost impossible launch situation and acceleration that would be required. The Zinders can’t—even if we knew where and what they were, and we most definitely do not. Nor can a classical librarian like Renard. None of them ever flew a ship. I can’t, either. I’m too out of date. And that ship is still there, still intact, and it’ll stay that way because the Uchjin don’t even understand what it is but think it’s pretty, and because that atmosphere they have is almost a perfect preservative.”

“If only we could get somebody in the North to blow it up,” Vardia said wistfully.

“I’ve already tried that,” Ortega replied swiftly. “Things are different up there, that’s all. So we’ve got a ship that’s a ticking bomb, and maybe, hopefully, it’ll never go off—but it just might. And if we run her through the Well of Souls, we might lose track or control of the only pilot we have!”

He shuffled through some papers, coming up with a photograph of New Pompeii.

“Look at that,” he told her. “There’s a computer there that knows the Well codes and math. It’s capacity-limited, but it’s self-aware, and so it’s another player in the game. Against uncounted billions or trillions of lives in the universe, can the fate of one individual be considered? You know the answer.” He slapped the computer printouts angrily, upset himself. “There it is, damn it! Tell me some way around it!”

“Maybe she’ll solve her own problem,” Vardia mused. “Get to a Zone Gate and get here. Then the Well’s the only way out.”

He shook his head. “That won’t work, and I made sure she knows it. Whatever she is, Zone gates will be guarded day and night. If she makes it here, she’ll be locked up in a nice, comfortable one-room office in this complex. No windows, no way out. She’ll be an animal in a zoo, unable to smell the flowers or see the stars. That is more horrible to her than death, and she’s just not the suicidal type.”

“How can you be so damned sure of everything?” the Czillian asked him. “If I were her, facing her kind of future, I’m sure I would kill myself.”

Ortega reached into his massive, U-shaped desk and pulled out a thick file. “The life history and profile of Mavra Chang,” he told the other. “Partly from Renard, partly from some hypno interviews we did in Lata that she’s not aware of, and partly from, ah, other sources I’m not ready to reveal now. Her whole life has been a succession of tragedies, but it’s also the story of a dramatic, continuing fight against hopeless odds. She is psychologically incapable of giving up! Look at that Teliagin business. Even not knowing where she was or what was what, she refused to abandon those people. Even as a freak she still insisted on going to Gedemondas, and she did. No, somehow she’ll cope. We’ll make it as easy as we can for her.” That last was said softly, with a gentleness Vardia would never have suspected of the Machiavellian snake-man and former human pirate.

“Look,” he said, trying to soften it, “maybe another Type 41 Entry will come in. Then we’ll be able to do something. There’s hope.”

The Czillian kept staring at the photograph. “You know the figures. One time there were lots of human Entries; what have we had in the last century? Two? And we lost track of both of those.”

“One’s dead, the other’s in a salt-water hex and is the wrong kind of pilot,” Ortega mumbled. The plant-creature hardly heard. Once it, too, had been a human female. That was why it was picked as the liaison with Ortega.

“I’d still kill myself,” Vardia said softly.