Midnight at the Well of Souls

THE BARONY OF AZKFRU, AKKAFIAN EMPIRE

Vardia regained consciousness slowly. Even with the aid of what looked like a sunlamp, it was almost half an hour before she could make any movement at all.

The Umiau she knew as Cannot groaned softly. With great effort she turned her head a little and saw that the mermaid was having a similar struggle to regain muscle movement.

“Son of a bitch!” the Umiau swore in Confederacy plain talk.

She would have gasped had she the physical equipment for it. She recognized the dialect at once, though she hadn’t heard it since she was in Ortega’s office in Zone.

“You—are—from—the—Confederacy,” she managed, the voice sounding strangely distant and fuzzy.

“Of course,” the mermaid growled. “That’s what all this is about. I am Elkinos Skander.”

Vardia stretched and flexed, feeling far surer of herself with every passing moment.

The Umiau stared at her for a moment, a puzzled frown on her face. “You mean you really haven’t any idea about what’s going on?”

Vardia shook her head. “No, nothing.”

Skander was thunderstruck. It simply hadn’t occurred to her that anyone hadn’t known at least part of the story. “Look,” she began, “you’re Vardia, right? You came in with that party from Dalgonia?” She nodded, and the mermaid continued. “Well, I came in a few weeks ahead of you.”

Now it was Vardia’s turn to be astonished. “Then you—it was your tracks we followed!”

“Indeed they were!” Skander replied and proceeded to tell her the entire story—the discovery, the opening of the gate, even the murders. Only the point of view had changed on the latter.

“I returned to the camp instead of staying on station,” Skander lied. “By the time I arrived, this rascal Varnett had already killed them. There was no way out, no chance of holding him off, so I made for the Gate. I hadn’t any real idea where it would take me, or if it would kill me; but I was being chased by a madman. I had no choice. When I arrived, the Gate had not yet opened, and Varnett caught me. We struggled—he was much younger, but I was in far better condition—and the Gate opened beneath us.”

He went on and told how they were separated, interrogated for several days, and finally allowed to pass through the same Gate she had gone into. “I don’t know what happened to Varnett,” Skander finished. “I woke up a Umiau and damned near drowned those first few hours. The Umiau spotted me and I was taken immediately to government Center by two police. They kept me locked up until I normalized, and while there I was apprised of the unique situation here and of my own new situation. When I heard about the Center and the contacts with your people, we decided to strike a bargain—me with my new people, and my people with yours—to solve the problem of this planet once and for all and,” the mermaid concluded, with a strangely fiery look in her eyes like those of a religious fanatic, “whoever does solve it will control this world at the very least, and perhaps all of them.”

“But none of our people has ever sought power,” she objected.

“All people seek power,” Skander replied firmly. “Few, however, are ever given the opportunity to grab it.”

“I still can’t see my people wanting to rule the world or whatever,” she said stubbornly. “Perhaps yours, but not mine.”

Skander shrugged. “Your people are a mystery to me, just as mine would be to yours. Maybe they only wanted to add the ultimate knowledge. Maybe they still wouldn’t have done it, but for one factor.”

“Which is?” she asked, still unwilling to accept what she was hearing.

“Varnett, of course. He’s out there; he has the same formulae I do for contacting the brain, and he’s at least as smart, perhaps smarter than myself. We couldn’t take the chance. If anyone was to break the final puzzle and control the brain of this world, it would better be the Umiau—and the Czillians, of course,” the scientist added hastily.

“So how did we come to this?” Vardia asked, waving her tentacles around at the barren dirt chamber with its incongruous electrical outlet.

“Because I was stupid,” Skander replied harshly. “Someone found out who I was—how I don’t know. But our ambassador at Zone got a warning that someone was out to kidnap me, and so I cleared out and lay low for several weeks. I relied on the fact that most species can’t tell individuals of another species apart. I came back, eventually, using a colleague’s name and office, and tried to complete the last few days’ work. That’s why we were pushing it around the clock. I’d already solved half the puzzle and hoped I could crack the rest. I even had you transferred up—not for what you were doing, but because I could talk conversationally to you about the Dalgonian Gate and your own experiences.”

Now she was really puzzled. “Why would my experiences be any different than yours?”

“Because the Gate should have closed behind us!” Skander exclaimed excitedly. “We—Varnett and I—opened it when we cracked the code. Our minds opened it. But there’s no reason why the thing remained active—if it has. The resupply ship should have been in shortly after you and gone through the same motions—then most of them should have arrived here.”

Vardia thought back, and told about the strange emergency signal.

“Another funny thing. I hadn’t really thought about it, but—”

“Go on!” Skander prompted. “What was it?”

“I—I’d swear that your two ships vanished— just weren’t there—before the Gate opened.”

The Umiau was suddenly very excited. “Vanished! Yes, that would explain it! But, tell me, who else was in your party? I glanced at the information but didn’t pay much attention at the time.”

“There was a big, ugly fat man, I don’t remember his name,” she recalled, straining. It all seemed so long ago. “He turned out to be a sponge merchant—and he had this girl, Wu something, who was all fouled up on the stuff.”

“No one else? Wasn’t there a pilot?”

“Oh, yes, Nathan Brazil. A funny little man no bigger than I was. But old—his pilot’s license was pre-Confederacy!”

Suddenly Skander laughed and rocked back against the wall on her long fish’s tail, clapping her hands once in amusement.

Vardia didn’t understand at all and said so.

“They’ve kidnapped the wrong person!” the Umiau replied, still chuckling.

“That’s very interesting, Dr. Skander, but where does that leave us?” came a weird, unearthly yet quiet voice that seemed to be made up of pulses and chimes, although both kidnap victims understood every word. They both turned, as The Diviner and The Rel glided out of a nook hidden in shadows.

“What the hell are you?” Skander said, more in wonder than in fear.

“We are, I’m afraid, behind your rough treatment and discomfort,” The Rel replied.

“You’re not from around Czill,” Vardia observed almost accusingly. “Nothing like you is related to the kind of life we have here.”

“We are from the Northern Hemisphere,” The Rel explained. “However, we were obliged, upon learning of Dr. Skander’s mission through means not worth explaining to you, to forge an alliance. You are in the Akkafian Empire, on the other side of the ocean from Czill.”

“Those big bugs,” Vardia put in. “The ones that came through the glass—they’re not…”

“They are,” The Rel replied. “I fail to see why that should disturb you. So far we haven’t found much difference in any of you Southern races.”

“No difference!” Vardia exclaimed, upset by the comment. “Why, just look at the two of us! And—how can you compare us to those bugs?”

“Form doesn’t matter,” observed The Rel. “Only content. I find most of your actions and reactions incomprehensible, but consistent. As for those bugs, we’ll have one with us for quite some time, I fear. I have arranged it so that we draw only the weakest link in this society, but it takes no deduction to assume that the creature will be incredibly brave and loyal in our defense until that final moment when we are at the controls of the planetary brain. Then, of course, it will kill us all.”

Skander opened her mouth but said nothing. The score was perfectly clear, except The Diviner and The Rel’s role and side.

“That’s all very well,” Vardia said at last, “but won’t these people think of that?”

“Oh, they will perform what is known as the double cross,” The Rel replied casually in that same, even tone. “But The Diviner’s talents are real. We will make it—all but one of us. We shall do this.”

“Which one?” Skander asked quietly.

“I have no idea, and neither does The Diviner,” replied The Rel. “Perhaps it’s one of you, or the Akkafian. Perhaps it is we, for no Diviner can foretell its own demise.”

They digested that awhile. Finally, Skander broke the new silence.

“You say you’re not like us. But here you are, kidnapping me, trying for the same goal as all the other races would if they had the chance. Power is still the name of the game.”

“You misunderstand us,” The Rel said. “We have power. We have powers we choose not to reveal at this time. We have no wish to interfere in your petty goals, wars, sex, politics, or anything else. Our goal is simply to make certain that no one ever gets into that control center again.”

“Well, so you say,” Skander replied skeptically. “But the fact remains that, for now, you’re our only hope of getting out of here and getting away from the bugs.”

“Remember that!” The Rel said. “I am your only protection. And—oh, yes, for some additional measure of protection, I would suggest that Czillian Vardia change its name for the entire expedition, and that you both remember to use that different name. I will make certain that our companion does not know your identity, either.”

“But why?” Vardia asked, particularly puzzled now. “Who is this companion?”

“A greatly changed and mentally preconditioned Datham Hain, the fat man of your party,” The Rel told her. “It would be better if it did not know that one of our party knows everything about its past activities. Although a conditioned slave, deep down Hain is still Hain. I suggest you remember what it did to others before, what kind of person it is.”

“Oh,” was all she could manage. She thought for a moment. “Then I’ll call myself Chon, which is a common name in Czill, and easy to remember and respond to.”

“Very good,” The Rel replied. “Remember it. We will leave as soon as possible. In the meantime, may I remind you of several facts. First, let me point out, Dr. Skander, that there is little water in this land. These people can move on the ground at close to ten kilometers per hour, up to twice that in the air; and they have nasty stingers. As for you, Czillian, move out of the sunlight, and you’ll root. You know that. That lamp is all that keeps you awake. The light here is not intense enough on its own to keep you awake.” And with that it glided out the door.

Skander beat her fist on the hard ground, and Vardia stayed still, but the message had been received and understood.

There was no escape.