Midnight at the Well of Souls

ON THE FRONTIER—HARVICH’S WORLD

He groaned, and opened his eyes. An older man in overalls and checkered shirt, smelly and with a three-days’ growth of beard, was bending over him, looking anxious.

“Kally? You hear me, boy? Say somethin’!” the old man urged, shouting at him.

He groaned. “God! I feel lousy!” he managed.

The old man smiled. “Good! Good!” he enthused. “I was afeared we’d lost you, there. That was quite a crack on the nog you took!”

Kally felt the left side of his head. There was a knot under the hair, and some dried blood. It hurt—throbbed, really.

“Try to stand up,” the old man urged, and gave him a hand. He took it, and managed to stand shakily.

“How do ya feel, boy?” the old man asked.

“My head hurts,” he complained. “Otherwise—well, weak but okay.”

“Told ya ya shoulda got a good gal ta help with the farm,” the old man scolded. “If’n I hadn’ta happened along you’d be dead now.”

The man looked around, puzzled. It was a farm, he saw. Some chickens about, a ramshackle barn with a couple of cows, and an old log shack. It looked like corn growing in the fields.

“Somethin’ wrong, Kally?” the old man asked.

“I—uh, who are you?” he asked hesitantly. “And where am I?”

The old man looked concerned. “That bump on the noggin’s scrambled your brains, boy. Better get into town and see a doctor on it.”

“Maybe you’re right,” the other agreed. “But I still don’t know who you are, where I am—or who I am.”

“Must be magnesia or somethin’,” the old man said, concerned. “I’ll be damned. Heard about it, but never seed it afore. Hell, boy, you’re Kally Tonge, and since your pa died last winter you’ve run this farm here alone. You was borned here on Harvich,” he explained pronouncing it Harrige, “and you damned near died here.” He pointed to the ground.

He looked and saw an irrigation pump with compressor. Obviously he had been tightening the top holding nut with the big wrench and had kicked the thing into start. The wrench had whirled around and caught him on the head.

He looked at it strangely, knowing what it must mean.

“Will you be all right?” the old man asked concernedly. “I got to run down the road or the old lady’ll throw a fit, but if ya want I can send somebody back to take ya inta the doc’s.”

“I’ll see him,” Kally replied. “But let me get cleaned up first. How—how far is it into town?”

“Christ, Kally! Ya even talk a little funny!” the old man exclaimed. “But Depot’s a kilometer and a half down the road there.” He pointed in the right direction.

Kally Tonge nodded. “I’ll go in. If you get a head injury, it’s best to walk. Just check back in a little while, just in case. I’ll be all right.”

“Well, okay,” the old man responded dubiously. “But if I don’t hear ya got in town, I’m comin’ lookin’,” he warned, then walked back to the road.

He’s riding a horse! Kally thought wonderingly. And the road’s dirt!

He turned and went into the shack.

It was more modern than he would have guessed, although small. A big bed with natural fur blankets in one corner, a sink, a gas stove—bottled gas underneath, he noted—and the water was probably from a water tank near the barn. A big fireplace, and a crude indoor shower.

There was a small refrigerator, too, running off what would have been a tractor battery if he had had a tractor.

He noted the toilet in one corner, and went over to it. Above it hung a cracked mirror, some scissors, and toiletries.

He looked at himself in the mirror.

His was a strong, muscular, handsome face in a rugged sort of way. The hair was long and tied off in a ponytail almost a meter long, and he had a full but neatly trimmed beard and mustache. The hair was brown, but the beard was reddish.

He turned his head, saw that the knot was almost invisible in the hair. Brushing it back revealed an ugly wound.

He died in that accident, he thought. Kally Tonge died of that wound. And I filled the empty vessel.

He stripped and took the mirror off its nail hanger, looking at himself. He saw a rugged, muscular body, well toned and used to work. There were calluses on the hands, worn in from hard farm labor.

The wound did hurt, and while he was certain it wouldn’t be serious now, it would be better to go into town. It would also help to explain his mental lapses.

He put on a thick wool shirt and work pants, and some well-worn leather boots, and went back outside.

The place was interesting, really. It looked like something out of ancient history, yet had indoor plumbing, electricity, albeit crude, and several other signs of civilization. In the midst of this primitiveness, he noticed with amusement that he wore a fancy wristwatch.

It was not cold, but there was a chill in the wind that made him glad he had picked the thicker shirt. They were short on rain here, he noted; the dirt road was rutted and dug up, yet dry and caked.

He walked briskly down the road toward the town, looking at the scenery. Small farms were the rule, and many looked far more modern than his. There wasn’t much traffic, but occasional people passed on horseback or in buckboards, giving him the impression that modern vehicles were either in short supply or banned.

And yet, despite the lack of recent rain, the land was good. The tilled soil was black and mineral-rich, and where small compressors pumped water from wells or nearby creeks into irrigation ditches, the land bloomed.

He came upon the town much faster than he had anticipated. He didn’t feel the least bit tired or uncomfortable, and he had walked with a speed that astonished him. The town itself was a study in contrasts. Log buildings, some as tall as five stories, mixed with modern, prefabricated structures. The street wasn’t paved, but it went for several blocks, with a block or two on either side of the business district composed of houses, mostly large and comfortable. There was street lighting, and some of the businesses had electric signs, so there was a power plant somewhere, and, from the look of things, running water and indoor plumbing.

He studied some of the women, most of whom were dressed in garb much like his own, sometimes with small cowboy hats or straw broad-brimmed hats on their heads. There weren’t nearly as many women as men, he noted, and those that were here looked tough, muscular, and mannish.

The town was small enough so that he spotted the doctor’s office with no difficulty and headed for it.

The doctor was concerned. He had quite a modern facility, with a minor surgery and some of the latest machines and probes. Clearly medical care was well into the modern era here. The X-rays showed a severe concussion and fracture. The doctor marveled that he was alive at all, as he placed medication and a small bandage on the wound after sewing seven stitches.

“Get somebody to stay with you the next few days, or look in on you regularly,” the doctor advised. “Your loss of memory’s probably only temporary, and not that uncommon in these cases. But a lot of damage was done. The brain was bruised, and I want someone to see that you don’t have a clot in there.”

He thanked the doctor, assuring him that he would take care of himself and be watched and checked.

“Settle the bill at the end of the month,” the doctor told him.

This puzzled him for a minute. The bill? Money? He had never used it himself, and, back on the street, he pulled out a thin leather wallet, which looked like the survivor of a war, and opened it.

Funny-looking pieces of paper, about a dozen of them. They had very realistic pictures, almost three-dimensional, on them, the fronts showing the same man three times, the others two other men and a woman. The backs showed a remarkably realistic set of farm scenes. He wished he could read the bills. He would have to find out what each one was and remember the pictures.

A three-story log building’s lights went on in the coming twilight, and he saw from the symbol on the sign that it was a bar and something else. He didn’t recognize the other symbol, and couldn’t read the words. Curious, he walked over to it.

There was a rumbling of thunder in the distance.

She awoke, feeling nauseated, and threw up.

The bile spilled on the cheap rug, and in it, as she gagged uncontrollably, she could see bits and pieces and even whole pills of some kind.

The spasms lasted several minutes, until it seemed there was nothing else to give. Feeling weak and exhausted, she lay back on the bed until the room steadied. The stench of the bile permeated her.

Slowly, she looked around. A tiny room, with nothing but a bed much too large for it and a wicker chair. There was barely fifty centimeters’ clearance on either side of it.

The walls and ceiling seemed to be made of logs, but the construction was so solid it might as well have been rock. It was dark in the room, and she looked for a light. Spying a string hanging above her, she pulled it, and a weak, naked light bulb suspended from the ceiling flicked on. The glare hurt her eyes.

She raised her head slightly and looked down at her body. Something was definitely different.

Two extremely large but perfectly formed breasts met her eye, and her skin seemed creamy smooth, dark-complexioned but unpigmented.

Her gaze slid down a little more, and she saw that the rest of her body matched the breasts—curving in all the right places, definitely.

She felt—strange. Tingly all over, but particularly in the areas of her breasts and crotch.

She was nude from the waist up, but hanging on sultry hips was a pantslike garment of fine-woven black lace, to which hundreds of tiny sequins of various colors were attached.

She felt her face, and found that she had some sort of hairdo. There were also long, plastic earrings hanging from pierced ears.

She looked around in the gloom, found a small cosmetics case with a mirror in it, and looked at her face.

It is a beautiful face, she thought, and she was not being vain. Maybe the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen. Cosmetics had been carefully applied to bring out just the right highlights, but the face was so perfect that they seemed almost intrusive on its beauty.

But whose face was it? she wondered.

She noticed a box next to the cosmetics case on the floor, and picked it up idly. It was a pillbox—open, and empty. There was a universal caution symbol on it, but she couldn’t read the writing. She didn’t need to.

This girl, whoever and whatever she was, had killed herself. She had taken all those pills and overdosed. She had died here, in this room, moments before—alone. And the moment that girl had died, she had been somehow inserted into the body, and the physical processes righted.

She stared again at that beautiful face in the mirror.

What would make someone who looked like this and experienced such feelings as she now did commit suicide? So very young, she thought—perhaps no more than sixteen or seventeen. And so very beautiful.

She tried to get up, but felt suddenly light-headed and strange. She flopped back down on the bed and stared up at the light bulb, which, for some reason, had become fascinating.

She found herself gently caressing her own body, and it felt fantastic, like tingling jolts of pleasure at each nerve juncture.

It’s the pills, a corner of her mind told her. You didn’t get all of them out of your system.

The door opened suddenly, and a man looked in. He was dressed in white work clothes, like kitchen help. He was balding and fiftyish, but he had a tough, hard look to him. “Okay, Nova, time to—” he began, then stopped and looked at her, the empty box, and the bile and vomited-up pills on the floor and the side of her bed.

“Oh, shit!” he snarled angrily, and exploded. “You went for the happy pills again, didn’t you? I warned you, dammit! I wondered why a sexy high-top like you would work this jerkwater! They tossed you out of the others!” He stopped, his tone going from fury to disgust.

“You’re no good to anybody, not even yourself,” he snapped. “I told you if you did this again, I’d toss you in the street. Come on! You hear me?” he started yelling. “You’re going out and now! Come on, get up!”

She heard him, but the words didn’t register. He looked and sounded somehow funny, and she laughed and pointed to him, giggling stupidly.

He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her up. “Jesus!” he exclaimed. “You’re a hell of a piece. Too bad your insides don’t match your outsides. Come on!”

He pulled her out into the hall and dragged her down a flight of wooden stairs. She felt as if she were floating, and made flying motions with her free arm and motor sounds with her voice.

A few other young women peered out from second floor rooms. None of ’em pretty as me, she thought smugly.

“Stop that giggling!” the man commanded, but it sounded so funny she giggled more.

The downstairs was a bar, some sawdust on the floor, a few round tables, and a small service bar to one side. It was dimly lit, and empty.

“Oh, hell,” he said, almost sadly, reaching into a cash drawer behind the bar. “You ain’t even earned your keep here, and you burned your clothes on the last flyer. Here—fifty reals,” he continued, stuffing a few bills in the lace panty. “When you come to out in the street or the woods or the sheriff’s office, buy some clothes and a ticket out. I’ve had it!”

He picked her up as if she weighed nothing, and, opening the door with one hand, tossed her rudely into the darkening street. The chilly air and the hard landing brought her down a bit, and she looked around, feeling lost and alone.

She suddenly didn’t want to be seen. Although there were few people about, there were some nearby who would see her in a few moments. She saw a dark alleyway between the bar and a store and crawled into it. It was very dark and cold, and smelled a little of old garbage. But at least she was concealed.

Suddenly the streetlights popped on, and deepened the shadows in which she sat confused. The shock of where she was and her situation broke through into her conscious mind. She was still high, and her body still tingled, particularly when rubbed. She still wanted to rub it, but she was aware of her circumstances.

I’m alone in a crazy place I don’t know, practically nude and with the temperature dropping fast, she thought miserably. How much worse can things get?

As if in answer, there was a rumbling and a series of static discharges, and the temperature dropped even more.

Tears welled up in her eyes, and she started crying at the helplessness of her position. She had never been more miserable in her life.

A man was crossing the street, walking toward the bar. He stopped suddenly. Lightning flashed, illuminating her for a brief moment. He looked puzzled, and came toward the alley. She was folded up, arms around her knees, head down against them. She rocked as she cried.

He saw her and stared in disbelief. Now what the hell? he thought.

He reached out and touched her bare shoulder, and she started, looked up at him, saw the concern on his face.

“What’s the matter, little lady?” he asked gently.

She looked up with anguished face and started to speak, but couldn’t.

She was, even in this state, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

“Nothing’s that bad,” he tried to soothe her. “Where do you live? I’ll take you home. You’re not hurt, are you?”

She shook her head negatively, and coughed a little. “No, no,” she managed. “Don’t have a home. Thrown out.”

He squatted next to her. The lightning and thunder continued, but the rain held off still.

“Come on with me, then,” he said in that same soft tone. “I’ve got a place just down the road. Nobody there but me. You can stay until you decide what to do.”

Her head shook in confusion. She didn’t know what to do. Could she trust him? Dare she take this opportunity?

A strange, distant voice whispered in her brain. It said, “Can you feel it? Fear, greed, horror, ambition, burning within you, consuming you!… Perfection is the object of the experiment, not the component… Don’t torture yourself, run away from your fears. Face them! Stand up to them! Fight them with goodness, mercy, charity, compassion…”

And trust? she wondered suddenly. Oh, hell! What have I got to lose if I go? What do I have if I don’t?

“I’ll go,” she said softly. He helped her up, gently, carefully, and brushed the dirt off her. He’s very big, she realized. I only come up to his neck.

“Come on,” he urged, and took her hand.

She hesitated. “I don’t want—want to go out there looking like this,” she said nervously.

“There’s nothing wrong with the way you look,” he replied in a tone that had nothing if not sincerity. “Nothing at all. Besides, the storm’s about to break, I think. Most folks will stay inside.”

Again she looked uncertain. “What about us?” she asked. “Won’t we get wet?”

“There’s shelter along the way,” he said casually. “Besides, a little water won’t hurt.”

She let him lead her down the deserted street of the town and out into the countryside. The storm continued to be visual and audible, but not as yet wet. The landscape seemed eerie, illuminated in the flashes.

The temperature had dropped from about fifteen degrees Celsius to around eight degrees due to the storm. She shivered.

He looked at her, concerned, feeling the tremors in her hand.

“Want my shirt?” he asked.

“But then you’ll be cold,” she protested.

“I like cold weather,” he responded, taking off his shirt. His broad, muscled, hairy chest reactivated those funny feelings in her again. Carefully he draped the shirt around her. It fit her like a circus tent, but it felt warm and good.

She didn’t know what to say, and something, some impulse, caused her to lean into him and put her arm around his bare chest. He responded by putting his arm around her, and they resumed walking.

Somehow it felt good, calming, and her anxieties seemed to flee. She looked up at him. “What’s your name?” she asked in a tone of voice she didn’t quite comprehend, but was connected, somehow, in its throaty softness to those strange feelings.

“W—” he started to say, then said, instead, “Kally Tonge. I have a farm not much farther down the road.”

She noticed the bandage on the side of his head. “You’re injured.”

“It’s nothing—now,” he replied, and chuckled. “As a matter of fact, you’re just what the doctor ordered—literally. He said somebody should be with me through the night.”

“Does it hurt much?” she asked.

“Not now,” he replied. “Medicine’s pretty advanced here, although as you know the place is rather primitive overall.”

“I really don’t know much about this world,” she replied truthfully. “I’m not from here.”

“I could have guessed that,” he said lightly. “Where do you come from?”

“I don’t think you’ve ever heard of it,” she replied. “From nowhere now, really.”

“What’s your name?” he asked.

She started to say “Nova,” the name the man had called her, but instead she said, “Vardia.”

He stopped and looked at her strangely. “That’s a Com name, isn’t it?” he asked. “You’re not from any Comworld!”

“Sort of,” she replied enigmatically, “but I’ve changed a lot.”

“On the Well World?” he asked sharply.

She gasped, a small sound of surprise escaping her lips. “You—you’re one of the people from the Well!” she exclaimed. “You woke up in that body, as I did! That head wound killed Kally Tonge and you took over, as I did!”

“Twice when I needed someone you comforted me, even defended me,” he said.

“Wuju!” she exclaimed, and an amazed smile spread over her face. She looked him over critically. “My, how you’ve changed!”

“No more than you,” he replied, shaking his head wonderingly. “Wow!”

“But—but, why a man?” she asked.

His face grew serious. “I’ll tell you sometime. But, good old Nathan! He sure came through!”

The storm broke, then, and the rain started coming down heavily.

They were both soaked through in seconds, and her fancy hairdo collapsed. He laughed, and she laughed, and he picked her up and started running in the mud. Just ahead he saw his shack, outlined in the lightning flashes, but he misjudged the turn to his walk with his burden. They both tumbled into the road, splashing around and covered with thick black mud.

“You all right?” he shouted over the torrent.

“I’m drowning in mud!” she called back, and they both got up, laughing at each other.

“The barn’s closer!” he shouted. “See it over there? Run for it!”

He started off, and she followed, the rain getting heavier and heavier. He reached the door way ahead of her, and slid it aside on its rollers. She reached it, and they both fell in. The place had an eerie, hollow sound, the rain beating on the sheet-metal roof and wood sides of the barn. It was dark, and smelled like the barn it was. A few cows mooed nervously in their stalls.

“Wooj?” she called.

“Here,” he said, near her, and she turned.

“Might as well sit it out here,” he told her. “There’s a pile of hay over there, and it’s a thousand meters to the shack. Might as well not go through the deluge twice.”

“Okay,” she replied, exhausted, and plopped into the hay. The rain continued to beat a percussion symphony on the barn.

He plopped beside her. She was fussing with her lace pants.

“The mud’s all caked in them, and the sequins are scratching me,” she said. “Might as well get them off, for all the good they’ll do as clothing anyway, even if they are all I’ve got in the world.”

She did, and they lay for a while side by side. He put his arm around her and fondled her breast.

“That feels good,” she whispered. “Is—is that what I’ve been feeling? I thought it was still the pills. Is this what you felt with Brazil?”

“I’ll be damned!” he said to himself. “I always wondered what an erection felt like to a man!” He turned and looked at her. “I’ll show you what it’s really like, if you want,” he said softly.

“I—I think that’s what he wanted,” she replied.

“Is it what you want?” he asked seriously.

“I think I do,” she whispered, and realized that it was what she wanted. “But I don’t even know how.”

“Leave that to an expert,” he replied. “Although I’m not used to this end of things.” He put both arms around her, kissed her and fondled her.

And he kicked off his pants, and showed her the other side of being a woman, while discovering himself what it was to be a man.

The rain was over. It had been over for a couple of hours, but they just lay there, content in the nearness of each other.

The door was still half-open, and Vardia, still dazed and dreamy from her first sexual experience, saw the clouds roll back and the stars appear. “We’ll get you some clothes in the morning,” he said at last. “Then we’ll tour the farm. This rain should do everything good. I was born on a farm, you know, but not my own farm.”

“People—non-Com people—they do that every day?” she asked.

He chuckled. “Twice if they’re horny enough. Except for a couple of days each month.”

“You—you’ve done it both ways,” she said. “Is it different?”

“The feeling’s definitely different, but it’s the same charge,” he replied. “An important part, male or female, is that you do it when you want with someone you want.”

“Is that love?” she asked. “Is that what Brazil was talking about?”

“Not the sex,” he replied. “That’s just a—a component, as he would say. Without the object—without love, without feeling for the other person, without caring, it’s not pleasant at all.”

“That’s why you’re a man now,” she said. “All the other times—they were the wrong kind, weren’t they?”

“Yes,” he replied distantly, and looked out at the stars. She clenched his hand tightly in hers.

“Do you think he was really God?” Vardia asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” he replied with a sigh. “What if he wasn’t? When he was in the Well he had the power. He gave me my farm, a good, healthy young body, a new chance. And,” he added softly, “he sent you.”

She nodded. “I’ve never lived like this,” she said. “Is it all as wonderful as tonight?”

“No,” he replied seriously. “There’s a lot of hard work, and pain, and heartache—but, if it all comes together, it can be beautiful.”

“We’ll try it here,” she said resolutely. “And when the fun is gone, if ever, or when we’re old and gray, we’ll take off for a Markovian world, and go back and do it again. That’s a good future.”

“I think it is,” he responded. “It’s more than most people ever get.”

“This world,” she said. “It must never become like the others, like the Com. We must make sure of that.”

At that moment there was a glow far beyond the horizon, and suddenly a bright arrow streaked upward in the dark sky and vanished. A few seconds later, a distant, roaring sound came to them.

“Poor Nathan,” he said sadly. “He can do it for everyone but himself.”

“I wonder where he is now?” she mused.

“I don’t know what form he’s in,” he replied, “but I think I know where he is and what he’s doing, and thinking, and feeling.”

They continued to gaze at the stars.