Quest for the Well of Souls

Wuckl

The chatter of a few birds flittered back and forth between the shady trees and sometimes, although rarely, back and forth between the hex border and the forest. There was something in the air of Ecundo the Changs didn’t like and soon learned to avoid if possible.

The underbrush crackled as something inordinately large moved in this placid world of bird and leaf. Whatever it was, it was not in a hurry. It moved steadily and deliberately toward the electrified fence bordering Ecundo, a sentinel in response to a silent alarm.

The creature that reached the fence was a large biped. Its body, an almost perfect oval covered with thick, wiry black hair, was suspended on enormous birdlike feet, each with five long, clawed toes. The legs looked like long helixes, making the creature appear as if standing on springs; those thick meter-long legs could bend in any direction.

The Wuckl stopped and looked at the fence and at the two unconscious creatures with curiosity. Then it walked over to the fence and almost touched it. Its head swung this way and then that on its long, golden-ringed neck, as it studied every angle of fence wire and trapped creatures.

The Wuckl was plainly puzzled by them. From a distance they had looked like bundas, but close up they looked different from anything in its experience—bundalike, but distorted somehow.

It finally decided to leave its wonder for later. The fence was not loaded with enough charge to kill a bunda, Ecundan, Wuckl, or any other large creature likely to blunder into it. It was supposed to drive intruders away, not knock them out—but one of them had tried to crawl under the fence, got stuck, and became the focus of a series of jolts. The second had grabbed the first firmly and been subjected to the abnormal shocks too. By now, the cumulative effect had knocked them out.

Although the Wuckl wore no apparent clothes, a long, thin hand reached into the side of its body and pulled out of an invisible pocket a pair of insulated gloves. The right hand re-entered and came out with what looked like large wire cutters. Donning the gloves, it carefully cut the wire strands around the unconscious creatures so that there was clearance.

The first one was then easily dragged over to the Wuckl’s side of the border. The second, however, caused more trouble, since the Wuckl didn’t want to cut away the entire fence. For a while it considered leaving the other one behind. But clearly, beneath their bundalike garments, these were two of a kind and should not be separated—at least not until the mystery of their origin was solved.

Finally, by reaching over and then pulling from below, the Wuckl managed to drag the unconscious Joshi across as well. Then it removed the gloves and placed them, along with the cutters, in its invisible pockets and picked up one creature with each hand as if they were weightless. It walked back down the path with them.

Toug was a forester; injured animals were not its specialty, so it headed for the house of the gamekeeper, who had a graduate degree in Animal Skills. In the almost ten minutes it took Toug to make it to the gamekeeper’s, the two beings it carried never stirred.

The gamekeeper, after some initial clicking of its beak and grouching about being disturbed at dinner, grew interested when it saw Toug’s burden. Quickly, all thoughts of food gone, it bade the forester to bring the two into the surgery.

The room had an operating table more than three meters long that was almost infinitely adjustable and some vats, bins, refrigerators, and the like. Special lighting was brought into play, and while Joshi was placed carefully on the tiled floor, Mavra was placed on the table, which was then adjusted to the gamekeeper’s convenience. It was smaller than Toug and obviously a bit older, but otherwise looked much the same.

“Where did you find these two?” it asked the forester.

“By the fence, as you see them,” Toug replied. “I received a buzz alarm at Post 43 and went down to investigate.”

The gamekeeper seemed bewildered. “Were they trying to get into Ecundo, then?”

“No, Senior, they were by all appearances trying to get into Wuckl,” the other responded.

The gamekeeper’s long neck moved as it surveyed the unconscious body. Long thin fingers probed this way and that. Finally it said, “Return to your duties. This will take some thought.”

“They are not dead, then?” Toug responded with obvious concern.

The other Wuckl wagged its head in a circular motion. “No, not dead. But their systems are far too delicate for what they have received. Go, now, while I solve this riddle.”

Once Toug was gone, the examination of Mavra and Joshi began in earnest. The Wuckl simply could not figure them out. As animals, they did not make sense.

The brain seemed inordinately large and complex, but there was little for if to do. With such limited limb movement and a total lack of prehensility, these creatures could not possibly be of a high order. They were clearly hoofed animals. They were shaped like bundas, but their internal construction was all wrong, and their faces faced downward. The legs, muscle tone, and the like were too obviously correct to be constructs; therefore, these must be mutants, it decided. But mutations of what?

They were strange, that was certain. The Wuckl pulled down its Well World Catalog and looked through it, but nothing matched up. There were centauroids, yes, but these were not like those. In some ways they were similar to those of Glathriel, yet far enough different that the gamekeeper rejected that possibility. The others were even more remote.

It replaced the books, satisfied that these were animals, not intelligent creatures, brain structure notwithstanding.

But what to do with them? Their nervous systems had suffered tremendously. The creatures needed help or they would surely die, and though it didn’t know exactly what they were, the Wuckl had not devoted so much time to becoming a senior in Animal Skills to let animals die when it was within its power to save them.

Mavra’s reproductive system brought the Wuckl up short. Someone with Skills had operated on it, crudely but effectively. These were not, then, something wild.

It thought about this, and reached the only conclusion it could think of that fit the facts. It remembered that five of its fellow students had been expelled, sent to disgrace in Manual Skills for their efforts. Though quite different in result, what he had before him reminded the Wuckl of their experiment. Taking a basic animal as a start, the five had added and subtracted with abandon, rearranging limbs, taking organs from other animal stocks. They created a pair of monstrosities.

What if recent students had done the same? And, fearing discovery, they’d taken the poor creatures and left them in Ecundo to be eaten or otherwise lost to Wuckl authority?

No Wuckl could deliberately kill, so that solution to the hypothesized dilemma never occurred to the gamekeeper.

That, of course, is what these creatures must be. Hideous creations of students. It explained a lot, but the implications were even uglier. These brains might have come from high-order creatures, implanted, perhaps, in the fetal stage, growing with the creatures for—how long?

Death might be a mercy for such as these, it thought sadly, but, then, these two would never know that they were what they were, and surely would not and should not suffer for the horrors growing from the minds of others.

It would report this butchery, though; the perpetrators would be caught, and their minds adjusted to Manual Skills. Even that was too good for them, but compassion was in all Wuckl.

But what to do with these two?

To leave them as they were was unthinkable; they were not in the Catalog, they could not assimilate into the Balanced Environment. To cast them out, as had been obviously tried, was equally unthinkable.

The only answer was to readapt them to the Catalog. The problem was that the life forms of Wuckl were, on the whole, quite different from those in other hexes, except for bird and insect life. The bunda would be the easiest, of course, but much time and effort had been expended in keeping bunda out of Wuckl; adding two more would hardly be good for the ecological balance.

It went once more to its references. In a preserve, some exceptions would be tolerated. If a form in the Catalog were chosen, it could be explained and rationalized as were the animals in any foreign-animal compound. Basically, the changes would be cosmetic, of course. An animal was a complex organism, not easily built from scratch. Some needs would have to be satisfied, however; special food would be out of the question, so some modification of the digestive system would be in order. And acclimation, of course, which would be tricky with brains so complex.

And then the gamekeeper had it: a native of several hexes, biologically compatible, requiring far less work than would be needed to recreate other forms. Straightforward modifications.

Joshi, who had received a much weaker shock than Mavra, groaned suddenly and stretched a bit. The Wuckl, not ready for this, quickly grabbed a small device, checked it, and placed it gently against the Chang’s neck. Joshi suddenly went limp. To make sure, the gamekeeper gave Mavra Chang a dose of the sedative as well. The substance would do the job. No sense in their coming around before modifications were finished, the Wuckl thought nervously.

It called several assistants by phone, then started setting up equipment.

Three hours later, four Wuckl stood in the surgery. Three were quite young, apprentices learning their craft. Quickly the gamekeeper had explained to them its theories, decisions, and plans, and they had concurred in its diagnosis. Electrobaths, instruments, and associated equipment were arranged, and all shared a sense of excitement. This was to be a genuinely creative series of operations of the type few ever got to perform; they might even get into the books for it.

The gamekeeper, as a senior, would actually perform the operations; the others would assist. Mavra, to be first, was stretched out on the table. The lighting was odd and surfaces polished; all of them could follow the operation with their trained and special optics from any point in the room.

The long Wuckl hands with their thin, sensitive fingers started in, kneading and prodding the skin, much in the manner of an extremely strong masseur. As this action continued, the movements grew faster, more furious. A second Wuckl stood by, ready with the necessary replacement organs and tissues.

And now the gamekeeper’s hands were inside her, incredibly, with no incision apparent, no blood, nothing. The right hand retracted quickly—drawing with it a bloody organ—and was immediately back in. Now the left retracted, grabbed small clamps and slices of doughy flesh from liquid-filled containers, and returned. Its speed was fantastic; the student Wuckl watched in admiration at internal manipulation literally too quick for the eye to see. The senior had the gift in tenfold amounts, and they marveled at his sureness and skill.

The operation lasted some time, and then hands flew and small plastic clamps covered with small bits of bloody tissue were withdrawn from the body. The gamekeeper relaxed for a moment, rubbing its hands together.

“Internal modifications are completed,” it told the others. “Next, the cosmetics.” A new set of replacement organs were substituted for the old, and the apprentices double-checked their equipment.

On her body there was no sign of incision or wound, no blood, scars, or other traces. Mavra looked the same.

“Much of this is being accomplished with synthetics,” the senior explained to the apprentices. “They are organic, of course, but manufactured. I compliment Yuog on the abundance of supply. As we have no way to replace the blood supply except naturally, and the two are of different blood types, speed is of prime importance. Now, let us begin the second phase.”

Again parts were removed, parts added from the bins of assorted foul-smelling liquids, with blinding speed. Head done, it moved to the body, molding, kneading, altering, all the while taking care to preserve all neural connections so there would be no problem in adaptation. With a university’s money and a computer’s guidance, a complete remake was certainly possible, but the Wuckl in the preserve surgery did not have those advantages. This was more a case of adapting form to function, and, in a way, that was more satisfying.

Finally, it was done. They admired the work; it was incredibly good. Parts removed from the animals were preserved; they would be subject both to later study and to analysis by better labs and then used as evidence in its case to find the perpetrators of the biological crime.

“Electrobath!” the senior ordered, and Mavra was quickly lifted and placed in a tank of foul liquid. A face mask was hooked to an air supply so she could be submerged totally. Power was applied, and the fluid was energized to seal what had been done and to revise the genetic information in the affected cells so that they would maintain the new shape without forming scar tissue or rejecting what had been added. A small computer fed the instructions via the fluid, adding final developmental instructions as well.

“And now the male!” instructed the senior, and Joshi was placed on the table.

“Note the scar tissue. Long ago this one was severely burned, perhaps tortured.” They murmured in shock. “We will address ourselves to that later.”

It began, and, after several rests, was completed. Joshi was placed in a second electrobath. A final step was necessary.

“You noticed the highly developed brain,” it lectured. “My first inclination was to trim it to what was needed, but it is too complex; there is too much room for error there. However, it will be necessary that they acclimate to their new situation. Animals are creatures of habit and instinct, and since these two have the wrong habits and no proper instincts for their new existence, this must be provided. You are familiar with the principles of hypno-programming; it is my belief that these two are developed enough to absorb it on a basic level.”

“But, Senior!” one young Wuckl protested. “These are still not of any life of the island, let alone Wuckl. How will you do this?”

“The creature is common, however, and in the Catalog,” the gamekeeper replied. “I had its Catalog requirements transmitted by phone from the University. A bit esoteric, of course—I had to trade on an old friendship or two and will owe some explanations later, particularly for those who compiled the two modules at this late hour, but they are here. We will administer the treatment while they are in the electro-bath. I will keep them sedated until certain that all the work is progressing satisfactorily.”

“Then what?” another asked. “What will you do with them?”

The senior’s bill opened wide in all four directions, the Wuckl equivalent of a smile. “They will awaken in their new and permanent homes, happy and cared for. I will arrange it. Do not fear. What we have done is ethical and right.”

Mavra Chang awoke as if from a total absence of prior sensation. It was almost like being born; it was the beginnings of consciousness. Her mind was a complete blank; no words formed there. Then suddenly her senses brought input. She opened her eyes and looked around. It was dark, and hard to see. She got up and walked around the area with aimless curiosity. It was a straw-floored enclosure; over to one side, the only thing present, was a large male.

She sensed somehow that he was male and she female; the concepts were natural, like walking, sleeping, eating—not verbal concepts, just what was. The male was still asleep.

She found an opening and walked to it. She sniffed at it briefly, then walked through. At the other end lay the outside.

She looked around with that same nonintellectual curiosity, seeing a clipped grassy hill that smelled good and, nearby, a trough of aromatic stuff and, surrounding it all, a moat that was clear to its artificial rock bottom, perhaps four or five meters down. At one end of their compound, beyond the moat, a stone wall rose a meter or so higher than the hill; from the water, though, it was three meters to the top, effectively blocking any exit.

Although that wall was a bare fifteen meters from her, she had trouble seeing beyond it. Close-up things were sharp and clear, say, a few meters around, but then things started to blur. Beyond the wall she could see indistinct forms but no recognizable shapes. For some reason this seemed wrong to her, but she didn’t dwell on it.

She was thirsty, incredibly so, and walked down to the water, sliding in easily and without fear, moving effortlessly in it. She opened her mouth and let the water enter until she had had enough, then headed back to the little hill. The smell from the trough was overwhelming, and she went to it quickly and started eating.

She heard a noise behind her and saw the male emerge sleepily and repeat her actions almost exactly. As soon as she saw what it was, she went back to eating. Soon he, too, was eating hungrily, greedily. An enormous amount of food lay in the trough, but they did not stop until they had eaten it all, even pushing each other for the last morsel.

Each then spent some time searching around the trough and eating what they had spilled in their feast. Finally, satisfied that there was no more, they returned to the water, drank some more and swam for a bit, then sauntered up the hill and reclined in the grass to bask in the warm sun and listen to the unfamiliar sounds that came from all directions—sounds of different animals and others.

Over the next few days the routine was unvaried. The male marked the island, the hut, the food places and the water with his scent which she accepted. It defined the limits of their territory.

The food was delivered by a strange-looking and stranger-smelling thing that entered by lowering a ramp from the other side of the wall; it would pour more stuff in the feeding-place, then leave, allowing the ramp to fold out of sight. At first they had challenged the thing, but the food was too strong and soon its function was obvious, so they left it alone. Beginning to look forward to its brief visits and its occasional odd noises directed at them, they would strain to catch its scent.

Always hungry, they left nothing. When there was no food, they would rest, or chase each other playfully, or swim in the moat. At no time did they have a verbal thought, at no time a memory, at no time even a curiosity as to where they were.

But the Wuckl’s shock and conditioning had not really touched the brain; their intelligence was all there, and, as time passed memories slowly crept back to both of them, first as odd dreams, funny pictures of unfamiliar creatures making odd noises, then as whole sequences of events. At first it was too much for them to comprehend, but time, inactivity, and the total absence of anxiety healed them more and more.

Thoughts became coherent. Strange things in their disjointed memories started acquiring names, meaningless but definite. Then came the big hurdle: self-awareness. He. She. I.

For Mavra Chang there came visions of a cold and mountainous place, a place populated with huge two-legged creatures of white fur with doglike faces and kind eyes, beings she knew, beings who knew her, beings who perhaps knew everything, beings who could help her, although she did not as yet remember why she needed help.

She knew, somehow, she had to reach them. It was an imperative, like eating and sleeping. It was something that had to be done.

For Joshi, there was a different sense; he knew as the male it was his job to mate with and protect the female. He had no visions of strange beings with white fur and kind eyes, but he also sensed that he had to follow his mate wherever she went.

Escape became Mavra’s mania. She searched all over the little island for a way out but could find no means of going over that wall.

Finally, when the feeder lowered the ramp and brought the food over, she had an idea. The thing was confident that the food smell would keep them next to it, away from the bridge—and for the first couple of times she did find the smell irresistible. But while the thing brought food to the trough, the ramp was down. Here was a way to get over that wall.

Vaguely, she was certain that they were in a zoo, though the concept was a hazy one. It was hard to think, to form plans, to plot on many levels or be very subtle about it. She tried running as fast as she could, and discovered that, despite being fat and low to the ground, she had short bursts of remarkable speed when she needed it. She felt she could withstand the food odor if she really tried and make for that bridge. She wished she could convey this thought to the male. But although she’d tried—and he’d tried—they could manage only deep grunts. But he followed her around, ran when she did, stopped when she did, and that should be enough. If he didn’t follow, it would be bad, but she knew that she had to reach the strange place that haunted her dreams.

The Wuckl, a very young feeder, came by near dusk as usual. It had been working at the preserve for several months and had its routine down pat. When it got to the new ones and picked up the heavy buckets of food for them, they were there waiting for him as usual, and the female was grunting more excitedly than usual, but that was all right.

The feeder stared curiously at them for a moment. From a hex far to the northeast of the island, they filled a gap in the zoo’s displays, although the Wuckl had wondered why such a grandiose place—once the pen for a large group of domestic animals—had been picked for only two of them.

They were curious creatures to see. Fat, they ate whenever and whatever they could—including the organic garbage from the city, which was their standard fare. They stood on four funny little legs that were set far back on their bodies and ended with small cloven hooves. They could not see their own legs because their heads took up the whole forward part of their bodies, allowing only a relatively inflexible neck.

The quadrupeds were not to be taken lightly, though; although almost bare when they arrived at the zoo, in the days that followed a brown growth sprouted all over their bodies except on the underside, legs, and face. The brown coat was deceptive—it was stiff, sharp, and needlelike, and to pet one would risk getting multiple punctures.

In fact, they looked like large pigs covered with porcupine quills, although the Wuckl, never having seen a hog, would not have recognized the analogy. There were some differences. They were tailless, and their ears were tall and pointed. The male was neutral pink in the face and legs, contrasting with, the bitch’s burnt orange.

A kick of its taloned leg and the ramp flipped up and over. The Wuckl hopped up before it swung back, holding it down with its weight as it crossed. Across the moat but still on the bridge, it put down one of the food buckets and reached down and put a small hook in an eye socket in the ground, thereby anchoring the bridge.

Mavra looked at her mate and gave a loud grunt that momentarily took his mind and eye off the food. As the Wuckl walked to the trough, she ran for the bridge, then crossed it with a clatter of tiny hooves. Joshi looked about, confused for an instant, then ran after her.

The feeder turned at the noise, shocked. “Hey!” it screamed, and started running after them. It was so upset that it tripped on the edge of the bridge and fell into the moat.

In the precious minute or two this mishap bought, Mavra was away. Her vision was limited, but she smelled the scents of numerous things like the feeder, and wherever the scent grew stronger she followed it.

The preserve was closed; the staff on duty were busy at their tasks or eating, so they went on unimpeded. She’d guessed right; the stronger the scent, the more Wuckl had passed the more likely she would find the entrance or exit. There was a chain across it, but it was too high to block them, and they were soon out into a parking area. They ran to the left, toward some trees barely visible in the growing darkness. The scent was strong, and it seemed a natural place to go. Behind them, the feeder had by then pulled itself from the moat and raised the alarm. But the fugitives were away and running, even though Joshi hadn’t the slightest idea why.

Even though she thought she was a pig, and for all intents and purposes was a pig, and still couldn’t think clearly or remember why, Mavra Chang was heading to Gedemondas.