Quest for the Well of Souls

Underside

Ben Yulin was pleased with himself as he looked over his troops. He had changed all of them into his dream women, even the two boys. Each had a distinct hair and skin tone; but nine new names were a bit much to remember, and aside from the first two, Nikki and Mavra, he just decided to settle on numbers for a while.

The savages were really that, too, not very smart and at about an ape’s level of experience. Each retained the horse’s tail, as Ben Yulin thought they were kind of sexy, and they served to further distinguish the first two from the rest.

Obie did not give them a past, of course, but he provided language ability, demeanor, and all the other things necessary. Effectively, they were amnesiacs with needed skills, but that was fine. They too were love-slaves of Ben Yulin. All lay prostrate before him at his feet.

“You are my herd, my hareem,” he told them. “You are a part of me and I of you. You are the most honored of women, and will sit at my feet as I sweep away the old order and establish the new.”

“Yes, My Lord Yulin,” they responded sincerely in unison.

He looked at them in extreme self-satisfaction. In truth, a new order, he decided. Long ago, in lands lost in time and space but alive in the tradition of Yulin’s people, his ancestors had lived amid desert wastes in tent cities that followed the water and the blowing sand. Then great lords had grandiose hareems. Some of this would be restored, he told himself.

He would create human beings in all ways so close to perfection that clothing would be a sin except when needed for protection. Powerful Lords would rule not desert wastes but bountiful planets, holding sway over their own herds of beautiful, powerful, and adoring woman. Yet all would be subservient to him, the Supreme Caliph from whom all blessing and curses would flow, and for all time. A land of artisans, scientists, and engineers pushing back the ultimate frontiers.

A race to fulfill the Markovian dream of Utopian perfectionism, a race to become gods.

All this was within his grasp, right now, here, today!

“Arise and go about your duties,” he commanded, and they did so. Thanks to Obie, their living quarters were already quite comfortable, with great soft beds covered in silk and satin. Obie had also provided exotic fruits, vegetables, and meats indistinguishable from the originals. Though it was true that Yulin and his harem could now eat anything organic, even grass, there was no reason to.

Yulin returned to Obie and sat at a control console, flipping the transmitter switch.

“Obie? Have you plotted our position exactly?” he asked.

“Yes, Ben. We are back in the original New Pompeii orbit, along with the robot sentries. No sign of anything within a one-light-year scan. I suppose any curious investigators would have given up by now anyway. It’s been over twenty-two years.”

Ben Yulin nodded. “What about our movement capability, Obie? Can you move us to a different point, even a different sector of space?”

“Any area whose coordinates are precisely specified in my memory. That includes, of course, all Corn-worlds and frontiers as of the time we were last here.”

Ben Yulin nodded in satisfaction, then shifted his thoughts. Only a few things now stood in his way. Six things.

“Obie, is there any way you can change the atmospheric content Topside?” he asked. “Alter the balance, drain it, or introduce a toxic substance?”

“Those areas are controlled by totally involuntary circuits,” the computer reminded him. “I can’t do anything about them at all. You should know that. Antor Trelig didn’t want you or Zinder or anyone else to have that kind of power—and particularly not me. For some reason he never really trusted me.” There was a hurt tone in that last.

Yulin chuckled. He trusted Obie himself about as far as he could throw the thing.

“All right, then,” he sighed. “I’ll have to deal with the Northerners as best I can. Right now I need good knockout substances that will affect Agitar, Yaxa, and Lata.”

Obie had the necessary information.