Kickaha said, “I think I know what happened.”
She continued, “No one knows what really happened. There were ten thousand fully adult Bellers in the project and a number of baby Bellers. Somehow, a Seller managed to get its needle-antennae into the skull of a Lord. It uncoiled and dematricised the Lord’s brain and then transferred itself into the host’s brain. Thereafter, one by one, the other Lords in the project were taken over.”
Kickaha had guessed correctly. The Lords had created their own Frankensteins.
“At that time, my ancestors were creating their private custom-made universes,” she said. “They were indeed Lords—gods if there ever were any.
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The home universe, of course, continued to be the base for the stock population.
“Many of the Sellers in the hosts’ bodies managed to get out of the home universe and into the private universes. By the time that the truth was discovered, it was impossible to know who had or had not been taken over, there had been so many transfers. Almost ten thousand Lords had been, as it was termed, ‘belled.’
“The War of the Black Bellers lasted two hundred years. I was born during this time. By then, most of the Lord scientists and technicians had been killed. Over half the laymen population was also dead. The home universe was ravaged. This was the beginning of the end of science and progress and the beginning of the solipsism of the Lords. The survivors had much power and the devices and machines in their control. But the understanding of the principles behind the power and the machines was lost.
“Of the ten thousand Bellers, all but fifty were accounted for. The 9,950 were placed inside a universe specially created for them. This was triple-walled so that nobody could ever get in or out.”
“And the missing fifty?”‘
“Never found. From then on, the Lords lived in suspicion, on the verge of panic. Yet, there was no evidence that any Lords were belled. In time, though the panic faded, the missing fifty were not forgotten.”
She held up her right hand. “See this ring? It can detect the bell-housing of a Black Beller when it comes within twenty feet. It can’t detect a Beller who’s housed in a host-body, of course. But the Bellers don’t like to be too far from the bells. If
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anything should happen to the host-body, a Beller wants to be able to transfer his mind back into the bell before the body dies.
“The ring, detecting the bell, triggers an alarm device implanted in the brain of the Lord. This alarm stimulates certain areas of the neural system so that the Lord hears the tolling of a bell. Now, to my knowledge, the tolling of the alarm bell has not sounded for a little less than ten thousand years. But it sounded for three of us not two weeks ago. And we knew that the ancient horror was loose.”
“The fifty are now accounted for?” he said.
“Not all fifty. At least, I’ve seen only a few,” she replied. “I think what happened is that all fifty must have been cached together in some universe. They lay in suspended animation for ten millennia. Then some human, some leb-” She stopped on seeing his expression and then continued, “Some human stumbled across the cache. He was curious and put one of the bell shapes on his head. And the Beller automatically extruded the needle-antennae. At the same time, the Beller awoke from his ten thousand year sleep. It anesthetized the human through his skin so that he wouldn’t struggle, bored into the skull and brain, discharged the human neural configuration and memories, and then transferred itself into the brain. After that, the human-Beller found hosts for the remaining forty-nine. Then the fifty set out on their swift and silent campaign.”
There was no telling how many universes the Bellers had taken nor how many Lords they had slain or possessed. They had been unlucky with three: Nimstowl, Judubra, and Anana. She and Nimstowl had managed to inform Judubra of the situation, and he had permitted them to take re-
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