“Mavra, he is a machine! And he doesn’t even know it! Only a machine could bear these long, long lives, recreation after re-creation. He is the only self-aware construct of the ancient ones, and he is rigidly compelled to act in only one way when he is needed. You were not on Earth before, and you had no formal education. You do not know history. All the monsters of history, all the mass killers, the armies, the hatreds, the diseases, the things that represent all evil in the universe are re-created time after time as well, very much as they were, to do their evil over and over again to the same people over and over again. He has the power to change it. He has the power to make things better, to alleviate suffering and misery and death, to create a wonderful universe for all the Last Races, but what does he do? He makes it all the same. He uses the templates. He does it over and over just the same. He doesn’t even change himself. Oh, no, that would corrupt their damnable experiment! The ultimate evil, unintended though it was. They were so sure they were gods. They were so certain that they could not make mistakes. The reset mechanism, the Watcher, were there to ward off natural deviations. They allowed for randomness and chaos to possibly require that the experiment be restarted, but they were certain that they were right! If it goes wrong, the Watcher puts it back exactly as it was. He doesn’t want to. He fought it the last time. But he still did it. And he will do it again. He will reset the experiment, kill trillions on over fifteen hundred worlds, and the evil will start anew. He has to, even if he doesn’t understand why. He cannot refuse, even if he learns the truth himself and believes it. It is built in that he will do it”
Nathan a—what was the word?—a robot! She could hardly believe it, yet it explained much. It was the first time he really made any sense at all.
“He—he is already there ? ”
“Yes, but he will fight it. He will fight it until he is forced to act. Mavra—you must use that time! You must get here before him! You must act as if he were your enemy, although he is ours. You must do it for our sake and the sake of anybody you ever cared about back on Earth.”
“But—Obie? I told you—I wouldn’t know what to do!”
“The last time he made a mistake. He thinks, he feels, he cares. Outside of his one mission, he is basically good. He recoiled at the reset and had you do it. He remade you into a being like himself. The Well will let you in if you come. And once inside, we can speak together without these limits! I can tell you what to do, Mavra! Together we can break this vicious cycle and create a better, more stable universe based on good. But you must get here first!”
There was sudden silence, and she called out mentally, “Obie?”
“I can’t hold it anymore, Mavra. Come! Get here ahead of him! Let me live again and we’ll have a universe that is glorious! I know how. You can do it. Come!”
“Obie! Wait!”
But there was no answer; the falling sensation resumed.
Only her quick reflexes kept her from falling right on top of Gus. She rolled and got immediately to her feet and looked around at their surroundings with mixed emotions. After the unexpected “conversation” in transit, she had much to think about, and it wasn’t of a sort she wanted to deal with, at least right now. On the other hand, the familiarity of the great chamber after such a very long time was beyond satisfaction; she felt suddenly alive again.
Lori watched in amazement as the woman she knew as Alama got to her feet, raised her arms and turned slowly around in a circle, as if drinking in the cold and bizarre view, then gave a surprisingly deep yet joyful laugh that echoed through the chamber. Lori could not, however, understand the words the tiny woman called out in that same tone of joy and amusement, said in an odd, melodic tongue like none she’d ever heard before.
“Hello, you big, beautiful Well World, you! Mavra’s back!”
“Alama,” Lori called out, interrupting the scene in the only common language the two now shared, that of the People, “when you do not come, I do not know what to do next.”
She was more than a little relieved to find that contrary to Terry’s fears, she was still very much alive and none the worse for wear, but she had felt very alone and exposed there, with Gus so weak and out of it.
The small woman stopped, frowned, then, abruptly all business, turned toward Lori. “Where is the other man?”
“Campos? He knows not where he is. He is very angry. He said he will find a way out of this trap. He walks in that direction.” She pointed.
“He is still tied?”
“His hands.”
The small woman smiled. “He will be easy to find. Do not worry.”
“Alama, Gus is bad off. We must find help for him.”
She nodded and knelt to examine the man, who was conscious but still clearly in something of a fog. Then she looked back up at Lori. “Take him up there. I will follow. Do not worry. He will be all right.” She paused a moment, then added, “Not Alama. No more Alama. I am Mav-ra. Mavra Chang.”
“Mavra Chang,” Lori repeated. It sounded odd and not quite right, but the family name was most interesting. Chang. So she was a true Oriental! Chinese probably, with a name like Chang. But that didn’t solve the mystery. If she was Chinese, then she wasn’t a native of wherever this was. “The stars beyond the stars.” The idea of some hidden, ancient group of Chinese from another planet seemed ludicrous.
That is, if this place was another planet. It was true that the trip had been a bizarre one, but it hadn’t seemed long, and while this vast chamber was like nothing she’d ever seen before, it certainly didn’t have the feel of some extraterrestrial locale.
It was a huge place, though. She wasn’t certain if she could see the end of it in either direction. The shiny, slightly concave coppery surface of the floor reflected bright, indirect light from an unseen source, giving an illusion of great distance. On two sides of the floor was a low barrier wall topped by a dark rail, and here and there, there were openings in it so that one could get up onto whatever was beyond. With a tired sigh, she hoisted Gus and made her way carefully over to the nearest opening, and, going through, she deposited him again on the floor.
This area was quite different in many respects. The “floor” was brown and felt like padded plastic; it gave slightly to her weight, and she felt a slight stickiness on her bare feet. The barrier wall was a dark brown inside and seemed to mesh seamlessly with the floor surface. It was surprisingly wide; several people could walk abreast on it and not touch the main wall or barrier wall. It, too, seemed to go on forever.
What was almost as unnerving as the size of the place was the deathly silence, so that every sound they made seemed magnified. Suddenly they heard a terrified scream far ahead of them and then the sound of a panicked running. Lori tensed, but Alama—Mavra—seemed to find it amusing.
In another minute they could see the frantic form of Juan Campos racing toward them, and as he drew close, his expression looked as if he had just gazed upon the most gruesome of ghosts.
He would have run right past them, or so it seemed, except that Mavra stuck out a leg and tripped him.
“Campos! What did you see?” Lori pressed, nervous. This was not a man who scared easily.
“A monster! Horrible! Help me up! We can’t stay here! It is right behind me!”
She looked up at Mavra, who she knew couldn’t possibly have understood what the terrified man had said yet who didn’t ask about it, either.
Up ahead, from the direction Campos had come, there was the sudden whine of machinery, and she felt a vibration through the floor.
Campos heard and felt it, too, and he whimpered, then turned, wide-eyed in fear, toward the sound of the noise.
Lori gasped and felt the same panic rise in her that had already mastered Juan Campos; only Mavra’s cool assurance and bemused expression kept her where she was.
Seemingly floating toward them was a huge apparition, a monstrous reptilian form perhaps three or four meters high, with a mean-looking head much like a tyrannosaurus Lori had seen in museum dinosaur exhibits. The head, however, was perched on an even wider body, with a burnt-orange underbelly fully exposed, all supported by two monstrous legs that vanished below the barrier wall. It seemed to have a tail as great as its body, and gigantic bony plates extended from just below the neck down to, and perhaps onto, the tail.
Its primary coloring was a passionate purple, broken with crimson spots so thick and regular, they seemed almost like polka dots.
The creature filled perhaps eighty percent of the width of the walkway, and it was coming straight for them, riding on a section that was moving.
Mavra turned to them and said, “Tell them do not move. Just wait and all will be safe.”
Lori swallowed hard but said, “Come on, Campos! Be the macho man you always wanted to be! She says don’t move and nobody will get hurt.”
It was clear that Campos wanted to get up and run, but he was stopped both by the fact that his bound wrists made it hard to get back on his feet and by the sheer bravado of the two women. There was just no way Juan Campos could run away from anything in fear if two women stayed.
“Very well, but if I am to die, let me die with my hands free.”
It seemed like a fair request. Lori allowed herself to take one eye off the still-approaching Leviathan and gesture to the bonds for approval. Mavra nodded, and Lori untied him.
He sat up, rubbing his wrists. “What sort of lunatic place is this, and how did we get here?” he asked, both eyes still on the approaching monster.
“I only promised you’d be free,” Lori reminded him. “I didn’t say where.”
The creature was now very close, and it reached over and down with one of its fully formed hands at the end of long, spindly arms and struck the side of the barrier wall. The belt it was on stopped moving, leaving it about ten feet from them.
Lori gaped at the thing in wonder and saw now that it wore some kind of sash around its neck and upper torso with a complex symbol embossed on it by a method suggesting some advanced technology. Around its neck and over the sash hung a thick gold chain like some kind of giant necklace, and at the end of it hung what appeared to be a ruby-colored gemstone, hexagonal in shape.
The creature looked them over as well, and its head shook a bit from side to side and its eyes widened. The gem on the necklace seemed to light up and emitted a very soft whine, followed by a voice that Lori heard in English, Campos in Spanish, and Mavra in her ancient native tongue. It was a high-pitched, slightly nervous voice that didn’t at all match the monstrous visage before them.
“Oh, my! Goodness gracious!” said the voice. “Savages!”
South Zone
IN AN INSTANT THAT SILLY, HIGH-PITCHED VOICE WITH A TRACE of a lisp in it, the riotous colors, and the comment and tone made Lori think more of the Reluctant Dragon than of a terrible monster.
“I don’t know what this place is coming to,” the creature went on, speaking aloud mostly to itself. “Gentlemen, soldiers, and savages, all Type 41 Glathrielians, of all things, plus dumb animals, outright junk—what’s next? This used to be such a peaceful posting!”
“Who are you?” Mavra Chang asked him in a normal, civil tone. Interestingly to Lori and Campos, the device on the necklace—obviously some sort of advanced translating computer—picked up her strange tongue and echoed it to them.
“I am Auchen Glough, Ambassador from Kwynn and the unfortunate current Duty Officer at South Zone. I assume you all fell in from this terrible planet called Dirt just like the others?”
“Close enough,” Mavra responded. “There have been others?”
“Oh, my, yes! Not on my watch, I admit, but we’ve all seen the pictures and gotten the reports. First there was a party of three, then, a day or so later, two more, and now, after an interminable period when it’s rained junk in here, the four of you. How many more?”
“No more, I shouldn’t think,” Mavra told him.
“Most unusual, most odd,” muttered the ambassador. “We have had new arrivals here, but never, never from a planetbound group. Well, I suppose we should get this over with. If everyone will stand, I will take us back to the office for indoctrination and briefing.”
“He can’t stand,” Lori said of Gus. “He’s very weak and ill. He needs attention.”
“Hmmm. Well, carry him over the junction points, and that will be enough for now. He’s not likely to die in an hour or two, is he?”
“No. At least I don’t think so. But if he doesn’t get some kind of attention, he’s going to die fairly soon.”
“Then we’d best get on with it. Come.”
Juan Campos felt some of his confidence coming back. “I am not following that thing until I find out where I am and what the hell this is all about!” he stated.
“If you follow me, I will tell you,” the ambassador responded. “If you don’t, you will get very hungry and very thirsty out here. We are headed for the only exit.”
For now, at least, that seemed good enough.
With Gus in her arms, Lori stepped past the wall opening. Mavra was already there, and Campos followed last, wary but more worried about remaining alone than about going with what he still thought of as a potentially vicious monster.