“This is not as much of a problem for us,” Tony pointed out. “If need be, I could carry you and Mavra, too, and I am certain that Anne Marie could carry Lori.”
“Of course,” the other centauress replied. “It is a bit more difficult for us, and we have to go slower because of the burden on these thin legs, but you would hardly add to the burden.”
Mavra shook her head. “Uh uh. We might do that for a short distance but not a long one. Not only do I want out of here, I want to get lost. At least to whoever’s behind this. And the last thing I want to do is make a grand march under these conditions to a place where somehow I know they won’t have a ship for us.”
“But what is the alternative?” Tony asked her.
“If we keep going this way, we’ll come in to the southwesternmost yard in a small town almost at the Gekir border. Gekir’s a nontech hex and I’ve never been there, but my experience has been that if you want to get lost, get into a nontech hex. No mass transportation, but no mass communications, either. Nontechs are also the most dangerous for a lot of reasons, but while I don’t remember much about them, what was said indicates that the Gekir are not a mean or hostile people, and there’s some trade between there and Itus. As to what kind of creatures they are, I haven’t a clue, even though we might or might not have seen them among the races back in the capital. If we’re lucky, there might be some kind of sailing vessels that call along the coast. It’s worth a try.”
“But if whoever is chasing you is influential enough to divert our railcar, they will have people watching out for us at the town, won’t they?” Julian asked worriedly.
“Yes, so we’ll have to get off before that point and avoid the town. It shouldn’t be too hard to do. They’re bound to have a decoupling yard just before the town to route the various cars to loading areas. When the train slows, we get off, fast. It’ll still be moving, so watch yourselves, but it should be moving at a crawl, at least up to the switch. Tony, I assume you and Anne Marie could jump off.”
“I don’t think that would be a problem, but we’ll have to time it right,” Tony replied. “I don’t think either of us should risk a broken ankle at this point, and the heavier gravity is a major threat. Wait a moment! Anne Marie, come give me a hand here.”
The two centauresses went over to the left side and studied the short staked fence. “They look just placed in,” Anne Marie said, and with both hands tried to pry one up. She tried as hard as she could, but it wouldn’t budge. “No go, I’m afraid, dear.”
Tony got close beside her. “Both of us together, then.”
They tried, but it was as if the panel were welded on.
Julian came over and looked at the panel as well, bending down to see what might be holding it in. “I think it’s more magnets,” she said at last. “This train runs on the basis of magnetic polarity. There are two strong electromagnets underneath, one the track and the other on the undercarriage. When power is applied, they repel, we float essentially friction-free, and by moving one set, speed can be quickly achieved or slowed, even stopped on a dime. But the stakes, I bet, are matched to the polarity of the undercarriage. When it’s powered, they’re pulled tight.” She thought a moment. “I wonder if there are any dead spots.”
“Dead spots?” one of them asked.
“Yes. Have you ever ridden on a subway—underground, metro, or whatever—or an electric-powered train? There’s often points where the track is either not powered because of some repair or connector or the power source changes. The lights might flicker or even go off, but it’s brief and the train’s forward momentum keeps it rolling until it gets to the next powered section. I thought I felt a slight loosening at one point while I was leaning on it here, and there were the vibrations rattling the stakes briefly, but then it was tight again. If there’s another, then in that brief moment this panel should be able to be pulled. If it’s really held by the electromagnets, that is.”
“There is only one way to find out,” Tony said. “I will just stand here and pull on it and see.”
Although it was a rather simple explanation of the principle, Lori found himself momentarily taken aback by Julian’s sophisticated knowledge, even though he knew her background. He hadn’t been used to her being very assertive of late, and it gave him oddly mixed feelings he neither liked nor wanted to deal with. Julian had come up almost effortlessly with the solution to a problem of the sort that only seemed obvious when it was explained. The rattling had happened every few minutes off and on since they boarded, yet only Julian had put it together. Although he was quite proud of her, the two warring halves of his nature could not have been more divided on interpretation. The Lori Sutton part was cheering; the Lori of Alkhaz part was furious that she’d just given it to them all rather than tell him in private so that he could bring it up to the group.
Several minutes passed, and a bored Tony, feeling circulation going in her arms, was just about to give it up when suddenly the panel came up and she staggered back a bit, barely keeping balance. It didn’t come all the way out but was now held only by two flat pins, no longer flush with the flatcar floor.
“If need be, I could probably kick it down at this point,” Tony commented, “but I think that Lori might do better pushing up from beneath. Just be sure you don’t fall off the train when it comes up!”
Lori looked at it dubiously. “Yeah, right,” he said, but lay down, got his body in as close as he could with his legs well beyond the almost-free panel, and pushed against the very solid-feeling section.
When the moment came, tense as he was, the panel almost did take him with it; it flew up and away, and he suddenly felt himself going forward into the opening. Only Anne Marie’s strong hands grabbing his legs and bringing him back in saved him, and, being hauled back on his stomach, he was suddenly very thankful he’d kept wearing the hardened codpiece.
“Wow! Can she bend!” Julian gasped. “She didn’t even have to kneel!” But she rushed to Lori.
Mavra nodded and said to herself, “Things aren’t quite as static as they seem on the Well World. Dillian evolution has sure done a neat job on them!”
Julian bent down next to Lori, concerned. “Are you all right, my husband?” She asked in Erdomese.
He nodded. “Just bumped around a bit. I will be all right in a minute or two.” He turned on his side and looked back and up at the centauress who’d grabbed him. “Thanks a lot, Tony.”
“Think nothing of it, dear,” responded Anne Marie, not taking any offense at all at being confused with her twin.
Mavra came over and inspected the opening. “Okay. That means Lori, Julian, and I can sit on the edge and then jump off rather than having to contend with a meter-high hurdle, and you two have a straight jump.”
“How much longer will it be, do you think?” Julian asked her.
Mavra looked at her watch and then at the sun. “Maybe fifteen minutes. Okay, you’ve all seen these switching points; you know what they look like. Get as far away to the south—the direction that you’ll jump—as you can as fast as you can and stay out of sight of anybody in the yard area. Assemble behind the first building that gives us cover and wait until we’re all there. Understood? They may not be expecting us to jump, but they’re sure to have somebody at the station to keep a tail on us, and it’ll most likely be an Itun hired for the job. From this point we avoid Ituns until we’re across the border.”
They waited as the shadows grew and the light began to fade around them. Darkness came quickly to the Well World, and within a few minutes it would be pitch black. That actually bothered the two Erdomese the least, since they could simply lift their natural eye filters and see the full spectrum. Mavra and the two Dillians, however, had no more night vision than ordinary Earth humans, a thought that occurred to Julian.
“We should jump off last,” she said to Lori, “because we can see.”
He shook his head. “No, I think we go first for that very reason. We can find them a lot easier than they can find us, and I think it would be better to be on the ground just in case one of them has a problem with the jump.”
“All right, then. You go and I’ll follow. Night is almost completely upon us, and there are many lights not far ahead. I can already feel us slowing just a bit.”
Lori turned to Mavra, who had noticed the lights as well, and she nodded. “Any time you feel right after we’re slow enough. Just don’t take it too fast. We’ll get out.”
The Erdomese moved to the opening in the flatcar stakes. Lori sat, legs over the side of the car, uncomfortable sitting on his behind because of the tail and tailbone. It was not a normal position for Erdomese, and he decided to jump as soon as he felt it was safe.
“Remember the heavier gravity,” Julian warned him. “You will hit very hard, my husband.”
“You take care, too.”
The train was definitely slowing now, going perhaps thirty kilometers per hour, and it continued to slow. Lori’s tailbone was hurting badly enough that when it was down to about twenty, he took a deep breath and launched himself into the night. He hit as hard as Julian had warned, pitched forward, and found himself rolling down a small embankment into a fetid, muddy drainage ditch. Covered with stinking mud, he almost panicked, got control, and clawed himself out of it and up onto dryer land. He lay there, breathing hard, for a minute or so, then picked himself up. He not only stank, he was sore, and his left ankle and right wrist stung when he moved them. For a moment he was afraid that he’d broken something, but he quickly realized that they were probably only sprains and not that serious. By force of will he made his way in the darkness just below the tracks toward the lighted area about half a kilometer farther on.
Julian came to meet him, walking on all fours. “Are you all right?” she asked, concerned, then twitched her nose. “You sure don’t smell all right!”
“Rolled all the way down into the drainage canal. Didn’t pay enough attention to the slope. I’ve got some twists, but I can handle it. You?”
“A little bruised but not bad. It was slower, and I had a more level area. About the only problem I’ll have is getting grass stains out of my fur.”
He managed a chuckle at that. “The others?”
“Mavra was right behind me. She just jumped out, rolled once, and landed on her feet almost beside me! Like an acrobat or something. She told me to find you and she was going to check on the Blondie Twins.”
“Let’s join up,” he told her, gesturing forward.
“You are limping! Come! Put your hand on my shoulder, and I will help you,” she invited, standing erect.
“I—I can make it on my own,” Lori insisted, then grimaced and almost fell forward. She caught him and helped brace him, and this took just enough weight off that he was able to manage it.
“I thought you couldn’t even move, let alone stand in this place,” he noted.
“I grow strong when I am needed,” she responded, quoting a female Erdomese proverb.
Both Dillians had jumped without a hitch and now waited with Mavra for Lori and Julian to join them in a dark area behind the first automated switching tower. Mavra, seeing them in the very dim glow of the tower lights, motioned for the much larger centaurs to remain where they were and ran toward the two Erdomese. “What happened?” she asked. “Are you hurt bad?”
“I’m not sure,” Lori answered honestly. “I thought the ankle was just twisted a little, but now I’m not so sure. It doesn’t feel broken, but I think it’s a hell of a sprain.”
“Well, a very ancient man who knows the Well World far better than I do once said to never travel without a Dillian if you can manage it. We can repack all the stuff on one of them and put you on the other. Don’t argue! Whoever’s watching us has probably already discovered that we’re not there. The sooner we get away from here, the better!”
When they reached the Dillians, one of them was already repacking the saddlebags on the other. Then the one who carried all the equipment helped Lori onto the other’s back.
“Ride forward,” the centauress suggested. “That should take the pressure off your tail as well. And watch that horn on your head! I don’t want to get stabbed if I have to make a sudden stop!” Left unsaid was the rather noticeable stink of swamp and mud permeating his hair.
He felt awkward and helpless and, even worse, stupid. It was almost like a horse riding a horse. He was just never designed to ride on the back of a soft animal, but there was little choice at the moment.
Mavra turned to Julian and said, “Well, you’re leading the way because you can see and we can’t. Can you handle it? I know how hard this high G is on you.”
“I’ll be all right,” she assured the woman in black. “You said south, right? How far do you wish to go tonight?”
“Well, we’re going to be moving a lot slower and more cautiously than I planned, but we ought to go on until at least one of us has to stop. It shouldn’t be more than a dozen kilometers or so to the border if we head due south. That’s a haul on foot in the dark under these conditions, but we haven’t done much more than rest on our duffs all day. Can you make it?”
“Yes.” No equivocation, no hesitancy. Mavra liked that.
“I think you’re gonna do just fine, Julian. You sure you know which way’s south? We had a bend just before we came in.”
“I know. It is something in the Erdomese brain. Once we have a fix on the sun at any point, we always know direction, even when the sun is gone.” She looked around, thinking. “The first thing is to find a road or trail of some kind going in our direction and parallel it. I do not think we should risk Tony or Anne Marie tripping over jungle vines or fallen logs. Just keep close and I will get you through.”
“You sound like you’ve done this sort of thing before.”
“Air force survival training. This is no worse than the jungles of Panama or Honduras.”
“That’s right! Lori said you were once captain of a spaceship.”
“No, captain was my rank in the air force. A military service. I was a mission specialist on the space shuttle, not a pilot or commander, although I had a jet pilot’s license.”
“Too much of this is new to me,” Mavra admitted, her translated voice coming to Julian’s ears as an odd but understandable mixture of Erdomese and English, depending on the terms used. “I was in the jungle, cut off, for so long that it wasn’t until a few years ago that I even realized that Earth had progressed to power tools, let alone flying machines and spacecraft, and by that time I saw them only as evil magic. Until I spoke with Tony and Anne Marie here, I had no idea Brazil wasn’t still a Portuguese colony, let alone that your own country even existed. It was all very ironic. All I was doing was holding out in the wilderness until technology advanced to where I could get off that planet, and I managed to fall into a trap where I rejected all technology. Even now I’m sweating like a stuck pig. I still haven’t gotten used to clothing, and these boots feel bizarre.”
“What’s stopping you from taking them off? The nearest Earth-human type is probably a thousand miles from here, if even that close.”
“Practicality, mostly. Certainly not modesty. I was born without that word having much meaning. Back in the Amazon, that was my jungle. I loved it and still do, but I knew everything about it. Everything. This isn’t my jungle. I don’t know the effects of anything I step on here, and any protection is better than none when you’ve only got bare skin in an unknown land.” She dropped her voice low. “Hell, I remember when female Dillians wore bras, and they weren’t nearly as hung as those two.”
Julian also lowered her voice to a high whisper. “Is it just me, or is it really difficult to tell which is which unless they speak? I mean, I’ve had the eeriest feeling that the same one I spoke to who was Tony, definitely Tony, was later talking like Anne Marie.”
“I know what you mean,” Mavra whispered back. “Actually, I’m sort of relieved that somebody else feels it, too. Maybe it’s just how absolutely identical they look, but it’s spooked me more times in the past few weeks than I can tell you.”
“That is what I mean. Is there something else about them I do not know but should?”
“Could be, but if so, I don’t know it, either. If it is more than mental confusion on our part, I’m absolutely positive that they aren’t aware of it themselves. I just don’t know. Every time I say that absolutely nothing can surprise me anymore, something does. How the two of them were processed is unprecedented; you and Lori make a different but equally unprecedented case. I don’t know what’s going on here, but until I get to the Well, I can’t find out for sure myself. Even the Well World seems odd. I always thought of it as static, too tightly managed to change radically, but there are many differences. Differences you wouldn’t notice from one time here, but it’s different. Some of the cultures are changed, a few radically so. There are differences in alliances, attitudes, you name it. Even the races are different. Not a lot in some cases, a great deal in one or two that I’ve seen, but there are changes from radical to subtle in all the ones I knew. It may be a normal thing, as with all worlds, but this is not a normal world, nor was it ever intended to be. I can’t help wondering if it feels the same way to Nathan, wherever he is.”
That brought up a point Julian was even more interested in. “This Nathan. Tell me about him.”
“He is—well, he cannot be described. Oh, I can tell you what he looks like, more or less, and from what Tony and Anne Marie have told me he’s changed very little. You’d like him. Most people do. There’s a kindness and gentleness in him that comes through, and he’s the loneliest creature in all the cosmos.”
“You were not just—associates. Or even teacher and pupil.”
“No.”
“You still speak of him with affection, yet this kind, wise, gentle man you describe is out to get you and maybe worse.”
Mavra sighed. “I think so. At least the evidence points that way, and it almost feels like his handiwork. You can be seduced by him in many ways, and at the time he means it, but deep down, where the soul resides, he’s also something else. Something almost—monstrous. It’s hidden most of the time, I think even from himself, but it’s always there, and in the end it’s always in control. You won’t see it much when he’s human, but inside the Well it’s much clearer. It is nothing less than the collective will of the ancient creatures that built this place and remade the universe as they pleased. He doesn’t even like it. Last time he fought like hell against it and wound up almost forced to do its will, kicking and screaming all the way. It is there, and I find it most significant that this time he didn’t even try to fight it. He’s surrendered to it, I think, and that alone makes him the most dangerous creature since the universe was born.”
“And yet—he gave you immortality and the key to this Well, this God-computer,” Julian noted.
“Yes. I’ve come up with many theories as to why, some more flattering to my ego than others, but it wasn’t until I came here once again that I found out the truth. He is two creatures—the kind, gentle, but tough and resourceful man I knew and described and this—thing. He’s been the man so long, it is more his true self than that hidden within him, but he knows he’s in a trap, an eternal trap. By taking me in there, by making me reset things last time, he dodged his own conflict while still doing what he was compelled to do. Now I think it was more than that. I don’t have this thing inside me. I was born to this form and grew up as you see me. I think his human half wants to be stopped. In the end, I think that was the idea all along. The next time, this time, I’d be there, too. Something inside him wants me to beat him and seize control. To stop his compulsive pattern. Maybe it’s because he became too much like us; maybe it’s simple logic. The stress of last time and its responsibilities brought it home to him that there was a flaw in the plans of those who created this place. They wanted a new, even greater race of true gods to evolve, but even they couldn’t foresee all the things that could happen in so vast a universe over so much time. So they left him as their guardian, to keep it on track, but they blew it. They didn’t just set it going, they made it a controlled experiment instead, all the variables taken into account.”
Julian saw where she was going, or thought she did, as much as this whole place made any sense. “You are saying that they overcontrolled. That by insisting on things developing as they designed, they gave it no opportunity to develop differently.”
“Well, they sure weren’t as godlike as they thought they were, that was for sure,” Mavra agreed. “They couldn’t conceive that being a race of true gods would become boring as hell after some great length of time. Their whole racial history was motivated by a belief that true and absolute perfection was possible. They could not face the fact that it wasn’t, and so they built this world, and the races that were successful here were sent out into the universe to see if they could attain that perfection. If anything loused up the experiment beyond repair, though, they had a mechanism for resetting things to start so absolute that everything would develop exactly the same, except that whatever caused the collapse would be factored out. Even you were probably there in the past creation, the one that I, many relative centuries in the future, wiped out and re-created. The same nations, the same races, the same people, being born, living, progressing, dying, over and over.”
“My God! You mean I’ve done this before? Or someone exactly like me?”
“No. I have no doubt there was a Julian Beard who lived your life and did all the same things—up to the point where you were sent to investigate the meteor. And a Lori who remained the first female full professor of astronomy at wherever she taught, and a Tony and Anne Marie who probably died in a suicide pact, and the others as well. Your coming here changed that for you and for the others. I believe Nathan has at one point or another changed a number of individuals’ lives. It is difficult to say this, but most individual lives, if removed or altered, won’t change the fabric very much so long as the number of them is kept very small. It is said that the Well Gates react to people’s wills and that no one who would mess up the master plan is ever transported here. I don’t know. But I do know it can’t continue. Reset after reset, the same people, the same races, the same lives over and over . . . In the end, if that keeps happening, then nobody really matters. Nobody at all. And if I fail this time, that’s what is going to keep going on again and again. A continuous wheel, a perpetual replaying of the same damned recording over and over until the universe dies. That’s what this is all about. That’s why you’re all here.”
“Sweet Jesus!” Julian gasped, thinking of the implications of what she was saying.
“What are you two girls whispering about?” Lori called to them.
Mavra Chang gave a crooked smile. “Us women are talking woman talk,” she replied aloud.