Nautilus—Topside
they waited two days for nathan brazil to come out of it. His pulse rate was very weak, at times dropping so low it could barely be detected; he ran serious fevers, but never lapsed into delirium. He just lay there, almost dead, making the medical people wonder if he’d ever rise again. They brought him Topside, placed him in a luxury suite under guard, and summoned the medical staff. The diagnosis was simple: He was suffering from extreme shock, and little could be done for him except to see that he was kept warm, regularly massaged, and fed intravenously.
In the meantime, to forestall half the planet coming to the Nautilus, Yua and Gypsy visited Olympus. They returned a day later to report that Obie had worked some major magic—including the removal of tails from all but Yua. Still, the change unsettled Yua a little since Olympian history now clearly showed that no one on Olympus ever had a tail; the now-tailless women were called Pallas. All sight that there had ever been two varieties, the Athene and the Aphrodite, had vanished. They never were.
There were men, too, on Olympus—out in the open. They ran nothing and were still regarded as sex objects, but they were part of the society—and always had been.
More, the Fellowship of the Well had changed course—in this case by simultaneous “divine revelation” to all High Priestesses so there would be no mistake. In order to create universal Paradise, they had been told, Nathan Brazil must first go to the Well World itself, pass into the Well, and eradicate the old Universe. The forces of evil would try to stop him. For Olympus to share in the Heaven to come, they and their followers must form an army to help Brazil attain his goal. As reward they would be a part of the new, Holy Universe, for though the powers of evil held sway in this Universe they, too, would be swept away in the re-creation, leaving a Universe without evil. Even to die in this holy crusade would guarantee a place in the next, great Universe.
And Brazil’s own disciples—Yua of Olympus, Marquoz of Chugach, Gypsy of the Place Between Stars, and Mavra Chang herself, the legend brought back from the dead by the hand of Brazil—would lead and instruct and command in the final battle to come. The Fellowship had a most holy mission, it was now clear, and it was already preparing for it.
After hearing the report, Marquoz marveled at Obie’s skill. “It is so much easier to lead a holy crusade backed by divine intervention,” he noted.
Mavra Chang just smiled and shrugged. “It’s the same old story. You don’t get something for nothing, ever. They were offered a Heaven we can’t deliver and life beyond the destruction of the Universe which, in exchange for their services, we can perhaps, deliver to some. They’re going to fight and die for a lie.”
“As usual,” Marquoz added.
Their conversation was interrupted by a buzz on Mavra’s communicator. She removed it from her belt clip and said, “Yes?”
“I think he’s coming out of it,” a medic said.
They all rushed to Brazil’s suite.
Nathan Brazil had been floating in a nice, dark, quiet place of his own. Thought hadn’t been required; it was warm and comfortable and it felt so very good. The quiet place was slipping away now, and memories were flooding his conscious brain. At first he could make no sense of them, and didn’t try; still they came, rushing into his mind like soldiers rushing to battle, struggling to assemble themselves into some sort of order.
A small grove of palm trees around a clear blue waterhole; dry, hot country even then, but green, not as it was to become. A slight breeze blew from the southeast, a dry, dreadful, hot caress that carried no relief. Two young women, one rather comely, two small children. The pretty one’s? An older man, beard graying and face weatherbeaten and tough. Hard to tell. You didn’t talk much or attempt to strike up new acquaintances in these troubled times.
Hoofbeats. Men on horses. Barely a chance to look up. Romans! Only five of them, but nasty types. Looking for trouble. He hid in the bush and lay still. Odd, though, a corner of his mind told him. Sounded like more horses than that. Different directions, perhaps? Were others cowering like him in the bushes?
The Romans have dismounted now. The two young children, both boys, wade naked at the edge of the pool, splashing and playing. The Romans look around at them, at the old man and the two women, critically with an air of complete command. One calls in Latin to the others and points critically to the two small boys. He catches a word, blown to him on the hot wind. “Circumcized.” There will be trouble; Antiochus has outlawed the practice for now. One Rome, one set of beliefs, one set of customs. Cultural assimilation, they called it. The world under one and as one.
The old man is defiant. He yells at the centurion, who yells back, then laughs and grabs at the younger woman. The old man is upon him now, screaming and cursing. Two Romans run to assist the centurion, swords drawn, and hack the old man almost to pieces. The women are screaming now. The Romans are around them. The younger one is grabbed and is partially disrobed by two of the Romans. The older woman rushes them with a dagger in her hand, but a blow from the flat of a Roman sword crushes her skull; she falls and is still.
He is still in the bushes and he is angry and ashamed at himself. He has spear and sword and suddenly he finds himself leaping out at the men in a blind rage.
A Roman is slitting the throats of the two young boys; he turns, startled, then looks amazed as a spear is thrust through his armor and into his gut.
The two men now have the woman down; they turn in surprise, but their comrades have already drawn their own weapons and are moving toward him.
He was good, particularly when so angry. He just about tore off the sword arm of the nearest Roman with a strong inside blow, but the other was not to be taken so easily. A good swordsman himself, the Roman forced the man into the arms of the other two Romans who had stopped messing with the girl and come up behind him.
“I’ll kill the bastard now!” the swordsman snarled, advancing on the captive.
“No! Hold!” cried one of his captors. “The bitch means something to him, otherwise why would he fight so? Tie him to the tree. Let him watch us, and die before his death!”
“Ai! Let’s cut off his limbs and leave him there alive, to bleed to death or live a limbless cripple!” snarled the man whose arm he’d cut to the bone, still lying in agony on the sand. They laughed at that, and bandaged the other as best they could.
And it was done. He was tied to a tree with ropes too strong to break and forced to watch the rape, after which they killed her, not mercifully swift but slowly.
He wept, as much for the way of the world as for these people who had been tortured and slain. He’d known good, brave, fair-minded men of the Legions, men who’d have acted as he had in the face of such barbarism. Not now. Rome was expanding, extending her influence to the edges of the world, and that expansion required men in great numbers, men whose only qualification was that they would kill and delight in killing. When such vicious animals were used to spread “civilization,” how long would it be before that madness sped backward to its roots and reached the throne itself?
And they were around him now, facing him as he stood bound to the tree.
“So this is the greatness of mighty Rome,” he sneered at them.
They laughed, although he could see in their faces that they were taken aback by such coolness in the face of torture and death.
They drew their swords and leered at him. One gestured at the carnage. “Those were your people?”
He looked the man squarely in the eyes. “I never saw them before in my life,” he told them in flawless Latin.
“Then why did you fight for them?” another asked, confused and a bit unnerved by their captive’s total disregard for personal well-being.
“The children of the Lord God of Israel should not be abused by animals spawned in Hell.”
“Enough of this! You are a brave man but a foolish one,” the centurion told him. “We will kill you and be done with it.”
“I really wish you could.”
The Roman drew his sword and hesitated a second, looking into his eyes before striking the fatal blow.
Four sharp sounds echoed, followed by a whap! whap! whap! whap! The Romans stood for a moment, looking confused, then toppled over, arrows protruding from their backs.
Four men emerged from the bushes nearby. All Hebrews, he saw at once, all holding bows. One was an older man; by their looks the others were his sons. Two of the sons checked the bodies of the slain Hebrews while the third son, with a sword, made certain that the Romans would stay forever on the ground. The old man approached him, drew a small curved knife from his belt, and cut the binding straps. He almost collapsed as the flow of blood, which had been restricted by his bonds, returned fully to his limbs. The old man was strong and caught him, lowering him gently to the ground.
“You’ve had a terrible ordeal,” the older man said kindly in Hebrew.
He nodded. “There were just too many,” he responded in the same language.
The old man nodded. “We were just a bit too far off.” He sighed. “We heard the screams but arrived too late and approached, perhaps, too cautiously.” He looked at the dead Romans. “It is just revenge,” he murmured, almost to himself, “but somehow it does not seem adequate.” Then back to the freed man: “You have relatives to whom you can be taken?”
He shook his head. “All I had lies there,” he muttered. “I am alone in the world once again.”
“You are young, and brave, and skilled,” the old man told him. “You deserve a new chance. Come! I am of substance. I am Mattathias the son of John, a priest of the sons of Joarib, now of Modin. These are my sons—Joannan Caddis, Simon Thassi, Eleazar Avaran, and Jonathan Apphus on the Roman rolls.”
“My name and family are dead with them,” he said sorrowfully. “I died with them.”
“Then you shall be my son,” Mattathias told him. “You shall become the son who was their eldest brother but died so long ago in the wilderness.” He turned to his sons, now standing there. “What say you?”
“He is a brave man who has lost much,” one said. “And his spirit and his faith are sorely needed in these trying times.” The others nodded assent.
“Any warrior as small as you who could penetrate Roman armor has a passion inside and the Lord’s annointment,” another said.
“It is settled, then,” Mattathias said, satisfied. “You are as another son to me and welcome to my tribe and house. And henceforth you shall be known as Judas Maccabeas, my lost son who returns to me in these days of trial.”
And they knelt and prayed together that the Lord God of Israel accepted this and it was in fact His will. And when they were finished he looked up at them all and said, “Perhaps with your faith and your patriotism we may bring mighty Antiochus himself to heel!”
Nathan Brazil awoke.
His head felt as if it was bursting; he could only groan, and the medics came with painkillers to aid him. He got his eyes to focus, finally, and tried to sit up. With a low moan, he quickly collapsed back into the bed.
“Well, I see the gang’s all here,” he muttered.
“How do you feel?” Mavra asked. Her concern was evident.
He managed a low chuckle. “Oh, about like anybody would a day or so after being at the center of an explosion.”
“What happened to you in . . . there?” Marquoz asked. “Do you remember any of it?”
Brazil winced, not from pain but from memory. “I wish to God I didn’t! You know, Obie wasn’t kidding —the human mind is a fantasy land operating to delude itself by assuming whatever point of view is easiest to live with. Can you imagine coming face to face with yourself—your real self—with no place to hide? Even Obie doesn’t realize the kind of horror he perpetrated on me, the terrible torture he put me through. I don’t think he could have done it if he’d known. You realize we—all us nonmachines—are crazy? Absolutely stark-raving mad? No wonder the Markovians felt they hadn’t reached Utopia—they hadn’t. I wonder if this is the sort of thing that happened to them. I mean, linked mentally to their monster computers they must have undergone much of what I just did, been forced to face themselves with no place to run. What a terrible disillusionment it must have been! My God! No wonder! It explains everything! The Well, why they performed their great experiment, why they were so willing to commit suicide —and why they failed this time, too. We—all of us— created in their image, yes, but reflections of their darker sides as well. My god!”
“But weren’t you there?” Mavra asked. She was bewildered by all Brazil’s monologue. “You’re a Markovian—aren’t you?”
He gave a dry chuckle, then groaned a little as it hurt. “No, not a Markovian. Something . . . else. Don’t worry. I can fix their pretty machine.” Then, suddenly, he was off on his own again. “My god! No wonder the Well isn’t self-aware. They couldn’t have stood that . . .”
“Obie—is Obie dead?” Mavra pressed fearfully.
“I—I don’t know. I don’t think so. No, I’m sure he’s not. But he’s—well, he’s of no help to us now, maybe not in the foreseeable future. You see, to Obie the whole Universe and everything in it is strictly logical and mathematical. That’s what we are to him, strings of numbers, relationships that balance. I don’t balance. I’m not a part of any math he understands and he doesn’t have the key to understanding my ‘formula’, driven to assimilate me, and for that he needs the key. But he can’t get the key unless he assimilates me. He must solve the problem, and he can’t solve the problem until he solves it. He’s stuck in a loop. In a way I guess you can say I drove him crazy.”
“And what about you?” Marquoz broke in. “He thought you might drive him crazy, yet he threatened to drive you sane. Did he?”
Brazil chuckled again. “The mind is a resilient thing, Marquoz. I’m probably saner than any living being has ever been, possibly saner than the Markovians were after their mind-links to their computers, yet I’m still quite mad and slipping more into madness the more I think. When you face the unthinkable you retreat, you shove it away, back into corners of your mind that you can’t reach.”
“Unfortunately, I think I understand you,” the Chugach responded. “Still, except to you, that bit of metaphysics is of little consequence. The question on the table is, simply, have you changed your attitude on fixing the Well of Souls?”
Nathan Brazil sighed. “A byproduct of the mind-link is that you remember things you never wanted to remember. The worst part is, the more of those memories you dredge up the more you realize how futile it all is. Rome rose to great heights, yet its own methods caused it to decay from within. I wonder if that isn’t true of the Markovian experience as well. Will we just do it all over again, even reach this point once again? Is the whole business of life doomed to repeated failure because there is something wrong with the experimenters? I wonder . . .”
“But will you fix the Well?” the little dragon persisted.
Brazil nodded unhappily. “I’ll go to the Well, if possible. I’ll enter and stand there and analyze the problem. But I won’t take the responsibility for murdering so many. I can’t accept the responsibility any more.” He turned slightly on his side, looking at them, and his eyes fixed on Mavra Chang. He pointed to her.
“You will take the responsibility,” he told her. “When I stand inside the Well so will you. I’ll ask you to give me the order. You will tell me to pull the plug on the Universe.”
He sank down and lapsed into unconsciousness, but the instruments informed them that, this time, it was closer to normal sleep.
Nautilus—Topside, Later That Same Day
mavra chang paced back and forth in the large reception chamber, where she had spent most of the afternoon and a good part of the.evening, looking grim and somewhat unhappy.
Marquoz waddled around the corner, stopped, yawned, and stared at her for a few moments. “You know, you really ought to get some rest and eat something, too. You can’t eat like a bird anymore. You’re a Rhone now and you require a great amount of energy.”
Mavra stopped and looked at him for a second. She was tired and wan; the strain showed on her face. She looked as if she had aged ten years in the past few days. “Perhaps you’re right,” she said hoarsely. “I don’t know—that’s all part of this, I guess. Everything has changed. Obie’s gone, even as we sit here comfortably on him; the Universe is going—have you really considered that what we’re trying to do is destroy all that we know? And me, well, I’m stuck in a reconstruction of my ancestor’s old Well body, but I don’t feel like a Rhone. Do you know what it’s like to want a roast beef or something and realize that you can only digest leaves and grass?”
“You’re just feeling sorry for yourself,” the little dragon responded. “I know what that’s like—but from what I’ve heard it’s not like you. I heard that on the Well World you were transformed into a handless cripple yet managed to surmount that difficulty and beat Ortega and everyone else at their own game. What’s changed you?”
She thought about it. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I’m getting old. Maybe I’ve just grown fat and complacent during my years with Obie.”
Gypsy cleared his throat and they turned. Neither knew how long the strange, dark man had been listening. “You know what’s wrong, if you just face it,” he said.
Mavra just looked at him questioningly. “You’re not the boss this time,” Gypsy said. “You’re not in charge, not even in control. Being a Rhone didn’t bother you one whit on the snatch operation because you were in charge. Not anymore, though. You’re not even a full partner; with Obie you were a partner only when and because he allowed you to be. Now it’s all in the hands of a little guy you don’t even know. Even back on the Well World they left you alone; you were the mistress of your own destiny. Not now. That’s what’s eating you. You gotta be the general all the time, or at least think you are.”
His speech was galling because she knew, deep down, that what he said was true. Gypsy had the uncanny ability to reach down inside your soul and see truths, and he wasn’t at all diplomatic about telling you what they were. For a moment she understood what Brazil seemed to be saying about being inside Obie. There were things you didn’t want to face, didn’t want to even think about—and you certainly became uncomfortable when they were thrust under your nose.
“Who are you, Gypsy?” she asked. “Where do you come from?”
He smiled. “I could give you a long, drawn-out biography, but even then you’d have no way of knowing whether I told the truth. What difference does it make? None of us really knows the others anyway. Take Marquoz, there. Why would a man leave his people, live and work entirely cut off from the environment, and the culture that he was born to? I’m the guy who was around every dingy spaceport milking the marks with any sort of con, never taking a sucker who didn’t really want to be taken but taking all those who did. I’m the guy who doesn’t fit, the square peg who’s found some way to survive and enjoy himself. Freighter captains are like that, too, I think—and thieves, and secret agents, and those kinds of folks. I’m not sure about Marquoz, but he’s definitely a square peg, too. So are you. The staff of the Nautilus —all square pegs, more or less. That’s why we’re here and they’re out there.” His tone became grim and distant. “That’s why we survive—and they don’t.”
A long silence ensued. Finally Mavra Chang said, “I guess I’ll go out and munch the lawn or something. I think the time’s approaching when we have to get to work.”
She didn’t have to go as far as the lawn; Obie had prepared for her hunger, as she well knew, with stores of grain pilfered from Brazil’s old ship. It didn’t taste great but it went down well, and the more she ate the more she wanted to eat. She didn’t feel good, but at least she felt better.
When she returned to the main hall she found Nathan Brazil. The tailor shop had found a black pullover shirt and a pair of shorts that fit him, and a pair of plastine sandals as well. He’d taken time to remove all the rest of his makeup and looked, they guessed, pretty much as he always had. He certainly looked both casual and comfortable. He was a small man, barely 170 centimeters tall, slightly built and very thin despite strong shoulders and strong, sinewy arms. He was dark, almost as dark as Gypsy, and two bright, brown eyes flanked a conspicuous Roman nose that sat atop a mouth very wide, rubbery, and full of teeth. His hair was cropped short, the better to use disguises, and he was clean-shaven, for much the same reason.
He looked up at her, nodded, and smiled a bit. “So how are you, great-granddaughter?” he greeted lightly.
“Surviving,” she responded coldly. Obie had been right on that score; they were too much alike to feel comfortable in each other’s presence.
“Well, surviving is all we can do,” he came back. “I’ve called a petit council meeting—no reflection, that term—shortly, so the rest will soon be here. I’ve been seriously hampered by lack of materials. Everything was in Obie. When were you on the Well World?”
“Over seven hundred years ago,” she replied, fascinated by his sudden but easy transformation from world-weary sage to crisp businessman. “We looked in on it occasionally, but they were Obie’s checkups, nothing more. It was pretty easy to do—just monitor transmissions, mostly. Ortega and Dr. Zinder both had transmitters capable of reaching us, but Obie never used them. We were supposed to have been destroyed by the Com Police. Obie felt he was better off dead to all parties. I certainly have no love for the place, barely knew Zinder, and never met Ortega—although I have less reason to love him than anyone.”
Brazil smiled. “Still mad at the old bastard? I’d think by now you’d have faced the fact that, under similar circumstances, you’d have done to him exactly what he did to you. I’d never accuse the old boy of having a conscience, though.”
She looked surprised. “You know Ortega?”
He nodded. “Oh, yes. Matched wits with him lord knows how long ago on a number of capers in the Com. He’s a wily old scoundrel. I’ve always liked him despite the fact we’re usually on opposite sides. He was on the Well World last time I was there—my welcoming committee, in fact, and later on, my adversary. He should have been dead then, but the Olympian record indicates that he’s somehow managed to survive.”
She nodded. “Some kind of magic spell, I was told. But he’s a prisoner in Zone, even though he practically runs the place.”
“Then he’s likely still there and even more in control,” Brazil noted. “That can be good or catastrophic, and I have no way of knowing which in advance. Damn! The worst thing about the loss of Obie is that we’ll be flying blind in this. I won’t know conditions on the Well World until I get there. A real-life kriegspiel. I’ve never liked the game.”
“Kriegspiel?”
“Chess. You know the game? Only the opponents sit back to back with their own boards and a referee tells you that your opponent’s made a legal move. You have to figure out from the illegal moves where your opponent’s pieces are. And we don’t have a referee in this one.”
“You make it sound like we’ll have to fight another war on the Well World,” she said, slightly puzzled. “I’m not sure I’m clear on this yet.”
“We probably will,” he responded, then looked up. “Well, here come the other three now, so if everybody will relax I’ll explain what this is all about.”