SOUTH ZONE
“But it just isn’t right,” Vardia, the Czillian, objected. “I mean, after all she did and tried to do.” It pointed a tendril at a photograph. “Look at her. A freak. A pretty human girl’s body, always facing head downward, supported by four mule’s legs. Not even able to look straight ahead. No protective hair or body fat. She’s so vulnerable! Eating like an animal, face pushed into a dish; eating food she can’t even prepare herself. She must have normal sexual urges, yet what will have her, from the ass-end at that? She almost has to wallow in her own excrement just to relieve herself. It’s awful! And so easy to cure. Just bring her here and send her through the Well Gate.”
Serge Ortega nodded, agreeing with all the other ambassador said. “It is sad,” he admitted. “There is nothing I have done in my whole foul life that pains me like this. And yet, you know why. The Crisis Center of your own hex came out with the cold facts. Antor Trelig will never forget that there’s another ship down on the Well World; neither will Ben Yulin. Both can see New Pompeii on clear nights. And if Yulin settles down, the Yaxa will push him into it. We can’t control them or the Makiem-and they can pass through Zone as safely as we. We haven’t the right to stop them. Nations that would not lift a finger in the war would act against us if we militarized Zone. I still hold to the idea that the Northern ship is beyond anybody’s reach, and, Lord knows, both the Czillian computers and I have tried every angle! Some of the Northern races are interested, but the Uchjin are completely opposed, and there’s no way to get a pilot there physically, anyway.”
He paused, then looked at the plant-creature, eyes sad. “But can we take the chance that it is impossible? Your computers say no, and so do my instincts. A Northerner once got South, remember. If we can find how… . Trelig won’t stop. Yulin won’t stop. The Yaxa won’t stop. If a solution is possible, no matter how complex and off the wall it may be, even shooting a pilot over the Equatorial Barrier with giant sling shots, somebody will come up with the solution. My channels are pretty good, but so are theirs. If anybody comes up with the answer, we’ll all have it, and it’s a miniwar all over again. And if we aren’t to leave it to Yulin or Trelig, then we’ll need somebody who knows how to tell that computer to take off and land and such-and who can reprogram it for the almost impossible launch situation and acceleration that would be required. The Zinders can’t-even if we knew where and what they were, and we most definitely do not. Nor can a classical librarian like Renard. None of them ever flew a ship. I can’t, either. I’m too out of date. And that ship is still there, still intact, and it’ll stay that way because the Uchjin don’t even understand what it is but think it’s pretty, and because that atmosphere they have is almost a perfect preservative.”
“If only we could get somebody in the North to blow it up,” Vardia said wistfully.
“I’ve already tried that,” Ortega replied swiftly. “Things are different up there, that’s all. So we’ve got a ship that’s a ticking bomb, and maybe, hopefully, it’ll never go off-but it just might. And if we run her through the Well of Souls, we might lose track or control of the only pilot we have!”
He shuffled through some papers, coming up with a photograph of New Pompeii.
“Look at that,” he told her. “There’s a computer there that knows the Well codes and math. It’s capacity-limited, but it’s self-aware, and so it’s another player in the game. Against uncounted billions or trillions of lives hi the universe, can the fate of one individual be considered? You know the answer.” He slapped the computer printouts angrily, upset himself. “There it is, damn it! Tell me some way around it!”
“Maybe she’ll solve her own problem,” Vardia mused. “Get to a Zone Gate and get here. Then the Well’s the only way out.”
He shook his head. “That won’t work, and I made sure she knows it. Whatever she is, Zone gates will be guarded day and night. If she makes it here, she’ll be locked up in a nice, comfortable one-room office hi this complex. No windows, no way out. She’ll be an annual in a zoo, unable to smell the flowers or see the stars. That is more horrible to her than death, and she’s just not the suicidal type.”
“How can you be so damned sure of everything?” the Czillian asked him. “If 7 were her, facing her kind of future, I’m sure I would kill myself.”
Ortega reached into his massive, U-shaped desk and pulled out a thick file. “The life history and profile of Mavra Chang,” he told the other. “Partly from Renard, partly from some hypno interviews we did in Lata that she’s not aware of, and partly from, ah, other sources I’m not ready to reveal now. Her whole life has been a succession of tragedies, but it’s also the story of a dramatic, continuing fight against hopeless odds. She is psychologically incapable of giving up! Look at that Teliagin business. Even not knowing where she was or what was what, she refused to abandon those people. Even as a freak she still insisted on going to Gedemondas, and she did. No, somehow she’ll cope. We’ll make it as easy as we can for her.” That last was said softly, with a gentleness Vardia would never have suspected of the Machiavellian snake-man and former human pirate.
“Look,” he said, trying to soften it, “maybe another Type 41 Entry will come in. Then we’ll be able to do something. There’s hope.”
The Czillian kept staring at the photograph. “You know the figures. One time there were lots of human Entries; what have we had in the last century? Two? And we lost track of both of those.”
“One’s dead, the other’s in a salt-water hex and is the wrong kind of pilot,” Ortega mumbled. The plant-creature hardly heard. Once it, too, had been a human female. That was why it was picked as the liaison with Ortega.
“I’d still kill myself,” Vardia said softly.
ABOARD A SHIP JUST OFF GLATHRIEL
They had taken her first south from Dillia through Kuansa to Shamozan, the land of great spiders. She had no fear of spiders, and found them charming and very human.
The ambassador was very kind, but he explained the situation to her in graphic detail, concluding, “The only thing we can do right now is make it as easy as possible. Understand, we have no choice.”
She started to say something, but a needle from someone behind pierced her skin, and things had blacked out.
They took her to a medical section with a strange machine. The ambassador explained it to Renard and Vistaru, who still accompanied her. Hosuru had gone to report and was home already.
“Basically, it reinforces the effect of a hypno,” he explained. “It doesn’t work on many races, but she’s still Type 41, although modified, and it’ll work on them and her. What it does is to do a more or less permanent burn-in of a basic hypno treatment, so it doesn’t wear off. We know it works, because we took data on her in Lata using a similar device and then blocked all memory, and it held.”
“But what will you tell her?” Vistaru worried. “You won’t change her, will you?”
“Only a little,” the ambassador replied. “Just enough to make her comfortable, adapt. We can’t do anything serious; the whole reason for this is that we must keep her on hand for the skills and qualities she possesses. I think she understands that.”
The process began.
“Mavra Chang,” said the device, preprogrammed carefully. “When you awake, you will find your memories and personality unchanged. However, while you will remember being human, you will be unable to imagine yourself that way. The way you are now will seem natural and normal to you. This form is how you are comfortable. You cannot conceive of being any other way, even though you know you once were, and you wouldn’t want to be any different than you are.”
The thing went on for a bit, feeding her various bits of information, methods, skills she would need in order to cope, and then it was over.
She had awakened a few hours later, and felt strangely better, more at ease. She tried to remember why she had felt different before, but it came hard. Something to do with being hi this form, she recalled.
She remembered being human. Remembered it, but in a curious, lopsided kind of way. It seemed like she’d always had four legs. She tried to imagine herself walking upright on two legs, or picking up things with hands, and she just couldn’t. It was just not right somehow. This was right.
Vaguely, in the back of her mind, she knew that they’d done something to her, something to create this situation, but it didn’t seem important, somehow, and she quickly forgot it.
But she remembered the stars. She knew she belonged there, not here, not in any planetbound existence anywhere. She would sit there, topside on the ship as it crossed the Gulf of Turagin, sometimes by sail, sometimes by steam, depending on the hex, head and forelegs propped up on some crates or a hatch cover, looking at the stars.
She chuckled to herself. They thought she wanted to go through the Well. Or maybe they thought she’d settle down and forget in this new existence. But the stars came out every night, and those she would never forget. It went beyond reason and logic; it was a love affair. A love affair now forcibly broken by circumstances, but not beyond repair while both lovers lived.
And now, as the sun came up, there was a shoreline out there. It looked green and pretty and warm; sea birds circled offshore, diving occasionally for fish and clams, then took their catch to rookeries in the hillsides overlooking the beach.
Renard came on deck, stretched and yawned, then went over to her.
“Not an unpleasant-looking place for an exile,” she said calmly.
He stooped down so his head was level with hers. “Very primitive. A tribal culture, not much else. They’re human-what we think of as human. But this wasn’t our ancestral home. They had a war with the Ambreza; the big beavers gassed them back into the Stone Age and swapped hexes, so it’s a nontech hex.”
“Suits me fine,” she replied. “Primitive means small population.” She looked straight at him, head to one side. “And soon your job will be done, and Vistaru’s too. They’ve built a compound for me to my requirements, with a fresh water spring and everything. Once a month a ship will drop off supplies in little plastic pouches I can open with my teeth holding them between my forelegs. There are hostiles and water all around except on the Ambreza side, and they’ll keep Zone Gates 136 and 41 secure. The primitives have been effectively tabooed from the compound. No risk to me, and no chance I’ll escape. You and Vistaru can go back through the Zone Gate, tell them all is well, and then try and find new lives or pick up old ones. I understand the Agitar are so pissed off at the war fizzling out that you’re some kind of hero.”
He was hurt. “Mavra-I-”
She cut him off. “Look, Renard!” she said sharply. “You don’t owe me anything and I don’t owe you anything. We’re even now! I don’t need you any more, and it’s about time you learned you don’t need me, either! Go home, Renard!” She was almost screaming now, and the look she gave him said it even more eloquently.
I’m Mavra Chang, it said. I was orphaned at five and again at thirteen. I was a beggar who became the queen of beggars, a whore when I had to be to buy the stars I craved, and I got them! I was a thief they couldn’t catch, the agent who snatched Nikki Zinder off New Pompeii and kept her and you alive until help could come. And against all odds, I reached Gedemondas and saw the destruction of the engines.
I’m Mavra Chang, and no matter what comes along, I will cope.
I’m Mavra Chang, bride only of the stars.
I’m Mavra Chang, and I don’t need anybody!
The Wars of the Well will be concluded in
Quest for The Well of Souls.