None of the group could have been more stunned than Nathan Brazil.
"Somehow I knew you'd wind up here," the creature continued. "Sooner or later just about every old-timer does."
"You know me?" Brazil asked incredulously.
The creature laughed. "Sure I do—and you know me, too, unless you've had one too many rejuves. I know, had the same problem myself when I dropped through the Well. Let's just say that people really change around here, and let it go at that. If you'll follow me, I'll make you more comfortable and give you some orientation." With that the creature uncoiled backward, then recoiled at a length about two meters back on the belt. "Step aboard," it invited.
They looked at Brazil. "I don't think we have much choice," he told them. Then, noticing Hain's pistol still drawn and pointed, he said to the fat man: "Put that popgun away until we find out the lay of the land. No use in getting popped yourself."
They stepped onto the belt, which started not when they boarded but only after the rail was given another slap by their alien host. For the first time they could hear noise—giant blowers, it sounded like, echoing throughout the great hall. The belt itself gave off its own steady electric hum.
"Do you—eat what we eat?" Hain called out to the creature.
The alien chuckled. "No, not anymore, but, don't worry, no cannibals around, either. At least, not Type Forty-ones like you. But I think we can round up some food—some real food, maybe the first in everybody's except Nate's whole life."
They rode around three belts until they came to a platform much larger than the others. Here the walls curved and twisted away from the Well. Brazil could see why the configuration hadn't been visible from afar.
Then they followed the snakeman—no mean trick, they found, with its enormous serpentine body—down a long corridor. They saw other corridors branching off, but they traveled over a thousand meters before they took one.
It led into a very large room set up something like a reception area. Comfortable, human-style chairs with plush cushions abounded, and a plastic wall covering was decorated with flowers. Here, such amenities seemed as incongruous as the alien would seem to their worlds. The creature had a sort of desk, semicircular in shape and seemingly form-fitted for him to coil comfortably behind. It held only a very ordinary-looking pen, a small pad of paper, and a seal—hexagonal of course—seemingly solid gold cast in clear plastic. The seal featured a snake coiled around a great cross, and it had a superscription around the edges in a script unfamiliar to any of them.
The snakeman lifted up a small part of his desk top to reveal an instrument panel underneath of unfamiliar design and purpose. A large red button was most prominent, and he pushed it.
"Had to reset the Well," he explained. "Otherwise we could get some nonoxygen breathers in and they'd be hung up in storage until somebody remembered to press the button. Let me also punch in a food order for you—you always were a steak-and-baked-potato man, Nate. So that's what it'll be." He punched some buttons in sequence on the console, then closed it. "Ten or fifteen minutes and the food will be here—and it'll be cooked right, too. Medium, wasn't it, Nate?"
"You seem to know me better than I do," Brazil replied. "It's been so long since I had a steak—maybe almost a century. I'd just about forgotten what one was. Where did you know me, anyway?"
A broad yet wistful smile crept across the creature's face. "Can you remember an old bum named Serge Ortega, Nate? Long ago?"
Brazil thought, then suddenly it came to him. "Yeah, sure, I remember him—but that was maybe a hundred years ago or so. A free-lancer—polite name for a pirate," he explained to the others. "A real rascal. Anything for a buck, was wanted almost everywhere—but a hell of a character. But you can't be him—he was a little guy, from Hispaniola, before they went Com and changed the place to Peace and Freedom."
"I'm sorry to hear that," the creature responded sadly. "That means my people are dead. Who was the mold? Brassario?"
"Brassario," Brazil confirmed. "But all this explains nothing!"
"Oh, but it does," the snakeman replied. "Because I am Serge Ortega, Nate. This world changed me into what you see."
"I don't see what's wrong with factory worlds," Vardia interjected. They ignored her.
Brazil looked bard at the creature. The voice, the eyes—they were dimly familiar, somehow. It did remind him of Ortega, sort of. The same crazy glint to the eyes, the same quick, sharp way of talking, the underlying attitude of amused arrogance that had gotten Ortega into more bar fights than any other man alive.
But it had been so long ago.
"Look here!" Hain put in. "Enough of old home week, Ortega or not Ortega. Sir, or whatever, I should very much like to know where we are, and why we are here, and when we shall be able to return to our own ship."
Ortega gave that evil smile. "Well, as to where you are—you're on the Well World. There's no other name for it, since that's exactly what it is. As to where it is—well, damned if I know. Nobody here has ever been able to leave it. I only know that the night sky is like nothing you ever saw before. I spaced almost two hundred years, and none of the extremely prominent features look familiar. At the very least we're on the other side of the galaxy, or maybe even in another galaxy. As to why you're here, well, you somehow bumbled into a Markovian Gate like me and maybe thousands of others did. And here you are, stuck just like the rest of us. You're here for good, mister. Better get used to it."
"See here!" Hain huffed. "I have power, influence—"
"Means nothing here," Ortega responded coldly.
"My mission!" Vardia protested. "I must perform my duties!"
"No duties, nothin' anymore but you and here," the snakeman said. "Understand this: you are on a world built by the Markovians—yes, I said built. The whole thing: lock, stock, and core. As far as we know, the whole damned thing is a Markovian brain in perfect working order, and preprogrammed."
"I figured we were inside Dalgonia," Brazil said. "It felt as if we fell down into something."
"No," replied Ortega, "that was no fall. The Markovians really had godlike powers. Matter transmission was a simple thing for them. Don't ask me how it works, but it does, because we got a local version here. I wouldn't understand it if somebody did explain it, anyway."
"But such a thing is impossible!" Hain objected. "It is against the laws of physics!"
Ortega's six limbs shrugged. "Who knows? At one time flying was impossible. Then it was impossible to leave a planet, then impossible to leave a solar system, then impossible for anything to go faster than light. The only thing that makes something impossible is ignorance. Here on the Well World the impossible's a fact of life."
At that moment the food arrived, brought in on a small cart that was obviously some sort of robot. It went up to each in turn, and offered a tray of hot food, which, when removed, revealed an identical tray beneath. Brazil removed the cover and just stared for a minute. Finally, he said, in a tone of absolute awe and reverence: "A real steak!" He hesitated a moment and looked over at Ortega. "It is real, isn't it?"
"Oh, yes," the snakeman assured him. "It's real enough. The potato and beans, too. Oh, not quite a cow, not quite a potato, and so forth, but so close you'll never be able to tell the difference. Go ahead, try it!"
Hain was already greedily tearing into his, while Vardia looked at the food, bewildered.
"What's the trouble?" Brazil managed between swallows. "Problems?"
"It's quite safe to eat," Ortega assured her. "There are no microorganisms that will give you any real problems here—not until you go out, anyway. The stuff's biologically compatible."
"No, no—it's—" she stammered. "Well, I have never seen food like it before. How do you . . . ?"
"Just watch me and follow my example," Brazil laughingly replied. "See? You cut it with a knife and fork like this, then—"
They dug into the meal, Vardia getting the hang of it, although she protested several times that she thought the food tasted terrible. But they were all too hungry to protest.
Ortega's eyes fell on Wu Julee, who just sat there staring at the food, not eating at all. "The girl—she is ill?" he asked them.
Brazil suddenly stopped eating and looked at Hain, who had already finished and was just letting out an extremely noisy belch. The captain's face had a grave expression on it, and the fine food suddenly felt like lead in his stomach.
"She's a spongie," Brazil said softly. Hain's eyebrows rose, but he said nothing.
Ortega's face, too, turned serious. "How far gone?" he asked.
"Fairly bad, I'd say," Brazil replied. "Deep mental maybe five years old, voluntary action basically emotive only." Suddenly he whirled in his chair and faced Hain, cold fury in his eyes. "How about it, Hain?" he snarled. "Would you agree?"
Hain's piggish face remained impassive, his tone of voice seemed almost one of relief. "So you found out. I thought perhaps I was overdoing the routine at that dinner."
"If we hadn't been trapped on Dalgonia, I'd have had you and her down on Arkadrian before you realized what was what," Brazil told him.
Hain's face showed both shock and surprise. Brazil's remarks had gotten to him. Then, suddenly, a thought occurred to him and the old, smug self-confidence returned.
"It would seem, then, that I have fallen not into a terrible situation, but into a most fortunate one by this—er, circumstance," he said calmly. "A pity for the lady, though," he added in mock sympathy.
"Why you son of a bitch!" Brazil snarled and leaped at the fat man's throat, spilling food everywhere. The big man was a head taller and twice the weight of the attacker, but Brazil's quickness and the sheer hatred in his soul flowed into his arms and hands as they tightened around the other's neck.
Hain thrashed and tried to push the smaller attacker away, but all he managed was to cause both of them to roll onto the floor, the small man still squeezing. Hain's mouth was open, face red, as he gasped for breath. The expression on Brazil's face was almost demonic; nothing would keep him from his goal.
Vardia watched openmouthed, understanding the situation only in the vaguest way and finding Brazil's actions, both recounted and current, incomprehensible. In her private universe, there were no people, only cells composing a whole body. A diseased cell was simply eliminated. So there was no place in her mind for one who caused such a disease.
Wu Julee watched the two grapple impassively, her meal still on her lap.
Suddenly Ortega bounded over his desk and grabbed Brazil with massive arms. The giant creature moved almost too fast for the eye to follow; Vardia was stunned at the speed and surety with which the creature acted.
Brazil fought to get free of the grip, and Ortega's middle arm suddenly came from nowhere and punched the small man hard in the jaw. He went slack, still held aloft in the creature's strong grip.
Freed of his attacker, Hain gasped and choked for air, finally rolling flat on his back and lying there, his huge stomach rising and falling. He felt his neck, where the imprint of Brazil's murderous hands could still be seen.
Ortega began examining the unconscious man. Satisfied that no bones were broken, nor permanent damage done, he grunted and put the man down on the floor. Brazil collapsed in a heap, and the snakeman turned his attention to Hain.
"I thank you, sir," Hain gasped, his hand going involuntarily to his throat. "You have surely saved my life."
"I didn't want to do it, nor would I have done so in normal times," Ortega snapped back acidly. "And if Nate ever catches up to you on the outside, I won't be there to save you—and, if I am, I'll cheerfully join him in tearing you limb from limb. But I will not allow such a thing here!" He turned his attention back to Brazil, who was just coming around.
Hain seemed taken aback by the creature's comments, then saw that his pulse pistol had fallen when they had tumbled and now was a foot or so from him on the floor. Slowly, his hand crept toward it.
"No!" Wu Julee suddenly screamed, but Hain already had the weapon, and was pointing it at both the snakeman and Brazil, who was sitting up, shaking his head and rubbing his jaw. Ortega's back was to Hain, but Brazil suddenly looked up and spotted the gun. Ortega saw him stare and turned to face the fat man.
"Now both of you behave and I won't do anything rash," Hain told them in that same cool, confident tone he always used. "But I am leaving this charming place right now."
"How?" asked Serge Ortega.
The question seemed to bother Hain, who was used to simple answers to simple questions. "The—the way we came in," he said at last.
"The doorway leads to a corridor. The corridor leads to the Well in one direction—and that is strictly one way," Ortega told him. "In the other direction are more rooms like this—seven hundred and eighty of them, in a honeycombed labyrinth. Beyond them are housing and recreation facilities for the types of creatures that use those offices—seven hundred and eighty different types of creatures, Hain. Some of them don't breathe what you do. Some of them won't like you a bit and may just kill you."
"There is a way out," Hain snarled, but there was desperation in his voice. "There must be. I'll find it."
"And then what?" Ortega asked calmly. "You're out in a world that is moderately large. The surface area is best expressed as five point one times ten to the eighth power kilometers squared. And you don't even know what the planet looks like, the languages, anything. You're a smart man, Hain. What are the odds?"
Hain seemed confused, hesitant. Suddenly he looked at the pistol in his hand and brightened. "This gives me the odds," he said firmly.
"Never play the odds until you know the rules of the game," Ortega warned softly, and advanced slowly toward him.
"I'll shoot!" Hain threatened, his voice an octave higher than usual.
"Go ahead," Ortega invited, his great serpentine body sliding slowly toward the panicked man.
"All right, dammit!" Hain cried, and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
Hain pulled the trigger again and again. It clicked, making contact with the solenoid firing pin, but did nothing else.
Ortega suddenly moved with that blinding speed, and the gun seemed to vanish from the fat man's hand.
"No weapon works in this room," Ortega said crisply. Hain sat, a stupefied expression on his face, mouth half open. Possibly for the first time in his life that arrogant self-confidence was gone out of him.
"You all right, Nate?" Ortega shot to the small man, who still sat half-rising, holding his sore jaw.
"Yeah, you son of a bitch," Brazil replied mushily, shaking his head to clear it. "Man! You sure as hell pack a wallop!"
Ortega chuckled. "I was the only man smaller than you once in a bar on Siprianos. I was full of booze and dope, and ready to take on the house, all of whom would have cheerfully slit my throat for the floor show. I just started to pick a fight with the bouncer when you grabbed me and knocked me cold. Took me ten weeks before I realized that you'd saved my neck."
Brazil's jaw dropped in wonder, and the pain hit him as he did so and he groaned. Still, he managed: "You are Serge Ortega!" in a tone of bewildered acceptance. "I had totally forgotten that. . . ."
Ortega smiled. "I said I was, Nate."
"But, oh, man, how you've changed," Brazil noted, amazed.
"I told you this world changes people, Nate," Ortega replied. "It'll change you, too. All of you."
"You wouldn't have stopped me from finishing the pig in the old days, Serge."
"I guess I wouldn't have," Ortega chuckled. "And I really wouldn't have now—except that this is Zone. And, if you'll sit over there, across the room from Hain," he said, pointing to a backless couch, and, turning to Hain, continued, "and if you will stop all your little, petty games and promise to sit quietly, I'll explain just what the situation is here—the rules and lack of them, and a few other things about your future."
Hain mumbled something unintelligible and went back over to his seat. Brazil, still nursing his sore jaw, silently got up and moved over to the couch. He sank down in the cushions, his head against the back wall, and groaned.
"Still dizzy," he complained. "And I'm getting a hell of a headache."
Ortega smiled and moved back behind his desk.
"You've had worse and you know it," the snakeman reminded the captain. "But, first things first. Want some more food? You spoiled yours."
"You know damned well I won't eat for days," Brazil groaned. "Damn! Why didn't you let me get him?"
"Two reasons, really. First, this is—well, a diplomatic legation, you might say. A murder by one Entry of another would be impossible to explain to my government no matter what. But, more than that, she's not lost, Nate, and that makes your motive even flimsier."
Brazil forgot his aches and pains. "What did you say?"
"I said she's not lost, Nate, and that's right. Just as this detour deprived Hain of justice, it also saved her. Arkadrian was no solution, really. Obviously you felt she was worth saving when you decided to detour—but, just here, she's little more than a vegetable. Obviously Hain was decreasing the dosage as she became more and more accustomed to the pain. He was letting her rot out—but slowly enough to make the trip without problems. May I ask why, Hain?"
"She was from one of the Comworlds. Lived in the usual beehive and helped work on a big People's Farm. I mean the dirt jobs—shoveling shit and the like, as well as painting the buildings, mending fences, and suchlike. IQ genetically manipulated to be low—she's a basic worker, a manual laborer, basically mentally retarded and capable of carrying out simple commands—one at a time—but not of much in the way of original thought and action. She wasn't even good at that work, and they used her as a Party whore. Failed at that, too."
"That is a slander of the Com people!" Vardia protested vehemently. "Each citizen is here to do a particular task that needs doing, and is created for that task. Without people such as she as well as ones like me the whole society would fall apart."
"Would you change jobs with her?" Brazil asked sarcastically.
"Oh, of course not," Vardia responded, oblivious to the tone. "I'm glad I'm not anything but what I am. I would be happy at nothing else. Even so, such citizens are essential to the social fabric."
"And you say my people have gone that route," Ortega said sadly, almost to himself. "But—I would think the really basic menial stuff would be automated. A lot of it was in my time."
"Oh, no," Vardia protested. "Man's future is with the soil and with nature. Automation produces social decay and only that necessary to the maintenance of equality can be permitted."
"I see," Ortega responded dryly. He was silent for a while, then he turned back to Hain. "But how did you wind up with the girl? And why hook her on sponge?"
"Occasionally we need a—a sample, as it were. An example, really. We almost always use such people—Comworld folk who will not be missed, who are never much more than vegetables anyway. We control most of them, of course. But it's rather tough to get the stuff into their food, or even to get an audience with members of a Presidium, but, once you've done it, you control the entire world—a world of people programmed to be happy at whatever they're doing and conditioned from birth to blind obedience to the Party. Control the queen and you control all the bees in the hive. I had an audience with a Presidium Member on Coriolanus—took three years of hard work to wangle it, I'll assure you. There are hundreds of ways to infect someone once you're face-to-face. By that point, poor Wu Julee would have been in the animalistic state from progressively smaller doses. She would be the threat to show the distinguished Member what my—er, client, would become if not treated."
"Such a thing would not work on my world," Vardia stated proudly. "A Presidium Member so infected would simply have you, her, and the Member all at a Death Factory."
Hain laughed. "You people never cease to amaze me," he chuckled. "You really think your Presidium members are like you? They're descendants of the early Party that spread out in past, mostly lost, history. They proclaimed equality and said they dreamed of a future Utopia when there would be no government, nothing. What they really wouldn't even admit to themselves was that they loved power—they never worked in the fields, they never worked at all, except giving orders and trying out plans and novel experiences. And they loved it! And their children's children's children still love it. A planetload of happy, contented, docile slaves that will do anything commanded of them. And when that pain starts, less than an hour after infection, they will do anything to keep alive. Anything."
"Still mighty risky for you, isn't it?" Ortega pointed out. "What if you're knocked off by an egomaniac despite all?"
Hain shrugged. "There are risks in anything. We lose most of our people as they work themselves up. But all of us are misfits, losers, or people who started at the bottom of society on the worst of worlds. We weren't born to power—we work for it, take risks for it, earn it. And—the survivors get the spoils."
Ortega nodded grimly. "How many—easy, Nate, or I'll clout you again!—how many worlds do you control now?"
Hain shrugged again. "Who knows? I'm not on the Council. Over ten percent—thirty, thirty-five, maybe—and growing. And two new colonies are made for every one we win, so it's an ever-expanding empire. It'll be that someday—an empire." His eyes took on a faraway look, a maniacal glow. "A great empire. Perhaps, eventually, the entire galaxy."
"Ruled by scum," Brazil said sourly.
"By the strongest!" Hain responded. "The cleverest, the survivors! The people who deserve it!"
"I hesitate to let such evil into this world," Ortega said, "but we have had as bad and worse here. This world will test you fully, Hain. I think it will ultimately kill you, but that is up to you. Here is where you start. But there's no sponge here, or other addictives. Even if there were, you'd have fifteen hundred and sixty different species to try it on, and some of them are so alien you won't even understand what they are, why they do what they do, or whether they do anything. Some will be almost like those back home. But this place is a madhouse, Hain. It's a world created by madness, I think, and it will kill you. We'll see."
They were silent for a while, Ortega's speech having as unsettling an effect on Brazil and Vardia as on Hain. Suddenly, Brazil broke the silence.
"You said she wasn't lost, Serge. Why not?"
"It has to do with this world and what it does to people," the snakeman replied. "I will brief you later. But—not only do you change here, but you also get back what you've lost. You'll return to perfect health, Nate, even get back that memory of yours. You'll even remember things you don't want to remember. And, you'll be prepared—programmed if you like—for whatever and wherever you are. Not in the Comworld sense—what you need. This gives you a new start, Nate—but there's no rejuve here. This is a one-shot deal, people—a fresh start.
"But you will die here, sooner or later, the span depending on what you are."
They slept on cots provided by Ortega. All were dead tired, and Brazil was also still smarting from the knockout punch given him by the great creature that seemed to be the reincarnation of his past friend. Hain slept separately from the rest, under lock and key, in an office the location of which was not told to the fiery little captain.
Ortega woke them all up the next morning. They assumed it was morning, although they hadn't actually been outside and, in fact, had no idea what the outside looked like on this strange yet somehow familiar world. An old-style breakfast of what appeared to be normal hen's eggs, scrambled, sausage, toast, and coffee awaited them, served by the same little cart that had brought the previous night's supper. Brazil noted that the mess from flying food had been carefully cleaned away.
Vardia, of course, had trouble with the breakfast.
Wu Julee seemed no worse than the night before, and in no more pain, if, indeed, she was in pain at all. With a lot of coaxing from Brazil she managed to eat some of the breakfast.
After they had finished and had returned the trays to the little cart, which hummed away on small tires with no apparent guidance, Serge Ortega pressed another button on his little hidden console, causing a screen to drop down at his right.
"Time, unfortunately, is limited here—both for you and, because I have a great many other duties, for me as well. When I got dropped into Zone long ago, I had only a brief orientation before I was thrown out on my ass. I wanted to give you a little bit more, to make it a little easier on you than it was for me."
"Just how long ago did you drop here, Citizen Ortega?" Vardia asked.
"Well, hard to say. Well over seventy standard years—they still use the same years, don't they, Nate?" Brazil nodded affirmatively, and Ortega continued.
"It was during a low-colonist period, and I was gunrunning to a placer strike on some asteroids out beyond Sirius. I dumped them fine, avoided all the cops, but ran into some damned conduit out in the middle of deep space, before I could go FTL or anything. I'm told that most—maybe a majority—of the gates are on planets, and maybe this was one, too, at one time. Maybe all those asteroids were once a Markovian planet that broke up for some reason."
"How long has this place—this planet—been here, Serge?" Brazil asked.
"Nobody knows. Longer than people were people, Nate. A coupl'a million years, it appears. Since the oldest folk in the planet's oldest race are only four hundred—and they're at death's door—the ancient history of the place is as shrouded in mystery and mythology as our own. You see, all this involves the Markovians—any of you know about them?"
"Nobody knows much," Brazil replied. "Some sort of super race that ran its planets from brains beneath the surface and died out suddenly."
"That's about it," Ortega acknowledged. "They flourished, scientists here think, between two and five million years ago. And they were galaxy-wide, Nate! Maybe even more. Hard to say, but we have a lot of folk dropping through whose knowledge of the universe doesn't match anything we humans know. And that's the weirdest thing—a hell of a lot of them are close to human."
"In what way do you mean that, Serge?" Brazil asked. "Us-human or you-human?"
Ortega laughed. "Both. Humanoid would perhaps be a better term. Well, first let me show you what you're in for, and I'll add the rest as I go along."
The snakeman dimmed the lights, and a map showing two hemispheres flicked on the screen. It looked like a standard planetary map, but the two circles were filled with hexagons from pole to pole.
"The Markovians," Ortega began, "who were nutty over the number six, built this world. We don't know why or how, but we do know what. Each of their worlds had at least one gate of the kind that transported you here. You are now at the South Polar Zone, which doesn't show accurately here for obvious reasons. All carbon-based life comes here, and all of the hexes north of us to that thick equatorial line are carbon-based or could live in a carbon-based environment. The Mechs of Hex Three Sixty-seven, for example, aren't carbon-based, but you could live in their hex."
"So the North Polar Zone takes care of the biologically exotic, then?" Hain asked.
Ortega nodded. "Yes, there are the true aliens, beings with which we have literally nothing in common. Their hexes run down to the equator on the north hemisphere."
"Is that black band at the equator just a map dividing line or is it something else?" Vardia asked curiously.
"No, that's not just on the map," Ortega told her, "and you were sharp to notice it. It is—well, the best I can describe it is that it's a sheer wall, opaque and several kilometers high. You can't really see it until you're at it, outside the border of the last hex by a hair. You can't get past it, and you can't fly over it or anything. It's just, well, there. We have some theories about it, of course, the best one being that it's the exposed part of the Markovian brain that is, it seems, of the entire core of this planet. The old name for it seems to be the Well of Souls—so it probably is just that. There's an old adage around here: 'Until midnight at the Well of Souls,' which you'll probably hear. It's just an old ritual saying now, although it may have had some real meaning in the distant past of prehistory. Hell, if that's the Well of Souls, then it's always midnight somewhere!"
"What do the hexagons represent?" Hain asked.
"Well, there are fifteen hundred and sixty of them on the planet," Ortega replied. "Nobody knows the reason for that, either, but at least the figure only has one six in it. Each hex is identical in size—each one of the six sides is just a shade under three hundred fifty-five kilometers, and they're a shade under six hundred fifteen kilometers across. Needless to say they didn't use our form of measurements when they built the place, and we don't know what system they had, but that'll give you an idea in our terms."
"But what's in the hexes?" Brazil prodded.
"Well, you could call them nations with borders," Ortega replied, "but that would be understating things. Each is a self-contained biosphere for a particular life form—and for associated lower life forms. They are all maintained by the Markovian brain, and each is also maintained at a given technological level. The social level is left to whatever the inhabitants can develop or want to have, so you have everything from monarchies to dictatorships to anarchies out there."
"What do you mean technological level?" Brazil asked him. "Do you mean that there are places where there are machines and places where there are not?"
"Well, yes, that, of course," Ortega affirmed. "But, well, you can only get to the level of technology your resources allow within the hex. Anything beyond it just won't work, like Hain's pistol yesterday."
"It seems to me that you would have been populated to death here," Brazil commented. "After all, I assume all creatures reproduce here—and then the Markovian brains keep shuttling people here as well."
"That just doesn't happen," Ortega replied. "For one thing, as I said, people can die here—and do. Some hexes have very cheap life, some species live a comparatively short time. Reproductive rates are in accordance with this death rate. If populations seem to be rising too high, and natural factors—like catastrophes, which can happen here, or wars, which also can happen, although they are not terribly common and usually localized—don't reduce the numbers, well, most of the next batch is simply born sexually normal in every way yet sterile, with just a very small number able to keep the breed going. When attrition takes its toll, the species goes back to being born fertile. Actually the population's pretty stable in each hex—from a low of about twenty thousand to a high of over a million.
"As for Entries like you—well, the Markovians were extensive, as I said, but many of their old brains are dead and some of the gateways are closed forever for one reason or another. Others are so well disguised that a one-in-a-trillion blunder like mine is needed to find the entrance. We get no more than a hundred or so newcomers a year, all told. We have a trip alarm when the Well is activated and some of us take turns on a daily basis answering the alarms. Sheer luck I ran into you, but I take a lot of turns. Some of the folks here don't really like newcomers and don't treat them right, so I take their duty and they owe me."
"There are representatives of all the Southern Hemisphere races here, then?" Vardia asked.
The snakeman nodded. "Most of them. Zone's really a sort of embassy station. Distances are huge, travel is long here, and so here at Zone representatives of all of us can meet and talk over mutual problems. The Gate—which we'll get to presently—will zip me back home in an instant, although, curse it, it won't zip anybody back and forth except from here to his own hex. Oh, yes, there's a special chamber for Northerners here and one for us up at the North Zone just in case we have to talk—which is seldom. They occasionally have something we are short of, or our scientists and theirs want to compare notes, or some-such. But they are so different from us that that's rare."
Brazil wore a strangely fixed expression as he said, "Serge, you've spelled out the world as much as you can, but you've omitted one fact I think I can guess—how did a little Latin shrimp like you become a six-armed walrus-snake."
Ortega's expression was one of resignation. "I thought it would be obvious. When you go out the Gate the first time, the brain will decide which hex could stand a person or four and that's what you will become. You will, of course, also wind up in the proper hex."
"And then what?" Hain asked nervously.
"Well, there's a period of adjustment, of course. I went through the Gate the way Nate remembers me, and came out in the land of the Uliks looking like this. It took me a little while to get used to things, and longer for everything to sort itself out in my head, but, well, the change also produces an adjustment. I found I knew the language, at least all the analogues to my old one, and began to feel more and more comfortable in my new physical role. I became a Ulik, Nate, while still being me. Now I can hardly remember what it was like to be anything else, really. Oh, academically, sure—my mind was never clearer. But you are the aliens now."
There was a long silence as they digested the information. Finally, Brazil broke it and asked, "But, Serge, if there are seven hundred and eighty life forms with compatible biospheres, why hasn't there been a cosmopolitanism here in the South? I mean, why is everybody stuck in his own little area?"
"Oh, there is some mingling," Ortega replied. "Some hexes have been combined, some not. Mostly, though, people stick to their own areas because each one is different. Besides, people have never liked other people who were different. Humanity—ours and everybody else's, apparently—has always found even slight pretexts to hate other groups. Color, language, funny-shaped noses, religion, or anything else. Many wars were fought here at various times, and wholesale slaughter took place. Such things are rare now—everybody loses. So, mostly, everybody sticks to his own hex and minds his own business. Besides, there's the factor of commonality, too. Could you really be good buddies with a three-meter-tall hairy spider that ate live flesh, even if it also played chess and loved orchestral music? And—could a society based on high technology succeed in capturing and subjugating a hex where none of its technology worked? A balance is kind of maintained that way—technological hexes trade for needed things like food with nontechnological farm hexes where society is anarchistic and only swords will work."
Vardia looked up, eyes bright, at the mention of swords. She still had hers.
"And, of course, in some hexes there are some pretty good sorcerers—and their spells work!" Ortega warned.
"Oh, come on," Hain said disgustedly. "I am willing to believe in a lot—but magic? Nonsense!"
"All magic means is a line between knowledge and ignorance," Ortega responded. "A magician is someone who can do something you don't know how to do. All technology, for example, is magic to a primitive. Just remember, this is an old world, and its people are different from anything in your experience. If you make the mistake—any of you!—of applying your own standards, your own rules, your own prejudices to any of it, it will get you."
"Can you brief me on the general political situation, Serge?" Brazil requested. "I'd like to know a lot more before going out there."
"Nate, I couldn't do it in a million years. Like any planet with a huge number of countries and social systems, everything's in a constant state of flux. Conditions change, and so do rulers. You'll have to learn things as you go along. I can only caution that there is a lot of petty warfare and a lot of big stuff that would break out if one side could figure out a way to do it. One general a thousand years or so ago took over sixty hexes. But he was undone in the end by the necessity for long supply lines and by his inability to conquer several incompatible hexes in his backfield that eventually were able to slice him up. The lesson's been well learned. Things are done more by crook than hook here now."
Hain's eyes brightened. "My game!" he whispered.
"And now," Ortega concluded, "you must go. I cannot keep you here more than a day and justify the delay to my government. You cannot put off leaving indefinitely in any case."
"But there are many more questions that must be answered!" Vardia protested. "Climate, seasons, thousands of needed details!"
"As for the climate, it varies from hex to hex but has no relationship to geographical position," Ortega told her. "The climate is maintained in each case by the brain. Daylight is exactly fifty percent of each full day anywhere on the globe. Days are within a few hours of standard, so that's fourteen and an eighth standard hours of day and the same of night. The axis is straight up—no tilt at all. But it will vary artificially. But—see! I could go on forever and you'd never know enough. It is time!"
"And suppose I refuse?" Vardia challenged, raising her sword.
With that same lightning-quick movement that had marked the previous day's fight, Ortega's snake body uncoiled like a tightly wound spring, snatched the sword, and was back behind the desk in less than half a second. He looked at her sadly. "You have no choice at all," he said quietly. "Will you all now come with me?"
They followed the Ulik ambassador reluctantly but resigned. He led them again down that great, winding corridor through which they had entered the day before, and it seemed to them all that their walk would never end.
Finally, after what was about half an hour, they found that the corridor opened into a large room.
Three sides were bare, plastic-like walls similar to those in Ortega's office but without any pattern. The fourth looked like a wall of absolute black.
"That's the Gate," Ortega told them, gesturing to the black wall. "We use it to go back and forth between our own hexes and Zone, and you will use it to be assigned. Please don't be afraid. The Gate will not alter your personality; and, after the adjustment period, you will find that you are even better, mentally, than you were. For the little girl, here, passage through will mean the restoration of normality, cure of the addiction, and a correction of whatever imbalances they used to limit her IQ and abilities. Of course, she may still be a rather dull farm worker, but in no event will she be worse off than she was before she was addicted."
None of them rushed into the Gate.
Finally, Ortega prodded them. "The doorway behind you is closed. No one, not even I, may reenter Zone until he first goes to a hex. That's the way the system works."
"I'll go first," Brazil said suddenly, and he took a step toward the Gate. He felt a great hand on his shoulder that stopped him.
"No, Nate, not now," Ortega almost whispered to him. "Last." Brazil was puzzled, but realized the intent. The ambassador had something else to say to him without the others hearing. Brazil nodded and turned to Hain.
"How about you, Hain? Or should I go at you again? We're not in the embassy now."
"You caught me by surprise that time, Captain," Hain replied with the old sneer. "But if you stop and think, you'll know I could break you in pieces. Ambassador Ortega saved your life back there, not mine. Yet, I will go. My future is out there." And, with that, Hain strode confidently to the blackness and, without hesitation, stepped into it.
The darkness seemed to swallow him up the moment he entered. There was no other visible effect.
Vardia and Wu Julee each stood solidly, not moving from their places near the entrance.
Ortega turned and took Wu Julee's left arm with one of his, urging her on across the room to the dark wall. She didn't seem to protest until she was very near the darkness. Then, suddenly, she stopped and screamed, "No! No!" Her face turned and looked pleadingly at Brazil.
"Go ahead," he urged her gently, but she broke free of Ortega's gentle grip and ran to the captain.
Brazil looked into her eyes with a gentle pity that was almost tearing him apart inside.
"You must go," he told her. "You must go. I will find you."
Still she didn't budge, but tightened her grip on him. Suddenly she was yanked from him with such force and speed that the movement knocked Brazil to the ground. Ortega pulled her away and tossed her into the blackness in one quick motion.
She screamed, but the scream stopped as the blackness absorbed her, so abrupt that it was like a recording suddenly stopped in midsound.
"This business is a bitch sometimes," Ortega remarked glumly. He turned and looked at Brazil, who was picking himself up off the floor. "You all right?"
"Yeah," Brazil replied, then looked into the creature's sad eyes. "I understand, Serge," he said softly. Then, as if to break the mood, his tone took on that of mock anger: "But if you're going to keep beating the hell out of me I'm leaving here no matter what!"
His tone almost broke through the snakeman's melancholy, and Ortega managed a chuckle. He put his right upper arm out and clasped Brazil to him, and there were tears in his eyes. "God!" the snakeman exclaimed. "How can the greatness in people be so unloved?"
Suddenly he relaxed and turned his gaze to Vardia, who had remained motionless throughout the whole episode.
Brazil guessed what must be going through her mind now. Raised by an all-embracing state, trained and bred to a particular function, she was simply not programmed for such a disruption of her orderly, planned life. Every day for her had always been a certainty, and she was secure in the knowledge of that sameness and content with the belief that she was performing a useful task.
Now she was, for the first time, on her own.
Brazil thought for a moment, then hit upon what he hoped was a solution.
"Vardia," he said in his best command voice, "we set out to do a job when we landed on Dalgonia. That trail has led us here to this spot. Now it leads through there. There are seven bodies back on Dalgonia, Vardia. Seven, including at least one of your own people. There is still a duty for you to perform."
She was breathing hard, the only sign of inner mental torment. Finally, she turned and faced the other two, then ran at the blackness of the Gate.
And was gone.
Brazil and Ortega were alone in the room.
"What was that about seven bodies, Nate?" the snakeman asked.
Brazil recounted the story of the mysterious distress signal, the mass murder on Dalgonia, and the signs of the two who had vanished as they had.
Ortega's expression was extremely grave. "I wish I had known of this ten weeks ago when those two came through here. It would have changed things a great deal in Council."
Brazil's eyebrows rose. "You know them, then?"
Ortega nodded. "Yes, I know them. I didn't do the processing, but I watched the recordings of their arrival over and over. There was a great deal of debate about them before they went through the Gate."
"Who were they? What was their story?"
"Well, they came through together, and one of them was still trying to kill the other on the Well itself when Gre'aton—be's a Type Six Twenty-two, looks kind of like a giant locust—put a stop to it. A few of the more human-looking boys took over, splitting them up so they didn't see each other again.
"Each of them told a fantastic story, about how he and he alone had discovered some sort of mathematical relationship used by the Markovian brains. Each claimed that everything in the universe was a series of preset mathematical relationships determined by a master Markovian brain. When they were given the standard briefing, both became terribly excited, each convinced that the Well World was the master brain and that they could somehow communicate with it, maybe even run it. Each claimed the other had stolen his discovery, tried to kill the other, and was here to establish himself as god. Of course, each claimed that he was trying to stop the other from doing so."
"Did you believe them?"
"They were mighty convincing. We used some of the standard lie-detection stuff and tried some telepathy using one of the North boys, and the results were always the same."
"And?" Brazil prompted.
"As far as we were able to determine—and we don't have the methods for a really scientific study—they were both telling the truth."
"Whew. You mean they're psychos through and through?"
Ortega was solemn. "No, each truly believes he discovered what the code was, and each truly believes the other stole it, and each truly believes that he'd be good for godhead and the other would be horrible."
"Do you really believe that godhead stuff?" Brazil asked.
Ortega turned all six arms into a giant shrug. "Who knows? A number of folk here have similar ideas, but no one's ever been able to do anything about them. We called a Council—a full Council, with over twelve hundred ambassadors participating. All were given the facts. Everything was debated.
"The idea explains a lot, of course. All magic, for example. But it is so esoteric. And, as it was pointed out by some of our mathematically minded folk, even if true it probably didn't mean anything, since no one could change the brain anyway. In the end, even though a large number of members voted to kill them, the majority voted to let them through."
"How did you vote, Serge?" Brazil asked.
"I voted to kill them, Nate. They are both maniacs, and both are possessed of genius. Each believed he could do what he set out to do, and both seemed to believe that it was destiny that, so soon after the discovery, they were brought here."
"More to the point, do you believe it, Serge?"
"I do," the giant replied gravely. "Right now I think those two are the most dangerous beings in the entire universe. And—more to the point—I think that one of them, I can't tell which, has a chance of succeeding."
"What are their names, Serge, and their backgrounds?"
Ortega's eyes brightened. "So God in His infinite wisdom allows mercy after all! You do want to get them, and God has sent you to us for that purpose!"
Brazil thought for a moment. "Serge, ever hear of a Markovian brain actually, literally, trapping people by sending out false signals or the like?"
Ortega thought for a moment. "No," he replied, "as far as I know it's always accident or blunder. That's why so few come. Now do you see what I mean about God sending you to me?"
"Somebody sure did, anyway," Brazil acknowledged dryly. "I wish I could see those films and learn a lot about them before I tried to find two invisible needles in a planet-sized haystack."
"You can," Ortega assured him. "I have all the material back in my office."
Brazil's mouth was agape. "But you told us there was no way back!"
Ortega shrugged monstrously again. "I lied," he said.
Several hours later Brazil learned as much as he was going to from the recordings, testimony, and arguments of the Council committees.
"So can you give me any leads on this Skander and Varnett? Where are they now? And what?"
"Newcomers are pretty conspicuous around here, since there are so few of them and they are so obvious," Ortega replied. "And, yet, I can give you nothing on either. The planet seems to have swallowed them up."
"Isn't that unusual?" Brazil asked. "Or, worse, suspicious?"
"I see what you mean. The whole planet saw what you saw and heard what you heard. They could have some natural allies."
"Yeah, that's what I'm most concerned about," Brazil said bluntly. "The odds are that there's a monstrous race going on here, and that this place is the soul of reason compared to what everything we know would become if the wrong side was to win."
"They could both be dead," Ortega suggested hopefully.
Brazil shook his head in a violent negative. "Uh-uh. Not these boys. They're clever and they're nasty. Skander's almost the archetypal mad scientist, and Varnett's even worse—a renegade, high-class Com. At least one of them will make it, and he'll have some way to dump his allies afterward."
"You'll have the help of all the hexes who voted to kill them," Ortega pointed out.
"Sure, Serge, and I'll use that when I have to. But this is really a lone-wolf operation and you know it. That Council was politically very slick. They could count. Even a hex voting to kill them knew they wouldn't be killed—so what was the use of their vote? Getting there might take help—but once there, every friend I have on this world will seek godhead, and never mind that I don't know how to talk to the brain. No, Serge, I have to kill both of them, absolutely, irrevocably, and as quickly as possible."
"Getting where might take help?" Ortega asked, puzzled.
"To the Well of Souls, of course," Brazil replied evenly. "And before midnight."
Now it was Ortega's turn to look stunned. "But that's just an old saying, like I said before—"
"It's the answer, Serge," Brazil asserted strongly. "It's just that nobody has been able to decipher the code and make use of it."
"There is no answer to that. It makes no real sense!"
"Sure it does!" Brazil told him. "It's the answer to a monstrous question, and the key to the most monstrous of threats. I saw Skander's and Varnett's eyes light up when they first heard the phrase, Serge. They seized on it!"
"But what's the question?" Ortega asked bewilderedly.
"That's what I don't know yet," Brazil replied, pointing his finger at the Ulik animatedly. "But they thought it was the answer, and they both think they can figure it out. If they can, I can.
"Look, Serge, why was this world built? No, not the brain; we'll accept that as bringing some sort of stability to the universe. In fact, if they're right, we're all just figments of some dead Markovian's imagination. No, why all this? The Well, the hexes, the civilizations? If I can answer that, I can answer the bigger question! And I'll find out!" Brazil exclaimed excitedly, half-rising from his chair.
"How can you be so sure?" Ortega responded dubiously.
"Because someone—or something—wants me to!" Brazil continued in the same excited tone. "That's why I was lured here! That's why I'm here at all, Serge! That's what makes even the timing! Even now they've got a ten-week start! You, yourself, said as much back at the Gate!"
Ortega shook his head glumly. "That was just my old Latin soul coming forth, Nate. I've been consorting with Jesuits again—yes, we have several here, from the old missionary days, came in a single ship and are out trying to convert the heathen. But, be reasonable, man! You never would have found Dalgonia were it not for the detour. You wouldn't have detoured except for Wu Julee's presence on your ship, and that could hardly have been planned, let alone your act of mercy."
"I think it was planned, Serge," Brazil said evenly. "I think I've been conned all along. I don't know how, or by whom, or for what purpose, but I've been had!"
"I don't see how," Ortega responded, "but, even if so, how will you ever know?"
"I'll know," Brazil said in a tone that was both firm and somewhat frightening. "I'll know at midnight at the Well of Souls."
They stood once again at the Gate, this time for the last time.
"It's agreed, then," Ortega said to him. "As soon as you pass through and get oriented, you announce yourself to the local ruler. All of them will have been notified of your coming through, with instructions to render any assistance. But at least one of them is sure to be in league with your enemies, Nate! Are you sure? What if you are swallowed up?"
"I won't be, Serge," Brazil replied calmly. "Chess-players don't sacrifice their queens early in the game."
Ortega gave one last massive shrug. "Believe what you wish—but, be careful, my old friend. If they get you, I shall avenge your death."
Brazil smiled, then looked at the Gate. "Is it best to run at it, walk into it, or what?" he asked.
"Doesn't matter," Ortega told him. "You'll wake up as if coming out of a long sleep, anyway. May you wake up a Ulik!"
Brazil smiled, but kept his thoughts on being a seven-meter, six-armed walrus-snake to himself. He walked over to the gate, then turned for one last look at his transformed old friend.
"I hope I wake up at all, Serge," he said quietly.
"Go with God, you ancient heathen," Ortega said.
"I'll be damned," Brazil muttered, half to himself. "After all these years I might wake up a Gentile." And, with that, he stepped through the Gate.
And in the darkness he dreamed.
He was on a giant chessboard, that stretched off in all directions. Seven pawns were down on his side—the white side. They looked like scorched and frozen bodies, lying on blackened cots.
Through the mostly faceless field of black pieces, he could see Skander and Varnett, queen and king.
Skander was a queen in royal robes, with a scepter in hand. The queen looked around, but could not spot the king. There was Wu Julee, a pawn, out front, and Vardia, a knight with bright sword flashing.
Ortega, a bishop, glided by quickly, and was struck by a black rook with the face of Datham Hain.
The queen glided quickly, trying not to trip over her long skirts, toward Hain, the scepter ready to strike that ugly, pig face, when suddenly Ortega reappeared and pushed him away.
"The black royal family has escaped, Your Highness!" Ortega's voice shouted. "They are heading for the Well of Souls!"
The queen looked around, but there was no trace of the enemy's major pieces. Anywhere.
"But where is the Well of Souls?" screamed the queen. "I cannot get to the king without knowing!"
A sudden burst of overwhelming, cosmic laughter came from beyond the board. It was giant, hollow, and all embracing. A giant hand gripped the queen and moved it far away to the other side of the board. "Here they are!" the great voice said mockingly.
The queen looked around and screamed in terror. The king with Skander's face was but one square right, and the queen with Varnett's face was one square up.
"Our move!" they both said, and laughed maniacally.
Brazil awoke.
He got quickly to his feet. Odd, he thought curiously. I'm more wide awake, feeling better, head dearer than I can ever remember.
Quickly he examined his body to see what he was. With a shock he looked up around him, to the shores of a nearby lake. There were animals there, and others of his kind.
"Well I'll be damned!" he said aloud. "Of course! That had to be the answer to the first question! I should have figured it out in Serge's office!"
Sometimes the obvious needed to be belabored.
Considering how primitive the place was, Brazil worriedly set out to see if he could find the Zone Gate.