The Return of Nathan Brazil

“It’s true,” Obie assured her.

“But—how will anyone know me from the others?”

“No one left on the planet has a tail or any memory that anybody on Olympus save you ever had a tail,” Obie told her. “Your tail is your sign of godhood.”

Marquoz gave a low chuckle. “It seems our little liberated chick is taking all too well to a wider Universe than she was born to,” he muttered. Gypsy chuckled.

“Please, now, everyone come into the old lab,” Obie invited. “I have some things that must be done and some things that must be said. Watch yourselves as you round the small corner to the doorway; the main shaft is very hot.”

It was. It was like an oven; those who could sweat were soaked in just the time necessary to cross the few meters from the control-room door to the lab entrance.

The old lab felt almost frigid after the steambath, and they all stood gasping for a few moments.

Mavra, coughing, looked around and noted a number of rifle-carrying crewmen lining the walk. She grew apprehensive; Obie had been acting strangely since the problem in space-time began and she didn’t like the look of this development at all. She began to fear that the effect of the rip in space had somehow unhinged him.

“Please move down to the lower level,” Obie ordered. They complied, all eyeing the armed guards and wondering what the hell was going on. Soon they were facing the dais on the lower level. They could see the little dish, the original Zinder creation that had started everything so many centuries before.

“Please pardon the strong-arm stuff,” Obie said, “but I expect some resistance to what must be done and, as I expect to die today, I want no one able to change things.”

“Obie! No!” Mavra screamed.

“I must, Mavra,” he replied, almost pleading. “I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to die, Mavra. Nobody does. But… I must, I think. I… I don’t know. Maybe I won’t. We’ll see. But I have to act as if I will.”

Nathan Brazil didn’t seem very upset by Obie’s statements. “Why all the histrionics, Obie? I’m not going to do it and you know it—and you know you can’t force me to.”

“You speak with your heart, Brazil,” the computer responded, “for which I envy you. I, too, have a heart in the poetic sense, but I am cursed by my realization as an enormous machine. Machines are designed to think logically, to cut through all the crap at impossible speed and with all the information needed. We machines can’t ignore the facts or the logic. It’s always there, always right at your metaphorical fingertips. I can do quintillions of different calculations at the same time. I have no subconscious mind—just an infinitely large conscious one. I can be sad, I can be happy, I can mourn the death of my poor sister, I can fear for my own self, I can feel love and hate and pity. But I can’t use my emotions to run from the truth as the rest of you can. You all cope because of your ability to shuffle things in your brain, reinterpret them through your emotions—be a bit psychotic, if you will. I cannot. I was not designed to do it, much as I envy the trait. I am always perfectly sane. That is my curse. That is the factor that makes my thing different—not just faster—than yours.”

They said nothing; it was clear that none knew where Obie was headed.

“I say that Nathan Brazil must reenter the Well of Souls,” Obie continued. “He must disconnect the Well from the power source. This will undo the last, say… roughly the last ten billion years, at once. All that we know will cease to exist. Then Brazil must repair what is broken and allow the Well to repair itself, too. He must do this because, if he does it right now, or in the immediate future, he will most assuredly be able to use the Well World to recreate the Universe. It will start back at square one, of course, for the Markovian races and for the forces of evolution that produce new forms in response to their preset natural laws. If he waits, as he now wishes to, Brazil risks a twenty-one percent chance that the Well will short out within the next few decades. That means a seventy-nine percent chance that it won’t, which is what he clings to. I submit that a one-in-five chance is too great a risk to play with.

“You see, if the Well shorts out it will then be damaged beyond repair. There can be no re-creation. There will be only darkness, and life of any sort will exist only upon the Well World itself. Forever.”

Marquoz, Yua, Gypsy, and Mavra all looked at Brazil. “Is this true?” the little dragon asked.

“I’m willing to take the risk,” Brazil replied calmly. “It’s four to one that most of the races of the Universe will have the millions of years they deserve.”

“But is there a one-in-five chance of what he says happening?” Marquoz pressed.

Brazil nodded. “Something like that. I think he’s probably exaggerating for effect. Five to eight percent—one out of twelve at the outside—more likely, within the next one to three million years, anyway.”

“Those are better odds,” the Chugach said to Obie and the others. “At five to eight percent I’d take the risk.”

“He refuses to face facts,” Obie came back. “Twenty-one percent. Now. This minute. Thirty percent in another century or two. Fifty percent in another two to five thousand years. Any moment after that. A race can accomplish a great deal in five thousand years—but it cannot achieve greatness. It’s too short a time to produce even a minor evolutionary change; it’s time enough to lose wisdom, but not time enough to earn it. So Mr. Brazil asks us to give the races of the Universe a few thousand years—at the risk of total oblivion for the entire Universe beyond any hope of reconstruction. I submit that the potential to be gained by immediate inaction are outweighed by the greater risk we take allowing it. The Well must be repaired. Now.”

“I know more about the Well than he does,” Brazil pointed out. “I think he’s wrong.”

“I’m a far better and faster computer than you, Nathan Brazil,” Obie retorted.

He chuckled. “If you know more about it than I do, then you turn it off and fix it.”

It was a good point, but Obie was ready for it. “You know I can’t. I know what has to be done, but I’m a part of the equations. The moment the power is turned off I, too, will cease to exist. The Well will not recognize a surrogate, since only one of the older Markovian equations can open the Well and get inside. I can tell you what to do—but only Brazil can do it. And he knows it.”

They looked at the strange little man. His expression seemed anguished. “I couldn’t do it, anyway,” he said defensively. “My god! Do you realize how many people I’d be murdering? I will not accept that kind of responsibility! I won’t!”

“Standoff,” Gypsy muttered.

“Not quite,” Obie responded. “As I said, Brazil has an advantage: Human in his thoughts and soul, he can continue to run from the truth. I cannot. Therefore, he must be made to see things as I do. He must be forced to face the truth. In a moment I will swing the little dish out, I will enfold him and we shall merge. He will see what I see. He will be forced to see what I am forced to see. Then let him refuse.”

“But—Obie!” Mavra protested. “You can’t! Just trying to analyze him damaged you!”

“I expect the experience might be fatal,” the computer replied, a note of apprehension creeping into his all- too-human voice. “I am not sure. I do know that it is possible, and I do know that the Well will keep him from being killed by the experience. But he will be forced to recognize the truth.”

Brazil chuckled nervously. “Now, wait a minute! Ain’t no way I’m going to go through with this. If you think —”

“You have no choice,” Obie cut in. “The men with rifles will see to that. You will either do what I say or we will shoot hell out of you and they will throw you on the platform.”

Brazil looked genuinely upset. He disliked pain as much as the next man. “Okay! Okay! I’ll do it!” he practically yelled. “You don’t have to go on with this!”

“I’m sorry, Brazil, I truly am,” Obie responded. “I wish you were telling the truth, but you and I know you are not sincere. The dish is the only way I can make sure. Do you think I would take this course if there were any other way? If you were me and i you—would you believe it, even if it were true?”

Brazil sighed and seemed to collapse a bit. He looked totally defeated. “You got me there.”

“I would like to speak with each of you in turn, in private, before I deal with Brazil,” the computer said gravely. “Mavra, will you please step onto the platform?”

Forcing back tears, Mavra somehow made it up to the platform.

With the violet glow enveloping her she had no conception of time. But she knew she had to talk Obie out of