Midnight at the Well of Souls

northern tip of the ocean. They’ve gotten two up the eastern side of the same ocean to pretty much the same spot.”

“How can you possibly know that?” the Czillian blurted out, stunned. “Have you been here before? I thought—”

“No,” Brazil replied. “Not here.” He flipped a few more pages, studying a close-up map of a particular hex. Then he flipped again, studied another, then to yet another. All in all, he carefully examined five hexes. Suddenly he looked up at the confused Czillian.

“Can you get me in touch with some Umiau big shot?” he asked. “They owe us something for Skander. They’ve got Slelcron, which is a nontech hex and so is fine from our point of view, and Ekh’l, which could be anything at all these days. We’ve got Ivrom, which I don’t like at all, but there’s no way around it, and Alisstl, which will make Murithel look like a picnic. We can contend with Ivrom, I hope, but if we went through the Umiau hex, on a boat of some kind, we could avoid the nasty one and maybe even gain some time on the others. If they stick near the coast—and I think they will, because those are the best roads by far—we might just beat them there and intercept them here,” he pointed with his nose to the map, “at the northern tip of the bay here, in Ghlmon.”

“Just out of curiosity,” Bat said, “you said that the Umiau were warned the first time about a kidnap try on Skander. Now, you said you heard they were in The Nation. Who told you those things?”

“Why, we don’t know!” the Czillian answered. “They came as, well, tips, passed in common printer-machine type in our respective languages, to our ambassadors at Zone.”

“Yes,” Bat persisted, “but who sent them? Is there a third set of players in the race?”

“I was hoping you could tell me that,” Brazil said flatly.

Bat’s eyes widened. “Me? All right, I admit I knew who you were back in Dillia, and that I joined you on purpose. But I don’t represent anyone except myself and the interests of my people. We got word the same way the Czillians and Umiau did, at Zone. Said where you’d be, approximately when, and that you were going after Skander and Varnett. We couldn’t find who sent it, but it was decided that we had a stake in the outcome. I was elected, because I’ve done more traveling than most of my people. But—me? The third party? No, Brazil, I admit only to not being truthful with you. Surely by now you know that I’m on your side—all the way.”

“That’s too bad,” Brazil replied. “I would very much like to know our mysterious helper, and how he gets his information.”

“Well, he seems to be on our side,” Bat said optimistically.

“Nobody’s on any side but his own,” Brazil snapped back. “Not you, not me, not anybody. We’re going to have a tough enough time just dealing with the Skander party. I don’t want to reach the goal of this chase and have our helpful third party finish off the survivors.”

“Then you propose to give chase?” the Czillian asked stupidly.

“Of course! That’s what all this is about. One last question—can you tell me the last major problem Skander fed to the computer?”

“Why, yes, I think so,” the Czillian replied nervously. She rummaged through some papers, coming up with two. “He asked two, in fact. One was the number of Entries into hexes bordering the Equatorial Zone, both sides.”

“And the answer?”

“Why, none on record. Most curious. They’re not true hexes anyway, you know. Since the Equatorial Barrier splits them neatly in half, they are two adjoining half-hexes, each side—therefore, twice as wide as a normal hex and half the distance north and south, with flat equatorial borders.”

“What was the second question?” Brazil asked impatiently.

“Oh, ah, whether the number six had any special relation to the Equatorial Zone hexes in geography, biology, or the like.”

“And the answer?”

“Still in the computer when the unfortunate, ah, incident occurred. We did, of course, get the answer, even though it was on a printout which the kidnappers apparently took with them. The material was still in storage, and so we got another copy.”

“What did it say?” Brazil asked in an irritated tone.

“Oh, ah, that six of the double half-hexes, so to speak, were split by a very deep inlet all the way up to the zone barrier, evenly spaced around the planet so that, if you drew a line from zone to zone through each of the inlets, you’d split the planet into absolutely equal sixths.”

“Son of a bitch!” Brazil swore. “He’s got the whole answer! Nothing will ever surprise me again!”

At that moment another Czillian entered the room and looked at the bat and the stag confusedly. Finally she picked the bat and said, shyly, “Captain Brazil?”

“Not me,” Bat replied casually, and pointed a bony wing at the stag. “Him.”

She turned and looked at the creature that was so obviously an animal. “I don’t believe it!” she said the way everyone did. Finally she decided she might believe it and went over to the great Murithel antelope, and repeated, “Captain Brazil?”

“Yes?” he answered pleasantly, curious in the extreme. Captain Brazil?

“Oh,” she responded softly, “I—I realize I’ve changed a great deal, but nothing like you. Wow!”

“Well, who are—um, that is, who were you?” he asked, intrigued.

“Why, I’m Vardia, Captain,” she replied.

“But Vardia was kidnapped by the bugs!” Bat exclaimed.

“I know,” she replied. “That’s what’s really upset me.”

A ROAD IN THE NATION

“Quarantine, hell!” Skander grumbled, strapped in again atop Hain’s back, irritated by the yellowish atmosphere and the discomfort of the breathing apparatus. Her voice was so muffled by the mask that none could understand a word.

“Stop grumbling, Skander,” the Rel responded. “You waste air and can’t be understood by anybody but me anyway. You are quite right, though—we’ve been stalled.”

Vardia, whose head and vocal mechanism were not related in any way to her respiratory system, asked, “Who could be responsible? Who knew we were here, would be staying at that particular hotel? Perhaps our people have tracked you down.” There was hope in her voice.

“Don’t get yourself that excited, Czillian,” The Rel replied. “As you can see, the delaying action slowed us but did not stop or deter us—nor did it liberate you. No, this smells of darker stuff. Of the one who planted the hidden listening device in the baron’s office at Zone and prevented our escapade weeks earlier.”

This was the first Vardia had heard of that incident, and it made her think back to the many things that had happened to her. That distress signal where one could not have been operating. The vanishing of the two shuttlecraft on Dalgonia, and the disappearance of their lifeboat. The opening of the Well Gate only after they were all securely in it. Captain Brazil’s firm belief that he was being suckered by someone.

That strange snakeman, Ortega. Over seven hundred chances, and Brazil is met by the only person at Zone who knew him. Coincidence?

She suddenly felt furious, thinking of all of it in detail. Someone was using her— using all of them—moving them like pieces in a game.

What about the hex assignments? Skander to a place where she had all the tools at her disposal, corrupting a peaceful people in the process. She to the hex next door, assigned—actually assigned!— to work with Skander and kidnapped with her. By whom? Someone working for that bastard Datham Hain!

And Captain Brazil! She had gotten the word when Brazil had entered Zone, looking exactly the same as he had before. Why didn’t the Gate change him? And that pathetic little addict—dumped into a hex almost perfect for getting back to being human without pressures. Brazil had been hung up on her, she recalled. Probably they were