Midnight at the Well of Souls

pass again, and I’m going to slap some local controls on technological growth and development, so that such an adjustment won’t be necessary again, not here.

“And, because I can’t bear to see them like that, I’m going to introduce a compound to the Type Forty-one atmosphere that will break the gas molecules down into harmless substances, while at the same time I’m going to make it a nontechnological hex absolutely. I don’t know what they’ll come up with, but I’ll bet it’s better than their current lot.”

“What about us?” Hain asked.

“I will not change what you are inside,” Brazil told them. “If I do that, you will not have lived at all. To do anything otherwise would be to invite paradox, and that might mess up everything. Thus, I have to deal with you as you are.”

Brazil seemed to think for a moment, then said, in a voice that sounded as if it came from thunder, “Elkinos Skander! You wanted to save the human race, but, in the process, you became inhuman yourself. When the end justifies any means, you are no better, perhaps worse, than those you despise. There are seven bodies back on Dalgonia. Seven human beings who died trusting you, helping you, who were victims of your own lust for power. I can’t forget them. And, if I alter the time line, bring them back, then all this didn’t happen. I pity you, Skander, for what you are, for what you could have become. My instructions to the brain are justice as a product of the past.”

Skander yelled, “It wasn’t me! It was Varnett! I wanted to save the worlds! I wanted—”

And suddenly Skander wasn’t there anymore.

“Where did it go?” The Rel asked.

“To a world suited for him as he is, in a form suited to justice,” Brazil responded. “He might be happy there, he might find justice. Let him go to his fate.”

Brazil paused a moment, then that huge voice came back. “Datham Hain!” it called. “You are the product of a horrible life. Born in contagion, you spread it.”

“I never had a chance except the way I took!” Hain shouted defiantly. “You know that!”

“Most products of a bad environment turn out worse,” Brazil admitted. “And yet, some of the greatest human beings came out of such miserable lots and conquered them. You didn’t, yet you had the intelligence and potential to do so. Today, you stand as a contagion. I pity you, Hain, and because I pity you I will give you a localized wish.”

Hain grew slightly larger, her black color turning to white. She saw it in the fur on her forelegs.

“You turned me noble!” she exclaimed, pleased and relieved.

“You’re the most beautiful breeder in the kingdom of the Akkafians,” Brazil said. “When I return you to the palace, you won’t be recognized. You’ll be at the start of a breeding cycle. The Baron Azkfru will see you and go mad with desire. You will be his brood queen, and bear his royal young. That is your new destiny, Hain. Satisfied?”

“It is all that I could hope for,” Hain replied, and vanished.

Wuju looked at Brazil, a furious expression on her face. “You gave that son of a bitch that? How could you reward that—that monster?”

“Hain gets the wish, but it’s not a reward, Wuju,” Brazil replied. “You see, they withheld from their newcomer one fact of Akkafian life. Most Marklings are sterile, and they do the work. A few are raised as breeders. A breeder hatches a hundred or more young—but they hatch inside the mother’s body and eat their way out, using the breeder’s body for their food.”

Wuju started to say something, then formed a simple, “Ooooh,” as the horror of Hain’s destiny hit her.

“Slelcronian!” Brazil pronounced. “You present me with a problem. I don’t like your little civilization personally, and I don’t like you much, either. I’ve adjusted things slightly, so the Recorders now only work with Slelcronians, not with any sentient plant. But you, personally—you’re a problem. You’re too dangerous to be let loose in the technology of Czill; you know too much. At the same time, you know too much of what is here to go back to Slelcron. It occurs to me, however, that you’ve really not altered the expedition in any significant way. If you had not taken over Vardia, nothing would have changed. Therefore, you didn’t—and, in fact, couldn’t.”

Nothing seemed to change, but there was a difference in the Czillian body.

“So what are you going to do with me and my sister?” Vardia the Czillian asked. As far as everyone in the room was concerned, except for Brazil, the Slelcronian takeover had never happened. Slelcron was merely the funny place of the flowers and the giant bees, and their passage had been uneventful. Even so, the human Vardia had found her sister the Czillian as cold as the Slelcronian had been. She had gone through the same mental anguish as she had before and felt alienated from her sister.

Everything was as it had been before.

“Vardia, you are your old self, and no longer your sister,” Brazil pointed out. “I think you’d be happiest returning to Czill, to the Center. You’ve much to contribute, to tell this story the way it happened. They won’t be able to make use of what you say to get in, but it may cause the thinkers there to consider what projects are really worthwhile. Go!”

She vanished.

Now only Brazil, The Diviner and The Rel, Varnett, Wu Julee, Ortega, and the original Vardia were left.

“Diviner and Rel,” Brazil said, “your race intrigues me. Bisexual, two totally different forms which mate into one organism, one of which has the power and the other the sensory input and output. You’re a good people, with a lot of potential. Perhaps you can carry the message and reach that plateau.”

“You’re sending us back, then?” The Rel asked.

“No,” Brazil replied. “Not to the hex. Your race is on the verge of expanding outward in its sector. It is near the turning point where questions of goals are asked. I’m sending you to your own people on their world with the message I gave you here. The Diviner’s gift will distinguish you. Perhaps you can turn your people, perhaps not. It’s up to you. Go!”

The Diviner and The Rel vanished.

“Varnett,” Brazil said, and the boy jerked as if he was shot.

“What’s in that little bag of tricks for me, Brazil?” he asked with false bravado.

“There are degrees of Comworlds, some better than others,” Brazil noted. “Yours isn’t too far gone yet. Even Vardia’s can change. The worst of the lot is Dedalus. It went the genetic engineering route, you know. Everyone looks alike, talks alike, thinks alike. They kept males and females, sort of, but the engineers thought of even that. The people are hermaphroditic—small male genitals atop a vagina below. They breed once, in an exchange, then lose all sexual desires and prowess. Each has one child, which is, of course, identical to the parents, turned over to and raised by the state. It’s a grotesque anthill, but it may represent the future.

“They don’t even have names there. Obedience and contentment are engineered into them. Yet, the Central Committee retains power. This small group retains its sexual abilities, and the members are slightly different. The population is programmed to obey any one of those leaders unquestionably. The Committee was a perfect target, and they’re controlled by the sponge syndicate. That sort of genetic engineering is, I fear, what the spongers have in mind for everyone eventually—with themselves on top.

“I give you the chance to change things. As the Murnies did with me, I do to you. You will be the Chairman of the Central Committee of Paradise, formerly called Dedalus. You’ll be the new Chairman. The old one just kicked the bucket, and you’re now unfrozen to take command. If you meant what you told me, you can kick the spongers out of their most secure planethold and restore that planet to individual initiative. The revolution will be easy—the people will obey unquestionably. Your example and efforts could dissuade others from taking the Dedalus course. It’s up to you. You’re in charge.”

“What happens to the new Chairman’s mind?” Varnett asked. “And my body?”

“Even swap,” Brazil told him. “The new boy will wake up a bat over in your old hex. He’ll make out. He’s born to command.”

“Not that madhouse,” Varnett chuckled. “Okay, I accept.”

“Very good,” Brazil told him. “But, I leave you this out. Should you ever want, any Markovian Gate will open for you—to bring you back here, for good. You’ll be in a new body, so nobody knows what you would wind up as. You’d be here until you died, but you have that option.”