Exiles at the Well of Souls

“A much more minor alteration,” the computer told him. “But, also, because of that, more easily and quickly reversible.”

Zinder nodded. “All right, then, Obie. We translated a horse into the system matrix, so you have it completely and you have Zetta completely.”

“We don’t have the horse any more,” Obie pointed out.

Zinder sighed impatiently. “But you have the data on it, don’t you? That’s where the tail came from, right?”

“Yes, Doctor,” Obie replied. “I see now that you were being rhetorical again. I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right,” Zinder assured the machine. “Look, let’s try for something bigger. Do you have the term and concept centaur in your memory?”

Obie thought for perhaps a millisecond. “Yes. But it will take some work to turn her into one. After all, there is the matter of internal plumbing, cardiovascular systems, additional nerve connections, and the like.”

“But you can do it?” Zinder prompted, somewhat surprised.

“Oh, yes.”

“How long?”

“Two or three minutes,” Obie replied.

Zinder leaned over. The girl with the tail was pacing a little nervously on the podium, looking quite uncomfortable.

“Assistant Halib! Please stop that pacing and return to the center of the disk!” he reproved her. “We’re about ready, and you did volunteer for this.”

She sighed. “Sorry, Doctor,” she responded and stood on the center mark.

Zinder looked over at Yulin. “On my mark!” he called, and Yulin nodded.

“Mark!”

The little mirrorlike disk overhead moved out, the little point in the center aimed down, and suddenly the entire area of the disk was bathed in a pale-blue light that seemed to sparkle, enveloping the woman. She seemed frozen, unable to move. Then she suddenly flickered several times like a projected image and winked out entirely.

“Subject’s known stability equation has been neutralized,” Yulin said into his recorder. He looked up at Zinder.

“Gil?” he called, slightly disturbed.

“Eh?” the other man responded absently.

“Suppose we didn’t bring her back? I mean, suppose we just neutralized her,” Yulin said nervously. “Would she exist, Gil? Would she ever have existed?”

Zinder sat back in his chair, thinking. “She wouldn’t exist, no,” he told the other. “As to the rest—well, we’ll ask Obie.” He leaned forward and flipped on the transceiver connecting him to the computer.

“Yes, Doctor?” the computer’s calm tone came back.

“I’m not disturbing the process, am I?” Zinder asked carefully.

“Oh, no,” the computer replied cheerfully. “It’s taking only a little under an eighth of me to work it out.”

“Can you tell me—if the subject were not restabilized, would she have any existence? That is, would she have ever existed?”

Obie thought it over. “No, of course not. She is a minor part of the prime equation, of course, so it wouldn’t affect reality as we know it. But it would adjust. She would never have lived.”

“Then—what if we left her with the tail?” Yulin broke in. “Would everybody else assume she had a tail all along?”

“Quite so,” the computer agreed. “After all, to exist she must have a reason, or the equations would not balance. Again, it would have no effect on the overall equation.”

“What would, I wonder?” Zinder mumbled off-mike, then turned back to Obie. “Tell me, if that’s the case, why do we—Ben, you, and me—know that reality has been altered?”

“We are in close proximity to the field,” Obie replied. “Anyone within approximately a hundred meters would have some knowledge of this. The closer you are, the more dichotomy you perceive. After about a hundred meters the perception of reality starts to become negligible. People would be aware that something was different, but wouldn’t be able to figure out what. Beyond a thousand meters the dissipation would become one with the master equation, and reality would adjust. I can, however, adjust or minimize this for your perceptions if you desire.”

“Absolutely not!” Zinder said sharply. “But you mean that everyone beyond a thousand meters of here would firmly believe she had always been a centaur and that there was a logical reason for it?”

“That is correct. The prime equations always remain in natural balance.”

“She’s coming in!” Ben called excitedly, breaking off the dialogue.

Zinder looked out and saw a shape flicker into the center of the disk. It flickered twice more, then solidified, and the field winked out. The mirror swung silently away overhead.

It was still Zetta Halib, recognizably. But where the woman had stood, the creature was Zetta now only down to the waist. There her yellow-brown skin melded into black hair, and the rest of her body was that of a full-grown mare of perhaps two years.

“Obie?” Yulin called, and the computer answered. “Obie, how long before she stabilizes? That is, how long before the centaur becomes permanent?”

“It’s permanent now, for her,” the computer told him. “If you mean how long it will take the prime equations to stabilize her new set, an hour or two at most. It is, after all, a minor disturbance.”

Zinder leaned over the rail and looked at her in amazement. It was clear that he had exceeded his wildest dreams.

“Would she breed true—if we had a male?” Yulin asked the computer.

“No,” the computer responded, sounding almost apologetic. “That would take a lot more work. She would breed a horse, of course.”

“You could make a breeding pair of centaurs, though?” Yulin persisted.

“Most probably,” Obie hedged. “After all, the only limit to this process is my input. I have to have the knowledge of how to do it, how things are put together, before I can work something out.”

Yulin nodded, but he was plainly as excited as the older man whose life’s work this was.

The centaur looked up at them. “Are we just going to stay here all day?” she asked impatiently. “I’m getting hungry.”

“Obie, what does she eat?” Yulin asked.

“Grass, hay, anything of that nature,” the computer replied. “I had to take some short cuts, of course. The torso is mostly muscle tissue and supporting bone. I used the horse’s part for the organs.”

Yulin nodded, then looked over at the older scientist, still somewhat dazed by what he’d wrought.

“Gil?” he called. “How about some cosmetic touch-ups, and then we can keep her this way awhile? It would be interesting to see how this alteration works out.”

Zinder nodded absently.

With one more pass, Yulin was able to give the new creature a younger human half; he tightened her up and restored what appeared to be youthful good looks.

They were almost finished when a door opened near the old scientist and a young girl, no more than fourteen, walked in with a tray. She was about 165 centimeters tall, but she weighed close to sixty-eight kilograms. Pudgy, stocky, awkward, with thick legs and fat-enlarged breasts, she wasn’t helped by dressing in a diaphanous dress, sandals, and overdone makeup, or by the obviously dyed long blond hair. She looked somehow grotesque, but the old man smiled indulgently.

“Nikki!” he said reprovingly. “I thought I told you not to come in when the red light was on!”

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” she responded, sounding not the least bit sorry, as she put the tray down and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “But you haven’t eaten in so long we were getting worried.” She looked over, saw the younger man and smiled a very different sort of smile.

“Hi, Ben!” she called playfully, and waved.

Yulin looked over, smiled, and waved back. Then, suddenly, he was thinking hard. A hundred meters, he thought. The kitchen was about that far away, above ground.

She put her arms around her father. “What have you been up to for so long?” she asked in that playful tone.