Exiles at the Well of Souls

here. He hopes to bargain their processing through me to rid them of the sponge, but I don’t think he’ll have much success. Most of them wouldn’t believe he could cure them anyway, and the rest would be even more furious that such a cure was here and not used. They would, I feel certain, go along with him only long enough to get the cure, then kill him anyway.”

Mavra nodded. “And if you can figure that out, so can Trelig. He has no percentage in a cure.” She paused a moment, then said, carefully, “Obie, is there a way that we could get in to you? There’s Nikki—and one of the guards, an ally, Renard.”

Obie sighed again. It was weird to hear so human a voice and so human a reaction from a machine, but Obie was much more than a machine.

“I’m afraid not, at least not right now. The big dish is frozen in contact with the Well—the great Markovian computer that runs that world down there. It is beyond my control right now. It may take some time—days, weeks, even years—for me to figure a way to break off, if there is a way. As for the little dish, Trelig’s no fool. He left, but he first coded defense mechanisms beyond my control. If I had the big dish I could neutralize them, but I don’t. Anyone trying to get into the little room first has to pass over the bridge across the shaft. That bridge will kill unless Trelig’s code is given, and I don’t have it.”

She frowned. “Well, can you keep anybody else from blowing it?”

“I think so,” the computer replied uncertainly. “I have run a current through the shaft walls. That should keep anyone from getting to the bridge.”

“Okay, Obie, looks like I have to go in and save Trelig’s noble neck,” she said, and applied power. The new moon that was New Pompeii had disappeared around the strange planet, and she established an intercept vector.

“Wait! Don’t!” Obie’s voice called. “Break off! You’ll have to come in under New Pompeii to hit the Topside area, and that will swing you too close to the Well.”

But it was too late. The ship was already closing on the planet, felt its pull, and used it to whip around to the other side.

Here was an incredible sight. The world, close up, shimmered like a dream-thing, and yet it somewhat resembled a great, alien jewel. It was faceted, somehow; countless hexagonal facets of some sort, and below whatever was causing the faceting was a hint of broad seas, mountain ranges, and fields of green around which clouds swirled. That is, that was the case below the equator. The equator itself looked odd, as if it were designed for a child’s globe. A thick strip, semitransparent but with an amber coloration, like a broad plastic band around the world. The north—it, too, was faceted hexagonally, but the landscapes there contained nothing familiar; eerie, stark, strange. The poles, too, were strange—areas of great expanse, yet of a nonreflective darkness, almost as if they weren’t there at all.

The sight spellbound them. And the proper boost and cut had been preapplied. To get out of it, Mavra would have to swing around the planet tangentially to the equator anyway.

“Too late! Too late!” Obie wailed. “Quick! Get everyone in the lifesaving modules!”

Mavra was puzzled. Everything seemed normal, and she suddenly caught sight of New Pompeii, half green and shiny, half covered with the great mirror surface.

“We better do what he says,” Renard said quietly. “Where’s the lifeboat? I’ll get Nikki.”

“Bring her here,” Mavra told him. “The bridge will seal if anything goes wrong.”

“I’ll hurry,” Renard replied, worried now about the immediate threat. Mavra couldn’t see any threat; she was breaking, coasting toward New Pompeii, swinging about a third of the way to the planet below in a standard approach that would take her once around New Pompeii and in. It was all so normal.

“Damn it! I’m okay!” she heard Nikki almost scream. She turned and saw the girl enter, an angry expression on her face. Renard followed.

“Your father’s alive, Nikki,” Mavra told the girl. “I’m in contact with Obie. Maybe we—”

At that moment the ship shuddered, and all the electronics, including the lights, flickered, then winked out.

“What the hell?” Mavra tried punching everything she could find. The bridge was pitch-dark, and there was no motor noise or vibration of any kind. Even the emergency lights and safety controls were out, although they shouldn’t be. They couldn’t be.

Her mind raced. “Renard!” she called. “Get Nikki into your chair, then get in mine with me! I think we can both fit! Nikki! Strap yourself in as tight as you can!”

“Wha—what’s happening?” the girl called.

“Just do what I say! Quickly!” the small woman snapped. “Somehow we’ve lost all power, even the emergencies! We were too close in to the planet! If we don’t get power back—”

She heard Nikki stumble, flop into the seat. She felt Renard’s hand almost grab her in the face. Her own eyes, Obie-designed, adapted to infrared immediately. She saw them—but nothing else. There was no other heat source on the bridge!

She managed an, oath, reached up, pushed Renard into the chair. It was a very tight fit, and it didn’t quite work. That damned tail! she thought angrily.

“I’m going to have to sit in your lap,” she told him, shifting.

“Ouch!” he exclaimed. “Move down a little! That tailbone is pressing on my sensitive area!”

She shifted down slightly, and he just barely pulled the straps over both of them, then wrapped his arms around her, squeezing tightly more from nervousness than anything else.

Suddenly, everything flicked back on again.

The screen showed that they’d lost tremendous altitude during the blackout. They could see a sea ahead, and, beyond that, some mountains.

“We’re over the equator into the south, anyway,” Mavra managed. “Let me see if I can boost us out of here.”

She started to undo the straps when, suddenly, the screen showed that they had cleared the ocean—and everything went black again.

“Damn!” she swore. “I wish I knew what the hell was going on here!”

“We’re going to crash, aren’t we?” Nikki asked, more resigned than panicked.

“Looks like it,” Mavra called back. “We’ll start breakup soon unless the power comes on.”

“Breakup?” Renard repeated.

“There are three systems on these ships,” she told him. “Two are electrical, one mechanical. I hope the mechanical holds, because we have no power, none at all. In two of the three, including the mechanical, the ship separates into modules. In the mechanical mode it will deploy parachutes thirty seconds after breakup, then use air resistance to trigger the main chutes. It’ll be a rough ride.”

“Are we gonna die?” she heard Nikki ask.

“Might as well,” she heard Renard murmur to himself, too low for the girl to hear. She understood what he meant. This would be quicker, by far, than sponge.

“I hope not,” she responded, but there was a tinge of doubt in her voice. “If we had a complete failure in space, we would—we’d use up the air. But down there—I don’t know. If we can breathe the stuff, and if we survive the landing, and if the chutes open, we should make it.”

A whole lot of ifs, she thought to herself. Probably too many.

The ship shuddered, and there were loud noises all around. Separation had been achieved.

“Well,” she sighed. “Nothing we can do about it now, anyway. Even if the power came on again—the engines aren’t attached to us anymore.”

There came now a series of sharp, irregular bumps. Renard groaned, catching both the effects of him against the chair and Mavra against him. Then there was a single very sharp jerk that almost made them dizzy.

“The chutes!” Mavra exclaimed. “They opened! We have air of some kind out there!”

It was now a dizzying, swaying, rocking ride in total darkness. A few minutes of this and they all began feeling a little sick. Nikki had just started to complain when there was a much stronger, almost violent series of