Ghost of the Well of Souls

been unwilling to sell.

The trick would be to keep the very bright flame from being seen by all and sundry when they used it. It would be tough enough getting close to the top of that dome without being seen by curious folks like guards with nasty guns below.

They were fortunate that the dome was either made of very dark material or had been painted dark on the inside. That left a fairly nonreflective surface that kept the water around it fairly dark as well. With sundown, the top of the dome would be difficult to see.

They found a twenty centimeter loop of industrial plastic that was pliable yet would hold whatever shape you put it in, and this would become their shield. It could be wrapped around their waist, and would look like clothing or an ornament if spotted, yet it could be easily removed and create a decent circular guard for the operation.

At least, that was the way it was supposed to work.

As the light from the far off sun waned, they floated in the compound applying a thick black grease to their body, trying to get it as dark as possible. They wrapped the plastic shield around their waist and put the torch and the suction cup devices into a dark sack. Then they headed toward the dark dome, about three hundred meters farther along in the compound, gliding casually in the water in the hope that they wouldn’t be noticed. As they approached, they slowly rose toward the top of the compound.

The dark dome hadn’t had any particular routine they could pin down, but the sundown shift seemed to consist of fewer creatures than the other two, even if the number of guards remained the same. They waited, hovering nearby, making sure that everybody was in the spots they usually were and that there were no deliveries headed their way. Finally, as the last illumination from above faded, they ever so slowly approached the dome at a level a meter or two below the top of the dome.

This is really amateur night, Ming commented worriedly. How incompetent do these guys have to be to not spot us?

Pretty bad, I admit, Ari conceded. Still, semitech is semitech. No electrical alarms, no fusion-powered super computer guardians, not even decent lighting. Most of those guys down there are from high-tech hexes like ours; you kind of lose your touch for the primitive when you’re brought up with the gadgets.

She hoped he was right. There was so much that could go wrong, including the fact that they’d never gotten close enough to the dome to determine if it was not merely a filtered extension, like the Kalindan consulate, but perhaps a pressurized area. At least they knew it wasn’t filled with liquid; people had gone in and out of it many times as they had cased the place.

They picked the darkest area of the dome, away from the consulate row and facing away from the city, which continued to glow in artificial light. It was, however, a softer light that didn’t have the intensity to outline someone well away from its sources. That much seemed to be going their way.

Choosing an area below the top of the dome allowed them to work without being obvious to anyone in the consular area, and the upper curvature allowed for an angle when they put down and anchored their dark shield. The torch might be obvious from above, which was always a risk, but it would be invisible from the lower, more commonly used levels.

The torch itself was no laser beam; the flame was concentrated and incredibly hot, but it was as much a melter as a cutter. Ming let Ari handle it, and he began to cut in small bits, knowing they would have to secure the piece when it fell and not wanting any part of it to fall down into the dome itself.

The work was also almost blinding; neither of them had anticipated a flame so very bright, and they’d brought everything except dark goggles, since they hadn’t seen any around.

Hurry up, or we’re gonna wind up doing this by touch, she prodded.

You want to do it, take over, he responded huffily. I’m doing the best I can. Just a couple more… There! Now we need the suction cups!

They pressed one to the side of the dome, then the other to the center of the cut-out piece. After pulling on them to ensure that they both held, Ari carefully melted through the last few tabs holding the piece onto the rest of the dome.

Finally, he reached down and pulled on the linkage just above the cup on the cutout, and it gave and came straight up and away. They now had a way inside, if they were lucky.

There wasn’t much to see from this vantage point, and bright dots, afterflashes from the torch, were still persistent. Still, at least part of the place was lit with the same chemical lighting used in the town, and they could see that there were some people at the lower, or floor, section of the tank.

You game? she asked him.

We’ve come this far, he replied. Might as well.

It was a very tight fit getting through the cut piece, even after they discarded the shielding. Still, they just barely managed, with a lot of twisting and turning, to squeeze through.

Ari then set the cutout back in place. There was some play because its melted edges no longer would create a real fit, but it would do. The trick was to keep that primordial soup that was Yabbo’s “atmosphere” from coming in. At least the melted areas would give no more entry to the outside than the routine comings and goings by the lower entrance, until they planned to be long gone.

They found themselves in a gigantic warehouse full of modular shelving and form-fitting containers. It was impossible to tell what was in any of them; they were encoded in a type of writing neither could understand, nor would it have done them much good without the meanings for the codes.

There was far too much action below to consider breaking open one or more of them to find out what it was about. Perhaps if they remained and the activity below ceased, it might be possible, but right now there wasn’t much of an emergency exit if they were detected, particularly if they were outnumbered.

And they knew it wouldn’t take much to outnumber them.

So they glided slowly and carefully between the stacks and tried to get down to a point where they could observe without being observed.

They almost met disaster right off. There was a sudden movement from below almost before they could get behind a crate and freeze. A large, dark, menacing shape arose so close to them they could almost touch it. It was, strangely, a familiar sort of figure, even though it had a leathery soft, spiral shell-like body and lots of tentacles, each apparently designed to do a particular job. More distinctive was the eye, which was on a muscle- driven version of a lazy Susan, able to pop out of the soft shell and pivot in any direction, or come far enough out so that, if both eyes were so situated, it would have three-dimensional vision instead of multiple vision.

What the hell? That’s a damned Ghoman! Ari exclaimed.

Ming thought a moment. No, it’s a Chalidang. I’d bet anything on that.

But—But they’re the same! They’re absolutely the same!

Maybe. I never was close enough to a Ghoman to be able to tell. I admit, though, that all creatures with ten tentacles, a soft spiral shell, and a unique eye like that look alike to me. So Gamins and Chalidangers look the same, maybe are the same. So what?

So the only thing Josich changed was its sex, which is something we’ve been familiar with here, too. Hmph!

She understood what he meant. Why did Josich get to remain pretty much the same creature while they were translated into such a different race and biome? It didn’t seem fair. In fact, it didn’t seem like the system here at all.

You know—I never thought of this, but if Josich had come in as a male, then he’d have been a dead shellfish. They already had an Emperor, and the bloodline was pretty firmly established. But as a female, as essentially a courtesan and vamp, as a she, Josich was able to worm her way right into the social structure. A social structure that’s probably not too far off the Ghoman style, either, judging from what we’ve been told. Jeez. It’s almost as if the bastard somehow managed to plan it this way!

It was a sobering thought, and if it contained even a gram of truth, it was unsettling. How come the Well did things fairly randomly for everybody else but basically cooked to order for the Ghoman monarch?

What do you think? Could we take one that size in a fight? she wondered.