Ghost of the Well of Souls

“Oh, come now! I’m assured that the food and intoxicants were of such a high quality that if you tried to order it all back home you couldn’t possibly afford it. If you’ve got to be drugged and rolled, as it were, there are far worse ways to do it. Just a little extra juice in one of the stronger intoxicants was enough to put you under for almost thirty hours.”

“Why the fancy stuff, then? Why not just kill us and be done with it?”

The Chalidanger seemed amused by the question. “And you were supposed to be great agents back in your own universe! If we take you out here, after your report, the forces opposing us would descend in such force and skill that all these months of preparation would be dissolved in the water and of no value. No, I don’t want you dead. In fact, I want you to be our guest for a while. This is going to come to a head shortly, and you wanted to find out what we were up to and where we were going to go anyway, didn’t you? So why skulk and suffer in a hostile and primitive land when you can simply come along and watch?”

“Some deal!”

“Yes, isn’t it?” the Chalidanger responded, still sounding amused. Ari was fascinated to see that, in the center of the tentacles, there wasn’t the beak generally associated with squid and nautilus and like creatures, but an actual mouth, round and containing row after row of sharklike teeth. That, he decided, was what made the Chalidangers different from the animals: the higher order chewed its food and pronounced its words carefully.

“I, by the way, am Colonel General Mochida of His Majesty’s Army Intelligence Service. In fact, I’m the commander of that service in normal times, but this operation was so much my baby, as it were, I just couldn’t stand to keep away. The others here are my aide, Colonel Kuamba, Sergeant Major Subich, and Warrant Officer Ladoch. I know you are wondering how the devil it matters since you can’t tell us apart, but the insignia on the body shell tells all. Officers have a single insignia in the center of their spirals, noncoms and soldiers along the outer edge with an identical Imperial design in the center. The starburst on my spiral along with the circle inside it makes me a colonel general. Kuamba has only the circle, so he’s a colonel, a far distance from colonel general. The warrant has the half starburst on the outer shell, and the sergeant the fan insignia of the highest noncom rank. Just so you know. I do not like being called ‘Sergeant,’ and I assure you that the other two officers here also do not wish to be confused.”

“Um, yeah, thanks a lot, General. You’ll pardon me, though, if I don’t give a shit, since I’m tied down and trussed up like a beast to slaughter.”

“Ah, yes. Well, we will change that, I promise you. We haven’t had time to search the supply lists here and find what we need, but I promise, once we do, you will be untied and able to move about normally. It’s hard to find things when you can’t use your computers, and efficiency suffers. We also can’t use our usual methods for restraining—guests—in this primitive environment, so we must use subtler means. The sergeant major assures me that he will find it at some point today or tomorrow, and then we’ll be able to take those nasty chains away.”

What do you think he’s gonna do? Can’t do an implant, it wouldn’t work here. Ditto remote control electroshock. Ming was more worried about the method than that they had something in mind they believed in.

I suspect we’ll find out soon enough, Ari said glumly. Remember these guys’ reputations, andJosich’s in particular.

The general shifted and flexed his tentacles. “I find this fascinating, you know. Are you two speaking to one another now? I suppose it’s something like telepathy, or do you pretty much just know what the other one says?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Come come! Madam Ming Dawn Palavri, I believe, and Mr. Ari Martinez, nephew of the infamous Jules Wallinchky, the greatest criminal of your generation. Oh, come! Come! As I told you, I am the Chief of Staff for Army Intelligence. Besides, you did not make it a matter of state secrecy, you just didn’t remind anyone of it. We don’t need to plant agents in Kalinda for that sort of thing, you know. You can look it up in the Zone archives. As for Wallinchky, well, the Empress is extremely impressed with him and speaks of him quite often.”

Ari came to the fore. “You know where he is? He’s alive?”

The tentacles wriggled in delight. “Well, well! Mr. Martinez, I presume. You really do sound different from one another, and even the body shifts a bit in the way it holds itself, even at rest. Incredible. I have seen multiple personalities before, but it was always because someone was mentally ill. I’ve never seen two healthy and independently developed minds in the same body. It must be—cozy. Or is it frustrating? I do hope you’ve come to like each other.”

“My uncle—he’s alive?”

“I believe he made it, yes. And he’ll pop up sooner or later. Such people as that one can never be kept down. He’s not a factor in our business, however. Breathers of air have a great deal of trouble operating down here, and never in a clandestine manner. You two used to be air breathers, didn’t you? I cannot imagine suffering the limitations of such an existence. You would have to be in zero gravity in order to experience what we take for granted.”

“It was good enough, if we had our separate bodies,” Ari told him, feeling more like a cross between a specimen and a trained pet animal. “Still, I have to admit, this is not a bad way to live. Some things are the same, though.”

“Indeed?”

“If you’re captured and tied up by your enemy, then it’s no fun at all.”

“But why should we have to be enemies?” the general asked him. “What is so terrible about us? You were employed by your uncle, I believe, and that almost certainly meant that you did all sorts of things without a single reference to any sort of moral compass. Am I right? Yes? You probably didn’t kill people, but your actions or orders most likely caused people to be killed, or worse. I saw the condition of the lady when she arrived in Zone, courtesy of the recordings we always make of immigrants. I am no expert on air breathers or their appearance, but simply comparing the lady to the rest of you, I can say that the word ‘automaton’ comes to mind. The only difference between you and us is that you almost certainly have a good reason why you did, or did not do, everything you ultimately perpetrated. Well, people, so do I.”

This was not the kind of guy you could fool around with, that was clear. Still, Ming came to the fore and responded, “However, I was not a Jules Wallinchky employee. I was a cop and later a captive to his sadistic whims. And your Empress, back there, was considered the ultimate butcher, the destroyer of entire planets filled with sentient beings. There is no higher crime than genocide.”

“I agree,” the general responded smoothly. “I look forward to many discussions on these kinds of topics with you, in fact. You can tell me how your original home world and your original race evolved without wiping out any other species, and how it all came together as one great supernational race without stamping out a single culture or exterminating any primitives. Since it defies everything I ever was taught about the way races develop, it will be fascinating to hear of this one moral exception.”

“Very funny. Ho ho. But a race is supposed to evolve upward. We have progressed beyond that level, while others have not.”

“Indeed? I thought evolution was random. In point of fact, I believe your race has been in space colonization for, oh, many centuries at least, and during that time it’s evolved almost not at all from the point at which it wiped out all the other sentient species back on your birth world. You’re stuck, you see. Evolution happens even here. Most of the races here are different than the ancient records show. Sleeker, stronger, but rarely smarter or less violent, and almost never wiser. We are a warrior race. It invigorates us, renews us, makes us better. Mentally as well as physically, a worthy opponent is to be cherished. I admit that the Empress is a bit, um, unrestrained in that area, but she is not alone, nor the dominant single force in government. She’s damned good at politics, I’ll say that, but rather brutish in war. Wiser heads are managing that part, and she will be satisfied if her objectives are attained.”

“You sure had it all worked out in Ochoa,” Ming taunted him.

He didn’t seem bothered by the comment. “Oh, come now! It was a mass military action in a classic arena, and the situation did not warrant that. Supply lines were too long, intelligence too poor, and so on. We had to allow them to make that one attempt, though, just to establish the General Staff as the place strategy and tactics