Ghost of the Well of Souls

He threw the gun or whatever it was over onto Josich’s body, then stepped up on the base, through the hex and into his compound.

O’Leary hadn’t gone far and was more than interested in going back rather than remaining as he was.

“You want to be a Pyron again, old boy?” Wallinchky asked him. “Or something else? You name it, you got it. For old times’ sake, but under the agreement that you go find a life, don’t queer my deals, and start fresh. Do I have your word on this?”

“You bastard. You always win, don’t you?” “I always have, Genny, old boy. It’s all in having fun.” He pushed the Kalindan form up to the edge of the hex gate and then had to catch his breath. “You guys are heavy! Okay, let me be in contact with the base. Now… go!”

A Pyron emerged back in the conference room, picked himself up and glared back at the screen. “Damn his eyes! There can’t be another lifetime for the likes of Jules Wallinchky! God would not permit it.”

“Another case for atheism,” Core grumped. “Where are the others?”

“They’ll be back. I knowTann Nakitt will jump at the chance. The others… who knows? Can’t see much future for an angel over there.”

“Everything normal? On that side, I mean?” “I dunno. There’s this funny feelin’, maybe it’s just cop sense, but just lying there gaspin’ for breath, I swear it felt like somethin’ was wrong. And we never did find out how that Gate got where it did. I swear it’s like it was put there by some agency we don’t know yet as a kind of trap. Call it a hunch, or maybe I’m crazy, but I don’t think all this is over quite yet.”

Wallinchky Compound, Grabant 4

“Jaysu! Where are you?”

Ari, Ming, and Tann Nakitt in its new and unwanted incarnation wandered through the various corridors and galleries and compounds looking for the strange angelic creature with the shining white wings.

At one point, having separated, Ming found himself with Nakitt and stopped. “What are you doing here with us?” he asked the creature. “This is not your affair.”

“I feel compelled to assist. It is very strange, this new form. It is compelled to serve those with whom it is with.”

“I’d be back there yelling and screaming to get back to where I wanted to be.”

“But that is just it. I can no longer think in those terms nor act in any other manner. I am but an adjunct to the whole. I feel no anger, no ambition, no love, no hate. I feel only the obligation to serve the whole.”

Ming stopped and said, “That does it! Come on! You’re going back with me! I don’t care what the hell is doing what to whom, this is simply not right.” Still, it was easy to see why a vengeful Josich had chosen the antlike Jerminin form for Nakitt. It was too uncomfortably close to the sort of slave Jules Wallinchky had once made of Angel and Ming themselves.

He was surprised to see no gathering in front of the Gate, and instead only a single strange Terran man who looked something like, well, him at that moment. With an uneasy start he realized that it must be another incarnation of Jules Wallinchky.

“Ah, nephew! Very good! Let’s get Nakitt back where it now belongs. I don’t think it ever belonged anyplace before, and it certainly doesn’t deserve that.”

Quickly, Wallinchky filled him in on what had happened. Ming listened, realizing that the old crook had either had a mental lapse or hadn’t heard about Josich’s body switch trick. Well, if he was going to be Ari for a while, so be it.

“Tann Nakitt, your duty is to return to the Well World, and now, through the Gate,” Ming told the creature. “We will take care of the rest.”

Wallinchky went up to the far side of the Gate and waited while Nakitt obediently went through on the front side. Immediately, the Ochoan form she’d accepted was back, and so was the old Tann Nakitt.

Ming walked around to the side of the gate and shook his head. “I wonder how it works?” he mused. On the far side you could see the same entry, just like a window, into the same conference room but from the reverse point of view.

“Core could probably tell us, couldn’t you, Core?”

“I have no idea. The physics is beyond anything I can comprehend,” the Kalindan said from the other side. “It is one thing to almost grasp the bizarre physics of the Well energy strings that allow a near instantaneous matter transmission from the old Well Gates to the Well World, but this, an open, live channel, defies understanding. It is as if it punches a hole directly through. As if, somehow, both Gates are not where we perceive them to be, but standing just outside, like a single entity, so that the Gates are in two places at once. It is unnerving to see it work, but it is not totally surprising. We are talking about a product of an ancient race that could build all this and who were, in a very real sense, the gods who created the races of the universe. Creatures who controlled that sort of power by sheer force of will. What is such a thing as this to them? Only a proof that even they needed machines now and then.”

Wallinchky, never a technological genius, laughed. “Yeah, see? Whatever it said. The important thing is to always know how to work something and be the guy with the controls. The folks who understand it, you can hire.” He grinned at the one he thought was his nephew. “Find the angel yet?”

“No. Ar—Ming’s still out there looking. I’ll go back and join her now that I know things are all right here. With your permission, of course.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ve still got a little business to discuss with the other side here, and then I’m gonna go into the lounge and find out what’s what in this place.”

Ming left him there, thinking that maybe the new young Wallinchky was setting up his own little godhood. No matter what happened, that could not be permitted.

He found Ari just coming from the med lab. “Nothing. Nothing at all. This is getting spooky. Where’s Nakitt?”

“Sent back.” Again the story of what took place was told.

“Uncle Jules always wins. It’s incredible. He might as well be a god. He’s already infallible.”

“Not quite. He thinks I’m you. Say—where’s your room in relation to here?”

“I doubt if a lot of the clothes would even fit!”

“I wasn’t thinking of anything elaborate. Maybe just a robe.”

“Down there. Third doorway on the left. Probably still has my old pants there someplace.”

It wasn’t pants that Ming was looking for, but what might still be there. He went in, searched the room in a methodical fashion, tried searching the memory overlays left by Ari’s own sharing of minds, and found that Ari’s habit was to put his gun in a small holster just inside the main closet. Yes! There it was! A small needier, just exactly what was required for this job.

Putting on a robe, he slipped the needier into the pocket and walked back out. Ari was standing there, staring at him.

“You going to kill him?” Ari asked softly. “Many have tried, and this is the spider in his own web.”

“I don’t think your needier would do it, but it might knock him out. Then we push him through the Gate and dismantle this end. Core will dismantle the other side, and he’ll be long dead of old age before it works again.”

“Interesting plan. Do you think you can get away with it? That’s my body you’re risking, you know.”

“He’s still stark naked. Here, I’ll bring him a robe, too. Are you gonna give me away?”

Ari took a deep breath. “No, I don’t think so. But I’ll believe that this works when I see it.” She looked up at Ming in his body and sighed. “You know, I never realized just how short you were. This takes some getting used to.”

“Tall doesn’t, at least if you don’t hit your head,” Ming responded.

Ming realized the spot he was putting Ari in. First, they were lovers in a way that probably no one else, not even telepaths, could ever be. So connected that, even now, separated in body and mind in a practical sense, they