02. Shadows of the Well of Souls (31 page)

The engine sounds echoed down the passage and into the cove itself; Brazil was certain that the ship would be coming down the passage, was perhaps coming down even now, and that they should wait no longer.

Still, something stopped him. Something subtle, a very slight diminution of the sound, perhaps, that rapidly grew more noticeable. He looked up over the jagged rock wall and saw a plume of white smoke proceed in an orderly fashion down the misshapen spires at the top.

The damned thing wasn't coming in! It had passed them by!

He laughed out loud in relief, grabbed Terry, and kissed her. She was somewhat startled by the action but felt his joy and relief and knew what it meant.

For a moment at least they were safe once again, and, he reflected, it was the perfect end to the business he'd been playing at. Being able to tap all that power, to do all these new things, hadn't changed the fact that he was a fugitive hiding out from the closest thing to a government this world had, stuck inside a bunch of barren and smoky rocks on a fly speck of an island in the middle of an indifferent ocean.

He signed to the girl to go back to sleep. She needed the rest almost as much as they both needed food. At least he was no longer overanxious to get under way; he wanted the navy to be well on its way to wherever it was going and well over the horizon before he ventured out. But more than ever he was determined to leave and to weather whatever the nights in this hotbox hex might bring.

There was no more game playing. While Terry slept, he pored over the charts, seeking some sort of alternative source for food. There were other islands, certainly; this was the start of a crescent-shaped chain of island volcanoes, many quite a bit larger above the surface than this little dot. The question was what, if anything, the Well would allow to take root in the rich soil. Whatever it would be would have to be consistent with the fixed ecology of the hex and not injurious to it or vegetation that would be expected to evolve on the actual planet this place represented.

He examined the topographic information, sparse as it was, on the various charts and guessed by knowing something of volcanic islands and checking elevations that one larger island about forty-five kilometers northwest was the most likely. It was kind of peanut-shaped, two volcanoes that had risen large and whose flows had merged into each other at the center, creating a single unit that appeared to be a lowland plain. He wondered for a moment why the service company hadn't put an anchorage there, but a reference to the island on the chart legend showed that flows were irregular, were not far below the surface all along both sides, and tapered off at an extremely shallow slope for a fair distance. There simply was no decent sheltered harbor available, and the only anchorage spots were marked at four or five hundred meters out even for a ship with this draft. From that distance one would be expected to come ashore in a small boat or raft. It was marked EMERGENCY PROVISIONS ONLY, and the only indication that there was anything there was the note of the locations along both coasts of the flat region—the sort of place one made for if one was shipwrecked or at least too damaged to get anywhere else. There were no habitation markers, but its position and the stations indicated that it would probably be checked on a regular basis by the company, the navy, or both.

It also would take them even closer to the Mowry border instead of toward the northern coast, but without food it would be touch and go.

Unless Gus came back, and with enough to eat, they had no choice but to try it.

The next problem was how the hell to get out of this cul-de-sac. There was a very slight gravitational tide, but without a clock or a means of recording it he couldn't even use
that,
meager as it was, nor did he know if it would be enough. He looked up at the rock cliff and the forbidding terrain beyond. He had used a slight wind to get in, essentially a land breeze or one created by the nearby storms. It would be enough to get out if it was an every-evening thing. He'd just have to wait and see. He couldn't count on the girl to move the ship again, and they sure as hell couldn't push or pull it.

If there was a breeze, anything at all he could use, he'd have to take it, whether Gus was back or not. He realized that now. Whether it came in two minutes or ten hours, that was the way it was.

For the time being there was nothing to do but lie down, stretch out, and rest. After a while he looked over at the girl and studied her features. For all the extra weight, whose purpose he now knew, she had a good body and a very pretty face. It was hard to imagine her as a hard-driving career newswoman.

That was the problem, of course, and he knew it. He didn't really want her to be any different—he wanted what they had now on the gut level to continue on and on. If he got to the Well before Mavra, or even if Mavra got there first but left his own connection intact, he would have to undo much of what had been done to her. Her future had to be her own choice, not his. He owed her that much.

But if she were restored, even with the memory of all this, what would that
other
woman, Terry, whom he'd never known, think of him? And what sort of reaction might she have seeing him not this way but as something of a monster?

As usual, he was racing to the inevitable ending of a situation that had filled him, for all that, with a sense of participation, care, even . . . love. He was more happy and content with her than he'd been or felt in his long memory, and the only thing he and fate as personified by the authorities and the Well could do was shove him toward ending it.

He wanted the situation, and her, to remain as it was now. The only woman around with no interest in a wardrobe, jewels, makeup, or perfumes and one who never nagged or complained about anything—the perfect mate, he thought sardonically, using his usual defensive humor to mask his inner pain.

Maybe he was just being a sucker again, he thought, unable to dispel his dark mood. He didn't
want
to get to the Well, which represented only a return to that endless existence he so hated. Why not just find one of these tropical islands with abundant food and water to support two people, sink the damned ship, and retire, just the two of them?
Let
Mavra fix whatever was broken and go back through. If she disconnected him, then he'd just grow old with Terry and finally die—and find the peace in that he'd never known.

It was terribly appealing, but he knew he'd never do it. It was this damnable sense of
obligation
he had.

Damn it! There were a million reasons why Mavra might have vanished in that long-ago time and place. But why had she never tried to find him in the two and a half thousand years or so since? If only to let him know, even if not to get together. Even allowing for all that, if only Gus hadn't painted a picture of a man-hating mental case . . . !

Gus had a colored view of her, of course. He might be all wrong, and Mavra might be just fine and fully capable of handling things.

She
might
be, but deep down he wasn't sure he believed it. At least, he wasn't sure enough of her to trust the fate of all those races, all those people out there, scattered, seeded among the stars. He hadn't had to take the obligation or the responsibility for them, and perhaps, knowing what he did now, he would not do so again. But he
had
accepted it, and even if he'd occasionally run from the responsibility, he couldn't really hide. It wasn't just hiding from the Well that was the problem; it was that he could never hide from himself.

Eventually he dozed off in spite of himself.

He awoke in the waning part of the day, feeling very good, very refreshed, but thirsty. But when he got up to go get a drink of water, he discovered that he was in her body, not his own. Her body, yes, but this time it felt natural, neither odd nor different, nor did the sights and sounds and smells seem out of place. Still, he went and got the drink and returned aft, only to see his own body at the wheel and other controls, dropping sail, bringing the little craft about in the wind.

"What are you doing?" he called out in her voice. "You don't know how to sail a ship! I wouldn't even think you'd want to!"

His body's face looked surprised and two dark eyes stared at the figure just below. "You can speak!" he heard his own voice say. "You've got speech back! That's wonderful!"

"What do you mean? It's you who have changed! We've swapped bodies, that's all, probably in our sleep. We'd best swap back so I can take her out. You'll wreck her!"

"Are you mad?" his other self asked. "I'm Nathan Brazil! I was captaining craft bigger and smaller than this before your world was formed! What's this nonsense about body switching? You're Terry, and you've been through a lot of shocks. Let me just get us under way and we'll have some time once we get to open sea! I want out while there's still some light!"

"But
—
but—you're not Nathan Brazil, I'm Nathan Brazil!"

The other laughed. "This sharing of sensation has restored your speech but given you delusions! Look! What's the name of that sail? Where's the jib? The boom? When should you run with a spinnaker?"

"Uh
—
I
—
I
—"
she stammered, suddenly realizing that she had no answers to those questions. But Nathan Brazil would know, of course, and obviously did know from the way he was operating things up there. She sat down on the hatch cover and tried to think. What did she know? What did she remember? It was all fleeing, rushing out of her head even as she tried to grab on to the memories, the thoughts, the knowledge they represented.

It was all gone in a flash, leaving only the question of whether it had ever really been there. What did she know? She remembered coming into the vast chamber, reaching the place with the giant furry creatures, having met and joined with others like herself in some kind of swampy jungle, then of seeing Brazil and finding him very attractive and going with him . . .

There was no shock, only an intense if incredibly odd feeling of relief, of a massive weight lifted off the shoulders. Why, then, it must be true, she thought. I don't have any responsibilities beyond being with him, helping him, and being happy! I'm not Nathan Brazil, I'm just Terry! I must have gotten enough from him to feel his burden and his pain, and I just wanted to take that away from him. She felt sorry for him, knowing what a burden he carried inside, and she resolved to try to make it as easy on him as she could. She loved him so much, she'd wanted to take that burden off him and carry it herself, but the load was so overwhelming . . .

"Wake up, Cap," said Gus, shaking him.

Nathan Brazil opened his eyes and for a moment still thought he was Terry, but he wasn't. No matter his dreams, he couldn't be let off the hook that easily . . .

"What the hell took you so long, Gus?" he snapped, more irritated to be awakened than glad to see the Dahir.

"Well, they got wanted posters out on you, for one thing. Probably took 'em off a blowup of the recording when you come in. Right now all it says is that you're wanted for theft of a private vessel, and they give a pretty good description of this scow, too. Good thing you decided not to go in the harbor, Cap. You'd never have stood 'em all off."

That was bad. "But what about you?"

"Well, all sorts of stuff. Best-laid plans and all that, I guess. Nobody noticed me, as usual, but when I was through pickin' up information and supplies, I found something for my own belly as well, and after I eat I get groggy and sleepy for a little, and, well, I guess I just dozed off. I still feel like a stuffed turkey, but it was well into daylight when I woke up. I decided to fight off any idea of getting some more snoozin' and get back here. Fact was, I was worried that you'd cut out. Then I heard the boat whistle. All the crew of that cop ship got back aboard pretty fast, and they got up steam and pulled out. I got real nervous that they'd made you and were takin' off after you."

"Yeah, that gave us a turn as well. Went right on by, though."

"Well, I figured that, since word was that one of the small ships that come in sometime today had seen some other ship on their wanted list a ways off to the east. Some kind of big-time smuggler craft—the way they talked, sounded like drugs or somethin' to me. Whoever it is, they want 'em as bad as they want us, and the cop captain pulled everybody out and took off as fast as he could get up steam. Seems these crooks pull the shell game at sea so you can never be sure which boat's got the goods, and they figured this one was steamin' for a pickup."

"Interesting. Well, at least it gets them off our backs for the moment, but don't think there aren't more of them around—and if the posters have hit even a little spot in the middle of nowhere like this, you can bet we're marked. Did you remember to bring the sack with the food?"

"Oh, yeah. Did better'n that, really. Come over here and look over the side. I'll need some help with it gettin' it all aboard."

Brazil was astonished to find not the meter-square aid kit container but a full-blown plastic dinghy filled with cartons. "Good lord! They let you get away with all
this!"

"Well, they didn't stop me, anyway. Truth is, there was a lot of furry types and all in the cop crew, and this was one of the supply shipments due to go out to their boat. They left it there at the dock in their rush to pull out, so I just kinda slipped into the water and took it instead."

"Great. You're sure it's not ammo and two thousand copies of my wanted poster, though?"

"It's food, Cap. Maybe not all of it's useful, but a lot is. Nothin' looks exactly like it did back home, but fruit and veggies have a habit of lookin' pretty close, and there's flour and some kinda meal like cornmeal and other stuff like that. I checked after I got out of the harbor but before I got too far away to go back. I figured I better let them cops get some distance, I didn't want 'em suddenly rememberin' that they forgot this and comin' back for it. They might not see
me
in the water, but they'd sure as hell see this raft and figure it got loose and floated away."