03. Gods at the Well of Souls (19 page)

"Armed party probably barricaded just beyond the second level doorway," he  reported into the mike. "No way I can open it without exposing myself. Stairs  clear to level two." 

"All right. Why not move down and check the bottom level, then," came a  tinny-sounding voice near his ear. "If the stairs are clear, we won't give them  a warning by blowing anything there. I'm sending down an advance party now to  take out whatever's behind the door. If you can get into the bottom level  safely, use your own judgment. Otherwise proceed back to two after the opening  is secured." 

"Okay. Heading down." 

The bottom looked like the second level, but unlike there, he couldn't hear any  signs of life on the other side. Okay, Gus, how lucky do you feel? he asked  himself. Are you Clint Eastwood or Mickey Mouse? 

Mickey Mouse, he answered himself, but he was still tempted to try the door.  Once inside, he'd be virtually invisible to whoever and whatever was there. He heard the commando team come down to the second door above him. There would  surely be some explosions and shooting before too long. Maybe, just maybe, if he  could open the door and get through quickly at the same time they opened up  above, it would panic and confuse anybody with a bead on the door. Hell, it was either that or get his eardrums broken sitting there. He took hold of the door, then waited. Come on, come on, let's get it over with!  he thought to the commandos above. 

Suddenly there was the quick sound of an open door and a big explosion and then  the nearly deafening din of weapons fire just above. He pushed back the door,  standing to one side, and when it seemed as if nothing was coming out and nobody  was nearby, he slipped quickly inside it, leaving it open. 

There was emergency lighting here as well, only better than up top. It made the  area glow a very dull red, but it was sufficient for him to see and get around. If he remembered the layout, he was now in the area where they kept prisoners.  Ahead would be the living quarters, the master kitchen, and then the computer  complex. 

It definitely had the look of a prison or, more accurately, a dungeon. He found  why there hadn't been a welcoming party for him there immediately. The whole  entrance foyer was little more than a giant cage of thick mesh with an  electronically operated door at the end. There was no lock, latch, or knob on  this side; it clearly was intended to be opened only from the inside. That meant a guard or guards with some kind of surveillance system. He looked  around the ceiling and upper wall area in the dim red glow and finally spotted  where the camera just had to be. That left him with a problem. If everything sealed when the main power went off and there was always a guard  or two inside there, then the guard must be in a sort of in-between cage between  prison doors. He might well be trapped in there. In fact, he was pretty sure he  could hear somebody moving just beyond. How the hell could he deal with that  guy? 

He had a thought that was so nutty, it just might work. It was, after all, very  thick mesh. 

"Hey!" he called out. "You okay in there?" The guard stirred and hesitated,  unsure of who this was or whether to respond. 

"Cm'on! I'm one step ahead of them bastards upstairs. They're gonna blow through  here like butter with all the artillery they got, and right now I'm gonna be  right in between 'em like the filling in a sandwich!" 

The guard was more scared than suspicious. "You're with us?" 

Gus gave a loud, impatient sigh. "If I was with them, this door would be blowing  up about now. C'mon, man! It ain't much, but it's the only chance I got!" The guard still hesitated. "I got my orders. If the power goes, nobody in,  period. Not without an okay from the boss or security." 

"What the world you think this is, you dumb ass? It's the cops. It's a whole  damn army. They already got the top level, and they're working on the lab level  now. We're finished. All you can do is either make a break with me if we can or  stay and die." 

"Ain't gonna break out from this level!" the idiot said, almost with pride. "No? Well, then we can fight or give up. If you gotta give up, you don't want to  be the guy who's handy when they start checkin' the cells. Huh? Now, stop  clowning and let me in!" 

"I-I-I dunno. I don't know what to do." 

"Anybody come up and reinforce you?" 

"N-no. They all lit out for the front." 

"Leaving you here to either buy 'em more time or take the fall. You're a sucker.  I don't have any more time for this. I'm gonna open up on this door, and either  it's gonna give for me or I'll run out of ammo. Maybe if I cut through this cage  with this needier, I'll accidently hit the dumbest asshole in this whole  complex." 

"I-no. I, er-don't do that! Here!" 

There was a fumbling sound and the turning of a manual key and a wheel, and the  door swung open. Gus entered and found a sorry-looking little guy in a black  outfit sitting there on a stool with a big energy rifle cradled in his lap. He  was a little twerp, like an anemic otter in full dress, and he actually had a  tiny pair of glasses sitting on his snout. 

"W-well? Why don't you come in?" the guard asked, the rifle coming up. "Right here, you dumb shit!" Gus shouted in his face, grabbing the rifle and  bringing the stock down hard on his head. The guard collapsed in a heap, and  Gus, rather than worrying if the little guy was dead or alive, felt a little  thrill of satisfaction. 

"Sucker," he said, checking the rifle and seeing that it was still in good  shape. He decided it was handier than the little pistol if he could manage to  hold on to it. 

The inner door was easy to open, although the wheel was hard to turn with his  small and relatively weak arm muscles. Finally the lock clicked and he was able  to pull it open. 

Inside was a long and ugly chamber of horrors. 

Liliblod 

he hadn't done it, and it made him feel worse than ever. He'd actually had the  chance back there in Clopta, and he hadn't done it. He'd meekly gone back over  the border and started following the same old trail, just as before. What bothered him most was that he was well inside Liliblod before he realized  that he hadn't done it or even remembered what he'd intended to do. It was  almost as if he could have his opinions and dream his dreams, but he could only  act on what he was told to do. 

Maybe it's still going on, Lori worried. Maybe just changing me physically into  a packhorse isn't the end of it. What if even my brain is becoming more horse  than human? 

The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that this was the case. He  could think frantically and hard, even plan, but for how long at a time? Was he  thinking slower, or were there very long stretches of time when he just didn't  think at all? He'd made this trip countless times, over and over, but how many  times and for how long? He didn't know. How long did it actually take him to  walk the trail from Clopta to Agon? Again, he didn't know, not even how many  days it might be. How long had it been since he'd meekly walked back in? Was it  today? Or yesterday? Or was it further back than that? 

He had no idea. 

There were times when he was totally lucid, remembering a lot of specifics about  everything, and there were other times when he couldn't remember much at all.  Why, just back there, when he had thought of escaping, he had remembered most of  a map and how to get around. He knew he had. But try as he might, he couldn't  get that information back now. 

He had been losing it little by little, piece by piece, and he hadn't even  realized it until now. Maybe the process was speeding up. Maybe it was nearly  done. How many facts could a horse's brain hold? Not too many, because it didn't  need to hold all that many. He ate, he slept, and he walked the same trail.  Could it be that deep down that was all he really wanted to do? Or was it that he no longer had the will to do anything different and was making  excuses? That his old self said "Fight!" but his current self wanted only peace  and contentment? How much of him was gone, and how much had he himself pushed  away so he couldn't make use of it? 

He didn't even know how long he had mused on these depressing topics, but it was  quite a while. 

One thing he suddenly did know was that he wasn't far from the end now. Close  enough from the scent that he could smell and taste the hay and oats and other  good stuff they had at the headquarters, far better than just grass. He usually stopped after dark and slept till morning, but he was close and he  didn't really need to see all that much to make it. Not far, not far ... Suddenly, ahead, there was a massive explosion! The noise startled him so much,  he reared back and shook his head in disbelief. And then came the sounds of guns  firing and loud shouting by lots of people. 

Suddenly terrified of what lay beyond, he stopped right on the trail and just  stood there, unsure of what to do. 

The tumult ahead died down after a while, but not the one overhead. The tops of  the trees were alive with hissings and buzzings and sheer rage, and he heard  those things begin to move along the treetops, move toward the border and the  noise. 

Suddenly two figures, a Cloptan man and a Zhonzhorpian, came running toward him  on the trail. He tried to back up and back off a bit to let them by, but  suddenly a flashlight beam caught him square in the face. 

The two men were out of breath, were half-dressed, and looked to be in a  terrible way. Soon they began arguing and then shouting at one another, and  after a moment the Cloptan took something from a case he was carrying and a  bright white beam caught the Zhonzhorpian full and enveloped him; suddenly the  tall crocodilelike creature was no more. 

The Cloptan then approached Lori, and he was even more terrified after seeing  what had happened to the other, surely a companion rather than an enemy. The Cloptan patted him on the side, trying to reassure him with the gesture and  meaningless talk, and oddly, it did have a calming influence on him. Then the Cloptan climbed up on his back and latched the case to the saddlebags  while keeping the gun in one hand. Firmly, the rider turned Lori around, away  from the end of his journey and back toward where he'd come from. Cloptans  weren't horribly heavy, but this was going to be one heck of a walk. He wished he knew what had happened back there, but whatever it was, it sure  wasn't good. 

Agon-Liliblod Border 

"Lieutenant, I think you better get some men down to the third level as quick as  you can," Gus said into the mike. "I left the door open. I think I killed the  lone guard, but if he isn't dead, he's too dumb to do anything but give up." "What's the matter? What did you find?" 

"Monsters. Monsters in the basement. You might want the inspector down here as  well. If Agon doesn't have capital punishment, I think it will by tomorrow." There was silence for a moment, then the officer said, "All right. I'll send a  squad down and relay your message. Will you wait for them?" 

Gus looked around and shivered slightly. "I don't think so. The guard station at  the other end is empty, but the door's locked. I think I can blast through it,  though, now that I've seen how the doors are made. I'll report when I can." "Resistance on the second level was light after that initial barricade. It's  mostly labs, and it looks like they ran when things started happening. Watch  yourself, though. Any of them that didn't come up to level one are pretty likely  to be down there-and desperate." 

The cells were of the highest quality for dungeon cells. High-tech, Gus thought.  State of the art. Thick, shockproof, probably bullet- and rayproof doors made of  some material that nonetheless was totally transparent save for the electronic  locks and a small slit for feeding prisoners not otherwise restrained inside. There were 1,560 races, it was said, on the Well World, and he'd seen only a  tiny fraction of them. And even though many were bizarre in the extreme, none of  them could be as bizarre as some of the creatures in the cells. Hybrids, genetic  mutations, people whose own bodies were in the process of re-forming themselves  into the visions of insane designers. Some screamed, some cried out, others  sobbed, but he could not help them or look at them. 

Now, what the hell does any of this have to do with a drug ring? he wondered. Designer creatures. For what? Designer jobs? Animals with the smarts of humans  to avoid detection, follow complex orders? Traitors, people who'd failed in  their work for the gang, now forced to become monsters at the beck and call of  their masters? Why kill them when they could be turned into something useful?  Recycling taken to its ultimate degree. 

There were a few that weren't like that, but they weren't much better off.  Chained to walls, scarred, ripped open but still alive in agony ... They must  have had information somebody wanted. At least it was more familiar. He'd seen  this sort of stuff back on Earth in central Africa, in the Middle East, and in a  few of the less pleasant Far Eastern beauty spots. In some ways the mentality  was the same no matter where you went, even here. The others, the monsters-that  was just a high-tech extension of the same idea. New toys for the depraved. The idea of a Campos with this kind of power was disturbing. The original  incarnation was bad enough. Gus remembered what a big-time syndicate boss had  told him once. It wasn't about money. Money was rarely a concern after a short  while. It was all about power. 

"Hey, Lieutenant, you got a news crew here in Agon?" he asked through the mike. A moment later, after a request to repeat the question, the answer came. "Yes.  Several."