Brazil awoke feeling really fine, the best in many long years. He glanced over at Wuju, still asleep, although the sun had been up for an hour.
Isn’t it funny, he thought. The transformation, the commitment, the crisis, and the way those people had served me have all come together to do what nothing else had.
He remembered.
He remembered it all, all the way back.
He understood, finally, what he had been doing before, what he was doing now, why he survived.
He considered the vessel he wore. Not of his own choosing, of course, but it was serviceable if he could just get a voice.
How great a change to know it all! His mind was absolutely clear, certain, now that everything was laid out before him. He was in total control now, he knew.
Funny, he thought, that this doesn’t change anything. Knowledge, memory, wisdom aside, he was the culmination of all of the experiences in his incredibly long life.
Nathan Brazil. He rolled the name around in his mind. He still liked it. Out of the—what?—thousand or more names he had had, it had the most comfortable and enigmatic ring.
He let his mind go out across the land. Yes, definitely some sort of breakdown. Not major, but messy. Time dulls all mechanisms, and the infinite complexity of the master equation was bound to have flaws. One can represent infinity mathematically but not as something real, something you can see and understand.
And yet, he thought, I’m still Nathan Brazil, still the same person I was, and I’m here in Murithel in the body of a great stag and I’ve still got to get to the Well before Skander or Varnett or anyone else does.
Czill. If what he had heard was right, they had computers there. A high-technology hex, then. They could give him a voice—and news.
Grondel emerged from a tent and came over to him. He strained at the rope on his left hind leg, and the Murnie understood and freed him. He went immediately to the big patch of bare dirt that was his writing pad. Grondel followed, grumping that he hadn’t had anything to eat yet, but Brazil was adamant and anxious.
“What’s on your mind, Nate?” he asked.
“how far here to czill center” Brazil traced.
“Already, huh?” Grondel muttered. “Somehow I knew it. Well, about a hundred and fifty kilometers, maybe a little more, to the border, then about the same into the Czillian capital. I’m not sure, because I’ve never left this hex. We don’t get along well with our neighbors, which is fine with us.”
“must go,” he scratched. “in control of self now. important.”
“Ummm… Thought you weren’t going there across Murithel for a vacation. All right, then, if I can’t dissuade you. What about the girl?”
“she comes too,” he scratched. “will work out easy code for basic stuff, stop, go, eat, sleep, etc.”
And that was the way they worked it out, Brazil thinking of as many basic concepts as he could and using a right leg, left leg, stomping code for them. Twelve concepts were the most he could work on short notice without fear that she would mix them up. He also had to assure them several times that he would not wander away or stray again. She accepted it, but seemed dubious.
They ate their fill of the grasses. Grondel would ride Wuju with them to the border. Though Nathan was safe as a branded, purebred stag, she was not. A Murnie accompanying them would ease her passage.
They followed the stream, passing first the spot where his body had lain, the mud and bottom still disturbed from the action. They made exceptionally good time, and Brazil enjoyed the experience of being able to move quickly and effortlessly, so powerful that the mud couldn’t trap him, nor could the brisk pace tire him. He just wasn’t built for riding, though; and Wuju had to carry Grondel, which slowed her more than usual. It didn’t matter.
They made the border shortly after dark on the second day. On the morning of the third, after Grondel had refreshed Wuju on the stomp code, they bade him good-bye and crossed into Czill. The air was extremely heavy with an almost oppressive humidity, the kind that wets you with a fine, invisible mist as you move through it. The air was also oppressive with carbon dioxide, which seemed to make up one or more percent of the atmosphere, although oxygen was so far above their previous norms that it made them feel a little light-headed. Were it not for the great humidity, Brazil thought, this would be a hell of a place for fires. As it was, he would be surprised if a match would burn.
They ran into Czillians soon enough, strange-looking creatures that reminded him of smooth-skinned cactuses with two trunks and carved pumpkin heads. Neither he nor Wuju had a translator now, so communication was impossible, but at the first village center they reached, they managed a primitive sort of contact.
The place looked like a great, transparent geodesic dome, and was one of the hundred or more subsidiary research villages outside the Center. The Czillians were surprised to see a Dillian—they knew what Wuju was, but as far as any could remember none of her race had ever reached Czill before. They regarded Brazil as a curiosity, an obvious animal.
About the only thing Wuju could get across to them were their names. She finally gave up in frustration and they continued on the well-maintained road. The Czillians sent the names and the information of their passage on to the Center, where it was much better understood.
Brazil paid a lot of attention to Wuju, and their lovemaking continued nightly. She was happy now and didn’t even wonder how Brazil, who led, was picking the right direction at every junction as if he had been there before. In her mind the only question that mattered was about his human body. She felt a little guilty, but she hoped the body would not be there or would be dead.
She had him now, and she didn’t want to lose him.
Late in the morning of the second day, they came to what was obviously the main highway of the hex, and followed it. It was another day and a half before they got to the Center, though, since it was not in the center of the hex as Grondel had thought, but was situated along the ocean coast.
They arrived just as darkness was falling, and Brazil stomped that they would sleep first. No use going in when there was only minimum staff, he thought.
As he made love to her that night, part of her mind was haunted. The rest of him is inside that building, she thought, and it upset her. This might be their last night.
Cousin Bat woke them up in the wee predawn hours.
“Brazil! Wuju! Wake up!” he shouted excitedly, and they both stirred. Wuju saw who it was and greeted him warmly, all her past suspicions forgotten.
Bat turned to Brazil unbelievingly. “Is that really you in there, Brazil?”
Brazil nodded his antlered head affirmatively.
“He can’t talk, Cousin Bat,” Wuju explained. “No vocal cords of any kind. I think that upsets him more than anything else.”
The bat grew serious. “I’m sorry,” he said softly to Brazil. “I didn’t know.” He snorted. “Big hero, plucking the injured man from the jaws of certain death. All I did was make a mess of it.”
“But you are a hero!” Wuju consoled him. “That was an incredibly brave and wonderful thing.” Well, there was no avoiding it. The question had to be asked.
“Did he—is his body still alive?” she asked softly.
“Yes, it is, somehow,” Bat replied seriously. “But—well, it’s a miracle that it’s alive at all, and there’s no medical reason for it. It’s pretty battered and broken, Wuju. These doctors are good here—unbelievable, in fact. But the only thing that body will ever be good for is cloning. If Brazil were returned to it, he’d be a living vegetable.”
They both looked at Brazil expectantly, but the stag gave no indication whatsoever of emotion.