“I want to go down to the old body one last time,” Brazil said to the bat, and they made their way down the stairs to the basement room.
Bat, too, had noticed a change in his manner, and it disturbed him. He wondered whether the transformation had altered or changed Brazil’s mind. Some forms of insanity and personality disorders are organic, he thought. Suppose the deer brain isn’t giving the right stuff in the right amounts? Suppose it’s only partially him?
They walked into the room where his body was floating, still alive according to all the screens and dials. Brazil stood by the tank, just looking at the body, for quite some time. Bat didn’t interrupt, trying to imagine what he would be thinking in the same circumstances.
Finally Brazil said, almost nostalgic in tone, “It was a good vessel. It served me for a long, long time. Well, that’s that. A new one’s as easy as repair this time. Let it go.”
As he uttered the last word, all the meters fell to zero and the screens all showed a cessation of life.
As if on command, the body had died.
Brazil turned and walked out without another word, leaving Bat more confused than ever.
“There’s no question that Skander solved the riddle,” the Czillian project chief, whose name was Manito, told Brazil and Cousin Bat. “Unfortunately, he kept the really key findings to himself and was very careful to wipe the computer when he was through. The only stuff we have is what was in when he and Vardia were kidnapped.”
“What was the major thrust of his research?” Brazil asked.
“He was obsessed with our collection of folklore and legends. Worked mostly with those, and keying in the common phrase: Until midnight at the Well of Souls.”
Brazil nodded. “That’s safe enough,” he replied. “But you say he dropped that line of inquiry when he returned?”
“Shortly after,” the Czillian replied. “He said it was the wrong direction and started researching the Equatorial Barrier.”
Brazil sighed. “That’s bad. That means he’s probably figured the whole thing out.”
“You talk as if you know the answer, too,” the project chief commented. “I don’t see how. I have all the raw data Skander did and I can’t make sense of it.”
“That’s because you have a puzzle with millions of pieces, but no concept of the size and shape of the puzzle even to start putting things together,” Brazil told her—he insisted on thinking of all life forms that could do the act of reproducing, growing a new being, as she. “Skander, after all, had the basic equation. There’s no way you can get that here.”
“I can’t understand why you let him use you so,” Bat put in. “You—both races—gave him a hundred percent protection, cooperation, and access to all the tools he needed without getting anything in return.”
The Czilian shook her head sadly. “We thought we were in control. After all, he was a Umiau. He couldn’t exist outside his own ocean because he couldn’t travel beyond it. And there was, after all, the other—the one who disappeared. He was a mathematician. Whose data banks was he consulting? Was he brilliant enough not to need them? We couldn’t afford not to back Skander!”
“Any idea where they are?” Brazil asked.
“Oh, yes, we know where they are—fat lot of good it does us. They are currently being held captive in a nation of robots called, simply enough, The Nation. We received word that they were there, and, since we have a few informational trades with The Nation, we pulled in all our IOU’s to hold them there as long as possible.”
Brazil was suddenly excited. “Are they still there? Can we get them out?”
“Yes, they’re still there,” Manito replied, “but not for long. There’s been hell to pay from the Akkafians. Their ambassador, a Baron Azkfru, has threatened to bomb as much of The Nation as he can—and he can do a good deal of damage if that’s all he’s out for. That’s the line. They’ll be released today.”
“Who’s in the party?” Bat asked. “If it’s weak enough we might be able to do something yet.”
“We’ve thought of that already,” the Czillian responded. “Nothing that wouldn’t get our person killed along with the rest. Aside from Vardia and Skander, there’s an Akkafian—they are huge insects with great speed, the ability to fly, and nasty stingers, and they eat live prey—named Mar Hain, and a weird Northerner we know little about called The Diviner and The Rel. If they’re one or two I can’t find out.”
“Hain!” Brazil exclaimed. “Of course, it would be. That son of a bitch would be in the middle of anything dirty.”
“You know this Hain?” Bat asked curiously.
Brazil nodded. “The gang’s all here, it looks like.” He turned to Manito suddenly. “Did you bring the atlas I asked for?”
“I did,” the Czillian replied, and lifted a huge book onto a table. Brazil walked over to it and flipped it open with his nose, then started turning pages with his broad tongue. Finally he found the Southern Hemisphere map and studied it intently. “Damned nuisance,” he said. “Antelope don’t need very good vision.”
“I can help,” the Cziillian said, and walked toward the stag. “It is in Czillian, anyway, which you can’t read.”
Brazil shook his head idly from side to side. “It’s all right. I see where we are now, and where they are. We’re about even—two hexes up on this side to the Ghlmon Hex at the northern tip of the ocean. They’ve gotten two up the eastern side of the same ocean to pretty much the same spot.”
“How can you possibly know that?” the Czillian blurted out, stunned. “Have you been here before? I thought—”
“No,” Brazil replied. “Not here.” He flipped a few more pages, studying a close-up map of a particular hex. Then he flipped again, studied another, then to yet another. All in all, he carefully examined five hexes. Suddenly he looked up at the confused Czillian.
“Can you get me in touch with some Umiau big shot?” he asked. “They owe us something for Skander. They’ve got Slelcron, which is a nontech hex and so is fine from our point of view, and Ekh’l, which could be anything at all these days. We’ve got Ivrom, which I don’t like at all, but there’s no way around it, and Alisstl, which will make Murithel look like a picnic. We can contend with Ivrom, I hope, but if we went through the Umiau hex, on a boat of some kind, we could avoid the nasty one and maybe even gain some time on the others. If they stick near the coast—and I think they will, because those are the best roads by far—we might just beat them there and intercept them here,” he pointed with his nose to the map, “at the northern tip of the bay here, in Ghlmon.”
“Just out of curiosity,” Bat said, “you said that the Umiau were warned the first time about a kidnap try on Skander. Now, you said you heard they were in The Nation. Who told you those things?”
“Why, we don’t know!” the Czillian answered. “They came as, well, tips, passed in common printer-machine type in our respective languages, to our ambassadors at Zone.”
“Yes,” Bat persisted, “but who sent them? Is there a third set of players in the race?”
“I was hoping you could tell me that,” Brazil said flatly.
Bat’s eyes widened. “Me? All right, I admit I knew who you were back in Dillia, and that I joined you on purpose. But I don’t represent anyone except myself and the interests of my people. We got word the same way the Czillians and Umiau did, at Zone. Said where you’d be, approximately when, and that you were going after Skander and Varnett. We couldn’t find who sent it, but it was decided that we had a stake in the outcome. I was elected, because I’ve done more traveling than most of my people. But—me? The third party? No, Brazil, I admit only to not being truthful with you. Surely by now you know that I’m on your side—all the way.”