The room lit up as they approached. It was made of the same stuff as the great hall and the corridors. There were, however, walls of obvious controls, switches, levers, buttons, and the like, and what looked like a large black screen directly ahead of them. None of the instruments held any sort of clue as to what they were, or had anything familiar about them.
“Well, here it is, and it’s still active,” Brazil announced. “Let me see,” he murmured, and went over to a panel. Their faces showed sudden tension and fear, and all of the pistols were raised, trained on him. The Diviner’s blinking lights started going very, very fast.
“Don’t touch nothin’, Nate!” Ortega warned.
“Just checking something here,” Brazil responded, unconcerned. “Yes, I see. In this room is the preset for a civilization that has now expanded. It’s interstellar, but not pangalactic. Population a little over one and a quarter trillion.”
“If it’s a high-tech civilization, then it is not ours,” the Slelcronian said with some relief.
“Not necessarily,” Brazil replied. “The tech levels here on the Well World were not imposed on the outside at all. They were dictated by the problems you might find in your own world. A high-tech world had abundant and easily accessible resources, a low-tech much less so. Since the home world had to develop logically and mathematically according to the master rules of nature, some worlds were better endowed than others. By making the trial hex here a low-tech, no-tech, or the like, we simply were compensating for the degree of difficulty in establishing technological civilization on the home world, not preventing it. We made them develop alternatives, to live without technology so they’d be better prepared on their home worlds. Some did extremely well. Most of the magic you find here is not Well magic, but actual mental powers developed by the hexes to compensate for low-tech status. What they could use here, they could use there.”
“The Diviner says you are truthful,” The Rel commented, one of the first things the Northerner had said since they set out. “The Diviner states that you were responsible for its prophecy that we would be here.”
“In a way, yes,” Brazil replied. “When I went through the Zone Gate, the Markovian brain recognized me as a native of Hex Forty-one and sent me there. However, in its analysis, it also found what I, myself, didn’t know—that I had an original Markovian brain-wave pattern. It then assumed that I was here to give it further instructions or to do work. When it concluded this, The Diviner, extremely sensitive to such things, picked up the message, however garbled.” He paused, and that central mass tilted toward them a little.
“And now,” he said, sadness in his voice, “here we are, in the control center, and you’ve all got fear on your faces and your guns trained on me.” Even you, Wu Julee, he thought, immeasurable sadness coursing through him. Even you.
“I tried to give mankind rules for living which would avert a second disaster like the first, would keep it from self-destruction. Nobody listened. Nobody changed. Type Forty-one was badly flawed—and it beat the odds anyway, this time. It made its way to the stars, and that was an outlet for its aggression, although, even there, even now, its component parts are looking at ways to dominate one another, kill one another, rule one another. And the drive for domination is there even in the nonhumans, you, Northerner, and you, Slelcronian. Look at you all now. Look at yourselves! Look at each other! Do you see it? Can you feel it? Fear, greed, horror, ambition burning within you, consuming you! The only reason you haven’t killed one another by now is your common fear of me. How dare you condemn a Hain, a Skander—a society? How dare you?
“How many of you are thinking of the people these controls represent? Do you fear for them? Do you care about them? You don’t want to save them, better their lives. That fear is inside you, fear for your own selves! The basic flaw in the set-up equation, that burning, basic selfishness. None of you cares for any but yourself! Look at you! Look at what monsters you’ve all become!”
Their hearts pounded, nerve ends frayed. The Diviner and The Rel were the first to respond.
“What about yourself, Nathan Brazil?” The Rel chimed. “Isn’t the flaw in us simply a reflection of the flaws in yourself, in your own people, the Markovians, who could not give us what we lack because they did not themselves possess it?”
Brazil’s reply was calm, in contrast to his previous outburst.
“The Markovians wanted to live in this universe, not run it. They had already done that. Destiny was a random factor they believed necessary to the survival of us all. That’s why they closed down the Well. None of us would be here except for a freak set of circumstances.”
“Where are the controls, Nate?” Ortega asked.
“We’ll find them ourselves,” Hain snapped. “Varnett cracked the big code, he should be able to crack this one, too.”
Brazil’s voice held deep sorrow. “Pride is a weakness of all things Markovian, and you’re a reflection of it. Now, if you’ll ease up and allow me one touch on the panel in back, I’ll show you the controls. I’ll tell you how to operate them. Let’s see what happens then.”
Ortega nodded, pistols at the ready. Brazil reached out with a tentacle and touched a small panel behind him.
The large black screen went on—but it wasn’t exactly a screen. It was a great tunnel, an oval stretching back as far as the eye could see. And it was covered with countless tiny black spots, trillions of them at the best guess. And between all the various black spots shot frantic electrical bolts in a frenzy of activity, trillions of blinking hairline arcs jumping from one little black area to another.
“There’s your controls,” Brazil said disgustedly. “To change the ratios, all you have to do is alter the current flow between any two or more control spots.”
He looked at them, and there was the deepest fear and horror on their faces. They’re afraid of me, he thought. All of them are in mortal fear of me! Oh, my God! Wuju who loved me, Varnett who risked his life for me, Vardia who trusted me—all afraid. I haven’t harmed them. I haven’t even threatened them. I couldn’t if I wanted to. How can they ever understand our common source, our common bond? he thought in anguish. We love, we hate, we laugh, we cry, live—that I am no different from themselves, only older.
But they did not understand, he realized. I am God to the primitives, the civilized man of great power at a point where knowledge is power, surrounded by the savages.
That’s why I’m alone, he understood. That’s why I’m always alone. They fear what they can’t understand or control.
“One control panel,” he said softly. “One only. What are a few trillion lives? There is their past, their present, their potential future. All yours. Maybe their equation is the basis for one or more of you in this room. Maybe not. It’s somebody’s. Maybe it’s yours. Okay, anybody, who wants to touch the first and second control spots, change the flow? Step right up! Now’s your chance to play God!”
Varnett walked carefully over to the opening, breathing hard, sweat pouring from his body.
“Go on,” Brazil urged. “Do your stuff! You might cancel out somebody, maybe a few trillion somebodies. You’ll certainly alter someone’s equation in some way, make two and two equal three in somebody’s corner. Maybe none of us will be here. Maybe none of us will ever have been here. Go on! Who cares about all those people, anyway?”
Varnett stood there, mouth open, looking like a very frightened fifteen-year-old boy, nothing more. “I—I can’t,” he almost sobbed.