“Of course! Of course!” Skander exclaimed excitedly. “This body is a direct construct of the Markovian brain, you fools! The brain won’t allow it to be harmed, since it’s really part of the brain itself!”
“Quite so,” Brazil responded. “Nor, in fact, do I have to go in there at all. I can instruct the brain from right here. I’ve been able to do that since we first entered the Well itself. I merely wanted to give you a demonstration.”
“It would seem that we are at your mercy, Markovian,” The Rel said. “What is your intention?”
“I can affect things for anyplace from here,” Brazil told them. “I merely feed the data into the brain through this control room, and that’s that. It’s true there’s a control room for each type, but they are all-purpose, in case of problems, overcrowding when we built the place, and so on. Any control room can be switched to any pattern.”
“But you said—” Ortega started to protest.
“In the words of Serge Ortega,” Brazil replied, a hint of amusement in his voice, “I lied.”
Wuju broke from them and ran up to him, and prostrated herself in front of him, trembling. “Please! Please don’t hurt us,” she pleaded.
There was infinite compassion in his voice. “I’m not going to hurt you, Wuju. I’m the same Nathan Brazil you knew from the start of this mess. I haven’t changed, except physically. I’ve done nothing to you, nothing to deserve this. You know I wouldn’t hurt you. I couldn’t.” The tone changed to one not of bitterness, but of deep hurt and agony, mixed with the loneliness of unimaginable lifetimes. “I didn’t shoot at you, Wuju,” it said.
She started crying; deep, uncontrollable sobs wracked her. “Oh, my god, Nathan! I’m so sorry! I failed you! Instead of trust, I gave you fear! Oh, god! I’m so ashamed! I just want to die!” she wailed.
Vardia came over to her, tried to comfort her. She pushed the girl away.
“I hope you’re satisfied!” Vardia spat at him. “I hope you’re pleased with yourself! Do anything you want to me for saying this, but don’t torture her anymore!”
Brazil sighed. “No one can torture someone like that,” he replied gently. “Like me, you can only torture yourself. Welcome to the broader human race, Vardia. You showed compassion, disregard for yourself, concern for another. That would have been unthinkable in the old Vardia. If none of you can still understand, I intend to do something for you, not to you. For the most part, anyway.” He angled to address all of them.
“You’re not perfect, none of you. Perfection is the object of the experiment, not the component. Don’t torture yourself, run away from your fears. Face them! Stand up to them! Fight them with goodness, mercy, charity, compassion! Lick them!”
“We are the sum of our ancestral and actual past,” The Rel reminded him. “What you ask may indeed be possible, but the well of fate has accented our flaws. Is it reasonable to expect us to live by such rules, when we find it difficult even to comprehend them?”
“You can only try,” Brazil told it. “There is a greatness in that, too.”
The thump, thump, thump continued.
“What is that noise?” Ortega asked, ever the practical man.
“The Well circuits are open to the brain,” Brazil replied. “It’s awaiting instructions.”
“And what will those instructions be?” Varnett asked nervously.
“I must make some repairs and adjustments to the brain,” Brazil explained. “A few slight things, so that no one can accidentally discover the keying equation again. I’m not sure I’d like to go through this exercise again—and, if I did, there’s no guarantee that some new person might not take that chance, damage the structure, do irreparable harm to trillions who never had a chance. But, just in case, the Well Access Gate will be reset to respond only to me. Also more of an insurance factor has to be added, to summon me if things go wrong.”
Skander gave an amazed chuckle. “That’s all?” he said, relieved.
“It is most satisfactory to me,” The Rel pronounced. “We were concerned only that nothing be disturbed. For a short while there, we lost sight of that—but we are back in control of ourselves again.”
“Very minor adjustments are possible without disturbing anything,” Brazil told them. “I can’t do anything grandiose without upsetting a few things. I will, however, do some minor adjustments. For one thing, I am going to make sure that nothing like the Ambreza gas that reduced Type Forty-one humans on this world to apes will pass again, and I’m going to slap some local controls on technological growth and development, so that such an adjustment won’t be necessary again, not here.
“And, because I can’t bear to see them like that, I’m going to introduce a compound to the Type Forty-one atmosphere that will break the gas molecules down into harmless substances, while at the same time I’m going to make it a nontechnological hex absolutely. I don’t know what they’ll come up with, but I’ll bet it’s better than their current lot.”
“What about us?” Hain asked.
“I will not change what you are inside,” Brazil told them. “If I do that, you will not have lived at all. To do anything otherwise would be to invite paradox, and that might mess up everything. Thus, I have to deal with you as you are.”
Brazil seemed to think for a moment, then said, in a voice that sounded as if it came from thunder, “Elkinos Skander! You wanted to save the human race, but, in the process, you became inhuman yourself. When the end justifies any means, you are no better, perhaps worse, than those you despise. There are seven bodies back on Dalgonia. Seven human beings who died trusting you, helping you, who were victims of your own lust for power. I can’t forget them. And, if I alter the time line, bring them back, then all this didn’t happen. I pity you, Skander, for what you are, for what you could have become. My instructions to the brain are justice as a product of the past.”
Skander yelled, “It wasn’t me! It was Varnett! I wanted to save the worlds! I wanted—”
And suddenly Skander wasn’t there anymore.
“Where did it go?” The Rel asked.
“To a world suited for him as he is, in a form suited to justice,” Brazil responded. “He might be happy there, he might find justice. Let him go to his fate.”
Brazil paused a moment, then that huge voice came back. “Datham Hain!” it called. “You are the product of a horrible life. Born in contagion, you spread it.”
“I never had a chance except the way I took!” Hain shouted defiantly. “You know that!”
“Most products of a bad environment turn out worse,” Brazil admitted. “And yet, some of the greatest human beings came out of such miserable lots and conquered them. You didn’t, yet you had the intelligence and potential to do so. Today, you stand as a contagion. I pity you, Hain, and because I pity you I will give you a localized wish.”
Hain grew slightly larger, her black color turning to white. She saw it in the fur on her forelegs.
“You turned me noble!” she exclaimed, pleased and relieved.
“You’re the most beautiful breeder in the kingdom of the Akkafians,” Brazil said. “When I return you to the palace, you won’t be recognized. You’ll be at the start of a breeding cycle. The Baron Azkfru will see you and go mad with desire. You will be his brood queen, and bear his royal young. That is your new destiny, Hain. Satisfied?”
“It is all that I could hope for,” Hain replied, and vanished.
Wuju looked at Brazil, a furious expression on her face. “You gave that son of a bitch that? How could you reward that—that monster?”