“Hain gets the wish, but it’s not a reward, Wuju,” Brazil replied. “You see, they withheld from their newcomer one fact of Akkafian life. Most Marklings are sterile, and they do the work. A few are raised as breeders. A breeder hatches a hundred or more young—but they hatch inside the mother’s body and eat their way out, using the breeder’s body for their food.”
Wuju started to say something, then formed a simple, “Ooooh,” as the horror of Hain’s destiny hit her.
“Slelcronian!” Brazil pronounced. “You present me with a problem. I don’t like your little civilization personally, and I don’t like you much, either. I’ve adjusted things slightly, so the Recorders now only work with Slelcronians, not with any sentient plant. But you, personally—you’re a problem. You’re too dangerous to be let loose in the technology of Czill; you know too much. At the same time, you know too much of what is here to go back to Slelcron. It occurs to me, however, that you’ve really not altered the expedition in any significant way. If you had not taken over Vardia, nothing would have changed. Therefore, you didn’t—and, in fact, couldn’t.”
Nothing seemed to change, but there was a difference in the Czillian body.
“So what are you going to do with me and my sister?” Vardia the Czillian asked. As far as everyone in the room was concerned, except for Brazil, the Slelcronian takeover had never happened. Slelcron was merely the funny place of the flowers and the giant bees, and their passage had been uneventful. Even so, the human Vardia had found her sister the Czillian as cold as the Slelcronian had been. She had gone through the same mental anguish as she had before and felt alienated from her sister.
Everything was as it had been before.
“Vardia, you are your old self, and no longer your sister,” Brazil pointed out. “I think you’d be happiest returning to Czill, to the Center. You’ve much to contribute, to tell this story the way it happened. They won’t be able to make use of what you say to get in, but it may cause the thinkers there to consider what projects are really worthwhile. Go!”
She vanished.
Now only Brazil, The Diviner and The Rel, Varnett, Wu Julee, Ortega, and the original Vardia were left.
“Diviner and Rel,” Brazil said, “your race intrigues me. Bisexual, two totally different forms which mate into one organism, one of which has the power and the other the sensory input and output. You’re a good people, with a lot of potential. Perhaps you can carry the message and reach that plateau.”
“You’re sending us back, then?” The Rel asked.
“No,” Brazil replied. “Not to the hex. Your race is on the verge of expanding outward in its sector. It is near the turning point where questions of goals are asked. I’m sending you to your own people on their world with the message I gave you here. The Diviner’s gift will distinguish you. Perhaps you can turn your people, perhaps not. It’s up to you. Go!”
The Diviner and The Rel vanished.
“Varnett,” Brazil said, and the boy jerked as if he was shot.
“What’s in that little bag of tricks for me, Brazil?” he asked with false bravado.
“There are degrees of Comworlds, some better than others,” Brazil noted. “Yours isn’t too far gone yet. Even Vardia’s can change. The worst of the lot is Dedalus. It went the genetic engineering route, you know. Everyone looks alike, talks alike, thinks alike. They kept males and females, sort of, but the engineers thought of even that. The people are hermaphroditic—small male genitals atop a vagina below. They breed once, in an exchange, then lose all sexual desires and prowess. Each has one child, which is, of course, identical to the parents, turned over to and raised by the state. It’s a grotesque anthill, but it may represent the future.
“They don’t even have names there. Obedience and contentment are engineered into them. Yet, the Central Committee retains power. This small group retains its sexual abilities, and the members are slightly different. The population is programmed to obey any one of those leaders unquestionably. The Committee was a perfect target, and they’re controlled by the sponge syndicate. That sort of genetic engineering is, I fear, what the spongers have in mind for everyone eventually—with themselves on top.
“I give you the chance to change things. As the Murnies did with me, I do to you. You will be the Chairman of the Central Committee of Paradise, formerly called Dedalus. You’ll be the new Chairman. The old one just kicked the bucket, and you’re now unfrozen to take command. If you meant what you told me, you can kick the spongers out of their most secure planethold and restore that planet to individual initiative. The revolution will be easy—the people will obey unquestionably. Your example and efforts could dissuade others from taking the Dedalus course. It’s up to you. You’re in charge.”
“What happens to the new Chairman’s mind?” Varnett asked. “And my body?”
“Even swap,” Brazil told him. “The new boy will wake up a bat over in your old hex. He’ll make out. He’s born to command.”
“Not that madhouse,” Varnett chuckled. “Okay, I accept.”
“Very good,” Brazil told him. “But, I leave you this out. Should you ever want, any Markovian Gate will open for you—to bring you back here, for good. You’ll be in a new body, so nobody knows what you would wind up as. You’d be here until you died, but you have that option.”
Varnett nodded soberly. “Okay. I think I understand,” he said, and vanished.
“Serge Ortega,” Brazil sighed. “What in hell am I going to do with an old rascal like you?”
“Oh, hell, Nate, what’s the difference?” Ortega responded, and he meant it. “This time you won.”
“Are you really happy here, Serge? Or was that just part of the act?”
“I’m happy,” the snakeman replied. “Hell, Nate, I was so damned bored back in the old place I was ready to kill myself. It’s gotten too damned civilized, and I was too old to go frontier. I got here, and I’ve had a ball for eighty years. Even though I lost this round, it’s been great fun. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
Brazil chuckled. “Okay, Serge.”
Ortega vanished.
“Where did you send him?” Vardia asked hesitantly.
“Eighty’s about the average life span for a Ulik,” Brazil replied. “Serge didn’t start as an egg, so he’s a very old man. He has a year, five, maybe ten. I wouldn’t put it past him to beat the system, but why the hell not? Let him go back to living and having fun.”
“And so that leaves us,” Wuju said quietly.
There was a sudden flicker in the image of the Markovian, then a sparkling graininess. The shape twirled, changed, and suddenly standing there in front of them was the old, human Nathan Brazil, in the colorful clothes he had first worn on the ship a lifetime ago.
“Oh, my god!” Wuju breathed, looking as if she were seeing a ghost.
“The God act’s over,” he said, sounding relieved. “You should see who you’re really dealing with.”
“Nathan?” Wuju said hesitantly, starting forward. He put up his hand and stopped her, sighing.
“No, Wuju. It couldn’t work. Not now. Not after all this. It wouldn’t work anyway. Both of you deserve much better than life’s given you. There are others like you, you know—people who never had the chance to grow, as you did. They can use a little kindness, and a lot of caring. You know the horrors of the sponge, Wuju, and the abuse to which some human beings subject others. And you, Vardia, know the lies that underlie the Com philosophy. I’ve talked to both of you, observed you both carefully. I’ve fed all this information plus as much data as could be obtained from a readout by the brain while you were in this room. The brain responded with recommendations on what would be best for you. If we’re wrong—the brain and I—after a trial of what I’m going to do, then you both have the same option that is open to Varnett. Just get near a Markovian Gate—you don’t have to jump into it. Just get passage on a ship going near a Markovian world. If you want, the Gate will pluck you out without disturbing the ship, passengers, or crew. You’ll somehow mysteriously vanish. And you’ll wind up in Zone again. Like Varnett, you will have to take potluck with the Zone Gate again. Once here, again, there will be no returning.