“I—I don’t know. I don’t think so. No, I’m sure he’s not. But he’s—well, he’s of no help to us now, maybe not in the foreseeable future. You see, to Obie the whole Universe and everything in it is strictly logical and mathematical. That’s what we are to him, strings of numbers, relationships that balance. Idon’t balance. I’m not a part of any math he understands and he doesn’t have the key to understanding my ‘formula’, driven to assimilate me, and for that he needs the key. But he can’t get the key unless he assimilates me. He must solve the problem, and he can’t solve the problem until he solves it. He’s stuck in a loop. In a way I guess you can say I drove him crazy.”
“And what about you?” Marquoz broke in. “He thought you might drive him crazy, yet he threatened to drive you sane. Did he?”
Brazil chuckled again. “The mind is a resilient thing, Marquoz. I’m probably saner than any living being has ever been, possibly saner than the Markovians were after their mind-links to their computers, yet I’m still quite mad and slipping more into madness the more I think. When you face the unthinkable you retreat, you shove it away, back into corners of your mind that you can’t reach.”
“Unfortunately, I think I understand you,” the Chugach responded. “Still, except to you, that bit of metaphysics is of little consequence. The question on the table is, simply, have you changed your attitude on fixing the Well of Souls?”
Nathan Brazil sighed. “A byproduct of the mind-link is that you remember things you never wanted to remember. The worst part is, the more of those memories you dredge up the more you realize how futile it all is. Rome rose to great heights, yet its own methods caused it to decay from within. I wonder if that isn’t true of the Markovian experience as well. Will we just do it all over again, even reach this point once again? Is the whole business of life doomed to repeated failure because there is something wrong with the experimenters? I wonder…”
“But will you fix the Well?” the little dragon persisted.
Brazil nodded unhappily. “I’ll go to the Well, if possible. I’ll enter and stand there and analyze the problem. But I won’t take the responsibility for murdering so many. I can’t accept the responsibility any more.” He turned slightly on his side, looking at them, and his eyes fixed on Mavra Chang. He pointed to her.
“Youwill take the responsibility,” he told her. “When I stand inside the Well so will you. I’ll ask you to give me the order. You will tell me to pull the plug on the Universe.”
He sank down and lapsed into unconsciousness, but the instruments informed them that, this time, it was closer to normal sleep.
Nautilus—Topside, Later That Same Day
Mavra Chang paced back and forth in the large reception chamber, where she had spent most of the afternoon and a good part of the.evening, looking grim and somewhat unhappy.
Marquoz waddled around the corner, stopped, yawned, and stared at her for a few moments. “You know, you really ought to get some rest and eat something, too. You can’t eat like a bird anymore. You’re a Rhone now and you require a great amount of energy.”
Mavra stopped and looked at him for a second. She was tired and wan; the strain showed on her face. She looked as if she had aged ten years in the past few days. “Perhaps you’re right,” she said hoarsely. “I don’t know—that’s all part of this, I guess. Everything has changed. Obie’s gone, even as we sit here comfortably on him; the Universe is going—have you really considered that what we’re trying to do is destroy all that we know? And me, well, I’m stuck in a reconstruction of my ancestor’s old Well body, but I don’t feel like a Rhone. Do you know what it’s like to want a roast beef or something and realize that you can only digest leaves and grass?”
“You’re just feeling sorry for yourself,” the little dragon responded. “I know what that’s like—but from what I’ve heard it’s not like you. I heard that on the Well World you were transformed into a handless cripple yet managed to surmount that difficulty and beat Ortega and everyone else at their own game. What’s changed you?”
She thought about it. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I’m getting old. Maybe I’ve just grown fat and complacent during my years with Obie.”
Gypsy cleared his throat and they turned. Neither knew how long the strange, dark man had been listening. “You know what’s wrong, if you just face it,” he said.
Mavra just looked at him questioningly. “You’re not the boss this time,” Gypsy said. “You’re not in charge, not even in control. Being a Rhone didn’t bother you one whit on the snatch operation because you were in charge. Not anymore, though. You’re not even a full partner; with Obie you were a partner only when and because he allowed you to be. Now it’s all in the hands of a little guy you don’t even know. Even back on the Well World they left you alone; you were the mistress of your own destiny. Not now. That’s what’s eating you. You gotta be the general all the time, or at least think you are.”
His speech was galling because she knew, deep down, that what he said was true. Gypsy had the uncanny ability to reach down inside your soul and see truths, and he wasn’t at all diplomatic about telling you what they were. For a moment she understood what Brazil seemed to be saying about being inside Obie. There were things you didn’t want to face, didn’t want to even think about—and you certainly became uncomfortable when they were thrust under your nose.
“Who are you, Gypsy?” she asked. “Where do you come from?”
He smiled. “I could give you a long, drawn-out biography, but even then you’d have no way of knowing whether I told the truth. What difference does it make? None of us really knows the others anyway. Take Marquoz, there. Why would a man leave his people, live and work entirely cut off from the environment, and the culture that he was born to? I’m the guy who was around every dingy spaceport milking the marks with any sort of con, never taking a sucker who didn’t really want to be taken but taking all those who did. I’m the guy who doesn’t fit, the square peg who’s found some way to survive and enjoy himself. Freighter captains are like that, too, I think—and thieves, and secret agents, and those kinds of folks. I’m not sure about Marquoz, but he’s definitely a square peg, too. So are you. The staff of the Nautilus—all square pegs, more or less. That’s why we’re here and they’re out there.” His tone became grim and distant. “That’s why we survive—and they don’t.”
A long silence ensued. Finally Mavra Chang said, “I guess I’ll go out and munch the lawn or something. I think the time’s approaching when we have to get to work.”
She didn’t have to go as far as the lawn; Obie had prepared for her hunger, as she well knew, with stores of grain pilfered from Brazil’s old ship. It didn’t taste great but it went down well, and the more she ate the more she wanted to eat. She didn’t feel good, but at least she felt better.
When she returned to the main hall she found Nathan Brazil. The tailor shop had found a black pullover shirt and a pair of shorts that fit him, and a pair of plastine sandals as well. He’d taken time to remove all the rest of his makeup and looked, they guessed, pretty much as he always had. He certainly looked both casual and comfortable. He was a small man, barely 170 centimeters tall, slightly built and very thin despite strong shoulders and strong, sinewy arms. He was dark, almost as dark as Gypsy, and two bright, brown eyes flanked a conspicuous Roman nose that sat atop a mouth very wide, rubbery, and full of teeth. His hair was cropped short, the better to use disguises, and he was clean-shaven, for much the same reason.