"Almost certainly," Mavra told him. "Umm . . . just out of curiosity, is thereany account in any of the legends of any of the races here of a surviving member of the First Race? Of somebody who could work the big computer?"
"Odd you should ask. Yes. The name is part of so many similar legends and sagas here that it is believed that he must have once been real, although whether of the First Race is not known. Come to think of it, he is always said to be a Glathrielian! Indeed, there are so many stories and legends about him that it is not totally certain if he is a real character, a composite, or a part of our extensive mythol-ogy. That is hotly debated. But there are ancient battle sites and legends in many hexes, including some that are very alien to Glathriel and very far from it, that have their own stories."
"Uh huh. And his name?"
"It varies, but there is one that is most common. It is, and pardon the translator limitations, urn, let"s see-yes, that"s it. Brazil. Nathan Brazil."
Nathan Brazil.Mavra remembered him now. She re-membered alot about Nathan Brazil.
"Is there any consistency to what he looked like?"
"I"m afraid not, and any records of him that might have contained such information are apparently lost.
Besides, what sort of consistency might you expect from all those races, most of whom could not tell one of you from the other?"
"Point taken. Any other specific names and people in those legends?"
"Many. I am not too proficient in such things myself; the Kwynn were apparently not involved in that, and our sagas are different."
"No Glathrielian woman hero?"
"I do not recall one, although there may be. Why?"
"Just wondering." Mavra in fact felt some vague disap-pointment at the news that she wasn"t even a footnote. Somehow it was a little insulting, all things considered.
Still, what was irritating to her ego might actually be an a.s.set. It would be a lot harder to move around here if one were a world-cla.s.s legend who could open the Well. Others would get ideas.
Still, she vowed thatthis time they would not forget her!
"I believe," said the amba.s.sador calmly, "that it is time to process you through. This has been avery busy day."
"Two favors, if I might," Mavra responded quickly. "First, are pictures of the earlier arrivals available so that we may see if there is anyone we know in them? And sec-ond, may I use your translating device to speak to the oth-ers here briefly? We have no practical common tongue, I"m afraid."
Lori, astounded at the modern bearing and sophistication in Mavra"s conversation, couldn"t suppress a smile. In the tongue of the People she said, "I know you cannot explain this in the tongue."
Unexpectedly, the translator issued only an echo of ex-actly what she had spoken, untranslated, although it clearly caught the conversation. Even the amba.s.sador was sur-prised. "I"ve never seen one of these do that before," he commented worriedly.
Mavra, too, was surprised and responded, "It knows not the magic of the People."
Again, the words were echoed unchanged.
Mavra gestured toward the amba.s.sador. "Remember," she told Lori. "It might be very good to have a tongue that cannot be known here." Lori nodded, thinking much the same thing.
The amba.s.sador sighed. "Well, stop doing that! It"s an-noying! Let"s see . . . What was it you wanted?
Oh, yes. Pictures of the arrivals. Of course, they do not look like thisnow ."
He punched some b.u.t.tons on the console, and a wall screen showed three people in the very same conference room they were using. A twist of a dial focused entirely on one and blew it up to full screen. It showed a very hand-some man of clear Latin American ancestry, his hair in the process of going gray, dressed in casual but clearly expen-sive clothes.
"That"s all right. Just one at a time, thank you," Mavra said.
Another twist, and the picture showed a woman, very frail although by no means old, with short hair in a prim bun and thick horn-rimmed gla.s.ses. She was in a wheel-chair.
Another twist, and a third man came into view, dressed more casually than the other but still quite well.
He was a small man, not merely short but thin and wiry, with a large nose and deep-set eyes that seemed almost black and neatly trimmed black hair. He was clean-shaven, but Mavra recog-nized him in an instant and a clear memory of his face, his voice, his personality filled in inside her mind. There was no question, no doubt about it.
Nathan Brazil had returned to the Well World before her.
"You say it has been a fairly long time since they came through," she noted. "Has he returned to South Zone at all since arriving?"
"I couldn"t say. Those records would not be here, if any records of such a visit were actually kept at all.
He"d be dealing with his hex amba.s.sador in any event."
"But does it say what they became? The man and the woman in particular?"
"Well, that would be appended here for informational purposesif the race has an emba.s.sy here andif the ambas-sador bothered to register them. Let me check. Ah, yes. Two of them, anyway. The first man went to Zumerbald, the woman to Dillia, and the third-well, there"s no record on him, although that means little, as I said."
I know where he went, she thought, and I know just what he looks like.
The picture changed, and two other men came up on the screen, neither familiar.
"This is the colonel and the captain?"
"Yes, if you prefer." A close-up of the older man, the colonel, showed a gruff middle-aged man with gray hair and dark complexion but with distinctly Germanic rather than Brazilian features-not uncommon in Brazil, although Mavra would not know that. The close-up of the other showed a much younger and quite handsome man with thick brown hair and a medium complexion which sug-gested he hadn"t been in the tropics very long. His uniform was khaki-colored and had nothing on it but a name tag and captain"s bars on the shoulders.
"The older man went to Nanzistu," the amba.s.sador told her, "and the younger went to-odd, it"s not there, but I could have sworn somebody or other said he went to Erdom. Well, they don"t keep a permanent amba.s.sador here, and they"re a tribal people, so perhaps they didn"t do much updating. But that"s the lot."
"He looks familiar somehow," Lori said, looking at the handsome man. "I wonder if I met him somewhere. I wouldn"t forget a face and body likethat. It"s an American uniform."
"Well, perhaps you will remember; it might be useful," Mavra replied, then turned to the amba.s.sador.
"And one other favor," she reminded him.
"Eh? What?"
"Your translator. I would like to speak directly to my companions for a moment. A few minutes, no more."
"Well, you can do that now, can"t you?"
"It would be easier if I didn"t have to shout. May I just borrow it for a moment and place it right here?
Where are we going to go?"
"Oh, very well." He lifted it from around his neck, and she went and took it from him. "Be careful with it, though!"
She took it over and knelt beside Gus. "Gus, can you hear me?"
"Um . . . Huh? Yeah. Been listenin" to this bulls.h.i.t. Still hung over from them drugs, though. I"d swear that guy over there was a giant pink talking dinosaur."
"You"re not hung over, and he"s more or less exactly that," Lori a.s.sured him. "Look, Gus, you heard it.
Whether you believe it or not, they"re going to force us through, and who knows where or evenwhat we"ll be if he"s telling the truth?"
"Believe it, Gus," Mavra said firmly. "But that"s not the point right now. The point is what happensafter.
I"m going to tell you all right now that I will not change. I am already registered here. I"m going to Ambreza, the old Glathriel, and so did that small fellow up there. You heard my ques-tions about the legends?"
Lori frowned. "Yes, but I don"t see-"
"You don"t have to. That man is Nathan Brazil. The one in the legends. The man who can work the computer that runs not only this place butevery place. Sooner or later that is going to get out. Sooner if I have anything to do with it. And although I doubt he"s even started yet, sooner or later he"s going to head north, to the equator, and go inside. When he does, he is going to become like one of the an-cient people that built this place. He"ll go down into the guts of this world, check it out, then he"ll do a reset."
"Awhat !" Juan Campos and Lori almost said together.
"A reset. It won"t affect this world, but it will affect Earth. Drastically. Time, s.p.a.ce, everything will be changed. They had few rules, those ancient people. In the end he"ll bring Earth and the other inhabited planets back up to speed, to where, in our case, true humans develop. But ev-erybody now alive on Earth, and everybody who"s lived up to that point, will be destroyed first. It will all start out from scratch.
I-Ithink that they"ll all be stored here in the memory banks of the Well World. But all of it, everything and everyone you ever knew, will be gone."
Lori shook her head in wonder. "I"m still having trouble withthis place. I can"t really handlethat ."
"Yes, how do you know this to be true?" Juan Campos added.
"I was there the last time he did it. I-helped. It was necessary, I swear. It was do that or the entire universe would die forever, even this place. But when we started it back up, nothing was made better.
Everything developed exactly as it had before. All the suffering, the misery, the evil. I don"t know if this crisis is as serious as that one. I don"t think it is. Lori, you trusted me enough to come this far, and I wasn"t lying, was I? Trust me on this one, too. I want to stop him this time. I want to see if it"s necessary to destroy the universe and reset it when a few minor re-pairs and adjustments will suffice. Maybe this time I can save everybody and make things a little better. I can do that, but only if I beat him inside, to the master control."
"What are you?" Lori asked her. "One of those creatures like him?"
"No. I was born on a distant planet so long ago, it doesn"t matter. I was a product of thelast creation, or re-creation, maybe. There is a certain bond between us, and I helped him then. He repaid the kindness by making me more like himself, registering me with the master control and making me virtually immortal. That is why a gate was sent for each of us. Never mind-time is short, I"m afraid, and they like this to go very fast once you"re briefed. The plain fact is, I have to beat him there."
"He"s got one h.e.l.l of a head start," Juan Campos noted.
"Not necessarily. You don"t know him like I do. He will do anything to put it off, but he finally will be forced to do it. The Well will see to that. Right now he"s probably en-joying himself, finding out what"s new and what"s old here, and trying to think of a thousand reasons why he should not go. At some point he will also try to at least make contact with his companions. That is in his nature, and I know in any event that he has a special fondness for Dillians. It is a very long and very dangerous journey from Glathriel, not far north of Zone, to the equator."
"But you said he couldn"t be killed!" Lori pointed out.
"He can"t, and neither can I, but almost everything else badcan happen to us. This is unlike anyplace else. It is like crossing dozens of little alien worlds, each a few hundred kilometers across. Many are friendly, but others are hostile to all outsiders, and even the weather and climate change. Some of the places, and races, have great power and can be downright ugly. It is almost a cosmic joke that we both start far away in Glathriel. Almost as if, perhaps unconsciously, hewanted it to be as hard as possible.
And whichever of us gets there first will have great power-and great discretion. I don"t know if I can beat him there, but if I waste little time and get to it, I might.He won"t go alone, and if any of the natives here pick up on who he is, they will try and insure that they are there, too. I cannot beat him alone. That is why we are having this conference. I need your help. I won"t do much selling. Come to save your family, friends, and world. Come to gain what rewards I can shower on you if I win. Come for the most unique adventure of your lives. But I need friends and allies."
"But what can we do?" Lori asked her. "We don"t even know where or, if I can believe it,what we"ll be!"
"No, you don"t. But any hex gate-and there is one in each hex-will bring you back here. Leave a message tell-ing me where you are. I will find you. Donot try and find me. I will have to avoid Brazil, and you will not be pre-pared for such a journey. But I need to know where and what you are. If you cannot do it yourself, send word. I will find you. I have already had the worst done to me on this world, and I am better suited for it. Understand?"
"Yes, I think so," Lori answered, and Juan Campos nod-ded thoughtfully.If she can work this thing, then she has access to all that power . . . "Gus?"
"Yeah, sure. Do they have cameras here? And news?"
"Some hexes do, of various kinds. Some do not. De-pends on where you are. It even depends on where you are whether any sort of camera will work. As to news, that, too, varies. You will find something, Gus. The Well is ran-dom but notcompletely random. The important thing is that you will be hale, hearty, healthy, and ready to go no matterwhat you are, and soon."
"You can count on me," Juan Campos told her, and Lori looked over at him and frowned.
"I"ll come," she said, "if only to make sure you don"t get to like this slime ball before you get to know him." Campos looked pained.
"I don"t believe a word of this, so why the h.e.l.l not?" Gus told her.
Mavra smiled. "Good. You get that word to me, and I will get to you. Do it as soon as you can. I cannot wait in Ambreza for long, and I certainly will not want to return here again once I have set out. I will give you-let"s see-a month. Four weeks. That will give you enough time and will allow me to find out what I need to know and secure what I will require for the journey. Four weeks."
There was a sudden loud series of grunts and roars from across the room. The translator said faintly, "That"s enough! Let"s go!"
"Good luck to you all," Mavra told them, and hugged Lori. Then she picked the translator up and returned it to the Kwynn.
"I thought you were saying good-bye, not giving speeches," he harrumphed. "All right, everyone!
Outside that door and to your right!"
Lori bent down to pick up Gus, but he said, "I might make it. Help me to my feet."
She did, worried about his long captivity in bonds and his weak condition, and sure enough, he collapsed. She reached down and picked him up gently.
"d.a.m.n! This isembarra.s.sing !"Gus muttered.
They followed the amba.s.sador down another long series of corridors, past rooms with strange-shaped entrances that contained a variety of horrific or mythical creatures and even worse smells and noises.
Mavra could see Campos looking for a way out. Finally they reached the end of a dead-end corridor, and in front of them was a black hexa-gon as dark and nonreflective as the one atop the meteor.
"I still don"t see how this is possible," Lori muttered aloud.
"Matter to energy conversion," the amba.s.sador replied. "And energy to matter. Quite simple in principle, although of course none of us know how to do it. Who is first?"
"Ah, h.e.l.l," Gus said with some disgust. "Does she have to carry me into that thing?"
"While there"s nothing specific against it, it"s not tradi-tional to send two through at once," the Kwynn replied. "However, it is not exactly a transit point. You could liter-ally bethrown in and it would not matter. You would still feel as if you"d fallen asleep, so they tell me, and then awaken on the ground wherever you are a.s.signed."
"Well, if somebody"ll stand me up and give me a little push, I"ll go," Gus told them.
Mavra went over and helped Lori, and together they got the man, taller than Lori by almost a head and taller than Mavra by headand shoulders, on his wobbly feet. Then, together, they gave him a push forward, and he managed a step into the blackness, pitched forward, and was gone.
Lori stood there looking nervously at the gate. "I really don"t know," she sighed. "I never much liked the sight of myself in a mirror, but there"s a lot worse things to be than me. Now"s a h.e.l.l of a time to find that out, though, isn"t it?" She took a deep breath. "Well, here goes nothing." And with that, she leapt into the blackness.
Mavra looked at Campos, who bowed slightly and made a gesture that could only mean either "ladies first" or "after you." She shrugged, smiled at him, and jumped in.
"Now you, sir," the amba.s.sador told him. "Go ahead."
"I think I want to consider this a little more carefully," Juan Campos replied. "Like a day or two. Maybe next year?"
The amba.s.sador sighed and turned as if to lead the way back, and his huge tail came around, struck Campos a hard blow, and flung him into the blackness.