Gods at the Well of Souls by Jack L. Chalker

Author:Jack L. Chalker
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, General, Adventure, Fiction
ISBN: 9780345388506
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: 1995-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

Another Part of the Field

Gen Ttaluud was very uncomfortable in the presence of the colonel, but he needed information and needed it bad. He might have some business to do with this jelly blob if the answers were right.

“It was a complete disaster,” the colonel told him. “They even managed to prevent me from destroying a great deal of the computer files. Fortunately, I did manage to eliminate information on certain major figures and also some details of the divisions within the hexes such as yours.”

“You think that’ll help me?” Taluud thundered. “Hell, everybody there knows me, and so does everybody here. I ain’t in the quiet part of the business, you know. If they’d flush something as big as the complex down the toilet, they wouldn’t think twice of flushin’ me along with it.” He bit off the end of a cigar and spat it out with such force, it traveled halfway across the room. “So what’s the price, Colonel? What in hell will get ‘em off my back?”

“As you surmised, the pair kidnapped by Campos, and particularly one, Mavra Chang. Find them, rum them over, and you are likely to find the pressure turned well down, so much so that you might well be back in business within six months to a year at best.”

“Then we’ll find ‘em!”

“Um, yes. That is a priority. The question is, Do we really wish to turn them over to the council when we do?”

“Huh? What in hell does that mean? Of course we do. You think I want to be ruined?”

The colonel had considered his course on the journey here, accomplished mostly by sea and not without its own danger. Leemings had great power on land, but in the water they were helpless, and in salt water they could not help but absorb great quantities and sink like stones. Even these amorphous creatures needed to breathe oxygen, and they were not equipped to fashion working gills. “Mister Taluud, have you thought beyond what’s happening to consider why it’s happening? Why our mutual bosses would allow such a catastrophe?” “Savin” their own asses, that’s all, just like everybody else.” “In more ways than one. They are scared. They are frightened of something so much that they are willing to pull down an important part of what they had built with such care and patience. This Mavra Chang isn’t merely someone with a lot of friends. They would never have sacrificed the complex for as simple a reason as that.”

Gen Taluud really hadn’t thought about it, but what the creature had said made a lot of sense. “Go on.”

“Let me tell you what they firmly believe about Mavra Chang,” the colonel said calmly. “And I’ll also tell you about my experiences with a man of the same race. A man named Nathan Brazil.”

Taluud listened, fascinated, not knowing whether to believe this stuff. Still, it was clear that the big shots, the rulers and politicians behind all this, were totally convinced, and they had greater resources than he did.

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