Free 03. Gods at the Well of Souls by Jack L. Chalker Page A

action. The long  wait was about to end. 
     
    * * * 
     
    For their part, the Dillians, knowing nothing of this, waited to see what the  disreputable clinic might have done to poor Alowi. 
     
    The answer, at least from their point of view, seemed to be nothing more than  what had been claimed. Alowi seemed more content with herself and more confident  and no longer seemed troubled by runaway inner drives. 
     
    No one, of course, was more nervous about this than Alowi herself. Becoming a  guinea pig possibly at the hands of one's enemy was an act of desperation but  reasoned action nonetheless. 
     
    At first she simply felt, well, normal, and for a while that was enough. Those  inner urges, those bouts of losing control, of nearly sick cravings, seemed to  vanish while leaving little in their place. This was not, of course, normal to  an Erdomese, but it seemed normal in almost any other context. She felt, well,  much like Tony and Anne Marie seemed to feel, or Mavra. She was simply herself,  but in complete control, not needing anything just to remain sane. Free. Free to study, free to learn, free of any thought of returning to Erdom. Yet when she looked at herself in the mirror, she liked what she saw. If  anything, she liked it more than she had, felt more comfortable about the person  who stared back at her. Although those urges and emotions had at times been  overwhelming and omnipresent for what had seemed forever, it now was difficult,  even impossible, to remember what that had felt like. She felt every bit a  female, no less than before; certainly she didn't feel sexless or frigid or an  "it." And yet, well, those things she'd gathered around or made or picked up in  the markets that were so obviously phallic now seemed pretty silly. She wasn't  quite sure just what sort of change other than allowing her independence the  doctors had wrought, but if this was the extent of it, well, it was something  she could surely live with and might have died without. 
     
    Tony came back from the city with what she hoped was an answer to Anne Marie's  report of only a few days before. Anne Marie, at least, was excited. "This is  the first time they ever sent a reply to one of our reports! And so quickly,  too! Perhaps they've found something out! Play it!" 
     
    Tony removed the cube and pressed her thumb firmly on the one side that had an  inlaid red surface. The cube took a few cells of skin, compared them with the  genetic code it carried, seemed satisfied, then said in a voice that came  through as a soft and pleasant woman's voice, "Please do not play the rest of  this inside your home. Take it to an open area well away from any others,  particularly natives, and repeat the process. The cube contains a small zonal  scrambling device that will cover an area about three meters square, so be close  to it. The message will play only once, erasing itself as it plays, so pay close  attention. When done, burn the cube in any open fire. The message will now pause  until you take these precautions, and you will not hear this preamble again." "My goodness!" Anne Marie exclaimed. "Sounds rather serious, doesn't it?" "It certainly sounds as if something, at least, is going to happen," Tony  agreed. "Let's take the precautions and go down to the jetty and see what they  have to say." She paused a moment and had a puzzled look. "I wonder why that  many precautions. Surely they do not think that even this tent is bugged-could  they? I mean, who would bug us?" 
     
    "Someone who is certainly near death from boredom," Anne Marie responded.  "Still, let's do this cloak and dagger business by the rules, dear." They all left the tent and went down perhaps two hundred meters to the jetty,  where the gentle ocean water, softened by far-off undersea reefs, lapped against  the sides. It was a nice, bright day, warmer than usual and with a gentle wind.  There was nobody else around close enough to