Free 01. Midnight At the Well of Souls by Jack L. Chalker Page B

Serge Ortega!" in a tone of bewildered acceptance. "I had totally forgotten that. . . ."
    Ortega smiled. "I said I was, Nate."
    "But, oh, man, how you've changed," Brazil noted, amazed.
    "I told you this world changes people, Nate," Ortega replied. "It'll change you, too. All of you."
    "You wouldn't have stopped me from finishing the pig in the old days, Serge."
    "I guess I wouldn't have," Ortega chuckled. "And I really wouldn't have now—except that this is Zone. And, if you'll sit over there, across the room from Hain," he said, pointing to a backless couch, and, turning to Hain, continued, "and if you will stop all your little, petty games and promise to sit quietly, I'll explain just what the situation is here—the rules and lack of them, and a few other things about your future."
    Hain mumbled something unintelligible and went back over to his seat. Brazil, still nursing his sore jaw, silently got up and moved over to the couch. He sank down in the cushions, his head against the back wall, and groaned.
    "Still dizzy," he complained. "And I'm getting a hell of a headache."
    Ortega smiled and moved back behind his desk.
    "You've had worse and you know it," the snakeman reminded the captain. "But, first things first. Want some more food? You spoiled yours."
    "You know damned well I won't eat for days," Brazil groaned. "Damn! Why didn't you let me get him?"
    "Two reasons, really. First, this is—well, a diplomatic legation, you might say. A murder by one Entry of another would be impossible to explain to my government no matter what. But, more than that, she's not lost, Nate, and that makes your motive even flimsier."
    Brazil forgot his aches and pains. "What did you say?"
    "I said she's not lost, Nate, and that's right. Just as this detour deprived Hain of justice, it also saved her. Arkadrian was no solution, really. Obviously you felt she was worth saving when you decided to detour—but, just here, she's little more than a vegetable. Obviously Hain was decreasing the dosage as she became more and more accustomed to the pain. He was letting her rot out—but slowly enough to make the trip without problems. May I ask why, Hain?"
    "She was from one of the Comworlds. Lived in the usual beehive and helped work on a big People's Farm. I mean the dirt jobs—shoveling shit and the like, as well as painting the buildings, mending fences, and suchlike. IQ genetically manipulated to be low—she's a basic worker, a manual laborer, basically mentally retarded and capable of carrying out simple commands—one at a time—but not of much in the way of original thought and action. She wasn't even good at that work, and they used her as a Party whore. Failed at that, too."
    "That is a slander of the Com people!" Vardia protested vehemently. "Each citizen is here to do a particular task that needs doing, and is created for that task. Without people such as she as well as ones like me the whole society would fall apart."
    "Would you change jobs with her?" Brazil asked sarcastically.
    "Oh, of course not," Vardia responded, oblivious to the tone. "I'm glad I'm not anything but what I am. I would be happy at nothing else. Even so, such citizens are essential to the social fabric."
    "And you say my people have gone that route," Ortega said sadly, almost to himself. "But—I would think the really basic menial stuff would be automated. A lot of it was in my time."
    "Oh, no," Vardia protested. "Man's future is with the soil and with nature. Automation produces social decay and only that necessary to the maintenance of equality can be permitted."
    "I see," Ortega responded dryly. He was silent for a while, then he turned back to Hain. "But how did you wind up with the girl? And why hook her on sponge?"
    "Occasionally we need a—a sample, as it were. An example, really. We almost always use such people—Comworld folk who will not be missed, who are never much more than vegetables anyway. We control most of them, of course. But it's rather