03. Gods at the Well of Souls by Jack L. Chalker Read Free Book Online

Erdomese in  the computer now. If we use that as our model, it would also be possible to  introduce a tapeworm of sorts. It would search through her catalog of memories  while she slept looking for the specific pattern of her memories of her husband  and their time together, and allow her mind to restructure those events." "A tapeworm is the most dangerous thing you can do in a sentient creature,"  Drinh noted nervously. "We might as well change all her memories for the mess it  would be likely to cause! Best to just kidnap her and be done with it if that is  your solution!" 
     
    "You misunderstand. The limited nature of this program is so subtle, she  probably will not even be aware of it. At worst, she will either blame it on the  results of the reorientation and accept it as a minor side effect or take it as  an inner revelation of something that's been there all along. It won't matter.  It will not change her relationship with the Dillians one bit, and it will  produce a logical result. She will not only have little motivation other than  friendship to want to find this husband of hers, she will have an even greater  motivation for fearing finding him as she remembers him. As this plays out, we  can find someone, perhaps connected to the Great University at Czill or some  lesser institution, with the potential to offer her some sort of position. She  would be among many species and would not stand out as particularly alien, and  her knowledge of Standard would allow her to do academic research. I believe her  offworld profession was some sort of geologist, at least judging from those  secret police reports. A passive, productive, rewarding job in a protected  setting. You see?" 
     
    "I see. It is a good plan." 
     
    "Only you do not agree?" 
     
    "I agree because I have no choice," Drinh replied, "and nothing better to offer.  But you are a logical scientist from a race that does not have the sexual  context both her race and mine share. People do not always react logically in  this sort of situation. Nor do I think the Dillians stayed for her alone. Not  this long. There is something to be said for comradeship and for the sense of  personal violation, of insult, when it is broken up the way their group's was. I  don't even think the two lost people are at the heart of it, not anymore. Some  people simply have a strong urge to see justice, and I think that may be in play  here." 
     
    "There is no such thing as justice if you have a good enough attorney," Nuoak  commented. 
     
    "There you go being logical again!" 
     
      
     
    The call came in only a day later. The clinic could perform the procedure at any  time, given a few hours' warning to actually synthesize and program the tiny  microgadgets. They were confident, it was a simple procedure, and the price they  quoted was considerably less than the translator had cost. Considerably less. "Well, I don't like it," Anne Marie said flatly. "It isn't natural. And what's  to keep them from fouling your brain chemistry all over to hell and gone? Why,  suppose they can do all they say! Why, after that stuff's inside you, you won't  be able to stop it! You could wind up being turned into a cow or something  worse!" 
     
    Alowi shook her head. "I do not think he would do that. He might if I were some  captured guinea pig, but not to paying patients who come in the front door. I  got the impression that they were a lot more experienced with this than they  want to admit. And they have probably won friends by doing big favors-fixing  congenital defects, perhaps regrowing limbs, maybe even the reverse of what I am  thinking of." 
     
    "But what if, somehow, sometime, we or somebody finds and liberates Lori? How's  lie going to feel with a permanently frigid wife?" 
     
    "I-I thought about that, but I can no longer let that enter into my plans. If I  am to be the first totally free Erdomese woman in history, then I have to go