03. Quest for the Well of Souls by Jack L. Chalker Read Free Book Online Page A

end, part of her project, one designed as a means to gain independence from others. Dependency she hated more than anything else. She had never been dependent for very long on anyone, and the state to which they'd reduced her was intolerable.
    But her brain had compensated for most of that; if she lived long enough, one day it would redress the balance.
    But it was only coping. Mentally and emotionally she had acclimated to her physical condition and limitations, but never had she abandoned the stars, the great swirling gulfs that shined so brightly all around her on nights like this that you could almost leap forward into them. So close, so visible—and yet, so far.
    That was where she belonged, and she never gave up.
     
    First you must descend into Hell. Then, only when hope is gone, will you be lifted up and placed at the pinnacle of attainable power . . .   
     
    But hope was never gone, she thought to herself. Not while she lived. Not while the stars shined so.
    Joshi turned his head upward a little, looking out at the northeastern horizon.
    "Look!" he said. "You can see your moon!"
    She lowered her gaze toward the horizon. It was there, a large silvery ball looking unreal and out of place, like a huge chunk of silver.
    Surely they're all long dead now, she told herself. All but Obie—poor, isolated Obie. The computer had been much more than any self-aware model she'd ever known. Obie was the son of Gil Zinder, and regarded himself that way. His own tragedy was that self-aware personality; how lonely he must be, she thought.
    Lonely. That was an odd term for her to use, she thought. All her life it had been her normal condition, except for those few years of marriage. And yet, she was better off than Obie now. She had Joshi, and the tribe.
    After a while the salt spray from the incoming tide started to reach them, and clouds obscured the view, so they got up and headed back to the compound.
    "The Trader 's due in some time this week, isn't it?" he asked her.
    She nodded. "I hope they brought the bio references I asked for, and those books on seine fishing techniques, too."
    He sighed. "The fishing stuff I can see—for the tribe, anyway. Got to keep the faithful faithful and all that. But what's all this interest in bio? You know we're a race of two, sterile. If we weren't, we'd have had some by now."
    She chuckled. The logistics of that had been a real tangle, since their sexual equipment was not in the best places, but it had been accomplished. She wondered whether her renewed appetite for sex after so many years of abstinence was due to middle age.
    "Well, I'm sterile, anyway," she responded. "Even if I weren't, we'd have Glathriel children. But there may be ways, somewhere. I've seen crazier experiments in genetic manipulation. It might be too late for me, though; I'm getting too old for that sort of thing."
    He snuggled up to her. "You're not too old for me . A little frazzled and fat and big-assed, but I like 'em that way."
    She snorted mock-contemptuously. "You just say that because I'm the only woman you've got. Besides, I know about that sacrificial virgin bit you've been working on the tribe."
    He laughed. "I had a good teacher," he pointed out. Then he grew serious. "But I'm not a Glathriel. Not any more. Not ever that I can remember. I'm a Chang and you're a Chang and nothing can alter that."
    That pleased her. They went back into the sleeping compound together, and Mavra felt confident that, before she died, once again she would control her own destiny and manage her own fate.
    But destiny had always controlled Mavra Chang.
     

Dasheen
    Ben Yulin was nervous. Yaxa weren't very welcome in Dasheen, not since the days of the wars, when peaceful, agrarian Dasheen had been dragged into the Northern campaign by his presence and the Yaxa's insistence.
    The Dasheen were minotaurs; they numbered about eight hundred thousand at the moment, only eighty thousand of whom were males. Their large, thick-bodied,