Jack L. Chalker WOS 3 Gods of the Well of Souls

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

remarkably good physical shape, all things considered. Mentally I'm not so
sure. From what we were able to get from the Ambrezans through
Zone, we have a theory but only a theory. That is one strange race there in
Glathriel."
"Yes?"
"We think she probably woke up in Ambreza near the border and, after seeing
what she could only perceive as monsters, made a run into Glathriel. There
they've developed some kind of deliberately primitive society that shuns all
artifacts, machines, tools, whatever. That doesn't mean they are savages,
though. Like some other races here, they went in the other direction,
developing powers of the mind, realizing what might be just a slight
potential in most of them, developing and honing it."
"Back on Earth I've seen men walk barefoot over red hot coals and suspend
themselves on sharp nails," Gus told her. "And I've seen a lot of other
strange stuff, too. Is that what you mean?
They went strictly that way?" "Well, I think it's a lot deeper than those
types of things, but you get the idea. Ambrezan anthropologists believe that
the Glathrielians have developed something of a group mind, a sort of
insectlike social and mental organization without any hierarchy in which all
of them are connected to one another. They convert their body fat into energy
that can be used for things far beyond mere physical work. I think you've
seen examples of that in her."
Gus nodded. The colonel gave a mock clearing of his nonexistent throat. "I
believe I shall go file my report. We have no interest in the girl, so I will
leave her fate entirely in friend
Gus's hands." And with that, the Leeming oozed out of the hospital lounge.
"You were saying they used fat to do things with their mind?" Gus prompted the
doctor.
"Yes. Fascinating, really. Still, it's only the background here. What is
really the point is that she walked straight into a place where the people
were organically the same as she was but mentally and socially were far more
alien to her than physically different races. She had no foreknowledge and no
defenses. They co-opted her into their mental net. She would have seen it as
an offer of friendship, security in her most vulnerable moment. She didn't
resist, almost
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%2...20-%20Gods%20at%20the%20Well%2
0of%20Souls.TXT (45 of 157) [7/1/03 1:20:24 AM]
Page 54
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20Jack%20L%20-%20...of%20Souls%200
3%20-%20Gods%20at%20the%20Well%20of%20Souls.TXT
certainly expecting communication. She got far more. We think they literally
rewired her brain.
Not organically but electrically. The memories were still there, but they
were no longer relevant or needed because the whole frame of reference was
different. We can't say why, when she saw
Brazil, she latched on to him with such tenacity, but we can guess that she
knew he was someone from her old world and she wanted out. The problem was,
she'd been rewired. She could leave, but she couldn't rewire herself. That
would take the collective knowledge and power of a pretty large
Glathrielian group. That meant she was suspended, neither here nor there. In
our world she thought like and acted like one of them. But in their world she
couldn't completely wipe away a lifetime of experience, memory, personality,
and ambition to assimilate."
Gus nodded sadly. "Poor Terry. She deserved better."
"Then we get to the situation where you were present. She reached out somehow,
using what must have been instinctive Glathrielian mental methods, and hooked
into Captain Brazil's brain. Again, this is on an energy level, not
physically. It was probably out of fear he might abandon her, but the link,
once established, worked both ways. He gained access to some of her powers,
and she gained a connection that might as well have been steel chains. With
only the two of them, stuck for weeks on that island, more in her element
than his. it's difficult to say what happened or if anything did, but it
might have. Then came the eruption, probably a terrified leap into the sea
and an attempt to get away, the big explosion, and, in the course of it,
Brazil was seriously, horribly injured. The link between them, something like
a telepathic bond, would have carried through to her as well. The shocks and
his own physical and mental trauma, combined with what must have been sheer
terror for her, overloaded her system. Linked to his more 'normal' wiring,
going through all that with her Glathrielian wiring, the shock loosened and
perhaps destroyed the careful patterns they'd built inside her. We think-and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Linki