04. The Return of Nathan Brazil (27 page)

"Please, now, everyone come into the old lab," Obie invited. "I have some things that must be done and some things that must be said. Watch yourselves as you round the small corner to the doorway; the main shaft is very hot."

It was. It was like an oven; those who could sweat were soaked in just the time necessary to cross the few meters from the control-room door to the lab entrance.

The old lab felt almost frigid after the steambath, and they all stood gasping for a few moments.

Mavra, coughing, looked around and noted a number of rifle-carrying crewmen lining the walk. She grew apprehensive; Obie had been acting strangely since the problem in space-time began and she didn't like the look of this development at all. She began to fear that the effect of the rip in space had somehow unhinged him.

"Please move down to the lower level," Obie ordered. They complied, all eyeing the armed guards and wondering what the hell was going on. Soon they were facing the dais on the lower level. They could see the little dish, the original Zinder creation that had started everything so many centuries before.

"Please pardon the strong-arm stuff," Obie said, "but I expect some resistance to what must be done and, as I expect to die today, I want no one able to change things."

"Obie! No!" Mavra screamed.

"I must, Mavra," he replied, almost pleading. "I don't want to do it. I don't want to die, Mavra. Nobody does. But . . . I
must,
I think. I . . . I don't know. Maybe I won't. We'll see. But I have to act as if I will."

Nathan Brazil didn't seem very upset by Obie's statements. "Why all the histrionics, Obie? I'm not going to do it and you know it—and you know you can't force me to."

"You speak with your heart, Brazil," the computer responded, "for which I envy you. I, too, have a heart in the poetic sense, but I am cursed by my realization as an enormous machine. Machines are designed to think logically, to cut through all the crap at impossible speed and with all the information needed. We machines can't ignore the facts or the logic. It's always there, always right at your metaphorical fingertips. I can do quintillions of different calculations at the same time. I have no subconscious mind—just an infinitely large conscious one. I can be sad, I can be happy, I can mourn the death of my poor sister, I can fear for my own self, I can feel love and hate and pity. But I can't use my emotions to run from the truth as the rest of you can. You all cope because of your ability to shuffle things in your brain, reinterpret them through your emotions—be a bit psychotic, if you will. I cannot. I was not designed to do it, much as I envy the trait.
I am always perfectly sane.
That is my curse. That is the factor that makes my thing different—not just faster—than yours."

They said nothing; it was clear that none knew where Obie was headed.

"I say that Nathan Brazil must reenter the Well of Souls," Obie continued. "He must disconnect the Well from the power source. This will undo the last, say . . . roughly the last ten billion years, at once. All that we know will cease to exist. Then Brazil must repair what is broken and allow the Well to repair itself, too. He must do this because, if he does it right now, or in the immediate future, he will most assuredly be able to use the Well World to recreate the Universe. It will start back at square one, of course, for the Markovian races and for the forces of evolution that produce new forms in response to their preset natural laws. If he waits, as he now wishes to, Brazil risks a twenty-one percent chance that the Well will short out within the next few decades. That means a seventy-nine percent chance that it won't, which is what he clings to. I submit that a one-in-five chance is too great a risk to play with.

"You see, if the Well shorts out it will then be damaged beyond repair. There can be no re-creation. There will be only darkness, and life of any sort will exist only upon the Well World itself. Forever."

Marquoz, Yua, Gypsy, and Mavra all looked at Brazil. "Is this true?" the little dragon asked.

"I'm willing to take the risk," Brazil replied calmly. "It's four to one that most of the races of the Universe will have the millions of years they deserve."

"But is there a one-in-five chance of what he says happening?" Marquoz pressed.

Brazil nodded. "Something like that. I think he's probably exaggerating for effect. Five to eight percent— one out of twelve at the outside—more likely, within the next one to three million years, anyway."

"Those are better odds," the Chugach said to Obie and the others. "At five to eight percent
I'd
take the risk."

"He refuses to face facts," Obie came back. "Twenty-one percent. Now. This minute. Thirty percent in another century or two. Fifty percent in another two to five thousand years. Any moment after that. A race can accomplish a great deal in five thousand years— but it cannot achieve greatness. It's too short a time to produce even a minor evolutionary change; it's time enough to lose wisdom, but not time enough to earn it. So Mr. Brazil asks us to give the races of the Universe a few thousand years—at the risk of total oblivion for the entire Universe beyond any hope of reconstruction. I submit that the potential to be gained by immediate inaction are outweighed by the greater risk we take allowing it. The Well must be repaired. Now."

"I know more about the Well than he does," Brazil pointed out. "I think he's wrong."

"I'm a far better and faster computer than you, Nathan Brazil," Obie retorted.

He chuckled. "If you know more about it than I do, then
you
turn it off and fix it."

It was a good point, but Obie was ready for it. "You know I can't. I know what has to be done, but I'm a part of the equations. The moment the power is turned off I, too, will cease to exist. The Well will not recognize a surrogate, since only one of the older Markovian equations can open the Well and get inside. I can tell you what to do—but only Brazil can do it. And he knows it."

They looked at the strange little man. His expression seemed anguished. "I couldn't do it, anyway," he said defensively. "My god! Do you realize how many people I'd be murdering? I will not accept that kind of responsibility! I won't!"

"Standoff," Gypsy muttered.

"Not quite," Obie responded. "As I said, Brazil has an advantage: Human in his thoughts and soul, he can continue to run from the truth. I cannot. Therefore, he must be made to see things as I do. He must be forced to face the truth. In a moment I will swing the little dish out, I will enfold him and we shall merge. He will see what I see. He will be forced to see what I am forced to see.
Then
let him refuse."

"But—Obie!" Mavra protested. "You can't! Just trying to analyze him damaged you!"

"I expect the experience might be fatal," the computer replied, a note of apprehension creeping into his all-too-human voice. "I am not sure. I
do
know that it is possible, and I
do
know that the Well will keep
him
from being killed by the experience. But he will be forced to recognize the truth."

Brazil chuckled nervously. "Now, wait a minute! Ain't no way I'm going to go through with this. If you think—"

"You have no choice," Obie cut in. "The men with rifles will see to that. You will either do what I say or we will shoot hell out of you and they will throw you on the platform."

Brazil looked genuinely upset. He disliked pain as much as the next man. "Okay! Okay! I'll
do
it!" he practically yelled. "You don't have to go on with this!"

"I'm sorry, Brazil, I truly am," Obie responded. "I wish you were telling the truth, but you and I know you are not sincere. The dish is the only way I can make sure. Do you think I would take this course if there were any other way? If you were me and i you— would
you
believe it, even if it were true?"

Brazil sighed and seemed to collapse a bit. He looked totally defeated. "You got me there."

"I would like to speak with each of you in turn, in private, before I deal with Brazil," the computer said gravely. "Mavra, will you please step onto the platform?"

Forcing back tears, Mavra somehow made it up to the platform.

With the violet glow enveloping her she had no conception of time. But she knew she had to talk Obie out of it.

"Mavra, don't say it," his voice came to her. "For one thing, I agree with you a hundred percent. I don't want to do it. But I
have
to. Try to understand."

"I'm   trying,   Obie—but   I   just   can't   accept   it."

"Look, Mavra. It's not the way Brazil says. I have no desire to be a martyr. With the death of Nikki, I'm the last of the Zinders. I hadn't expected her to die, Mavra. I had hoped that she could be helped by me, given the fresh start she deserved."

"If it's any comfort to you, Obie, I don't think you could have done a thing unless you wanted to wipe her mind."

"I know, I know. Still—it's kind of strange, isn't it? Her going today, that is. The both of us . . ."

"It doesn't have to be, Obie! Come on! We're partners. Fifty-fifty. You don't have a majority to dissolve the company."

"It's dissolved in favor of a new one. You know that. It was dissolved the moment they used the Zinder Nullifiers. I know—both of us thought it would go on forever. New challenges, new worlds. I guess the biggest mistake was in not checking back here regularly. If we had, we could have handled the Dreel and none of this would have happened."

"You don't know how many times I've thought about that," she admitted ruefully.

"But we didn't, Mavra. It's done. What hurts most is that we did a lot of good out there. No matter how fouled up they were going, we managed to turn them around, put them on the right track. It was surprising how similar we were to most of the rest—although I guess when you consider they all sprang from the same Markovian roots, it's not that odd. Still, we saved a lot of lives, a few planets, maybe a civilization or two."

She nodded and smiled. "It's a record to be proud of. And, most of all, it was fun, too."

"It was. But for what? When Brazil pulls the plug on the Well, Mavra, they'll all be gone. They will never have been. The space and time that have been superimposed on the Markovian Universe will vanish. Such a
waste.
"

"You sound like Brazil, Obie. Why not give them a chance, then? As he wants to?"

"They don't have a chance, Mavra—and neither do I. Either we destroy it all, for all time, with no hope of restarting, or we restart now. Either way I shall die. It's better this way."

"But must you die?" she pressed. "Why now? We'll need you."

"You should never need me," he came back. "That's the trouble. All of you have been too dependent on my big and little dishes. You've grown rusty from playing god, Mavra. And, no, I need not die. Truthfully, I do not know what will happen. I might go mad, I might just injure myself. I will probably short out. There will be no danger; I have already disconnected life-support and maintenance from dependence on me, so it's like old times again there.
Nautilus
will survive and work— for a while. Who knows? I'm
not
god, although sometimes it was easy to think myself so. I don't know what will happen. I only know that while I do what I must, I find I regret a surprisingly small amount of my own life. I regret none of our association, Mavra. The others—to them I am a machine, or a powerful, alien entity to be feared. Only you, Mavra, see me otherwise. Only you have been my confidant, my close, dear friend."

He paused for a moment. She was too choked up to say anything, and she had the oddest feeling that Obie was feeling the same very human way.

Finally he said, "I will tell you what needs to be done and everybody's role in it. It'll be a memory readout; you are already strong enough to resist all the extraction methods known to me. In a sense I give you more than that, a little part of me, the most human part, that will rest back within the dark recesses of your mind, but when you need me I'll be there. Still partners, Mavra."

"Still partners, Obie," she managed.

She was suddenly back in the chamber and the others were staring at her. She stepped down.

"Marquoz, please," Obie summoned. The little dragon sighed, got up on the platform, and looked around at the empty air. "Mind if I continue to smoke?" he asked. The violet beam descended.

"Marquoz," Obie said, "you are not here by accident but by design. Not mine, though, I am not clear whose. Perhaps there is some power greater than we. Still, in my estimation you are the absolute best person for the job. A great deal of work is to be done, and you must bear part of the responsibility."

"You seem awfully certain that Brazil will do it," the little dragon pointed out. "You also seem awfully certain that
we'll
do it, whatever you have in mind for us, anyway. Suppose Brazil comes back and still says no? Suppose he doesn't come back?"

"He'll come back," Obie assured him. "You must understand that only his body is a part of the reality you and I know and accept. His spirit, his soul, that part of him that is his personality and memories—it's not part of our Universe at all. It is so alien that I cannot begin to understand it. It is as if he is made of antimatter. You see it—it looks real, acts real, is normal in every way. But touch it and you explode. I understand antimatter; I can even
become
antimatter. He is of a past Universe and an alien form that is beyond me, for I have no frame of reference, nothing against which to compare him."

"That's what's going to happen?" Marquoz asked worriedly. "You and he are going to combine and explode?"

"No, nothing like that. He is adapted to our Universe; he can accept ours. You might say, though, that we are just a part of his reality. He is a bucket and we are water. You can fill a bucket with water but not water with a bucket. He will receive my data and see that there is no course open to him but mine. Believe me. But I will also get
his
data, and it will be in a form and amount that I cannot handle. It shouldn't harm him, except perhaps to shake him up. It will harm me.