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"That man is not going anywhere!" the doctor pronounced confidently. "Period!"
"If he were on fire and we were watching him bum, I would not trust 'that
man,' " the colonel told her. "You and your ship are going to be a little bit
famous, I think, Doctor. You see, that man is Captain Nathan
Brazil."
There was a long pause, and then the doctor asked, "Who?"
"Nathan Brazil. There's been an all wants and warrants out on him since he
stole a sailing ship and vanished many weeks ago."
"I don't pay attention to that. I have enough trouble keeping up with the
medical biology of the nine different races represented on this crew alone,
let alone others I might have to patch up, regardless of tech level. It keeps
me busy."
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The colonel was still a bit incredulous. "You have never heard the name
before?" The doctor gave a mild shrug. "Well, seems to me that there's a name
that sounds something like that in ancient mythology, but I'm afraid I didn't
pay much attention to myths and legends."
A pseudopod oozed out and gestured toward the man in the tank. "Well, there
lies a genuine mythological legend, Doctor. Nathan Brazil, the immortal who
alone remains to work the great Well
World machine."
"You're joking, of course."
"Perhaps. Perhaps not. Let's just say that there is ample evidence that such a
person exists.
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%2...20-%20Gods%20at%20the%20Well%2
0of%20Souls.TXT (42 of 157) [7/1/03 1:20:24 AM]
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20Jack%20L%20-%20...of%20Souls%200
3%20-%20Gods%20at%20the%20Well%20of%20Souls.TXT
Enough to satisfy the Zone Council that he exists, anyway. And this man, who
came through the
Well Gate from another world far from here, not from ancestral Glathriel,
knew an awful lot about the Well World for one from a civilization still not
really even into space."
The doctor stared at the man in the tank. "An ancient god? That one? Here?"
"Wiser heads than we believe it. Certainly it will be a moot point if he dies,
won't it? But if he doesn't ... If he in fact makes a full and complete
recovery ... What then?"
"You kind of expect your ancient mythological deities to be, well, a bit
larger, more imposing, to say the least."
The colonel chuckled. "Only if they want to be noticed, Doctor. Not when you
want to sneak in."
She hadn't entirely lost her fear, but she was much more relaxed now,
convinced at least that she'd done the right thing by coming to the other,
hurt though he clearly was. Everything on the boat was so interesting, so
new. She understood that the crew members got a lot of amusement at her
ignorance. Of course they were sometimes not so amused, like when she'd just
taken a piss on the deck, but she didn't mind. A lot of it was too confusing
to worry about, anyway. What did it matter if some had clothes and some
didn't? What did it matter how one ate, or slept, or whatever?
And they kept going around and working all these things on the boat that
didn't make a lot of sense. Some of them even did things that seemed silly on
the face of it, like washing the deck when they were on an ocean-when it got
rough, the waves washed it anyway. That was why she didn't understand why
they got upset when she peed on it. Either they or the waves washed it
anyway, and it seemed like she had to pee a lot.
They also had a lot of gadgets and gizmos that made no sense to her. They'd
sometimes try to show her the simplest things, at least to them, and she'd
try, too, really try, but she just couldn't figure out how to work them. She
had finally managed to figure out how to open doors, but then they got mad
when she kept practicing on every door on the boat. Doors seemed stupid,
anyway. All they did was block her way from one place to another. If they
didn't have doors, they wouldn't have to bother opening them all the time,
she reasoned. She couldn't figure out why the boat didn't sink, either. One
threw something in the water, it sank. Why didn't this big, heavy, ugly thing
sink? It didn't make any sense. Well, she didn't worry much about things she
couldn't figure out. From observing and listening to the surface thoughts of
the crew, she'd gotten the idea that there were smart people who understood
or could figure out most anything, there were others who understood some
things, and finally there were dumb people who just couldn't figure out
things. Some of the crew members whom others in the crew considered stupid
didn't seem so stupid to her, but they also didn't seem to be sad or upset
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