Midnight at the Well of Souls - By Jack L. Chalker Page 0,1

of the city.

"The crust of this planet," Skander continued, "is about average—forty to forty-five kilometers thick. Measurements on this and other worlds of the Markovians showed a consistent discontinuity, about one kilometer thick, between the crust and the natural mantlerock beneath. This, we have discovered, was an artificial layer of material that is essentially plastic but seems to have had a sort of life in it—this much, at least, we infer. Consider how much information your own cells contain. You are the products of the best genetic manipulation techniques, perfect physical and mental specimens of the best of your races adapted to your native planets. And yet, for all that, you are far more than the sum of your parts. Your cells, particularly your brain cells, store input at an astonishing and continuing rate. We believe that this computer beneath your feet was composed of infinitely complex artificial brain cells. Imagine that! It runs the entirety of the planet, a kilometer thick—all brain. And all, we believe, attuned to the individual brain waves of the inhabitants of this city!

"Imagine it, if you can. Just wish for something, and there it is. Food, furniture—if they used any—even art, created by the mind of the wisher and made real by the computer. We have, of course, small and primitive versions now—but this is generations, possibly millennia, beyond us. If you could think of it, it would be provided!"

"This Utopian Theory accounts for most of what we see, but not why all this is now ruins," piped in an adolescent male voice, Varnett, the youngest—and probably brightest—but unquestionably the most imaginative of the group.

"Quite true, Citizen Varnett," Skander acknowledged, "and there are three schools of thought on it. One is that the computer broke down, and another is that the computer ran amok—and the people couldn't cope either way. You know the third theory, anyone?"

"Stagnation," Jainet replied. "They died because they had nothing left to live for, strive for, or work for."

"Exactly," Skander replied. "And yet, there are problems with all three suppositions. An interstellar culture of this magnitude would have allowed for breakdowns; they'd have some sort of backup system. As for the amok theory—well, it's fine except that every sign shows that the same thing happened at once, all across their entire empire. One, even several, okay, but not all at the same time. I am not quite willing to accept the last theory, even though it is the one that fits the best. Something nags at me and says that they would have allowed even for that."

"Maybe they programmed their own degeneration," Varnett suggested, "and it went too far."

"Eh?" There was a note of surprise but keen interest in Skander's voice. "Programmed—planned degeneration! It's an interesting theory, Citizen Varnett. Perhaps we'll find out in time."

He motioned and they entered a building with a strange, hexagonal doorway. All the doors were hexagons, it appeared. The interior of the room was very large, but there was no sign as to its purpose or function. It looked like an apartment or a store after the tenants had moved out, taking everything with them.

"The room," Skander pointed out to them, "is hexagonal—as the city is hexagonal, as is almost everything in it if you see it from the correct angle. The number six seems to have been essential to them. Or sacred. It is from this, and from the size and shape of the doorways, windows, and the like—not to mention the width of the walkways—that we have some idea of what the natives must have been like. We hypothesize that they were rather like a top, or turnip shape, with six limbs which may have been tentacles usable for walking or as hands. We suspect that things naturally came in sixes to them—their mathematics, their architecture, maybe they even had six eyes all around. Judging from the doors and allowing for clearance, they were about two meters tall on the average and possibly wider than that at the waist—which is where we believe the six arms, tentacles, or whatever were centered, and that must be why the doorways widen at that point."

They stood there awhile, trying to imagine such creatures living in the rooms, moving up and down the boulevards.

"We'd best be getting back to camp," Skander said at last. "You will have ample time to study here and to poke into every nook and cranny of the place." They would, in fact, be there a year, working under the professor at the