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that some of the older ones would be well advanced by now. My memory says
there were probably close to a million races created and scattered about; I'll
be curious to see how many are still around."
They had been going down for some time. Now they were deep below the surface,
how deep they couldn't say. Suddenly a great hexagon outlined in light ap"
peared just under them.
"The Well Access Gate," Brazil told them. "One of six. It can take you to lots
of places within the Well, but it'll take you to the central control area and
moni-
toring stations if you have no other instructions- When we get to it, just
step on it. I won't trigger it until everyone is aboard. In case somebody else
does, by
323
accident, just wait for the light to come back on and step on again. It'll
work."
They did as instructed, and when all were on the
Gate, all light suddenly winked out. There followed a twisting, unsettling
feeling like falling. Then, sud-
denly, there was light all over.
They stood in a huge chamber, perhaps a kilometer in diameter. It was
semicircular, the ceiling curving up over them almost the same distance as it
was across.
Corridors, hundreds of them, led off in all directions.
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The Gate was in the center of the dome, and Brazil quickly stepped off,
followed by the others, who looked around in awe and anticipation.
The texture of the place was strange. It seemed to be made up of tiny
hexagonal shapes of polished white mica, reflecting the light and glittering
like millions of jewels.
After they stepped off the Gate, Brazil stopped and pointed a tentacle back
over it.
Suspended by force fields, about midway between the Gate and the apex of the
dome, was a huge model of the Well World, turning slowly. It had a terminator,
and darkness on half of its face, and seemed to be made of the same mica-like
compound as the great hall. But the hexagons on the model were much larger,
and there were solid areas at the poles, and a black band around its middle.
The sphere seemed to be cov-
ered by a thin transparent shell composed of segments which exactly conformed
to the hexagons below.
"That's what the Well World looks like from space,"
Brazil told them. "It's an exact model, fifteen hundred sixty hexagons, the
Zones everything. Note the slight differences in reflected light from each
hex. That's
Markovian writing and they are numbers. This is more than a model, really.
It's a separate Markovian brain, containing the master equation for
stabilizing all of the new worlds. It energizes the Well, and permits the big
brain around us to do its job."
"Where are the controls, Nate?" Ortega prodded.
"Each biome that is, planetary biome has its own set of controls," Brazil told
him. "This place is honey-
combed with them. Each hex on the Well World is controlled as a complement to
the actual world. Most
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controls, of course, do not have corresponding hexes. What we're left with
today are the last few hexes created and some of the failures not neces-
sarily the ones that died out, but the ones that didn't work out. The Faerie,
for example. Some of them snuck into the last batch of transits, and several
of the others who were leftovers from closed and filled proj-
ects, some Dillians, some Umiau, and the like, who wanted to get out of the
Well World and thought they could help, came, too. Not many, and they were
dis-
rupted by civilization's rises and falls, and became the objects of
superstition, fear, hatred. None survived the distance on Old Earth, but we
didn't get many to begin with, and reproduction was slow. But, come, let's go
to a control center."
He walked toward one of the corridors on his six tentacles, and they followed
hesitantly. All of them held their pistols tightly, at the ready.
They walked for what seemed an endless time down one of the corridors, passing
closed hexagonal doors along the way. Finally Brazil stopped in front of one,
and it opened, much as the lens of a camera opens.
He walked in, and they followed quickly, anxious not to lose sight of him even
for a moment.
The room lit up as they approached. It was made of the same stuff as the great
hall and the corridors. There were, however, walls of obvious controls,
switches, levers, buttons, and the like, and what looked like a large black
screen directly ahead of them. None of the instruments held any sort of clue
as to what they were, or had anything familiar about them.
"Well, here it is, and it's still active," Brazil an-
nounced. "Let me see," he murmured, and went over to a panel. Their faces
showed sudden tension and fear, and all of the pistols were raised, trained on
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him. The Diviner's blinking lights started going very, very fast.
"Don't touch nothin', Nate!" Ortega warned.
"Just checking something here," Brazil responded, unconcerned. "Yes, I see. In
this room is the preset for a civilization that has now expanded. It's
interstellar, but not pangalactic. Population a little over one and a quarter
trillion."
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"If it's a high-tech civilization, then it is not ours,"
the Slelcronian said with some relief.
"Not necessarily," Brazil replied. "The tech levels here on the Well World
were not imposed on the outside at all. They were dictated by the problems you
might find in your own world. A high-tech world had abundant and easily
accessible resources, a low-tech much less so. Since the home world had to
develop logically and mathematically according to the master rules of nature,
some worlds were better endowed than others. By making the trial hex here a
low-tech, no-
tech, or the like, we simply were compensating for the degree of difficulty in
establishing technological civili-
zation on the home world, not preventing it. We made them develop
alternatives, to live without technology so they'd be better prepared on their
home worlds.
Some did extremely well. Most of the magic you find here is not Well magic,
but actual mental powers developed by the hexes to compensate for low-tech
status. What they could use here, they could use there."
"The Diviner says you are truthful," The Rel com-
mented, one of the first things the Northerner had said since they set out.
"The Diviner states that you were responsible for its prophecy that we would
be here."
"In a way, yes," Brazil replied. "When I went
through the Zone Gate, the Markovian brain recognized me as a native of Hex
Forty-one and sent me there.
However, in its analysis, it also found what I, myself, didn't know that I had
an original Markovian brain-
wave pattern. It then assumed that I was here to give it further instructions
or to do work. When it con-
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