03. Gods at the Well of Souls Read Online Free PDF Page A

and passengers and other travelers  passing through. There are stories that the doctors are here because they cannot  go home, that they are wanted for some sort of criminal activities. Certainly  they can't support all this high-tech equipment off what they're paid to fix  broken legs and such every once in a while. I did not like the feel of the place  when we took you there. Why?" 
     
    "The locals tell tall stories about them. About how they do terrible experiments  and create horrors, but they are protected because they leave the Agonese alone.  It is also said they are of use sometimes to the government and perhaps to  criminal gangs. I do not like them one bit, but I have been thinking of going to  them. Only faint hope that perhaps my Lori could be found has stopped me." "Why? Are you sick?" 
     
    "As I said, I have-problems. They are the only ones with a data base on all the  races, including mine, within who knows how far. Their practice here is  certainly honest and above board or they would have been forced to move  elsewhere. I have been thinking of going to them and asking if there was  something they could do to help me control this or damp it down. When you find  yourself not merely sweeping with a broom but making love to it, it is time  something was done. I have no money, and they are unlikely to be cheap. I am  ashamed that I must ask you if you will cover my bill if I go there." "Well, yes, of course-if you're sure. But I don't like it, and I know Anne Marie  won't, either. If even part of their reputation is true, you could wind up far  worse off than you started." 
     
    "I'm aware of that, but this will not be some hapless captive coming into their  clutches. You will know that I am going there, and it will be all up front. It  is not likely that they could stand to create a monster in public, let alone  have a distinctive patient vanish, and I will know the options and be able to  choose which or whether to do anything at all." 
     
    "Very well, then, dear, go to them. I fear as much for your mind and soul as for  your body, though. I have already seen you undergo so many personality changes,  I am not sure who exactly I am talking to sometimes, if you will pardon my  saying so." 
     
    Alowi smiled. "I understand. In fact, I understand a lot more about myself than  I did. The truth is, I think those all were different people, or different parts  of me, all mixed up inside. It has taken me a long time, and many shocks, to put  any of it together. Julian Beard is essentially dead. I have all of his  knowledge, but I have no direct memories or feelings of being him. It is more  like-well, viewing a very long motion picture of somebody's life. It is very  odd. I know every detail, but not as if I had actually done it. Rather, it is as  if I had been standing there, ghostly, watching it all being done. I can think  about how to do things with soft, five-fingered hands, but I cannot really  imagine having such a hand. When I look in a mirror, what is reflected there is  me. And the odd thing is, I like what I see. Nothing else-computes, you might  say. I hate the Erdomese government, church, and system, and I cannot say that I  wish I had been born with the freedom a man has there, but I am who and what I  am, and I am comfortable with that. I just wish they would be. So, for better or  worse, I am Alowi and I am too damned smart to go home." 
     
    "I-I suppose I understand. At least as much as I could without being you.  Certainly I have undergone something much milder myself. I know how to fly a  747, but the knowledge seems academic now, not personal, even though it was what  I loved more than anything else. Somewhere, near the end of that last long  voyage that left us here, I just suddenly woke up one day and felt absolutely  comfortable and normal, not just as a Dillian but as a woman and a woman with a  twin sister. And it did not even disturb me-I