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

thing the tension builds up, releasing an  overdose of all sorts of brain chemicals, and it stays pretty well 'on,' as it  were. You seem extremely intelligent and self-controlled, but I would be remiss  if I didn't tell you that if a male of your race, any male, came within your  eyesight, you would become, pardon, a whimpering, begging fool. It is inevitable  with these sorts of readings." 
     
    "I know that. It is why I am here. The odds of me meeting a man of my race while  I am over here are pretty slim, but as you say, I am smart enough to know that I  cannot go home and remain so." 
     
    "Just so, just so," Drinh muttered. "We don't have much on culture here except  those sort of taboo listings so that we don't do anything to someone that would  cause social or mental damage or the like, but I did note that the society is  labeled 'patriarchal.' So what would you like me to do, assuming it is doable?" Alowi sighed. "I-I need it to be damped down. Some way to put it under control  so I can live with it." 
     
    "Well, the most obvious way if you never intend to have children or have any  sexual relations with another of your kind would be to remove the sexual organs.  It is a radical and permanent solution, but it would cause the hormones and  psychochemicals to shut off eventually, and with it all sexual desire." It was a more radical solution than she wanted, but she couldn't quite dismiss  it out of hand. "It is something to think about if all else fails, but I would  rather not. It would change me in other ways, too, would it not?" "Well, I couldn't know, although I can put in for research notes via Zone and  find out. Logic and experience with other races suggest that there would be  complications, yes. With someone of your type, basically mammalian, the breasts  would sag and be encumbrances, you'd probably get extremely fat, there might be  some long-term problems with bone integrity and the like, and your energy levels  would tend to be down, at the very least." 
     
    "I like myself as I am. I think I would rather try going for the one problem  rather than something that radical." 
     
    He shrugged. "Well, there are drugs that might work, but they would have to be  specially formulated for your species-we wouldn't exactly be expected to stock  Erdomese materials-or brought from Erdom via Zone, and either would be expensive  and require that they be taken regularly over decades, judging from your  apparent physical age. If you are wealthy, well connected, and will be in one  spot, like this city, it would work. Otherwise.... And if you came off them,  particularly suddenly and dramatically, your system might go wild. There would  be a danger of losing all control, of becoming little more than an animal in  heat, and how long this would go on until you came back to present levels is  impossible to say." 
     
    Alowi was feeling less and less like she had any way out. 
     
    "There is a third way," the doctor went on, thinking. "Radical and somewhat  costly up front, although possibly not, depending on how much work is actually  involved." 
     
    "Yes?" 
     
    "Before going further, I must tell you that it is not approved medicine.  Strictly experimental, although we have had tremendous successes with it and few  failures. I am quite certain that it would work in your case. It has come out of  our own research work here." 
     
    "Go on." 
     
    "The process is complex, but basically it is rewriting your genetic code, rather  rapidly. Do you understand what that means?" 
     
    She was shocked at the idea that they had such abilities, but she nodded. "Yes,  I do, at least in its implications. Can you really do it?" 
     
    Drinh sat back. "We can do more than you ever dreamed with it. We take only a  few cells, and we alter the code. Then the mathematics of the coding is fed into  tiny semiorganic devices, machines if you will, but on a scale so small, they  could be seen