“What about Yulin?” she asked. Yulin had been the brilliant engineer who had kidnapped Gil Zinder’s daughter, Nikki, and forced Zinder, who had designed the computer, to move and expand the project to New Pompeii, Trelig’s private little world. Yulin was the only other creature who knew the code to bypass New Pompeii’s computer defenses and could get in to operate the great machine. Not even Gil Zinder, who had somehow totally vanished on the Well World, as had his daughter, could get in without the passwords.

The mention of Yulin brought a chuckle to Trelig’s great reptile lips. “Yulin! He’s a semiretired farmer in Dasheen. He’s got a hundred minotaur cows bred to adoring slavery for him. He’s done some engineering work for his former allies, the Yaxa and Lamotien, but the Well math is beyond him—a great engineer, a so-so theoretical scientist. Without Zinder he can run, even build, some of the great machines, but he can’t design one from scratch. They’ve tried! Besides, I think he’s rather happy in Dasheen. It’s the kind of place he’s always fantasized about, anyway. The Yaxa had to drag him kicking and screaming into the war.”

She was thoughtful. “This Zinder, though. He could build another such computer, couldn’t he? Doesn’t that worry you?”

He shook his head. “No. If he was in a position to do so, he’d have done it by now, I’m sure—and such a massive undertaking would be impossible to hide. No, with all the searches that have been launched over all this time, I’m certain that he’s dead, or locked in one of those mass-mind worlds or nontech immobile-plant hexes. Nikki, I’m sure, is also dead. I doubt if she could survive anywhere on her own.” First one, then the other of his huge independent eyes seemed to fog a bit. “No, it’s not Yulin or Zinder I fear—it’s that girl who troubles me.”