Ghost of the Well of Souls wos-7 Page 4

  But sight showed that it was not solid, but some sort of energy barrier. They could see through it, but there seemed little to see. It looked dark and murky, and if there was anything solid beyond, it was blurred and indistinct.

  A small Customs station sat on a narrow rock outcrop at the end of the fluorescent “road” they had been following. Clearly, the route and the lighting stopped there, in a small boxy structure that probably provided its initial power. They discovered that the other building was a small inn and Customs processing center combined. Of course, they could easily penetrate the border at routes not covered by these stations, but non-Kalindans stuck out like sore thumbs. They couldn’t buy anything or rent a room or even get a ticket without valid encoded visas. They saw that the place was deliberately overly bright on the “wall” side, probably so that anyone coming into the country would see it. Above, other “roads” for more elaborate and motorized traffic converged onto a much larger center.

  Yabbo was a semitech hex; no one could use the sleek electric scooters beyond this point, or the big fusion rigs that moved heavy freight.

  Doesn’t look like theres a similar station on the other side of the barrier or whatever that thing is, Ari noted. I wonder if Yabbo is as bureaucratic?

  Depends on what the hell they are, Ming responded pragmatically. Besides, steam engines wouldn’t be much use down here.

  That was true, although there were a lot of other things that could be done in a semitech hex, even underwater. Many of the underwater semitech hexes were said to have substantial volcanic activity, for instance, which could be harnessed.

  It was in the Customs house that they saw their first Yabban, and they were definitely—different.

  It had an exoskeleton, which glowed from some inner light and yet seemed transparent. They could have sworn they were looking at a smudged or unclear X ray. The creature had long, thin, plierlike claws in front that appeared to be mounted on natural ball joints and seemed to be able to turn any which way; the claw itself could also revolve as needed around its wrist joints. Four long, spindly legs, two on each side, were in back of the claws. At the rear, on each side of the back end, was an incongruous-looking pair of flippers. The head seemed nothing more than two independent eye stalks, and beneath them was a round orifice filled with what seemed to be constantly writhing little tentacles, although a close look showed two gill slits on either side.

  There were others in the Customs station, and so they could see two Yabban types. One was slightly smaller than the other, and had a translucent waving membrane on top of the head which changed color through a series of pastel hues. Clearly two sexes, although which sex was which was impossible to tell.

  “I have been dealing with the Corithian Sons Company since I apprenticed my trade,” a Yabban was saying to a Kalindan Customs officer as they drew closer. Ari and Ming had seen pictures and gotten a basic briefing on all the neighboring hexes, but that wasn’t the same as seeing a Yabban in the flesh. At least after all that time with the other races in South Zone, the odd workings of the translator modules no longer seemed strange. The Yabban sounded just like a Kalindan to them, even though they could not imagine where any conversational sounds could emerge from it.

  Maybe they didn’t. Who knew what Yabbans actually sounded like to each other?

  “I know, I know,” the Customs officer responded, sounding exasperated. “You are a well-known trader, Citizen Slagha. But pending clearance from the Security Service, I must hold you and your family here. It is nothing aimed at you; it is everybody who is going through this. We are having a serious problem at the moment and we must take extra precautions.”

  “Indeed?” the Yabban snapped, those thousands of little tentacles around its mouth almost frenzied in pulsing movement. “And what of my customers? We cannot make the level of refined tubing we require, and a whole new subdivision is awaiting the shipment. Suddenly nothing is going out or coming in without going through this horror of a bureaucracy!”

  “I’m so very sorry, but it’s the war, you know—”

  “Don’t give me that!” the Yabban snapped. “That skirmish is over anyway!”

  Ari and Ming decided not to dwell on the conversation but rather to go into the small, nearby cafe and get the gossip from Kalindans who were coming back home via this road house. It was odd how quickly and easily “us” meant the leathery-skinned reptilian mer-people and how everybody else had become “them.”

  It didn’t take long to get a general picture of where they were going. There were no roads in the Kalindan sense, but Yabbans had laid out a series of markers using a grid system that could be “read” by the magnetic “sixth” sense. The numbers and directional signals would tell how far one was from anyplace in the hex and also the direction to go for major habitation.

  The water was said to be far warmer and the sea floor on the whole much shallower than Kalinda’s, although there were a few narrow “deeps” which the Yabbans reserved for their own use and which they guessed might have something to do with reproduction. It was suggested that all Kalindans stay away from the deeps. If they proved unavoidable, they should be crossed quickly and at a high level.

  There were plenty of nutrients in the water, and the microscopic plants and tiny animals were filling, if not very interesting to a Kalindan. There was a lower oxygen content in the water, but not enough to cause serious problems.

  Other than that, the Yabbans tended to be fairly friendly if visitors didn’t abuse their hospitality or overstay a welcome. Their rear flippers gave them tremendous sprinting abilities, but they preferred walking across the bottom. Essentially vegetarians, they had long ago gotten rid of the predators that once stalked the area.

  Politically, they were a nation of large families, or clans, with a hierarchical structure based on age. There were no old age homes. When a Yabban became mentally feeble, there was a great clan ceremony. The ranking Elder who was no longer capable was taken in, slain, and ritually eaten by his or her clan. It was the only meat they ever ate and, it seemed, the only kind they could digest. It was a sobering end; from lord to lunch.

  I don’t find growing old in that society to be very fulfilling, Ari commented.

  Appetizing, though, Ming shot back. If you ve got the stomach for it.

  Their next step was to cross over into the hex. They wondered if Chalidang activity would be as conspicuous in such a place as they would be.

  A friendly salesman gave them a fair route map marked with the main city centers, as well as a decent route to the capital city of Abudan. It also noted the deeps and ways around them—and, interestingly, some large cautionary zones.

  “Volcanoes,” the salesman explained. “They’re quite active in Yabbo. That’s what makes things so rich and also provides a lot of comforts. You’ll see. And don’t worry, you won’t be surprised by them—you’ll know where not to go without anybody having to yell!”

  They stayed over for a last native meal and a few hours rest in one of the road house cubicles, then felt ready to venture outside Kalinda for the first time.

  Approaching the hex boundary was intimidating, since all of their senses told them it was an absolute barrier from the sea floor up through and past the surface. They watched as a few Kalindans emerged from Yabbo and headed toward the road house, and some Yabban natives did the opposite. It seemed effortless. There was nothing to do but to try it.

  Going through the barrier had, curiously, little sensation. There was only a slight tingling, almost like passing through a very thin wall of cobwebs. Much more dramatic was the sudden shift in all their natural senses.

  Kalindan water temperature, comfortable to them, was fairly cold for active ocean water; it varied only slightly, from five to seven degrees C. With their natural fatty insulation under that thick, leathery hide, it felt very nice indeed. But this water was very warm and would take some getting used to. The sounds and smells were different as well. It meant trying to sort out things all over again. Th
ere was a kind of distant roar that seemed unplaceable, and many other unfamiliar noises amidst the usual sonic bedlam. The water tasted sulfuric. Vision was okay but slightly clouded. The magnetic field sense, once away from the border wall, showed tiny things all around them, in the millions or even billions, numerous and thick. They felt as if the water was alive.

  And it was alive. Even those tiniest of pinhead signals was coming from a concentration of microorganisms that seemed omnipresent. They couldn’t help but take them in with the water they breathed. As they swam, their stomach and digestive tract seemed to fill with them as well. They had to slow down so as not to choke on the food they were consuming.

  Reminds me of Malacanus, Ming commented. Tropical but so bug-infested you needed a diving mask just to filter out the little bugs. Ever get there?

  No, but I know what you mean. Never thought I’d consider putting in a food screen across my mouth, though.

  Going slower was soon something they chose for other reasons as well. There was in fact less oxygen. They didn’t really notice it at first, but swimming suddenly required more of an effort. They breathed harder to take in more oxygen, which, of course, meant that they also took in more of the microorganisms.

  They began struggling, and the thought in both their minds was that perhaps they should turn around and get back into Kalinda while they still could. They were about to do just that when they heard someone nearby say, “First time in Yabbo, I take it?”

  They could hardly reply, but Ari turned and saw a fellow Kalindan floating, who seemed to have no problems at all. Ari managed to nod.

  “Put your teeth together so they mesh but don’t clench,” the stranger instructed. “Let whatever is in your throat settle and go down a bit, and breathe normally through the teeth until you feel more like yourself.”

  They tried it, and it did help, but it also seemed a temporary solution.

  “Once you’re feeling better, close your mouth and relax it,” the stranger went on. “Don’t breathe through it. I know it goes against your instincts, but force yourself. You’ll get used to it. Wait a little bit and see what happens. It’s a trick they never tell you about.”

  Little happened at first, and then their slitlike nostrils opened and began taking in water. Since these had heretofore only been used to breathe air into what passed for lungs when they were out of the water, there was a natural tendency to override and squelch this. At the stranger’s urging they fought it and quickly discovered that indeed the nostrils acted as a kind of bellows, and the water intake went not to the chest but to the gills. It wasn’t like air breathing; there was no exhalation. That function was taken over by the gills. Still, it worked. After a couple of minutes, they found the rhythm and it did seem to get much easier.

  “Thank you, citizen!” Ari called to the stranger.

  The Kalindan chuckled. “Just remember to swim only with your mouth shut and only speak when you’re hovering, and you’ll be okay,” she assured them. “To eat, just do it the old way. Makes it real cheap and easy to get through here, which is a good thing since we couldn’t eat anything the natives do anyway. Take it slow and easy, though. The nostril system does not deliver as much volume as the usual mouth method, and you’re dealing with lower oxygen content here as it is.”

  Ari managed another nod. “Are you going into the country?” he asked the stranger.

  “No, coming out. I’ve been here ten days, and that’s more than enough in this boiling kettle.”

  Ari was grateful to the other for saving them from retreat or worse right at the start, but Ming was already at the next level and took over. The personality differences between them even in casual speech sometimes threw people. If the stranger noticed, however, she was nice enough not to react, or more likely put it down to their recovering from the initial problem and panic.

  “Where did you come from, then, if I might ask?” Ming began.

  “Abudan,” the stranger replied. “We’ve been designing a new transport line.”

  “Transport line? I thought you couldn’t use any fancy technology here.” Both Ming and Ari were intrigued.

  “This must be your first time outside Kalinda,” the other, an engineer, guessed. “Otherwise you wouldn’t confuse innovation with high energy sources. This is a volcanic place, and it’s very active. Our biggest problem with closed systems is dealing with seaquakes when lava shifts or steam creates new outlets. We can tap that energy, though—it’s quite natural, and it’s so steady in the volcanic fields that we can do wonders with it. All you need is pressure and a way to control it and you have useful power. Give me useful power and you have machinery that can do a lot. Remember, the limitations imposed on the hexes were originally put in to simulate the properties of other worlds far away so that they might support the creatures who dominate there. Getting around these sorts of environmental handicaps was part of the exercise. Of course, now, and for millennia, we’ve been on our own, so we can cheat guilt-free. They have shipped massive tons of this seafood garden to Kalinda since we grew too lazy to remain self-sufficient in food, as well as a number of minerals that are nuisances here but very useful in our manufacturing and even medical systems. We make conduits and pipes and other things that make their lives easier here, and can be run using only their technology. We all benefit.”

  It sounded clear and simple, and gave the best, succinct examples of how the international and even interspecies economy worked.

  “Do we do this with all our neighbors?” Ming asked her.

  “Well, most of them. And some much farther off. We even trade some things with nations halfway around the world. That’s what those anchorages are for up top. There are some hexes, though, that just don’t have anything we want or need, or we don’t have anything they want or need, or they’re just so downright spooky and strange that we can’t deal with them. I’m told there are some races that shun all contact, that don’t even send ambassadors to Zone.”

  “That brings up an interesting point,” Ari put in. “If you were in Abudan, there was a Zone Gate right there. How come you didn’t just use that to come home?”

  The engineer laughed. “You must work for the government! Most ordinary folks can’t use those routes unless it’s a life or death situation. If we all did, why, the areas in and out of Zone would be crushed with people from all over and nobody could ever use them in an emergency or for diplomatic work. We do occasionally use them to ship delicate or time-sensitive stuff, but we have to set it up way in advance, on off-peak hours, using Yabban crews propositioned in Kalinda. The paperwork alone is a nightmare. No, I’m perfectly happy to go this way. After all, it’s only a few hours by tube to Banu City, just a kilometer or so back. After I clear here, I’ll pick up a company scooter and be in the office by midday tomorrow at the latest.”

  “Urn—excuse me? Tube?”

  “Yes. It does cost, and you’ll have to get your money changed, but it’s pretty reasonable. Fast, too. My company built this line decades ago.” She looked at the watch strapped to her wrist. “My goodness! Glad to have been of help, but I really must be going!”

  “Oh, that’s all right. But this—tube…?”

  The engineer was already heading away toward the hex boundary. “Don’t worry. You’ll see what I mean! Good fortune in your venture, whatever it is!”

  They watched her go, once more alone and regretting it.

  So, you want to see what she meant? Ari asked.

  Might as well, Ming responded. Since we’re going that way anyway.

  It may have been little more than a kilometer to Banu City, but it took them a couple of hours to get there while they got used to the vastly different and very alien environment and the new way to breathe. Compensating for the lower oxygen content was much like it would have been for high altitude work back in the Terran universe from which they’d come.

  I wonder if it’s this hard for air breathers to cross a border up top? Ari mused.

  I doubt it. Altit
ude and maybe temperature, but I doubt if there’s anyplace where the air is so filled with food that you die of gluttony by simply breathing normally, she replied.

  Ain’t that the truth!

  Still, they did make it to the city using the magnetic routing lines and the grids.

  Banu City was actually only a small town by Yabban or any other standards, but it certainly was impressive nonetheless.

  Impossible to ignore was the smell and taste of sulfurous compounds in the water. They stung the eyes and gills and any minor cuts or scrapes.

  It was not a town either Ari or Ming would feel comfortable living in for other reasons entirely. Even in the murky water, it spread out before them in an alien design. Broad boulevards were clearly designed for a species that liked to walk rather than swim. Large but low buildings no more than four stories tall were designed by and for nothing vaguely hu-manoid. The town was lit in varying colors by what could only be some sort of chemical secretions, whether natural or artificial, that were mixed and matched for shade and brightness and applied where needed. The streets were clearly outlined in bright green lights, the buildings in varying reddish hues. The Yabbans were all over the place, crowding central squares and going in and out of building entrances with such speed and sense of purpose it reminded both of them less of a city—Terran or Kalindan—than of an insect colony.

  Of greater interest were numerous long, thin transparent tubes. They went in and out of every building and crossed streets overhead. Things were routed inside the tubes at great speed as they went into and out of rooftop level enclosures. Since they were much too small to be the transportation tubes the Kalindan engineer had been referring to, it took several minutes and a much closer look before Ari and Ming realized what they were.