Quest for the Well of Souls Read online

  The Yaxa continued to think hard to itself, its overall intent still a mystery. But its next statement stunned Vistaru.

  "Lata, I could kill you, but I will not. Yet if I release you, you might try to sting me, or we will continue to parallel each other's movements in hunting the Trader, which should not be far off to the north now—and eventually we will come into conflict some other way. I could just leave you here with your wings tethered, but while you could eat the moss, eventually you would die. This bleak rock is off the shipping lanes, and only the Trader brought us together here by chance. So I propose an honorable truce. You will agree not to sting me, and I will agree to do nothing to you and remove the clips. We shall seek out the Trader together, and remain together until we ascertain the whereabouts of Mavra Chang. Do you agree?"

  She considered it. She had no hope of removing the clips on her own, and without her wings she was trapped. On the other hand, could she trust the Yaxa? What was its motive? Why was it here?

  Still, she had no choice.

  "All right, I agree. A truce. At least until we find out what is happening here. You have my word I will not harm you."

  "Your word is good enough." A long sticky tongue emerged from the Yaxa's curved proboscis and gently lifted the clip from one pair of wings and "handed" it to a front tentacle, which replaced it in a small pack glued to the creature's underside. The same procedure was followed three more times, freeing Vistaru. She flexed her wings gratefully, and stretched.

  The Yaxa remained frozen, motionless on the cliff wall, watching her. Vistaru knew that, if she suddenly took off or tried to sting the creature, it was ready for her.

  She wouldn't. Her word was good, at least until they found where Mavra Chang was. After that—well, there was venom, and it would keep.

  "You know where the ship is?" she asked the Yaxa.

  "Follow me," it replied, and took off from the cliff, great orange-and-brown wings spread wide to catch the breeze. Vistaru followed, having to work hard just to keep up with the great creature.

  "Slow a bit!" she pleaded, and the Yaxa complied. She moved up, just a little under and to the right of that black, shiny death's head. "What are you called?" she asked it.

  "My name is Wooley," the other replied.

  Ecundo

  Their basic problem was that they couldn't do the logical and safe thing—stick to the beach. Obviously, anyone looking for them would eventually come upon the Toorine Trader and put everything together.

  "But didn't we blast those things that were after us?" Joshi complained as they headed through low brush, which caused a lot of discomfort despite their toughened skin. "Why are we running away?"

  Mavra considered the question. How could she explain the situation to him in a way he could understand? That they were running from captivity toward freedom, the right to determine their own destiny? The concept was too abstract for him. Glathriel was the only home he had ever known. Except for an occasional visit to Ambreza, which was for him adventure, the compound and village were his world.

  And yet, she reminded herself, she had almost been lulled into that complacency herself. She, the bride of the stars and free spirit of many worlds, had been enmeshed in a trap that had almost made her content with what amounted to routine domesticity, almost forgetting her commission and her goal.

  She had been hired to do away with the threat of New Pompeii, and still it was there in the night sky, a dagger directed at the very heart of existence. That commission, given so long ago, was still unfulfilled. And too, what of her ultimate goal, which she could see from the beach on those clear nights. The stars!

  Why are we running, Joshi, she thought to herself. From what and to what? From stagnancy and eventual death to adventure on our own terms, that's what!

  Aloud she answered, "We don't know that they were the ones who attacked the compound, and even if they were, they were just hired hands, not the people who really wanted us. Those behind that attack will try again and again to get us until one day they do. We can sit and be a target until they bull's-eye us, or we can try and change the rules of the game. We're going to change some rules."

  He considered what she said, even accepted it, but he didn't quite understand. The compound had always represented peace and security; to have those boundaries permanently shattered would take a little time to accept.

  They wore garments provided by the sailmaker. Pockets contained some food, some vitamins for the rough times, and a few supplies they might need. Anything they could carry without undue weight or imbalance they had packed, and the jackets were covered in a dark fur that might be mistaken for hair at any distance.

  Days were warm in Ecundo, but nightfall inland from the coastal ranges brought an uncomfortable chill to the air. They slept covered in brush, and often awoke cold and wet from dew.

  Ecundo had five major cities, four along the coast and one in the center of the hex near the Zone Gate, but they were avoiding those completely. The Ecundans were long, tubular creatures with rubbery claws and nasty stingers on their rear ends. Their cities were great artificial mounds where thousands lived in burrows.

  To feed the population, most of the country was given over to ranching; they were carnivores, who fed primarily on the bundas, creatures that bred like rabbits and roamed in large wild herds.

  Two days in, they saw their first. They felt a rumbling in the ground, and they pressed back against some rocks and watched and waited. Soon the herd came by—hundreds of them, it seemed, some coming close enough to kick dirt into their hideaway, but the bundas showed no particular curiosity if, indeed, they noticed the two travelers at all.

  Mavra counted on the bundas to help them through the hex. They ran in herds except when mating; then pairs went off alone to mate, breed, and supervise the first few weeks of their numerous young. As a result, the Ecundans always went for the herds and generally ignored pairs, which, after all, were what kept the food supply going.

  Part of her instructions to the sailmaker used this information. They were to look as much like bundas as possible from a distance. Ideally they could stay far enough away from curious stalked eyes to avoid being recognized as alien intruders.

  Seeing the bundas now, Joshi finally understood her plans.

  The creatures were actually slightly larger than he, and moved, like the two of them, on four hooved feet. The hooves were black instead of off-white, true, and of equal length, but they made similar tracks. In other ways the creatures rather resembled giant guinea pigs. Short black hair covered all but their faces and outlined ears that, though not as long as the Changs', were plenty long enough. Their faces resembled that of the pig, with large brown eyes and a rounded snout below which a short hinged jaw drooped. They were primarily herbivores, eating grass and bushes along the plain, but they also ate insects that looked like a cross between ants and cockroaches and lived in small mounds all over the plain. The bundas never worked finding the insects or bothered the mounds. Instead, at night, after a day of foraging for fresh grass and leaves, they'd simply lie down and go to sleep, sticking out incredibly long sticky tongues that appeared to be coated with white hairs. The insects would then obligingly crawl out of their mounds and onto the waiting tongues, and get caught. Without waking up, the bunda would reel the tongue in, gulp, and then out it would come again.

  Several characteristics of the bunda became apparent as Mavra and Joshi made their way across the plains. The beasts were lazy, complacent, easily spooked, and so dumb, Joshi concluded, that should a bunda come upon a three-meter fence section attached to nothing else, it would turn around before figuring out how to walk around it.

  The bundas probably weighed sixty or more kilos on the average. Fat hung off them everywhere. And they certainly bred—four per litter every five weeks, weaned after only two or three weeks, and full-grown in about a year. They had no natural enemies except the Ecundans, who managed them well.

  From a distance an Ecundo would, they hoped, see only a p
air broken off from a herd, maybe odd-looking and long-eared, and with perhaps a little less fur than usual. Two bundas not to be disturbed, for more food was on the way.

  On the sixth day their theory was put to the test. They were getting used to the herds thundering through the plains on trails made by generations of bunda herds tramping the same ways, and, except for staying out of their way, Mavra and Joshi paid them little mind. This time, however, the herd seemed in a panic. Ordinarily Mavra and Joshi would travel by night, but if one is going to pretend to be a bunda, one can't be moving when bundas sleep, and so the sun shone warmly on them around midday when the stampede occurred. They barely dodged it, moving off in a hurry, but there was something in the animals' manner and almost frantic blind rush that made them pause.

  The two lay down in the tall grass and waited several minutes before they saw the cause: five Ecundans, each standing on six two-meter-long crab-like legs, were coming down with amazing speed after the fleeing bundas. Their beady stalked eyes looked ahead—long tail-sections raised and nasty stingers dripping venom, the two claws raised at the ready before them.

  The Ecundans intersected the herd near Mavra and Joshi. The two pressed into the ground and held their breaths as one passed almost over them, its eyes following the game ahead. It smelled lousy.

  The Ecundans fanned out, driving the herd first one way, then the other, and, finally, almost in circles. Having tired the beasts, they closed in, claws grabbing, stingers flashing with incredible speed.

  But those stung initially were just to help as barricades, to limit the frantic animals to a single avenue of escape, which was, in turn, covered by other Ecundans with great nets. The herd ran right into them, and even as the leaders stumbled and fell squealing into the trap, the others mindlessly followed, until the controlling Ecundans considered the haul sufficient and drew the net tight. Two nets held at least twenty bundas apiece, and the great scorpions carried the heavy load as if it were nothing.

  Satisfied, the Ecundans let the rest of the herd pass, and all hands fell upon the paralyzed bundas that had formed the living corral, cutting with sharp claw-teeth and eating them, bones and all, in large gulps through mouths that opened wide in four directions. The Changs could see no chewing motions; either the Ecundans digested the chunks whole or their teeth were far back beyond the thorax.

  "Oh, boy," Joshi breathed unenthusiastically as the Ecundans rumbled off with the day's catch. "I'd rather talk to them than have to argue with them."

  "Wouldn't do much good," Mavra responded glumly. "Those hard cases on the ship said that Ecundans are very nasty about strangers they don't invite. They eat them or just paralyze them and send them home by ship as object lessons. No, we'll not get any help from the Ecundans, believe me."

  On the ninth day their food supplies were running low. It concerned them both.

  "How much farther to this Wuckl border or whatever?"

  "Shouldn't be far," Mavra replied. "We've been making damned good time." Particularly since seeing that Ecundan roundup, she added silently.

  And they had made good time. The interior valley was mostly flat, there were few obstructions, bunda trails were everywhere, and they had had the sun at some point every day to keep their bearings. The flat land and trail had allowed them to trot; they were making forty to fifty kilometers a day, by Mavra's figuring. If they'd been keeping to the correct direction, the border should be close by. She told Joshi so.

  "It better be," he replied. "Damn! What do they eat in Wuckl, anyway?"

  "Pretty much what we do," she replied. "A lot less meat, though. They are a really funny people, as I recall. You'll have to see one to believe it—I won't even try to describe it. Mostly vegetarians by choice, they do some fresh-water fishing in interior lakes. They're high-tech, but slow breeders with a small population. And if the Trader's information is accurate, they have a lot of parks and game preserves just for enjoyment."

  He nodded. "But won't it be risky asking for food?" he wondered. "After all, a high-tech hex. The people who want us are bound to look there, too."

  "We won't ask unless we have to," she told him. "There's a lot of wild fruit and vegetable stuff growing in those parks and lake areas, and I don't think we'll have to hustle long."

  She was right. They made the border near dusk.

  It was a forest, but not a dense one, just a parklike wood, complete with pebble-filled trails. The place was beautiful—they could see wild berry bushes and even several citrus trees bursting with fruit. It looked like the land of milk and honey, and the Wuckl were neither antisocial nor deadly.

  But there was a hitch.

  "Look at that," Joshi grumped. Four strands of coppery barbed wire about two meters high, the fence was attached to metal poles every four meters or so as far as the eye could see.

  "To keep the Ecundans out?" Joshi wondered.

  She shook her head. "To discourage a bunda invasion of the Wuckl parks and an attack on their goodies, I'd say. Probably put up by both countries in their mutual interest."

  "That top line of barbs looks kind of nasty. How are we gonna get over it?"

  "We're not," replied Mavra Chang. "We're going under it. There's a good fifty centimeters clearance, and I think I can stand a barb or so to get through. Game?"

  Joshi looked at the little barbs, which didn't seem all that sharp, then thought about the Ecundans chopping up bundas. "Who's first?" he asked.

  "I'll go. With any luck I might just wriggle right under it. Then I can help you through."

  He nodded and she approached the fence. "Funny," she said thoughtfully. "A little humming sound. Vibration?"

  He heard it but shrugged. "Who knows?"

  "Here I go!" she announced, and crouched down as low as she could. The exercise was painful, and she started regretting that extra fat she'd laid on over the years.

  She still made it about halfway under when her hips touched the bottom wire.

  She screamed and Joshi heard a loud buzz as activators were tripped; she yelled and jerked spasmodically.

  "Mavra!" Joshi cried in panic as he rushed to her aid. As soon as he grabbed at her twitching hind leg with his mouth he felt the shock, too.

  Ecundo was a semitech hex, but, unfortunately, Wuckl was a high-tech hex, and the fence was one meter inside Wuckl.

  And it was electrified.

  Hookl

  The skies had cleared, the weather was warming, and all was right with the world for the crew of the Toorine Trader. Seas were under two meters, and she was under a full head of steam heading north-northwest, great clouds of gray-white steam leaving a kilometer-long double line from her twin stacks. They had lost some time in Nocha's storms; now they were making it up.

  On the back hatch, two pinkish Twosh were relaxing, enjoying the feel of sun on their bowling-pin shapes. With ten cigars in little holsters on its belt, one Twosh was balancing itself well on one broad hand while its other hand removed a cigar and stuck it in a tiny, almost circular mouth. It never lit one; it just kept sucking and nibbling on the cigar until it had ingested the whole thing.

  "Big thing, in flight twenty degrees off the starboard bow!" the lookout suddenly shouted from the radar console.

  The Twosh with the cigar looked up and located a faint, faraway shape, then turned big lemon eyes to its twin. "Not another one!" it groaned.

  The other Twosh strained. "I'll be damned if it don't look like a horse this time. That's all we need. A stampede on the high seas!"

  "And you know who'll have to clean up the deck," the first one added ominously.

  The great deep-purple horse, swan's wings spread wide to take advantage of the updrafts, circled the ship several times as if making certain that it was the one sought and, if so, allowing its rider to figure out how to land. It was a tricky problem. An Agitar pegasus didn't just land like a bird; it had to have a little room to run on the ground, to break its momentum. It could land in water, of course, but while the sea was calm enough for the Tra
der, it was pretty rough for anything smaller.

  The captain and crew stared at the newcomer, wondering what he was going to do.

  "Be damned if I'll slow for him," the ghostly captain growled in his fog-whistle voice. "If I'd known we were gonna get all this company in the middle of the ocean, I'd have taken up something more peaceful, like the Army."

  Tbisi nodded his long, thin furry neck. "Maybe we're missing a bet here, Cap," he said half-seriously. "I mean, charge 'em landing fees, heavy fees for each question asked, fifty times the fee for each answer given, and five hundred times for the truth."

  Renard decided that the starboard deck was clear enough and long enough for a try at least, and he brought Domaru, grandson of Doma, in.

  Domaru refused the first pass; unlike his distant cousin the horse, the pegasus was neither a stupid nor foolish animal. There was not only the narrow and possibly too-short lane, probably filled with obstacles, ropes and stuff, to contend with, but also the yaw and pitch of the ship with the rolling seas. A second pass was refused by Renard, who cursed that no one below seemed to have the slightest inclination to help him or even move, but on the third try both horse and rider committed, and it was a narrow success. Once down, the pegasus, on a trot, had to fold its wings to clear the area between rail and superstructure. If Domaru couldn't stop at the bow, it would probably break his neck.

  The sight of the fast-approaching bow chain seemed to help. The horse put on the brakes with barely fifty centimeters to spare and managed a turn.

  Taking a little time to recover his breath and his nerve, Renard looked around at the crew, who were watching him curiously. For the first time he wondered whether or not he should have asked permission or something to come aboard. Two nasty-looking Ecundans were sunning themselves atop the bridge, stalked eyes staring at him; the two Twosh eyed him with expressions more bored than hostile.

  He got down and nervously approached the Twosh with the cigar. "Uh, excuse me, but is this the Toorine Trader?"