Quest For The Well Of Souls Part 9

The island lay ahead. Below, it was festooned with marine life; above, it was a barren rock in a smooth sea; inside, it was a communications center of a very unique sort.

The hardest part had been placing the transmitter above the surface and disguising it. But they had managed it, with remote devices, partially of Zinder's own design. The communications system itself was an ingenious hybrid of Zinder and Oolakash design. The surface of the sea was used, making possible the reception of a strong signal at a distance, but one too diffuse, close up, for proper triangulation to locate the ultimate source. In effect, the signal was unintelligible to any except the one for whom it was intended.

Zinder nodded to the technical people as he floated into his office to check a few reports before swimming up to the transmission chamber. Devices had had to be constructed just to allow his voice to be used; the Oolakash used a series of very rapid high-frequency pulses for communication. Instead of placing a translator on him, the solution was to wire it into the transmission circuitry itself. He talked normally; in Zone, a device was used to slow the speech to other-race norms, although it was often frustrating for an Oolakash to hold a conversation with such slow-thinkers. He figured it was something like talking between planets in a large system with an enormous time-lag. There was no problem, however, with the party to whom he talked using the big transmitter above.

Tentacles laced through controls with lightning speed. Lights and dials spun, power built up, and it was time to begin.

"Obie?" he called.

There was a slight delay, a real-time lag this time, and then a reply, in his own language, at his own speed.

"Yes, Doctor? I am here," came a distant voice.

"Do you have any way of calculating the progress of the Northern expeditions?" he asked.

"No one has left yet, if that's what you mean," the computer responded carefully. "I have been monitoring the Yugash Zone Gate inputs. Only the norm so far, and nothing from the South that correlates. I have also managed to pick up some Yaxa transmissions as you requested."

Zinder nodded. Those he needed. Obie was a great computer, true, but it was a minor toy compared to the Well of Souls. The Well, of course, was not self-aware, but its contents were open to Obie-who, unfortunately, hadn't the capacity to interpret such a mountain of complex data. Over the years, however, Obie had learned how to utilize subsets of the data from the Well; the Yaxa transmissions were low-volume enough to be usable, but it had taken Obie weeks to isolate them.

"So how far along are they?" Zinder prodded.

The computer didn't hesitate. "Many problems have cropped up. For one, the poor initial suit tests; the rebreather apparatus didn't work well, and almost caused two deaths," he reported. "They've started over from the beginning. Their error is fundamental to the limitations of semitech hex requirements-I could solve it in an instant-but they are still stuck awhile."

That was good, Zinder thought with satisfaction.

The problem, of course, was that while Yugash was fairly close to Uchjin, where the downed ship had sat these many years, it was not next to it but several hexes away. In none of the Northern nations was there atmosphere a carbon-based life form could use. An ordinary s.p.a.cesuit would not do; a Southern native would need a truckload of oxygen canisters just to travel the 355 kilometers of a nontech hex side. Electrical rebreathers wouldn't work in a semitech hex either; some solution had to be found or, even if the Yaxa and Ben Yulin could get to the North, they would be unable to live to reach Uchjin.

Ortega no longer had such a problem. Obie had long ago solved it, and the devices, now secreted in safe and ignorant hexes, had been manufactured according to Gil Zinder's specifications. Ortega could get to Uchjin, but he could not fly the ship. Nor could Zinder go along; the Oolakash were almost invulnerable in their own environment, but they could not leave it. Besides, the available types of power on the Well World could not develop sufficient thrust to overcome the Well's effects on the hex and adjoining nontech and semitech hexes to allow such a cart to get into s.p.a.ce.

Gil Zinder was a partic.i.p.ating bystander.

"What of this Chang woman and her companion?" he asked Obie.

The computer emitted a very human sigh. "You know that since she has never been through the Well she does not register at all," he reminded the scientist. "As for Joshi, her companion, well, you know the number of life forms on the Well World. If I had his type's pattern to begin with, yes, I could trace him-but, now, even if I were directly monitoring him, I would have no way of knowing it was the correct individual."

The news meant that it was increasingly likely that the Yaxa and Yulin would be the first to reach New Pompeii-Yulin, who had supervised the building of Obie and who, Zinder now deduced, had access to circuitry in the computer that would make Obie do his bidding regardless. Of them all, Yulin was best able to use Obie and best able to thwart attempts by the computer to free itself or foul its controller up.

Gil Zinder sighed. "I greatly fear, Obie, that we will have to do the unthinkable. If the Yaxa get on the right track, we must must beat them to New Pompeii, even if we have to do it with the devil himself." beat them to New Pompeii, even if we have to do it with the devil himself."

"Which is increasingly likely," the computer responded glumly.

Wuckl

After their escape, things didn't seem so simple. Mavra's mind continued to increase its working capabilities; there were gaps here and there, and how the present situation had come about was beyond her, but she continually found it easier to remember things about the past.

As she and Joshi hid out in the hills from the sun's revealing light, now just starting to flood the horizon, she took stock of what she knew and what she had to do. She wished she knew how much time had pa.s.sed between first hitting the fence and this moment.

The last thing she remembered was that fence. Somehow it had knocked both of them out-and they'd awakened as odd pigs. Why and how was something to be discovered much later, if ever.

So she was a pig, she thought unemotionally. In some ways it was a distinct advantage. Her breed was obviously born to the wild; it was therefore equipped with survival mechanisms heretofore denied them.

Considering the swill they'd eaten in the zoo, food would not be a problem. The Wuckl, for all their strangeness, ate foods rather similar to that consumed by the humans of Glathriel; as such, they had garbage cans and garbage dumps. Mavra wasn't proud; if the stuff was something she could eat without ill effects, she would eat it. And, all the life forms of the South were carbon-based; some were herbivores, some carnivores, some omnivores, but in general the food of one would not kill a member of a different race, although it might not do much good.

Most important was the new head angle. For the first time in long memory she was looking straight ahead, not down. The tremendous sense of confidence in movement this brought was a fair tradeoff for the nearsightedness, which was still a better range than what she'd been able to manage in the old form. Finally, the sharp quills provided a defensive weapon that might come in handy.

All in all, it was better to be a pig, she reflected. In most ways, the Wuckl or whoever had done this to them had done them a favor. The only major problem was communication. She realized that their bodies had been highly modified, not changed, for she still had translator capability from the tiny crystal surgically imbedded in her brain. The implant allowed her to understand the Wuckl and others, but it didn't allow communication with them. Joshi, who had no translator, remained very much in the dark.

Either their larynxes were paralyzed or they had been removed; the pigs had only the cla.s.sic grunt of the hog.

She wondered just how much Joshi remembered. Was he better off than she, mentally, or worse? Was there some way to communicate? She would have to try. They could hardly move about in broad daylight, and the appearance of the animal life in their vicinity convinced her that in this hex pigs belonged only in zoos. They would continue to be forced to move by night.

She considered what he knew. Universal code, yes-he'd learned that in order to help signal the supply ships in foul weather. If she could manage to regulate her grunting, and if he got the idea, and if he was mentally capable of understanding it, then it might suffice.

A lot of ifs.

She nudged him with her snout and he snorted, more in curiosity than annoyance. Time to begin.

She tried a simple phrase-"We are free"-to see if she could get something across. It was slow going, and she did it endlessly, hoping he'd catch the repet.i.tive pattern.

Several minutes of this pa.s.sed, and he seemed confused. She was afraid he hadn't gotten it when suddenly his ears twitched.

In truth, Joshi had received far less of a shock than she and so had recovered earlier. He simply did not have her drive or ambition. Now, though, he caught a word after first realizing that she was trying to talk to him. The group for "we" was brief and basic. He picked it up, repeating her grunt-pulses aloud. She became excited, tried it faster, and he followed again, excited himself now.

Now she stopped, and he did, too, a moment later. It was his turn.

"We are pigs," he grunted.

Breakthrough! She would have hugged and kissed him if she could.

"We will go on," she said to him.

He groaned in a more universal code. "What can we do now?" he asked her. "We are pigs."

"Chang pigs," she retorted. "We think. We know. We are still we. If we stay free, we can still make it."

He seemed resigned.

They worked out a short series of sounds for important concepts and practiced them until both had them down. The messages were basic, a few grunts and squeals, but they could signal "stop," "go," "run," "danger," and other basics whenever time would not permit the length of a conversation. A sentence could take close to a minute.

Eventually, Joshi signaled, "I'm hungry."

She sympathized. They were always hungry. But they had reason, and reason said they would wait until eating was less risky. He accepted her logic and decided to sleep instead.

Mavra Chang couldn't, though, not right away. Watching Joshi, thinking the way he was thinking, and knowing her own feelings she realized that there was a split here, a dichotomy that craved resolution in her mind.

Joshi looked normal. She felt hunger as a pig would, felt all of the things a pig would feel. In a way, she realized, this latest transformation had snapped the last bands connecting her to humanity. These past decades she'd clung to her humanity; she had still been human, just a different and unique variety that in an odd way had pleased her. She no longer felt that. For a while she wondered if her new att.i.tude was part of what they had done to her. She doubted it; it wasn't like being hypnoed to accept her new life as a being on all fours. No, it was something else, yet something familiar. Rather, it was like that change when she had stopped thinking of how she would one day regain humanity and had accepted herself as she was, when she stopped thinking as a human woman and started thinking as a Chang female. Once again, her mind was split and she was trying to reconcile the opposing halves. She did not fight it, she let it happen this time.

Pig-all the elements that made up the animal to which she was now akin-struggled with human personality and point of view. What, after all, did she owe humans? What had they done for her? Even in the old days, as one of them, she'd been apart, different, an odd element that felt itself somehow superior to, alien to the "normal" people around her. They hadn't done much for her, only a lot to her. In turn, she had used them, as one would use a tool in completing a task. She had been among them but not of them, always, for as long as she could remember. They had made her an animal; very well. She would be one. A pig or whatever this was. A very smart pig, to be sure, but a pig just the same.

The competing elements inside her mind stopped their warfare. A pig she was and would always be, and it was all right.

Dusk found them both feeling as if they were starving to death. Cautiously they made their way toward some lights in the distance. This was a high-tech hex; the Wuckl were obviously creatures of the day, but, like humans, they could exist at night and were active then.

It was a small town; not the major population center, no, but a community of several thousand. They would be on the lookout for two escaped animals, so Mavra Chang and Joshi had to be careful. They circled the town, searching with the heightened senses of their new noses for the telltale smells that had to be present. Had to. These people had garbage cans, but she preferred not to nose into them if she could avoid it-too much noise and clatter. But garbage cans meant a garbage dump, and they spent half an agonizing night looking for it.

What they found was a landfill-lots of trash and garbage all around and mounds of dirt that were being bulldozed to fill in a marsh. Some of it had been chemically treated to avoid contamination, but their noses led them to the untreated garbage. They managed to gorge themselves on material that in their former existence would have revolted them. As wild pigs, it didn't bother them in the least, and the thought barely entered their minds.

Unfortunately, their hunger was omnipresent; even when it lessened they found it difficult to leave a sure source of food, for they knew they would soon need it as much as ever. They had to make time for traveling, though; Mavra knew that to remain in the area would mean inevitable capture, and at best a return to a much more secure compound, even a cage-a horrifying thought.

Earlier, the sun, now long gone, had indicated which way was east, and they headed overland. Much of the area was marshy, but they did not mind; their breed of pig was a tireless swimmer in the deep places, and neither dampness nor mud bothered them. In fact, mud smelled rather good to them, indicating to Mavra that their kind was originally from a swamp like this.

Things seemed to break their way. The second night found them near what appeared for all the world to be a near-ripe corn field, and this was like Christmas to them, particularly since an ear eaten here or there would hardly be noticed, and the standing vegetation provided excellent cover.

On the third night they could hear the roar and pounding of the surf from afar, and it was almost too much for Joshi to bear, particularly when they reached a cliff and looked out into the darkness and smelled the mildly salty air. This was the eastern side of the Sea of Turagin, but it reminded them of home.

Blinking lights not far offsh.o.r.e marked dangerous reefs, and powerful lighthouses warned of more extensive dangers.

They savored the sights and smells for some time, but Mavra did so with mixed emotions. The sea represented a curious contradiction. There was freedom, salvation, and escape-and a nearly insuperable barrier to such things. Beyond were the water hexes. This was probably Zanti, which led to Twosh. That was too far from their goal. Beyond it was Yimsk, which led to Mucrol, next to Gedemondas, but also next to the spider hex of Shamozan, which was in league with Ortega. To the north was Alestol, with its deadly gas-shooting plants. They still had hundreds of kilometers of swamp to get to Mucrol, and at least one hex side to Gedemondas. Yet somehow their goal seemed so very close, just beyond her reach.

Joshi seemed to catch her thoughts. "Now what?" he signaled.

Now what, indeed, she asked herself. They couldn't swim. If her memory served her, as it always had, those lights meant that they were just north of the chief Wuckl seaport, the very place where they were to meet the Toorine Trader Toorine Trader once again if all went according to plan. once again if all went according to plan.

But how long had it been? What day, week, month was it? And, even if they were still in time, how could they board without attracting attention, and then convince the crew of their true ident.i.ties?

Well, there'd be garbage there, and a place to sleep.

They started south along the beach, and as they did she could almost hear the voice of the Gedemondan coming in on mystic breezes and roaring seas.

You will descend into h.e.l.l, it whispered. Only then, when hope is gone, will you be raised up . . .

Hope was only gone when you were dead or might as well be, she thought. Two pigs would tell that to the Gedemondans in their ice-covered volcanic caverns, and throw it in their smugly all-knowing faces.

Near the Ecundo-Wuckl Border

He had searched for weeks, knowing that they had to be there. The Trader Trader's course, speed, and location a.s.sured him that Mavra could not have been dropped off anywhere but in Ecundo.

Renard cruised low over Ecundo, searching as he had for more than two weeks. He knew her well enough to guess her plan; he'd seen the bundas. He had also seen more than one vicious Ecundan roundup, the first of which had made him violently ill. There would be no defense against those great, fast scorpions and their deadly stingers and chopping blades if Mavra and Joshi were caught. He himself had discovered how nasty the Ecundans were when he'd sent Domaru down and tried to question some of them.

They had attacked, snarling curses and epithets at him, and he was forced for the first time in many years to use the great power of the Agitar in combat. The little satyrs were masters of electricity; they were immune to its effects and could store charges of thousands of volts in their bodies, discharging selectively at a distance using long, copper-clad steel rods called tasts. They always maintained quite a charge; it was required for proper health and was built up when their wooly blue fur generated static electricity as they walked.

The Twosh on the Trader Trader had been right; the Ecundo in that crew had been right; the Ecundo in that crew had had been nice people compared to their brethren back home. been nice people compared to their brethren back home.

What kept Renard going was his confidence in that strange woman he'd not seen in over twenty years. She She wouldn't change; her successful flight and demonstrated resourcefulness proved it. He wondered how they had managed to keep her down so long. wouldn't change; her successful flight and demonstrated resourcefulness proved it. He wondered how they had managed to keep her down so long.

A glance at a map had convinced him that she would have only one goal: Gedemondas, a fixation of hers. He'd been in that cold hex with her and watched as the engine module was toppled by the echoes of the observers who crowded the valley; he had watched the unit break through the lava crust and melt. But none who had been there could remember seeing the mysterious Gedemondans themselves; only Mavra insisted that they not only saw them but were their guests, and that the strange snow creatures had somehow doctored or hypnoed all the minds but hers.

Sometimes in his dreams, Renard seemed to see them, and occasionally it worried him that she might have been right-she'd always been right before. An Agitar psychiatrist using the most sophisticated mind-retrieval techniques had been unable to expose any blocked memories, though, and had finally convinced Renard that he, not Mavra, was right, and that his dreams were reflections of her her delusions heightened by his respect for her. delusions heightened by his respect for her.

Still, Gedemondas was the only destination that made sense in light of her route; she never panicked, never gave up, and never did things aimlessly.

The only land connection between Ecundo and Wuckl was a 355-kilometer border lined with an effective electrified fence. He'd started at the southeast end and traveled by land and air along the border, looking for any signs that might indicate pa.s.sage. Few Wuckl lived near the border itself; he didn't blame them, considering the nasty dispositions and brutal table manners of their neighbors.

Then, just a little more than halfway up, Renard noticed that a fairly large area had been landscaped as a park or wildlife refuge, and there was a small complex back in the woods. Just before that stood a relay house, which managed the current and monitors for the next kilometer of fence. He'd stopped at many and talked to the strange creatures who serviced them, all to no avail.

Suddenly he caught sight of a Wuckl emerging from the relay house; it had been about twenty houses since he'd found one manned, so he descended for another talk.

Like all the others, this Wuckl's bill opened all four ways and its head bobbed back and forth in amazement as the great flying horse flew in low and landed.

Quickly Renard jumped from the saddle onto his two thin goat legs and walked over to the Wuckl, which towered over him.

"Good day and service," he called to it in the manner he had learned was common to Wuckl. The language of Wuckl contained no gender, although the people had three.

The Wuckl stared curiously. "Good day to you as well," it replied, a little uncertainly. It glanced at Domaru, a little awed.

"I have traveled long and far in search of one who looks like this," Renard told it, pulling out a photograph of Mavra Chang that had been supplied by Ortega.

The Wuckl took it, looked at it, suddenly becoming very agitated. Renard understood that it was excited and upset, even though it appeared to be undergoing convulsions.

"What's the matter?" he asked, concerned. "Have seen her?"

"T-two such," Toug stammered. "About a ten-six day ago. I picked them up from when they hit the fence."

Renard was both excited and nervous. "They-they weren't killed, were they?"

The Wuckl's head made a circle, which meant no. "I took them to the gamekeeper." It seemed uncertain. "You mean they were-were not-not-animals?"

Renard was suddenly filled with foreboding. "No-people. Like you and me. Just a different form."

"Oh, my!" Toug managed an almost whispered exclamation. "You better come with me to the game-keeper pretty d.a.m.n quick."

Renard took Domaru's reins and followed the anxious creature, not certain what the Wuckl's distress was all about, but feeling that whatever it was, it was bad.

Toug's reaction was as nothing compared to that of the gamekeeper, who, after it had heard the whole story, realized just what it had done.

"I didn't touch the brains," it told him, somewhat relieved. "If there was no permanent damage from the shock, then the conditioning would wear off in a few days-it's mostly to establish an animal routine or to change old habit patterns."

"Can it be reversed?" Renard asked, worried.