want. Obviously what I have can not be far away—there hasn’t been time, and you people are, ah, rather bulky, shall we say? But you’ll never find her. You might, if you had a few weeks to look, but we’re currently marching on you and you are shortly going to be far too busy to do so. Besides, discovery would only mean her death.”
“You bastard,” Asam seethed. “How do I know you haven’t killed her already?”
The Dahbi acted stricken. “My word isn’t good enough? Well, perhaps it isn’t. But I need her—alive. Dead she’s of no use to anyone. Alive, she’s a hostage to Brazil and to you.”
Asam chuckled sourly. “She’s no hostage to Brazil,” he told the creature. “That bastard stopped caring for other folks a million years ago. He’s as cold as you are, Sangh.”
“Sorry to hear that,” the Dahbi responded, sounding sincere. “But that just makes things easier in a different way. If he’s unpleasant even to you, then what I ask should be all the simpler.”
The Dillian eyed the other suspiciously. “What the hell do you mean by that?”
“A trade. Brazil trusts you. I can only assume that he intends to leave your forces before the battle, using your deaths as a diversion—perhaps leaving another simulacrum in his place to fool us. But it won’t work. We’re going to be looking for that. The odds are he’ll never make it to the Avenue, let alone the Well.”
“Then what do you need with me?” Asam growled.
“We
“I know who’s who,” the Colonel told him.
“So, you see, I cover the last possibility. The trade is simple—Mavra Chang for Brazil. Within the next day. Let’s say, by this time tomorrow night, at the latest. That will not only accomplish the main objective but also prevent the coming battles. There will be no need to ask people to fight and die, you see?”
Asam frowned. “I don’t trust you one bit, Sangh. Since when do you care who lives and who dies except for yourself? I have no guarantees.”
“You have several,” Gunit Sangh responded. “You get Brazil to a Zone Gate and bring him through. Diplomatic immunity, remember? Even though the council is against you, they will not violate Zone. Take him to your own embassy. We will make the swap right there. Even better, you have couriers from here. Take Brazil, but don’t put him through until a courier comes with word that a living Mavra Chang is in my embassy at Zone.”
Asam fully relaxed now, thinking about it. Finally he said, “Why are you doing this, Sangh? Why agree to be the commander at all? What the hell are you getting out of this?”
“Consider,” the Dahbi replied, “what honors will come to the one who captures Nathan Brazil. The honors, the power, and the influence. Consider the perfect prison, under hundreds of meters of solid granite, the tunnel used to take him down collapsed about him save for a small mechanism to provide food and water. The council will not have Brazil. The Dahbi—I—will have Brazil. An unspoken hostage, so to speak. And I will have the gratitude of all those who did not lose their lives in foolish battles. Consider the effect on Ortega, no longer as feared or as in charge. His place will pass to me, and that fat ancient snake will die at last, his grip on the Well World and the council broken. It’s already been suggested that, as an old friend of Brazil’s, he can not be trusted in this matter. The possibilities are endless.”
Asam shivered slightly, thinking of an unchecked Gunit Sangh in charge, but, oddly, this sinister plan also reassured him. Sangh was being honest with him, partly out of confidence, partly out of the sheer arrogance he exuded. He was saying the stakes were too high to risk a double cross now.
“We will transfer her to Zone after dark tomorrow, as quickly as possible,” the Dahbi told him. “We will receive any envoy you like at our embassy there to verify it. Then you will have eight hours to deliver your end of the bargain.”
“And after that?” he asked, thinking about it.
“You will be free to return to Dillia together,” Sangh told him. “Naturally, this will not settle anything personally between us. That will remain outstanding—as it has. Safe passage for you and the woman, alive, back to Dill’a is all I guarantee. After that we have no more bargain.”
He sighed. “I’ll consider it,” he told the creature. “And if I do not come through?”
“Then the woman will be the object of a ritual feast by my embassy personnel and no trace of her will remain,” the Dahbi responded coldly.
“You bastard,” Asam swore angrily. “You dirty bastard. You and I will settle this personally one day.”
“One day,” the Dahbi agreed. “But not in the next two days.” It turned into its milky white state and slowly oozed into the ground until the last traces of it were gone.
“You bastard,” Asam repeated to the dark, but his mind was already whirling. Schemes, plots, ideas, were already hatching. He considered Gypsy—but, no. He couldn’t be sure he could trust the strange little man, and something might go wrong, betray them. Sangh was on to the plan anyway, and would still be looking for a Brazil getaway. No, it had to be on the square. He had to choose between Mavra and Brazil, it was that simple. And a simple choice.
Dahir
The ranch was barely twenty kilometers below the border, yet it was isolated enough and far enough for their purposes. Two were Dahbi, the others were Krithians, their huge, beating wings marking time to the call of one to the other. They carried in between them a huge blanket in which lay their heavy burden, unconscious still from the tranquilizers they had shot into her from ambush.
They had been puffing hard when they reached the border, barely able to carry her as far as they did and proud that they had made it with such a burden, but now, in Dahir, they had been aided by the magic of the native priests, and the flying was easy. She seemed to have no weight at all now and they felt renewed strength.
The priests had been riding below them on their hakaks, unicornlike mounts, easily keeping pace and providing what they called the proper energy flow to the flyers. They could also handle a fair degree of trouble should some lucky searcher from the enemy discover them.
Two Dahir stood ready to receive the burden as they landed. They greeted the priests with upraised arms, then turned to the unconscious form now deposited in the area in front of the hukak stables. It was a clear night; the massive, swirling starfield was shining in full glory and seemed to reflect against their bright, shiny exoskeletons as the humanoid insects went to work, first righting her so she was standing on four feet, then assisting the others in dragging her into a large barn. She was still out cold and knew nothing of this.
“Shall we bind her?” the Dahir leader asked the nearest Dahbi. “It would not do for her to get free.”
“Bindings can be loosened, or worked free,” the white creature responded. “We can not take a chance on such a thing.”
“Do we kill her, then?” the gleaming creature wanted to know.
“No. We promised her alive in the exchange. We will have to make good on that promise.”
“A simple spell,” one of the priests suggested. “It would be absolutely effective—and we have to disguise her when we move her to the Gate tomorrow, anyway.”
“Disguise is up to you,” the Dahbi told the priests. “That should not be difficult here. But your spells are effective only here. They would be undone by the Gate.”
“And could be redone as soon as we were in Zone,” the priest pointed out. “Our magic is effective there, at least on a limited basis.”
“Too risky,” the Dahbi responded. “We can give her no avenue for escape. Also, our master, His Holiness Gunit Sangh, has directed a suitable remedy. Here,” the creature pointed, “at the base of the neck, are the primary nerve connections from the brain to the spinal chord. Severed, it will cut off control to the upper torso.” With that the creature used its right foreleg with its sharp, knifelike chitin and struck deeply, yet expertly. Some blood gushed out, but not a great deal, and they were on the wound with salve and bandages in a moment.
“And here, at the base of the upper torso, a connector for the other, larger half, almost a second although nonsentient brain directed from the first,” the Dahbi noted, and again the vicious blade struck and jerked once inside. It came out covered with dark-red blood, which was again seen to.
“The Dillian is now totally paralyzed,” the white creature told them, wiping off its blood-stained foreleg. “The
