relationship.
He tried to think up logical reasons for that not being the case, to rationalize his feelings, but he could not.
He traced in the dirt, “but i’m now bigger than you are.”
Grondel laughed and read it to her. She laughed, too.
Then he wrote: “tell her about deer part.” Grondel understood, and explained how Brazil was really two beings—one man, one animal—and how he had already lapsed into deer while thinking.
She understood. When still, such as during the night, he would have to be staked like a common deer to keep him from wandering away. And he couldn’t even drive his own stake!
Dependence. It grated on him as nothing ever had, but it had the feel of inevitability.
He hoped fervently that his body was still alive.
Grondel had finally collapsed in sleep and was snoring loudly in a nearby tent.
Brazil and Wuju were alone for the first time, he suffering the indignity of being staked so he couldn’t wander off.
They had worked most of the day on his getting used to the body, adjusting to the vision and color blindness, the supersensitive senses of hearing and smell. The speed in his sprint amazed him and Wuju both. As fast as she had seemed when he was human, she now seemed terribly slow, ponderous, and exhausted while he was still feeling great. He also discovered that his hind-leg kick could shatter a small tree.
A few things were simplified, of course. No packs needed now, he could eat what she ate. No drag on speed—he could run as fast as Cousin Bat could fly, maybe faster for short periods.
If only he could talk! Make some sort of sound!
Wuju looked at him admiringly. “You know, you’re really beautiful, Nathan. I hope they have mirrors in Czill.” She still talked mildly distorted, but Grondel had been forcing her to use the old language so much during the past day and a half that it was becoming easier, like a second language.
She came and stood beside him, pressing her equine body against his sleek, supermuscled antelope body. She started to rub him, actually pet him gently.
His mind rebelled, though he didn’t try to pull away or stop her.
I’m getting excited as hell! he thought, surprised. And, from the feel of it, there was a lot of him to get excited.
His first impulse was to stop her, but instead he moved his head over and started nuzzling her neck with his muzzle. She leaned forward, so his antlers wouldn’t get in the way.
Is it the animal, or do I want to do this? a corner of his mind asked, but the thought slipped away as irrelevant, as was the thought that they were still two very, very different species.
He stroked her equine back with the bottom of his snout and got to the bony hind end. She sighed and slipped off the leash that was attached to his hind leg. They continued.
This was a crazy, insane way to have sex, but the deer in him showed him how.
Wuju finally had what she wanted from Nathan Brazil.
Brazil awoke feeling really fine, the best in many long years. He glanced over at Wuju, still asleep, although the sun had been up for an hour.
Isn’t it funny, he thought. The transformation, the commitment, the crisis, and the way those people had served me have all come together to do what nothing else had.
He remembered.
He remembered it
He understood, finally, what he had been doing before, what he was doing now, why he survived.
He considered the vessel he wore. Not of his own choosing, of course, but it was serviceable if he could just get a voice.
How great a change to know it all! His mind was absolutely clear, certain, now that everything was laid out before him. He was in total control now, he knew.
Funny, he thought, that this doesn’t change anything. Knowledge, memory, wisdom aside, he was the culmination of all of the experiences in his incredibly long life.
Nathan Brazil. He rolled the name around in his mind. He still liked it. Out of the—what?—thousand or more names he had had, it had the most comfortable and enigmatic ring.
He let his mind go out across the land. Yes, definitely some sort of breakdown. Not major, but messy. Time dulls all mechanisms, and the infinite complexity of the master equation was bound to have flaws. One can represent infinity mathematically but not as something real, something you can see and understand.
And yet, he thought, I’m still Nathan Brazil, still the same person I was, and I’m here in Murithel in the body of a great stag and I’ve still got to get to the Well before Skander or Varnett or anyone else does.
Czill. If what he had heard was right, they had computers there. A high-technology hex, then. They could give him a voice—and news.
Grondel emerged from a tent and came over to him. He strained at the rope on his left hind leg, and the Murnie understood and freed him. He went immediately to the big patch of bare dirt that was his writing pad. Grondel followed, grumping that he hadn’t had anything to eat yet, but Brazil was adamant and anxious.
“What’s on your mind, Nate?” he asked.
“how far here to czill center” Brazil traced.
“Already, huh?” Grondel muttered. “Somehow I knew it. Well, about a hundred and fifty kilometers, maybe a little more, to the border, then about the same into the Czillian capital. I’m not sure, because I’ve never left this hex. We don’t get along well with our neighbors, which is fine with us.”
“must go,” he scratched. “in control of self now. important.”
“Ummm… Thought you weren’t going there across Murithel for a vacation. All right, then, if I can’t dissuade you. What about the girl?”
“she comes too,” he scratched. “will work out easy code for basic stuff, stop, go, eat, sleep, etc.”
And that was the way they worked it out, Brazil thinking of as many basic concepts as he could and using a right leg, left leg, stomping code for them. Twelve concepts were the most he could work on short notice without fear that she would mix them up. He also had to assure them several times that he would not wander away or stray again. She accepted it, but seemed dubious.
They ate their fill of the grasses. Grondel would ride Wuju with them to the border. Though Nathan was safe as a branded, purebred stag, she was not. A Murnie accompanying them would ease her passage.
They followed the stream, passing first the spot where his body had lain, the mud and bottom still disturbed from the action. They made exceptionally good time, and Brazil enjoyed the experience of being able to move quickly and effortlessly, so powerful that the mud couldn’t trap him, nor could the brisk pace tire him. He just wasn’t built for riding, though; and Wuju had to carry Grondel, which slowed her more than usual. It didn’t matter.
They made the border shortly after dark on the second day. On the morning of the third, after Grondel had refreshed Wuju on the stomp code, they bade him good-bye and crossed into Czill. The air was extremely heavy with an almost oppressive humidity, the kind that wets you with a fine, invisible mist as you move through it. The air was also oppressive with carbon dioxide, which seemed to make up one or more percent of the atmosphere, although oxygen was so far above their previous norms that it made them feel a little light-headed. Were it not for the great humidity, Brazil thought, this would be a hell of a place for fires. As it was, he would be surprised if a match would burn.
They ran into Czillians soon enough, strange-looking creatures that reminded him of smooth-skinned cactuses with two trunks and carved pumpkin heads. Neither he nor Wuju had a translator now, so communication was impossible, but at the first village center they reached, they managed a primitive sort of contact.
The place looked like a great, transparent geodesic dome, and was one of the hundred or more subsidiary
