Exiles at the Well of Souls

other Entries. I’ve become quite proficient at it.”

“Then we’ll still remember Confederation.” Trelig’s words were more a statement than a question.

“Remember it, yes,” the snake-man replied. “And use it, if your physical anatomy permits. A translator causes problems, though. You automatically get translated, so managing a third tongue is nearly impossible. But with a translator you hardly need it. If your new race uses them, try to get one. They’re handy things.” He paused, looked at the plant-thing and the Ambreza, seeming to note some worsening in Yulin’s paralysis. “I think it’s time,” he concluded softly.

They nodded, and a second Ambreza came in and two giant beavers moved Yulin carefully onto a stretcher.

“But I don’t—” Trelig started to protest, but Ortega cut him short.

“Now, you can ask questions forever, but you have the sponge and she has even more immediate problems. If you can ever get to a Zone Gate, come back and visit. But now, you go.” The tone was very insistent. There would be no more argument. The fact that Trelig and Zinder didn’t actually have a sponge problem was beside the point; their own cover story had rushed things.

They came finally to a room similar to the Zone Gate they’d used in getting from North to South.

Yulin went in first; he had no choice. He thanked them all, and hoped he would see them again. Then the two stretcher-bearers upended the body of Mavra Chang so it fell forward into the black wall. Zinder looked hesitant and had to be coaxed, but then he went. Finally, Trelig was left alone with the curious assembly of aliens. He was resigned. There was much to be learned, but his hand was forced. There would be other times, he told himself.

He stepped into the blackness.

Ortega sighed, turned to Vardia. “Any news of the other ship?” he asked.

“None,” replied the Czillian, the mobile plant-creature who had met them. “Are they as important now as they were?”

Ortega nodded. “You bet. If what those people told me was true, we have some first-class villains up there, probably on the loose. And two of them know a hell of a lot about Markovian mathematics. Dangerous people. If they should fall into the wrong hands, and that ship were rebuilt so they got back to this New Pompeii and its computer—maybe they could lick the problems. They would control the Well.”

“That’s pretty far-fetched,” the Czillian objected.

Ortega sighed. “Yeah, but so was a funny little Jew named Nathan Brazil, and you remember what he turned out to be.” The plant-thing bowed, the equivalent of a nod. “The last, living Markovian,” it breathed.

“I wonder why this crisis hasn’t attracted him?” Ortega mused.

“Because it’s our crisis,” Vardia replied. “Remember, to the Well this isn’t a problem at all.”

Near the Teliagin-Kromm Border, Dusk

A tiny figure moved silently down on the side of the mountain and was soon joined by a second, then a third. A few others hovered nearby on silent wings.

“There they are!” one whispered, pointing down below to the shepherd’s lean-to and cart where Mavra Chang, Renard, and Nikki Zinder were trapped.

“Amazing they made it this far,” another whispered.

The first one, the leader, nodded in agreement. Unlike the cyclopses, their night vision was extremely good. Although they could see in daylight, albeit poorly, they were basically nocturnal. The scene was bright and sharp and clear to them.

One looked over to where the two cyclopses were sleeping, snoring loudly.

“Big mothers, aren’t they?” it said softly.

The leader nodded. “We’ll have to sting them, and quickly. At least two of us for each one, more if possible. I don’t think we can juice them too much for safety’s sake.”

“Will the venom work?” one asked.

“It’ll work,” the leader responded confidently. “I looked it up before we left.”

“I wish guns worked here,” the doubter persisted. “It’s still risky.”

The leader sighed. “You know this is a nontech hex. Percussion type might work, but we didn’t have time to ransack museums and collectors.” There was a pause, as if the leader sensed it was now or never. Troops are always better in action than waiting for it.

“Jebbi, Tasala, and Miry, you take the bigger one. Sadi, Nanigu, and I will take the other one. Vistaru, you take Bahage and Asmaro with you and see what you can do for the captives. The others stay loose and available. Come in anyplace you’re needed if you have to.”

They nodded to one another. The ones on the mountainside launched themselves gracefully into the air, and the teams split off to their respective missions.

* * *

Mavra Chang was asleep. She’d crawled up to that grate a hundred times and each time had almost fallen, her traction breaking before she budged the damned thing one centimeter. She had put the other two to sleep to stop their whining and then fallen asleep herself.

Suddenly she heard a noise, as if something fairly heavy had landed on top of the grate. The noise woke her, and, for a brief moment, she was confused. Then, suddenly, she remembered where she was and looked up. There was definitely something large standing on the cart, but the grating made it impossible to see just what.

“Hu-man? You hear me, hu-man?” a strange, soft voice whispered. It was heavily accented in a most exotic way, high and light, a sexy small woman’s voice.

“I hear you!” Mavra Chang responded, hope rising within her, in a loud whisper—as loud as she dared.

“We are pooting the beeg theengs to sleep, hu-man,” the creature told her. “Be readee to be took out.”

Mavra strained her eyes, trying to see what her rescuer looked like, but it was impossible to see anything— just a blob of light against the greater dark.

There was a sudden roar. The big male cyclops had awakened, and he was agitated and mad. He swore a thousand growling oaths, then gave something that could only be a cry of pain. She could hear the sound of a great falling body even as his mate roared, yelled, and was, after a time, also felled.

Mavra Chang wondered what sort of monsters could fell such huge and powerful creatures so easily.

There followed the sound of more of them landing on the grate. That, in itself, was strange—the grate was big, but not that big.

She heard them talk—a strange language that sounded like a procession of sweet bells and tiny chimes. It bore less relationship to a language than the grunts and snorts of the sort the cyclopses had—a very beautiful but most inhuman sound.

There was the sound of activity, and Mavra could hear the sounds of many hands doing things around the grate, and the tinkling of those strange voices giving orders in wonderful music.

The one that knew Confederation, at least basically, returned.

“Hu-man? How manee is down t’ere of you?”

“Three!” she called back, certain that the old threat, at least, was no longer a factor. If it were, these creatures wouldn’t be here. “But two are drugged into sleep,” she warned them.

A figure, seemingly a very small one, covered part of the grate, peering in. “Oh, yes! I see now,” the creature managed. Speaking the strange language was obviously a real problem for her. “We weel have to pool the grate away from them, so you get ovar near t’em, yes?”

Mavra did as instructed. “Here all right?” she called.

“Is fine,” the creature responded, and it was gone. No, it didn’t get up or crawl off, she decided. It just went