Quest for the Well of Souls

doesn’t need any other pressure on a source of information. But he’s gone, too. We assume that they got away.” The Lata stopped, suddenly not sure that she hadn’t given away too much.

“You needn’t concern yourself,” the Yaxa told her, as if reading her mind. “I had already come to similar conclusions. I assume that you are out here, in the middle of nowhere, for the same reason I am—you are hoping to intersect the Toorine Trader.”

The Lata didn’t reply, but her expression told it all. 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 Wooly,” 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 bullseye 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