That made sense, but Wooley was reluctant to leave. “If they are in those washes, the refugees will make short work of them,” she pointed out.
They shifted a little to the north where one of the dry washes opened into a salt flat that would have to be covered by anyone heading for the mountains.
“This is a good compromise,” Renard decided. “They’ll have to cross this flat sooner or later, and we can see everything for a great distance.”
“Unless they’ve already been through here,” Vistaru responded, obviously worried.
“Better than more blind searching,” the Yaxa noted, and they decided to act on Renard’s plan. After putting down for a half-hour or so to give themselves a break, they went aloft again.
It was past midday when something finally happened.
“To the right!” Wooley yelled. “Mucrolians chasing something! Two objects!”
At first, neither of the others saw what he had spotted, for the Lata are nocturnal and Renard’s eyes were only average, but they followed the Yaxa.
“There!” Renard finally called out; he pointed, leaning forward in his saddle.
A half-dozen or so Mucrolians were chasing two smaller dark objects across the yellow-white flats. It was no contest; the natives were much too fast for their prey.
“It’s Mavra!” Wooley shouted, the rising tone generating the first emotion they’d heard from the normally impassive butterfly—excitement.
Renard reached over and pulled his long rod from its scabbard, which hung from Domaru’s great neck.
“Make sure I don’t get shot!” he told the others. “I’m going in!”
On the ground the six Mucrolians were tiring of their chase and were closing in for the kill when they heard the beat of mighty wings just above them. One turned and looked up, and yelled to its comrades.
Mavra Chang also spotted them, and knew immediately who they must be, although the Yaxa was a surprise. She had no intention of being taken; she took the moment as the Mucrolians turned to face this new threat and dashed across the flats as fast as she could, Joshi following.
One of the Mucrolians raised its rifle and was suddenly struck hard by a small object. Vistaru came in feet first, hitting the creature in the snout, then plunging in the stinger.
This momentarily drew the attention of the pack from Renard, and they turned.
Domaru made a low pass and Renard struck out with his tast; the thousands of volts stored in his body flowed down his right arm and into the rod. It struck one and there was a bright flash as the warrior screamed and fell.
These were not well-coordinated soldiers, though; they were desperate refugees and the attack confused them. When Renard acted, they turned once again to deal with him; another rifle barrel rose, and Vistaru struck again.
Renard simultaneously leveled another of the beings with his tast. Although they had sidearms, the two remaining Mucrolians panicked completely and dashed for cover at full speed.
Renard laughed triumphantly and descended near the bodies. Vistaru landed daintily on Domaru’s back.
He turned and looked around, as did Vistaru. “There!” she almost screamed.
The orange wings were off in the distance now, heading for the Alestolian border.
“We’ve been double-crossed!” Renard snapped. “While we did the fighting, she got Mavra!”
Pursuit was automatic, but fruitless. The Yaxa was every bit as fast, if not faster, than Domaru, and Vistaru was good only for short sprints at high speeds. Every minute that passed increased the distance. They crossed into Alestol, where the country was green—and deadly. Below, huge barrel-shaped plants paralleled their course and waited for them to come down.
“It’s no use!” Vistaru told him. “I know where she’s headed, and we’re being played for suckers!”
He didn’t want to give up. “What do you mean?”
“She’s heading for the Zone Gate of Alestol. Taking them to the Yaxa embassy at Zone. At the same time, we’re being sucked farther and farther into Alestol, which was on
Renard resisted the obvious, but she was right. Their best move, as soon as it was clear that Wooley was uncatchable, was to head for a Zone Gate, alert Ortega, and get ready at Zone. Unfortunately, they were a good six hundred kilometers from a usable Gate, and they were almost exhausted.
Not only did the Yaxa have Mavra Chang, but they would have her for a day or more before that fact could be reported in by the only others who knew.
Cursing themselves for fools, they headed north toward Palim.
South Zone
Although this was in fact the Yaxa embassy, only two of the technicians clustered around the tables were Yaxa. A Wuckl was present, and with it were several other creatures who were at least neutral—in some cases friendly—to the Yaxa.
A tall minotaur paused before the door, looking curiously for a moment at the symbol embossed on everything. Unlike his native Dasheen, which used a standard hexagonal symbol, Yaxa used an ideogram which he mistook at first for a pair of stylized wings. After a moment he realized that it was not so. Yaxa was a state along the Equatorial Barrier. It was composed of one half of a hex split horizontally joined to one half of a hex split vertically. Only twenty-four such hexes were so split on either side of the Barrier. The “wings” were, in fact, two half-hexes joined.
A Yaxa approached him from outside as he peered quizzically into the room. “Mr. Yulin?” she asked.
The minotaur turned and nodded his massive head. “Yes. I got your message and got down as quickly as I could settle my own affairs on the farm. What’s going on in there?”
“I am Ambassador Windsweep,” the Yaxa replied, introducing herself, with her official nickname. “Those two creatures are Mavra Chang and her male consort. We are performing minor surgery to make things easier for all.”
Yulin was puzzled. “Chang? Why bother? If you’ve got her, just get rid of her and we have the field all to ourselves.”
The Yaxa gave what might have been taken for a sigh or impatience or both. “Mr. Yulin, I wish to remind you that we have a number of problems. First, we must reach the ship in the North. Second, we must depend on the Bozog to secure the ship in some way from the Uchjin and establish a proper launch platform. Third, once away, we must approach your planetoid of New Pompeii through Antor Trelig’s robot sentinels. Mr. Yulin, what is today’s codeword for the sentinels?”
He looked startled. “I—I’m not sure,” he admitted. “We’d just planned to run through all of them on a fast tape.”
“But what if the robots are programmed only for slow speech?” the ambassador asked him. “We have by your own account just thirty seconds to give the codeword. If the tape doesn’t work, we are lost.”
He didn’t like that thought, particularly because it was true. “So?”
“Mavra Chang went to New Pompeii as a guest, is that not so? She had never been there before?”
“That’s true,” Ben Yulin admitted. “Get to the point.”
“And yet Chang stole a spaceship—within the realm of possibility—but then she flew right through the robot sentinels without a problem! Tell me, Mr. Yulin—how did she do that?”
He had thought that one over a thousand times before. “I wish I knew for sure,” he responded. “Best guess is the treacherous computer gave it to her when we ran her through it. But, hell, it probably only gave her the
