For someone who had never yet been through the Well of Souls, never been made by that great machine into a creature of this world, she had been more creatures than anyone else on the Well World, she thought.
Whatever she was, she had a fairly long snout. Her eyes were set back from it, making that obvious. She tried to move, and found that shackles held her four feet in check.
A nearby noise attracted her attention. When she turned her head, she saw a small horse, perhaps the size of a Shetland pony, gold, and with broad, thick powerful hooved legs. The animal had a thick mane, and a clump of thick wavy hair hung from between its ears, reaching almost to the eyes.
“Joshi?” she said to herself, wondering, but she said it aloud.
The other stirred. “Mavra?” came a strange, electronic-resonant voice.
“Joshi! We can talk again!” she exclaimed excitedly.
He looked at her with his horse’s head. “So we’re talking horses now, are we?” he responded morosely. “What next? Horse flies?”
“Oh, come on!” she scolded. “We’re no worse off than before. We’re alive, we’re healthy, we’re
That last got to him. It was the first time she’d really said anything so endearing to him, and it seemed to energize him. “All right, all right,” he replied. “So who got us? The thing on the horse or the butterfly?”
She looked around. “The butterfly for sure. Why and for what I have no idea as yet, but I think we’ll soon find out.”
They talked on, more for the joy at being able to communicate again than for any serious purpose. Neither had really been conscious of how much their earlier isolation had affected them until they could speak once again.
After a half-hour or so, a door panel slid back with a whine. A Yaxa entered, looking no less huge and fierce and formidable in black and white and shades of gray than it had in color.
“I see you are awake,” it began in the eerie, ice-cold voice of the Yaxa. “I am Wooley. You know who you are, and so do I.”
“What’s all this about?” Mavra demanded.
Wooley’s death’s-head looked at them. “Would you like to get back to New Pompeii?” she asked.
Mavra almost gasped. New Pompeii! Space! The stars! But—“I’m a hell of a pilot as a horse,” she responded sarcastically.
Wooley showed no reaction to the comment. “We do not need you as a pilot, except, perhaps, as a backup. Do you remember Ben Yulin?”
Mavra thought a moment. The truth was, she had seen very little of Yulin—the young scientist at Trelig’s test panels. Not even a picture of him came to mind. All her experience had been with Trelig, not Yulin.
“Vaguely,” she responded. “Scientist who worked for Trelig. So? I know he’s the one you depended on to get you to New Pompeii after the wars over twenty years ago. Kind of fizzled on that one, didn’t you?”
Wooley let it pass. “We have Yulin, we can penetrate the North, we can reach New Pompeii, but it won’t be easy. You are our backup. Would
She had to admit that she wouldn’t. But, then again, she wouldn’t trust Mavra Chang, either, who owed no loyalty to the Yaxa.
“It wouldn’t have more to do with the fact that, if I’m with you, then Ortega can’t use me?” she prodded.
The Yaxa’s antennae waved a bit. “That is part of it, yes. However, we could kill you and accomplish that. No, we are interested in you as a check on Yulin. We want someone else who knows New Pompeii, and we want someone who can make certain he is not planning a double-cross. You are the best we can do.”
“But why
“Relatives of the horse, yes,” Wooley said, “but not horses. You are
“So we help carry the freight,” Mavra noted, understanding. “I can see that.”
“Also, your new bodies are not strictly herbivores. Your breed is from a hex to the east, Furgimos, and you can eat almost anything, in much the same way you could as pigs. Your water-storage capability is excellent. Two weeks or more. You can see how this simplifies travel problems.”
They did. “I take it that there’s a long journey after we get North, then,” Mavra guessed.
“Very long,” Wooley admitted. “For one thing, the rebreathing apparatus necessary is only usable in a semitech or high-tech hex, so the shortest route is out of the question. The shortest route avoiding nontech hexes is blocked because the Poorgl are extremely nasty high-tech creatures who would be death to us. That means a seven-hex journey.”
The horses started doing the math in their heads, but Wooley cut them off. “It’s about 2,400 kilometers, all told. A huge distance.”
Joshi was shocked. “That far in the
“Not impossible,” the Yaxa responded. “Difficult You forget we have had a great deal of time to prepare for this mission, both diplomatically and logistically. A thousand or so of those kilometers will be hard traveling. In others we will obtain transport and be resupplied from established caches. Still, the going will be difficult, and dangerous.”
“What about us?” Mavra asked. “How will
“I told you there were several reasons for your being horses. Well, the Dillians—you might remember them, they are centaurs—in whatever part of space their colony began, also attained space flight. We have obtained two of the suits and a spare from off-planet Dillian Entries and easily modified them,” the Yaxa explained. “They are made for an equine shape, yet operate in the main as yours do—they are form-fitting when pressurized. It is all arranged.”
“And when do we start this great expedition?” Mavra prodded, excited.
“Tomorrow. Early tomorrow,” the Yaxa replied, and left. The door whined shut behind her.
They stood in silence for a few minutes, thinking. Suddenly Mavra became aware that Joshi was shaking his hindquarters, obviously agitated.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Worried?”
“It’s not that,” he replied, certainly upset about something. “Mavra, will you look down between my hind legs and tell me what you see?”
She humored him, lowered her head, and looked carefully. “Nothing,” she answered. “Why?”
“That’s what I thought,” he cried mournfully. “Damn it, Mavra! I think they made me a girl horse!”
Ortega’s Office, South Zone
The intercom on Serge Ortega’s desk buzzed and he punched it. “Yes?”
“They’re here, sir,” his secretary answered. “They?” he responded, then decided quibbling wasn’t worth the trouble. “Send them in.”
The door slid back, and two creatures slow-hopped in. They looked very much like meter-and-a-half-long frogs, with legs in proportion, although one was slightly smaller than the other and had a lighter green complexion. On their whitish undersides elaborate symbols were tattooed.
“Antor Trelig,” Ortega nodded. “And?”
“My wife, Burodir,” the larger of the two frogs responded.
“Charmed,” the snake-man replied dryly. He looked around. There were spaces for Uliks to curl and some chairs and a couch for visiting humanoids, but there seemed to be nothing appropriate for frogs. “Have a seat if anything fits.”
The chairs did, surprisingly. As the frogs sat, they looked almost human, curved legs slightly crossed. “You know what’s up, I assume, so I won’t beat around the bush,” Ortega began. “The Yaxa have Mavra Chang, and they are ready to start any moment with Chang and Yulin into the North. We have to get there—if not ahead of
