The Torshind considered this. “I think perhaps there is no blame here. It is entirely possible that the Pugeesh caused those effects to take us off guard. I have heard of such things being done elsewhere.”
“Oh, damn!” Mavra swore. “Not another
“Call it what you will,” the Torshind replied, “I think we’d better be doubly on guard from now on. How many more cylinders do we have of this stuff? I don’t think anything but chemical fire is going to stop them. They appear to be silicon-based.”
Yulin, scared and still grumbling, looked into the ammo pouch. “Nine. That’s not so good. I don’t think we can fight more than two more battles like this.”
The Yugash silently agreed. “Let’s try diplomacy, then. What have we to lose? Reach over and switch my radio to external amplification, will you?”
Yulin was still too upset, and it was Wooley who made the adjustment.
The Torshind walked to the side of the camp. “Pugeesh!” it called, its voice booming now out into the night. “Pugeesh! We should talk! We are weary travelers, nothing more. We do not threaten you or what is yours. We need only to cross your land to reach the other side! No one else need die, on either side! We ask your permission to continue!”
They waited. There was no reply, but there were no further attacks, either. They settled back for an uneasy balance of the night as the fires slowly burned themselves out and black smoke rose into the night sky.
About forty kilometers back, the other group was fighting a similar battle with different weapons.
Trelig and Burodir were crouched behind rocks, shooting tracers at the attackers. They had some effect, but not much; although the Pugeesh were enormous, there was really very little to them. A wall of flame was much more effective than the odds of projectile hitting a vital spot.
The Dillians, acutely aware of how large a target they were, found concussion hand grenades much more effective. The shrapnel from the grenades found their marks in a wide spread.
One of the spindly creatures charged and a great claw reached out for Renard. The Agitar’s suit was from an Entry of his race; it was designed at several contact points to allow the electrical discharge of which all Agitar males were capable. The claw grabbed him, and he reached up and fed the charge into it.
There was a hiss and a crackle, and the Pugeesh curled up into an impossibly small burning ball. This made the other Pugeesh pause, and they drew back cautiously.
The grip hadn’t torn the suit, but it had been painful nonetheless. Renard hoped his shoulder was just bruised, not broken.
“Well, they’re not eager to die, anyway,” Trelig shouted optimistically.
The Ghiskind considered that. “Perhaps that works for us. Make sure this
The creatures watched the Yugash’s approach and hurled some rocks at it, which passed harmlessly through. One took a sharp spear and lunged at the Yugash, also to no effect.
The specter reached the spear-thrower’s body and merged into it. The Pugeesh turned, convulsed, then charged into its fellows in the darkness.
Terrified, they uttered high-pitched screams.
The occupation was short-lived, however; too scared to do anything, the poor Pugeesh who’d been possessed simply dropped dead.
The Ghiskind emerged, satisfied with it demonstration, and headed for another. They pulled back in terror.
Frustrated that it couldn’t talk to them at this point, the Yugash turned and glided back, then returned into the
“I have just given those savages a demonstration of my powers,” it told them. “Perhaps now I can talk to them.”
The ptir scuttled toward them, and this time they were not hostile toward it. Their red faceted eyes had followed the fearsome ghost back to the camp and watched as it merged with the crystal being. They knew what approached them.
The Ghiskind stopped when it was convinced it had an audience, and turned its radio to external broadcast.
“Pugeesh! Hear me! We will cross your land. We will not harm or otherwise touch you or yours unless you attack us again. If you do, I promise you that not only you but your children will suffer for generations. Neither mind nor body of us shall you touch, and we will do the same. Is that agreed?”
There was no reaction for some time, then the sound of murmuring and mumbling. The Yugash received no formal reply, but soon heard the sound of many creatures moving off. Inspection revealed just one or two remaining, apparently observers.
In a way, they’d agreed.
Fairly confident now, the Yugash rejoined the others. “I don’t think they’ll bother us again. If they do, we’ll have to come up with a really big power demo.”
“Maybe they were luckier with the Yaxa group farther on,” Trelig said hopefully.
Vistaru, totally helpless in the battle because she was too small to man a weapon and her suit prevented flying or use of her stinger, sighed. “Poor Mavral” was all she could manage.
None of them slept the rest of the night, and they packed up and continued their journey at dawn’s first light. None of the strange creatures had molested them further in mind or body, and they hoped it would stay that way.
A couple of hours later they came upon the camp of the Yaxa party, saw the charred remains of the battle, and Vistaru noted with relief the lack of non-Pugeesh bodies about.
“Too bad,” Antor Trelig said sadly. “Looks like they’re still in front of us.”
Wohafa
Whether it was the promise, the fights, the threat, or other factors, the Pugeesh interfered no more. Both groups felt they were being watched, but as time passed and the truth of their claim that they were simply passing through became more obvious, they felt less threatened.
Wohafa was an eerie scene. A bleak, copper-colored landscape set against a deep-pink sky through which wisps of anhydrous white clouds drifted. Lightning was so frequent that often the land seemed to be lit by a stroboscope, with everything moving in a jerky slow motion.
The Wohafans themselves were odd creatures, balls of bright yellow light from which hundreds of lightninglike tendrils darted. A cross between creatures of matter and those of energy, they manipulated things with arms of energy, yet seemed to have mass and weight.
As a high-tech hex, Wohaja had a large number of machines and artifacts, but, for the most part, these, too, reflected the ambiguity of their makers’ nature and seemed odd lumps working from no apparent source and to no apparent purpose.
They became aware that building in Wohafa was accomplished by matter-to-energy-to-matter conversion, when they watched rock worked by a number of Wohafans dissolve and reform in new and obviously planned forms.
The Wohafans were a group neutral to them, though, which helped enormously. Having close contacts with the Bozog and a number of other hightech Northern civilizations, they had almost daily contact with the South, obtaining whatever a customer wanted by making it from the surrounding rock and rearranging its atomic structure. They accepted the waste of other civilizations and remade it to order, so they were a key economic link in the loose economy of the Well World as a whole.
They were also pragmatic. They understood the significance of the eerie silver moon that shined on the Southern horizon, and they appreciated its dangers, so they were willing to allow someone to reach it and remove the threat—for whatever purposes. As insurance, the Wohafans were willing to aid both sides so that, no matter
