Quest for the Well of Souls

lives, they will not interfere.”

“I wish we could be sure of that,” Wooley responded. “However, we will act as if it were true because we have no other choice. Remember, we will have only hours at the launch site before they arrive. Not much time to assess conditions and prepare.” Her voice seemed to grow even colder, sharper than usual. “On no account must Antor Trelig survive,” she concluded.

The launch site itself was impressive. The Bozog had had years to prepare, and they’d made the most of it. Huge buildings stood out from a flat, desolate landscape, and a massive version of the rail system on which the Southerners were riding ran about a kilometer from one huge building to the site itself. Around the site massive cranes were positioned to manipulate the ship onto the platform, a tremendous black metal structure reaching into the sky, with a tilt toward the northwest.

“I’m not sure I like that angle,” Yulin commented, surveying it from the train. “As it is, we’ll have to build to full thrust before taking off, a tremendous danger to us even without other problems.”

“You will need to clear sixty-three kilometers within the first minute of flight,” their Bozog host responded. “Using information supplied by you and by others, we calculate that you will have nine seconds to spare. The slight angle is to give you maximum high-tech free flight. A perfectly vertical takeoff is impossible with the ship’s design, anyway, and you would run the risk of a high-altitude wobble that might take you for a moment over the wrong side of the border. Any power failure during takeoff will result in insufficient speed to break free of the Well’s influence before normal rotation takes you over semitech Esewod or nontech Slublika. You of all people should know what that would mean.”

Yulin nodded soberly. He and Trelig had escaped New Pompeii in disguise to avoid being murdered by Trelig’s former guards and slaves, who, seeing that they were now in an alien sector of space, realized they were dead people because they’d be deprived of their daily sponge supply. Trelig and Yulin had made the same mistake as Mavra Chang had a day earlier—they had flown too low over the Well World, so that the technological limitations of the hexes below had affected them, and they had plunged to the surface.

But Chang’s ship had broken up over the South; attempts to recover the sections, particularly the power supply, had been the cause of the wars of the Well. That had ended in failure with the destruction of the engines in a volcanic crater in high Gedemondas.

Yulin’s ship, however, was not designed to break up but was a smaller utility craft used mostly for in-system work. It had atmospheric-flight capabilities and collapsible wings, and he and Trelig had brought it intact to a dead-stick landing in nontech Uchjin.

“Are you certain of those figures?” Yulin asked, worried. “I mean, absolutely certain?” Whoever was in that ship would have one crack at it, and one crack only.

“We are,” the Bozog assured him. “We have had independent channels of communication. We know as much about that ship as its designer. Only the lack of two key minerals anywhere on the Well World prevents us from constructing our own drive and building our own ships.”

“Curious,” Mavra put hi. “I wonder if the lack was deliberate?”

“Probably. Makes no difference,” the Bozog responded. “The fact is that nothing on the Well World so far discovered can power a plant with sufficient initial and sustained thrust to overcome the Well’s effects. You might say we know how to build one, we just can’t do it.”

They were taken to a large square building that proved to have a very conventional airlock. Inside, it contained a suite of comfortable rooms complete with closets, manipulable lights, and an intercom to the Bozog launch control complex, and the project director’s office.

It was also filled with a generic Southern atmosphere that was maintained at a temperature of twenty degrees Celsius, comfortable for all concerned.

The atmospheric difference seemed to have no effect on the Bozog.

“We are rather versatile in this department,” it explained. “In general, we cannot stand the presence of certain lethal gases, but none of them are present in your atmosphere. You will excuse me if I do not elaborate on which gases and other substances are not to our liking.”

They understood. Why give a possible enemy the lethal weapon?

“How do you breathe, then?” Joshi asked, fascinated.

“We don’t breathe, not in the sense you mean it,” the creature replied. “What gases we require we obtain in our eating. There is as much gas in the rock we consume as in anything else. We just do not require constant respiration.”

Left alone shortly afterward, they were thankful to get out of their suits. The Torshind, who had no such problems, left its crystal crab shell and explored rapidly.

“No locks,” it reported to them. “Heavily bugged, of course, but I find nothing threatening. It is my opinion that, if the Bozog remain neutral and don’t warn our adversaries, we can surprise them shortly after they enter the airlock.”

The Yugash had used its crystal tentacles to draw a rough floor plan, and Wooley surveyed it critically.

“I disagree,” she responded. “There is too much danger of hitting a Bozog, and that we can’t afford. No, this second chamber across the way is obviously for them. I would suggest we let them in, allow the Bozog to leave, then hit them as quickly as possible, before they even have a chance to unsuit.”

The Torshind considered it. “A bit more risky,” it pronounced, “but politics is politics.”

Bozog, the Launch Site Five Hours Later

The Ortega party looked at the block structure with more relief than apprehension. They had been in their suits for several days; they were smelly and itchy. Even Trelig and Burodir were uncomfortable: they needed an occasional rinse of water, and it had been the same water over and over for some time.

Their number was greater, too; two large Dillians, two Makiem, plus Renard, Vistaru, and the Ghiskind made for an unwieldy assortment with different needs and comfort levels. All were out of their element.

The Bozog stopped near the airlock. “The others are inside, in their own apartment,” it warned. “They are out of their suits and have had a long time to prepare. They will do nothing as long as I am with you, of that we’re certain—it would force us to take a hand. However, once I leave, you are all on your own. I will tarry as long as possible to give you as much chance as you can, but after that it’s up to you.”

They understood perfectly, and were grateful that it bothered. The two Dillians pulled pistols and acted as guards; they would cover the others until they themselves could be guarded.

There was no sign of the Yaxa party when they entered, went down a well-lit corridor, and through a top- hinged panel to their rooms. As they passed a similar panel on their right, the Bozog’s rear spot had formed a shaky tentacle and pointed silently, then receded back into the orange mass.

They understood. The enemy was there, ready, and less than twenty meters down and across the hall from them.

The Bozog did in fact linger with small talk for a while, allowing Vistaru, Renard, and the Makiem to unsuit and choose their weapons. Renard unpacked his tast and took a pistol in his other hand.

“I hope I remember which hand has which,” he whispered in a half-joking tone he didn’t feel. “It’d be a hell of a thing if I blew up the gun and shot the tast.”

Trelig and Burodir checked out their own hand weapons. The centaurs managed to get out of their suits before the Bozog felt it had to leave. With a cheery, noncommittal farewell, it oozed out the panel, leaving them inside.

“Best to let them come to us,” the Ghiskind said as low as possible. “Dillians to either side of the door. Makiem in the far corners. Agitar with me in the middle, just forward and a little out of direct fire from the door. Vistaru, can you fly in here?”

She tried it. She could and it felt wonderful to rise up and dart about, although her wings hurt like hell from their recent inactivity. She had a Lata pulse-pistol in her tiny hand, and now her wicked red-and-black-striped stinger oozed with venom.