Elspeth was the first to stumble. She disappeared with a scream as the worms flowed over her. Seizing control of our body from Seymour, I started toward her. We hadn’t gone more than three feet when I slipped in wormslime and we fell to the ground, too. Instantly, the worms began oozing over us. I could feel a hundred slimy bodies, long and undulating, slither onto our skin.
Gross! moaned Seymour.
Just when I was starting to fear that we would have a problem breathing because of the slime, we got a new surprise.
The worms started to talk to us.
Please forgive our rather frightening way of getting your attention, they said, speaking directly into our head, the same way that Snout sometimes did. Unfortunately, this was the only way that we could make contact with you.
By “you” I realized that they meant all of us, since it soon became clear that all of us who had been engulfed by the slime were part of the mental link. I could tell because I was picking up our friends’ thoughts as well as those coming from the worms.
Yes, we have created a thoughtlink between all of you, confirmed the worms. Or, to be more precise, we have pulled you into our thoughtlink. Our apologies for the fact that the only way to do this was to immerse you in slime. We know it is not the favored tactile sensation for most of you individually brained creatures.
Individually brained? I thought. I could sense several others, including Grumbo and Elspeth, asking the question at the same time.
That seems like the best term for it, thought the worms. We worms have to link together in order to gain the capacity for thought. But you creatures think all on your own. It’s very efficient, we suppose. But it also seems terribly lonely.
Being linked to their brains, we could tell what they meant. They were not simply sending us words, or even images; we were connected to their feelings and their memories. This was beyond the kind of brain link I had with Snout when we were communicating. It was more like what had happened in Dimension X when the Ting Wongovia did a mindprobe on me. It was as if we had become part of the worms . . . and the worms a part of us. My mind was filled with images of tunneling, and of sweet, rich soil that suddenly seemed more appealing than a chocolate cookie. I had a sense of generations of worms, a history of wormhood extending behind me into the distant past.
One worm alone was not much to speak of, but their collected minds made a powerful thing indeed. And, in the same way that when people speak they have a tone of voice, the worms’ thoughts seemed to carry a sensation of dark and dampness, of enclosed spaces beneath the soil. Yet I could also feel something big about their thoughts, as if their joined senses took in more information than any single mind ever could.
We know everything that happens in Kryndamar, said the worms, as if responding to my impression. We know why the trees weep, and where their roots go to drink. We know on what patches of land the rain falls, and where the soil is thirsty. We know each place where the sun is rising, and even better, we know what happens in the darkness.
Why have you come here now? asked Madame Pong.
I could understand the question as surely as if she had spoken it aloud.
We came because we thought we were called, replied the worms.
What do you mean?
We sensed a great cry of distress, from someone in trouble.
Oh, great, Rod, thought Elspeth. You’re the one who brought the worms!
What could I say . . . or think? I knew she was right.
On the other hand (something the worms didn’t have) I wasn’t sure having the worms arrive was such a bad thing. Disgusting? Absolutely. But it was sort of interesting, too.
For one thing, they were clearly able to do what I had been trying to learn—make mental contact with others.
In fact, I had made contact with them!
Alas, we wish we could have come more quickly, thought the worms. But to gather enough of us to make the link takes time. And now it seems our help was not really needed. Even so, we do have some information that may be of use to you.
What kind of information? asked Madame Pong.
You have an enemy on Kryndamar.
The jolt of fear and surprise I felt at this announcement was intensified by the fact that everyone else was feeling it, too.
Stay calm! ordered Snout.
Who is this enemy? asked Madame Pong.
The one who stays in the water, answered the worms.
Quat? asked Elspeth. I could tell it really bothered her; she had liked the water guy ever since he fed her that bouncing pickle-thing.
That is the one.
Why is he our enemy! asked Madame Pong. And though she didn’t say it out loud, I could tell that she had suspected him all along.
He has been sent here to spy on you, replied the worms.
Who sent him! I thought, dreading the answer.
We do not know. But we have seen him watching you when you do not think he is around. He hides in the pond near your camp and listens to what you say. He seems frustrated because he cannot tell what goes on between the purple being with the pointy face and the blue being with two minds.
How do you know we have two minds? I thought—thereby foolishly giving up any chance I might have had of convincing them we didn’t.
We didn’t know, until we brought you into our link. After that, we couldn’t help but be aware of it. We find it amusing. We are many bodies, joined to make one mind; you are two minds, joined in a single body. It must be difficult.
You can say that again, thought Seymour.
Madame Pong spoke up. Or thought up. Whatever. Anyway, she asked the worms if they would help us.
Normally, we do not like to get involved in the affairs of others, replied the worms. But this creature, this Quat, we do not like. He pretends to be pleasant when he is with you. But he is different on his own. He does not respect the land or the water. He is cruel in his behavior. We will help you if we can. What do you have in mind?
Madame Pong told them.
CHAPTER
14
The Spy
THE NEXT AFTERNOON ELSPETH WAS walking up and down the beach, muttering, “Oh, me, oh, my. Oh, this is such a mess. What am I going to do? They’re not doing the right thing. I wish I had someone to talk to about this.”
She would do this for a while, then sit down on the sand and snivel for five minutes or so. Then she would get up and start again.
On the third time Quat rose out of the water and came to stand beside her.
“What’s the matter, young one?” he asked sympathetically.
Elspeth turned on the faucets. “I just don’t know what I should do,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “I think we should talk to someone, but they won’t let me.”
“Talk to someone about what?” asked Quat, sounding deeply concerned, and very friendly.
“C-c-c-come with me,” said Elspeth, sounding as if she were about to burst into sobs. “I’ll sh-sh-sh-show you.”
Without waiting for Quat to answer, she took him by the hand and led him toward the trees.
The rest of us were there, waiting—including the worms.
Elspeth and Quat hadn’t gone more than three steps into the forest when the worms made their move. They dropped from the trees by the thousands. Thousands more squiggled up from the ground. Within seconds the waterman was buried under a writhing mass of wormitude.
The rest of us were already linked with the worms. This meant we were covered with slime, of course. But it also meant that as soon as Quat was pulled into the link, we could sense his thoughts. For safety, the worms put a block in front of our thoughts, to keep them from Quat.
No need for fear, the worms told him now. We simply want to talk to you.
Rather than reassuring Quat, this seemed to double his terror. At first I thought this was simply because getting a message from the worms was such a weird thing that it had scared him. But then I picked up one of the waterguy’s underlying thoughts and felt a surge
of terror myself.
The thought I picked up was this: What will BKR do to me when he finds out about this?
My worst fears were confirmed. Quat was not just any spy. He was a spy working for BKR!
Snout, who remained calm, began the questioning.
We have brought you into this link because there are some things we need to learn, he told Quat. I suspect I already know the answer to the first question, but I want to have it confirmed. Who are you working for?
I can’t tell you that! thought Quat in terror. At the same time another part of his mind was throbbing, BKR! BKR! BKR!
With the power of the wormlink, it didn’t take long to get the whole story out of him.
I have been working for BKR for many years. I happened to be near Planet Mentat when BKR was last there, along with another of BKR’s agents, each of us in our own ships. The boss contacted us, saying he was about to leave on an urgent mission and that he wanted us to watch the planet for two ships, the Ferkel and the Jean. If either of them left, we were to follow and report to him.
My comrade followed the Ferkel. That was the last I heard of him. As for me, I followed your ship to Kryndamar. Once I saw where you were landing, I came down myself—not on land, but in water. When I had brought my ship as close as I could, I left it and swam to where you were. Once it became clear that some of you were going to stay on Kryndamar while the ship went elsewhere, I contacted BKR to ask for further instructions. He told me he would get someone else to trail the ship, and that I should stay and watch you.
So the fact that Quat had been there to save Seymour and me on the morning we were nearly swept out to sea had not been mere coincidence after all. I found myself in the strange situation of feeling grateful to him because he had saved our lives, while at the same time hating him for the reason he had been there to do it.
Have you been in contact with BKR often? asked Snout.
I report in every third day.
Other information floated to the surface of Quat’s mind as well, not in direct answer to the question, but stirred up by it. So even without asking, we became aware that when BKR had realized my body no longer contained an active brain, he had been furious.
He had not, however, destroyed my body in a fit of rage, as I had feared he might. He was holding on to it as bait.
To my horror, I soon discovered that he had one more bit of bait in mind.
What is BKR doing now! asked Snout.
Quat fought to hold the information back. But the simple act of asking the question made it rise to the surface of his mind, where it was available to all of us in the wormlink.
He is heading for Earth.
For what reason?
He is going to kidnap the mother of Rod Allbright. BKR hopes that once he has her, it will bring her son out of hiding.
I felt as if I had been hit by a bolt of lightning. We’ve got to do something! I thought.
Got any great ideas? asked Elspeth.
Normally, I would have thought she was just being a smart aleck. But because we were in the wormlink, I could tell she really wanted to do something, too. She just didn’t know what.
Unfortunately, neither did I. We have to go after them somehow, I thought. Try to get there first.
That would be easier if we had a spaceship, pointed out Seymour.
I wanted to scream (but couldn’t, of course). I wanted to hit something—though the only thing I would have hit at the moment would have been the worms, who were our friends. Then the answer hit me. Quat has a spaceship! We can use his.
I felt a terrible wave of fear from Quat at the suggestion. I didn’t care. My mother’s life was at stake; probably the lives of the twins, too.
Where is it? I thought fiercely. Where’s your ship? The worms relayed the question for me.
The answer came as an image of a spot on the ocean floor. That shouldn’t have surprised me, since he had told us he had landed in the sea (in which case it probably should be called “watering” rather than “landing”) and since he was an underwater kind of guy. But somehow I had assumed he would have moved the ship onto dry ground by this time.
If his answer made sense, it was also disturbing. How deep was the ship? Could any of us swim down to it? We sure couldn’t send Quat down to get it—he would just climb in and fly away.
We got Quat to give us more specific information about where the ship was. Then we ended the wormlink so that the rest of us could talk without Quat being part of the conversation.
Madame Pong thanked the worms for their help.
You’re quite welcome, they replied. We always like having someone new to commune with. We learn a lot that way.
Then they all crawled away.
Unfortunately, they left a great deal of slime behind.
“This is disgusting!” said Elspeth, pulling her hand away from her arm and looking at the loop of sticky goo that came with it. She began wiping at her arms. But you couldn’t wipe the stuff away. When you tried, it just sort of spread around and got grubby. “Yetch!” said Elspeth.
I agreed. But I was also relieved (and surprised!) that she managed to wait until the worms were all gone to express her disgust. They were really helping us out, and we didn’t want to offend them. Only that kind of thing didn’t usually stop Elspeth. Again, I wondered how much effect Madame Pong was having on my cousin.
The worms that had been clinging to Quat stayed until last, making it impossible for him to run away.
Grumbo and his group had watched all this from outside the wormlink, not being eager to reenter it themselves. Krixna was standing next to him, holding Edgar, who we had decided should probably stay out as well. Now Mir-van came over to help Snout tie Quat to a tree.
“You aren’t going to leave me here, are you?” asked Quat, his voice thick with panic.
“Why not?” asked Snout.
“I’ll die! I have to get back into the water.”
Grumbo sighed. Taking something from his belt, he pressed it against Quat’s neck.
The waterman slumped against the tree.
“What have you done?” cried Elspeth.
“Tranquilizer pad,” said Grumbo, extending his hand to show the flat metal square he was holding. “Standard equipment in my business. Don’t worry, he’ll wake up in an hour or two. In the meantime, we can carry him back to the shore and pour water on him every once in a while.”
Snout grabbed Quat by the feet; Grumbo took his arms. As they started back out of the woods, Snout said, “Do you have any diving equipment in your ship?”
“Afraid not,” said the pudgy alien. “Why do you ask?”
“We need to retrieve the ship of this spy,” said Snout, “and it is hidden underwater.” He sighed. “I suppose I shall simply have to swim for it.”
It’s a cinch we can’t, thought Seymour—a private thought, now that we were no longer part of the wormlink.
He was right, of course, as we had learned that first morning when we tried to swim. Even so, I wished he hadn’t mentioned it. I hate not being able to do things.
* * *
As it turned out, getting Quat’s ship wasn’t going to be as complicated as we had feared. It was submerged only a few hundred yards offshore, and Grumbo had a little inflatable boat he was willing to let Snout borrow. All he would have to do was row out and dive straight down. All of us, both our group and Grumbo’s group, gathered on the beach to watch.
“Don’t worry about the dive,” said Snout, just before he climbed into the boat. “Breath control is one of the first things they teach you at the Mentat.”
We watched as he rowed out to the spot where we believed the ship was located.
Despite his assurances, I felt nervous. But he was right. It wasn’t the dive we needed to worry about.
It was whatever was attached to the huge fin I suddenly spotted slicing through the water behind him.
CHAPTER
15
Bargaining
MADAME PONG S
AW THE MENACING fin at the same time I did. “Snout!” she cried. “Look out!”
He was too far out and couldn’t hear her. Calmly, still facing away from the approaching danger, he began to unfasten his cloak.
He dropped it behind him.
Next came his flying belt.
The fin was getting closer.
Madame Pong and Elspeth were both screaming now. “Snout! Snout, don’t go in!”
The rising wind blew their words back into our faces.
The great fin had almost reached the boat.
Snout climbed onto the edge, about to dive in.
SNOUT! I thought desperately. WATCH OUT!
Suddenly Snout spun around.
The creature bearing down on the boat reared its head from the water. Its jaws were nearly as long as the boat. It had eyes like lanterns, teeth like swords. The long, fishlike body surged forward.
Snout dove into the bottom of the boat. I wasn’t sure why, until I saw him go shooting straight up into the air. He had grabbed his flying belt. With no time to strap it on, he had activated it and was now holding it with both hands.
The creature lunged up to catch him. Though its body surged some thirty feet up from the surface, it never left the water completely. As it crashed back into the waves, I wondered how big it really was.
Snout continued his heavenward streak, flying so high we lost track of him.
Well, the others lost track of him. I found myself seeing with his eyes. I had done it! I had opened the mental circuit between us.
Stay calm, Snout! I thought.
All right. That’s probably a ridiculous thing to think to someone who is clutching a flying belt that is dragging him straight up, while in the sea that lies increasingly far below there waits a giant creature eager to eat him. Still, it was the best advice I had.
Snout actually laughed in response. A good point, Deputy Allbright, and one I will try to keep in mind. In the meantime, congratulations on finally being able to make contact with me. And my thanks, as well. You saved my skin!
As he thought this, he was struggling to get the belt around his waist, where he could control it better. This was a little like trying to wrestle with a flying snake, and he was flopping around in the sky, sometimes looking up, sometimes looking down. His vision, superimposed on mine, was making me stagger with dizziness.
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