It was the Alpo version of the dogs of war unleashed. They began stampeding toward the path, shouting and brandishing their weapons. The last one to go was Geek, who shot Trub and me a look like we'd stolen his pocket protector and mocked Spock before taking off after the others.
Once they were a safe distance away I let go of Trub and stepped back, watching closely to see what she would do. At best she might chew me out for interfering, at worst kick my ass up around my ears. I really wasn't expecting an attaboy.
Her face gave nothing away as she said, “Transport.”
A door appeared. I was relieved when she beckoned me to follow her. At least she wasn't going to leave me there to deal with the mongrel horde.
We came out atop the plateau. Before us was what looked like a huge blue-lit swimming pool, obviously the source of the glow seen from below. There was nothing else up there other than a wishing well about the size of a kitchen trashcan, and a PortaPotti-sized column that was just that: an alien outhouse.
“So what is that?” I asked.
“Mineral pool.” She gave me a sidelong look with her one good eye. “This was my favorite place to come for a quiet soak or swim. I'm sure going to miss it.”
“Sorry,” I said.
She shrugged. “I'll find another, or get them to make one.”
I took another look around. “There isn't anyone here.”
“Nope. I just had someone step through to be seen. They're already gone.”
“A decoy.”
A nod. “Or bait.”
I followed her to the edge. We peered down the path. Cyrus and his gang were halfway up the hillside, letting out fewer shouts and war cries as they got winded from the climb.
“They sure are going to be disappointed,” I said.
Trub nodded. “And pissed off.”
“Can they get back? To the area around High Vista?”
“No, they're going to stay in this segment for a while. The doors won't let them go anywhere other than Earth for a year, and even after that no door will ever take them to High Vista's segment.”
“You can do that? Set rules for the doors?”
“I sure can.” She turned back to gaze wistfully at the pool, as if saying good-bye to it, then looked my way. “Ready to move on? There's more work to be done.”
“Sure. After I do one last thing.”
“What's that?”
I let out an ear-splitting whistle. Cyrus and his men looked up. Saw us standing above them.
I gave them the finger.
They started moving faster, wanting to come get me, but by the time they arrived Trub had called another door, and we were long gone.
* * * *
Trub took us back to the catapult.
“Now what?” I asked. I spotted my Rollox on the ground, lost in the confusion. I grabbed it, rolled it back up, and stuffed it in my pocket.
“We clean up some loose ends. Here, give me a hand.”
The catapult had wheels in front and a skid in back, like an old moveable cannon or artillery piece. Trub had us shove on the back part, turning the weapon so it was no longer pointed at High Vista. Once we'd repositioned it to her satisfaction, she gave me a small smile. “You want to do the honors?”
I stared at her in surprise. “You mean fire it?”
“Sure. We wouldn't want to leave a loaded weapon laying around, would we?”
“I guess not.” The firing mechanism was simple enough, almost elegantly so. Poor Geek. He'd built a pretty gnarly weapon and never gotten to see it put to use. I pulled the safety pin, then put my hand on the trip lever. “Say when.”
“Fire when ready, Mister Glyph.”
“Bombs away.” With a sound like a monster bass string being plucked, and a groan and a whump from tension being released, the catapult fired its load high up and far into the distance. From up on the plateau came the sound of cheering.
“Wow,” I said. “I'm impressed. They could have hit High Vista for sure. Done some damage, too.”
“Major damage.” She studied the weapon. Nodded to herself. “You know, I've changed my mind.”
“About what?”
“I want it cocked and loaded.”
That didn't make any sense. “Why?”
“Just because. Come on, give me a hand.”
There was a windlass to put tension on the part I guess you'd have to call a flinger bar. We started winding the tensioning rope up. It was easy at first, but got harder as the flinger bar was bent further and further down. I was finding it harder work than Trub, who did over half the work with none of the grunting and groaning that was coming from me.
Once the catapult was cocked, we loaded the basket with more of the hoopstuff ammo. Trub told me what she wanted in the basket, pointing out particular missiles. As we worked I decided it was time to ask straight out if I was in trouble or not.
“So,” I said, “You're not mad at me for tricking those clowns into going away?”
She dropped a sphere the size of a melon into the basket. “I can live with it.” A glance my way. “Why did you get involved?”
I shrugged. “You weren't back yet, and I was afraid they'd attack before you could get back and stop them.”
“Why did you decide to scam them? You had to have faked that picture before you went down the hill.”
“It was pure run what you brung. I couldn't beat them up or scare them off. I figured by only option was to use their own dumbshit mentality against them. You know, social engineering and a bit of situational judo.”
She put in another sphere the size of a bowling ball. “How did you know I'd cooperate when you grabbed me?”
“I didn't. But I sure hoped you would.”
“I guess you got lucky.”
“I guess I did. Thanks.”
She dusted her hands on her shorts, then touched the disc at her throat. When she took her hand away there was a small white ring in her fingers. “Here,” she said, holding it out. “Put this on. Doesn't matter which finger.”
I took the ring. It seemed to weigh nothing. “So what does this mean?” I said, fitting it over my left middle finger. “That we're engaged?”
She laughed. “You should be so lucky. Now step back a bit.”
Once I'd retreated a few steps a door the size of a small building materialized directly over the catapult and began descending. The weapon disappeared into the door, and when the door reached the ground it disappeared.
“You did that?” I asked.
“Sure did.”
“Where did you send it?”
“To the base of the hill where we just sent Cyrus and his buddies.”
The woman had a wicked sense of humor. “They won't like that, their own weapon pointed at them, freshly loaded, and ready to fire.”
Mock surprise. “You think?”
“Oh yeah. They'll have to either destroy it—Geek will freak out at that—or disassemble it and hump it to the top of the hill.”
“Should keep them busy for a while.” Her smile faded. “Okay, fun's over. Come on, more dirty jobs waiting.”
I had to hustle to keep up as she headed out along a well-worn track leading away from the place Cyrus and his followers had used as an attack base. Five minutes of brisk walking through a lightly wooded area brought us to a collection of ramshackle huts and lean-tos.
These rude housing units were arrayed around a central fire-pit, a standard-sized wishing well next to it. Trub went to stand by the fire-pit, then called, “Sarah. Better come out and talk to me.”
After a minute a tall, thirtyish, big-busted blonde came out of the biggest hut. She looked hard and mean and had a haughty air in spite of being dressed in a smudged and threadbare powder blue pants-suit, misshapen sandals, and a string of pearls. Her fingers were covered with rings and she carried a spear. She looked like a society princess on the decline toward feral bag lady, or a trophy wife who had lost most of her silver plating.
“What the hell do yo
u want?” she asked in a voice as melodious as the clash of trashcan lids.
“Wrong question, Sarah,” Trub said. “The right one is, what do you want?”
This Sarah, who I was willing to bet was Cyrus's other half, clearly didn't like Trub or riddles. “What are you talking about?”
“Cyrus and his so-called men are gone.”
The woman's eyes narrowed. “Gone how?” Other women had appeared in the doorways of the shacks, watching and listening. They too looked like refugees from some Mad Maxed-out gated community, dressed in boutique strut that had been reduced to ragged shuffle. Their faces were as cold, closed, and grim as militant vegans stuffed in a meat locker.
“They moved on to another segment.”
Sarah shook her head. “Cyrus wouldn't give up on getting back what is rightfully ours. I know you're on the side of the Bugs. Did they help you run him and our men off?”
Hearing this horrible woman call the aliens Bugs made me take a mental vow to try to stop calling them that.
Trub ignored the woman's question. She turned my way. “I should introduce you, Glyph. This is Sarah Crook, Cyrus's second wife. Their last name fits. The two of them ran here just ahead of the law. Cyrus was skimming from an investment fund, and Sarah was financing some very nice lifestyle improvements with donations to a not-for-profit she'd gotten her claws in.”
“Those were just mistakes,” Sarah said coldly.
Trub laughed. “And you made them. Trying to take over High Vista and their well was another. One more and you're out.”
Sarah looked like she had a mouthful of vinegar. “I don't have to listen to any of this,” she sniffed.
“No,” Trub agreed cheerfully. “But it might be a good idea. My associate here is going to offer you a deal. A door that's good for four days is part of that deal. Glyph, tell our lucky contestant what she can win.”
I eyed Trub uncertainly, wondering what the hell she was doing putting me in charge of a situation I didn't begin to understand. She just smiled, making a go for it gesture.
“Ah, all right,” I stammered. “You get, well, you get a door.” I tried to make this sound like fresh news, desperately racking my brain for what to say next.
“The deal is, and I think it's a good one, you get to choose. Your choice is staying here, or going to rejoin your men. Through the door.” As I said that, one appeared at the edge of the village. Had I made it? If so, I was clueless as to how.
“That's a, you know, one way door to where your men went. It will stay here for four days. So you have that much time to decide whether you want to stay here or go join them. And you can use a regular mystery door to go someplace else. Maybe start a new life.” Sheer mean-spiritedness and class prejudice made me add, “Maybe go start a nice little gated community or something.”
“That's a better deal than you deserve,” Trub said. “Take it or leave it.”
Sarah made a twinkling, ring-studded fist. “We'll get you for this, bitch. You and those stinking Bugs.”
Trub didn't look worried. “Hey, you heard the man. You don't like it here, there's a door back to Earth about five minutes’ walk from here. You could probably find a good lawyer to keep your fat ass out of prison, though it doesn't look like you could really afford to pay one.”
“No prisons here,” Sarah said.
“Not yet.”
“No hospitals, either. Too bad, because I think you're about to get fucked up even worse than you already are.”
It was then I noticed that the women of the encampment had begun quietly boxing us in. There were a couple dozen of them, armed with clubs and homemade knives. They didn't look like they planned on throwing a nice tea party, or of they did, we were going to be filling for the sandwiches.
I was getting the impression that I never wanted to see or be anywhere near whatever it was that might scare Trub.
She noted the growing level of threat impassively, then turned her attention back to Sarah. “Listen,” she said, sounding more tired than worried. “That chucklehead you're married to and his gang of greedy dimwits is gone, and they're never coming back. You can go join them, or you can take a door somewhere else and see if you can find some man with low enough standards to take you. You have four days to voluntarily relocate. After that you are going to be taken out of this segment, and I might just send the leftovers off to start a colony of harpies. I really don't care where you go. Nothing you can do is going to change that.”
“We could take you hostage. What would the Bugs give us to get their precious Bug-fucker back?”
Trub shook her head. “Honey, I don't think you want to find out.”
Sarah's smile sent my testicles scurrying for cover. “I think we'll take our chances. Right, girls?”
There was a growl and grumble from the women surrounding us.
Trub sighed and turned her head. “Glyph, you play bimbo-wrangler.”
I almost wheeped Me? but managed to choke it back in manly self-defense; these women would jump on any weakness like a sale rack of designer shoes.
“Ladies,” I said, turning to face a particularly disgruntled and wilted nosegay of womanhood. “You've got this all wrong.”
A skinny, club wielding Barbietroid in patched slacks and a ragged blouse snarled, “Yeah, how?”
“Trub can't stop herself from getting right in your faces, it's just the way she is. What she didn't tell you is why your men left. They went to take possession of an even bigger wishing well than the one on High Vista.”
“Bullshit,” the woman snapped.
I figured I'd just met Mrs. Geek.
“No, really.” I pulled out my trusty Rollox and showed them the image I'd used to fake out the men. Chances were these women were smarter than their men—it was hard to imagine them being any dumber, but they had hooked up with that gaggle of losers. So maybe they'd take the same bait.
“That's what they went after,” I announced. “Your men made Trub and me take them to it. The, um, Bugs have to write it off now. Trub is pissed, and she's taking it out on you.”
“He's lying,” Sarah said.
“Sure, fine,” I said. “Pass up the chance to get in on what your men have. Your not getting a share just makes Trub happy.”
While I'd been talking, some of the other women had redeployed to get a look at the screen, studying the image like a fashion layout in Vogue.
Now to pile it on. “Just think of what a well like that could get your men. Besides all the great stuff that could be gotten from it.”
“Like what?” This from a lean black woman armed with a crude but unnervingly dangerous looking hoopstuff machete.
I rolled my eyes. “Yo, sister, what do you think? Any women they find are going to latch onto them for piece of that well.” I turned and pointed at a woman picked at random. “How long has your husband had you living in this dump, stuck here after he and his buddies bought you the boot from up there?”
Her upper lip curled. “Almost a year.”
“You probably had it pretty good up there, right? Until that greedy slob Cyrus convinced your husband to help him grab it all for himself. Now you're going to let him dump you for some babe who wants what you should be getting?”
“Don't listen to him,” Sarah cawed. “He's trying to trick you.”
The woman stuck out her chin. “Shut up. It's your fault we're here, you pushy bitch.”
“Don't you talk to me like that, Crissy Nyland!”
“I'll talk to you any way I want! We wouldn't be in this mess if it wasn't for you and that pig of a husband of yours talking our guys into joining his stupid scheme. We ended up with nothing. Now we don't even have our men.”
Sarah sniffed. “Not much of a loss in your case.”
I jumped in before things got out of hand, though in some ways I wouldn't have minded watching a catfight civil war get started. Problem with that, people would get hurt, and odds were I'd be one of the first casualties.
“Ladies, ladies,”
I said in the best jolly game show host voice I could muster. “No need to fight. The door is right there. All you have to do is use it. Go find your husbands. Go get your fair share before some well-slut beats you to it.”
Six of the women did just that, heading for the door. They were keeping their weapons. I had the feeling that certain guys were very soon going to be trying to talk their way out of primitive vasectomies. Several of the other women were wavering, including Mrs. Geek.
“Looks like your gang is deserting you,” Trub said with a laugh calculated to punch Sarah's buttons. “Probably tired of being bossed around by a pair of incompetent crooks.”
“You scar-faced whore,” Sarah snarled, swinging her spear around and launching herself at Trub.
Without thinking I leapt toward Trub to help.
Trub blocked the spear's blade with her artificial hand, the wooden shaft hitting nanolastic with a sharp crack!
I lowered my shoulder to tackle Sarah in the side. One of the women crashed into me first, knocking me down. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her lift the club she carried.
Before I could duck everything went white.
* * * *
The next thing I knew I was floating in a featureless white capsule. I freaked and tried to throw myself against the side of it. It was like trying to hit something underwater.
Suddenly Tinker Bell appeared in front of me, wings beating in a sparkling blur. “Calm down,” she said. “No need to panic.”
“Orchid?” I said uncertainly, pretty sure I recognized the voice.
“That's me. Now take it easy, guy. Everything's all right.”
“What about Trub?” I wailed.
“Don't worry about her.”
“But they—”
“Really, she'll be fine.”
“You're sure?”
“Absolutely.” Orchid crossed her tiny arms before her tiny bosom, looking me over and smiling. “So, my friend, are you having fun yet?”
“Am I—” I shook my head. “Look, can't I go back and help her out? She was pretty outnumbered back there.”
“Gotten kind of fond of our Trub, have you?”
Analog SFF, July-August 2010 Page 23