"It might bother some, but not me. I uh, well, that is… I love you, Sahma."
Sam wasn't shocked, merely exasperated. "Putie, you've only known me for most of a day! And I bet you had crushes on lots of boys."
"A couple, when I was a kid," she admitted, "but not like this. When we met by the river, I couldn't keep my eyes off you, and when you helped me up you was so strong and I felt my whole body shiver. When the Changewinds come I came to be with you. and then you saved us all and stopped the Changewind and you wasn't scared or nothin'. I ain't never felt such love, Sahma, but I didn't know what to do 'bout it. Then when it was clear 'bout Boday and all, I couldn't keep quiet no more."
"Putie, you're still just a kid and this is just a crush like the others, maybe made worse by the scare we all got tonight and the fact that sometimes this bein' pregnant plays hell with your emotions."
Putie took Sam's hand and put it on her swollen belly. "Nobody with a tummy like this is still a kid," she responded. "And we all got them rushes when all you do is bawl for no reason, or all of a sudden want to do everything at once or stuff. Sometimes I Just feel so small and helpless and lost and I need somebody bad. You can't tell me you don't feel that way sometimes, too, and you're gonna feel it a lot worse, and when you don't want it the further along you get. You need somebody along who knows what you're feelin' and can help. And who's gonna deliver your kid? You? I helped bring a baby brother and sister into the world. It ain't that hard, but it ain't somethin' to do alone."
Sam had the uneasy feeling that some wisdom was coming out of this desperation crush, and she didn't like the message.
"All right," Sam replied. "Depending on what the morning brings and what we find, and depending on the opportunities, I'll try and take you and others who might want to take the chance with me, at least until we can find some better places for you. It still might not be possible, but, if it is, I will. That's the best I can do."
"Maybe we'll figure it out," Putie responded, sounding very happy. "Outsmartin' men one way or the other has been women's way since the beginnin'."
Finally, with Putie beside her, she managed to doze, but it was a light and troubled sleep filled with terrible images from her past. Stretched out on that rock, with the eerie glow of the fires against the cliffs, as those filthy men came at her again and again…. It was a recurring nightmare that she had never been able to banish. But, this time, there was an overlapping, distant image, of a place of near darkness with just a small light within, casting a demonic, horned shadow on the walls.
"There is no way to get from the city over to the district; they've got everything sealed off," a man's ghostly and distant voice was saying, like out of a bad transistor radio. "The army will cross in there. Why not get them to do it?"
"No?" replied the horned one sharply. "That would involve the law and procedures and we can not chance that Grotag might do a full examination of her and determine the truth of the situation. He is a fool but a cautious one."
"Well, we have a few men on the eastern border and they're going to move towards the Abrasis lands at first light, but they'll have to sneak in. The incoming border is sealed. I have at least two dozen good men over in Dhoman, but it will take them at least a day to get to the border and cross the null."
"No. Even if let in, their options will be limited, for by that time the army will have a division in there. Have them camp in the null and ride picket along the vulnerable crossings of the border. There is no civil authority or army in the null. No witnesses. We know that she is with child and probably disguised as an Abrasis."
"Yeah, but that's a pretty vague description. Are you telling me to simply murder any pregnant women who try and cross the null?"
"I leave the details to you," responded Klittichorn. "We will never have this specific an opportunity again, though. If she slips through, you and your men will wish you had been more imaginative and more ruthless."
Sam sat up suddenly, sweating.
First light showed a disaster of a magnitude even Sam had not imagined. There wasn't a single structure standing anywhere in the encampment area, and many of the shelters were unrecognizable as anything other than kindling wood.
There were bodies, too. Not many, but some who apparently were crushed in the shelters or struck by flying debris and a few who might have been trampled in the mad, panicky stampede. There was also a wide variety of injured, some with pretty bad-looking wounds or breaks.
Most startling was the view to the north of the encampment site. Where the day before had been rolling hills and countless vineyards, now stood a vast and eerie plain of purple grasses and bright orange mud, and here and there steam seemed to rush from the ground and spout plumes of water high in the air from time to time.
And scattered around, thicker the further in you looked, were groves of tall trees much like great pines, but with huge red and yellow ball-like fruit or flowers clinging to them.
Of people there was no sign, but they would have lived beyond the vineyards, beyond the road that now was cut and gone, and out of immediate sight. Sam was grateful for that; she had no desire to see what they might have become, what new race might have been formed here. If they still had their wits about them, though, they'd be off for the null en masse about now, before the army got here in strength. The law called for the systematic murder of every Akhbreed transformed in a Changewind, and it was ruthlessly applied.
Estate and clan personnel, with the healthy girls organized into details, managed to get their own area straightened up, the wounded onto wagons for the trip up to the manor house where healers were even now converging, and to collect and remove the dead for return and burial. The rest of the girls combed the rubble for personal effects.
Sam hadn't tost much, although she did locate the twisted and smashed pair of enchanted glasses. They hadn't even survived long enough to be used as a disguise.
They bathed in the river in groups. The river had also been changed, going underground now at the new area, but it flowed north, so the water coming past the estate was from unchanged sources and thus was judged safe. They also got fed, cold and not elaborate but it was the best they could do. and got a fresh set of clothes—which in the case of the pregnant girls wasn't much—although they were very short of combs and brushes, each of which seemed to go through countless hands.
By mid-day contingents of troops, mostly from the colonies, were coming in to cordon off this side of the "infected" region and work out plans for going in and "disinfecting" it as soon as sufficient forces arrived. At least they paid little attention to the estate and the encampment, except, of course, to ogle the girls as all soldiers did.
Also by mid-day, civil authority had moved in and attempted to impose some order on things. Rumors swept the gathering that they would all now be sent home as quickly as possible and that plans were being made to do just that. Sam hoped to get a ride to Mahtri, since that was certainly where Crim would look first, but she wasn't particular. If the first batch was for someplace far away that she'd never heard of in her life, she fully intended to go there. They set up tables on the grass with clerks behind them to take names and destinations.
Sam grew nervous when they ordered all the unwed pregnant women to one side; the vividness of the dream she had had was still very strong and the sense of ruthless menace stayed with her. She wondered if she could somehow sneak off in this mass, maybe steal a horse. She wondered, too, if some of the other girls, Putie in particular, would let her do it. Damn! It was always the worst case!
Still, Sam wondered just how many would actually come along when the adventure and risks were so immediate. Putie, certainly: the small girl hadn't left her side and kept trying to show real affection. That was tough because Sam really had the need for some of what Putie offered right now but couldn't bring herself to encourage the kid.
But before she could do much of anything, one of the clerks emerged from the crowded area of tables and records and came over to them.
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"Is this everyone?" he asked them, sounding official. He was carrying a clipboard and pen but not the sheaves of documents that the clerks at the tables had.
"All right, listen up, and shut up," he said brusquely. "You've been real lucky up to now. First the Changewind abruptly changes course at the last moment and moves away from you. Now I got some more luck for at least some of you. We're trying to move everybody out as quickly as possible and send them home, but we haven't got Navigators or Pilots on the other end set up for everybody yet, and it's gonna be unpleasant here for a while, but you know what's waiting for you when you go home. You're all whores who have dishonored your families and the Abrasis clan. Don't give me any lip! You know what you are. Now, a clansman arrived here yesterday, mostly in the hopes of working out something about a few of you. We were going to take more time and interview you. but under the current emergency he can't stay and doesn't want to."
They listened silently, some seething at his terms for them, but they said nothing, not knowing just where this was leading.
"I won't mince words. Now, there's a colony called Nayub. Probably you never heard of it. It's not the world's most wonderful place, but it has among other things an Abrasis-run company that was started up a couple of years ago as an experiment with a small group of convict laborers. It's now starting to pay, and the laborers are being offered full commutation if they settle there and keep working at it. And, yes, none have seen a woman in at least two years. There's little of any civilization near their camp and it's off the beaten track. We'd like to get a true colony going and make the place permanent. We're offering to send you there instead of home. Any questions?"
"Uh, sir, you mean send us to these criminals?" one girl asked, a bit taken aback. "Guys who haven't seen a woman in years?"
"They are no longer criminals. They have been paroled under condition of exile. As for the other; well, I'd think that girls like you would have a ball as the only women for twenty love-starved men. Eventually it'll be a full-fledged colonial outpost, with lots of regular people, but that's going to be a slow build, and they'll be professionals with their own families, so it won't be rugged forever."
"You mean he wants twenty of us to go with him out there?" another asked.
"He does, but due to the emergency he's limited to his own wagon and existing supplies. Everything else was commandeered. We had planned on doing this methodically, over time, but the Emergency authorities have ordered all non-residents out as quickly as possible. That means no round trips, and by the time he might get through to hire other wagons, you will all be gone home. At the moment we can take only five- We'll take the names and homes of the rest who might want to go, but there are no promises."
No one said a thing, but they all could do at least that much arithmetic. Each of us with four husbands…. It wasn't the turn-on it seemed. Even if all four turned out to be decent sorts, which wasn't all that likely, you'd have to be wife to all four. Not just conjugally, but cooking, cleaning, keeping house, and all the other drudgery multiplied by four. The clerk knew they understood that, but, like the clan lord and the man with the wagon, was counting on it still being a more attractive alternative than going home.
"Uh, what kind of crimes did they do?" someone asked.
"What's the difference? You go home, you become a slave. You go this way, you gain some legitimacy. But, remember, they all volunteered for this colony and permanent exile afterwards rather than take their sentences, so they probably were hanging crimes. It's up to you, though. We legally can't order any of you to do this, but you have to decide and now. He's being forced to leave today, and we have your routing papers to send you home over there if you don't want to go. Lord Abrasis has cleared and approved this, and will clear all legal hurdles."
The vision still clear in her head, Sam tried to weigh the alternatives while wishing desperately that she had more time. The trouble was, this colony was most certainly not anywhere near the intersection point between the colonies and the hub. As Crim had reminded her, those weren't little slivers of land, those were whole worlds of which only a narrow strip a few degrees wide overlapped. How would Crim ever find her, or she escape, from such a wilderness?
She thought furiously. Maybe, though, there was another line to take here. This guy taking them in would expect no trouble from five pregnant girls who volunteered. The guy would have the same low opinion of them that the clerk did, and would consider them helpless nobodies. If they couldn't overpower him and take the wagon over once inside this Nayub, she could fry him with lightning. It seemed an ideal solution. A wagon, nargas, supplies, and probably only one road to retrace. And it would get her out of here today.
"I'll go," she said loudly.
The clerk nodded. "Step over here. Who else?"
"Me, too!" Putie yelled. The clerk almost hesitated when he saw her tiny size; she noticed it immediately and added, "I'm a lay midwife as well."
The clerk's hesitation disappeared and he sighed. "All right, over with the fat one. Three more."
"I shall go," announced a rather sexy-looking young woman of perhaps sixteen or seventeen, pretty and nicely built, she managed to look ready for a man and a bed even at maybe six months or more pregnant. "I have known men with three wives. Far more interesting to have four husbands."
"You'll be very popular, I'm sure," the clerk noted, not being sarcastic, and gestured—
"All right, I will, too," said Quisu, stepping out and over with the rest.
"One more," the clerk announced, looking at the group. Sam, Quisu, and Putie all stared at Meda, who seemed trying to avoid their gaze. Sam couldn't help wondering if she was either all talk and no guts or if she just hadn't caught on to the plan.
"1 will," a short, stocky, buck-toothed girl of fifteen or sixteen said in a soft, shy voice, and stepped over with them.
"All right, that's it, then, for now," the clerk announced. "Everyone else get in the proper lines for your homelands and register to be taken out. When you get to the front, if you're interested, give the clerk your name, village, and family and, if things work out, we might notify you. You five, follow me."
Sam dropped back a bit and whispered, "Just go along with everything until we're completely out of here." The others nodded sagely.
They were put on a wagon and taken up to the great manor house itself, then off and down a small set of outdoor marble steps to a basement area. The other girls were almost awed by the size and splendor of the place, which was more than they had ever seen. Then they were taken into what looked to be a kind of waiting room with some comfortable chairs and told to sit. "We want you to be off within the hour," the clerk told them, "so we'll get through the formalities one at a time as quickly as possible."
Sam felt suddenly uneasy about this, almost expecting to see some of Klittichom's men come out and grab her as she sat more or less trapped. Why this delay if they were in a hurry? They had no particular belongings or wardrobe or the like; just load up and go.
The clerk emerged, pointed to Putie, and said, "You. Come with me." The small girl looked nervous but went inside and the door was shut. The five minute wait or so seemed interminable, and when the door opened again it wasn't Putie but the clerk, who pointed to the sexy girl. Another five minutes, and Sam began chewing her nails. What was going on here, anyway?
Again the door opened and the clerk pointed to her. "Now you," he said, and she got up and went inside.
There were no gunmen or uniformed officers there, but the place was the son that filled her with instant apprehension. Suddenly she wondered if history hadn't repeated and, in spite of her confidence and cautions, she hadn't walked into another trap like she had at Pasedo's. The place was clearly a magician's office, probably the chief clan sorcerer, and he was there, a rather young fellow with a goatee wearing a loose light blue robe.
Shit! It is another Pasedo deal' she thought, panicking, her eyes darting around to look for the exits. The sorcerer saw her reaction and sim
ply waved his hand at her and suddenly she felt all her fears and anxieties drain away and a sense of peace and well-being came over her,
"Don't be nervous, child, this will only take a moment," the sorcerer said in the kind of voice your family doctor used just before he gave you a shot. "Just sit in the chair here a moment and give me your hand. Yes, that's nice. Left hand, please."
There were burners going and the smell of something unpleasant cooking. He reached around, picked up a small object, tossed it a few times in his hand and then blew on it. She saw it was a thin gold band, like a wedding band, only it had four tiny different colored gems set in it. He took the ring and slipped it snugly on to her ring finger.
Instantly she felt strange, different. She had all her memories, she knew who and what she was and where she was, but something inside her head had changed. She realized that the ring contained a spell or a combination of spells that acted on the wearer, and that if she removed the ring the spells would not longer be active.
The trouble was, she had no desire to remove the ring, not ever. She felt good, happy, even content, and excited as well about the future. She remembered everything about the Changewind and the Storm Princess and Klittichom and the rest, but somehow they were no longer important to her, no longer even relevant. She knew it was the spell doing that, but it didn't make any difference. For the first time she realized what Boday must have felt like when she'd taken that strong love potion. The fact that she knew better, knew that mere were other important priorities, knew that she was the victim of a spell, didn't matter in the least. Even that was irrelevant.
Her whole view of herself and society had been turned upside down in an instant as well, and it, too, didn't bother her. She was a helpless, pregnant girl, out on her own, and she couldn't make it on her own. She wanted her baby and a home and solidity. She wanted somebody to take care of her and support her and she wanted to take her place in that household and have lots of babies and be an uncomplaining wife and mother. She was excited by the prospect, anxious to begin. Her world was instantly redefined as her husbands and children and home to be; all else was irrelevant.
Changewinds 03 - War of the Maelstrom Page 13