The fetid odor of swamp mud was all around him and all over him, yet he continued. Until, quite abruptly, everything caught up to him and he collapsed, unconscious before he hit the water, stones, and mud.
THE NATION—A FIRST-CLASS HOTEL
They had not, as it happened, been arrested. They had been quarantined. The way the robot manager explained it, an analysis of the particles found in their waste gases had revealed two of them to have certain microscopic life forms that could cause corrosion problems in The Nation. They were, therefore, being held until their laboratories could check out the organisms, develop some sort of serum, and introduce it to them so they could safely get across the country without causing difficulties.
For Hain this was her first real vacation since entering this crazy world, and she lazed, relaxed, and seemed in no hurry to go on.
The Diviner and The Rel accepted the situation indignantly but with resignation; it kept pretty much to itself.
Since their hosts had evacuated the wing in which the four were staying, they were allowed to visit one another. Vardia was the only mobile person who cared to do so; she started going to Skander’s room regularly.
The Umiau welcomed the company, but refused to talk about her theories on the Well World or to discuss the object of their journey for fear that other ears were listening.
“Why do we have to go through with this?” Vardia asked the scholar one day.
The Umiau raised her eyebrows in surprise. “We’re still prisoners, you know,” she pointed out.
“But we could tell the management,” the Czillian suggested. “After all, kidnapping is a crime.”
“It is, indeed,” the mermaid agreed, “but that is also unheard of cross-hex. The fact is, these people don’t care if we’re prisoners, victims, or monsters. It just isn’t their concern. I’ve tried.”
“Then we must escape once we’re back on the road,” she persisted. “I’ve already seen a map—it’s in a desk in my room. The next hex borders the ocean.”
“That won’t work,” Skander replied firmly. “First of all, we have no idea as to the powers of this Northerner, and I don’t want to test them. Secondly, Hain can fly and walk faster than you, and either one of us is just a few good mouthfuls for her. No, put that out of your mind. Besides, we’ll not be ill-served in this. In the end, I have the ultimate control over us all, because they can’t do a thing without the knowledge I possess. They are taking me where I want to go and could not get myself. No, I think we’ll go along with them—until midnight at the Well of Souls,” she added with a devious chuckle.
“That’s about how long we’ll be kept here,” Vardia said grumpily.
The Umiau reclined lazily in the shallow end of the pool. “Nothing we can do about this. Meantime, why not tell me something about yourself? You know all about me, really.”
“I really don’t have much of a history before coming here,” she responded modestly. “I was a courier—wiped clean after every mission.”
The mermaid clucked sympathetically. “But surely,” she urged, “you know about your world—the world of your birth, that is. For instance, were you born or hatched? Were you male or female? What?”
“I was produced by cloning in Birth Factory Twelve on Nueva Albion,” she said. “All reproduction is by cloning, using the cellular tissues of the top people in history of each occupational group. Thus, all Diplos on or of Nueva Albion were cloned from the Sainted Vardia, who was the go-between in the revolution several centuries ago. She kept contact between the Liberation Front on Coriolanus and the Holy Revolutionaries in reactionary Nueva Albion. Thus, I carried her genes, her resemblance, and her job. My number, Twelve Sixty-one, said I was the sixty-first Vardia clone from Birth Factory Twelve.”
Skander felt a sourness growing in her stomach. So that’s what mankind has come to, she thought. Almost two-thirds of mankind reduced to clones, numbers—less human than the mechs of this absurd Nation.
“Then you were a woman,” the Umiau said conversationally, not betraying her darker inner thoughts.
“Not really,” she replied. “Cloning negates the need for sexes, and sexes represent sexism which promotes inequality. Depending on the clone model, development is chemically and surgically arrested. All glands, hormone production, and the like are removed, changed, or neutralized permanently, in my case on my eleventh birthday. We are also given hysterectomies, and males are castrated, so that it is impossible to tell male or female after the turning age. Every few years we were supposed to get a complete treatment that kept the aging processes arrested and freshened the body, so that one couldn’t tell a fifty-year-old from a fifteen-year-old.”
Outwardly the Umiau remained impassive, but internally Skander was so depressed that she felt nauseated.
Ye gods! the archaeologist swore to herself. A small, carefully bred cadre of supermen and superwomen ruling a world of eunuch children raised to unquestioning obedience! I was right to have killed them! Monsters like that—in control of the Well! Unthinkable!
They should all be killed, she knew, hatred welling up inside of her. The masters who were the most monstrous of spawn, and the masses of poor impersonal blobs of children—billions of them, probably. Best to put them out of their misery, she thought sadly. They weren’t really people anyway.
Suddenly her thoughts turned to Varnett. Same idea, Skander thought. Although the boy hadn’t come from a world as far gone as Nueva Albion, it would go that way in time. Names disappear on one world, sex on another, then all get together to form a universe of tiny, mindless, sexless, nameless organic robots, programmed and totally obedient—but so, so happy.
Varnett—brilliant, a truly great mind, yet childish, immature, in thousands of ways as programmed as his cousins whom he despised. What sort of a world, what sort of a universe, would Varnett create?
The Markovians had understood, she reflected. They knew.
I won’t betray them! she swore intensely. I won’t let anyone wreck the great dream! I will get there first! Then they’ll see! I’ll destroy them all!
MURITHEL—SOMEWHERE IN THE INTERIOR
Cousin Bat circled around feeling helpless. Maybe I can pick him up, he thought, looking at Brazil’s battered and bleeding body in the mud. He’s not a very big fellow, and I’ve moved some pretty heavy rocks with these legs.
He was about to give it a try when a group of Murnies came running up the valley. They got to Brazil’s unconscious body before Bat could do anything at all, and the night creature thought, It’s all over. They’ll chomp him into pieces for a late snack now.
But they didn’t. Four of the savages stayed with the body, while two others made for the top of the valley and the plains above. Fascinated, Bat stayed with them, balancing on the air currents.
The two returned a few minutes later with a litter made with tough branches for poles and, apparently, woven grass for the stretcher. Carefully they placed Brazil on the litter. One Murnie picked up the front, the other took the rear. They climbed the bank effortlessly, and Bat followed them, still invisible in the dark.
Darkness had returned to the plain as well. Bat was amazed to see hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Murnies beating a large, smoldering area about a thousand meters from the valley where they had plunged. It was a well-coordinated, well-rehearsed fire brigade, with the bulk of the Murnies beating out the last sparks with skin blankets, while an apparently endless chain of the creatures ran a bucket brigade from the creek all the way to the fire scene.
These are savages? Bat asked himself wonderingly. The teamwork and skillful handling of the fire he could not reconcile in his mind with the toothy carnivores who chased live prey with primitive spears and attacked them fiercely with spear and claw.
Brazil’s unmoving form was hauled into a small camp away from the fire scene. A particularly huge Murnie, his light green skin laced with dark brown, examined the man and started barking orders. Even though Bat’s translator would—should—pick up what the
big one was saying, he dared not get close enough to hear.
The big Murnie got a bucket of water and started to wash Brazil’s wounds with a gentleness that surprised the bat. Others brought a large hide case and a number of leaves. The big one opened the laces on the case, and from its interior pulled out varicolored jars of what looked like mud and more leaves, some apparently kept soaked in some solution in jars.
Slowly, methodically, the big one administered the muds to Brazil’s open wounds, and used the leaves to form a compress for the man’s head.
He’s a doctor! Cousin Bat realized suddenly. They’re treating him!
Bat felt better, almost relaxed enough to leave, but he did not.
Those wounds are tremendous, he noted. The man’s lost huge amounts of blood, and probably has multiple breaks, concussion, and shock. Even if the medicine man knew the art of transfusion, there is none to give the blood.
Brazil will be dead within hours, no matter what magic this creature can work, Bat realized sadly. But what can I do? And, if they somehow cure him—what then? Prisoner? Pet? Plaything? Slave?
The Murnie medicine man gestured, and a smaller tribesman came into camp leading a huge stag antelope. It was the largest such animal Bat had ever seen, light brown with a white stripe running from the back of the head to the stubby tail, a large set of eerie-looking antlers atop that head. The stag was docile, too much so to be normal, Bat knew. It was drugged or something. He saw with amazement that the deerlike animal wore a collar of carefully twisted skin, from which a small stone dangled.
Someone owns that animal, Bat reflected. Do these savages of the plain breed their food?
Into camp from different directions came five more Murnies, looking like the witch doctor—really large ones, with that curious brown discoloration, more pronounced on some than others.
Six, thought the bat. Of course it would be six. Primitives went in for mystic numbers, and if any number had power here that one certainly did.
They put the stag so that it faced Brazil, and all six moved close. Three of them placed their right hands on the unflinching stag, and took the right hands of the other three in their left. The other three all placed their left hands on Brazil’s body.
Bat stayed aloft as long as he could, but finally decided he had to land. He was just coming out of the fight, and the exhilaration and extra pep that had flowed through him had waned. Reluctantly, he made for the valley and flew along until he found a place with no Murnies in the immediate vicinity. He landed, breathing hard, thinking of what he could do.
In a few minutes he had his wind back, and decided on a plan that the odds said was ridiculous.
He had to try.
No more running, he told himself. If I can do it, I’ll do it.
He took off and flew back to the camp, seeing that he was in luck. The stag was staked to a post in the ground, apparently asleep, away from Brazil, who was covered with the mud compounds and leafy stuff, still in the open.
Brazil weighed around fifty kilos, he guessed. The litter? Five more? Ten? I can’t do it, he thought suddenly, fear shooting through him. That much weight, for all that distance!
Suddenly he thought of the Dillian girl. He had lost track of her while following Brazil, but he couldn’t take the time now. Nothing he could do in her case regardless, he knew. But she had run all out, all that distance on the ground, never stopping, cut and speared—way beyond her limits, while hungry and weak.
You’ve been eating well, Bat told himself sternly. You’re as big and strong and healthy as you’ll ever be. If she can do it…
Without another thought he swooped down to Brazil, and took one side of the litter, folding it over so he held both branches in his feet with Brazil wrapped in the middle. He took a quick glance around. So far so good. Now—could he take off, no ledge, no running start, with this load?
He started beating his great wings furiously, aided by a timely gust of wind that rustled the grass across the plain. He rose, and beat all the more furiously. Too low! he thought nervously. Got to get height!
The furious flapping brought Murnies running from their tents, including the big one.
“No! No! Come back!” the medicine man screamed, but the wind picked up and Bat was on his way, over the stream and down along its course, the unconscious Brazil hanging from the folded litter. Cousin Bat did not believe in gods or prayers, yet he prayed as he struggled to keep up speed, height, and balance. Prayed he would make it to Czill and to modern medicine without killing Brazil, himself, or both.
* * *
With shock and dismay the medicine man watched Bat fly into the darkness.
“Ogenon!” he called in a deep, rough voice.
“Yes, Your Holiness?” a smaller, weaker voice replied.
“You saw?”
“The body of the honored warrior has been taken by the one who flies,” Ogenon responded in a tone that seemed to wonder why such a stupid question had been asked.
“The flying one is ignorant of us and our ways, or he would not have done this,” the medicine man said as much to himself as to his aide. “He flew east, so he’s taking the body to Czill. I’ll need a strong runner to get to the border. Now, don’t look at me like that! I know how foul the air is over there, but this has to be done. The Czillians must realize when they see the warrior’s body and hear the winged one’s story what has happened, but, if the body survives—not likely—they will not know of the survival of the essence. Go!”
Ogenon found a warrior willing to make the trip in short order, and the medicine man instructed him what to say and to whom, impressing on the runner the need for speed. “Do the message in relays,” the old one said. “Just make sure it is continuous and that it is not garbled.”
Once the instructions were given and the runner was off into the darkness, the large Murnie turned again to his aide, who was looking extremely bleary-eyed and was yawning repeatedly.
“Get awake, boy!” snapped the elder. “Now, locate the six-limbed creature and tell me where it is.”
“That’s simple, Your Holiness,” Ogenon responded sleepily. “The six-limbed one is under treatment at the Circle of Nine. I saw it being dragged there.”
“Good,” the old one replied. “Now, you’ll have to go to the Base Camp and bring an elder to me, Elder Grondel by name.”
“But that’s—” Ogenon started to protest, yawning again.
“I know how far it is!” the big one roared. “You can make it there and back before dawn!”
“But suppose the Revered Elder won’t come,” the aide wailed, trying to get out of the assignment and to get back to sleep.
“He’ll come,” the medicine man replied confidently. “Just describe to him the three alien creatures we’ve had here this night, and tell him particularly of the honored warrior and of what has happened. He’ll beat you here, I’ll wager, even though he’s eighty years old! Now, off with you! Now!”
Ogenon went, grumbling about how everybody kicked him around and he always had to do everything.
Once out of sight, the elder couldn’t hold back his own yawns anymore, yet he didn’t return to his tent and mat but sat down in the, for him, very chilly night air.
All he could do now was wait.
* * *
Wuju relived the nightmare run for hours, then, suddenly, woke up.
I must still be dreaming, she thought. Everything was fuzzy and she was feeling quite high. She couldn’t believe what she saw.
She was in a Murnie camp, in the earliest light of dawn, and there were horribly loud and grotesque snores all around her. Sitting in front of her, arms around its knees, was the biggest Murnie she had ever seen—taller than she, and she stood over two meters. It was also oddly colored, on the whole a deeper brown than she, laced only here and there with spots of the light green that was the usual color of these strange creatures.
From a distance they had looked like walking rectangular bushes. But here, up close, she saw
that they had a rough skin that folded and sagged, like partially melted plastic, all over their body. They looked like a large trunk of a body with no head, she thought. The eyes, huge as dinner plates, were located where the breasts should be, and perhaps thirty centimeters below them was that enormous mouth, a huge slit that seemed almost to cleave the trunk in two. There was no sign of hair, genitals, or, for that matter, a nose and ears.
The drug or whatever it was seemed to be wearing off more and more. This isn’t a dream! she thought suddenly, as fear ran through her. She tried to move, but found her legs were all roped to stakes deep in the ground, and her hands were tied behind her. She struggled in panic to pull free, and the sound woke up the big brown Murnie. Its huge eyes opened, deep yellow with perfectly round, black irises that reflected the light almost like a cat’s.
“Do not struggle,” the creature said to her. The words were mushy, as if they were uttered in the midst of a roar, but they were understandable. It was speaking a language it knew but its mouth was not suited to its use.
“I said do not struggle!” the Murnie repeated, getting up and stretching in a very human fashion. “You are quite safe. No one will harm you. Can you understand me? Nod if you can.”
Wuju nodded fearfully, panic still all over her face.
“All right, now listen well. It is difficult for me to speak this tongue, and I must concentrate carefully to get the words out. You can understand me, but I cannot understand you, I don’t think. Say something.”
“What—what is all this?” she almost screamed.
The Murnie scratched his behind with his huge, wide hand. The arms were almost to the ground when drooping by his side. “I thought so. I could not understand a word. You have no translator. You must concentrate hard, like me. Think, then answer. What language am I using?”
She thought for a second, then suddenly realized the truth. “Confederacy!” she exclaimed, amazed. “You are an Entry!”
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