by Paul Kidd
Xoota looked at Benek over her sticky bun. “Restart the race?”
“Yes.”
“You mean you restart the race. You intend to father children by two thousand different women?”
“Of course.”
“Well, at least your free time will be spoken for.” Xoota felt a creeping sensation of aversion rippling beneath her fur; most simply articulated, it would have made a sound something like eww. His was the creepiest proposal she had heard in years. In fact, she had a little trouble not throwing up into her mouth. Swallowing tea, she winced and tried to go back to business.
“So, Mister Benek, you … ah … you want a guide to help you reach this … this treasure trove?”
“Indeed.” Benek swept a giant hand out to indicate he owned time, space, and the stars. “I have prepared the essentials. I have a storage tank containing a thousand liters of pure water. I have dried rations to last for months. And now I have combat gear that will allow me to overcome the monsters of the wastelands. I need only secure guides to assist me in my travels.”
“Mmm-hmm.” The quoll leaned back in her seat, annoying sparkles twinkling in her fur. “And where exactly is this treasure trove of yours?”
The massive, perfect man looked off toward the horizon, pointing with one iron-muscled arm. “There, at the far side of the great desert.”
Somehow Xoota managed to keep a straight face, although her tail sparkled. “The far side of the desert?” she said with a measure of incredulity.
“Indeed.”
“The uncrossable desert?”
“Quite so.”
“The uncrossable desert, called that because it cannot be crossed?” Xoota thought the point was worth reiterating; she had been dealing with lesser intellects for most of her life. “The waterless desert, lacking, as it were, in water.”
Benek patiently nodded his head. “Ah, yes, but as I have said, I have stockpiled a thousand liters of pure drinking water.”
“Which would make for a portage load of one ton.” Xoota wearily tried to explain basic logistics to yet another moron traveler. “Look, your problem is basic portage, loads carried. A pack budgerigar can carry about one hundred and sixty kilograms. One-thirty if you’re out for a long haul. So that’s about … what? Eight budgies to carry that load of water? But the budgies themselves will need to drink water. They drink about three liters a day. So for every five days you plan to be out, you will end up needing another budgie load of water to supply the budgies—and then some budgies to supply the budgies who are supplying the budgies. Not to mention the budgie handlers—one man leading every two birds.” Xoota waved a finger. “Now also figure about four liters of water per person, per day out there in the dry. We’re starting to get an entourage larger than the entire pack budgerigar population of the known world. And the desert just goes on and on. I’ve gone out one month in every direction, and it was all just the same. Only drier. We are surrounded by an impenetrable wall of dust.”
“But it does end.” Benek was adamant. “The photographs prove it.”
“Do we know they’re really from the other side of the desert?”
The man seemed pleased. “Oh, yes. Time codes on the photographs showed that sunset arrives there about three hours before local sunset here at the villages.”
“Three hours.” Holy kack. That was … Actually Xoota had no idea how far away that would be. What, one-eighth the width of the entire planet? Shaani would know. “That’s too far to go by budgie.”
“But has anyone ever tried to cross the desert?”
“I’ve come across the bones of several who thought it was worth a shot. It’s not a pretty sight.”
Benek sipped his distilled water and pondered. “The solution seems simple enough. Clearly a means of transport other than pack beasts is required.” He nodded. “Perhaps you could turn your thoughts to this. Serve me in this, and I will see that you are well provided for.”
Xoota rose from her seat. “Yes, well, I’ll certainly let you know if any inspiration comes my way. We wouldn’t want to see you miss out on your procreative adventure.” Xoota raised her tea mug in farewell salute. “Good day to you, Benek.”
“Good day.” Benek rose too. He did not offer to shake hands. The man strode off into the village, casting dark, condemning glances at the mutants quietly walking the streets.
Xoota watched him go and shook her head. Sadly Xoota was forever doomed to engage against inferior intellects …
Ah, well, time to start rethinking the whole job search. Xoota sank back down and finished her tea. She made a face at the awful taste.
What the hell was wrong with the water?
“Salt.”
With goggles, gloves, and fantastic industry, Shaani had set up shop beside the Watering Hole. She was at the center of an anxious crowd of onlookers. The rat pushed up her goggles and peered into her glass retort then carefully tasted the powder inside it.
“Sodium chloride … A few other additives. But it’s salt.”
She had boiled ten liters of well water, distilling it down further and further until the liquid had all gone. What remained was a crust of white crystals. Shaani carefully scraped the crystals out onto a delicate set of scales, measuring the results. “Ten grams per liter. That’s bad. Very, very bad.”
The town mayor listened, his long face ashen gray. Other citizens from the settlement gathered around the rat.
The mayor looked at the well—utterly appalled. “Is it drinkable?”
Shaani wrinkled her long snout. “Just within tolerance but you say it’s gotten worse and worse over the last week?”
“Well, yes, yes it has.”
The rat was damned unhappy. “This is only just short of being poisonous. Much saltier than this, and you will dehydrate; you’ll expel more liquid in urine than you take in by drinking.”
The mayor swallowed. “And if it gets worse?”
“If it grows three times this salty, it would be quite deadly.” Shaani sniffed at the salt. “This isn’t pure sodium chloride. I’d say it’s sea salt.”
“Sea salt?”
“Much like the salt out there on the great salt flats.” The rat pondered. “Could the groundwater have become contaminated by the salt plains?”
“It’s always been fresh. Perfectly fresh.”
The rat was totally fearless. She clapped the mayor on one armored shoulder. “Never fear, old chap. We can rig you a solar still, use it to purify drinking water for the town. Should last you a while.”
A lizard woman spread her frilled neck fringes in alarm. “But what about the crops? The fields. We can’t distill enough water to keep the fields irrigated.”
“Well, there is always a solution. Science will show the way.” Shaani, the bold avatar of scientific spirit, gathered up her equipment. “More data is needed. We must investigate.” The rat slapped one hand against the rim of the well. “I have a crack science and exploration team. We shall make a proper study. If I could trouble you gentlefolk for a very long and sturdy rope and a few stout hands to help haul it? We will take ourselves down the hole and investigate the water at its source.”
The mayor shouted. People bustled over to the stables and noisily searched for rope. “How long does it have to be?”
“Hold on. We’ll see,” said Shaani. She dropped a rock into the well and counted. It took an awfully long time to make a splash. The rat bit her lip in thought.
“Ah, D equals sixteen T squared …” She totted up the math on the rock face of the well. “Can you stretch to three hundred meters?”
“I … I suppose so.” Men began splicing ropes, cords, and even some hairy string into one long rope. “Is it really that far?”
“Sounds like it.” Shaani looked at the activity in approval. “Right, bring me a pulley, and we’ll set it up here. I shall just go and rouse my team.”
Feeling thoroughly useful, Shaani strode over to the tavern. There, she found a card game in motion, with a doz
en locals flinging down cards, pushing coins across the table, and sweating in tension. A thin boy with a fine pair of horns on his head seemed to be winning. There were quite a few earwigs stationed all around the area—apparently able to clandestinely watch everybody’s cards. Shaani sought one out and politely drew its attention.
“Wig-wig, old trout. Would you be up for a bit of pot-holing?”
“Sounds fun.”
The white rat peered over her glasses at the cards. “What actually are you doing?”
“Wig-wig gets monies for helping.” The earwigs seemed pleased. “Wig-wig likes helping.”
“Right-o, then. Have fun.”
For once, Shaani had money in her pockets: As paid scientific consultant to the local water supply committee, she could finally afford a decent breakfast for the whole team. She set someone scampering off to make her eggs and bacon, toast and tea. And thankfully the place did have a decent nonmutagenic beverage or three. She ordered the coldest the house could provide and sank herself down at an outside table where she could watch the rope being prepared.
Xoota appeared, looking harassed and annoyed. Shaani lifted her glass of ginger beer.
“There you are, old girl. I was about to send out a search party.” She waved at the table. “Bacon and eggs are on. Toast. And if we’re lucky, a sausage or three. Ecstasy.”
Utterly amazed, Xoota sank down into a chair. She was immediately presented with food. “Where did you get the cash for all of this?”
“Our cash. We are scientific investigators to the Watering Hole community. Comes with a room at the hotel while we need it and full board. Lovely.” Shaani passed over some coin. “There. A third of the advance they gave us. Lovely to be needed, what?”
“A third of …?”
“Three hundred domars paid in advance. So I thought I’d divvy it between you, myself, and the earwigs. But I’m pretty well set for kit, so if you need any adventuring gear, what’s mine is yours.” She raised her glass and clinked it against Xoota’s. “Partners. Cheers.”
Bemused, Xoota sank back into her chair. Somewhere inside, bacon and sausages were frying. They smelled damned good.
“Well, you certainly had better luck than I did. I just sat and listened to the creepiest commission I’ve ever heard.” She sipped the ginger beer and blinked. It was fiery. “What’s this about adventuring gear? Where are we going?”
“Well, for a starters, we’re going to take a quick look at the source of the town’s water supply and see if anything there is contaminating it.”
“Is it far?
“Three hundred meters.”
“Ha.” Xoota relaxed, suddenly quite pleased with life. “Excellent.”
From inside the tavern, they heard fighting. A thin boy with horns on his head came sailing out of the window to land in the budgie trough, scaring the birds. Men piled out of the tavern to hurtle themselves atop the boy. There were breaking chairs and bellowing waitresses. The bouncer waded in and plucked people out of the chaos, throwing them aside as if he were picking daisies. Unseen by the melee, Wig-wig came cascading out of a side window, the earwigs all carrying a good number of gold coins and plastic domars. Some earwigs stopped to salute Xoota and Shaani as they passed.
“We can has money.”
Xoota watched the creatures flee into the woodpile to hide. “He’s a worry.” She sighed then sat up eagerly as the sausages arrived. “Ah, the onion bratwurst. Wonderful.”
Xoota tore into her sausages and bacon, watched over benevolently by Shaani. The rat looked off down the street toward the town’s ragged walls. A huge, old exploration buggy from the town’s shattered spaceship had been used to make the nearest chunk of ramparts, a long, spindly truck fitted with eight balloon tires. It lay on its side beside shattered boats and an upside-down sign that read Shop n’ Save.
Shaani looked in fascination at the old, beached yachts. “Ships. How wonderful.”
“They didn’t have any of these where you came from?”
“Oh no, up in the hills, old bean. But now that I have these books, I’ve been able to study them.” The rat patted her haul from the wrecked merchant ship out on the salt. “Fascinating stuff.”
Xoota ate her way eagerly through a plate of crunchy bacon. Food mellowed her. “I always loved the idea of boats. I wonder what it was like, to steer something like that. To feel it move and glide, to have the world slide gracefully by …” She shook her head. The world around her was sand and dust. The oceans had long gone. “Ah, well.”
Shaani poured tea. “You seem a bit more chipper.”
The quoll looked up at Shaani and gave a grin.
“Things are looking up. Breakfast, a room, a hundred domars—all for messing with some water.”
“Quite so, my dear. Science shall prevail.” Shaani looked out in the courtyard where they were making the horrible, hairy rope. “This should be damned interesting.”
“Excellent.” Xoota crunched into a sausage and gave herself over to ecstasy. “Well, I’m glad you didn’t agree to anything silly.”
CHAPTER 4
I don’t like it.”
Swaying on a creaking rope made out of old nylon cordage and braided hair, Xoota’s wailing echoed down the shaft. She kept her eyes screwed shut, clinging to the rope with a death grip.
The well shaft was a scant few meters wide and plunged three hundred meters straight down into the earth. The slick, stone walls echoed with the sounds of water. Lowered gradually down by the work team above, Xoota was absolutely not enjoying the ride.
“Why did I let you talk me into this?”
“Because it’s fun.” Standing far below, Shaani’s voice echoed cheerfully up the shaft. “Come along. A change is as good as a holiday.”
“The rope is going to break, and I’m going to fall.”
“Oh, don’t be such a baby. This is for science.”
“Damn you and your science.”
Shaani did not take offense. “Science ennobles us. In science, the unthinkable becomes possible. The boundaries of dreams expand”—her hands helped Xoota’s feet touch the ground—“and we can even get to the ground with our eyes closed.”
Xoota hesitantly opened up her eyes. She stood ankle deep in water, in a round chamber that echoed with the sounds of running water. The quoll splashed her feet and looked pouty. “I don’t like hanging like that.”
“I thought you quoll chaps were arboreal?” The rat was holding a glowing light bulb in one of her new tentacles. “Anyway, it was depth, not height. Nothing to worry about.”
“It doesn’t make a difference to the ahs.”
“ ‘Ahs’?”
Xoota grumpily pulled her shield onto her arm. “Falls are measured in ahs. That’s how long you scream before you finally hit the bottom and go splat.”
“Well, there are no more ahs, dear. Let’s get on. You’re all sparkly. So sparkle.”
Xoota irritably let her newly luminescent self glitter and twinkle. She would be glad when that particular little alpha did its dash and disappeared. Still, the increased lighting helped. They looked around the cavern and took stock.
It was a great, wide hemisphere cut through bedrock and lined with concrete. The pipe from the pump high above ended beneath the water in the center of the chamber. The place had a distinctly brackish smell.
There were two tunnels leading out of the chamber. One was dry, raised above the floor. The other was a large, round tunnel with water flowing steadily into the chamber. Shaani knelt and filled a jug full of water. She touched wet fingers to her mouth. “Taste that.”
Xoota knelt and tried a handful of water. She spit it straight back out. “Gah. Salty.”
“Don’t spit. That’s the town water supply.”
“Salt is a disinfectant.”
“Ooh, nicely observed. But be careful. Don’t pollute.” Shaani lifted her light, her tentacles snaking sinuously. “I can’t see any salt encrustation on the walls.”
She tast
ed the water flowing out of the nearby tunnel. It, too, was salty. The contamination had to be coming from farther afield.
The air clattered as a cloud of earwigs came flying down the well. They settled all over Xoota and Shaani.
“Hi hi.”
“Hey, Wig-wig.” Shaani fixed one earwig with a considering eye, looking over the rim of her spectacles. “Were you cheating at cards?”
“No no. Wig-wig was merely helping. Boy was the one who cheated.” The bugs puffed up with pride. “No, Wig-wig stole all the monies on the floor when big fight began.”
Shaani was scandalized. “Wig-wig!”
The bugs sitting on her wilted. “I ashamed.”
Xoota came to the insects’ defense. “What’s wrong with making off with the loot? Hey, that’s just initiative.”
Earwigs puffed up with sly pride. “Yeah.” The earwigs seemed distinctly influenced by whomever they stood closest to.
Shaani combed her whiskers thoughtfully then cleared her throat. “Very well. Just don’t cause any trouble. It might rebound on us.” She lifted up her light. “The salt is being carried downstream from the water tunnel. We shall investigate.”
Light held high, Shaani led the way into the tunnel, which was high enough to let them stand. Water gurgled past their feet in a slow, continuous flow. Here and there, a cobweb stretched across the tunnel, but there was no sign of the actual spiders. Wig-wig was careful to keep to the tunnel walls.
From far ahead, there came a sudden low, guttural moan.
The explorers froze in their tracks.
Xoota’s antennae jittered. She was sensing something decidedly unpleasant ahead. “What was that?”
Shaani shrugged. “It’s probably nothing.”
“Are those buck teeth of yours digging into your head?”
Once again, the deep moan sounded. Xoota readied her mace. “There can’t be anything living down here, can there?” she asked.
“Highly unlikely.”
“Highly unlikely means there is a definite possibility.”
Shaani quickly took a step behind the quoll. “Agreed. Ah, well, you have the defensive equipment. You go first.”