It was true that the “ju” sound was not in the Erdomese language, or anything else that might in English be pronounced with the “J” sound. Her Erdomese name, Alowi, had been given by the priest at the wedding at least partly for that reason, but they’d never used it except during the post-therapy sessions while under the drug. Ironically, although it wasn’t a traditional Erdomese name, “Lori” had been just fine with the priests.
“Very well. For now I will use Alowi,” he told her, and she seemed very pleased.
Cleaned and combed, he did feel better and certainly looked better. By this time they were packing up, and he told Julian—Alowi—to help but got Mavra aside for a moment.
“You know anything about this change in her?” he asked.
“A little,” Mavra replied. “It’s not something I can understand, and I never thought somebody with her background would succumb, but you can’t tell about people sometimes. Basically, Julian Beard’s been fighting with the Erdomese body, feelings, customs, and conditioning, and the old personality has been more or less dominant, even when the Erdomese self occasionally peeked through. Last night, in a place alien to both sides, the only person she cared about and really needed in this world was dying, and Julian Beard couldn’t save him with all the accumulated knowledge and skill of a lifetime. Beard had to face not only helplessness but repressed feelings and emotions toward you that the Alowi part, the native part supplied by the Well and conditioned by her new body and situation, wanted so much to express. Beard needed you for any chance of survival or reasonable happiness in this life, but only Alowi had both the knowledge and the additional motivation that could save you. Unlike Tony or you, who surrendered on your own terms, Beard could not. It just wasn’t in him not to fight. When the crisis came and he wasn’t able to deal with it, something gave, and that was Julian Beard.”
“But that’s crazy! They’re one and the same! Just as I am. It’s true that I’m different; I’ve changed radically since being here, sometimes in directions I don’t like, and I’m still trying for a balance, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“As a woman, did you ever find another woman sexually attractive? Did you ever fantasize about what it would be like to be a man?”
“Well, yeah, sure, but . . .”
“I will bet you that Julian never found another man sexually attractive, at least not consciously, and his fantasies were about women, not about being a woman. He could take tremendous stress, great pressure, and still accomplish anything he set out to do. But those same traits created an enormous ego, I think, that had a single and absolutist view of itself. What the Well did to him was, to him, so extreme that finding himself a female, she had to be locked up and drugged just to keep her from suicide. You said as much. When you came along, he tried to compromise with his female self, but all that did was shift her from one extreme to the other. On this trip the male side felt in charge again, but last night the crisis was just too much. To help you, she had to put everything out of her mind that was from her male half, both attitudes and experience, and let Alowi completely take over. When that happened, all that repressed emotion just gushed out, suddenly no longer under restraint. Alowi then saved you by doing something Julian could never do—by not thinking. By just letting that Erdomese instinct take control and never doubting if it was right or wrong. She didn’t work so fanatically because she needed you, not in the sense Julian had. She did it because she loves you, and being in love with a man wasn’t something that Julian Beard could handle. When you push something that can’t bend with a lot of force, it breaks.”
“You sound like a pop psychologist,” Lori noted, but wondered if she wasn’t pretty well on the mark.
“I don’t know exactly what a ‘pop’ psychologist is, but I think I understand your meaning. Yes, it’s guesswork based on very long experience rather than on being a professional specialist in the mind, and it may not be stated in proper scientific terms, but I’ve had to read and guess right on all types of people to get anywhere at all. And you will have to trust me that I know what rigid egos can do to people.”
“But—what do I do? Is Julian gone for good?”
“You live with it, that’s all. All that knowledge and experience is still there someplace; it’s just been sealed off in the same way the person she is now was pretty well sealed off. It might not come back at all, it might partly come back if absolutely needed, or it might creep back and merge with the current personality. Only time will tell. In the meantime it’s causing some trouble for all of us.”
“Huh? How is it a problem for you?”
“Since she doesn’t remember English, she can’t speak to or understand the Dillians. That could be a real pain in a tight situation. Damn! I knew I should have sprung for the translator!”
Lori felt a double pang of guilt at the comment but said, “Well, she can still get one somewhere, can’t she?”
“I think she’d fight having one now. It doesn’t fit with the new personality she’s trying to build and lock in.”
“I think she’d do it for me,” Lori told her.
“She might,” Mavra agreed, “but the knowledge of English is still in her mind somewhere, too. These mental things are tricky. A translator is a neat little device that’s tuned to a part of the Well and translates speech, then feeds it back to the brain. Since the Well is everywhere, it seems instantaneous to us. But if her mental state won’t allow her to accept the translation, won’t transfer language except in Erdomese, the gadget is as useless as a computer would be to a Stone Age hunter. Data have to be processed, and if the mind refuses, well, it doesn’t matter whether you get the data or not.”
“Thanks a lot. One more thing to worry about.”
Mavra turned sharply toward the wide road leading to the pool and picked up her crossbow. “We have something more pressing to worry about all of a sudden.”
They could all hear it and even feel it. Something large—no, huge—was coming up that road with enough weight to shake the ground and once again panic all the surrounding wildlife.
“We could retreat into the jungle!” Tony called.
“All right! Move back and take cover if you can!” Mavra shouted, but Lori shook his head and said rather softly, “Too late.”
Into the area strode a monstrous creature, in many ways the largest elephant any of them had ever seen, yet not an elephant, either. For one thing, it was covered in thick reddish brown fur from its small tail to its massive head, hanging down like some impossible fur coat. It moved very slowly on six tree-trunk-sized feet; the creature was probably unable to run or move at all quickly, but something that huge was an irresistible force that never needed to move quickly. Even its trunk was hairy, and on either side of the mouth, which was small only in relative terms, grew two very large, cream white, and dangerous-looking ivory tusks.
And riding just behind the massive head was a large orange and black catlike creature with a large, fierce head sporting protruding fangs, and a lower jaw and a mouth that was remarkably expressive, almost humanlike. The cat creature, too, was six-limbed, but the forward pair of arms, while fur-covered like the legs, clearly ended in some sort of hands, one of which held an ornate batonlike object. It also wore a sash that was equally ornate, from which hung a scabbard with an ornately carved ivory hilt that obviously led to a very large sword.
The cat creature tapped gently on its mount’s head, and the beast trumpeted loudly enough to wake the dead. It was clear that the pair was leading at least a small procession, and the sight of the strangers at the pool had signaled a halt.
“Who be ye and why d’ ye bear arms against the Gekir in the shadow of Basquah?” the cat challenged, the translation faithfully reproducing the archaic speech pattern. The voice was deep and seemed to have an underlying menacing growl, but it was also unmistakably female.
“Don’t do anything!” Mavra cautioned Lori and particularly the Dillians, who were hearing only very threatening animal noises and had their arms at the ready. “She’s just asking who the hell we are and why we’re here!” It was, after all, a proper question.
They had finally encountered the Gekir.
Mavra lowered her crossbow but kept the bolt ready to go. With the gas propellant loaded, she was certain it would drill even through the mammoth, although whether that would do more than annoy it was impossible to know.
“The bipeds are called Lori of Alkhaz and his wife, Lori-Alowi, of far-off Erdom,” she announced. “The other two are from even more distant Dillia and are the sisters called Tony and Anne Marie Guzman. I am Mavra Chang of Glathriel. We mean neither harm nor disrespect and have not entered your building. We are travelers forced by circumstance, not plan, into your nation, and we are here only to replenish our water supplies and move on.”
The Gekir, whose feline face was so expressive and rubbery, frowned and cocked her head, looking them all over. “I be Shestah Quom Daahd, elected chief of the Quobok Knights. Put thy weapons away and stand ye all by the far side of yon pool that we may enter.”
It wasn’t a request; it was an order. Mavra turned and told the others to move where instructed. Right now it was better to try to make friends with these people than to start a fight.
As soon as they were away from the main area, the chief of the Quobok Knights moved her huge mount in and was quickly joined by four others, filling the area rather handily. The leader’s mount carried only the chief and an elaborate chest secured with straps. The next three, however, carried perhaps four or five Gekirs each, riding on top and in two basketlike carriers hanging down on either side of the animals. Another lone occupant sat atop the last beast, along with an enormous hutlike container that clearly carried all their supplies.
“Why does she sound like Long John Silver in drag?” Lori muttered.
Mavra frowned. “Who? Oh, you mean the archaic speech. You can get that and much worse when you’re translating a language that’s very different from yours. When you meet a race that clearly cannot form our sounds, particularly in a nontech hex, and it still sounds exactly right, watch out. That means the translator isn’t translating, it’s interpolating.”
The Gekir chief was off the high mount almost as the huge creature stopped near the pool and snaked its long, hairy trunk into the water. The Gekir’s motion was fluid, very feline, as if she hadn’t a bone in her body. The forward pair of big, thick, short-fingered hands were used in this instance as if they were forelegs. But once on the ground, the Gekir chief supported herself on her four rear legs and raised her short torso and long neck in something of a centauroid fashion, although even ripples of skin under the fur gave an impression not of Dillian rigidity but almost of liquidity. The hindquarters, however, were smooth, with no hint of a tail.
The other Gekirs dismounted in similar fashion but made no effort to draw weapons or approach. Instead they simply gathered by the large animals and allowed their chief to handle the business at hand.
Although quite low to the ground, the Gekir projected a sense of bigness and strength. Certainly the creatures were large, and their hands, with the retractable claws, looked both powerful enough and sufficiently dangerous to rip one of the big mammothlike mounts to shreds. The chief came right over to them, showing no fear at all, and first the Erdomese, then the Dillians, and finally Mavra were inspected with large catlike eyes and an enormous twitching black nose. She looked at Mavra the closest, dwarfing the small woman. Mavra was close enough to touch the protruding fangs, and the creature’s breath was intense enough almost to cause her to pass out.
Finally the Gekir said to Mavra, “You be like a zumbaga. Where do ye say ye was from?”
“Glathriel, Excellency. Type 41.”
“Never heard of them.”
“Might I ask what a zumbaga is?”
“Tiny bipedal apes. Horrid little pests they be. Be a tribe of ’em here somewheres. Can’t be touched because they be royal property—protected, y’ know.”
She nodded. “We’ve seen them and noted the resemblance. They didn’t look like they fit in here.”
The Gekir gave a rumbling roar that the translator indicated was amusement. “They don’t! They be brought here long ago in ancient times, and the ruler of the time, whose soul should be ever cursed for it, took a likin’ to ’em and bred ’em. A royal pain in the arse, they be, but we keeps their numbers managed and limited to religious sites.”
“I thought this might be a temple. That is why we did not enter it. We had no wish for anything but water before going to the coast.”
“Indeed? And why be ye in Gekir at all, then, when there be all the stuff ye might like or need fifty leagues north in Bug Heaven?”
“We had no intention of coming here. Our business is far to the north and west of this whole area, and Gekir is out of our way.” Briefly she explained how their train had gone the wrong way without really giving her suspicions as to why.
The chief was neither stupid nor ignorant. Both Mavra and Lori couldn’t help noticing that she took the translator for granted and never once asked how it was they could be understood. “We hates all them things. They robs the soul from ye and make it impossible after a whiles t’ tell the people from their machines. But the Bug machines don’t go wrong, least not that we hear, and I can see the injury to that one’s hand, there.”
Mavra nodded, deciding to tell what she could without violating the whole detour’s purpose. “Someone has been following us. We don’t know who or why, but they have influence and money. They tried to kill me once, but now they seem satisfied to just keep me from going anywhere. We jumped off the train when we realized we were diverted and made for Gekir through the jungle. We spent the night on the rocks out there and hoped today to reach the coast and perhaps pay our way onto a coastal vessel or fishing boat and throw our pursuers off our scent.”
The chief nodded. “Aye, we smelled yer camp and tracked you here. Been curious to see what ye might look like. Where ye be headin’ to at the end of this business, and why?”
Mavra felt suddenly uncomfortable. “I—I’m sorry, your Excellency, but I cannot tell you that. The knowledge is of no great use to you, but if I told you, even in strict confidence, and you were later ordered by your government to report us or tell what we said and did, it would be your duty to do so. With all due respect, I cannot in good conscience place you in that position.”
The big cat froze for a moment and glared fixedly at her, looking for all the world like an enraged lion about to pounce on a crippled antelope. But instead she said. “That big, is it?”
“Upon my honor it is.”
Suddenly the chief gave an unmistakable grin, and again there was that growl of amusement. “Well, I think ye be full of shit, but I likes any little one with the gall to tell me to mind me own business and make it sound like they was doin’ me some favor! Come on! We’ll take ye all to a village on the seashore that might get ye out of me fur!”
The rest of the Gekirs, who’d watched all this not quite sure how their chief was going to react, now showed amusement and relaxed. The ice was broken.
Once the visitors were accepted, the Gekirs proved as pleasant and hospitable as their vague reputation to the north had them. Mavra, in fact, had a tougher time relaxing with the Dillians than she did with the Gekirs. To Tony and Anne Marie, it had been like listening to only one side of a phone call, with the Gekir growling and spitting and making, in Anne Marie’s term, “horrid little noises.” She, for one, liked her cats to be much smaller.
The patrol was clearly out on business unrelated to them but also unrelated to the temple and watering hole. There was a certain tit for tat, though, in that Shestah volunteered neither why they were out there or particularly why someone whose position equated to provincial governor would be with them. Even so, the old girl was quite talkative about her opinions, and she had one on almost everything.
“It be too damned civilized,” she told Mavra. “Ain’t been a war, so much as a revolution, in so many lifetimes, the young ‘uns know about it only from stories. Game’s all managed, been peace with the neighbors since forever. Only thing what saves us from slow death by boredom be the no-technology laws. Keeps families together, keeps the good values, makes ye earn yer keep. That’s why we still got huntin’ parties and all the rights and ranks. Afore ye gets rights here, ye got to come out t’ here or someplace like it, bare of all stuff, make yer own kill, and live the old style. Rest of it’s mock battles against the neighbor guv’s kids. Just last month a team of me girls got right into old Skisist’s office and poured glue on the High Seat.” Again the chuckle, but this time with pride. “Took ’em three days to unstick the old witch, and she’ll be ‘arf a year growin’ back the fur it cost ‘er!”
She had a lot of stories, and it was clear that she loved telling them to someone, anyone, who hadn’t heard them so often they were known by heart. Still, it was time to move out if they were to reach the coast in any reasonable time.
Lori looked up at the chief’s elephantine mount and then back at Mavra. “You’re really going to ride up there with her?”
“Sure. It’d insult her if I didn’t, and she’ll get to tell me dozens more tales before we’re there. I know, I know, but it’s a small price to pay when you think of it. I’d sure rather have to listen to her than fight her.”
Lori nodded. “Amen to that. But—maybe, if you get the chance, you can find out what’s really puzzling me.”
“Yeah?”
“There are no males. None. They aren’t even mentioned.”
“Yeah, I did notice that,” Mavra admitted. “They might well be unisexual. Many races are. Or maybe here the men are home doing the dishes and minding the kids.” She shrugged. “We’re going to a village, anyway. We’ll know soon enough. I just want you to make sure that Alowi and the Dillians behave themselves and aren’t scared or panicked by anything they might see. This chief’s smart and sophisticated. A full report on us will be on its way to higher-ups as soon as she gets the chance. My only hope is that whoever’s screwing us up didn’t anticipate this move and enlist the locals here just in case. If not, then that report will be quickly headed southeast to the capital and from there to Zone. By then we should be long gone.” I hope, she added to herself.
Lori still didn’t like Mavra’s way of thinking. “What if she is in on it?”
Mavra shrugged. “Then we’re really no worse off than we were, are we?”
The top of the woolly creature was a long way up, and it took Tony’s aid from below and the chief grabbing from above to get Mavra up. Once she was there, however, it proved a very wide and relatively secure platform, and the blanket spread out and secured on top was thick enough to kept the beast’s backbone from being much of a problem, particularly in the crease between the first and second pairs of the three sets of legs.
The Gekir chief looked down at Lori and grinned. “Ye be all better goin’ aside us ‘stead of in the rear. Not unless ye want t’ be steppin’ in a huge load of the world’s greatest fertilizer!”
It was a good point, one the essentially city-bred and civilized foursome who would walk or run along with the party would not have thought of until it became very obvious.
“We should have one of each of us on both sides of the chief’s mount,” a still suspicious Tony suggested. “That way we’d have maximum speed and position if anything went wrong.”
“Yes, with Chang up there and trapped between us,” Lori noted. “No, it’s all right. It’s still her show, and she is not only unconcerned, she is in her glory right about now. She’s having a lot of fun. Can’t you tell?”
“Yes, the woman’s ego is unmatched,” Tony agreed, “but you will note that while so far we have been more trouble and expense than aid to her, she wants us along. Why do you think that is? Company? She is an easy one to talk to, but beyond the surface there is someone tough, nasty, and possibly ruthless inside there we aren’t permitted to see. If even a tenth of what she claims about herself is close to the truth, then inside her is one of the most dangerous people any of us have ever met. Did you see how confident she was in turning down that chief, for whom being refused is obviously a new experience? Could you have done it? Or me? And more important, could you have gotten away with it?”
“Well, I—” he stammered. “I hadn’t really thought of it that way. So why do you think she’s taking us along, then?”
“To remove obstacles for her if need be,” Tony replied. “Big obstacles she can’t talk her way or think her way out of. It might be an idea to remember that she thinks herself immortal, and, true or not, she believes it. We are here to keep her from being captured or badly injured, nothing more, but we are not immortal. She said an attempt was made on her life by two assassins before any of us were here. She never said what happened to the two assassins or who she might have been with then. We are . . . what is the term?”
“I believe the word you want is ‘expendable,’ dear,” Anne Marie put in cheerfully. “What Tony is saying is to worry only about yourself and your wife in the end. That woman can take care of herself.”
Lori looked back up at Mavra Chang thoughtfully. If that was true, and it certainly rang true, why didn’t she just hire tough natives rather than transformed Westerners? A Gekir, for example, would make a formidable bodyguard and would probably love the job just for its potential danger.
Anne Marie read his thoughts. “She’s short of funds, dear, and we’re much cheaper.”