“You didn’t know her. She’d go nuts living in there like that forever.”
Mavra smiled. “Maybe you didn’t know her. I looked at you over a period of a week or two, and I saw somebody willing to play jungle Amazon and go along because that was better than death, but you were always playing at it. Once you got over your fear and your natural feeling that rescue was at hand, you got into it, but it was always a game with you. You didn’t ever belong there. I looked at her, though, and I saw somebody hiding one hell of a lot of inner pain. I don’t know what it came from, but it was there. And once she got over the same two hurdles you did, she didn’t accept things like you did, she embraced them. I’ve seen the same thing in countless girls who came to us over the years. Like some kind of horrible burden had been lifted, removed from inside them. You fell into a trap; she escaped one. I wouldn’t be surprised if she went totally, completely native.”
“We saw totally different people,” Lori said, shaking his head. “I wonder which one of us saw the right one.”
Mavra sighed. “Well, you’ve seen it happen with Alowi, and I would have bet you that Julian Beard would never have flipped out like that. We’ll probably never know for sure about her. At least I’ll try to find out once I’m inside. If I can, and she’s still alive, where and what she is back there will kind of settle it and what I do for her—if I can do much. That jungle was already disappearing at a horrendous rate. I wish I knew how long any of those tribes can continue to exist as they want to exist. It’s a real shame, but it’s the way that whole planet went. Right from ancient times they called it ‘progress.’ I guess it is—if you’re doing the chopping and not being chopped.”
That brought Lori back to his original train of thought. “What about this drug trade right here? It makes me feel sleazy. Worse than that, it depresses me. Here, all this time, all this civilization, and they wind up like we were going in my old corner of civilization. The whole damned world seemed to be falling into the hands of the Camposes and their ilk.”
“Well, having used drugs of a sort in the jungle, and earlier in other places, and having done a little smuggling in my time, I can’t be too judgmental about these people. In a sense, they’re the kind of people I was born and raised with. And I can’t really say I’m surprised that this exists here; rather, I’m surprised that it didn’t seem to exist when I was here last. At least not in anything that wasn’t species-specific and too localized to notice. The biggest problem you have if you’re born and raised on the Well World is that you have to face the fact that it’s meaningless. I mean, what can you hope to do? These are the descendants of the leftovers, the last races tested out here. They’re managed from on high—or, rather, from on low—and on the whole, things don’t change very much. That’s why they don’t keep a lot of the kind of history here that we do, on the whole. Even the Erdomese, on their own planet, might discover electricity, might discover radio and video and research biology, and might even figure out a way to get to the stars. They just have less to work with, and it might take them longer. They might not, but it’s possible. Not here.”
“Well, yeah, but it’s not that bad, I don’t think.”
“No? You were a scientist. I’ll bet you know enough to create a small renaissance in scientific knowledge in most hexes here, including Erdom. But it’s all useless knowledge, isn’t it? Useless because nothing except muscle and some water and wind power works there, and even then, if you generate a current, it’ll die before it reaches anything that might use it. That was Julian’s problem. Just about every bit of the knowledge she has and the talents she possesses are useless in Erdom. Permanently. She can’t even swagger around and be Senor or Senora Macha. Everything in Julian Beard’s life was denied him as an Erdomese by itself and by being an Erdomese woman in particular. Build things? Paint? With rock-hard mittens for hands? In a land and culture where anything she might do intellectually is considered deviant behavior and women are virtual property—forget it. On top of that he had a ton of guilt over being less than a wonderful human being by his own lights. And his mind-set was so much Mister Macho that he was finally faced with the ultimate problem and it tore him to bits.”
“You mean he just couldn’t handle being a woman?”
“No, he couldn’t handle falling in love with a man, you idiot! Even if it was with a man who used to be a woman and still has, I think, a woman’s soul.”
“Julian? In love with me? I mean, really in love?”
“Sure. Plain as day. But Julian couldn’t be in love with a guy, just couldn’t handle it, and Julian wasn’t useful in any meaningful way from this point on. So Julian goes, Alowi enters. Call it a split personality if you want, but one of them won. The one who could be in love with you and be of use to you and not go bonkers because of what she could no longer be or do.”
Lori sighed. “Well, ain’t that a kick in the head. Mavra, I swear to you, even though I never thought it for real until just now, I really did fall in love myself! But with Julian, not Alowi. Not that I’m not still, but, well, it’s not the same.”
Mavra shrugged. “Well, you have a problem maybe unique in romance, don’t you? I seem to attract the unique in that department. The thing is, though, you’ve got the Julian problem kind of the way he had it.”
“What? Now you’ve lost me again.”
“The Well World changes bodies around. That’s not unique, you know. It’s technology. The same principle as the matter transmitter. I once knew somebody who’s a distant ghost to me now who discovered the same principle on his own. An Earth-human type. It’s not magic. It’s physics and mathematics, and enough of an energy source to do it and enough of a computer to manage all that information. It also does some physiological adjustment so you don’t fall over trying to walk on those legs of yours or upchuck when you wake up as a creature that eats live prey or the like. But the process doesn’t really change the mind, the personality, the soul, as it were. You can’t keep the memories and such and wipe out the rest. You lived too long as Lori Sutton. Somewhere here Juan Campos is still a slimy son of a bitch. Julian completed her own transformation. She became a woman to the soul. Tony—well, that’s a different personality. I think he was a tough guy but very gentle underneath. With all he’d gone through and his double suicide plans for himself and Anne Marie, I think he considered himself dead, anyway. He got an easier break in a better culture to be a woman, even though that one, too, has its sexual divisions and problems. Still, in spite of cultural hang-ups, I think he was one of those rare guys who really liked and respected women. At least he doesn’t see it as a negative. I think he feels he lived a full and decent life as a man and now he’s got a chance to live a second life as a woman. That’s the attitude to take. Like the Hindu belief that we’re reincarnated alternately male and female. To her it’s a whole new life. I’m afraid Anne Marie’s more a problem than a continuing love story for him.”
“Makes sense.” Lori nodded. “But what about me? You said I still had a woman’s soul. I sure haven’t felt much like it; even my thoughts sometimes would have made the old me very mad.”
“Oh, you’re obvious. You—just like in the jungle—never got to that point. You’re having a lot of guilty fun playing at being a man. But you’re not. Physically, yes, but not deep down. It’s always easier for women to adjust to other roles and accept them than it is for men.”
He thought about it. “Well, it’s true that when you see two guys kissing, you have a whole set of reactions, maybe depending on your own feelings about sexuality, but everybody has reactions because it’s not done. Women kiss each other all the time, and nobody thinks anything of it. And I know women dress more for each other than for men. I can’t remember a boyfriend I ever had who ever noticed that I had had my hair redone, and most of them didn’t notice new clothes or perfume or whatever until I pointed it out to them.”
“But you still notice. Even in Erdom.”
“Yeah, I guess I do. But a lot of that is how they’re brought up, too, isn’t it? I mean, competitive sports, competitive grades, competitive businesses, everything’s competition. Even in Erdom that’s true.” He thought of the sword fighting and other such activities. “I wasn’t brought up like that. What competition I did was on a different level. All appearances and comparing possessions. Men fight or they get the crap beat out of them. Women try to reach a consensus, and a fight between two girls, when it happens, is real scandal or real news. Yeah, I see what you mean, I guess. I stopped seriously competing real early. I was always the consolation prize, if I ever got invited to the dance in the first place, and the kind of life a business career offered never appealed to me. I just wanted to be a scientist. I wanted to find out how things worked and why they worked. I was good at math, and girls weren’t supposed to be good at math. I loved computers, and girls were supposed to hate them. I guess I figured that so long as 1 was already a social geek, I might as well be a total one. I just decided to do what I loved doing. I’d love to do it here, too.”
Mavra nodded. “Yeah, I understand that. That’s another problem with coming through the Well. The high-tech types already know what you know, and more. The others either don’t or can’t use it. Coming from the tech level you do and the occupation you do, you not only would have to learn from scratch, you’d have to unlearn half of what you learned as gospel. The very fact that you stand here as an Erdomese man says that better than I could. The same went double for Julian. Pilots of any sort, and particularly jet and space pilots—well, they’re useless here, aren’t they? So it decided you were useless and dumped you in low-tech. You’d have had a better shot at high-tech if you hadn’t been as smart, frankly. Doesn’t take brains to learn how to push buttons. Same goes for Tony—airline pilot. I think somewhere there was a theory built into the Well that said that if your skills were useless, you should be put in a spot where they couldn’t be used so that you might adjust and use that brain power where it would do some good. Just a hunch—no inside information there. But it kinda holds, doesn’t it?”
“Could be. But in Erdom the knowledge that might be useful is held by that damned priesthood and the price is much too high, and the guilds leave me out of most of the other trades that might be of any interest. It seemed like the best I could be would be some kind of glorified night watchman or street sweeper or something else menial. I mean, like much of the population there, even though I know seven languages and have a universal translator implanted, I’m still a total illiterate in Erdom, and having looked at that language, I probably will remain so. I think that’s why I jumped at your note even though I was under that hypnotic drug’s spell at the time. Cut off or not, I knew when I had an opportunity for something better rather than facing my alternatives there.”
“Well, I never figured on the hypnotic drugs, but I kind of hoped that either curiosity or ambition or both would bring you. Just a few days more and we’ll be ashore in uncharted realms for both of us. I need you. Do the job for me and I’ll make sure you have a future you’ll like. If we lose this race, you’ll have seen something of the world and won’t be any worse off. Fair enough?”
“Fair enough. But thinking about those priests’ drugs brings me back to what kicked off this talk. I still feel uncomfortable with all this. Did you really do this yourself once?”
“Sure. Okay, that shocks you, but as I said, this is a place with 1,560 tiny worldlets with no future and no past, more or less. They’re kinda stuck here. They know there’s a possibility that their kids might be worse off than they are but won’t be better off. Mostly it’ll be hard to tell one stagnant age from another. Deep down most know that or at least feel or sense it. It’s why life can be cheap here, and it’s little wonder some turn to chemical escapes. You mean you never tried some drugs out of curiosity or boredom or depression or whatever?”
“Me? Not much. Some marijuana now and then—I did it heavy in college, I admit, but less once I got a job—and some alcohol but nothing hard. I tried cocaine once at a party and darn near choked. Never touched it or anything else again. Why?”
“And these were all legal substances?”
“No. Alcoholic drinks, yes, but not marijuana or cocaine. Not in my lifetime, anyway. But it’s not the same.”
“It is the same. Even legal, it’s used for the same purposes. Illegal just feeds the whole business. The same ones who got your illegal drugs in also brought in the rest, of which you disapproved. Your money went to help them finance the ships and men like this one. I’ve not only been with them on this level, I’ve fought the ugly side of the business, too, against the thoroughly rotten people at the top. You might say that far back in the distant past I saw the future of this as well, and nothing you see here can compare to the depravity of what lies ahead.”
“But it’s a matter of degree. Some is harmful, some not.”
Mavra Chang sighed. “I remember a people once in east Africa. Two tribes, same ancestry, all that, but one of them lived by a great river and tilled the land and mined gold and such from the nearby mountains that served as a barrier separating them from the others. Those others, they lived on the other side, a lot of the same geography and possibilities, but their home was in a virtual cannabis forest. They were a far happier tribe and more content, but for generations they remained no more advanced than the People of the upper Amazon. I don’t judge. The tribe that remained in the forest was probably happier than the other one that built a great city, but the happy ones were stagnant, stuck, just like the Well World.”
“You’re one to talk!”
Mavra shrugged. “We used some drugs from the native forest, you know, and not always as a practical thing. What can I say? After being kicked around for a few thousand years I called a halt. I didn’t like Earth much, Lori. I didn’t like it much at all. It was uglier and more primitive than I could have imagined in ways I never dreamed it could be. I’m sorry, but that is my perspective. I left it. I escaped where it wasn’t so ugly, and I remained there rather than come out to face more ugliness. One day things would be different. There would be what I considered real progress and advancement, and they would discover interstellar travel. By that time the rain forest would be cut down, and I’d be able to get off that miserable planet. I do know that I’m not going back there. Or if the Well somehow forces me back there, I am not going back as Mavra Chang or anything remotely like her. If I can, I’m going to be something else.”
“Yes? What, if I may ask?”
“I don’t know. If what I believe is true, I won’t have to face that problem. If not—I don’t know, but I’ll think of something.”
Since Mavra was in a talkative mood, there being little else to do aboard the ship, Lori was about to go into just what Mavra thought of men—at least, men who hadn’t been changed into women and vice versa. It seemed to him as if she hated them in general, on a gut emotional level, even if accepting them intellectually. That Portuguese ship and crew must have been a holy horror, but had it, after so much experience elsewhere and even before, in some former lifetime, driven her over an edge she hadn’t been over before? Or had she never liked men? Why had she separated from this Brazil guy so long ago, and why did she seem to both hate and fear him now? According to Tony and Anne Marie, this Nathan Brazil sounded like a pretty nice guy. He’d saved two lives out of clear compassion; Mavra had put lives in jeopardy, ruined one or two maybe, and waxed nostalgic for the days when she’d been a drug runner.
He never got the chance. “Ship! Port, fifty-one degrees,distance nine kilometers and closing at flank speed!” came a sharp shout from the bridge, where, in this high-tech hex, all the technological gear was active.
The captain was in the wheelhouse in moments, looking at the scope. “I don’t like this. It’s got the size and speed to be a privateer. How far is it to the Dlubine border?”
“Twenty kilometers, sir!”
“Damn! So close and yet so far! Any attempt at communications?”
“None yet, sir. Instructions?”
Captain Hjlarza thought for a brief moment. “Zitz! Hail them, then. Ask them who they are and why they are bearing down on us. Warn them that we are an armed ship and that we deal mercilessly with pirates.”
The Zhonzhorpian was on the radio immediately, barking a challenge and sounding doubly mean. With that crocodilelike throat and mouth, he could make it sound very menacing indeed.
“No reply, sir!”
“They’re stalling! Okay, we’ve given them a legitimate reason for us to turn and run! Kill all lights! Starboard thirty degrees! All ahead full! Zitz! Man the weapons board! Others to arms stations! If they get in range, give ’em all you got! If they call us now, you know the routine!”
“Aye, sir!”
Lori looked alarmed. “I think we better clear out and give them some room,” he said nervously.
Mavra returned a wry smile. “Just don’t get in their way. These are pros.”
The captain kept looking at his scopes. “They’re closing a little, but they’re only a hair faster than we are. At this heading and speed, we should still have a good two kilometers on them when we cross the border. As soon as we cross it, I’m going to give a sharp turn to starboard and full speed into whatever’s there. We’ll still be out of visual and off their instruments. When I do, I want everybody at their sailing positions. Engines, I want full until I tell you, then I want a dead stop. We will put on sail the moment after I order an engine stop. Understand?”
There was a chorus of “Ayes,” and the crew went to station.
“They’re calling us now, sir!” Zitz reported.
The captain gave a low chuckle. “They’ve just figured out they won’t catch us this side of the border. You know what to say.”
Zitz, however, was already saying it. “If you were truly legal authorities, you would have responded to our first call with an identification signal,” he told the pursuing ship sharply. “We’ve been suckered by pirate ploys before. No, sir, we would be derelict in our duties if we yielded to you now.”
They could hear only one side of the conversation, but it was clear that the gunboat had issued an ultimatum and a threat.
“Well, sir, if you can catch us, then do so. If you are a legitimate naval vessel, we will lodge charges against your captain for failure to respond to a legitimate identification check. If you are not, we will have to fight. If we are fired upon, however, we will take that as confirmation that you are pirates and will respond accordingly and without hesitation.”
The captain was just looking at his scopes, throttle wide open. Suddenly he snapped, “Engines, we’ve just had two guided torpedoes launched against us. I will probably have to turn if they don’t both buy the decoy. Be ready.” He leaned out the open window. “Torpedoes! Let go aft decoys!”
One of the spider creatures hit some levers, and there were loud splashes behind them in the water. A minute or so later, well in back of their wake, there was a tremendous bright flash and the sound of an explosion.
“One of ’em bought it; the other’s still coming,” the captain reported. “Launch antitorpedo from aft tube and reload as quick as you can!”
There was the sound like that of a torpedo being fired, and then the spider creature opened a hatch and went halfway down into it, clearly doing something with its forelegs out of sight of the deck. Before it was finished, there was another bright flash and explosion behind them, much, much closer to them than the first one had been.
“Got it!” the captain called with satisfaction. “Zitz, give ’em two rockets! I don’t care if you hit them or not, but it’ll keep ’em back and make ’em think twice about us!”
Lori’s sense of boredom had vanished, but it was replaced with a little bit of fear and concern. Still, all of it seemed somehow unreal, distant. I feel like I’m in the middle of a cheap thriller, he thought wonderingly.
The two rockets went away with a twin thump! thump! sound, and they saw them quickly rise on small jets of flame and disappear into the darkness behind them.
“I hope the folks who live in the water here aren’t the kind to get too pissed off at people blowing up things,” Mavra commented dryly.
“One minute!” the captain shouted. “Everybody brace yourselves and be ready to alter course!” He paused, watching the scopes carefully as the stack billowed black smoke and the wind seemed even chillier.
Lori looked forward and thought he could see some lights off in the distance, but everything looked hazy and distorted. Almost as they reached it, he realized that he’d been looking through a hex barrier at night.
They could feel the tingle of the hex barrier as they crossed it, and suddenly all the electronic gear on the bridge failed as if someone had pulled the plug, and the heated air of the new hex hit them like a solid, hot wet carpet, causing some momentary disorientation. The ship, however, continued at full steam.
Without further warning, the captain brought the Runner around hard right, so hard that loose things on deck shifted left and Lori felt himself being thrown against the rail, then pitched back, falling to the deck.
It seemed as if the ship would never stop its turn, that it would go on forever, but after a while the vessel, which had itself been leaning to the right, steadied itself and came back to a straight-on course. The captain was counting quietly, estimating the speed of the pursuit and the amount of time it had taken them to make the dramatic turn.
Suddenly he shouted, “Sail crew aloft!”
Expertly, the two great spiders scuttled up the masts virtually to the top, and long tentaclelike legs adjusted the holding straps, while Zitz left his dead command console aft, where the two centauresses were watching the show with a mixture of awe and concern, and moved forward to the sail control position.
There was another long pause, then the captain shouted, “All engines dead stop! Boilers to standby! Disengage engines from drive shaft! Lower center board and deploy mainsails!”
There was a sudden, almost deathly quiet save for the noise of the sails being squeakily lowered and fixed into position.
“Rig full, no jibs,” the captain commanded, and first the topsails and then various subordinate sails sprouted, making the transformation to quiet sailing vessel almost complete. The boilers were not out, but since they had been disengaged from the drive shafts, there was a sudden cessation of the steady rhythmic vibration that the engines had sent through the ship.
Mavra went over to Lori and offered a hand. “You okay?”