Campos stood back and looked at both of them with satisfaction. “Do the shackles hurt? Well, soon you will be free of them, I promise. And the medical teams here, freed of such stupidities as government oversight and ethical colleagues, can do absolute wonders. Even though you are one of the most wanted people on this planet, these people specialize in making wanted fugitives unrecognizable, although in most cases they do not have the level of freedom they have in your case. You, Sutton, might be quite useful as a courier once we give you some motivation for making appointments on time. But not you, ‘goddess.’ You are mine. From you they will carve a work of art. Then, as my dear boyfriend Giquazo, who I will definitely kill someday, promised, you will go home with me. You will be my pet, my toy. Oh, we will have a fun time, I promise you!”
Mavra’s heart sank as one of her bitterest Well World memories surfaced: living all those years with those donkeylike legs, always looking down . . .
But she had survived that and worse, and she would survive this for as long as it took, until opportunity knocked. And if Nathan was having the same kind of luck, she might yet be first to the Well.
“Some technicians will be in shortly to inaugurate you both into our widening family,” Campos told them. “I go first to speak with those who will see you next, and then I will see you once more before leaving. But do not worry, my little goddess. I shall be back for you.” With that, the Cloptan turned and left the room.
“I think I would rather die than go through this,” Lori told Mavra.
“Don’t! Never give up! She’s too insane to have them mutilate me so much that I won’t be able to speak to her and she to me. To that type, life is all about power. Everything else—drugs, money, you name it—is to gain power. That’s what she really hates about being female now. She’s lost power, and I’m the only way for her to get it back. There are only two more hexes after Clopta to the equator and an avenue in. So long as Brazil isn’t also caught and trapped, he’s as much a threat to Campos as to me. If I can just convince her, no matter what I look like, to get me to the Well before Brazil, we win. Stay alive. Even now, hope’s not gone.”
Lori very much wanted to believe that.
Juan Campos, or Wahna as her name was pronounced by the Cloptan tongue, made her way through the labyrinthine underground complex to the medical section. There she met with Nuoak, a giant creature resembling a huge brown-furred slug with countless long, tiny tendrils that in combination could perform the most delicate operations, and Drinh, an Agonite resembling a human-sized shell-less turtle with long powerful hands and fingers.
“They are yours any time you want them,” she told the medics. “Now that you have their scans, have you decided what you will do?”
“Well, the Erdomite is not difficult,” Drinh commented.
“He must be castrated!” Like I was . . . “But he must not die! I wish him to work for us, becoming what he most fears and helping, even promoting our own interest which he hates so much! And the rest of what I asked as well, so he will always be reminded of me.”
“We have not had either of these species before, but they seem to represent no serious challenges. We believe that we can adapt your Erdomite to become a courier for us over possibly difficult terrain. We have noted the lack of proper clotting factor in his blood, but the gland that aids in its production is merely immature, not missing, and so that problem is easily dealt with. Do not worry. He shall be fit to do only what is useful to us, and all that you request be done to him will be a part of it.”
“Perfect! Do it! But what about the other? That one requires very special treatment.”
“There’s not as much to work with,” the master surgeon noted. “Still, the small size and lack of major features and your own requirements make it obvious that the best way to ensure that no one who ever knew her or saw her picture recognizes her is to create from her an animal. It can be a unique animal, since with the countless varieties of the Well World there is nobody who knows them all or will question a convincing appearance. This is what we came up with after much study.” He pushed a few buttons on a console, and a hologram of a figure appeared.
Campos laughed in delight. “Oh, that is wonderful! Perfect! But—can you do such a radical thing?”
“It’s not as radical as it looks. Mostly a matter of adding a lot of fatty body mass, moving the knees, implanting the natural feathers, that sort of thing. Then reinforcing it with a pictin—an artificial virus tailor-made to her and her alone. It will methodically go from cell to cell and manipulate the stock DNA chains that will make the change permanent. Internally there’s not much changed, so she’ll still have to eat what she normally would and such, you understand.”
“That is all right. Appearance is everything. Delicious! And her speaking? She must be able to speak to me, and I to her, but with limits.”
“Much simpler. We will simply remove her translator and replace it with a synthetic one. As you may or may not know, we’ve never successfully created a translator crystal, but we do have ones that are very limited. We can tune this one not only to one language but to the specific harmonics of your translator. When she speaks, it will be instantly translated into a preset, encoded binary sequence which can be received and decoded only by your translator. To anyone else it will sound like meaningless squawks and screeches. Similarly, since that code will be fed to your translator alone, she will understand you as if you were speaking normally no matter what language you use, while all other speech will be picked up by her translator, which will overload trying to decode what isn’t there and produce meaningless random sounds. No one but you will even think that she is a sentient being. Is that satisfactory, madame?”
“Perfect.” Juan Campos sighed. “How long will it be before I can bring her home?”
“Not long. Two, three weeks tops.”
“Do it, then. Do it as quickly as you can, but do it right.”
The Erdomese constitution handled the drug a bit differently but just as effectively from the point of view of the dealers. There was not any massive high but rather a continuous feeling of being just a bit isolated from reality, a “slight buzz” as Lori thought of it. It was when it was withdrawn that its full power and potency revealed itself; the pain, the horrors, the hallucinations were beyond anyone’s endurance. He knew he could not exist without the drug but was not so insulated that he did not hate them for doing it to him. That, and the way they treated him, half the time as some sort of interesting lab specimen and the other half as no better than a slave, he thought, the worst possible existence imaginable.
But that was before he met the duo he began thinking of as Mengele Turtle and Frankenstein’s Slug. He knew by their detached and clinical discussions that they were going to do something more to him, something awful, but he had no way of knowing what.
Then, shortly afterward, the keepers came for him and gave him an injection, and he remembered no more.
The first realization that he was waking up from a sustained anesthetic-induced sleep was an awareness that he was on all fours. That was odd; Erdomese men were never on all fours. He opened his eyes, but they refused to focus very well, as if still mostly asleep, but he reached out and tried to stand—and found that he could not.
His first thought was that they’d taken his fingers, and then he managed to put his head down close to his arms and saw hooves.
Not even the kind of hooves Alowi had—real hooves, like on his feet.
But his feet, too, were on the floor. How could that be without him being at an angle or on his knees? It was as if his legs had been shortened and his hips turned so that he was now a four-legged, four-hoofed beast a mere three and a half feet off the ground!
With a sinking feeling he realized that it was exactly what they had done. He still had his tail, but it was down and dragged on the floor, trailing between his—hind legs.
And with less shock than he might have thought, he realized that the tail was the only thing between those legs, in far too short a time he had gone from female to male to— nothing. There weren’t even any internal muscles there to feel or flex.
You didn’t have to go to med school to figure out Campos, did you?
Still, even with blurry vision, he could see that there was something in back of his—well, forelegs. He not only could see the shapes in a somewhat blurry way, he could feel the dead weight hanging down.
Breasts? Four breasts on a eunuch? What on earth for? Particularly such a large and heavy set, which cleared the floor only by several inches. Sensing something else, a wrongness, he flexed his back a bit so that they did touch the floor, then straightened again. If they had nipples, there was no sensation in them.
He wondered why he hadn’t bled to death during their butchery and then realized what the breasts really were. Not just more Campos humor—they had placed in him, or activated by hormones, the internal engine of the female, the healing factors. No nipples, because whatever function they served they did so for his benefit, and he was one of a kind.
The neck was very long and supple. He could look forward or down, although his vision seemed to be limited to about two feet clearly, three before almost everything was lost. Still, he could see very close, and it almost looked to him as if he had some sort of muzzle on, as if he could see part of his nose and jaw.
Then the door opened, and he smelled Mengele Turtle enter. The doctor—if that was what he could be called— began making a lot of very stupid silly noises at him, until finally he heard, “One . . . two . . . three. Ah! I see you can hear me now! Very good! We, of course, removed your translator, among, ah, other things. It has been replaced with an artificial device that interpolates speech both in and out. You can speak, but to be understood you will have to be heard by someone with the same sort of device set to the same frequency. Similarly, you must hear something through the same conditions to understand it. Otherwise, even your native tongue will sound like nothing more than a noise pattern. It is quite useful for couriers such as you will be trained to become. It can’t be removed or bypassed without causing permanent damage to the speech centers of the brain, and it can be reset to any frequency we choose or even reprogrammed with a whole new code by remote control. You see how handy that is. You can convey the most sensitive message, but only one who has both the device and your code and frequency can retrieve it. You, on the other hand, sound like an animal making random noises. If anyone attempts to play random sequences and hits it but does not give the code header, it erases, cutting you off completely. Absolutely secure.”
“Very clever,” he admitted sourly. “But what sort of courier would this body make? And what makes you so sure that I’ll transfer the right information?”
“Well, you will be trained, of course, both in the uses of the body and in courier technique. You will be used locally, basically between Agon and Clopta through Lilblod. The system itself is simple. There is a specific version of the drug you are on. To survive, you will have to make your assignations, for only they will have it. If any of them find out later that you gave false or incorrect or even incomplete information, they will notify someone and they might well forget your dose. As for finding your way, it will take practice, but you will find that your senses of smell and hearing are incredibly acute. You will learn to follow days-old scents and interpret a vast number of sounds. As most of your route will be through dense forest at night, sight is of little use anyway. The drug will motivate you and ease your pain and exhaustion. Your digestive system can handle most of the ground-level plants of Lilblod. Save for an insignificant amount of the drug you need, you are, shall we say, cost-free and maintenance-free labor.”
“Yeah, well these breasts are going to cause no end of trouble in the woods.”
“They are tough, and you will get used to them. In addition to supplying your absent clotting factor, they can carry enough food in the form of fat and water to allow you, if need be, to exist for a week or more eating and drinking nothing, so if something happens and you fall behind, you can skip food and water to make up time. You also have a small pouch of which I’m quite proud. It will hold small microencoded materials and even carry the receiving code and frequency for you. It will, however, dissolve such material in gastric juices if you are very late getting your dosage. Withdrawal, in other words, triggers it, so even if you are captured, nothing will be learned.”
“You must have studied hard to think up things like this.”
The doctor ignored the comment. “Food and drink will be necessities, but they consist of raw leaves and grasses and water—only water will really do—and they’ll taste pretty much like what they are. Anything else will make you sick. You won’t have much in the way of conversations or companionship, obviously, and you are as asexual as a machine. We were able to locate and neutralize the actual sexual center in your brain. You can’t have sex, do not and will not want it, won’t even fantasize about it; indeed, if we’ve done it properly, you won’t even be able to figure out why you or anyone else liked it in the first place. It boils down to this: The only thing, the absolute only thing that can and will stimulate your pleasure center is our little cube. Over time, as brain and body adjust, it will become your sole reason for existence and our sole expense. Perfect, are you not?”
“Yeah. Perfect.” Drug or not, I’ll kill myself at the first opportunity rather than live like that.
He seemed to anticipate the thought, “If you think of suicide, be sure you do it, because otherwise we’ll give you no cube at all for one full cycle . . .”
That was too much. He knew he’d never go through with it, couldn’t kill himself with that kind of threat.
They had won. All this way and the bad guys had won!
For the other captive it was possibly even worse.
At one time or another Mavra Chang had been put on or tried an enormous number of drugs, but nothing like rhapsody. Within minutes it seemed as if every pleasure center in her brain and body exploded in continuous delight while all else, everything else, faded into total insignificance. She knew she was still chained to the wall, but it just didn’t seem important, nor did it when they released her and she dropped to the floor. Everything, every touch, every move, was a new delight.
She was aware of others, of being asked questions and answering them, but it was of so little consequence, she didn’t even remember the specifics of the conversations. Darkness, light, colors, sounds, creatures moving around, all had their wonders and delights. She was being poked and probed and moved here and there, but none of it really mattered to her.
It was hard to say how long this lasted, but the coming down was very, very slow. Awareness outside of herself returned in dribs and drabs, shapes and creatures took on more realistic appearances, and things began to seem more logical. Even so, she remained high and knew she was, able to function but still somewhat bathed in a nice, soft, comfortable cocoon. Things being done seemed peculiar or even hilarious but caused no alarm.
By the time real rationality had returned and there was just a glow and slight lack of coordination, they had put her in a small padded cell. Her feet were free, but her hands were cuffed behind her back. Overcome at that point with a seemingly insatiable hunger and thirst, she found a pot of some cold liquid and three very large varicolored loaves of different things, what she couldn’t guess. The urge to eat and drink was just irresistible, even if she had to do it on her knees or prone, biting into the loaves as best she could and manipulating the container of liquid with only her mouth and neck. It tasted sweet and heavy with a kind of creamy aftertaste, something like buttermilk, and she managed to drink most of it while spilling only about a quarter, and that she found herself lapping up with her tongue. She had left nothing when she was done.
She now felt sleepy but tried to shake it off and think. That rhapsody was the most dangerous drug she’d seen since sponge. In fact, it might be an ancestor of just that for all she knew. She did know that she would be mentally incapable of turning it down if it were offered again, and that brought forth the first and primary fear. They had to give more to her! Nothing, absolutely nothing was of more importance to her than that. She’d kill her own friends and betray any trust to get it.
She knew she was hooked, on the line completely, but as much as she hated the thought and those who’d done it to her, she knew they’d accomplished what they had set out to do.
Why keep me locked up and shackled like this? There is no way I can leave this place. Not now.
But she was a new species for them, she realized, and they couldn’t be sure of her compliance or even positive that they’d gotten the dosage right. And they were probably scared of her, scared of the rumors about her possible powers. They would make very sure.
Within a few more hours she was in tears, hysterically banging her head against the padded door and begging, pleading, promising anything if they would just give her more and stop the torment. She hated them, hated their cold, callous way of treating her in this, hated Campos for what she’d done to her, hated herself for being so damned vulnerable, but it was horrible, awful . . . Far worse than heroin, which she’d managed to kick more than once. But the withdrawal pains hadn’t been nearly at this level. The waking nightmares, the hallucinations of every horror she’d ever lived through, the onrush of all the fear and pain she had ever endured . . .
She was descending into madness with the speed of a spaceliner when they’d finally come and given her some more. Within a minute, maybe two, it was all receding, all going away, things were wonderful once more . . .
After several cycles, as her system became accustomed to having the drug in it, they were ready for the next phase.
She was put under for the bulk of it. She had almost no memories of it or who did it or where or how long it took or how the hell they did it at all. Nor was there any real sense of how much time had passed, only that it had. By the time she was able once again to awaken and move about on her own, it was done.
She felt—odd—beyond the high and knew that Campos had accomplished her total threat. They had done something to her. Something major. It was only a question of what.
She had no feeling at all in her arms. They’d never let her use her arms or hands, not since the beginning, and so it wasn’t totally surprising, but it bothered her. She was walking oddly, too, as if she couldn’t bend her legs. Nothing felt right.
She was in a small but ordinary room furnished only with a thick pillow, but one wall seemed extra polished and she made her way laboriously over to it. Then, seeing the ghostly reflection, she looked down at herself to confirm the worst.
She was almost completely covered in feathers. Tiny little feathers that made a second skin, feathers of bright colors: gold and emerald and crimson and deep, rich blue, making intricate random designs. She couldn’t feel her arms because she no longer had arms, or shoulders, for that matter. Somehow they’d managed to transplant some of the muscle tissue, though, because she still had breasts, fattier and larger than before and also feathered right down to the nipples.
But for those she was shaped pretty much like a turnip. She had a large, rotund, feathered stomach and rear end, and they’d widened her hips. That had been done as much for balance as for design, since they’d taken her knee joints and placed them just below those widened hips, as if the upper calves and thighs had been turned upside down, and these terminated in a pair of very wide leathery feet that were more like pads with a flat extension both forward and rear. She did not walk so much as slowly waddle. It would take some practice, and she wasn’t sure how she’d get up again if she fell over.
She had to get very close to the reflection to see her face. They’d done something to the skin to make it look very dark brown and leathery, extending her nose until it was virtually a hawk-nosed bill of the same consistency as the face. They’d brought in the mouth to almost a pucker and replaced the lips with a short curved birdlike bill. Only the eyes seemed familiar, but even there they’d done something, or maybe it was the drug. She saw quite well but only to maybe one and a half, two meters. After that everything was a blur, even in the small room.
They’ve made me into a human owl, she thought, more in shock than in disgust. In fact, while the overall effect was somewhat comical in the same way a penguin was comical, the combination of colors and the fluidity of the design were quite attractive. It was also true that she could appear like this in public and no one, not Lori, not the Dillians, not even Brazil, would recognize her.