Suddenly he was bolt upright. Nine sections! Of course! He cursed himself aloud, and the giant spider came back from the intercom with “What was that? I didn’t catch it.”
“Oh, nothing,” he mumbled. “Just kicking myself for being an old man whose mind is shot.”
“Kicking yourself would be a good trick,” the spider retorted lightly. “Why? What have you got?”
“Back in the dawn of prehistory, when I was still a Type 41 back on my home turf, I used to fly spaceships,” Ortega told him. “For a living, that is. They used to have a fail-safe mechanism against complete power failure in atmosphere.”
“That’s right!” Gol Miter exclaimed. “I forgot you were an Entry. Hell, you’re older than I am! You used to be a pirate, didn’t you?”
Ortega sniffed. “I was an opportunist, sir! There are only three kinds of people hi the universe, no matter what their race or form. They are scoundrels, hypocrites, and sheep. With a choice like that, I proudly wear the badge of scoundrel.”
There was the translated sound of a chuckle. Ortega wondered what a chuckle from a giant spider really sounded like.
“Okay,” the spider replied, “so you were a pilot and they had fail-safe mechanisms. So?”
“Well, they used to break up on failure,” Ortega told the other. “Break into nine sections, so they could accommodate everybody and so the basic mechanical, pressure-activated parachute mechanisms would be able to support the weight. Nine, Gol!”
The spider considered this. “Just like our visitor, huh? Well, that would fit. Sure you got them all? Couldn’t be any unreported pieces?”
“You know my spy network is the best on the Well World,” retorted Ortega with pride. “Want to know who your fourth wife is with right now?”
“All right! All right!” laughed Gol Miter. “So, rune it is. Coincidence?”
“Possibly,” Ortega admitted, “but maybe not. If not, they are Type 41s. I’ve got rough descriptions of three of the sections. Two are rather nondescript compartments, hardly worth bothering about. One, however, has a rounded nose-shape, like a bullet. If it is a Type 41 ship, that’s the command module. That’ll be where the pilot is-or was.”
“Where did it come down?” the spider asked.
Ortega looked over his map, his deep-black eyes shining. His excitement faded, however, when he saw the probable location.
“Looks like about twenty kilometers inside Teliagin. Fat lot of good that does us. If those savages catch them, they’ll eat them.”
There was concern in the spider’s voice. “Can’t have that. They don’t man their embassy, do they?”
“No,” Ortega responded. “They only come in occasionally to trade a few things. It’s a nontech hex, so everything’s a little limited. Mostly pastoral nomads. Shepherds. They eat the sheep-raw and in big bites, usually while they’re still alive.”
“Well, I’ll check and see if anybody’s home,” Gol Miter said, “but if there isn’t-what then? We have to get our hands on at least one of those people, Serge! It’s the only way we’re going to find out what the hell is going on around here!”
Ortega agreed with him and looked again at his map. Teliagin was near the Equatorial Barrier, and so was his native Ulik, but it was too far away for anybody to get there in time. He looked at the nearby hexes, rejecting one, then another. His eye strayed to one two hexes away, just to the south and east. Lata! That might be just the thing. But-it was still a long ways. The Lata could fly, of course, and Kromm’s atmosphere was sufficient, but how long would it take? Two days, maybe? And then how long until they were found? The average Teliagin would be as likely to eat the Lata as help it, so asking for instructions was out.
Well, it was that or nothing.
“Look, Gol, you work on the contact end and keep those studies of the satellite coming in,” he told the spider. “I’m going to try and mount some kind of rescue party if I can. I hope we get there before the Teliagin do.”
The six-armed snake-man broke the contact and flipped his interoffice intercom again. “Jeddy? Anything from Czill as yet?”
“No, sir,” responded the secretary. “The ambassador’s not expected in until 1700. Remember, not everybody lives in his office.”
The snake-man scowled. Of all the ambassadors here, he was the only one trapped in South Zone. He could never leave it, never go home. It was the price he paid. By all rights he should have died of old age almost two centuries before. He did not, but that was because of a juicy bit of blackmail with the Magren, a hex where “magic” of a sort was possible, where the people would hi slight ways tap the power of the Well World computer to defy certain laws. They had given him a youthful body, and it stayed that way, but there was a price. Magic did not hold outside the hex in which it was performed. The rules of the game changed 1560 times on the Well World-the number of hexes and races there were here. In some, the Well computer allowed full technological growth. In some, that technology was limited-say, to steam. In others, like Teliagin, nothing worked. The powers, possibilities-even atmospheric content changed with each hex and was maintained stable by the Well computer that was the entire planetary core.
In South Zone almost everything worked. The youth spell, cast here, held. But should he ever leave, even to see the sun and sky and stars, the spell would be canceled out, and he would instantly be subject to rapid aging.
“Call the Lata ambassador, Jeddy,” he ordered.
There was a minute or two while the connection was made, the call referred, and then a high, pleasant, light female voice came on.
“Hoduri here. What can I do for you, Ambassador Ortega?”
“You know the situation?” the Ulik asked, and proceeded to fill in the other on all matters to date, concluding, “You see? You’re the only ones with a crack at them. It’s dangerous and tough, but we need you desperately.”
The Lata thought for a moment. “I’ll see what I can do and call you back. Give me an hour or so.”
“All right,” Ortega told her, “but time is of the essence here. And if you can find one of your citizens named Vistaru and include her in your plans, it’ll be better. She’s an Entry from the spacial sector we believe these people come from, and could probably translate. We’ve worked together before. Tell her it’s me asking and tell her the whole situation.”
“Yes, if we can find her,” Ambassador Hoduri agreed. “Anything more?”
Ortega shook his head, although he knew the other couldn’t see it. “No, only hurry. Lives depend on it-maybe ours, too, if we don’t find out what’s going on here.”
He switched off, and was barely back to his maps when the interzone intercom buzzed again. It was the Czillian ambassador, in early.
“Hello? Vardia? Serge Ortega!” he boomed.
“Ortega!” the other responded, not exactly sounding as thrilled by Ortega’s voice as Ortega seemed with its. And it was an “it,” too-the Czillians were mobile unisexual plants.
“You know what’s going on?” Ortega asked.
“I’ve just been conferring on it,” the plant creature replied. “Why? Going to play games with somebody else?”
He shrugged off the minor nastiness. The plants duplicated, so it could be one of several Vardias, but they all had their basic memories. One time, long ago, he’d done the original Vardia rather dirty, and Czillians don’t forget.
“Bygones be bygones,” he retorted. “This is bigger than petty plots. We’ll need the Czillian Crisis Center activated immediately at the Center. Your computers are the best on the Well World, and we’ll need somebody to coordinate. A lot of different hexes are involved here.” He explained the situation as it stood to the Czillian.
“And what are you doing about it now?” Vardia asked him.
“I’ve sent Lata in to try and rescue the pilot if he’s still alive, and anybody else they can. If-and it’s a big if-we can get one of them here alive we’ll know what’s going on. But that’s not your worry right now. Follow through on the logic here and maybe you’ll understand.”
“I’m listening,” Vardia replied, still doubtful.
“I’ve located all nine modules. They’re all in the west, and dispersed in a southwesterly pattern, so I have an idea of what’s what. If 7 can do it, so can others. Probably have. Vardia, one of them is the engine module, intact! I’ll bet on that! There’s no way to build that in any hex on the Well World. The rest, though-that can be fabricated one place and another. Whoever reclaims the parts of that ship, particularly the engine module, might possibly make a spaceship that’ll fly. Launch it straight up, the right angle and pattern, and it’ll be free of the Well. If / thought of that angle, so have others. I’m talking about war, Vardia! War! There are enough old pilots around here that somebody might be able to fly it!”
Vardia still sounded doubtful, but now it was more in the nature of an unwillingness to think what Ortega was saying could be true. But-could they afford to take the chance?
“War is impossible,” the Czillian responded. “Triff Dhala demonstrated that by losing the Great War over eleven hundred years ago!”
“But that was for conquest,” Ortega pointed out. “This would be for limited objectives. I’ll bet five dozen rulers are reading Dhala’s Theory of Well War-fare cover to cover right now. A spaceship, Vardia! Think about it!”
“I don’t want to,” responded the Czillian. “But-I’ll relay all this to the Center. If the scholars and the computers agree with you, it will be done.”
“That’s all I ask,” the Ulik told the other, and switched off. He stared down at the map again, his eyes fixed on Lata and Teliagin. How had they come in? To the southwest. Okay, that meant they flew over the Sea of Storms, then got wiped out over Kromm. Then there was breakup because of Kromm’s limited tech restrictions, and they came down in Teliagin. They would have seen the seas and the mountains before they were depowered. If the pilot knew what he was doing, he’d know that the mountains and sea would be east of him. He’d make for it as soon as he caught sight of those Teliagin monstrosities.
If they made Kromm, and didn’t mind getting wet, they’d be okay. He had to bet on that pilot’s experience.
“Get me the Lata ambassador again, will you, Jeddy?” he asked. “I know he’s out, but I’ll talk to an assistant.”
His eyes went back to that map.
The Lata had to be in time. They just had to.
THE LIFT CAR NEARING TOPSIDE, NEW POMPEII
“You’re too tense,” Antor Trelig told Ben Yulin. “Relax. Become Mavra Chang. Act like her, react like her, think like her. Let her persona completely control you. I want no slip-ups here.”
Yulin nodded and tried to relax. He tapped his fingernail on the chair side-long, sharp, hard nails, like steel. He looked suddenly down. He felt something funny, odd, just then. He stared down at the chair arm and saw that there was a tiny pool of liquid there. He dabbed a finger in it, put it up to his nose, and sniffed it. Odorless. He touched a little bit to his tongue. There was a mild numbing sensation there. Now what the hell? he wondered.
Suddenly he was looking at all ten fingers in curiosity. Some kind of cartilage, just a little fatter than human hair. A tube that was rigid and controlled by a tiny muscle. Poison? he wondered. /
He resolved to try it when he got the opportunity.
A warning light went on and the car started to slow.
“Okay, here we go,” Trelig said lightly, and they braced for a stop. Gil Zinder could do nothing, his personality forced into the back of his mind. He was Nikki Zinder until one of the two in the car led him out; they were the guard Renard and Mavra Chang, and he had to act like it, really believe it. Obie had taken the easiest path-he literally had made the old man his own daughter and isolated the new personality from reality.
The door opened and they walked out, out into the warm, fresh air and bright sunlight. Everything was slightly different now-there were shadows, the sun was at a different distance and of a slightly different color, which changed everything, and there was that planet up there, filling a tenth of the sky.
They all gasped. Nothing had prepared them for the sight of the thing, like a glistening, silvery, multifaceted ball twinkling hi the sun; below a swirl of clouds it was blue to the south, while the north seemed awash with reds and yellows. The plasma shield’s distortions made it look ghostly.
“Oh, wow!” breathed Gil.
Trelig, ever practical, was the first to break the spell. “Come on!” he said. “Let’s see who’s running this place.”
Several guards ran out to greet them, and a serving girl or two.
“Renard! Thank god!” said one, and Trelig noted that he didn’t know what relationships these people had. He did, however, know their names and backgrounds, and that helped.
“Destuin!” he responded, and hugged the little man. No, that’s right, Destuin was a woman, he thought angrily to himself.
He looked at them gravely. “Thanks for what?” he asked sourly. “Another five days?”
That seemed to take their minds off any further comparisons,
“Where are the rest of the guests?” Ben asked.
“Around,” one of the guards said. “We haven’t bothered them much, and they’ve stayed away from us. It doesn’t matter much. You’re in the same fix we are.” The guard pointed toward the Well World. “See that little black dot there against the planet? There, just below the split in the big one, and a little to the right.”
Ben looked hard, and finally saw it-a tiny black pinhead, like a hole in the bigger world. It was moving.
“That’s a sentinel,” the guard told her. “It’ll blow the hell out of any ship that tries to take off. Only Trelig knew the stop codes, and he’s gone. So you get to see us die, but four, maybe five weeks from now you’ll ran out of food, and go, too. Or make a ran for it in the remaining ship and get blown up. Maybe that’s what we all should do. Better than the other ways.”
That was grim talk, and not the kind the newcomers wanted to hear.
“I’m an expert with these ships,” Ben told them. “Let me go down and see if there isn’t something I can do about it. What can it hurt?”
The guard shrugged. “Why not? Want somebody to go along?”
“Renard? How about you?” Ben prompted.
Trelig, however, was better than that. Too much danger right now. “You go ahead. Take the girl with you. It won’t make much difference to us anyway. I’ll come down later and see how you’re doing.”
Yulin was disappointed; it had seemed so easy. But, there was little that could be done. “Come on, Nikki,” he said, and started walking. The fat girl followed meekly, but kept glancing back up at the glowing, strangely surrealistic planet half-visible on the horizon.
That planet was on Yulin’s mind, too. He knew that they’d never have seen it at all if the big dish had been directly opposite New Pompeii, but it was angled, so two thirds of the big planet was visible.
There were few people about, and they made it to the spaceport area in about fifteen minutes. The little spaceport terminal seemed deserted. Yulin really relaxed for the first time. This was almost too easy. He entered the terminal and stopped.
A big man with a Viking-like visage was perched there. He was sitting on a counter, and he seemed to be quite drunk.
Yulin thought him an attractive man, and the fact that it didn’t bother him to have that thought showed the thoroughness of Obie’s conditioning. He tried to remember the man’s name.
“Aha! So you’re trapped like the rest of us!” he roared, and took another long swig from a bottle. “I thought you’d gotten away!”
He stood there, wondering what to do. The man was huge compared to him, and even though he was Mavra Chang physically. Ben Yulin hadn’t been a fighter and those skills were sorely needed now.
Rumney was naked. He jumped up, facing her. “All is lost!” he proclaimed. “You can’t leave, I can’t leave, ain’t nobody can leave!” he almost sang. “So there’s nothin’ to do but get drank and have a last fling. Why not, honey? Com’on! I’ll take you both on at the same time!” A casual observation of his midsection left no doubt as to his meaning. He pushed out the bottle. “Have a snort?”
Fear replaced any feelings of attraction for this man. Yulin edged back toward the door, but the man was quick, too quick. He was playing with her, and laughing like a maniac.
Yulin moved, and Rumney moved, chuckling all the time. The tiny female frantically looked for some avenue of escape, but the terminal was too small. Zinder gaped at the tableau in confused amazement. This was a Nikki Zinder sex fantasy, and she couldn’t shake that dreamlike quality. Deep inside her mind, Gil Zinder sat, resigned, not caring about anything any more.
“Look-whatever your name is,” Ben tried. “All isn’t lost! I think I can get us out of here if you’ll let me!”
Rumney thought about this a half-second, then grinned. “Nice try,” he approved. “Afterward, tinker away.”
Yulin cursed the fact that he’d had to get rid of the incongruous pistol and wished for Trelig or a guard, anybody, to get him out of this.
“All I want is a piece of tail,” Rumney chided. “I got a tail, you got-” Suddenly he stopped, and tried to focus his eyes.
“You ain’t got no tail!” he accused.
Now Yulin felt even more terrified. It was true! Damn Obie! He’d asked for the last pattern of Mavra Chang, not the alterations!
Yulin edged toward the gateway to the remaining ship slowly. “Take it easy, big man,” he breathed cautiously, soothingly. “You spotted something, okay. Now you know that maybe I can get you out. Let me try.”
Yulin started deliberately for the ramp, and Rum-ney leaped for him, knocking him down on the floor, holding him there. The bottle went flying against a far wall, missing Zinder by centimeters.
He had Yulin pinned, and started tearing away at the nearly transparent clothing he wore. “Let’s see if you’re a woman under that,” he growled.
Yulin was terrified, more than he had ever been in his life. As Rumney pawed, Yulin managed to get his right arm partly free and jab him with his sharp nails. He felt something extra there; those little muscles in the back of his nails twitched. Rumney gave a sharp cry of pain, then he seemed to stiffen and collapsed on top of him. Rumney was like a lead sack. Yulin couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.
“Nikki!” he gasped. “Help me get him off me!” But Zinder wasn’t about to obey.
He pushed and cursed and heaved, trying to wiggle loose. “I wish you’d roll over, damn it!” he swore-and, to his amazement, Rumney did.
Feeling terribly bruised and slightly crushed, he managed to get up slowly. It felt as if a rib was broken and his body was a mass of internal bruises. There were pains in his back and side and-well everywhere. Coughing and spitting a little blood, Yulin gasped for several minutes, trying to get some control back. Doing so felt awful, but it did the job.
Ben Yulin decided then and there that he very much preferred being 180 centimeters tall and male.
But, trapped for now in Mavra’s body, Ben got hold of himself.
“You on the floor! What’s your name?” he shot, trying a theory.
“Rumney. Bull Rumney,” he murmured. Ben Yulin marveled at Mavra Chang’s resourcefulness. Obviously these triggers had been surgically implanted by somebody really talented. This was one dangerous lady, he decided, not without some admiration. In a way, he hoped she was still alive.
“Well, Bull Rumney, listen good,” Yulin said sharply. “You are to lie there, unmoving, a statue, until I tell you to do something. Understand?” The big man nodded slowly, then froze.