“Oh, yes,” Ortega replied. “And time exists here. You get old, you die. Some die young, some live longer than you’d think possible, but there’s a generational turnover anyway. The population’s maintained by the computer-if a hex gets too heavily populated, the birth rate goes to a minus for a while. Too low a population from disasters, fights, whatever, and suddenly a sexy race gets back up there. The population varies with each hex, of course. Some races are big enough that there are only a quarter-million or so people, others can handle up to three million.”
“I don’t understand why pests and plagues aren’t spread over the place,” Yulin told him. “And how come there aren’t a lot of wars? It would seem alien races on the whole wouldn’t like the others.”
“That’s true,” Ortega admitted. “But you might call it good systems engineering. Pests there are, but there are subtle changes in soil or atmospheric content that tend to inhibit or stop them, also geographical barriers -mountains, oceans, deserts, and the like. As for bacteria and viruses, we have them aplenty, but the various racial systems are just different enough that microbes that work against one race won’t have any effect on another.”
He paused for a minute, then remembered the other part of the question.
“As for wars,” he continued, “they’re not practical. Oh, there are local fights, but nothing catastrophic. Hexes are so arranged that the ground rules differ. We believe that that was done to simulate the problems from lack of resources or somesuch on the various real worlds the people would be going to. As I said, the natural laws had to be maintained. So in some hexes, everything works. In some, there is limited technology-say, steam engines work, but electrical generators won’t hold a charge. In some only muscle power will do. That’s what happened to your ship-it flew into a limited nontech zone, it wouldn’t work, and down you came.”
Trelig brightened. “So that’s what happened! And that’s why the power did come on for the time I needed to get the wings down and window cover up! We had drifted over a hightech hex!”
Ortega nodded. “Exactly.”
“But,” Yulin objected, “wouldn’t a hightech hex conquer a low-tech one?”
Serge Ortega chuckled. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But, no, it doesn’t work that way. A hightech hex becomes dependent on its machines, as you were in the North. It learns how to maybe make flying machines and fantastic guns and such-and then it has to invade a hex where none of that works. And where two hexes of the same type border, well, one is land and the other water, or one has an atmosphere extremely uncomfortable to the other, or something like that. One general, long ago, did try conquest by allying various kinds of hexes in order to have the proper one for each hex fight in the appropriate manner; but his plan worked only to a point. Some hexes he had to skip for atmospheric conditions or tough terrain or the like, and eventually his supply lines for all these races grew too long to sustain. The unconquered ones chopped him to pieces in the end. There have been no wars since-and that was over eleven hundred years ago.”
They were silent for a minute, then Trelig asked, “I know how we got here, but-you said you were once one of us. How did you get here?”
Ortega grinned. “We get occasional new arrivals all the time-about a hundred a year. When the Markovians left their last planets, they didn’t turn off their computers-couldn’t. There is a kind of matter transmission-we don’t understand it-connecting all the worlds with this one. The last Markovian simply couldn’t close the door behind him. It opened whenever someone wanted it to open, and those old brains can’t tell a Markovian remote and altered descendant from the real thing. So if you really want the door to open, it will and you wind up here. In ninety-nine percent of the cases, the people involved didn’t even know about the doors. They just wished they were somewhere else, or somebody else, or that everything was different when they happened to be in the neighborhood of a door. I literally flew through one-the planet was mostly gone, but just enough remained.”
“You knew about them?” Yulin prodded.
“No, of course not. I was getting old and I was bored and I could see nothing but a dreary sameness in the future until death claimed me. You get introspective when you’re a pilot. Pop! Wound up here.”
“But how did you get turned into a giant snake?” Trelig asked him, without the slightest trace of embarrassment.
Ortega chuckled. “Well, when you first arrive somebody greets you. You’re what they call an Entry. They brief you, if they can, then shoot you through the Well Gate. It basically processes you into the computer. By a system of classification we don’t know or understand, the computer then remakes you into one of the seven hundred eighty races here and drops you into the hex native to that form. You get acclimation thrown in, so you get used to being what you are pretty quickly. Then you’re on your own.”
“But the matter-transmission system is still on,” Trelig noted.
“Yes and no,” the Ulik responded. “There is usually a Zone Gate and sometimes two in each hex. You can use that to go from your hex to here, South Polar Zone, and from here back to your own hex. But should you be ten hexes away and go through the Gate, you’ll still wind up here-and then back home. The big Well input, however, is that alone-you can come here from a Markovian world, but not go back. That was done, I suspect, to commit the original volunteers who had second thoughts. The only other gates are the ones between North and South zones, the one you came through. The Uchjin-those creatures you first saw-didn’t know who you were, but they knew you didn’t belong there or in the Northern Hemisphere. They passed the buck to North Zone, and they sent you down here. Now it’s your turn to go through the Well.”
Trelig looked uneasy. “We become something else? Some other creature?” he said, uneasily.
Ortega nodded. “That’s right. Oh, there’s a one in seven hundred eighty shot of staying what you call human, but it’s unlikely. You have to do it. You have no choice. There’s no other way out.”
They considered that. “Those others-the Entries. Are there… nonhuman entries?”
“Sure!” the Ulik answered. “Lots. Most, in fact. Even some real surprises-creatures that are nontech here, proving that it’s easier where they are than the problem set for them here. And some hightech ones we’ve never seen. Even the North has a bunch, almost as many as we have. We have here a collection of stored spacesuits in forms and sizes you wouldn’t believe. We use them occasionally when somebody has to go north. There’s some trade, you know. We have tiny translator devices, for example, that are grown in a crystal world up there that needs iron for some reason only they know. The things work. Anybody wearing one will understand and be understood by any other race, no matter how alien.”
“You mean there isn’t a common language here?” Yulin almost exclaimed.
Ortega gave that low, throaty chuckle again. “Oh, no! Fifteen hundred sixty races, fifteen hundred sixty languages. When life and surroundings are different, you need to think differently. When you go through the Well you’ll emerge thinking in the language of your new race. Even now I have to translate, though, by practicing with other Entries. I’ve become quite proficient at it.”
“Then we’ll still remember Confederation.” Trelig’s words were more a statement than a question.
“Remember it, yes,” the snake-man replied. “And use it, if your physical anatomy permits. A translator causes problems, though. You automatically get translated, so managing a third tongue is nearly impossible. But with a translator you hardly need it. If your new race uses them, try to get one. They’re handy things.” He paused, looked at the plant-thing and the Ambreza, seeming to note some worsening in Yulin’s paralysis. “I think it’s time,” he concluded softly.
They nodded, and a second Ambreza came in and two giant beavers moved Yulin carefully onto a stretcher.
“But I don’t-” Trelig started to protest, but Ortega cut him short.
“Now, you can ask questions forever, but you have the sponge and she has even more immediate problems. If you can ever get to a Zone Gate, come back and visit. But now, you go.” The tone was very insistent. There would be no more argument. The fact that Trelig and Zinder didn’t actually have a sponge problem was beside the point; their own cover story had rushed things.
They came finally to a room similar to the Zone Gate they’d used in getting from North to South.
Yulin went in first; he had no choice. He thanked them all, and hoped he would see them again. Then the two stretcher-bearers upended the body of Mavra Chang so it fell forward into the black wall. Zinder looked hesitant and had to be coaxed, but then he went. Finally, Trelig was left alone with the curious assembly of aliens. He was resigned. There was much to be learned, but his hand was forced. There would be other times, he told himself.
He stepped into the blackness.
Ortega sighed, turned to Vardia. “Any news of the other ship?” he asked.
“None,” replied the Czillian, the mobile plant-creature who had met them. “Are they as important now as they were?”
Ortega nodded. “You bet. If what those people told me was true, we have some first-class villains up there, probably on the loose. And two of them know a hell of a lot about Markovian mathematics. Dangerous people. If they should fall into the wrong hands, and that ship were rebuilt so they got back to this New Pompeii and its computer-maybe they could lick the problems. They would control the Well.”
“That’s pretty far-fetched,” the Czillian objected.
Ortega sighed. “Yeah, but so was a funny little Jew named Nathan Brazil, and you remember what he turned out to be.” The plant-thing bowed, the equivalent of a nod. “The last living Markovian,” it breathed.
“I wonder why this crisis hasn’t attracted him?” Ortega mused.
“Because it’s our crisis,” Vardia replied. “Remember, to the Well this isn’t a problem at all.”
NEAR THE TELIAGIN-KROMM BORDER, DUSK
A tiny figure moved silently down on the side of the mountain and was soon joined by a second, then a third. A few others hovered nearby on silent wings.
“There they are!” one whispered, pointing down below to the shepherd’s lean-to and cart where Mavra Chang, Renard, and Nikki Zinder were trapped.
“Amazing they made it this far,” another whispered.
The first one, the leader, nodded in agreement. Unlike the cyclopses, their night vision was extremely good. Although they could see in daylight, albeit poorly, they were basically nocturnal. The scene was bright and sharp and clear to them.
One looked over to where the two cyclopses were sleeping, snoring loudly.
“Big mothers, aren’t they?” it said softly.
The leader nodded. “We’ll have to sting them, and quickly. At least two of us for each one, more if possible. I don’t think we can juice them too much for safety’s sake.”
“Will the venom work?” one asked.
“It’ll work,” the leader responded confidently. “I looked it up before we left.”
“I wish guns worked here,” the doubter persisted. “It’s still risky.”
The leader sighed. “You know this is a nontech hex. Percussion type might work, but we didn’t have time to ransack museums and collectors.” There was a pause, as if the leader sensed it was now or never. Troops are always better hi action than waiting for it.
“Jebbi, Tasala, and Miry, you take the bigger one. Sadi, Nanigu, and I will take the other one. Vistaru, you take Bahage and Asmaro with you and see what you can do for the captives. The others stay loose and available. Come hi anyplace you’re needed if you have to.”
They nodded to one another. The ones on the mountainside launched themselves gracefully into the air, and the teams split off to their respective missions.
Mavra Chang was asleep. She’d crawled up to that grate a hundred times and each time had almost fallen, her traction breaking before she budged the damned thing one centimeter. She had put the other two to sleep to stop their whining and then fallen asleep herself.
Suddenly she heard a noise, as if something fairly heavy had landed on top of the grate. The noise woke her, and, for a brief moment, she was confused. Then, suddenly, she remembered where she was and looked up. There was definitely something large standing on the cart, but the grating made it impossible to see just what.
“Hu-man? You hear me, hu-man?” a strange, soft voice whispered. It was heavily accented in a most exotic way, high and light, a sexy small woman’s voice.
“I hear you!” Mavra Chang responded, hope rising within her, in a loud whisper-as loud as she dared.
“We are pooting the beeg theengs to sleep, human,” the creature told her. “Be readee to be took out.”
Mavra strained her eyes, trying to see what her rescuer looked like, but it was impossible to see anything-just a blob of light against the greater dark.
There was a sudden roar. The big male cyclops had awakened, and he was agitated and mad. He swore a thousand growling oaths, then gave something that could only be a cry of pain. She could hear the sound of a great falling body even as his mate roared, yelled, and was, after a time, also felled.
Mavra Chang wondered what sort of monsters could fell such huge and powerful creatures so easily.
There followed the sound of more of them landing on the grate. That, in itself, was strange-the grate was big, but not that big.
She heard them talk-a strange language that sounded like a procession of sweet bells and tiny chimes. It bore less relationship to a language than the grunts and snorts of the sort the cyclopses had-a very beautiful but most inhuman sound.
There was the sound of activity, and Mavra could hear the sounds of many hands doing things around the grate, and the tinkling of those strange voices giving orders in wonderful music.
The one that knew Confederation, at least basically, returned.
“Hu-man? How manee is down t’ere of you?”
“Three!” she called back, certain that the old threat, at least, was no longer a factor. If it were, these creatures wouldn’t be here. “But two are drugged into sleep,” she warned them.
A figure, seemingly a very small one, covered part of the grate, peering in. “Oh, yes! I see now,” the creature managed. Speaking the strange language was obviously a real problem for her. “We weel have to pool the grate away from them, so you get ovar near t’em, yes?”
Mavra did as instructed. “Here all right?” she called.
“Is fine,” the creature responded, and it was gone. No, it didn’t get up or crawl off, she decided. It just went away. She wondered more and more what her rescuers were. It didn’t matter. Anything was better than what she had, and at least one of them could speak her language, and they were obviously there to undertake a rescue.
There was a pulling and tugging. The grate moved a little, then settled back down. They had obviously tied ropes or something to the thing and were trying to pull it away, but they were having difficulty with the weight. The bells and chimes grew much more intense. Mavra wondered if they were cursing or something. Even if they were, it sounded wonderfully melodic. They gave it another try. There suddenly seemed to be a lot of them, judging from the amount of tinkling bells she could hear, and they were obviously all on this one.
A sudden, loud, single low note and they all pulled. The grate went up, rose straight up and balanced on the far edge. For a moment Mavra was afraid it would fall back down, and she understood why they had had her move. But their tugging continued, and the grate finally toppled outward and fell to the ground with a clanging sound.
The shape returned above, then slowly seemed to float down into the cart until it stood on the floor not a meter in front of her, visible even hi the darkness with Mavra Chang’s night vision.
It was a tiny woman, a girl really, looking no more than nine or ten; about a meter tall, and finely and delicately featured, perfectly proportioned. Mavra decided in an instant that this was no child but a full-grown adult.
She was very thin and light, weighing certainly no more than twelve to fifteen kilograms, if that. There were two very tiny breasts, almost undeveloped but somehow right. The face was the picture of girlish innocence, youthful and angelic-almost the perfect face, she thought.
Then, suddenly, the girl seemed to glow. The light was real. It illuminated the entire interior and seemed to radiate from all parts of her body, a golden glow that was incredible and inexplicable.
In the brightness the rest of the details of the newcomer became sharp and clear. Its skin was reddish hi color, a pale echo of the glow; its hair, seemingly cut and styled, was set in a pageboy, the strands blue-black. Two tiny ears, both sharply pointed, jutted out from either side of her head, and her eyes seemed to have an eerie quality, like a cat’s, reflecting back the light. From her back, in neat pairs, grew four sets of wings, proportionately large to the body and totally transparent. The creature smiled, and walked toward Mavra Chang, palm up in greeting. As it moved forward there was a slight scraping sound. Mavra saw that it came from something very rigid extending from her backbone down to the floor itself. The protuberance was a much darker red than the girl’s complexion, and came to a nasty-looking point that made a slight mark in the wood.
” ‘Allo, I am Veestaroo,” the creature said, and Mavra knew it was the same one who had spoken to her earlier.
“Mavra Chang,” she responded. She looked at the still sleeping others. “The tall one is Renard, the fat one is Nikki.”
“Reenard,” the creature repeated. “Neekee.”
Mavra didn’t know if what she was about to say would mean anything to the creature, but she had to try. “They are on a drug called sponge,” she told Vistaru. “They are pretty far gone and need help fast. They can no longer help themselves.”
The creature’s expression turned grim. She said something to herself in her native language, which, Mavra saw, came partly from within her and partly from a certain way that the wings were moved. There was no doubt, though, that the woman knew what sponge was.
“We weel have to get t’em” far away fast,” Vistaru told her. “And t’ey are so veree heavee.”
Mavra understood the problem. It must have taken all of them to get that grate off.
“I can get out on my own,” she told the creature. “Maybe I can be of some help outside.”
The woman who could fly nodded, and Mavra started up the sides of the cart she knew so well with speed that astonished the creature. Climbing up over the top, Mavra did a flip and landed on the ground with a bouncy ease learned from jumping off two-storey ledges. She looked around, wishing again that her power pack worked.
The sky had cleared a little, and some of the light from the great globular clusters shone down, giving the scene an eerie glow.
She saw the two cyclopses lying there, one almost on top of the other, motionless. They appeared to be dead, but she couldn’t be sure. No matter what, she had new respect for those hard things that just had to be stingers. These little girls packed a real wallop.
There were quite a number of rescuers-fifteen or twenty, anyway. They floated silently around, having no respect at all for the laws of gravity. Their wings made a slight humming sound that you could hear if you were close enough, but at any distance at all they were silent. They took to the air as their natural element-flitting, then hovering, then going off in another direction. Some were using their internal light sources now, and showed themselves to be a rainbow of colors. Some were reds and oranges, some greens, blues, browns, everything, and some were very dark while others were very light. Otherwise they all looked exactly alike. Some carried packs strapped to their bellies, obviously the source of the rope they’d used.
Mavra turned from them back to the problem of the cart. If it could be upset, that would be easiest. But how to do it? She called to Vistaru, who floated easily up out of there and over to her.
“Can you hook the ropes to this side of the cart?” she asked the creature. “Maybe if most pulled and a few of you and I pushed from the other side we could upset it.”
Vistaru considered that, then floated up to a bright-blue companion hovering overhead. They talked in that music of theirs. The blue one hadn’t turned on its own illumination, but Vistaru exposed both, and Mavra saw with some surprise that it was a male. A male who, except for that one organ, seemed absolutely identical to the females. She thought of Renard. The perfect form for him, Mavra reflected.