The great palace, on the highest hill, was illuminated by torches and multicolored gas lamps almost completely. It had a fairy-tale look to it, an air of unreality thatf he suspected, was deliberate.
Reluctantly, he headed back toward shore. Hunger was starting to creep into him, and there was much to do. He made shore swiftly, experiencing the slight shock of getting out of the water into what felt, curiously, like almost oppressively hot, thick air. His body adjusted to it in moments, though, and he went on.
He first looked for the inevitable lowdive district common to all big cities, but, after much searching, he had to admit defeat. A lot of neighborhood bars, with big frogs reclining on form-fitting cushions so they almost sat up like humans, gulping beers and other spirits from enormously wide glasses with narrow stems. The glasses had one gentle flat side, and you drank by putting it to your mouth and raising the glass while throwing your head slightly back.
No dives, though.
What was missing, he decided, was sex. They just didn’t seem to engage in it or be motivated by it. No romantic couples, no advances-lots of friendly groups, mixed and not, but nothing at all sexual. Even he, a mature and young Makiem, had felt nothing particularly inside him when near any of the females. Only the Comworlds where cloning was the norm and everyone was an identical neuter approached the sexlessness of this society, yet there were clearly two distinct sexes. It was a puzzle for later.
In his wanderings, he found that he had waited too long. The streets were brightly lit; so were the apartments, with some people relaxing on the street outside, others in their open doorways or, from the sounds, on the roofs. There were regular beat patrolmen, too.
He decided to head toward the outskirts of the city, the direction from which he’d come. Maybe something would present itself; if it didn’t, well, he could always go back to that glade where he woke up and chance that, if, as was likely, it was somebody’s property, he could use it as a base temporarily.
The female Makiem at first seemed almost heavensent. She was obviously well-off, perhaps a farmer just in the city for the evening. No tattoo. And young and very small.
And drunk out of her mind.
She couldn’t hop; she could barely crawl, mumbling something to herself or perhaps singing although so badly and distorted that it sounded like the rumbling and croaking it was even to Trelig. She tried one last hop, fell flat on her face, and rolled over into a ditch. A nice, dark drainage ditch.
“Oh, shit!” he heard her exclaim loudly. Then, a few seconds later, he heard tremendous snoring. She had passed out in the culvert.
He bounded over to her. His night vision was about the same as it had been as a human, and so, though it was dark and shadowy-and mucky-it wasn’t a helpless situation.
She was lying on her back, big bowlegs outstretched. He took a moment to study her. He’d discovered, by necessity and experience, how a Makiem went to the bathroom and where, but by no stretch of the imagination could that apparatus be sexual. There wasn’t much of a clue with her, either. A fine little puzzle, he thought sardonically. I know most of what it’s like to be a Makiem except the facts of life. He turned to other, more pressing matters. He carefully felt her jaw-pouch; it definitely had something in it, perhaps a moneybag. He hesitated an instant, then shook her. She didn’t wake up, didn’t even react. He shook her harder. Still nothing.
Satisfied that she was dead to the world, he leaned over and tried to pry her mouth open.
And tried. And tried.
It was shut as tightly as if it were welded in place. He was about to give up when she gave a great snore, and the mouth opened a bit as she turned slightly on her side. Carefully, he reached inside-and felt a smooth, bone-hard plate that fit so exactly he couldn’t even get a grip on it. And then the mouth shut. She didn’t wake up, it just shut, right on his hand. He tried to pull it free, and couldn’t. He spent the better part of half an hour trying to get his hand out. She turned more, almost pulling him on top of her, but he couldn’t remove that hand.
He was almost in a panic, particularly when her ribbonlike tongue came over to explore the object. He felt its stickiness and felt it wrap around his hand, wondering what he could do. There were no teeth in the front part of the jaw, but there were three rows not far back. If the tongue pulled his hand just a little bit more … ! Then, mercifully, the tongue recoiled and her mouth opened. She let out a nasty hiss and turned some more. He almost fell backward into the ditch and cursed softly to himself, nursing his hand, which was now feeling bruised. She must not have liked the taste, he decided with thanks. He sighed, knowing now that personal robbery here, unless it was armed robbery, was pretty near impossible.
He thought things over. He could drift for a while, make do, but only as a beggar and a fugitive. Force was out; he didn’t know how to fight as a Makiem, and they’d probably beat the shit out of him. Furthermore, be would not be able to enter Makiem society at his own pleasure.
The only thing left to do was to turn himself in.
The guards looked bored. They sat there, motionless except for an occasional blink, as only reptiles could-but they were very much awake. Eyes were on him as he approached, and the crossbows were armed and cocked in their hands. Still, they looked like nothing so much as statues.
He marched up to one. “Pardon me, sir, but is this the royal palace?” he asked pleasantly. He had no desire to fall into the hands of local police or lower-level bureaucrats.
The guard stood still, but his eyes gave the newcomer a once-over that could almost be felt. The guard’s mouth didn’t move, showing once again that the sound-producing apparatus was elsewhere, but he said, “Go away, farmboy. No visitors except on Shrivedays.”
“It is the palace, though?” he persisted.
“Naw, it’s the headquarters of the limbushproducers union,” the guard responded sarcastically. “Now, go away before you get hurt.”
Trelig decided on another tack. He took a deep breath. “Are you still looking for any Entries like the circulars said?” he asked casually.
The guard’s eyes lit up with renewed interest. “You know of an Entry in Makiem?” The question was sharp, businesslike, but interested.
“I do,” Trelig told him. “Who do I talk to about it?”
“Me,” the guard replied. “If I like what you say, I’ll pass it on.”
Like fun you would, Trelig thought. Only if there was something in it for you. “All right then,” he said flatly, resigned. “If you’re not interested then …” He turned to leave.
“Hold it!” called a different voice, perhaps the other guard. The tone was commanding, and Trelig froze, smiling inwardly.
“If somebody else gets it, and it is an Entry, it’ll be our skins,” the new voice pointed out. “Better we should take him to the old man.” –
“Oh, all right,” grumbled the first. “I’ll do it. But what’s in it for us?”
“I know what we’re in for if he’s okay and we blow it,” the other responded. “Go on.”
Trelig turned back around. “Come on, you. Follow me,” the first guard mumbled resignedly, and came to life, turning and slow-hopping with short motions up the brick-paved walkway. Trelig followed, feeling better. If, as Ortega had said, all the races of this universe-and this world-including humanity had sprung from a single source, all the races so created would have certain things hi common reflecting their creators. Human nature was Antor Trelig’s life and profession, and it didn’t matter to him what form that human took.
They entered a side door of the palace, and went into a gas-lit room that was peculiar indeed. A guard was on duty, and nodded slightly to his leader as they entered.
Two walls of the room held a great many strange-looking similar devices. There was a top part that resembled giant padded headphones, and a rubbery suction-cup device with a hole in the center underneath. They were on spring-loaded coils of tubing of the same material. Above each of the dozens of such devices was a plaque with something in that crazy writing.
Trelig watched curiously as the guard took the headphones and placed them over his head, just behind the jaw joints where the tiny ear openings were. Then the suction cup was attached almost to the center of the tattooed insignia on its chest. The guard expanded his chest, letting go an extremely loud and annoying rumble.
Trelig understood the thing now. It transmitted direct sound to various points in the palace, the hollow tube itself moving the air. He suspected the voices sounded hollow, tinny, and terribly far away, but it worked. A primitive, nontechnological telephone.
Nontechnological, hell! he corrected himself. These people were tremendously advanced technologically. Everything that could work they had created, ingeniously.
“Yes, sir,” the guard literally shouted, so loud that Trelig wished he had ear flaps to match the nose ones. “Says he knows of an Entry, yes, sir.” Pause. “No, nothing odd.” Pause. “Personally, sir? But-” Pause. “All right, sir. Right away,” the guard completed the call, detached the suction cup, which coiled back into its built-in holder, and replaced the headphones on then: rack. He turned to Trelig.
“Come on, you,” he grumbled. He followed the guard out.
There were no stairs or ramps, and Trelig had a bad time when they reached a high opening, four walls of bare, smooth stone, obviously a junction for the hallways on the multistoried castle, and the guard simply started walking up the wall.
Trelig hesitated, then decided, hell, why not? If it doesn’t work I think I can survive the fall. What he had to do, he saw from the guard, was press his finger-cups solidly on the stone, pull himself up, then use leg-cups on the webbed hind feet to support him while he reached farther up. If he managed it in a smooth series of motions, like climbing a ladder, it would be effortless, but doing so proved awkward and slow for Antor Trelig. He was conscious of the guards’ stares and chuckles in the corridor below, and heard the guard above growl, “Come on, you! Can’t keep the old man waiting!”
He made it, with difficulty, to the third story, thankful that they didn’t have to go any farther. That took some getting used to. Getting down, looking down the whole way, would be worse. He put the thought out of his mind.
They passed by great rooms, some sumptuously furnished with silks and fancy rugs and woven tapestries. A few doors were closed, but, no matter what, the place reeked of opulence. There was a lot of fancy metal art, too, and most of it wasn’t brass or iron, either-it was solid gold, often encrusted with jewels of amazing proportions.
Finally they entered what had to be some sort of reception hall. It was rectangular, but too small to be the king’s regular place. The ceiling was still a good ten meters high, and the walls were draped with maroon and gold velvet curtains. There was a thick rug of some soft fur from the door sill to every corner of the room, and a slightly raised dais near the far wall with the most comfortable-looking of those strange cushion-chairs he’d ever seen. He looked around, mentally betting himself that there was another entrance somewhere, probably just behind that dais.
He was right. The curtains behind the chair moved, and an elderly Makiem walked in on all fours, got up on the dais, and turned, settling back onto the broad cushion-chair. The effect was remarkably human, as if a man, leaning about forty-five degrees forward in a chair were sitting there. The old man even crossed his huge legs a little, and rested bis arms on two small wooden adjustable rails.
The old one looked at the newcomer critically, then looked over at the guard. “That will be all, Zubir. I’ll call you if I need you.” The guard bent its head slightly and withdrew, closing the big wooden door behind him.
The old man turned back to Trelig. “You know the whereabouts of an Entry?” he asked, his voice crackling with energy. His skin was blotched and old and bloated, but this was a very lively individual, Trelig decided.
“I do, sir,” Trelig responded carefully. “He has sent me here to find out what is in store for him before he turns himself in.”
The old man chuckled. “Insolent, too. I like that.” He suddenly leaned farther forward and pointed. “You’re the Entry and you know it!” he snapped, then his tone softened again, became friendlier. “You are a terrible wall-climber, although a smooth liar. I’ll give you that. Now, come! Who are you really?”
Trelig considered his answer. He could be any one of several people, and perhaps be the better for it. Either Zinder was out-he was too mature to be the daughter and not versed well enough in technology to be the father. The same for Ben Yulin, and that wouldn’t be much of an improvement, anyway. Renard or Mavra Chang? The former wouldn’t hold up-too slick at the start to pretend to be a guard now; this old guy was no fool-and Mavra Chang would be conspicuous if alive. So the best he could do was try and get into their good graces by the truth.
He imitated the guard by flexing his elbows so that his body lowered to the floor, then came back up again. “Antor Trelig, at your service, sir,” he said. “And who might I have the honor of talking to?”
The old man smiled slightly. A Makiem smile was far different from a human one, but Trelig recognized it. “Consider all the angles before you act, don’t you, Trelig?” he said offhandedly. “I could see all the possible lies going through your head before the truth came out. As to who I am, I am Soncoro, Minister of Agriculture.”
Trelig barely suppressed a chuckle. “And the man who really makes all the decisions around here,” he stated flatly.
Soncoro liked that. “And what brings you to that conclusion?”
“Because the guard sent me to the minister of agriculture, not the prime minister, king, or even state security. You were his first and only choice. Those types know who’s who.”
Soncoro nodded. “I think I’m going to like you, Trelig. We’re two of a kind. I like you-and I’ll never trust you. You understand that. Just as you wouldn’t trust me, in reversed circumstances.”
Trelig did understand. “I’m much too new to be a threat, Soncoro. Let’s say a partnership until then.”
The old man considered that. “Quite so. You understand what you have that we want, don’t you? And why we are delighted and relieved that you are who you are?”
“Because I can pilot a spaceship,” the former syndicate boss replied easily. “And because I’m able to open up everything on New Pompeii.” Trelig felt vastly relieved. He had been afraid that he would wind up in a water hex, or, if not that, in a hex whose government had neither designs on New Pompeii nor people like Soncoro. But then, he reflected, if we have a common beginning, the odds were always in my favor.
Trelig looked at the old man. “You’re going after the one in the North?”
Soncoro shook his head. “No, that would involve almost insuperable obstacles. We looked at it, of course. You went down a good ways in, in a nontech hex, so we would not only have to get to it, and no Southerner has ever been into the North, we would somehow have to move it close to two hundred kilometers to make it flyable, then set it straight up so it would be well away before the Well could snare it. And-this is equally important-to do it one would have to pass through a number of hexes with life so alien one couldn’t understand it, control it, or trust it; and in some atmospheres that are lethal. No, I’m afraid we leave your ship to the Uchjin.”
“But the other ship isn’t in one piece!” Trelig objected. “It was my own ship. It would break up on the way in. The nine modules would be spread over half the Well World!”
“They are,” Soncoro admitted. “But, tell me, would you need all the modules to make it fly again? Suppose you had a fabricating plant capable of building an airtight central body? And a couple of good electrical engineers to help do it right? What would you need then?”
Trelig was genuinely amazed. “With all that-probably the power plant and one or two modules to make certain you fabricated the new parts correctly. And the bridge, of course.”
“Suppose you had the power plant and modules, but not the bridge?” Soncoro prompted. “Could it be done?”
Trelig thought about it. “Not impossible, but a hell of a lot more difficult. The computer guidance is there.”
The old man nodded again. “But we have access to pretty good computers here. If I understand it, it’s not the machine itself, it’s just its abilities, programs, memory, and action time.”
“And interface with the power plant,” Trelig added.
“Not insolvable,” Soncoro pronounced. He smiled wickedly. “Welcome to the family.”
“But where are you going to get all this?” Trelig protested. “I would guess that if you could have a machine shop and computers here, you’d have them.”
“Good point,” Soncoro agreed. “But we won’t be alone. What would you say if I told you that four of the modules were within six hexes of this one, and the power plant was seven hexes away? And that we had allies-a semitech hex and a hightech hex, with complementing abilities?”
Trelig was intrigued. “But you’re talking about a war!” he objected. “I thought war was impossible here!”
“For conquest, yes,” the old man admitted. “But not for limited objectives. Dahla proved that you couldn’t hold ground for any length of time here. But we need only take it, take it long enough to get what we want, and move on. Some.of the hexes are simple, anyway. They will yield to us or just ignore us. Only a couple of them will be problems.”
Trelig considered this, getting excited now. This development was beyond his wildest dreams! “But the ship should have come in at a definite angle. If five are attainable, then all of them should be. Why limit it?”
“We’re not the only ones in the game,” the old Makiem told him. “Others are moving now. Perhaps we can deal later, but the power plant is the one thing completely beyond our ability to construct. We have lots of spacefarers, but they are technicians. You know how to pilot-but do you know how to build a ship?”
“No,” he admitted.
“We haven’t had a Type 41 pilot, though, in a very long time. None we can get our hands on. I assume that progress has made much of their skill obsolete anyway. Correct?”
“Probably,” Trelig told him. “The power plants, and therefore the knowledge of what to tell the computers to do, have changed radically just in my time.”
“Then it’s safe to say that only you, this associate, Yulin, and the woman, Mavra Chang, could possibly pilot the ship properly?”
Trelig nodded honestly, although he was aware of how much that increased his value. “If there are no human pilots here from as recent as a century, I’d say, almost definitely.”
Soncoro seemed tremendously pleased. He leaned forward again. “This fellow Yulin. Is he trustworthy?”
Trelig grinned. “As trustworthy as I am.”
Soncoro hissed. “As bad as that. That means there’s little chance of a deal there, then, unless we get the power plant.”
“You know where he is?” Trelig asked, amazed.
“He is a Dasheen, and a male, damn it all! That will give him power there. The Yaxa are already well along with their own plans, perhaps a bit ahead of us, and he will naturally ally with them if he can. So, we go and as quickly as possible. Whoever owns the power plant owns it all.”
“Tell me two things,” Trelig said persistently.
“Go ahead,” the old man agreed.
“First, what would have happened if I hadn’t materialized here as a Makiem? You’re talking as if you were going to war anyway, it was all set up. Did you know?”
“Of course not!” responded the secret ruler of Makiem. “The way things worked out only simplifies matters. We would have seized the modules anyway and waited for one of you to come to us. You would have had to.” His logic was unassailable. “Now, what’s the other thing?”
“How do you have sex in this place?” he asked.
Soncoro roared with laughter.
DASHEEN
Ben Yulin awoke with a start and opened his eyes.
His first thought was that the pain was gone, and he had feeling over his whole body again. That was a big relief in and of itself. But-where and what was he?
He sat up and looked around. Things were definitely different. He was slightly nearsighted and totally color-blind. But he could see well enough to tell he was in farm country; there was baled hay over there, nicely if crudely done, and fences and small roads stretched off for miles in squarish patterns. It was flat country, too; although his vision blurred beyond five hundred meters or so, he could tell where the land and horizon met.
He looked down at himself. Broad, muscular, hairy long legs that looked somewhat human, although the feet were strange-very wide and oval-shaped and made of a hard, tough substance. There were breaks in the front of each foot, but he had no toelike control of them. They were obviously just there to provide some flex when walking. He reached out and saw that his arms were wrestler’s arms-tremendous, bulging muscles overlaid with a thin covering of stiff brown hair. The fingers were short and thick and seemed to be made of that tougher material in the foot, but they were jointed in the right places and had an opposable thumb. He reached down to feel his feet and tapped them. They had a dull, thick, hard feel and sound to them. He had almost no feeling in his hands or feet, although the rest of his body felt normal.
His skin was brown and mostly covered in that short, wiry hair, although he perceived it as dark gray. One look at his crotch told him that he was not only a male but one of gigantic proportions. That pleased him, even if the thing was jet black. It was the biggest he’d ever seen.
His chest was covered with a milky-white coating of the same kind of hair; it was an even shape that followed his torso. The body, too, was thick-set and powerful-looking; he flexed a little and the muscles bulged.
This wasn’t going to be so bad, he told himself.
One reason for the nearsightedness, he realized, was that his eyes were set differently. He put a hand up to his face-and found more. He felt it carefully.
It was a huge head but perfect for his body. A thick, short neck, and a snout! Not a huge one, but it jutted out from his face. He tried to focus in on it and saw it, a white-furred oval with a flat top, jutting out maybe ten centimeters from his head. It contained a soft, moist, broad nose-incredibly broad, almost the width of the snout-which he thought was probably pink, and two huge nostrils with some kind of flaps. There were also whiskers flanking the nose -sharp, fairly long, like extremely long white pine needles.
His mouth, under the nose, went the whole length of the snout. He felt around it with a broad, flat, thick tongue. Lots of teeth, none of them sharp. He opened it, then closed it, then tried a chewing motion. He found he could only chew from side to side, which told him that he was a herbivore. He knew now why they raised hay and wheat and the like and who it was for.
The eyes were large, set back from the snout, and wide apart. Ears were sharply pointed, and could be turned at will, he found. On top of his head was an enormous pair of horns. They were part of his skull, no doubt about it, and they extended into wicked points from areas of the base bone a good five centimeters out from either side of his head.
He rose shakily to his feet and found that his head didn’t feel abnormally heavy or out of balance, although he couldn’t turn it in any direction quite as far as he remembered being able to do.
There was a last touch. He found he had a tail on some sort of ball joint, a tail he could wag and even whip to an extent. It was thick and emerged from his spine, was probably an extension of it. It was brown like the rest of him except his chest and snout, and it ended in a thick tuft of soft dark hair. It was long, although it didn’t quite reach the ground. He reached around, took hold of it, and looked at it curiously.
I wish I had a mirror, he thought.
He started walking, first over to the road and then down it. He wanted to find some civilization, somewhere.
It was a chilly day, although only the parts of him with no hair, his nose, inner ears, and genitals, told him so. There was some kind of natural insulation here.
He spied a large number of what looked like people working hi a field, but they were too far away for his reduced vision to really see. He considered going over and introducing himself, but he decided that that sort of thing could cause trouble, too. This might be private property, and they might not like trespassers. He decided to press on until he came to a town or until he met someone on the road.
Despite the visual limitations, his other senses were tremendously heightened. Every little sound, from the rustle of an almost imperceptible wind to small insects off in a nearby field, were sharp and clear and could be localized with unerring accuracy. Smells, too, both pleasant and unpleasant, were much fuller and richer.