Yulin nodded. “The others are only a few hours behind. There’s no way we’ll launch immediately. The Bozog said they’re still bringing the ship in from Uchjin. So we’ll still be there when they arrive.” He couldn’t help wondering how the Bozog were bringing the ship from the nontech hex where he’d crash landed it over twenty-two years before, nor how this was being done against the wishes of the Uchjin themselves.
“You could always compromise,” Joshi suggested helpfully. “I mean, why don’t we all go?”
“Compromise with the Ghiskind is impossible,” the Torshind pointed out. “We represent totally conflicting views, goals, and philosophies. As for the rest—only Trelig counts there, of course. Would any of you like to reinstate him on the world that he designed? Yulin? Do you know everything there is to know about New Pompeii? Would you trust the rest of us there with Trelig around?”
Yulin shook his bull’s head slowly from side to side. “You know the answer there. That place is built like a fortress. Not even the full weight of the Com could get in there with less than the full fleet and its terror weapons. Even I was confined for the most part to the Obie project underside—I was only allowed up for breaks, and then only to the luxury rooms. No, Underside I’m totally familiar with, but Topside and the little secrets, twists, turns, and traps I’m not.”
Mavra suddenly had a headache. It irritated her, and she shook her equine head in annoyance. It was a sharp, local ache that felt as if someone had inserted a glowing wire in her brain.
And suddenly it exploded.
She remembered. Remembered it all. When she was first on New Pompeii, Antor Trelig had run his political guests through the great computer, Obie, giving them horse’s tails as demonstrations of his power. The computer, designed and built by Dr. Gilgam Zinder, was not friendly to Trelig. It simply obeyed whoever gave the orders from the console—but it was like making a deal with the devil, as Yulin had complained. If there was a loophole, Obie found it—and one such was Mavra herself. When she’d been run through, Obie had decided that she was best capable of escaping New Pompeii, of freeing Zinder’s daughter, Nikki, and getting her off-planet before Zinder and his near-human machine carried out their ultimate double-cross of Trelig and Yulin: the reversal of the field of probability that had transferred them all to the Well World.
She had almost made it, thanks to Obie. Obie had given her the complete plans and specifications for New Pompeii, down to the last nut and bolt. It had allowed her to foil Trelig’s best defenses, nab Nikki Zinder, steal the ship, and bypass the robot sentinels. But it had been too late—they’d all crashed anyway after being translated with New Pompeii to Well World orbit.
And all that knowledge had been locked inside her mind since that time. It was there now—more than she herself could follow. She suddenly understood Obie’s dilemma with the Well World—too much input. The computer was in contact with the great Well computer, but could not absorb the knowledge. She concentrated, found that if she wanted a specific thing it could be retrieved—but only if she knew the right question to ask.
The others ignored her.
“It is important, then, that we have our showdown at the launch site,” Wooley was saying. “We will have only a short time to prepare, so we must be extra careful. Remember, though, that this is a high-tech hex and everything works here.”
Yulin was thoughtful. “What about the Bozog, though? Won’t they stop us from doing anything?”
The Torshind answered that. “No. They are opportunists. They cannot operate the ship, but they want a representative on it when it goes. They do not care who the pilot is—or what. They are also far from stupid. They will know that this tension exists, and that it must be released. I would suspect that, as long as at least one pilot lives, they will not interfere.”
“I wish we could be sure of that,” Wooley responded. “However, we will act as if it were true because we have no other choice. Remember, we will have only hours at the launch site before they arrive. Not much time to assess conditions and prepare.” Her voice seemed to grow even colder, sharper than usual. “On no account must Antor Trelig survive,” she concluded.
* * *
The launch site itself was impressive. The Bozog had had years to prepare, and they’d made the most of it. Huge buildings stood out from a flat, desolate landscape, and a massive version of the rail system on which the Southerners were riding ran about a kilometer from one huge building to the site itself. Around the site massive cranes were positioned to manipulate the ship onto the platform, a tremendous black metal structure reaching into the sky, with a tilt toward the northwest.
“I’m not sure I like that angle,” Yulin commented, surveying it from the train. “As it is, we’ll have to build to full thrust before taking off, a tremendous danger to us even without other problems.”
“You will need to clear sixty-three kilometers within the first minute of flight,” their Bozog host responded. “Using information supplied by you and by others, we calculate that you will have nine seconds to spare. The slight angle is to give you maximum high-tech free flight. A perfectly vertical takeoff is impossible with the ship’s design, anyway, and you would run the risk of a high-altitude wobble that might take you for a moment over the wrong side of the border. Any power failure during takeoff will result in insufficient speed to break free of the Well’s influence before normal rotation takes you over semitech Esewod or nontech Slublika. You of all people should know what that would mean.”
Yulin nodded soberly. He and Trelig had escaped New Pompeii in disguise to avoid being murdered by Trelig’s former guards and slaves, who, seeing that they were now in an alien sector of space, realized they were dead people because they’d be deprived of their daily sponge supply. Trelig and Yulin had made the same mistake as Mavra Chang had a day earlier—they had flown too low over the Well World, so that the technological limitations of the hexes below had affected them, and they had plunged to the surface.
But Chang’s ship had broken up over the South; attempts to recover the sections, particularly the power supply, had been the cause of the wars of the Well. That had ended in failure with the destruction of the engines in a volcanic crater in high Gedemondas.
Yulin’s ship, however, was not designed to break up but was a smaller utility craft used mostly for in-system work. It had atmospheric-flight capabilities and collapsible wings, and he and Trelig had brought it intact to a dead-stick landing in nontech Uchjin.
“Are you certain of those figures?” Yulin asked, worried. “I mean, absolutely certain?” Whoever was in that ship would have one crack at it, and one crack only.
“We are,” the Bozog assured him. “We have had independent channels of communication. We know as much about that ship as its designer. Only the lack of two key minerals anywhere on the Well World prevents us from constructing our own drive and building our own ships.”
“Curious,” Mavra put in. “I wonder if the lack was deliberate?”
“Probably. Makes no difference,” the Bozog responded. “The fact is that nothing on the Well World so far discovered can power a plant with sufficient initial and sustained thrust to overcome the Well’s effects. You might say we know how to build one, we just can’t do it.”
They were taken to a large square building that proved to have a very conventional airlock. Inside, it contained a suite of comfortable rooms complete with closets, manipulable lights, and an intercom to the Bozog launch control complex, and the project director’s office.
It was also filled with a generic Southern atmosphere that was maintained at a temperature of twenty degrees Celsius, comfortable for all concerned.
The atmospheric difference seemed to have no effect on the Bozog.
“We are rather versatile in this department,” it explained. “In general, we cannot stand the presence of certain lethal gases, but none of them are present in your atmosphere. You will excuse me if I do not elaborate on which gases and other substances are not to our liking.”
They understood. Why give a possible enemy the lethal weapon?
“How do you breathe, then?” Joshi asked, fascinated.
“We don’t breathe, not in the sense you mean it,” the creature replied. “What gases we require we obtain in our eating. There is as much gas in the rock we consume as in anything else. We just do not require constant respiration.”
Left alone shortly afterward, they were thankful to get out of their suits. The Torshind, who had no such problems, left its crystal crab shell and explored rapidly.
“No locks,” it reported to them. “Heavily bugged, of course, but I find nothing threatening. It is my opinion that, if the Bozog remain neutral and don’t warn our adversaries, we can surprise them shortly after they enter the airlock.”
The Yugash had used its crystal tentacles to draw a rough floor plan, and Wooley surveyed it critically.
“I disagree,” she responded. “There is too much danger of hitting a Bozog, and that we can’t afford. No, this second chamber across the way is obviously for them. I would suggest we let them in, allow the Bozog to leave, then hit them as quickly as possible, before they even have a chance to unsuit.”
The Torshind considered it. “A bit more risky,” it pronounced, “but politics is politics.”
Bozog, the Launch Site Five Hours Later
The Ortega party looked at the block structure with more relief than apprehension. They had been in their suits for several days; they were smelly and itchy. Even Trelig and Burodir were uncomfortable: they needed an occasional rinse of water, and it had been the same water over and over for some time.
Their number was greater, too; two large Dillians, two Makiem, plus Renard, Vistaru, and the Ghiskind made for an unwieldy assortment with different needs and comfort levels. All were out of their element.
The Bozog stopped near the airlock. “The others are inside, in their own apartment,” it warned. “They are out of their suits and have had a long time to prepare. They will do nothing as long as I am with you, of that we’re certain—it would force us to take a hand. However, once I leave, you are all on your own. I will tarry as long as possible to give you as much chance as you can, but after that it’s up to you.”
They understood perfectly, and were grateful that it bothered. The two Dillians pulled pistols and acted as guards; they would cover the others until they themselves could be guarded.
There was no sign of the Yaxa party when they entered, went down a well-lit corridor, and through a top-hinged panel to their rooms. As they passed a similar panel on their right, the Bozog’s rear spot had formed a shaky tentacle and pointed silently, then receded back into the orange mass.
They understood. The enemy was there, ready, and less than twenty meters down and across the hall from them.
The Bozog did in fact linger with small talk for a while, allowing Vistaru, Renard, and the Makiem to unsuit and choose their weapons. Renard unpacked his tast and took a pistol in his other hand.
“I hope I remember which hand has which,” he whispered in a half-joking tone he didn’t feel. “It’d be a hell of a thing if I blew up the gun and shot the tast.”
Trelig and Burodir checked out their own hand weapons. The centaurs managed to get out of their suits before the Bozog felt it had to leave. With a cheery, noncommittal farewell, it oozed out the panel, leaving them inside.
“Best to let them come to us,” the Ghiskind said as low as possible. “Dillians to either side of the door. Makiem in the far corners. Agitar with me in the middle, just forward and a little out of direct fire from the door. Vistaru, can you fly in here?”
She tried it. She could and it felt wonderful to rise up and dart about, although her wings hurt like hell from their recent inactivity. She had a Lata pulse-pistol in her tiny hand, and now her wicked red-and-black-striped stinger oozed with venom.
“Now what?” Renard asked tensely.
“We wait,” Trelig whispered from his corner. “As long as necessary.”
* * *
Time passed. It wasn’t productive, nor comfortable; they were all tired. The tension, too, was having its effect, developing into a sense of numbing lethargy.
Renard was sitting down now, pistol only half-pointed forward, shaking his head. Vistaru, too, was relaxing.
“Why don’t they just come and get it over with?” he grumbled. “I figured they’d hit us as soon as the Bozog left.”
“There are a lot of devious minds there,” Trelig pointed out. “I’m sure that that was their first plan, but it will have been refined into something a lot more diabolical by now. This waiting is almost certainly part of it—designed to get us to let down our guard.”
“It’s working,” his wife grumped from the other corner. “I can hardly keep my eyes open.”
“Look who’s talking about devious minds,” Renard said wryly, looking over his shoulder at Trelig. “I’ve been told that nobody holds a candle to you in that department.”
“Stop that!” the Ghiskind ordered. “It will simply get us killed if we start in on one another. Why do their job for them?”
“Relax,” Faal the Dillian cautioned. “Remember, we outnumber them. Chang and her mate are no threat, they won’t even be in on it. That’s just three of them against seven of us.”
Renard suddenly stirred and jumped up, looking around.
“What is it?” several of them said at once.
He looked around, a slightly puzzled expression on his blue devil’s face. “I’m not sure,” he responded carefully. “Something funny. You know how aware I am of electrical things. I’d swear the lights flickered for a moment, then became brighter.”
They were all suddenly awake again, and tense, even though none of the others felt what he did.
Against the brightness of the lights, none had noticed a strange shape, faded almost to invisibility, flow under a room partition that was only two or three centimeters off the ground, and silently move along the baseboard toward the door until it reached the big male centaur, Makorix, standing pistol at the ready.
It flowed into the body of the Dillian, instantly striking at nerve centers, paralyzing movement. The Dillian brain was related to the human brain, and the Dillian central nervous system was a good compromise between human and horse. The Torshind had become familiar with equine movements while transporting Mavra and Joshi to Yugash; except in size Yulin’s Dasheen brain was very close to the Dillian brain. The Torshind had no trouble locating the correct spots.
Slowly the hand holding the pistol moved and readjusted. A thumb kicked the little control lever up two notches. The energy density would be greatly lowered, but still enough to paralyze; the beam would now be much wider.
The barrel moved ever so slightly away from the door toward the left of the room, where Renard, Vistaru, and Burodir sat waiting.
Suddenly Vistaru noticed the new targets. “Look out!” she screamed, and took off straight up.
Renard’s reflexes were tremendously fast; he kicked off on his powerful goatlike legs, soaring into the air as Makorix’s pistol fired.
The beam sprayed the room, and struck the Ghiskind and Burodir full on. It had no effect on the Yugash, but the great female frog gave a strangled croak and pitched forward.
Suddenly, the door exploded as a huge orange shape burst through it, followed quickly by a squat, humanlike powerfully built form, shooting wide scatter bursts.
Vistaru reached Makorix in an instant and knocked the pistol from his hand. The Dillian reached up for her with a snarl, and she obliged, stabbing him with her stinger.
The centaur gave a surprised cry, then collapsed in a heap.
Faal, hardly comprehending what was happening or why, swung her pistol at the orange shape and was gunned down almost immediately by Yulin.
Renard had lost his tast and had almost run straight up the wall in his escape from the initial shot; fully charged, he whirled and leaped for the orange shape, but the Yaxa saw him and spit a thick, brown fluid, catching him in midleap. It burned like fire when it hit and he plunged helplessly to the floor.
The Torshind left the unconscious body of the centaur and was headed for the Ghiskind when Trelig opened up. He was like a madman, capable of leaping ten meters or more. Coming to rest on any surface—even walls or ceiling—for an instant, he would fire. Suddenly he dropped directly onto the Yaxa.
The Ghiskind’s crystal form leaped now, crashing into them, jarring them away from each other.
Vistaru, flying about, was afraid to move close in for fear of hitting a friend. She looked anxiously about and screamed, “Where’s the damned Torshind?”
Wooley shouted something and Yulin ran out the door. Spitting and using fore-tentacles as whips, the Yaxa also retreated beyond the door, which banged back down noisily.
Vistaru looked around appalled. Both Dillians were either out cold or dead; Burodir was frozen stiff, Renard was unconscious and covered with sticky Yaxa stuff.
She looked at the two survivors with her. “Nothing to do but go get them before they try again!” she yelled.
“I agree,” yelled Trelig, slapping a new energizer into his pistol. “Let’s go!”
“Let me go out the door first!” the Ghiskind cautioned. “I’m harder to kill.”
There was no argument, and out it went, the other two following a second or so later when they heard no sound of struggle.
The hall was deserted, but there was a thin trail of a pale-green ichor leading toward the other room. One of them, probably the Yaxa from the nature of the stuff, had been hurt.
“Take it easy,” the Ghiskind cautioned. “No sense in playing their game all the way. We hurt one, yes, but they’re still a whole party and we’re down to three. It’s even now. If we go charging in there dead on, they’ll just wipe us out. Let’s think a minute.”
* * *
Although Mavra and Joshi knew the plan, they were helpless to do anything one way or the other. This was not their fight; they wanted only to survive it.
When Wooley and Yulin had come crashing back through the door, the horses knew that the plan had been only partially successful; there were some gashes in Wooley’s tentacles, too, which slowed the Yaxa a good deal, and a few nasty welts on Yulin’s back. The Torshind entered by other means and slid back into its crystal shell.
“Be ready,” the Yugash warned them. “The few remaining will come at us as soon as they can. It will be hours before they can count on any of their survivors, and they won’t wait that long.”
Wooley’s death’s head nodded. “If I were they, I’d be coming through that door right now. Check your weapons and be at the ready. Yulin! Dim the light so we can make sure the Ghiskind doesn’t pull our own trick on us! Mavra and Joshi, stay back and out of the way!”
They waited tensely for the counterattack, and they didn’t have long.
The door opened slowly, and they all trained their weapons on it, ready to fire as soon as the creature was visible.
It was the Ghiskind’s ptir, against which they had only the energy pistols, but they fired anyway.
Which played right into the Ghiskind’s hand.
The shots ignited a series of smoke and concussion grenades attached to the creature; these went off with a deafening roar that almost blew the door apart and filled the entire area with a dense, acrid yellow smoke.
Everyone was blinded, and Yulin started coughing. As he did so, something struck him hard on the back of the head and neck, knocking him down and rendering him semiconscious. His pistol skidded into the yellow fog.
The Ghiskind, its shell destroyed by the blasts, drifted across the room to the two horselike creatures it saw cowering helplessly against the far wall and entered the first one it encountered, taking control. Suddenly animated, Mavra made for the Torshind’s crystal shell and plowed right into it, sending it sprawling. The horse reared and with its forelegs struck the fragile crystal form repeatedly, shattering it like glass.
The fog began to clear, allowing Trelig and Vistaru—who were wearing the breathers from their spacesuits—to join the action.
The Torshind abandoned its ptir for the body nearest it—Wooley’s. The Yaxa was surprised, but the Torshind knew the Yaxa system well and was in complete control almost immediately. It quickly turned on Trelig, spitting the brownish substance.
The material didn’t devastate the reptile as it had the Agitar, but the goo did blind him for a minute. Wooley then turned to the horse, which was finishing the job on the Torshind’s shell, and raised its pistol.
Joshi, still amazed at Mavra’s jumping into the fight, noticed Wooley’s threat to her, although none of the others did. Without thinking, he leaped to the center of the room, placing himself between the Yaxa and Mavra, who was just turning around.
The pistol fired full-force, enveloping Joshi in a blinding electrical light that flickered like a photographic negative and then faded into nothingness.
Seeing this, Mavra’s mind suddenly exploded, expelling the Ghiskind with unexpected force. “Joshi!” she screamed and started for the Yaxa. Disoriented, the Ghiskind followed just above her, almost as if attached. Vistaru, who had managed to fly out of the smoke, saw what had happened and dived for the Yaxa.
At this moment, Ben Yulin was rising shakily to his feet and noticed a blur of motion from the corner of his eye. Lunging for a saddlebag, he flung it with full force at the shape. The saddlebag struck Vistaru straight on, knocking her to the floor and pinning her under it.
She looked up to see Mavra’s horselike form bearing down on the possessed Yaxa, whose pistol rose to meet the threat.
“Kally! For God’s sake fight it! Take control! My God, Kally! She’s our granddaughter!” the Lata screamed.
A tentacle tried to squeeze the trigger, but could not. The Yaxa body convulsed, and Mavra Chang struck, knocking over the Yaxa and landing on top of the butterfly-creature.
Trelig, meanwhile, spied Yulin picking up his pistol, and leaped for the minotaur. Yulin whirled, saw the frog, dived—and the Makiem sailed over him.
Like a swimmer in a sprint, Trelig didn’t miss a stroke. He turned in midair, and his powerful webbed feet struck the wall, propelling him forward again. He landed, somersaulted, and rose with a pistol on Yulin.
And Yulin had his pistol on Trelig.
The Ghiskind, atop Mavra, regained its senses from the stunning mental blow it had received. No mind that strong had ever been experienced by it or any other Yugash.
In the meantime, Mavra extricated herself from the convulsing Yaxa to avoid being crushed. Clearly, a major battle was being fought within the shiny yellow-black head.
Trelig and Yulin looked at each other. “Standoff,” Trelig chuckled. “How about a truce, Ben? We’re old friends. Let’s see how the rest of this comes out. You and me, together again on New Pompeii!”
Yulin’s big brown eyes shined, his manner softened. The pistol dipped slightly. “Okay, Antor. Partners this time, though. Right?”
Trelig kept one of his eyes on Yulin while the other followed the drama being played out on the floor.
And it was clear now who was winning.
Slowly and unsteadily, the Torshind emerged from the body of the Yaxa; Wooley collapsed and was still.
The Ghiskind immediately hurled itself at the emerging ghostly red figure. As the two met, their forms became less distinct, just a blurry dull-red sheet of energy, a ball of dull fire suspended two meters or so above the floor.
While this was occurring, Vistaru managed to free herself of the heavy saddlebags and rose groggily to her feet. She looked around, saw Yulin and Trelig through the thin yellow haze not three meters apart, pistols half on each other but attention mostly on the drama now in the center of the room.
Mavra lay unnaturally on her side, still but breathing hard. Huge, thick tears fell from the horse’s eyes.
The fight between the two Yugash had intensified. The energy sphere grew denser, more compact, and more intense. Now, suddenly, there was but a single glowing bright-red ball, almost too bright to look at, in the air above the room. It was about the size of a grapefruit.
There was a sudden, violent explosion and thunder reverberated along the halls of the building, rattling partitions, doors, and anything else that was loose. The odor of ozone was sharp.
Then, so dim that it could hardly be seen, a figure dropped to the floor and seemed to inflate, like a balloon. It moved slightly, but was terribly weak and stunned, that was obvious.
One of the Yugash had survived.
“Which one?” Vistaru breathed. “I wonder which one?”
Trelig turned slightly to face her. “We’ll only find out when it can get into a body,” he said. “Until then—”
His words were cut short as Yulin, taking advantage of Trelig’s preoccupation, suddenly dropped to one knee and fired directly at the frog. As Joshi’s had, Trelig’s form froze in fire, seemed to become a negative of itself, then winked out with a flash.
Antor Trelig had made the first mistake of his long life, and now he was dead.
Vistaru gasped and had her own pistol from its little holster in an instant. Yulin turned to face her, gun ready, and saw that she had him cold.
He paused, shrugged, and tossed his own energy pistol away to the other side of the room where it fell with a clatter.