Analog SFF, July-August 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  As for the wells themselves, the very idea was seriously gooning me out. I couldn't help thinking about the difference wishing wells could make back on Earth. Food, clothing, water purifiers, medical supplies; an endless shopping list of things that would be available for those who needed them the worst. Why hadn't the Bugs given them to people?

  Then I got it: They had given wells to humans. But to have them we needed to come out to Venus. What a raw deal, forced to come to a place with clean air. A place that wasn't overcrowded and subject to increasingly violent weather. A place where the rain didn't burn your skin, where the coastal areas weren't being swallowed up by rising oceans, where the threat of tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, forest fires, killing droughts, and flash floods hadn't gotten so bad that the news more often than not led with the weather. On most of Earth, food was either very expensive and very good, or very cheap and almost guaranteed to put you in an early grave. If you ate at the bottom of the food chain your tissues ended up so saturated with chemicals that when you croaked from what you ate, embalming would be redundant.

  What would happen if wishing wells appeared on Earth?

  I was getting a good look at how it would play out in many parts of the world. Certain people would try to seize control of the wells and use them in ways contrary to their reason to exist. If wells showed up on Earth, before a year was out there would be well-slavery, well-pimping, well-extortion, and worse. The people in charge back there would take this great boon and turn it into another tightly controlled, punitively priced commodity that benefited the few by depriving the many, and this monopoly would be managed by force of arms.

  Just like someone was trying to do on High Vista.

  New planet, same old shit. Maybe we should have been named Homo incorrigiblus.

  * * * *

  Homer's good mood went DOA when we looked over the wall at the attack force below. “Appears they've almost got their act together,” he said heavily.

  “Sure looks that way,” I agreed. “What's that stuff they're loading in the catapult's basket?” It was a bunch of white spheres, some the size of baseballs, some as big as bowling balls.

  “Hoopstuff cannonballs. Remember how I told you that here you can dig up the ground and shape it like clay? Leave it exposed to light and air for a piece and it turns hard as rock. I got to give them props for this one. I figure they plan to use that thing like a cross between a mortar and a shotgun. Start raining loads of stuff down on us so we have to take cover. Keep us pinned down long enough to get in the gate and really start raising hell.”

  “What would happen then? Would they just capture the well and throw you out?”

  Homer just gave me a long pitying look.

  Yeah, duh. They wouldn't be satisfied with taking control of the big well and the community around it. They'd want revenge for getting the boot and being kept from what wasn't theirs.

  “Where the hell is Trub?” I grumbled. The catapult basket was loaded, and there was a growing pile of extra ammo building beside it.

  Homer shrugged. “Hard to say. That lady does get around some. I'm sure she's doing her best to get back to us.”

  I had to wonder if she was trying hard enough. I watched the activity at the bottom of the hill, wondering how she would deal with the situation. What I'd seen of her methods so far gave me the idea that she'd use the least amount of intervention possible. I was pretty sure she could scare them off . . . but if that was true, why hadn't she done it before now? Maybe she'd try to buy them off. But what could she offer that would make them give up their prize?

  That question set off an ideagasm, one that made me laugh out loud.

  “Hang tight,” I told Homer. “I'll be back in a couple minutes.” I turned around and ran back toward the wishing well.

  * * * *

  “I need a white flag,” I said, rejoining Homer at the wall.

  He stared at me like I'd asked for a feather boa and high heels. “You're not thinking on going down there, are you?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I am.”

  “Now why would you want to do that?”

  Great question, brain damaged answer. “So I can convince them to call off their attack.”

  A long pause as that improbable plan was absorbed. “How you going to do that?” he said at last.

  “With a whole lot of luck, and even more bullshit.”

  * * * *

  The nearer I got to the ragtag army at the bottom of the hill, the more I had to wonder when I'd lost my mind.

  None of this had anything to do with me, but then again not everything a posto takes up as a cause affects him or her personally. Homer and his people were in danger, and Trub wasn't there now that they needed her. She could probably handle this with one hand tied behind her back.

  I should have waited. I knew that.

  But I hadn't, and there was too late to return to High Vista. My approach had been noted, and a half dozen arrows were pointed at me. I had no idea whether the guys holding the bows could shoot straight or not. I was willing to bet that if I turned my back I'd be the guest of honor at target practice, and didn't want to help them improve their aim.

  It wasn't much of a skullbuster to figure out who was in charge. It was the sort of guy who always ends up in charge when a gang of a certain kind of men rallies around a really bad idea. In this instance it was a sixtyish, overweight, red-faced, white guy whose badges of office were the biggest mouth, fanciest armor, and tallest helmet. Cyrus.

  “Howdy, gentlemen,” I called, keeping a harmless idiot smile on my face as I made my way to the bossman.

  “Who the hell are you?” Cyrus demanded sharply.

  “My name is Glyph.”

  “I don't know you. You weren't on High Vista before.”

  “Nope, I wasn't,” I said, unable to resist adding, “I'm a stranger to these parts. A door dumped me up there just a while ago.” I didn't see any point in mentioning that Trub had come through that door with me. Somehow I doubted dropping her name would get me a warmer reception.

  “So why the white flag? Are you here to join us?”

  “Hell no. High Vista is nice, but not my style. Never much wanted to be a soldier either. But when I heard what the issue is here I figured I could save you a whole lot of trouble, and maybe some pain.”

  Cyrus was staring at me like I'd asked to take his Lexus out for spin to test the crash bags. He looked sour and impatient at having to deal with interruption when victory was finally within his grasp.

  “You better start making sense real quick, boy,” he growled in his best Maximum Leader voice. “The only ones going to feel pain is them." He jerked his thumb toward High Vista. “And maybe you.”

  “Give me a break, man. I'm here to do you a favor.” I put my hands on my hips, adopting the pose of an art lover at a museum as I took a long look at the catapult. “Very cool work, dude. Work of art. One big problem. It won't work.”

  “Bullshit. It sure as hell will work,” snapped another man who had been standing by and listening in. A short, tubby guy with thick glasses, scraggly Fu Manchu, and geek written all over him.

  “Oh, I'm sure it will fire just fine. That's not the problem. The problem is that the place up there is bulletproof.”

  “Bullshit,” Geek said.

  “'Fraid not. You know the guy in charge up there, the tall black dude?”

  “Homer,” Cyrus spat the name, lips twisting in distaste.

  “That's him. You know how good he is at pulling stuff out of that big-ass wishing well?”

  “He does okay.” Cyrus's voice dripped with ill-concealed envy, like Homer regularly whipped his ass and took his lunch money every time they played golf.

  “Well, he wished himself up a piece of Bug tech. A sort of invisible shield that will deflect anything fired at the place.”

  “Bullshit,” Geek proclaimed, deploying his one word answer for everything. “That's not possible.”

  “Possible,” I shot ba
ck. “Don't you dudes get it? The reason the Bugs give us things through the wells is because they want to hear us ask for them, like us giving treats to a dog if he begs or does some other trick. Our wishing for stuff lets them see how we think about things, how we perceive and ideate them, how we use imagery and language to define objects. You know Homer can get pretty much anything he wants, like that big-ass stove? The Bugs love him because they love the way he thinks and talks. They're into him enough that they're not going to let anyone hurt him. You've attacked that place before, right?”

  I didn't wait for an answer, but drove the last rhetorical nail in the rickety structure I was building. “You think it's just bad luck your other attacks have failed?” I shook my head. “Wake up, guys. The deck is stacked against you, start to finish.”

  I watched the scowl on Cyrus's face deepen as I spun out my line of bull. I was making it up as I went along, but as I spouted this stuff I realized that I might have accidentally fallen over the truth while giving them the Glyph version of how the wells worked. The Bugs would learn tons about people from their asking for things.

  Finally, Cyrus shook his head. “Even if what you say is true, we can still knock down those walls and take High Vista back.”

  “I say you're wrong, but for sake of argument let's say you're right. That still leaves one big question: Why bother?”

  They were all looking at me like I was crazy. And maybe I was. Because I was actually enjoying trying to bernie these boobs. It was like talking my way into protected or restricted places so I could gain intel, or posto right in the guts of the beast, talking my way out of jams with cops and property owners and others who took offense at my work. That was part of the grinwhack of being a posto. It's a high like no other. I was getting a big gulp of it, sweet and fizzy as Homer's Dr. Pepper.

  “What I'm saying,” I continued, “is why settle for this well when there's an even bigger one out there for the taking?”

  “Bullshit.”

  I rolled my eyes, thinking Geek really had to work on improving his vocabulary. “Wrong, chump. I've seen it.”

  Geek was shaking his head. “I say you're a liar.”

  Cyrus finally spoke up, playing wise leader. One whose greed never slept. “Why should we believe you?”

  “Don't care if you do or not,” I said, letting a touch of annoyance creep into my voice. “This isn't my fight. All I know is that there's a well three times the size of that one out in another segment, ripe for the taking. I figured you guys might be interested since you have a thing for big wells.”

  Geek was plucking at his boss’ sleeve. “I'm telling you, he's lying.”

  “Bite me, Trek-boy,” I said, reaching into my vest.

  A half dozen bows were suddenly drawn and pointed at me by men who wanted to look like heroes in a Robin Hood movie, but more closely resembled over-age dissolute Cupids.

  “Ice down, guys,” I said. “I just want to show you what I'm talking about.” I pulled out my Cybernado Rollox, snapped it open and flat. Tapped the corner to bring up the menu I wanted. “Here. Check it out. Seeing is, as they say, believing.”

  The Rollox displayed the image I'd taken of the well at the top of the hill. An image I'd shopped to make it look like it was somewhere else, and the size of a backyard swimming pool. It was a hurry-up hack job, but I was pretty sure it would fool rubes like these. My clothes might have come from Sally's, Goodwill, and the occasional dumpster, but my software always cuts the edge and leaves it bleeding.

  Cyrus snatched the device out of my hand and stared at picture of the well. His band of butthead brigands clustered around him like adolescent boys around a pornie. Eyes went wide, and the general comment was some flavor of Holy shit!

  Geek wasn't going to let it go. “It's a fake,” he bleated pitifully. “Has to be.”

  “Fine,” I said, reaching to take my Rollox back.

  “Now just hang on,” Cyrus said, rubbing his stubbly chin with one hand and keeping a firm grip on the Rollox with the other.

  Things were kind of hanging there in the balance when a new factor entered the situation.

  "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Trub demanded as she stepped out of a door that materialized out of nowhere.

  * * * *

  I had only a couple seconds to figure out what to do, and the moves I made were mostly impelled by the accusing tone in Trub's voice. That, and her appearing right within reach. Okay, and from having seen far too many bad movies.

  I used one arm to grab her around the neck and shoulders, reaching into my vest with my free hand. Quickdrew my dummystick and jammed it up under her jaw.

  She tensed, and I had the impression of having just taken hold of a human-sized stick of dynamite in the fleeting moment before it detonates. I knew she could easily throw me off, beat what landed into a bloody pulp, and was a heartbeat away from doing just that.

  "You tell them,” I growled in my best tough-guy voice. “Don't make me hurt you the way you hurt Poppa Poppy.”

  The amount she relaxed was fractional, but enough to tell me that my message had been received. “Tell them what?" she said sharply.

  “There, on my Rollox. I told them about that giant wishing well on the other side of the Hoop.”

  “What about it?” she said after a pause long enough to make me afraid she wasn't going to play along.

  “You can't keep them from taking it over.”

  “Maybe not,” she said grudgingly. “One big problem. These dildoes couldn't find six good brain cells if they put all their heads together. No way they'll ever find it. Can you take them there?”

  “Not directly. I can't control doors the way you can. So you have to drive.”

  She shook her head as much as the dummystick under her jaw would allow. “Not a chance, kid.”

  “Why not?” Cyrus demanded.

  Trub stared at him like a steaming turd on the hot fudge sundae of her life, saying nothing.

  He stepped in closer and put his face right in hers. “You can't keep us from that well. Nobody else has taken it, have they?”

  “Not yet.” She smiled. “But I could fix that real fast.”

  “You'd do that?”

  “Bet your ass I would.”

  “Why? What's the problem with letting us have it?”

  “You're the problem, you old toad. I don't like you or your merry band of sore losers.”

  Cyrus tried for a steely stare that just came off Nixon-shifty. “You'll like me even less if you don't take us to that well. Right now.”

  Geek still wasn't buying it. “I'm telling you,” he wailed. “It's a trick!"

  Trub laughed. “That's right. It is.”

  “See! I told you!”

  “The bitch is lying,” Cyrus growled. “Men! Surround her!”

  The bandits closest to us lifted their bows and spears and clubs and other primitive implements of mayhem. They growled to show how dangerous they were. If it hadn't been for the sharpness of the blades and weight of the clubs, I might have laughed. They still looked more like a dinner theater pirate gang than any sort of armed force. But I knew even armed morons could do a lot of damage. In fact, they usually did. We call it history.

  “I think you better take us all there,” I said, pushing my dummystick harder into Trub's jawline, hard enough to bring her up on her toes.

  “All right,” she said, sounding angry and resentful. “But I warn you, you're going to regret this.” She raised her voice. “Transport.”

  A door appeared, hanging in the air near the catapult.

  I didn't know what Trub had up her sleeve, whether this was an escape route for us, or a trap for them.

  “We'll go first,” I said, starting to frogmarch her toward the door. My thinking was, if it was a trap I ought to make it look safe for the rats to go on a cheese raid.

  “No, we will,” Cyrus said. “I don't trust that woman one bit. She's a liar and a trickster.” He raised his voice and started bellowing orders. �
��Men! Get formed up! Lehman, your squad will take the lead. We put these two in the middle. The rest of us will bring up the rear.”

  They got themselves more or less organized, then started trooping through the door. Cyrus directed operations from a safe place in the rear, his pet geek beside him and still whining that this was all a really big mistake.

  I hoped he was right.

  * * * *

  The door took us to a wide plain somewhere near the middle of what I had to assume was a different segment. Rising up in front of us was another white hoopstuff plateau, the top about three hundred feet up and accessible by a long switchback path. The hilltop looked to be even wider than the one where High Vista stood. The light was low in the segment, down to the level of a clear night with a full moon.

  The lower light made it easy to see that something at the top of the plateau was glowing, shining brightly enough for light to reflect off the ceiling far above it.

  All eyes were on the plateau and the promising radiance. I saw awe in the faces of some of the men, greed in others. Cyrus's eyes were narrowed in calculation. Geek looked confused and woebegone, like a kid whose Christmas stocking contained only Santa's rap sheet for molestation.

  This moment, rife with wild surmise, ended abruptly when a person appeared at the edge of the plateau, staring down and back at us.

  Cyrus rounded on me, face gone red with fury. “I thought you said nobody had taken this well!”

  “Nobody had, last time I saw it.”

  “I put a door up there,” Trub said with a mocking laugh. “I'd rather see someone else get it than you assholes.”

  “You sneaky bitch,” he hissed, raising his hand to backhand her in the face.

  “She must've just opened that door,” I put in hastily. “There can't be that many people up there. Yet, anyway.”

  Already several of the High Vista exiles had begun edging toward the path leading up the side of the plateau, the urge to get up there and check out their prize stronger than what passed for discipline. Others were muttering that they had better get moving and take what was theirs.

  Cyrus lowered his hand, jaw working. He wanted to hurt Trub, but fear of losing his prize was just too strong. He raised his spear, let out a yell. “Men! Take that hill!”