Charon: A Dragon at the Gate flotd-3

by Jack L. Chalker

  “I’ll remember,” I assured him.

  There was a sudden feeling of disorientation that lasted only a fraction of a second. I didn’t turn around, but I could hear the rest of the inmates whispering and rustling behind me.

  “I think we have a number of openings for administrative types like yourself,” Korman said, now very businesslike. “You may return to the group.”

  I got up and went back to the rest of them, searching for signs that any of them were in any way aware of just how long we had been talking, but detected nothing. Still, there were a few knowing smirks, and I remembered that Korman had had private conversations with most of the others as well. I wondered if they had gotten the same offer that I had. I somehow doubted it—unless some of them also had unique qualifications. It was unlikely that the sorcerer had put all his eggs in one basket.

  I had to look at Zala again, with new insight, but what I had just heard still didn’t seem possible. And yet… It was also unlikely that the Confederacy would have put all its eggs in one basket either. If what Korman suspected was true, it would place me in a very interesting position. I too wanted very much to meet this other Zala—if indeed she truly existed.

  We were fed again, and then relaxed, playing some basic games, just snoozing or sitting in the lobby waiting for our hosts to return. Several times I got into conversations, but either I was too subtle or nobody wanted to discuss his experience. Finally I wound up in a corner with Zala.

  “What do you think will happen to us now?” she asked me.

  I shrugged. “They’re going to give us jobs, I think.” “They knew I wasn’t an administrator,” she said nervously. “I guess they have the official records no matter what they said He said there wasn’t much call for my talents here.”

  “Don’t worry. It’ll all work out.”

  “I wonder if they’ll split us up?” she went on, playing out her petty fears. “I wouldn’t want to be split up. Not from you.”

  “We’ll see,” was all I could reply, knowing the verdict ahead of time.

  It was a couple of hours before Korman returned, this time with a clipboard. He took his seat again behind the table, thumbed through some sheets, then looked up at us. We all stood, expectantly, waiting for the word. Zala seemed extremely nervous and squeezed my hand so hard she was almost cutting off circulation; some of the others looked a little anxious themselves, but others did not. I found that an interesting fact in itself.

  One by one, Korman called out our names, not in the order he had used at the start, and told the various people the names of towns and jobs they were assigned to. About halfway through, he called both Zala and me, whereupon my suffering hand got squeezed even tighter as we approached.

  “Park Lacoch, you were a planetary administrator, and that’s quite good and useful experience, although here you won’t have your fancy computers and large staffs. It’ll take some getting used to, so we’re going to start you off small. The town of Bourget on the southeast coast just lost its Town Accountant. It’s a bit larger than we’d like to start somebody green at, but the position’s open and you’re here. You’ll deal with four industries, twenty-one Companies. There’s a civil staff there that’ll break you in and get you oriented—depend on them until you learn the ropes.”

  “Won’t there be some resentment that I got the job ahead of them?” I asked him.

  “Probably a little, but not much. It’s basically a local staff, all native, and they’re a pretty contented lot. They do what they’re told. If you’re good to them and respect their experience they’ll accept you.”

  “Sounds fair,” I told him, meaning it.

  “As for you, Zala Embuay,” Korman continued, “you present us with a problem. Your non-augmented literacy rate is very low, your grasp of figures basic. The best position we could find to fit your unique talents would be barmaid or chambermaid. Your entertainment and planning skills might be considerable, but they are all tailored to augmentation. Without the standard computer devices, these skills are mostly useless here. In fact, the more we considered it, the more we realized that you would be out of your element even in the bar or chamber service. You would have to learn skills taken for granted here.”

  I felt her tremble through the clutched hand as this was being said, all the more so because it was true. A product of a society in which robots did all the basic work and everything from the lights to the music was controlled through machines, she simply had no skills to offer here.

  “Therefore, the most logical occupation for you here would be an agricultural field worker. But we feel that such a radical change to basic menial labor without some intermediate steps might not be best for you; your outworlder status could cause some disruptions among your fellow menials.” Zala looked blankly at him when he said that, but I understood what he meant. Workers are happiest when they don’t know what they’re missing. Zala’s memories and tales of the wonders of the Confederacy, while they lived with no hope of change in the wretched and primitive condition, would foster resentment—and cause all sorts of local disruptions, not to mention perhaps more converts for Korf!.

  “So, Zala Embuay, what shall we do with you?”

  “I—don’t know,” she wailed, so pitifully that neither of us could be completely unmoved by her evident misery and low self-esteem.

  “The best we could come up with, I’m afraid, is a rather outdated concept where you both come from,” Korman continued, sounding cold and businesslike. “With Lacoch’s permission, I’d like to propose you become his wifemistress.”

  She gave something of a gasp and I kind of started myself. “Wifemistress?” I echoed.

  He nodded. “I’m rather embarrassed to bring it up. In effect it’s a sort of chattel slavery. You would be pledged to Lacoch absolutely. You would live with him and be totally dependent on him for your living quarters and provisions. In exchange, you will learn and practice basic skills—cooking, cleaning, mending. Many of the villagers will take you in hand and show you these things. You will also clean and run errands in his office, whatever he requires you to do. And if need be, you may be called upon by any of the Companies or the town for supplementary labor in the harvest or maintenance.”

  She looked startled. “That almost sounds like a service robot.”

  “Something like that,” Korman agreed. “But there are no robots here. Other than as a subject for experimental research, there’s little we can do with you.”

  She started at that “Exper… you mean like some kind of animal?”

  He nodded gravely, then looked over at me. “Would you accept this arrangement?”

  I was in something of a quandary. For anybody but Zala it sounded horrible, dehumanizing, demeaning in the extreme—but what else could she do? “If she’s willing, I’ll go for it,” I told him.

  He shifted his gaze back to her. “Well?”

  “I—I’d like to go with Park, but I don’t know whether I can…”

  Korman grinned, made that magical wave and produced a vial of reddish-colored liquid. He handed it to her. “The oldest sorcerer’s gift in magical history,” he said. “If you decide to go along, both of you go up to your room and when alone, Embuay, drink this. It is pleasant-tasting and won’t hurt a bit, but it’ll make things a lot easier on you.”

  She took the vial and looked at it curiously. “What—what is it?”

  “A potion,” he replied. “As I said, the oldest basic formula. A love potion, the ancients would call it. Just be sure to drink it when the two of you are alone, maybe just before going to sleep.”

  Suddenly, again, that wall of silence and isolation came down and Korman and I were effectively alone.

  “Is that really a love potion?” I asked him.

  He chuckled. “Not to you or me if we drank it. Tastes a little like licorice. But I have prepared her mind for it, and it’ll be quite effective with her because she will believe in it and that will trigger my patterns in the Wardens of her brain.”
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  “Which one?” I couldn’t resist it.

  “Actually, that should be interesting,” he replied, taking no note of the sarcasm. “The emotional centers and hormonal responses are in the animal, not the human part of the brain. Theoretically it should affect her no matter what—I hope. But don’t count on it. If that other brain’s as good as I think, it can probably control and suppress almost any emotional response.” He paused for a moment. “See that she drinks it. And—well, good luck.”

  “I’ll need it,” I assured him, and I sure would. Still, all in all, things had gone better so far than my wildest dreams. If what was going on could be taken at anything close to face value, they suspected someone other than me of being, well, me; and they’d assigned me to keep watch on their mistaken notion. They had practically forced me into the camp of what would seem to be a natural ally-1-Koril—and given me the option of joining a local super-powerful resistance devoted to my own cause or betraying it, giving me entre into the presence of my quarry, Aeolia Matuze, as a trusted confidant. Hell, I couldn’t lose!

  Zala, though, was still and always the unknown factor. The more I analyzed her, the more I began to believe that she couldn’t be what she seemed. Such a weak ego was unthinkable on the civilized worlds.

  Later, back in our room, we sat and talked for a while. It had not been pleasant having her low self-worth so coldly and completely analyzed in the open, even if it was obvious.

  “I want to go with you,” she told me sincerely, “but—people as property! It’s barbaric!” She took out the vial and looked at it oddly.

  “You don’t have to take that,” I assured her. “Just come along.”

  She shook her head slowly, still looking at the vial. “No, I know what would happen. I’d rebel, or go crazy, and wind up worse than I am now. Maybe… maybe this is best for me.”

  “That stuff might not even work,” I noted. “Not only is the idea pretty insane—a love potion—but it seems to me that it’s like everything else on this crazy world—a love potion only if you think it is.”

  “I wonder what he meant by love potion, anyway?” she mused. “As in making love?”

  “No, I don’t think so. It’s an ancient romantic concept. Somehow I doubt that any little bottle is going to revive that.”

  She removed the stopper and sniffed. “Smells like candy.”

  I sighed and relaxed back on the bed. “Look, stop it up for now and let’s get some sleep. Bring it with you it you want. But let’s get some sleep—we’ve got a big day ahead tomorrow.”

  “I—I suppose you’re right. But damn it, Park, I’m scared! Scared of me, scared of that town, scared of… living.” That last was said slowly, strangely, as if only now she was accepting the truth. I watched, curious, as she suddenly pulled the stopper back off and raised the bottle to her Ups… and froze solid. It was odd, as if she’d made the decision, started to drink, and then become petrified in mid-motion. Still, there was movement, of a sort. Her hand, and only her hand and arm that held the vial, trembled, the little vial rising ever so slightly, then falling slightly more, as if it were at war with itself, receiving two totally different sets of commands.

  I rose a bit and watched, fascinated. Two minds, Kor-man had said. Two minds, one central nervous system. Abruptly, the struggle stopped, and, without a word, her body seemed to relax, but her face seemed vacant, expressionless. Wordlessly she stood up, walked over to the basin, and poured out the contents of the vial. Then, after putting the vial on the commode, she turned, returned to her bed, and lay down.

  “Zala? Are you all right?” I asked gently, finally getting up when I had no response and going over to her. She was asleep, breathing regularly and rhythmically.

  I stood there a few moments, just staring. Finally I said, aloud, “Well I’ll be damned,” snuffed out the light, and got into my own bed. I found it hard to sleep. It had started raining again, but the regular sound of the drops hitting the roof hardly bothered me at all.

  What the hell had I just witnessed?

  CHAPTER SIX

  The High Road to Bourget

  In the morning, Zala had no memory of the internal struggle I had witnessed, and she seemed surprised to see the goop still in the basin, practically accusing me of doing the deed.

  “You did it—I watched you,” I assured her. “It’s for the best anyway.”

  She stared at me in disbelief. “I did? You’re not just kidding me?”

  “No, no kidding. Honest.”

  She shook her head for a moment, as it trying to remember. Finally she just sighed and shrugged. “Well, let’s get on with it”

  “At least packing’s easy,” I noted. “I hope they have more clothing at Bourget.”

  We went down to breakfast, a fairly ample one as usual, but Garal, our host for this, our last morning, cautioned a few of us, Zala and I among them, to eat lightly. “You’re gonna have a long trip and traveling isn’t very smooth around here.”

  Both of us took his advice. I was never much of a breakfast eater anyway, but I put away several cups of cafe, a very good hot caffeine drink, and a sweet roll.

  When we were finished, Garal stood at the head of the table. “We will be going out individually or in small groups as transportation is available,” he announced. “The rain has stopped, which means that some of you will be flying, which is a good thing. Overland to some of your villages might take days.”

  “Flying?” I couldn’t resist” voicing the surprise that everyone felt “I thought there were few machines here.”

  “Well, we use the shuttle, for extremely long hauls—like intercontinental ones—but we have other means here as well,” Garal responded enigmatically. “Just hold on. You’ll find out soon enough.”

  He reached down and checked his clipboard. “All right—take nothing with you except the clothes on your back. You’ll get everything you need when you get where you’re going.” He looked around at all of us and smiled a little evilly. “So far you’ve had it soft and easy. Now you’re going out into the real world there, and it’s gonna be a shock, I promise you. Keep your noses clean, take the advice of any locals, and take it real easy until you get the lay of the land, I warn you. That sounds like the usual advice, but it goes double here. Just remember that scrawny kid you knock down might be an apt who’ll get a little irritated and wrench your guts around or at the very least cast a spell on you. And don’t stare at the changelings! Just remember that anybody who happens to look funny or different got that way for a reason and the same thing could happen to you.”

  This last meant little to us at the time.

  As the morning wore on, official-looking men and women came by and called out a name, sometimes two, and out they’d go. We were not the last to be called, but in the bottom half, which made me start to regret how lightly I’d eaten.

  Our initial transport was a small enclosed buggy pulled by a single toothy uhar. It wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the coach—very basic board and putty insulation—and we could feel every little bump in the very bumpy road. The uhar carts, no matter how fancy or plain, would take some getting used to; the big lizard’s gait tilted you first to one side, then to the other, rather quickly, while seeming to draw you forward in tiny and continuous fits and starts.

  We quickly cleared the town, then took a branch road to the north. Zala and I said very little during the journey, for there was very little to say except to voice the anxiety we both felt. With her ego it was really bad; at least I not only had a full reservoir of self-confidence, but knew in what direction the future was leading. Never had two more dissimilar people started out on an epic journey together, I reflected.

  We had broken through the rain forest to a vast clearing when Zala looked out her window and gasped. Frowning, I leaned over and looked out at what she was seeing—and did a little gasping myself.

  I saw a great, sleek, jet-black body topped by a head that looked like an enormous black triangle, with an enormous hornlik
e bony plate going back from the top of that weird head to almost halfway down the body. The head itself seemed to consist of an enormous beak and a pair of huge, round eyes that appeared to be lidless. But the real stunning part of the creature was its wings, which were barely folded and ran almost the length of the body. The wings were supported, somehow, by an apparatus and guy-wires. The thing appeared to be eating something enormous and bloody, gulping it down easily. As our buggy pulled to a stop and two people ran to get the door for us, I heard an enormous belch.

  We both jumped out of the buggy and stood there, transfixed by the sight. A young woman dressed in tight, leathery black clothes and boots approached, joined us, then turned and looked back at the beast. “Magnificent, isn’t she?” the newcomer enthused.

  “That’s one word for it,” I responded. “What the hell is it?”

  “They have a long scientific name, but we generally call ’em soarers around Charon. They’re very rarely found on the ground, because it’s so hard to get them alott again. They live up above the clouds around most of the planet, just floating there above the clouds and using surprisingly little energy.”

  “Is the beast down here for the reason I think it’s down here?” Zala managed nervously.

  The woman laughed. “Oh, yes. We use the soarers for transportation. They’re very useful, although only certain areas have enough clearing, wind, and elevation to get them alott again. They’re quite friendly and intelligent, if they’re raised from eggs.”