It was the driest of seasons, and therefore the most dangerous. Some packs had only mudholes now, with the prospect of four weeks or more until the melt started. So it was a time of desperation. Particularly during this period, all were loaded into Pack Guard Units except those in the water village that were needed for essential services. Expecting a last-ditch attack at any moment, they patrolled in a circle around the oasis that was the key to their power.
It was hot as hell in the Pack Guard Unit, although some relief from massive fans was possible. Ti-gan's pack had once managed to trade for some precious freon produced across the waters-that-cannot-be-drunk, so steam-powered air conditioning cooled the upper tiers. The effect was almost self-defeating, though; so many bodies gathered in the cooler areas that their natural body heat was overcoming the advantages.
Ti-gan preferred the outside, the steady wind and occasional cool breeze from the far-off mountains. None of the Mucrolians, as much as they felt the heat and discomfort, considered the conditions intolerable. They had been born in this environment and perceived it as one of life's normal burdens. Flies buzzed around him, and he idly swatted at them, not really caring what they did nor even blaming them. It was a hard country, and all life had an equal right to struggle.
He leaned over, blew into a speaking tube, and was rewarded when a little mechanical gauge near him twitched and rang a bell, informing him that someone was still able to move in the engine room.
"Cut to idle, all stop," Ti-gan commanded, and the PGU ground to a halt. There was still vibration and some engine noise, of course, but not nearly the roar there had been. He didn't know why he'd ordered the halt; just a sense developed in him after long years of experience. Something not quite right, something he had to check out. He reached over and picked up his field glasses.
Although his race was almost color-blind, seeing everything in a nearly completely faded set of textures often allowed better visual discrimination than did true color sense. His eyes were extremely sharp and the field glasses made them almost phenomenal. He surveyed the hills to his right, looking for he knew not what.
He was almost ready to admit to himself that he was simply jumpy or getting too old when he noticed movement—very slight, almost lost among the shades of almost-gray among the low hills to his right.
Two figures, going fairly slowly. He adjusted the focus to try to see what they were, but they were just too far off. Nothing familiar, that was for sure. Not scouts from an attacking PGU, but not desert animals, either.
"Left nine degrees and full speed," he called into the speaking tube. The PGU roared to life, hissing and moaning, and by the application of power to only one side at first, it waddled off. "Full speed" wasn't all that fast, but it would do.
At first the two figures seemed unsure when they heard the sounds, then they tried to hide in a small wash. Ti-gan nodded to himself in satisfaction; they were making pursuit too easy.
"Give me a five-man squad, pistols, and nets."
There was a lot of sound and movement inside the PGU, and within a minute the squad was on the third tier, ready. He nodded to them and gestured in the direction of the two strange objects.
"Two of them, some kind of animal, not anything I know," he shouted to the squad leader. "Try and take them alive if you can. I want to see just what the devil we've got there."
They strained but could see nothing. Finally Ti-gan shouted, "Get up on the jump platform. I'll give 'em a panic flare that'll start 'em running!"
They climbed to the second tier to a flat area of metal flush with the armored sides. They waited, more excited than tense. They rather welcomed this little break in the tedium of the slow roast below.
Ti-gan loaded a pinpoint flare, attached a high-compression gas cylinder, and, using the rail as a brace, fired where he knew the two mystery creatures to be hiding. He didn't care if he hit them, but he hardly expected to; at this range a flash and bang within ten or fifteen meters would be sheer luck.
The flare struck the gully wall and exploded with a roar that rolled across the flats. And it did the trick. Two creatures suddenly darted from the shadows at a pretty good clip.
The squad saw them. "Jump and run!" yelled the leader, and they were off, their small bodies showing incredible speed. The Mucrolians could sprint to almost sixty kilometers per hour.
The PGU slowed to a crawl and a number of people came out on deck to watch the chase. This was against procedure, but Ti-gan didn't have the heart to shove them back into those conditions, not for the length of time he anticipated the hunt would last. It would be time for a break soon, anyway.
The squad fanned out, forcing the fugitive animals first this way, then that. Although the quarry were fast, the squad was faster, and they also seemed able almost to change direction in midleap. They toyed with the animals for a bit, then two suddenly rushed them. As if from nowhere a spring-loaded net expanded over the animals and into the hands of a squad member, who grabbed it and did a back flip, bringing the net down with a twist that caught the animals perfectly. They were struggling, but the net was designed to hold tougher beasts than they.
The squad closed in, taking up the slack in the net as they did, and were now standing around the no longer struggling captives.
"They're pigs!" one exclaimed. "Giant pigs!" There were pigs of a sort in Mucrol, but they were much smaller and had no hair at all.
The squad leader was puzzled. "They are and they aren't. Some kind of relatives, I'd guess. Not from Mucrol, that's for sure. Wonder how they wound up here?"
"Wonder if they taste like our pigs?" another mused hungrily.
"Maybe we'll find out," the squad leader replied. "You know the squad gets the first share of a catch. Looks like a male and a female, though. Might pay to breed 'em if they're that big and if they do taste like ours." He shrugged and sighed. "Not ours to say. Pack 'em up and take 'em into the Springs."
Still in the netting, they were professionally trussed and loaded on a small round platform. Guide bars were erected, and the squad squirmed into small harnesses, then wheeled the cart across the desert toward some distant trees.
The Springs proved to be a settlement of multi-tiered buildings like red adobe variations of the PGU spaced around a marketplace with a small pool of muddy-looking water in the center, flanked by a palisade of palm trees.
The two captives were taken to the livestock pens in the marketplace and penned in a large wire cage. When removing the net, two of the Mucrolians discovered that to touch the creatures' long coat was to be stuck deeply and painfully. One had to be restrained by his fellows from killing the pigs on the spot. Finally, a small padlock secured the cage, and the squad members left; two went to the first-aid station, the others back to the PGU. They were in no hurry, and stopped for a drink before returning to duty in what was generally referred to as the "hothouse."
Mavra Chang erupted with every curse she had ever learned in her life. These were considerable in number, but all were issued in a long series of grunts and squeals that conveyed to the uninitiated only the emotion, not the sense, of her words.
Joshi let her rant and rave. He felt just as disgusted, but it was too damned hot to let off emotional steam. He simply stayed out of her way until she was through.
* * *
After she'd calmed down and was panting from heat and exertion, Mavra took stock of their situation. The cage was firmly bolted to the wooden floor but was out in the open; fine steel mesh surrounded them, floor and top as well as sides, and the only opening was the door on slightly worn but still durable steel hinges.
After a while she and Joshi tested the padlock, trying to ram it or butt it with head, rump, whatever they could. Their attempts shook the cage and made a lot of noise but accomplished little else except to give them both headaches and pains in the rear end.
"Face it," Joshi grunted. "We're stuck."
She knew he was right, but she refused to accept it. Not after all this time, not this close, not
with the mountains that led into Gedemondas only a few dozen kilometers away. It couldn't end with her locked in a cage, finally to wind up as an experimental pork chop when it became clear to these people that there would be no breeding.
"Maybe we can work out a way to talk to them," Joshi suggested. "After all, we did it with those on the ship."
"With what?" she responded. "No pencil, no paper—and nobody here who could read what I wrote, anyway. Not even dirt to scratch out a symbol for them. But don't give up yet. Something will happen to give us a break." She tried to console him.
He wasn't convinced, and, truthfully, neither was she. The only trouble was, everything suggested they had pushed their luck once too far. Always in her colorful past when she'd gotten into hopeless situations something had miraculously happened to get her out. Even when she'd crashed on this world so many years ago by flying too low over a nontech hex, something had happened. She'd had Renard and Nikki Zinder with her, both sinking fast on sponge, their minds rotting before her eyes. Then, captured by Teliagin cyclopes who chewed on sheep and placed in a prison just as secure as their current cage—and with the same fate awaiting them—she'd been rescued by the Lata.
It had always been that way. Trapped on New Pompeii, she'd been given what she needed by the computer, Obie, to get her out—the complete schematics of the private little world in her head, still there somewhere. Obie also gave her the necessary codes to bypass Trelig's system of roving robot killer satellites.
All her life . . . When her native world had gone Com, that mysterious freighter captain smuggled her out, and Maki Chang took her to grow up in space. Kindly beggars had taken her in and helped her along when Maki was picked up. Gimball Nysongi took her out of the whorehouse in the spaceport dives of Kaliva and gave her a ship, the stars, skills, and a measure of happiness when all had seemed so hopeless. Then, even after Gimball was killed, and she'd continued on her grand thefts of the Com, there was always something whenever things became impossible, lucky breaks that kept her from ever being caught or convicted of anything. Always something.
She had again and again gotten away. She had come to expect it, waited for the improbable to happen, the nick-of-time hair's-breadth escape—even though, back in the darkest recesses of her mind, she knew that one day it wouldn't happen.
But this wasn't the day, she told herself, making herself believe it. She couldn't believe it.
However, she admitted ruefully, whatever was to save her would have to come from outside unless some better opportunity presented itself here. For now, she could only lie down and seek respite from the dry heat in sleep.
* * *
The sun was setting. In a few more minutes the long shadows would overtake the PGU as it steamed and lurched around the oasis-town and plunge the area into darkness. Already kerosene lanterns had been lit in the streets of the little town, visible as dull glows from the PGU watchtowers. There was little added risk from them. Any enemy would know where the town was by the smell of water. They would also know the general whereabouts of the PGU by its hissing, clanking, and belching; but there was no purpose in offering an extra bull's-eye for any eager cannoneers. The thing stayed dark.
Mor-ti had replaced Ti-gan on the con; she had much better night vision, although far less distance perception, than he, and so was better suited to the conditions. There was less threat at night, oddly enough. As Mucrolian night vision was so poor, an attacker would be approaching over unfamiliar terrain heavily guarded by the defenders. Though such an attack had been known to happen, the PGU relaxed a little; most of the people had been allowed to visit the water hole, leaving only the night guard aboard.
Again that sixth sense that marked the best lookouts came into play. Mor-ti couldn't put her finger on it, but there had been some sort of discord in the gathering gloom, and she signaled the engine room to slow.
A breeze was blowing from the west, off the distant sea. It was a bit stronger than the average sea breeze that cooled the length of the coastal plain at dusk, throwing the cloud of smoke from the stack almost at right angles to the stack lip.
Her ears strained to hear through the rumble of the idling engines and the hissing of the boilers. Something was out there, something both odd and wrong.
She blew into the speaking tube and got a response. "Two scouts up top," she ordered. "Something funny here. Keep pressure up. We may—"
Before she could complete the statement there was a series of reports to her right, quickly followed by a series of whistling roars all around the PGU.
"All crews to action!" she screamed into the tube. "We are under attack! Let's gun it! Zigzag pattern!"
The PGU roared to life and began a series of defensive course changes; Mor-ti pulled armored shielding around her spotter's perch and peered out from eyeslits.
More reports, and more explosions, closer now, all around them. Little bits of metal went ping, ping, ping as shrapnel bit at the steel flanks of the PGU. All around the huge steam tank the ground was erupting in explosive columns of heat and light.
Observers forward and aft tried to spot the flashes from the attacking PGU, for that was what it had to be. A spiked cannonball struck the PGU and detonated, causing tremendous concussion and vibration. The defenders screamed in rage and frustration.
"Hard right and scatter-shot!" Mor-ti commanded. "Let's see if we can smoke them out."
Ports fell with a clang from one side of the PGU, and as the vehicle turned sharply a series of cannon reports shook it again, this time the result of an outgoing volley of eight shots into the deepening night. They landed in a wide group and went off with a roar, their phosphor-gels load lighting up the countryside.
Mor-ti thought she spotted the enemy juggernaut in the dying light of the flare shells. She gambled on this and aimed her PGU where she felt the enemy was. The angle of fire showed her to be right; the new volley passed directly over her craft and struck a hundred meters to the rear.
Suddenly the enemy commander realized that he was being charged; he turned his black-painted craft and raised a nasty, sharp device on the front that looked much like a great can opener.
The defender was bearing down at full speed, which meant that he would need a good quarter-kilometer to turn fully, so the attacker slowed almost to a crawl and waited, his guns suddenly silent.
As the defender approached, it passed just to the right of the attacking armored craft. Suddenly, the attack commander screamed "Full ahead and hold!" into his speaking tube, and his PGU lurched forward with a roar.
The timing was almost perfect. The attacker struck the side of the defending PGU, not quite midships as he'd hoped but a bit behind, the great sharp corundum blade on the front ramming into the rushing defender.
The steam vents of the stricken PGU screamed as if living things; a boiler had been struck and Mor-ti's wounded craft jumped, then lurched slowly into the darkness. The attacker yelled "Feed kerosene!" into his speaking tube as his PGU lumbered immediately behind the slowed defender.
The enemy commander tried to keep pointing forward at the tear in the other's armor, angling for a good flamethrower shot.
The technique was tricky; the pressure in the flamethrower tube could not be held indefinitely, the PGU itself would have to do the aiming, and once the kerosene was ignited it would make them a perfect target.
The commander decided. "Ignite now!" he shouted. A small figure forward struck something against the side of the PGU and a glowing ember was suddenly thrust forward. The fuse was a target at which the defenders could fire, and they did. But the attacker ignited a stream of pressurized kerosene, and it passed through the torch and caught fire.
Suddenly a long, pencil-thin line of fire licked at the defender's gun ports, leaving a burning ichor as it crept toward the breech in the armor. It had to be done fast, for there was only so much kerosene, but the attack commander maneuvered against Mor-ti's equal driving skill to direct the jet of hot liquid fire into the gap.
Fin
ally he could hear screams from inside the wounded PGU as the kerosene found the mark and the fire spread. Almost immediately the engine room, with its vulnerable rubber hosing and wooden superstructure, was engulfed, and the defending PGU ground to a halt, its boilermen unable to contain the flames and maintain boiler pressure simultaneously.
Sensing victory, the attacker rammed the now idle PGU and kept moving, its engines straining against the bulk of the disabled fighting machine. Slowly, with an agonizing metallic groan, the defending PGU was pushed upward, then over, falling on its back with a crashing roar.
The black attacker reversed. Already its infantry troops were off-loading from hatches in the rear and making for the town in the distance.
The defenders hadn't been idle. When the boiler room was evacuated, troops in the overturned PGU had scattered into the darkness, while others in the town fanned out. Kerosene lanterns winked out all over, leaving only a total darkness and the stars overhead.
Fighting erupted almost immediately, the skirmishers alone harassing the enemy troops until fixed cannon within the town suddenly roared to life.
The PGU turned and roared toward the flashes, then put its broadside to the town and fired.
Flashes from incoming and outgoing fire fitfully illuminated the scene, silhouetting hundreds of small, dark figures as they moved about.
Within the town the attacking PGU's fire rained down in deadly fashion. The bombardment knocked gaping holes in the adobe pueblos, and people began running to and fro, yelling and screaming.
Mavra and Joshi huddled in their cage, he with fear and she with frustrated rage.
Somebody ran into the square near them. "Scatter the livestock!" he commanded. "Defile the water hole! Out! Out!" he screamed.
Quest for the Well of Souls Page 14
