Ben Soul

by Richard George

do you want me to carry?”

  “Llamas.”

  “Odd. How many?”

  “Six or seven.”

  “I will research the waters in the cove. Many of the small inlets along this coast undergo significant changes in depth over the years. Without regular dredging by either machine or streams with a strong current, they frequently silt up. My Half Shell is shallow draft, but I must be careful. When did you want to ship your llamas?”

  “As soon as may be. We’d have to load them near the Zoo. Are there docking facilities near there?”

  “Yes, at the foot of Windflower Way, though using them will require some expense.”

  “I don’t think I can parade llamas through the heart of the City to this dock. The Windflower Way dock will be better. It is, I take it, not too far from the Zoo?”

  “About a mile, all downhill. Leave it to me to make arrangements, if my boat can enter the Cove. My research will take some hours. How may I contact you?”

  “Call Rosa Krushan. She says you have her number. I’m available at the same number.”

  “You’re that missionary lady, aren’t you?”

  “I have been. Thanks to the City Development Department, I’m out of that business.”

  “I’ll contact Rosa later tonight with the results of my research.”

  “Thank you. I will wait for your call.” Captain Locke turned abruptly and went into her cabin. She closed the door. The daisy wreath quivered in a passing breeze, and stilled. La Señora smiled grimly to herself. An abrupt woman, for all the elegance of her manner and dress. La Señora left the dock and started the walk up the steep hills to her soon-to-be-razed mission.

  Captain Locke allowed her eyes to adjust to the dimness in her cabin. Despite the lace curtains, its tiny space was sparsely furnished. She had a chair at a small table with a tiny two-burner portable stove on it. This sat under one window. A case containing charts occupied the wall under the other window. On the wall with no windows, a bunk rested on a row of latched cabinets. Over the bunk another row of latched cabinets ran.

  Captain Locke carefully unlatched the pearls from her neck. She put them in a case she took from a cabinet over the bunk. The suit and blouse she hung in the tiny closet at the end of the bunk. Her nylons and pumps went into a drawer at the bottom of that closet. She extracted jeans and a sweatshirt from another cabinet, this one under the bunk. These she drew on. For the time being, she left her boots and socks on the floor and lay flat on the bunk. She closed her eyes and began to chant softly in a dialect known only to her. Bit by bit she slipped into a trance, and her chanting slowed to a stop.

  She linked with the Codfather.

  Water moved past in all its myriad flavors. Squid had been here; now they nourished the Codfather. Shadow and light chased each other across the rocky seabed. From a thousand tiny sensors in its skin, the Codfather knew how far above the surface roiled with waves. The Codfather was dreaming of spraying its milt over eggs. It was a favorite dream of the fish.

  Its long body and flat, ugly head jerked as Anna Locke linked with it. Her body jerked in unison. “Welcome,” it communicated to her. “The squid have been plentiful.”

  “May it always be so,” she communicated back to him. “I, too, have eaten well,” she thought at him, sending pictures of vegetables to him. Even though he was, like all his kind, predatory on other fish, including, on occasion, other fish of his own species, she had never dared offend him by suggesting that she ate fish.

  “What do you require, daughter of the waterless world?”

  “One of my kind would have me carry goods for her into San Danson Cove. I do not know the bottom there. Is the channel deep enough for my boat to enter?” The ideation rendered here as a coherent sentence some mystic process translated into piscine images for the Codfather. He had no real concept of boats, or cargo, or cooperation, or providing services. Anna did not understand the mechanics of translation that made the link work. She didn’t care to understand it. She only cared that getting the information about the coastal seabed she needed was possible by this means.

  The Codfather withdrew partially from its link with Anna. Anna thought of this part of the process as being on hold while the Codfather searched its data banks. By some process beyond her comprehension, the Codfather gathered information about the depth of San Danson cove, and the channel leading into the cove between Obaheah and Obadiah. Martyr’s Creek had cut away the seabed in a broad curve that allowed entry from the north side of the cove. From there Anna would have to guide the Half Shell in a broad sweep by the south shore of the cove to a dilapidated wharf near the mouth of the creek. She reviewed the route twice with the Codfather, beamed her thanks to it, and withdrew from the link. Slowly she exited her trance, got up, and went ashore to telephone La Señora.

  Llamas on the Half Shell

  Jack Hoff, director of the City Zoo, glared at the small, determined woman in front of him. She did not wilt, as even the most recalcitrant of lions in the Zoo might have done before his glare. Her glare overmatched his. Her black garb, very like a nun’s habit, further agitated him. He remembered with bitterness a series of Sisters Mary Margaret armed with finger-snapping rulers from his childhood. This woman’s defiance caused his upper lip to quiver with fury. This set his walrus moustache shaking as though a great wind blew through it. He was, after all, no longer a schoolboy to be intimidated by some wimpled crone.

  “Mr. Hoff,” she said in a voice brittle with anger, “I will take my llamas from this Zoo. You will not stand in my way.” She stood upright, holding her black umbrella at an angle that almost, but not quite, threatened Mr. Hoff with attack. His anger incarnadined his jowls. They began to quiver in counterpoint to his moustache. His beefy frame puffed up rather like those Australian fringed lizards that frighten away their rivals with a great display.

  “Ms. Mandor,” he said, his voice also tight with anger, “I have no record that any of the Zoo specimens is your property.” He ran the thick fingers of his right hand through his thinning gray hair. Perspiration beaded his brow.

  “Search your files,” she said. “I allowed my llamas to enter your Zoo in 1954, August 10th, with the specific proviso that I could remove them from your care at any time I chose. I have given you a copy of the agreement signed by your predecessor, Dewey Little.”

  “None of the llamas out there is old enough to be from 1954. Llamas don’t live that long.”

  “The agreement specifically states that my llamas, and all their progeny, are to return to me at my demand.”

  “Ms. Mandor, you may leave now, under your own power, or I will call Security.”

  “I will have my llamas,” she said. Jack Hoff started to rise from his chair. La Señora froze him in a half crouch with her gaze. “You will not thwart me,” she said. Then she turned and left his office with her umbrella over her shoulder.

  Outside the Director’s office Willy, Rosa, Elke, and Dickon waited for her in the shelter of the bus stop. A light rain was still falling.

  “What did the Director say?” Elke asked her.

  “He refused to release my llamas,” she said.

  “We do it tonight, then,” Willy said. Glee brightened his young face.

  “Yes,” La Señora said, and sighed. “We shall liberate them. Do you have a hiding place picked out, Willy?”

  “Yes, Señora,” he said. “By the elephants. Some ferns and bushes make a nice cave. Little rain like this can’t get in there.”

  “I’ve made you a sandwich,” Rosa said, withdrawing a brown bag from her capacious reticule. “I’ve put a banana in, as well.” Willy wrinkled up his nose. “I know you’d rather have an apple or a pear, but bananas are all I had today.” Willy sighed. She rubbed his head, a gesture he shrugged off. Rosa loved to mother him, and, like many boys, he found it embarrassing to endure affection in public. “I’ll fix you a proper meal when we’re through,�
�� she said. He brightened at that.

  “We’d best go now,” Dickon said. “Good luck, Willy. We’ll be back tonight.” Willy nodded, stopped by the elephant paddock, and, when no one was looking, plunged into a small opening in a clump of ferns and bushes. He made his passage so carefully that very few raindrops shook loose from the leaves of his hideaway. The others proceeded to the gate, discussing possible legal remedies against Jack Hoff and the City Zoo. The ticket taker watched them go with sleep in her eyes and hope of a hearty lunch in her heart.

  Willy passed the tedious waiting hours with mind games he had invented when he was still a chained child in his dark past. Night fell, and later the moon rose. When the slivered moon was at its zenith, Willy crept from his clump of bushes. Keeping to the copious shadows, he made his way as stealthily as he could to the main gate. Willy soon had the gate locks undone and the chains noiselessly dropped. Then he opened them just enough to let La Señora, Rosa, Elke, and Dickon in.

  “This way,” he whispered, and led them by dark paths to the llama pens. He scaled the fence, and picked the lock to open their gate. The party crept in, bridles in hand, and, with the telepathic help of the unicorn with the unique horn in its llama disguise, they haltered the llamas that belonged to La Señora Mandor. There were eight of them, five females (two obviously with crías on the way), two