When The Changewinds Blow

by Jack L. Chalker

Sam sighed. "Yeah, and so we take in eight grand and we spend three on expenses. That makes it two months. But in two months we owe two more grand in rent. Three months. My demon will have shit fits by then, and so will I."

  More delay is unacceptable, the demon agreed. Money or not, you have enough to start. I will give you thirty days to do so. Every day you are in Tubikosa beyond that you will gain another kilogram. With your height, weight, and frame, another thirty kilograms and you will be unable to walk or get up on your awn.

  She was close to tears. "But, damn it, we don't have enough! Besides, it's counterproductive. What does it gain you if Boday has to pull me in a rickshaw or whatever-if she could? Besides, I bet I eat fifty sarkis a day worth. That adds to the cost."

  You eat whatever would otherwise be spoilage, but your weight will be maintained if you eat relatively normally. I will suppress hunger until necessary. You are giving up again. Giving up before you even try.

  Sam tried to repeat the conversation but gave up and just broke down and sobbed. "I'm so miserable!" she cried. "I'd kill myself if they'd let me!"

  Charley sat back and thought. Finally she said, "Look, we can probably scrounge up enough stuff by liquidating the new place's furnishings and what has value here. And we can't afford to be fussy about this navigator and these Pilots. We take what we can get for the money, that's all. Calm down and ask Boday what ways we can do this on the cheap."

  The artist thought it over. "The old price was for our own navigator and secure Pilots. If we just sign on with someone else's trip and take it as far as it is going, then found another and so on, and were not fussy about the company or the accommodations, it would be much cheaper."

  "I understood her," Charley said, quieting Sam's translation. "I'm getting pretty good at it. Can't speak it worth a damn, though, except some single words and the Short Speech. I just play mute and communicate real fine. Okay, that's a lot, and we got your demon jewel to help out, too. If it's the one in the all-fired hurry, it should be ready and willing to help pull the weight. So will we, wherever we can. And if we get stuck and broke real close to the goal line, then we can find some kind of work or other. Hell, Boday's an alchemist and you could stomp grapes if you had to, and as for me, I kind'a think that if we're in human territory my special skills are universal. Maybe old Boolean will get antsy and break his tails and come get us or send help if he really wants you, particularly if we get close and no cigar. Cheer up. We may still be on the wanted list but ain't nobody gonna finger us as the ones, and after this long they probably wrote us off."

  Sam stared at her. "Yon make it sound so easy."

  "No. It's gonna be hard and nasty and probably real unpleasant, but if it wasn't possible Boolean wouldn't'a stuck you with that demon. Too bad we can't afford to go to that university, though. I bet they could figure out a thing or two and tell us what all this is about, too. I figure I just been to graduate school. I think maybe I want to see a little bit of this world and what's out there."

  Sam sighed. "You're not only beautiful, you got the guts I wish I had and the brains to use 'em. God, I feel miserable."

  "Hey! I'm scared shitless by this. That apartment-that was safe after one hell of a series of scares nobody should have to go through. But I grew up a whole lot this past year and I know you can't keep hiding and feeling miserable for yourself an the time and do anything worthwhile." She looked at both of mem. "Three women against a whole world. One fat broad, one lovesick painted loony, and one high-class call girl. It's the stuff of which legends are born. But, first things first. I looked at the material and at Boday's sewing stuff and I got an idea that'll help you a whole lot. I think it's about time somebody in this shitty burg invented the bra."

  Boday was actually thunderstruck by the design and the concept. She was built so she'd never need one, and Charley had been designed never to need one, but it wasn't just Sam who did. Charley managed the basic sketch and, with gestures, pretty much described the thing and how it worked. It took some help from Sam, but once Boday got the idea her designer's mind was off in a tear. The first few tries didn't really work-not stiff enough, not enough support stitching- but after a while she got it. It wasn't Playtex or Maidenform, but it worked, relieving a lot of back stress and balance difficulties and revealing inevitable irritating chafing under Sam's pair.

  Boday worked like she, too, had a demon pushing her, and after she explained they didn't stop her.

  "But, darlings, don't you see? This is revolutionary! Think of the market for this in large women in Tubikosa alone! Tomorrow Sam and Boday go back into the shopping district again. She needs more stuff anyway. Only she wears this and we take these design sketches and patterns. We show these to the wear-at-home bosses and bluff that we have applied for a Royal Patent. If we can find one run by a big-breasted woman we are home free. Even if it is a man, he will buy it-if only to make certain his competitors do not. Strictly cash."

  Sam was open-mouthed at that. Finally she asked, "What could we get for it, do you think? Five hundred?"

  Boday laughed. "Boday intends to ask for ten thousand and perhaps get argued down to five or six."

  "But-these courtesans are only going for a thousand! You mean the idea for a bra is worth more than human beings?"

  Boday smiled. "Girls are cheap and in good supply. Original ideas that fit a need are very rare. They will be robbing us blind at the price!"

  "Wow!" said Charley. "I wonder what they'd pay for tampons?"

  9

  The Long Road to Boolean

  Ideas turned our to be worth a fair amount at that. Because they insisted on cash or convertibles, they had to take a beating, but they still got more than five thousand sarkis for the bra idea even though it was hard bargaining and Sam for one didn't think anybody was really interested. They got a fair amount of material thrown in, including some nice, stiff, reinforced stuff and heavy-duty threads, and with that Boday, using her strange kind of manual sewing machine and with Charley's help, was able to come up with several pairs that would help Sam.

  Sam had never paid a lot of attention to her clothes, even back home, but Charley, it appeared, was something of a would-be designer, although she had to defer in the end to Boday both to make proper patterns and to put them together correctly. The fact was, those super-long glamor nails made much that required manual dexterity not all that practical. That was okay, but it was hard to convince the artist to leave out her own outrageous embellishments.

  What they came up with, over a period of a couple of weeks, was an ensemble of clothing not just for Sam but for them as well, since much of what could be gotten off the rack in Tubikosa was pretty dull stuff. The buyer of the bra idea even offered to loan them a couple of seamstresses at low cost and gave them some access to the small sewing sweatshop, an offer they accepted in spite of the fact that they knew the real motive of the generosity was probably to steal designs and ideas for nothing. That was all right with Charley; she thought this place could use a little flair.

  They concentrated most on stretch fabrics that would protect but would breathe. The lack of the invention of the zipper hampered them somewhat, but since neither Sam nor Charley, when they thought about it, understood just how a zipper worked well enough to show how to make it, they forgot about it and concentrated on more solid fasteners. With this they were able to make Sam a series of fitted outfits that gave when she did but didn't pinch. Boday's talents were prodigious when doing a fitting; they had the look of one-piece outfits that exactly clung to the contours of the body. That was of little comfort to Sam, whose body definitely didn't need the clingy approach, but it was comfortable, it worked, and, somehow, dressed all in a black or brown outfit, it looked at least reasonable. Charley wasn't satisfied, though, and came up with the idea of a Mexican serape-basically a cape-like garment with a hole in the center through which you poked your head. The effect was about as good as you could do with Sam's figure.

  Charley was delighted to find that there was an
equivalent of jeans here, but, of course, it was men only. It was asking too much even for the seamstresses to come up with custom jeans, but she found some boys' pairs that she was able to have shaped and modified. Those, some tops made out of the same sort of clingy material they'd used for Sam only in brighter colors, and a couple of body suits of the same material for her and she felt she was ready for the trip, too. Nothing she made for herself left much to the imagination of an onlooker, though.

  Boday went with her custom leather outfits and long capes. With those on her long, lanky, six-foot-two-inch frame and in the high-topped leather boots with the thick high heels she looked, well, imposing. Charley learned not to be too flip around her, though. When she remarked that all Boday needed was a leather whip, Boday produced one.

  The busy whirl of getting ready to go helped Sam somewhat, but not completely. She was still depressed, particularly about herself, and she had such ambivalent feelings around Charley she felt pulled this way and that. On the one hand, she needed Charley badly to see her through all this. Her old friend's take-charge attitude and confident, sympathetic ways were essential. But Charley had changed. She was no longer the schoolgirl chum; she was suddenly wise, mature, very adult, very strong. Sam still felt very much a kid. Charley was beautiful and sexy without even having to work at it much. Sam felt ugly, clumsy, and she had to work at it constantly just to keep doing things. The fact that her looks and weight were not the result of any magic spells or evil potions but were largely self-inflicted didn't help matters a bit.

  To top it all off, Charley was a whole lot smarter than she was. It hadn't been obvious when they were just pals together, but Sam had been working at high capacity and Charley had her brains in coast. Now she had learned a language, pretty much on her own, that even Zenchur had said you almost had to be born with to speak. That might have been true to speak it, but Charley rarely needed help in translations to understand what was being said now. The plain fact was she was smart, and no magic spell made her that way. Back in junior high, when Sam was trying to get into a special course she really wanted, one of the guidance counselors had looked at her record with her mom there and all and said, "I'm afraid that course load just might be too much for her. I know she reads all right and her grades are good, but she's at her maximum capacity now and it wouldn't be good to frustrate her when she's doing so well. Her IQ is a hundred and she's doing exceptional for all that where she is. Don't be upset-it's average, just not exceptional." And she'd looked it up and discovered that "average" was a hundred to a hundred and ten, so she was just barely average. And she'd just sorta quit after that, because what was the use of knocking yourself out when you were damned stupid? And what the hell did straight Bs mean if it was in a class of stupid kids?

  She didn't feel stupid, but maybe stupid people didn't feel stupid. So what was the use of trying? Mom was a lawyer and Dad was a contractor, but maybe she just didn't get the brain part. Charley had seemed a kindred spirit at a time when her folks had split and she'd moved. Hell, they'd liked the same things and really hit it off. But now she realized she never really knew Charley. Maybe Charley hadn't really known Charley, but she sure as hell wasn't "barely average."

  She loved and needed Charley, but it was impossible not to hate somebody like that, too.

  And she'd been afraid Charley would hate her!

  At first, Sam was pretty self-conscious when going out. She wondered what the warehouse people would think when they saw a girl instead of the guy but nobody seemed to bat an eyelash. Sex changes weren't exactly the rule in Tubikosa, but these guys had been around the place so long they just weren't surprised by anything that came out of Boday's place.

  On the street, even dressed in the conventional, "respectable" ways, she felt everybody would be staring at her, that they'd be thinking "Look at the tub of lard," but the fact was nobody gave her much notice and people she had to deal with treated her as a normal person. After a while the worries simply faded. It was true that no guys were whistling her way or putting the make on her but they never had before, either. Her self-consciousness vanished quickly and she felt much better. In fact, with that out of the way, it was a relief. No more play-acting; just be what you were and the hell with it. Somehow, some of the tension she'd lived under since running away to the mall seemed to vanish with that acceptance.

  Arranging for transport was done through halls of the Royal Guilds, no matter what your class or status. Instead of trying to hire a navigator for a special trip, though, they looked over the list of trips to see who was going where. Even though Sari couldn't read the lists, she knew each squiggle beside a number squiggle was a trip and there were hundreds. Boday could read them but they didn't help much. Nobody was going all the way through to Masalur and most of the destinations meant little. Boday was a native of lubikosa; her odd accent was mostly put on while she studied at the university and just stuck, and that trip had been her only one outside her homeland. Maps appeared useless on Akahlar; they had to see a Guild dispatcher.

  It was decided that they wouldn't ask for a direct trip to Masalur; the odds were if Boolean were really dangerous to this enemy, whoever and whatever it was, they'd be specially interested in anybody out of the ordinary who booked to there. It made more sense to book to Covanti, the halfway point more or less, and then take stock from there. The university was out of the question; they were now reasonably flush but not that flush, and they had wasted too much time. The demon was uncharacteristically neutral on that, but Sam wanted this over with and the distance was still huge.

  Although class and social rules meant nothing to navigators, who'd seen and done it all and disdained most local customs, Sam found it fascinating that even the dispatcher basically addressed her as the leader or spokeswoman. Perhaps it was because she was wearing one of those stock sack dresses and a scarf and had on no makeup or jewelry and thus she had to be the leader because she was "normal." If only they knew!

  "I can't get you to Covanti directly for another six weeks," the dispatcher told her. "Tubikosa only does some seasonal business with them, and a minor flurry of changewinds have made the direct route too risky anyway." He showed them a map that showed the hemisphere with Tubikosa in the middle, but showed only the hubs in detail. The rest were blank, the hubs looking like the center of flowers surrounded by petals.

  "Now, then," he went on, "the only reasonable route is southwest to Mashtopol, even though it's a little out of your way, then northwest to Quodac, then up to Covanti. I can get you to Quodac with no troubles, and I'm sure you can get something from the Guildhall there to get up to Covanti. That by-passes the unstable regions. You say it's three women traveling in a group?"

  Sam nodded. "Just the three of us. But I don't like it. We're adding a lot of distance and extra expense that way."

  "Well, I can get you a break on the Tubikosa to Quodac leg since it's related to poor conditions, but your supply budget and time will be greater. If you wanted to change navigators at Mashtopol and were willing to have as much as a week's layover there, we have something going tomorrow. If you want it through to Quodac it'll be leaving sixteen days from today. Your share of the navigator's fees plus the Pilot's charges would be-thirty-five hundred sarkis for all three, plus supplies. That's to Quodac. You are advised that this paticular route may be hazardous."

  Buddy, you don't know what hazardous is, Sam thought sourly. "How long is it to Quodac?" she asked. "As opposed to direct to Covanti?"

  "It varies," the dispatcher told her honestly, "but the average straight through, before the troubles, was fifty days direct, give or take a few and depending on local conditions. Now it's about sixty. Quodac should be about the same-closer to fifty than sixty, I'd say. Another thirty or so to Covanti depending on how long you would have to wait in Quodac for a trip. It's not great, but it is a safer route these days anyway. You get stuck in a sudden change wind and you wouldn't ever be able to come back to a hub."

  It was a good enough argument. "A
ll right, then. The one sixteen days from now is best, I guess. How do we work it?" "You fill this out. If you cannot read I'll fill it out for you and take your mark. Then you pay me fifteen hundred cash now, with the balance due to the navigator directly when you start your trip. I'll give you a list of basic supplies you'll need to buy and your routing when you pay me."

  She nodded. "This woman will pay you and fill out the form," she said, nodding to Boday, who took the paper and an inkwell-style pen and started in on it. Another of Sam's discoveries made her feel less inadequate about this. The damned writing language was so complicated that very few people could read any old book, including Boday. You learned what you needed for your profession and for functional literacy. That was Charley's discovery as well. The practical vocabulary of most people in day to day life was at best a few thousand words; the rest were used only for more specialized things. There were lots of people who never could manage much reading even in Akhbreed society, and deliberately so. Outside of royalty, the better you read and the more you could read the higher you could rise. That meant that even the lowest might rise close to the top if they were smart enough. That was one reason women, even low in status, ran a lot of the stores.

  Boday read the form to them. "Names, ages, sex-Boday always wants to write 'yes' in there-spouse, clan, and occupation. Nosy, aren't they? Well-Boday is easy enough. She is thirty-one, female, artist-alchemist, she has renounced her clan before they could renounce her-peasants!-and what is your real name, my love?"

  "Samantha Rose Buell, but do we hav'ta put that? It's kind'a a giveaway of me bein' from someplace not usual."

  Boday thought a moment. "Then why not Susama? An odd name but not a bad one. Boday has met someone of that name before and it will let you keep using 'Sam.' We will make you of the clan Pua'hoca. It's a big sector clan, so big the name is used if one does not wish to give a real one."