“You won’t get any argument from us,” he assured her. “This added gravity and tremendous humidity are doing me in slowly, and Julian is having even worse trouble with it.”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve been here awhile and I’ve gotten somewhat used to the slightly higher G, and the climate’s no worse than the Amazon, but I keep forgetting that you’re a different species of creature now, designed more for a desert climate and sandy soil. You guys must be miserable! Well, at least in a high-tech hex you don’t have to walk unless you want to. It might not be the soul of comfort, designed as they are for giant caterpillars, but there is a kind of train going to almost any point we need in this hex. But it’s a long, nasty way to where we’re going, and I’ve seen worse than this place. Look, I’ll tell you what. I’ll figure out how to float the two translators somehow, but I want to get the implant done fast, and then we’re out of here. Could we do it this afternoon?”
“I suppose I could. Julian’s asleep. But look,” he found himself saying, almost without thinking, “if it’s too much of an expense, then we could do without the translators. Besides, in Julian’s case, an Erdomese female with a translator would in the best case be exiled from any contact with foreigners once we returned. It might do her more harm than good.”
Mavra considered that. “Hmmm… I forgot about that damned culture down there. Woulda made me puke if I hadn’t seen and been forced to live in so many similar cultures back on Earth. In China some families actually drowned girl babies because they had no value or status! And they were still having enough babies to one day overrun the planet!” She sighed. “Well, it would be a savings I could use, and she will be able to understand anybody else with one. Still, I’d like more than one of us to have one. Okay, I’m going to give you a name and address. The front desk will be able to tell you how to get there. It’s not far. Just be warned—that loud crackling and buzzing you hear all over when you go out will sound like a huge mob of people all talking at once when you come back. You’ll understand it, but don’t expect to make full sense out of it. The Ituns don’t exactly have the same frame of reference as we do.”
Lori got the address and repeated it back several times until Mavra was satisfied. Fortunately, the city was on a grid system, and the streets were basically numbers and Itun alphabetical characters so that he could use an Erdomese equivalent and the concierge’s translator would understand.’
“Okay, then. Get it done, come back, have dinner—make sure you order room service; you won’t even want to see Ituns eat—and get as much rest as you can. We’ll finish up what we need to do today as well and meet you tomorrow at the hotel. Since I’m being so thoroughly and obviously shadowed, there’s not much point to cloak-and-dagger stuff—yet.”
“We?”
“Yes, there will be more of us.”
“You mean you found Gus?” He hesitated a moment. “Not—Campos! Please, not him!”
“No, neither one, really. Your Gus wound up a Dahir, or so I’m told, and that’s a fair distance from here, although we might be able to contact him somehow along the way. I didn’t really know him, remember. We kept him and the other guy kind of out of it.”
“Yeah, well, Campos is a psycho. Rapist, drug dealer, gangster—you name it. The lowest common denominator of all the worst things in humans. Now, there’s somebody who should have been an Erdomese female! That would have been justice! Gus was a nice guy, very gentle, a photographer in fact.”
“Well, I got no word on Campos, but I know the type. I doubt if he’s anywhere near Erdom or even Itus, but the Well’s been known to have a sense of humor about some people. I don’t pretend to understand it, but I was led to believe that the Well actually takes your personality, both conscious and subconscious, your dreams and ambitions, even your fantasies and your fears, into consideration, but on a kind of loopy basis I doubt if anybody but another giant machine could fully understand.”
“Then—the colonel Julian spoke of, perhaps?”
“Nope. Don’t know where or what he is, either. No, you don’t know them. They came in with Nathan in about the same way that you wound up coming through with me. I needed a source of information on him, and we hit it off. It’s a kind of sweet story, as unique, I suspect, in the very long history of the Well World as your own story and Julian’s, and as oddly perverse as well. You’ll have to see and hear the story for yourself. Let’s leave it until tomorrow, when we’ll all have to discuss our options. Besides, it’s getting past midday, and I want your translator in today.”
He sighed. “All right, then, until tomorrow.”
The connection was broken.
Lori went out as silently as possible and saw that Julian was still asleep. He got his codpiece and put it on, then went silently to the door, feeling a pang of guilt at sneaking out for this without her. Why had he done that? Denied her a translator? The devices were unlikely to process Earth languages, so she’d have to speak Erdomese to be understood by them, and as with Mavra just now, the speech she’d hear from the translator would be in Erdomese to her as well. Erdomese didn’t possess a lot of technical terms, the feminine form even less so. Anyone who didn’t have a translator—rare and expensive, Mavra said, so uncommon—or speak Erdomese—highly unlikely, particularly as they went farther from Erdom—would be unable to communicate with her or she with them except through someone like him. And even then some very basic technical terms wouldn’t translate at all—they’d be gibberish. She’d had to use English just to say “air-conditioning.”
Outside the door he felt like a heel. As he was on the moving walkway, though, he began to rationalize. Mavra had been groping for him to give her an excuse not to spend the extra funds and had readily accepted his explanation. And he wasn’t kidding, either. Back in Erdom, where they would surely eventually wind up, for a female to even speak in the male “voice” was considered a sin, and in Erdom sin equaled crime. Suppose, when she spoke to a male back there, the translator changed things to the male form of the language? Even if that didn’t happen, he had every intention of living in the capital and not out in the middle of nowhere when this was all over with, and she was too smart to consistently fake ignorance of a foreign tongue if it said something interesting or relevant.
Lori knew he was groping for good reasons to get rid of the guilt, but by the time he had gotten his directions and left the hotel, he had decided that what was done was now done, and besides, if he was really wrong about this, he’d make sure she got a translator at some point along the way. By the time he reached the Interspecies Clinic near the docks, he had almost fully accepted that version.
The procedure to implant the translator really wasn’t all that much. The medical personnel at the clinic, supervised by Ituns but of several races from hexes along the main coastal route here, put him through an imager, ran a three-dimensional scan of him through their medical computer, and determined exactly where and how to insert the translator—a tiny little gem that apparently was grown or cultured by one of the undersea races. They showed him how to activate it, then they put him under a light anesthetic with a simple and painless injection, and the totally computerized surgery began. In less than twenty minutes he was coming out of it with a headache from the anesthesia and a sore spot on the back of his neck.
An Itun and another creature entered and did a visual examination. The creature looked like nothing imaginable but was as close to a living version of an Earth child’s toy—a long-necked little bird that hung on the side of a glass and dipped its bill into the water, then sprang back up, only to repeat the motion until the water ran out. Lori had the distinct feeling that the birdlike thing with the incredibly long, thin, straight neck could see right inside and through him, but he couldn’t explain that feeling.
“How are you feeling?” asked the Itun, and Lori started to put his hand up to his neck and then hesitated.
“Uh—all right to touch the area?”
“Oh, yes. It is completely sealed. The soreness is internal bruisin
g, but it will pass very quickly. You should feel nothing by tomorrow.”
“And—it’s in?”
“Oh yes. I wear no speaker to allow someone to hear me in their native language, you will notice. You are hearing me directly in Erdomese, although I speak only Itun, a tongue you are as physically incapable of uttering as I am yours, and I am hearing you quite clearly in Itun at the same time that my colleague here is hearing you in what passes for a voice in Wukl.”
“You be not born as form utilized,” the strange, comic birdlike Wukl put it, the voice sounding like nothing Lori had ever heard or imagined. It was a kind of chilling sound, yet without any emotion or inflection whatsoever, and it seemed only partly said aloud and partly formed inside his own brain. It was, of course, male-voice Erdomese, but apparently the way the creature thought wasn’t exactly compatible with the Erdomese language. There were limits on these things.
Still, he was amazed and impressed almost beyond words. “Incredible! Uh—no, I wasn’t born Erdomese, if that’s what you mean. I entered through the Well. But how do you know?”
“Conflict is,” the Wukl attempted to explain, “clear to sense. Know not base not knowable. If unpleased could mediate self.”
“Don’t try and follow it too closely,” the Itun warned. “You will just turn your thoughts to boiling. We, too, think differently than you do, but I have had much training in dealing with others. The Wukl—well, they see things so differently from most races that we know it is difficult for them to understand others, but they are very skilled surgeons and they have good souls and desire to help. Their help, however, can be as convoluted and as unwanted as the initial problem. If given its own way, what would result would be what we might euphemistically call a surgical compromise that would be at best unique and not at all an improvement, as the injured and shipwrecked of a number of races have discovered when washed up on their shores. Nor should you take it too literally. The Wukl see everyone of us as horribly flawed, you see. We’re not Wukls.”
The headache was passing, leaving only the slight stinging. “Yes, I see.”
“No want Wukl betterment?” the Wukl asked.
“Um, no, not at this time, thank you. But—as of now I’ll be able to understand all the other races, whether they themselves have translators or not? And they will understand me?”
“Within limits, yes,” the Itun responded. “You will find those limits can be daunting indeed, as the Wukl here demonstrates in one area, and there are some races simply too different in their thought patterns to allow any meaningful communication. But for the most part you will find that it will take more practice editing out the sounds than understanding what you wish. It will take a little getting used to, but for a traveler to foreign hexes it is the one thing to not be without.”
“Can I go now? I think I’m all right,” Lori told them.
“Yes, the Wukl is a superb diagnostician within limits, and if it hasn’t noted a problem by this point in the procedure, then there is none. We have received payment in advance from your benefactor by messenger, so you are free to go as soon as you feel able.”
He was still a little groggy, and the humidity and heavy gravity made him not totally steady, but he decided he should get back to the hotel.
He soon experienced the strangeness of hearing those alien speakers all about him, and the initial disorientation, since while the words were understandable, the meaning was in most cases more obscure than the Wukl. His respect for the Ituns like the doctor and the hotel people went up enormously; Ituns definitely did not think along the lines of humans or Erdomese.
Julian was awake and apparently had been for some time. Although Erdomese did not take baths on the whole—a complete immersion for any length of time would remove naturally protective oils and could lead to an ugly and sometimes painful itchy skin condition akin to mange—spraying their faces and upper torsos with a showerlike wand could have a cooling and freshening effect. Clearly she’d spent some time in the bath area and had made some use of cosmetics and oils both from their meager case and from what the hotel provided. To him, at least, she looked refreshed and smelled quite sweet.
“Hello, my husband,” she said in Erdomese. “You have been gone a long time. I was beginning to worry for your safety.”
“Chang called and made arrangements for me to get a translator put inside my head. It was no worse than going to a dentist, but it was not pleasant. You were still asleep, and I decided you needed rest more than news at the time, and almost the last words you spoke were that you didn’t want to leave this room again!”
She accepted it. “This thing in your head—it means you can speak to and understand all not-Erdomese speech?”
He nodded. “Pretty much. It was a simple task, but it is very expensive. I am sorry that Chang did not have the money for both of us to have one. Perhaps someday.”
Julian had no reason to doubt him, but she was disappointed. “Yes, probably someday,” she repeated, knowing how unlikely that “someday” might be. It did, however, increase her sense of isolation.
“This Madam Chang speaks not English?”
“No. I don’t think so. She mentioned Greek, Latin, and Portuguese but not English. But it won’t matter in that case. Since she has one of these things in her head, too, you will be able to understand her and she will be able to understand you—in Erdomese.”
She sighed. “In Erdorma, you mean. Oh, well, it is better than silence.” She paused a moment, then asked, “Is there no other news?”
“Oh, yes. She’s coming by tomorrow, with others—I’m not sure how many. People from Earth who came in with the other fellow, her counterpart. I don’t know what race. She wants to leave pretty quickly—don’t worry! She says we’re going to ride out of here. Hopefully all the way out, and quickly.”
He thought that would make her happy, but she just let it go by. She seemed off, depressed, and he went over and stood behind her and massaged her back and neck. She did react as always to that, and she seemed to relax a little.
“We should eat and rest,” she said at last. “After tonight we may not be able to do it when we need to.”
He nodded. “I’ll order something from the hotel. I’m starving, anyway; I didn’t eat because of the surgery.”
Nor did I, because you forgot,Julian thought, but said nothing. She couldn’t quite explain her feelings even to herself, but she was generally irritated by him today, leaving without a word or a message, more like the drugged and hypnotized Lori than the one from before or even the one of this morning. She’d deliberately kept using Erdoma, which made her sound like some sort of Arabian Nights wimp by its very nature, maybe to test him and see if he’d switch to English. He hadn’t. When that was coupled with sneaking out for so long, the apparent start of a new pattern depressed her. Well, maybe it wasn’t a trend. Maybe he was just too tired to realize the way he was acting, she hoped. Maybe it was just this extra gravity that made her feel like a hippopotamus. Maybe she was just getting her period, and that was a wonderful thought to look forward to when they were starting off on a hard trip.
Most of all, she needed somebody else to talk to.
Mavra Chang arrived early the next morning, as promised. The door buzzed irritatingly, telling them that someone was there, and Julian, still feeling heavy and bloated but somewhat better than the day before, went to the door and pushed the opener so that it slid back. She’d hardly remembered that there would be more than one, but she had been curious almost since hearing Lori’s story to see this mysterious, ancient immortal human female.
She was not prepared for someone so incredibly tiny. Julian, although petite compared to Lori, was nonetheless pretty much the same five foot ten she’d been as a human male; if Mavra Chang was over five feet tall, it was because of her high-heeled black leather boots, and it would be amazing if the woman weighed a hundred pounds. She had a nearly perfect waist but almost no breasts at all, and big almond-shaped eyes looked up at Julian from
a classically pretty Han Chinese face.
The ancient, imposing immortal of Julian’s mental image shattered in front of somebody who looked thirteen years old.
Chang’s tiny form was set off even more by the two figures behind her. Both stood almost as tall as Lori and stared at Julian through big green eyes with the longest lashes Julian had ever seen. From the waist up, where it curved inward in the expected way, they seemed quite human-looking except for the pointed equine ears that emerged from a thick gusher of strawberry blond hair. They were, in fact, stunningly beautiful young women of perhaps sixteen or so—from the waist up.
From the waist down they were most like palomino ponies.
They were female centaurs—centauresses, Julian thought, amazed.
And they were absolutely identical twins down to the smallest detail.
Mavra Chang smiled. “Hello. You must be Julian,” she said pleasantly in a deep female voice that nonetheless sounded hard-edged and tough in spite of its speaking Erdoma. “I’m Mavra Chang. And the girls-—well, you two think you have problems! Don’t worry, though. You won’t have any trouble telling this pair apart. Meet Tony and Anne Marie, the only other case of two entries to the same species. You see, before they went through, they were a married couple…”
Hakazit
FOR A COUPLE OF DAYS NOW NATHAN BRAZIL HAD HAD THEoddest feeling based on long experience that he was being followed. He’d learned to trust those instincts, but over the countless years he’d also become nearly infallible in eventually tripping up any shadow that might try it, particularly over an extended period of time. This time he’d failed, even though more than once he’d become certain that he’d nailed the bugger. He’d walked down to the docks, gone down a very long deserted pier to the end, then used a little secret he’d discovered for ducking down below the pier and making his way back along a safety catwalk below. He’d known that the shadow had followed him onto the pier; he also knew that he could not possibly have been seen going below the pier and coming back, even with the girl inevitably in tow, and he’d heard the creak of timbers and the sound of a few heavy footsteps above, going out toward the end of the pier, yet, when he’d emerged and staked out the pier from the only exit, nobody had come.
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