It was terribly appealing, but he knew he’d never do it. It was this damnable sense of obligation he had.
Damn it! There were a million reasons why Mavra might have vanished in that long-ago time and place. But why had she never tried to find him in the two and a half thousand years or so since? If only to let him know, even if not to get together. Even allowing for all that, if only Gus hadn’t painted a picture of a man-hating mental case…!
Gus had a colored view of her, of course. He might be all wrong, and Mavra might be just fine and fully capable of handling things.
She might be, but deep down he wasn’t sure he believed it. At least, he wasn’t sure enough of her to trust the fate of all those races, all those people out there, scattered, seeded among the stars. He hadn’t had to take the obligation or the responsibility for them, and perhaps, knowing what he did now, he would not do so again. But he had accepted it, and even if he’d occasionally run from the responsibility, he couldn’t really hide. It wasn’t just hiding from the Well that was the problem; it was that he could never hide from himself.
Eventually he dozed off in spite of himself.
He awoke in the waning part of the day, feeling very good, very refreshed, but thirsty. But when he got up to go get a drink of water, he discovered that he was in her body, not his own. Her body, yes, but this time it felt natural, neither odd nor different, nor did the sights and sounds and smells seem out of place. Still, he went and got the drink and returned aft, only to see his own body at the wheel and other controls, dropping sail, bringing the little craft about in the wind.
“What are you doing?” he called out in her voice. “You don’t know how to sail a ship! I wouldn’t even think you’d want to!”
His body’s face looked surprised and two dark eyes stared at the figure just below. “You can speak!” he heard his own voice say. “You’ve got speech back! That’s wonderful!”
“What do you mean? It’s you who have changed! We’ve swapped bodies, that’s all, probably in our sleep. We’d best swap back so I can take her out. You’ll wreck her!”
“Are you mad?” his other self asked. “I’m Nathan Brazil! I was captaining craft bigger and smaller than this before your world was formed! What’s this nonsense about body switching? You’re Terry, and you’ve been through a lot of shocks. Let me just get us under way and we’ll have some time once we get to open sea! I want out while there’s still some light!”
“But—but—you’re not Nathan Brazil, I’m Nathan Brazil!”
The other laughed. “This sharing of sensation has restored your speech but given you delusions! Look! What’s the name of that sail? Where’s the jib? The boom? When should you run with a spinnaker?”
“Uh—I—I—” she stammered, suddenly realizing that she had no answers to those questions. But Nathan Brazil would know, of course, and obviously did know from the way he was operating things up there. She sat down on the hatch cover and tried to think. What did she know? What did she remember? It was all fleeing, rushing out of her head even as she tried to grab on to the memories, the thoughts, the knowledge they represented.
It was all gone in a flash, leaving only the question of whether it had ever really been there. What did she know? She remembered coming into the vast chamber, reaching the place with the giant furry creatures, having met and joined with others like herself in some kind of swampy jungle, then of seeing Brazil and finding him very attractive and going with him…
There was no shock, only an intense if incredibly odd feeling of relief, of a massive weight lifted off the shoulders. Why, then, it must be true, she thought. I don’t have any responsibilities beyond being with him, helping him, and being happy! I’m not Nathan Brazil, I’m just Terry! I must have gotten enough from him to feel his burden and his pain, and I just wanted to take that away from him. She felt sorry for him, knowing what a burden he carried inside, and she resolved to try to make it as easy on him as she could. She loved him so much, she’d wanted to take that burden off him and carry it herself, but the load was so overwhelming…
“Wake up, Cap,” said Gus, shaking him.
Nathan Brazil opened his eyes and for a moment still thought he was Terry, but he wasn’t. No matter his dreams, he couldn’t be let off the hook that easily…
“What the hell took you so long, Gus?” he snapped, more irritated to be awakened than glad to see the Dahir.
“Well, they got wanted posters out on you, for one thing. Probably took ’em off a blowup of the recording when you come in. Right now all it says is that you’re wanted for theft of a private vessel, and they give a pretty good description of this scow, too. Good thing you decided not to go in the harbor, Cap. You’d never have stood ’em all off.”
That was bad. “But what about you?”
“Well, all sorts of stuff. Best-laid plans and all that, I guess. Nobody noticed me, as usual, but when I was through pickin’ up information and supplies, I found something for my own belly as well, and after I eat I get groggy and sleepy for a little, and, well, I guess I just dozed off. I still feel like a stuffed turkey, but it was well into daylight when I woke up. I decided to fight off any idea of getting some more snoozin’ and get back here. Fact was, I was worried that you’d cut out. Then I heard the boat whistle. All the crew of that cop ship got back aboard pretty fast, and they got up steam and pulled out. I got real nervous that they’d made you and were takin’ off after you.”
“Yeah, that gave us a turn as well. Went right on by, though.”
“Well, I figured that, since word was that one of the small ships that come in sometime today had seen some other ship on their wanted list a ways off to the east. Some kind of big-time smuggler craft—the way they talked, sounded like drugs or somethin’ to me. Whoever it is, they want ’em as bad as they want us, and the cop captain pulled everybody out and took off as fast as he could get up steam. Seems these crooks pull the shell game at sea so you can never be sure which boat’s got the goods, and they figured this one was steamin’ for a pickup.”
“Interesting. Well, at least it gets them off our backs for the moment, but don’t think there aren’t more of them around—and if the posters have hit even a little spot in the middle of nowhere like this, you can bet we’re marked. Did you remember to bring the sack with the food?”
“Oh, yeah. Did better’n that, really. Come over here and look over the side. I’ll need some help with it gettin’ it all aboard.”
Brazil was astonished to find not the meter-square aid kit container but a full-blown plastic dinghy filled with cartons. “Good lord! They let you get away with all this!”
“Well, they didn’t stop me, anyway. Truth is, there was a lot of furry types and all in the cop crew, and this was one of the supply shipments due to go out to their boat. They left it there at the dock in their rush to pull out, so I just kinda slipped into the water and took it instead.”
“Great. You’re sure it’s not ammo and two thousand copies of my wanted poster, though?”
“It’s food, Cap. Maybe not all of it’s useful, but a lot is. Nothin’ looks exactly like it did back home, but fruit and veggies have a habit of lookin’ pretty close, and there’s flour and some kinda meal like cornmeal and other stuff like that. I checked after I got out of the harbor but before I got too far away to go back. I figured I better let them cops get some distance, I didn’t want ’em suddenly rememberin’ that they forgot this and comin’ back for it. They might not see me in the water, but they’d sure as hell see this raft and figure it got loose and floated away.”
“Good work, Gus! And quick thinking! This is a real break in a number of ways. If they needed this enough to come back for it, they’d have turned around by now. The company people won’t miss it because they’ll assume it was taken aboard the cutter, and the cutter might not come back this way for weeks or even remember it if and when it does. Now, if we can only get this aboard and get enough wind to get out of this cove, we’re good for the distance.
”
“How’s that? You mean you can’t get out of this place?”
“Not without some help from nature, or what passes for nature on the Well World. Come on—let’s get started getting this aboard so if and when something comes up we don’t have to dump it or get stuck until somebody finds us.”
“You’re ridin’ a bit low in the water, ain’t you? It looked kinda different.”
“Yeah, we, ah, took on a little water, but I don’t think it’s serious. We might have to get on the pumps later if it proves a real problem, but I’m not worried about it now.”
Gus slid back over the side and positioned himself on one side of the raft. “Cap, my arms can’t lift their shadows, but I figure I can get under it and get it balanced, I can lift it up on my head. You’ll have to grab it and pull it aboard, though. Anything that falls in, I’ll try and get afterward.”
“Good enough. I hope I can do it. I’m strong for my weight, but I’m only sixty-one kilos or so.”
“Huh? What’s that in pounds?”
“Old English measure? Jeez, I barely recall. About 135, I think.”
“Well, you’re not a ninety-eight-pound weakling, so you’ll have to do. I’ll help if I can. With this flat tail and a head as hard as my mother always said it was, I should be able to give it a little oomph.”
The first two tries didn’t make it, but they lost only one carton to the water and it floated nearby. On the third try he was aware that Terry was now awake and watching them. When Gus came up again, Nathan grabbed the rope affixed to the raft and pulled up and back with all his might. After almost getting it, he felt it start to slip away again, his arm muscles aching, but suddenly the raft and all its contents came up onto the deck almost as if they were weightless, causing him to fall over backward.
He got up, rubbing his bottom and reflecting that there certainly was no energy protection against friction burns, but he knew what had happened. Terry had seen the problem and had added a bit of power to the equation through him. The whole raft was now securely on deck.
Gus retrieved the lost box in his gaping mouth and brought it aboard, then deposited it with the others. There were two very large puncture marks in the carton, and some white stuff was coming out of one of them.
“Whooo!” Gus gasped. “That’s more heavy work than I’ve done since I got here! You wanna do inventory on it or what?”
“Might as well, as long as we’re still becalmed,” Brazil responded. “Besides, if there’s anything here ready to eat, I can stand something, and so can she.”
This was where the Well’s data helped him, although he was barely aware of it. Among the cartons were a number of suspect items, but he instinctively seemed to know which ones to keep and which ones to discard. Gus had been right—most of it was more than useful.
“We’re going to have to get this below fairly quickly,” Brazil said at last. “Most of it, anyway. We’ll leave these three on deck. It’s a bit damp below, but I think we can keep these high enough to keep ’em out of the wet. I think I can handle individual boxes. I’d best get to it. Leave this one with the fruit open and this one with the vegetables, too, so Teiry can start eating. Watch her, though. She has a tendency to eat absolutely everything, and I need something!”
Individually, the cartons weren’t all that heavy, and he quickly transferred the nine remaining ones below to the unused crew sleeping quarters, securing them with netting. The one leaking the powder from the fang marks he could do little about, but the marks were high enough that even if they leaked a fair amount of the sweet-tasting meal, there would still be enough.
The water was still ankle deep, but that reassured rather than bothered him. Nothing more was coming in, and the new load wasn’t so heavy that the whole balance of the ship would be adversely affected.
When he came back on deck, Gus commented, “I gotta say, Cap, you were sure right about her appetite. She’s just tearin’ through that stuff like there’s no tomorrow. Better get some while you can.”
He nodded, opened the other carton, and found some premade and wrapped loaves of what appeared to be a kind of French bread. Inside, it had a yellowish look and contained small bits of exceptionally sweet cornlike kernels, but it tasted just fine. He was just reaching to rescue a large purplish applelike fruit the size of a small melon from the ravenous Terry when he suddenly noticed something.
“A breeze! I feel a breeze!” he almost shouted. Forgetting his hunger, he ran to the wheel. “Gus! Go forward and raise the anchor. Use the winch! Yeah, there!”
At last!he thought. Food, water, and even a little daylight left, and along comes a breeze! We’re getting out of this hole!
Out, yes,a little corner of him responded. Out and away, toward harsh reality, outward to smash yet another good dream…
Ogadon
There was no good place to house the Dillians in the Gekir coastal town of Port Saar, and since Erdomese, too, were basically unsuited for the network of steps and ladders which the catlike natives found no trouble at all, they set up a camp on the edge of town, along the road between the town proper and the port up at the Ogadon border.
The chief, in the tradition of her people, invited them all to the royal guest quarters and to a banquet, but Mavra explained some of the problems the others might have in attending. The governor seemed to understand and instead issued them something of far more value: a provincial conscription note, which was basically an account with local merchants that guaranteed that they would be paid by the local treasury.
As was common in many smaller port towns everywhere, businesses closed promptly at sunset, so they all took advantage of the conscription note in the couple of hours of sunlight remaining.
Port Saar was not the same sort of town as the big seaports they’d seen. Rather, it seemed more like the small rural market towns of much of Central and South America, minus electricity and modern conveniences.
Like their underwater neighbors, the Ogadon, Gekirs were basically carnivores, but nonetheless they spent a good deal of time on small- and medium-sized farms growing fresh fruits and vegetables for export to the railhead just inside Itus or by coastal ships to other nearby hexes. It was, one merchant noted, actually very practical; in the farming business the pickers and other help never ate the profits.
Although adding to and freshening their provisions was the main idea, Lori, with Mavra Chang’s permission, used some of the credit on Alowi, as Julian now insisted on being called. In fact, the few times Lori had slipped and said “Julian,” she hadn’t even responded, convincing him that wherever she was stuffing her past had absorbed even the memory of that name. In fact, it was becoming next to impossible not to think of her as a native-born Erdomese female.
He bought her a necklace she seemed to fancy, some sweet-smelling perfumes, and a set of combs that while clearly not designed for Erdomese, worked rather well on the hair and tail and in cleaning the short fur. There were also some nice-looking and modestly priced clips that were the right size for tail clips; Lori didn’t know and didn’t really want to know for whom or what they were actually intended.
At Mavra’s suggestion, they also looked at heavy coats, since they would be going into unknown climates and might well need them. There weren’t too many available for non-Gekir types and none that were really great fits, but a sufficient number of races were to one degree or another humanoid that even the Erdomese found rough fits. The Dillians, it appeared, had brought their own along, and Anne Marie insisted that she could alter the new coats to some degree to make them fit better.
They also finally met a Gekir male.
He was pretty easy to spot; thin, gaunt-looking, and smaller than a female, he was a sort of faded gray color all over except for his outsized lionlike snow white mane. He had a medium-length tail that ended in an explosive puff of white fur, further contrasting him with the tailless females. He also wore matching bracelets and anklets of a golden color with ornate designs in them and a large gol
den oval nose ring and appeared to be perfumed.
The people had overall been quite friendly, and so Lori couldn’t resist trying to strike up a conversation with him in the street.
“Your pardon, sir, but you are the first man we have seen since coming to Gekir, and I was just curious. I mean, it began to look like there were no men at all here.”
The Gekir seemed amused. “Oh, yes, there be a lot of us, only not nearly in the same numbers as women. The average be about fifteen women to one man. It be different where you come from, I suppose.”
“In some ways, yes, in others, no. In Erdom there are ten females for every male, but as you can see from my wife here, the men are larger, and because of the hand development and upper muscle strength, men run the affairs while the women run the household and bear and raise the children.”
“Huh! Think of that! Dunno if I’d like that or not! Got enough trouble just doin’ me male duties.”
It turned out that the males, smaller, far weaker, and fewer in number, ran nothing at all. They also tended to be uneducated and limited in what they could do. What they could do was have sex, apparently in nearly unlimited amounts, and they tended to do that essentially as a profession, often doing a “circuit of me regulars” and spending their time at those “regulars’ ” homes. They also performed services from shopping for busy women to baby-sitting and took little interest in much outside this life. If the male they met was as typical as he said he was, they liked it that way.
“See, all the time they likes us around, and once a month they needs us, so they keeps us pretty happy,” the Gekir male told him. The general feeling among the women, he explained in a low voice, was that men were stupid and incompetent except at the one thing they were needed for, and the men had a vested interest in maintaining those attitudes. “They even cook for us,” he told Lori. “Think we don’t know how.”
Shadow of the Well of Souls watw-2 Page 24
