Exiles at the Well of Souls

Another Part of the Field

Antor Trelig was both confident and optimistic. The war had gone well; they were in Gedemondas, and after all they’d been through, not a single one of the soldiers, commanders, and politicians believed they could be stopped.

An Agitar general came into the command tent and bowed slightly, handing him a report. He looked at it with interest, and the Makiem equivalent of a grin spread on his face.

“Has anyone else seen this?” he asked.

The Agitar shook her goatlike head. “No, sir. From the recon man who took it to the General Staff to you.”

It was a photograph; a big black-and-white glossy. It was fuzzy and grainy, taken through a very long lens from far away, and it still wasn’t quite close enough, but it showed the most important thing.

Most of the picture was white; more had been cropped in the blow-up. But there, on a rocky ledge, was a sleek, U-shaped object reflecting the sunlight, and there were not quite legible markings on the side.

He didn’t need to read them. He knew it had a symbol of a rising sun with a human face flanked by fourteen stars, and the huge legend NH-CF-1000-1 on the side, and, in smaller letters underneath, the words PEOPLE’S VICTORY.

It was the engine pod.

“How did you get this?” he asked, amazed. “I thought nobody could fly that high.”

“One of the Cebu scouts pushed himself to the limit,” the general replied. “On his third try he managed to get over the second string of mountains and found a deep, U-shaped glacial valley there. His eyes are good; he saw the reflection, above him, but knew that it was beyond his reach and range, so he fitted his longest lens and snapped as many pictures as he could with the glare filter on. This was the best.”

He had a sudden thought. “What about the Yaxa? Can’t they or those little imitator bastards find this, too?”

“Not a chance,” the general assured him. “The Yaxa can’t possibly fly high enough to clear that second range. I would have said no Cebu could, either, and the scout is half-dead as it is. He’ll be a hero if he survives. As for the Lamotien, remember they can only simulate other forms, not become them. They have a flying mode, yes, based on the Yaxa, but it’s highly modified to their form and requirements, and the wings are as thick as our own mounts’, far too heavy to clear that altitude. No, I think we have the advantage here.”

Trelig nodded, satisfied. “But they will get to the plain first,” he noted. “And our reports say that the Lamotien can neutralize an Agitar shock, and the Yaxa can fly rings around any of us.”

“It’s about even, all told,” the general admitted. “They’ll be dug in by the time we get there, well fortified, and they have to play only for time, nothing more. I suggest we do it a little differently.”

Trelig’s huge eyes enlarged in surprise. “Something new?”

The general nodded, and spread out a commercial-looking map on the table in front of them. It was a relief map of both Gedemondas and Dillia next door to the east, and it showed great relief and, more important, it had a lot of little dotted lines all over it. Trelig couldn’t read a word on it, though.

“It’s a Dillian guide and trail map,” the Agitar explained. “They sell them to interested people. There are rodents and other animals in that wilderness, and they trap them. The Gedemondas don’t seem to mind or bother them, although our Dillian sources say they don’t know much more about the creatures than we do. They don’t overdo the hunting, and that’s been the balance.”

Trelig nodded, understanding. “So these little dotted lines are hunting trails?” he guessed.

“Exactly,” acknowledged the goat-woman. “And those little rectangles are Dillian shelters set up along the trails. The trails are mostly Gedemondan, not Dillian. I understand that too many Dillians get the locals upset, and they push a ton or two of snow down on them.”

That was an unpleasant prospect. He let it pass.

“Now, we’re here,” the Agitar continued, pointing to an area in the southwest corner. “The Yaxa will be here,” now pointing to the small plains area about two hundred kilometers north and slightly east, “and, if you look closely at the map, you’ll see something interesting.”

Trelig was ahead of her. At least three trails came within two kilometers of where they now sat, east of them a bit. One seemed fairly low.

“Twelve hundred sixty-three meters,” the Agitar told him. “Low enough for an unobtrusive air drop.”

“Then we might not have to fight at all!” he exclaimed, excited. “We can beat them by going in with a small force and heading straight for the engines, while they have to poke and hunt!”

The Agitar shook her head slowly in the negative. “No, there will have to be a battle, if only to cover you. They are not dumb. If we didn’t move as predicted they would smell a rat and they would have you. No, the battle goes on, everything as planned. The only difference will be that we will not have any rush to win it, or take needless risks. When you secure the engines, others can be sent to try and disassemble them, if that’s possible, or figure out how to move them, anyway. By the time whatever force the Yaxa sends gets there, we’ll have already won the objective, no matter how the battle goes.”

Trelig liked the plan. “Okay, so it’s me and some Agitar males. But what protects me from the cold? I shut down below freezing, you know. Can’t help it.”

The general got up and walked out of the tent, then came back in with a large carton. She opened the carton and pulled out a strange, silvery costume with a huge dark globe.

“You didn’t know we have had five Makiem Entries in the past century, then?” she said, satisfied. “And we don’t need the mechanical stuff, either. Air you’ve got.”

He grinned again. Things were going his way now, as they had always done. The Obie computer, New Pompeii, the Well World itself—all were within his grasp.

The general excused herself, and he sat there a minute or two, alone, looking at the map. Then he sighed, got up, and slow-hopped to a curtained-off passage between this tent and his portable living quarters. He pulled it aside. There was a flash of movement, and an object landed on the bed in the far corner.

She could hop quickly, she could, he thought admiringly.

It had been a marriage of convenience, of course. All Makiem marriages were marriages of convenience in a race that had no sex except one week a year, underwater, when they had nothing but. The convenience of the scoundrels that ran Makiem, the inconvenience of himself, naturally. She was the good minister’s daughter, and, if anything, she was slicker and nastier than her father.

What a team we’d make,he sighed once again, if only we could be on the same side!

“You needn’t pretend, my dear. You know everything and I know it, so what’s the difference? You can’t go this time.”

“I go where you go,” she responded. “It is law and custom. And you cannot stop me!”

He chuckled. “But it’s cold up there, baby! What good would you be as a sleeping beauty?”

She reached over, opened a wicker basket, and removed something. It was a slightly different design, but unmistakably a spacesuit.

He gaped. “How long have you had that thing?” he asked.

“Since Makiem,” she replied smugly.