Quest for the Well of Souls

Yaxa Embassy, South Zone

The Torshind floated a few centimeters above the floor, a pale-red cloak without a wearer, like a vision from a nightmare. Because it was essentially an energy creature, a translator had nothing to modulate, so it was also silent now as it watched the preparations underway. Yaxa guards armed with nasty weapons stood all about as insurance against attempts by Ortega or Trelig to interfere with the operation.

A drug was administered to the party; it made them sleepy, close to comatose. Because of the supply problem, the expedition was small: Wooley, of course, and Yulin and the horselike Mavra and Joshi and, of course, the Torshind. There had been some debate about it all, particularly the inclusion of Joshi and the exclusion of another Yaxa. But Joshi provided a handle on Mavra Chang and he was needed to carry supplies—and anyway, another Yaxa would consume more in food and water than he. Five were enough; none of them trusted Yulin, so that kept him in check. None trusted the Torshind either, but the Torshind could not pilot the ship. Mavra had no hands and her shape precluded her ability to activate the ship, particularly at an incline, so she would need an ally with arms—and for that Wooley was a better bet than Yulin. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best that could be done.

Most of the supplies had been shifted earlier; the suits in which the expedition would live in the North had been fitted with small but complex rebreather apparatus. For himself, Yulin adopted a “human” suit, of old design. The Yaxa had their own suites from Entries—and Mavra and Joshi used modified Dillian equipment. The Torshind did not breathe as the South understood breathing, and so needed nothing.

Transfer was simple. The Torshind simply glided up to the transferee, melted into the other’s body, awkwardly took control of it, then moved down the hall and into the Zone Gate.

The drugs made the Torshind’s task easier, and each transferee had undergone at least one test earlier.

Consciousness returned slowly.

Mavra Chang shook herself, stretched her limbs outward, and moved her head around as if clearing cobwebs.

They were in a strange chamber, a hall of some glassy substance. The light was poor but sufficient, and she could see the others struggling to one or another degree to regain control.

One thing seemed clear: the Well had been fooled. They were all in Yugash now, including the Torshind.

Other shapes moved about, as spectral as the Torshind but sharp and clear in the gloom. Mavra’s color-blindness actually helped the contrast; to her the Yugash were sharp white outlines against a dark-gray background.

Another creature could be seen in the room, a thing apparently of the same substance as the walls, an angular crystal sculpture of a crab with glassy tentacles instead of claws. It wore an incongruous device around its midsection, a transmitter that enabled the translation device inside the creature to send to the radios in their suits.

“Welcome to Yugash,” came the thin, electronic voice of the Torshind. “I shall keep to this ptir—this creature you see—for much of the trip. As soon as you all feel able, we will cross to a chamber prepared to your requirements. I suggest that we brief everyone on the route and problems and then get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow we will begin this epic journey.”

They nodded in agreement. They sensed that history was being made, that they were to be the focal point for events that would shape the future.

Still slightly groggy, they followed the Torshind out of the Zone Gate chamber and into Yugash.

It was a dark hex; the sky seemed slightly overcast, the sun somehow much farther away. It was like this in some hexes, where the Well facets changed things to simulate worlds closer to or farther from primary suns. Each hex, after all, was a laboratory simulation of an actual planet onto which the creatures of the hex were to have been sent to establish, build, and develop a normal culture.

The city was built of twisted glass, or at least that was the way it looked. Huge spires rose to the sky, and even basic buildings looked melted, twisted, or otherwise malformed. Thousands of crystal creatures like the Torshind’s ptir scurried to and fro on unguessable business. Grown to the specifications of their owners on great crystal farms, they were every combination of creature imaginable. Only rarely did the group see a Yugash in its natural form, though.

The large room prepared for them was extremely comfortable; rugs and drapes had been hung to mask its glassy structure, and quantities of provisions suitable for all their needs were neatly arranged. Only an occasional hiss from the pressurization system reminded them that this was a sealed room, and that here alone the atmosphere and pressure—a compromise of their respective hexes—were made sufficient for them to live without suits.

After Wooley and the Torshind had removed her suit, Mavra groaned. “I could sleep for a week,” she told them. There were muttered assents.

Wooley managed to shake herself out of her stupor to inspect some of the leatherlike pouches. With mittenlike hands on her tentacles, she opened one, pulled out a large folding map, and spread it out on the floor. The others gathered around, and the Torshind took the floor.

“First of all, we have designed the breaching apparatus to work in semi- as well as high-tech hexes,” it began. “That’s fine—but no amount of storage will get you through even a full hex side of a nontech hex. There you would have perhaps eight hours at best. This means avoiding such hexes.” It pointed a glassy tentacle at the map. “As you can see, we are only four hexes from Bozog, three from Uchjin. A direct route from here avoiding nontech hexes would be across Masjenada into Poorgl, then through Nichlaplod to Bozog. However, the Poorgl are not cooperative. They have refused us permission to cross and promised attacks if we try—and as a high-tech hex it’s almost impossible to get by them for the distance we have to go. That means an indirect route.”

The tendril shifted to the northwest. “Masjenada is easy and helpful; my people and theirs have not exactly been friends, but we have so little in common that we are not enemies, either. They value certain minerals as luxury goods, and my people were in a position to supply them from the South, thanks to the Yaxa. The Yaxa themselves have been helpful in dealing with Oyakot, which otherwise would never aid someone of Yugash. Pugeesh is an unknown quantity. We will have to tread carefully there, and we’ll have to do things ourselves. Wohafa will aid us because they are friendly with the Bozog, and while Uborsk can’t really help tremendously, they’ll do what they can. Thus, it should be a fairly easy journey.”

“Too easy,” responded Ben Yulin, worried. “I can’t help but think there’s a joker in this deck somewhere.”

“The distance is great,” Wooley admitted, “and parts of it will not be easy, but it’s the best route.”

“What about the other party?” the Dasheen bull persisted, feeling ever more pessimistic as he looked at the distances involved.

“Ortega has his own friends among the Yugash,” the Torshind replied. “We can not stop them here. But they will be at least a day behind us, and may well decide on a different route. If not, we will have to plan a surprise for them.”

They understood what that meant. In totally unfamiliar terrain, with only the suits to protect them and the supplies to maintain them, both parties were extremely vulnerable. If one could surprise the other, there would be big problems for the defender. The suits were tough, but even in a semitech hex a bullet—even an arrow—might do the job.

Mavra filed that information in her mind for later. There was nothing she could do now, and she felt little loyalty to either side as long as she got to the ship. She would not like someone she knew, such as Renard or Vistaru, to be killed—but where had they been for the last twenty-two years? Did she have any more responsibility toward them than they had felt to her?

In the meantime, she would be totally dependent on these people for survival, and self-preservation was always the first priority.