03. Gods at the Well of Souls (25 page)

Mavra didn't have any doubts about Campos doing exactly that, so she complied.  Out and going north ... There was some hope again. Maybe she was too hard on the  Well. One had to have patience with the gods before they answered one's prayers. Algon took her, still in the netting, and placed her in a box with air holes  that sat on a rolling cart. Soon they were out into the night air and, with  Algon's passkey, out of the zoo and onto the street. The air felt good, although  she was frustrated at being so completely and literally boxed in. For somebody sneaking out of town, Campos certainly had a lot of help that could  reveal her plans no matter what bribes she'd paid. First she was put in the back  of a small truck that was certainly driven by somebody else, since Campos  remained with her. There were also a number of cases and a steamer trunk. They stopped after a while and shortly loaded on what certainly sounded and,  from the tiny bit visible through the air holes, looked for all the world like a  small horse. 

"You're sure you're not too conspicuous?" Mavra commented, but it was ignored. More hands unloaded them, and then the box was opened, but only to cut away the  netting and transfer Mavra to an even larger box, one apparently designed to  transport live animals. Inside was a fair quantity of raw meat and a gadget that  would give her water in small amounts. 

"Just relax," Campos told her. "You will be in there for a long time, but we  shall meet up again before you run out of food and water, I promise you." "Meet up again? Where are you going?" 

"The same place you are, only by a different route. I have no time for questions  or need to give answers to such as you." And with that, the box was sealed and  began moving again. 

Mavra could hear Campos speaking with others, but since the conversation wasn't  directed to her, it wasn't picked up by the translators. 

She was puzzled, no, totally confused. What in the hell was this maniac doing? If Mavra was confused, Lori was even more so. For one thing, two female Cloptans  had shown up in the park later that day and had set up for what looked like a  horse bath and rubdown. It turned out to be a dye job; his pretty beige and all  the rest were now jet black, and his mane and tail were snow white. Even the  horn had been painted black, and it still smelled awful. 

Then Campos had come with the van, loaded with a number of cases and baggage,  and eventually had unloaded it at a freight stop on the Cloptan high-speed train  line. He was collared there, and a whole bunch of routing tags were attached to  it, then he was led onto a livestock flatcar which also contained a large number  of animals that looked like a cross between a cow and a camel but with a kind of  rounded, platypuslike bill. In a very short time the train began to pull out  into the darkness. 

The first time they unloaded Mavra Chang's box and reloaded it onto another  train, she had a glimmer of what was going on. 

She was being transshipped over half the damned hex, on one freight, then on  another, in a pattern that probably looked like a baby with a crayon had created  it. All of the other stuff was being shipped the same way, but on different  trains, and it all seemed to be designed to eventually wind up somewhere  together. Shipping agents, working from wired instructions, would reroute the  packages so that no one would know the final destination or be able to easily  trace them. 

It was amazing what money and a computer could do, she thought. The fact remained, though, that if she was attempting a getaway with everything,  including Mavra, then she was traveling very heavy, and if she stayed in a  high-tech hex, they would eventually track her down. That meant lowering the  technology standard, but to do so with this much stuff would be pretty rough for  a Cloptan female on her own. That one horse certainly wouldn't do the job. Mavra's train reached the end point first, and she sat there, now inside a  warehouse, the only sounds occasional trains whirring past outside. She wondered  what was coming next and how Juana Campos figured on pulling this off. She  didn't mind the wait; that was all she'd been doing for a long time, anyway, but  that had been waiting for nothing. Now something was happening. Things were  moving again, and so was she. 

That was worth waiting for. 

Just before dawn some automated equipment unloaded several cartons, and they  were placed very near Mavra's box. She guessed they were the rest of the stuff  from the van. Now all that was lacking was the horse. 

It wasn't lacking for long. Just as the sun was starting to come up, Mavra heard  the sound of hooves clicking on the hard floor of the warehouse and picked up  the unmistakable scent of live horseflesh. 

Lori, now tied up to a metal stake near the boxes, was totally confused. All  night it was on one train, then onto another, going back and forth, and  sometimes, he was sure, on the same train over and over. Unlike Mavra, he didn't  like it or understand it one bit. 

None of them had long to wait after Lori at last arrived. Whether on a schedule  or because the loadmaster didn't like having a horse fouling up his nice  warehouse floor, a crew entered and began transferring everything once more. In the daylight, even with his poor vision, Lori could see that they were at  some kind of border stop. On the other side of the sleek magnetic strip that  served as Cloptan train tracks there was a very different looking building and  beyond it a very different looking terminal. It was a little hard to see as  well, as if he were looking through a discolored gauze curtain. A hex boundary! And not the one to Liliblod, either! 

The Cloptan crew and its robotic equipment moved everything across right to the  border. The boxes were then put down flush with it and pushed across slowly by  small rams that came out from the equipment. Lori alone was led through, feeling  the familiar tingle as he passed into a new hex, and then he could see more  clearly what was beyond. 

It was suddenly chilly. Not cold, but there was a definite chill in the air. and  signs of light frost were still around, slow to melt in the rising run. Lori  didn't really feel the cold, but it was still something of a shock. More of a shock was the crew that awaited them on the other side. They were bugs. Huge bugs. And not just huge bugs but bugs of just about all  shapes and sizes, the smallest still the size of an alley cat. They were quite colorful creatures, and the two that were enormous, at least two  meters long and standing taller than Lori, looked like nothing he'd ever seen  even in a nightmare or in the Amazonian jungles. They seemed closest to praying  mantises. 

He was scared, nervous, and yet somewhat excited and didn't even realize all the  old memory connections he was suddenly making again. 

A big beetlelike thing crawled up to the pallets on which the boxes rested and  with two whiplike hind limbs took the lead pallet and started pulling it  effortlessly toward the station beyond. Other, similar creatures did the same  with the rest. Finally another, who looked more like a bipedal grasshopper,  approached Lori, who shied but couldn't pull away, being tied to a post. But the  thing didn't eat him; instead, it wordlessly untied him and began to lead him  after the boxes. 

The railroad warehouse was a wonder of cogs, levers, belts, pulleys, and other  such automation, all of which was apparently driven by external steam plants and  which rumbled and hissed and gave off occasional steam through vents. Steam also  seemed to heat the place, at least somewhat; it was certainly warmer here. Overcoming his fear and revulsion at the sight of the giant insects, Lori began  to watch them work with fascination. They all looked so very different, yet he  began to wonder if in fact they really were. Each seemed to be physically  designed almost as a tool would be designed, to do one or two specific tasks  well. The big low ones were the strong-arm types, the longshoremen who could  move and lift loads much larger and heavier than they. Sleek, small, fast bugs  went up and down the conveyors and pipes, oblivious to whether they were right  side up or upside down, apparently checking to make sure that everything was  operating properly. 

The big praying mantis types were primarily lifters, almost like living dockyard  cranes using huge mandibles that form-fitted into specially designed containers. Suppose an insect society, many of which had different specialized varieties  anyway, could really breed and design to order or need? Each individual hatched,  shaped, and endowed with the capabilities to do specific jobs and serve the  whole? That obviously was what was here. 

It was an ideal tiling for a nontech hex, but the steam power and degree of  automation said this was semitech. The bugs of the industrial age, adapted to  fit the new requirements. 

If they were as durable and as prolific breeders as most bugs, this was a race  that might well be able to survive and even thrive anywhere, under almost any  conditions. 

Outside, both Lori and Mavra could hear the shrill sounds of steam whistles  large and small going off and the rhythmic chug chug chug unique to one kind of  mechanical marvel moving about. 

Steam locomotives. 

Neither was aware of the other's identity or proximity, although there was  little they could have done about it had they known, yet both suddenly shared  the same thought. 

The crazy dance of the trains might not yet be over. 

Another Part of the Field 

Gen Ttaluud was very uncomfortable in the presence of the colonel, but he needed  information and needed it bad. He might have some business to do with this jelly  blob if the answers were right. 

"It was a complete disaster," the colonel told him. "They even managed to  prevent me from destroying a great deal of the computer files. Fortunately, I  did manage to eliminate information on certain major figures and also some  details of the divisions within the hexes such as yours." 

"You think that'll help me?" Taluud thundered. "Hell, everybody there knows me,  and so does everybody here. I ain't in the quiet part of the business, you know.  If they'd flush something as big as the complex down the toilet, they wouldn't  think twice of flushin' me along with it." He bit off the end of a cigar and  spat it out with such force, it traveled halfway across the room. "So what's the  price, Colonel? What in hell will get 'em off my back?" 

"As you surmised, the pair kidnapped by Campos, and particularly one, Mavra  Chang. Find them, rum them over, and you are likely to find the pressure turned  well down, so much so that you might well be back in business within six months  to a year at best." 

"Then we'll find 'em!" 

"Um, yes. That is a priority. The question is, Do we really wish to turn them  over to the council when we do?" 

"Huh? What in hell does that mean? Of course we do. You think I want to be  ruined?" 

The colonel had considered his course on the journey here, accomplished mostly  by sea and not without its own danger. Leemings had great power on land, but in  the water they were helpless, and in salt water they could not help but absorb  great quantities and sink like stones. Even these amorphous creatures needed to  breathe oxygen, and they were not equipped to fashion working gills. "Mister Taluud, have you thought beyond what's happening to consider why it's  happening? Why our mutual bosses would allow such a catastrophe?" "Savin" their own asses, that's all, just like everybody else." "In more ways than one. They are scared. They are frightened of something so  much that they are willing to pull down an important part of what they had built  with such care and patience. This Mavra Chang isn't merely someone with a lot of  friends. They would never have sacrificed the complex for as simple a reason as  that." 

Gen Taluud really hadn't thought about it, but what the creature had said made a  lot of sense. "Go on." 

"Let me tell you what they firmly believe about Mavra Chang," the colonel said  calmly. "And I'll also tell you about my experiences with a man of the same  race. A man named Nathan Brazil." 

Taluud listened, fascinated, not knowing whether to believe this stuff. Still,  it was clear that the big shots, the rulers and politicians behind all this,  were totally convinced, and they had greater resources than he did. Still, it  was hard to swallow. 

"You really believe all that crap about her, Colonel? Honestly? And this guy who  they think is some kind of ancient god, too?" 

"Does it matter, sir?" 

"Huh? Whatddya mean?" 

"Let's assume it's all true. Every word of it. You could never make a bargain  with that sort of creature. Even if you thought you had a deal, once inside, at  the all-powerful controls, what would bargains with mere mortals count for? How  would you enforce the bargain? You see what I mean. There is no way we can allow  her to actually get in, so it doesn't matter if I believe it or even if it is  true. It doesn't matter if you believe it, either. They believe it. The raid and  the massive actions still to come here prove that." 

"Yeah, so what? What's that get us?" 

"Perhaps a lot. If they got her, they'd just lock her away under guard with  Brazil and try to keep them there until all that we know passed away. But what  if we had her? You and I, together. What if we had her and she was salted away  safely in a place only we knew? Think of the possibilities. What do you want to  be? Emperor of Clopta? Governor general of the district? Permanent chief  councillor? No running, no fear of the law at any time because you are the law,  secure in the position because if they don't give you everything you want, if  they even dare to act against you, you can give one order and Chang will get  into the Well. You see the potential? You are a powerful man, but only in this  city and to a lesser extent in Clopta. Like me, you still take orders from those  higher up. The kind of people who are now selling you down the river, as it  were. Isn't it tempting to turn the tables and have them deferring to vom?" It was a masterful scheme, absolutely brilliant. Taluud's estimation of the  colonel went up a great deal in just that one moment. Only one thing made him  hesitate.