Wine of the Gods 4: Explorers (12 page)

"What's the problem, Boss. Don't like the natives?"

Never smirked.
It is aberrant behavior. Roxy sees it too.

"
No, I have the opposite problem. I do like the natives. And I've seen what contact with Earth does to their societies. It's not pretty. And it doesn't make us look very good either."

Roxy rubbed her nose. "Eh. Yeah, I know what you mean. I've had troubles on some worlds. That's why I mostly hire on long term with you. I didn't know yo
u'd ever taken on an inhabited world."

"Only once, and that was one time too many. Maybe we can just st
ick to this area and avoid the natives altogether."

Roxy shook her head. "Nah. Levty and Dudit are too curious to go away and not mention us to anyone. We'll probably get the nearest Chief huffing and puffing and all important on the doorstep in short order. With his hands out for 'gifts' if he's anything like the ones I've met."

Lon nodded, and looked away. Creases between his eyebrows. Eyes haunted.

Very interesting.

At the end of the week everything changed. The doors at the end of the long street were opened to show a circular arch, flattened on the bottom.

:: Not flattened. It goes underground. The flat surface, I think is to accommodate gyps. :: Never was closer than Dydit and Lefty were being allowed.

"Dangerous, stay back." Nelson frowned at Dydit. "Gyps come out fast. Magic!"

:: Can I hit him? ::

::Maybe later
. :: Lefty frowned across the street. He rather thought there was a heat shimmer over by Lon's gyp. The Boss was apparently going somewhere, leading a line of tanker trucks and several other vehicles, all parked to the north side of the road, ready to go in moments. He rubbed his arms. :: I think we're about to see how they travel between parallel worlds. Never, don't get run over by something coming out of that arch. ::

Dydit snorted.
Cast a glance over to the headquarters building.

Lefty followed his gaze. Both kids staying on the doorstep, as ordered.

Lefty caught Never's amusement. :: I'm well to the side. There are no controls here other than the simple on-off power switch. I was expecting something a bit more complicated. ::

Dydit stiffened. Lefty spotted a nebulous grey smear
in the arch, that abruptly sharpened to a street scene. Gray buildings, lighter gray walkways, darker grey roads. A man with a green flag waved permission to a waiting line of vehicles. A boxy pair of gyps and another tank truck. The tank truck had a prominently displayed red flag sticking out the back corner. The three vehicles rolled forward, out of the arch and kept going down the street.

Dydit jumped back as if taken by surprise. :: Still unsquished?
::

:: Unsquished. Love you, see you in a bit.
::

Lon's gyp veer
ed into line with the arch as the tank truck rumbled by, and drove through the Arch and down that gray road. The empty tank truck was right behind him.

Dydit jumped and shoved Nelson aside. "Never! Never don't you dare . . . !"

:: Question? ::

No answer.
Damn all curious women to hell and . . . 

Lefty dropped the thought as Dydit decked an Earther
who stepped in to block him and bolted for the arch. Two more Earther 'scouts' jumped in and tackled him. By the time he'd flattened them, nothing showed in the Arch but the back of the building. Lefty grabbed him and dragged him off before he changed into a goat and really made a spectacle of himself.

"It's shut down now, you can't get through. Stop it, damn it. They can take care of themselves. Don't even think about changing."

"Never doesn't, Never . . . Arg!"

"Yeah. What do you want to bet Question brings back her own gyp?"

Dydit shot him a dirty look, but was calming down. "These people don't know about magic. Maybe magic doesn't work over there. Think about that, eh?"

13 April
3477

Nowhereistan, Earth

Lon  braced himself as the driver revved his engine. As the tanker rushed out of the
gate, red flag waving, the driver floored it. They missed the tail of the tanker by inches as they swerved onto the track and through the gate. A brief flash, an impression of a kaleidoscope tunnel so fleeting it was nearly subliminal, then the familiar industrial solidity of the Gate Works Complex. The second gyp, with both geological and biological samples turned off for the Dallas warehouse.

Lon's gyp headed straight north. This was a report he'd have to make in person. Ted knew where to go, and wound through the streets careful of the pedestrians. They checked out through the security gate and picked up speed on the expressway. An hour to the city, the flight home, God alone knew how long for the meeting. He'd call Carol from the airport, warn her that he was back. The assays from the rocks from the impact crater were going to make the Board of Directors sit up and take notice.

He called a friend for gossip, while waiting for his flight.

Jim Paulson was happy to oblige. His genetics lab would be analyzing all the samples Dee and Rae had sent back, theoretically with the same results.
"I'm watching the stock ticker. DDEX jumped a cred as soon as you reserved a flight home. The rumor mill's at work already. Everyone figures you're reporting either disaster or success, with the majority voting for success." An old hand, Jim knew better than to ask for inside info. Lon wouldn't give it, and betting on rumors was for fools.

"That's a nice vote of confidence."

"Hey, you have a good reputation. Unlike other people. I hope you have some good news for your bosses. Your old buddy JJ has been screwing up by the numbers. Did he really grab your first gate because he forgot to schedule gate times? And he didn't offload in time. He's still got the boxes on trailers. Can you imagine sixteen bored drivers stuck somewhere for six whole weeks?"

"Sixteen? Please tell me he
didn't take a full cadre, boxes and all, into those mountains?"

"Well, if you really don't want to know . . . " Jim was chuckling. He'd had his run
ins with the man as well. And even more with his cronies with the Gate Authority.

Lon winced. "
Did he report back in person, to explain?"
I could change my flight, give him some sage advise—not that he'd be likely to take it . . .

"Still out-world
, as far as I know."

"I can only hope he
knows what he's doing." Lon spotted a man approaching. "Oh hell, here's more bad news, must have just gotten off a plane. Gotta go." He disconnected and stood to face the man glaring at him.

"Lon. How nice to see you
, again. I understand you've been undermining Jackson, not scheduling gates for him. Professional jealousy?" Hastenberg still had that flawless smile. It had never slipped, even after Lon found out why the grain ships had stopped coming.

"
Personal hatred. His gate times are not my job. He knew that, because I had no idea when he wanted them. I have no desire to have anything to do with him, nor, now that I think of it, with you."

"That's not a team attitude."

"Team attitude? I've seen what your teams are capable of, and I'll never go there again. JJ was your devoted follower and . . . everything else I've been warned to not talk about. I'll never go out of my way to help either of you."

Hastenberg glared. "Well, he's
moving now. I suppose you're bringing good news, since you're checking in, in person. Well, his will be even better. You'll see."

"Well,
I'll more likely be back in the field, but good luck to him." Lon sat back down.

"
I hear you're sticking to empty worlds these days. Good Call. And a nice boring world that won't tax your ability to focus on the bottom line. Jefferson has a much bigger challenge. I expect he'll be Dallas's fair haired boy real soon now."

Lon ignored him.

"So are you hand delivering good or bad news? What have you found?"

"Nothing I can talk about in public."
Or think too hard about.

Like the Sudbury Crater in Canada, one of the most productive mining areas on Earth. And
they managed to land the gate anchor a mere thirty miles or so from it. Nickel, copper, platinum, palladium, ruthenium, rhodium. From the first samples inside the crater.

And the
natives? Call them screwed. Officially.

***

Question and Never jumped down at the first opportunity, and trotted back to the massive metal-and-colored-lights-and-gods-knew-what frame that they'd popped out of. Nice to see that their light warps hadn't been effected by the thing.

"Hopping on Lon's gyp for a ride might not have been a good idea," Question said. The frame framed nothing at all, at the moment.

"When we came through, we could see this place in that frame." Never stared around the hot dusty street. "I think it must be these people's equivalent to traveling, using machines and electronics, instead of magic."

"I wonder how far from home we are?" Question suddenly missed Lefty acutely.
And what if that pain in the side is what I fear? Again?

Never was looking up at the building on one side. "I think they control it from up there. Let's take a look." There were windows sticking out from about twelve feet up that would give a good view of the frame
and the street.

They slipped through the nearest doors on the heels of other people. And found stairs leading up, with printed signs and arrows.

"The written language is even closer than the spoken." Never murmured.

The shapes of the letters were
a bit odd, but once she worked them out, the words were easy enough. They followed a pair of women up the stairs and into the control room. The room was split by a glass partition, isolating the people right by the windows from the activity of this side. There was a huge checklist on the wall in glowing letters, like the computer screens the Earthers all had in their offices. As they watched, a line was drawn through one entry.

Never sidled up to it. She pulled out a pad of paper and started copyi
ng. "Dallas Prospect Twelve fifty-three is us, I think," she whispered. “At least those moveable 'box' buildings all said Dallas on them."

Question listened to a quick group meeting.

"This is a large group of incoming laborers. Probably be noisy as Hell. Six trailers full, so get the streets emptied. We want to send them straight to intake, not have them jumping out and wandering around. We need to get them away from the gate, we have a big shipment to send the other way."

The group scattered, and Question watched as they scampered around, and data was sent to the people on the other side of the partition. She maneuve
red to where she could see the gate. She could see through it to more of the same gray painted walls. But a shower of sparks shot across it suddenly, and then fog, and when it cleared, a muddy scene, a large gyp pulling a wagon full of people through the gate, followed by five more like it. For a moment she could see that other world. It was drizzling, there were wooden buildings and some portable buildings like Lon's camp, and the ground everywhere was churned up mud. Even the raised road had a layer of mud on top of it. Then gyps and wagons were going the other direction, pretty much filling the gate, side to side, top to bottom. She wondered if the gate was made to fit the vehicles, or the other way around. How long had these people been doing this? How many worlds did they travel to? Down below the gate fogged and returned to empty.

Another line on the checklist was crossed off. Another meeting . . .

Question eased over to the translucent Never only she could see at all. "The gate goes to lots of worlds. We're going to have trouble getting back to ours."

Never nodded her head, and studied the list. "If those are times running down the side, the list is half a day." As the people turned away from the list, she
stepped up closer, to peer at a series of screens across the bottom. She bit her lip, and then poked at the arrow pointing right. The screen changed, showing the next half day’s time schedule. She kept poking until she saw Dallas again. "Our world is on the list in fourteen days."

Question nodded, relieved. "All we have to do is not starve in this place, and hope Dydit and Lefty don't do something stupid when we don't come right back."

"So, lets go take a look around this place."

Never dug a colored wax marker out of her pocket. "I think I can keep this invisible, but I'll also put it where the marks aren't too obvious." She stooped outside the door and marked an arrow up to the glass room, then hastily dodged two men walking by.

They stopped at every corner, marking the way back to the gate, until Question saw familiar muddy trailers. People were climbing down out of the wagons, men and women dressed in clothes that wouldn't have been out of place at home. She nudged Never. "If we joined that group, we'd fit right in, could talk to people."

Never titled her head back and looked at the building the people were being shoved into. "Labor Check In with an infinity sign. We ought to be able to find that again, right?"

"Right." They crossed the street and Never drew a large X on the side of the building. The people bunched up and shoved a bit, everyone looked at two men glaring ate each other, and Question stopped bending the light around herself.

One man started when he suddenly caught sight of them out of the corner of his eye, then shrugged and mumbled something in a language that sounded very unlike anything she'd ever heard.

They followed the crowd through the door, where people in the local one piece garb, were splitting them into smaller groups and sending them to tables to talk to other locals.

Question and Never stuck together, and finally were directed to sit at a table with a tired looking woman.

"Allo?" Question tried to make it sound as much like Nelson as she could.

The woman perked up. "You speak Merican? A little, a least. Good." She tapped the flat box on the table in front of her. "I need your names. What is your
Family
name?"

Question hesitated, and Never said "Ash." She put her arm around Question. "Sister."

The woman nodded. "Right Ash for both. Your first names?"

In half an hour, Neva and Christian Ash had
Eye Dee tags, a room assignment and a class schedule. Apparently the group was being educated and trained to work here. A long gyp called a buz took them to a fenced village. The machine voices apparently told the other new people something in their own language. Never and Question swapped looks.

"We're lost. And we don't understand instructions." Question looked a bit nervy.

"No we're not. We came down that big road about twenty miles, turned right and came about two miles. No complications. We could walk back, thirteen days from now." Never sniffed. "We've been much more lost than this, before."

They were dropped off at the dining hall, where they learned to run their Eye Dee through a machine, and were then given a fairly good meal. The exotic food was too salty to their tastes but interesting. They explored a bit, and managed to talk to some people.

"We frim all ofer." The man who'd introduced himself as Mani said. "Talk Merican or can't talk to any pretty girls." He leered in a friendly fashion and took no for an answer with resigned humor. He was dressed in a bright red one-piece. "Says wut world yur vrom," he told them.

But he gave them a tour of the village, checked their Eye Dees and showed them their barracks building. "All wumun, wished I cud cumin."

They explored the plumbing, tried to talk to the other women and were reduced to gestures, and finally matched up the symbols on their Eye Dees to two beds and little closets, which opened when their cards were put in the right place. Each closet had two one-pieces in eye-searing bright orange.  Never pulled one out and held it up. She was half a foot taller than any of the other trainees, but this was her size. "Huh. We can open them and so can they. I can't leave my stuff in there."

"Or not all of it," Question pulled some gold wafers out of her sack and put them in the one-piece pockets.

Never nodded, and did like-wise. The rest she left in her sack and nodded in satisfaction. "I'll just take it with me."

The other women were settling in, and the light globes
were dimming, so they crawled into their respective bunks and slept.

The lights got them up in the morning too, and some local women chivied them all into the communal showers, their one-pieces, breakfast and then classes.

Question and Never were in advanced language, which had a variety of one-piece colors. The instructor frowned. "I hope you do speak Merican. Please sit down."

They sat at a table in the back, and stared at the surface as letters appeared. As they'd noticed with the sign, the written Merican was more like Old Scoone than even the spoken language.