What would happen if wishing wells appeared on Earth?
I was getting a good look at how it would play out in many parts of the world. Certain people would try to seize control of the wells and use them in ways contrary to their reason to exist. If wells showed up on Earth, before a year was out there would be well-slavery, well-pimping, well-extortion, and worse. The people in charge back there would take this great boon and turn it into another tightly controlled, punitively priced commodity that benefited the few by depriving the many, and this monopoly would be managed by force of arms.
Just like someone was trying to do on High Vista.
New planet, same old shit. Maybe we should have been named Homo incorrigiblus.
Homer’s good mood went DOA when we looked over the wall at the attack force below. “Appears they’ve almost got their act together,” he said heavily.
“Sure looks that way,” I agreed. “What’s that stuff they’re loading in the catapult’s basket?” It was a bunch of white spheres, some the size of baseballs, some as big as bowling balls.
“Hoopstuff cannonballs. Remember how I told you that here you can dig up the ground and shape it like clay? Leave it exposed to light and air for a piece and it turns hard as rock. I got to give them props for this one. I figure they plan to use that thing like a cross between a mortar and a shotgun. Start raining loads of stuff down on us so we have to take cover. Keep us pinned down long enough to get in the gate and really start raising hell.”
“What would happen then? Would they just capture the well and throw you out?”
Homer just gave me a long pitying look.
Yeah, duh. They wouldn’t be satisfied with taking control of the big well and the community around it. They’d want revenge for getting the boot and being kept from what wasn’t theirs.
“Where the hell is Trub?” I grumbled. The catapult basket was loaded, and there was a growing pile of extra ammo building beside it.
Homer shrugged. “Hard to say. That lady does get around some. I’m sure she’s doing her best to get back to us.”
I had to wonder if she was trying hard enough. I watched the activity at the bottom of the hill, wondering how she would deal with the situation. What I’d seen of her methods so far gave me the idea that she’d use the least amount of intervention possible. I was pretty sure she could scare them off… but if that was true, why hadn’t she done it before now? Maybe she’d try to buy them off. But what could she offer that would make them give up their prize?
That question set off an ideagasm, one that made me laugh out loud.
“Hang tight,” I told Homer. “I’ll be back in a couple minutes.” I turned around and ran back toward the wishing well.
“I need a white flag,” I said, rejoining Homer at the wall.
He stared at me like I’d asked for a feather boa and high heels. “You’re not thinking on going down there, are you?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I am.”
“Now why would you want to do that?”
Great question, brain damaged answer. “So I can convince them to call off their attack.”
A long pause as that improbable plan was absorbed. “How you going to do that?” he said at last.
“With a whole lot of luck, and even more bullshit.”
The nearer I got to the ragtag army at the bottom of the hill, the more I had to wonder when I’d lost my mind.
None of this had anything to do with me, but then again not everything a posto takes up as a cause affects him or her personally. Homer and his people were in danger, and Trub wasn’t there now that they needed her. She could probably handle this with one hand tied behind her back.
I should have waited. I knew that.
But I hadn’t, and there was too late to return to High Vista. My approach had been noted, and a half dozen arrows were pointed at me. I had no idea whether the guys holding the bows could shoot straight or not. I was willing to bet that if I turned my back I’d be the guest of honor at target practice, and didn’t want to help them improve their aim.
It wasn’t much of a skullbuster to figure out who was in charge. It was the sort of guy who always ends up in charge when a gang of a certain kind of men rallies around a really bad idea. In this instance it was a sixtyish, overweight, red-faced, white guy whose badges of office were the biggest mouth, fanciest armor, and tallest helmet. Cyrus.
“Howdy, gentlemen,” I called, keeping a harmless idiot smile on my face as I made my way to the bossman.
“Who the hell are you?” Cyrus demanded sharply.
“My name is Glyph.”
“I don’t know you. You weren’t on High Vista before.”
“Nope, I wasn’t,” I said, unable to resist adding, “I’m a stranger to these parts. A door dumped me up there just a while ago.” I didn’t see any point in mentioning that Trub had come through that door with me. Somehow I doubted dropping her name would get me a warmer reception.
“So why the white flag? Are you here to join us?”
“Hell no. High Vista is nice, but not my style. Never much wanted to be a soldier either. But when I heard what the issue is here I figured I could save you a whole lot of trouble, and maybe some pain.”
Cyrus was staring at me like I’d asked to take his Lexus out for spin to test the crash bags. He looked sour and impatient at having to deal with interruption when victory was finally within his grasp.
“You better start making sense real quick, boy,” he growled in his best Maximum Leader voice. “The only ones going to feel pain is them.” He jerked his thumb toward High Vista. “And maybe you.”
“Give me a break, man. I’m here to do you a favor.” I put my hands on my hips, adopting the pose of an art lover at a museum as I took a long look at the catapult. “Very cool work, dude. Work of art. One big problem. It won’t work.”
“Bullshit. It sure as hell will work,” snapped another man who had been standing by and listening in. A short, tubby guy with thick glasses, scraggly Fu Manchu, and geek written all over him.
“Oh, I’m sure it will fire just fine. That’s not the problem. The problem is that the place up there is bulletproof.”
“Bullshit,” Geek said.
“‘Fraid not. You know the guy in charge up there, the tall black dude?”
“Homer,” Cyrus spat the name, lips twisting in distaste.
“That’s him. You know how good he is at pulling stuff out of that big-ass wishing well?”
“He does okay.” Cyrus’s voice dripped with ill-concealed envy, like Homer regularly whipped his ass and took his lunch money every time they played golf.
“Well, he wished himself up a piece of Bug tech. A sort of invisible shield that will deflect anything fired at the place.”
“Bullshit,” Geek proclaimed, deploying his one word answer for everything. “That’s not possible.”
“Possible,” I shot back. “Don’t you dudes get it? The reason the Bugs give us things through the wells is because they want to hear us ask for them, like us giving treats to a dog if he begs or does some other trick. Our wishing for stuff lets them see how we think about things, how we perceive and ideate them, how we use imagery and language to define objects. You know Homer can get pretty much anything he wants, like that big-ass stove? The Bugs love him because they love the way he thinks and talks. They’re into him enough that they’re not going to let anyone hurt him. You’ve attacked that place before, right?”
I didn’t wait for an answer, but drove the last rhetorical nail in the rickety structure I was building. “You think it’s just bad luck your other attacks have failed?” I shook my head. “Wake up, guys. The deck is stacked against you, start to finish.”