The creature seemed to ignore them, and no one else in the place seemed to pay any attention. They turned and ordered breakfast, a thick porridge in a huge bowl served steaming hot with wooden spoons stuck in the stuff. Wu Julee just ordered water with it, while Nathan tried the pitch-black tea. It tasted incredibly strong and bitter, and had an odd aftertaste, but he had found from the days he had spent in Dillia that the tea woke him up and got his motor started.
It didn’t take long for one of the Slongornian truck drivers to strike up a conversation. They seemed to be an extraordinarily friendly and outgoing people, and when curious about this strange-looking one in their midst felt no hesitancy in starting things off. Between comments about the weather, the porridge, and the hard and thankless life of truck drivers, Brazil managed to explain where he was going and as much of his reason as he had told the one in the parking lot.
They sympathized and one offered to take them the nineteen kilometers to his base in the nearest Slongornian city, assuring them that they could probably hitch rides from terminal to terminal across the country.
“Well, Wu Julee, no exercise and no aches today,” Nathan beamed.
“That’s nice,” she approved. “But, Nathan—don’t call me by that name anymore. It’s somebody else’s name—somebody I’d rather not remember. Just call me Wuju. That’s Jol’s nickname, and it’s more my own.”
“All right,” he laughed. “Wuju it is.”
“I like the way you say it,” she said softly. He reflected to himself that he didn’t feel comfortable with the way she had said that.
“Excuse me,” said a sharp, nasal, but crystal-clear voice behind them, “but I couldn’t help overhearing you on your travel plans, and I wondered if I could tag along? I’m going in the same direction for a while.”
They both turned, and, as Brazil expected, it was the bat.
“Well, I don’t know…” he replied, glancing at the willing truck driver who cocked his head in an unmistakable why-the-hell-not attitude.
“Looks like it’s all right with the driver, so it’s all right with us, ah—what’s your name? You’ve already heard ours.”
The bat laughed. “My name is impossible. The translator won’t handle it, since it’s not only a sound only we can make but entirely in the frequencies beyond most hearing.” The creature wiggled his enormous bat ears. “My hearing has to be acute, since, though I have incredible night vision, I’m almost blind in any strong light. I depend on my hearing to get around in the day. As for a name, why not call me Cousin Bat? Everyone else does.”
Brazil smiled. “Well, Cousin Bat, it looks as if you’re along for the ride. But why not just fly it? Injured?”
“No,” Cousin Bat replied, “but this cold’s done me no good, and I’ve traveled quite a distance. Frankly, I’m extremely tired and sore and would just as soon let machines do the work instead of muscle.”
The bat went over to settle his bill, paying in some kind of currency that Brazil guessed was valid in Slongorn, which would be used to pay for the supplies.
He felt a sudden, hard pressure on his arm, and turned. It was Wu Julee—Wuju, he corrected himself.
“I don’t like that character at all,” she whispered in his ear. “I don’t think he can be trusted.”
“Don’t be prejudiced,” he chided her. “Maybe he feels uncomfortable around horses and elephants. Did you have bats on your home world?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “They were brought in years ago to help control some native bugs. They did, but they were worse than the bugs.”
Brazil shook his head knowingly. “I thought so. Well, we’ll meet some even more unpleasant characters along the way, and he seems straight enough. We’ll find out. If he’s honest, he’ll be a great night guard and navigator.”
She resigned herself, and the matter was settled for the moment.
Actually, Brazil had an ulterior motive. With Cousin Bat around, there was less likelihood of the emotions of the night before getting aired or strengthened, he thought.
The ride was uneventful. Cousin Bat took the floor next to the Slongornian driver and promptly went to sleep, while Wuju and Brazil sat in the rear bed, the only place she could fit.
The Slongornian city was modern enough to have traffic jams as well as signals and police. Had it not been for the mushroom-shaped buildings and the total incongruity of the inhabitants, it would have been very comfortable. They waited there for two hours before another truck going in their direction was sufficiently empty to fit Wuju in the back, and even then she was uncomfortably cramped. Still, it was faster than her own speed.
Shortly after nightfall, they were more than halfway across the hex. Cousin Bat was wide awake by this time. Since there were no inns that could accommodate someone of Wuju’s size and build, they made camp in the field of a friendly farmer.
The bat had looked like a cartoon version of a villain by day, but in the dark he took on a threatening aspect, his red eyes glowing menacingly, reflecting any light.
“You going to fly on now, Cousin Bat?” Brazil asked after they were settled.
“I will fly for a while,” the creature replied, “partly for the exercise, and partly because there are some small rodents and insects roaming about here. I am sick and tired of wheat cakes and the like. My constitution is not constructed for such fare. However, Murithel, which is the next hex, is a bit nasty I’m told. I’ll stick with you to Czill, if you’ll have me.”
Brazil assured him he would, and the bat leaped up into the evening sky with a flurry of leathery wings and vanished.
“I still don’t like him,” Wuju insisted. “He gives me the creeps.”
“You’ll have to get used to him,” he told her. “At least, until I find out what his game is.”
“What?” she yelped.
“Oh, he’s a phony, all right,” Brazil said. “Remember, in the old life I was nothing much but a truck driver like these folks here. I was even delivering grain. Truck drivers see a little of everybody and everything, know isolated facts about all sorts of things from the people they run into. They knew where our flying companion’s home hex was. It’s nine hexes north-northwest of here—almost exactly the opposite direction to the way we’re going, at least the wrong point on a V.”
“Now who’s getting nervous?” she retorted. “He could be going someplace on business. He certainly hasn’t told us much about what he does.”
“I know what he does,” Brazil replied evenly. “One of the other drivers saw him flying south, toward Dillia, two days ago.”
“So?”
“He was coming to meet us, Wuju. He stayed at that roadhouse knowing we’d have to come that way to get to Czill. He almost missed us in the storm, but we managed to blunder into him anyway.”
“Then let’s get away, Nathan. Now. He might—kill us, or kidnap us, or something.”
“No,” he said thoughtfully. “Nobody goes that far out of his way to kill somebody. You just hire it done and that’s that. If it’s kidnap, it’s the same gang that got Vardia and Skander, and if we joined it would solve one of my problems. But I smell something different here—I don’t think he’s one of their side, whoever they are.”
“Then he’s on our side?” she asked, trusting his judgment.
Nathan Brazil turned over on his towels and yawned. “Baby, you better remember now that the only side anybody’s ever on is his own.”
He slept far better than she that night.