The Trader’s crew of thirty-four was an amalgam of Turagin races. Batlike Drika stood the night watches and occasionally scouted ahead for storms. The scorpions of Ecundo climbed her rigging deftly and managed the sails with claws of amazing versatility. The captain resembled a great tangled ball of nylon twine, out of which spindly limbs appeared as needed.
They took in sail, and stood to, anchoring on a reef that was marked with yellow buoys. Not good for business to anchor in deep water and maybe conk an Everod on the shell.
The longboat was lowered off the stern, and large oars raised and lowered in cadence as it headed toward the compound.
The first mate, a shiny triangular Wygonian, whose six tentacles looked like huge, furry pipe cleaners, scanned the shore through his small stalk-mounted eyes, occasionally muttering instructions to his muscular Twosh oarsmen. When he finally noticed the crushed wall of the compound, he shouted to the oarsmen to slow. A few wisps of smoke still rose from the interior, and he knew something was wrong.
Mavra and Joshi trotted onto the beach just up-shore from the longboat and walked to the landing. The sight of them put the mate more at ease, and the longboat turned and docked easily.
They were old friends by now. Many of the Trader’s crew had been with the ship, off and on, for a decade, and their contract had always called for this supply stop.
“Mavra!” Tbisi, the mate, called to her. “What in the world happened here?”
Quickly she explained the previous night’s visitation and her own fears. The crewmen nodded sympathetically; they knew why she was here and why she was the way she was.
“So, you see, we can’t stay here,” she concluded, “and we can’t go back to the Ambreza. You know what would happen. Ortega would just take us to Zone and lock us up in a nice little cage for the rest of our lives.” Tbisi was pretty low to the ground, and Mavra could almost look into its strange face and eyes. “Imagine what that means, Tibby! Think about if somebody told you that they were going to take you off the Trader and put you in a nice dark hole for the rest of your days!”
Not only the mate but the Twosh as well nodded sympathetically. “But what can we do to help?” the mate asked, feeling his tendrils were tied.
She gestured to the compound with her head. “There’s almost a half-ton of vintage tobacco and about thirty pounds of gold in there. It’s yours if you get us out of here.”
“But where will you go?” Tbisi asked in a tone that was more an objection than a question.
“Gedemondas,” she replied. “Oh, I know it doesn’t have a coast, but you serve Mucrol next door. A little detour?”
He shook his incredibly thin head slowly. “True, we could do it, but not directly. We have our own jobs, our own livelihoods to consider. It’d be at least a month, maybe more. If Ortega or anybody else is looking for you, the Trader’s going to be pretty obvious.”
She considered what he said. “How about this, then. Take us across to the island, to Ecundo. I know you stop there. We’ll make it overland through Ecundo and Wuckl and meet you on the other side, say at the Wuckl port of Hygit. Then it’s only a short hop across.”
The mate was still dubious. “I don’t know. It’s true we have some Ecundans, good people, in the crew; but that’s a nasty bunch generally. The ones we have are mostly wanted men back home. Those Ecundans are a vicious bunch who don’t like outsiders.”
She nodded. “I know that. But they herd bundas, and, if you think about it, bundas look something like us with hair. A lot of it’s open range—we could make it across, I think.”
“But the Ecundans eat bundas,” Tbisi pointed out. “They might just eat you, too. And what will you eat? You’re talking about 350 kilometers across Ecundo, then all the way across Wuckl—almost a thousand kilometers in all, on foot.”
“These Wuckl,” Joshi asked, “what are they like?”
“High-tech hex. Kind of hard to describe. Nice folks, really, and vegetarians. I’m sure you’d have no trouble if you explained your problem, although they might not help much. But—wait a minute! I’m talking like this crazy thing is going to work! Hey, look! If you’re right, Mavra, and somebody is trying to get rid of you as a threat to that ship, won’t Ortega need you then?”
She laughed derisively. “For all I know Ortega’s gotten impatient and decided to kill off all three pilots. Besides, even if not, it might just be that one side or the other has a lead and has decided to act just to foreclose any potential threat. It doesn’t matter—I have to act as though that’s the case. Please! Won’t you help me?”
They would, could, and finally decided to. Any good seaman would chance the unknown rather than sit waiting for death to creep in.
They understood her.
South Zone
Serge Ortega stared curiously at the crystalline crablike form that had just entered. Though there was no face, and no eyes, ears, or other orifices, it could speak, the operator modulating small crystals inside the creature, which in turn modulated a translator.
“You are the Ghiskind?” Ortega asked, genuinely curious.
“At your service, Ambassador.” Ortega considered the Northerner. “I—ah—take it that this is not exactly your normal form, but is for my benefit?”
“That is so,” the Ghiskind acknowledged. “It is one of my worker modules, which I have modified with the necessary speaking devices. Our own form of communication is, shall we say, nonverbal. I do wish to thank you for providing the translator; it is a fascinating device.”
“My pleasure. And now, down to work. You know about this business with the Torshind and the Yaxa and the ship, of course.”
“Of course. The authorities have tried to keep things quiet, but I had the good fortune to be near the Zone Gate when the Yaxa materialized. Its nature was immediately apparent—it radiated carbon. I guess that is the best way to put it. It is so difficult, putting these concepts into a form easily understood by you.”
The Ulik nodded. “Never mind that. The real questions are more basic. For example, why have you chosen to contact me instead of one of the others, and why are you going against your own government? And, of course, can you do the job we’ll require—and why?”
“A long series,” noted the Ghiskind. “As for why you, the answer is that you are on record as opposing the Yaxa all along, which means, as well, that you are against the Torshind.”
Ortega’s bushy eyebrows went up Ah ha! he thought to himself.
“As for going against my own government,” the Ghiskind continued, “well, first it is rather much of a tradition in Yugash to go against the government. A silly game in any event—the government has no true power, only the business clans. No, the government is quite out of this, really.”
“The Torshind represents a commercial rival, then?” Ortega guessed.
“Not at all,” the Yugash replied. “The Torshind represents the—ah, let me see… concepts, concepts—I suppose the closest thing I can get to it, although you will probably misunderstand, is a church. At least, an organized cult that has rigid dogmatic beliefs and is rather fanatical about them.”
Ortega thought it over. “Cult is good enough for me. Doesn’t matter much what it believes—or is that relevant?”