That, of course, was it. Tools were more than fancy equipment; they were also mental. Extreme self-confidence was a must, but also the social tools to get what you wanted from anybody you needed. That was what her life with Obie had robbed her of: the instinct for making people and events bend to her will. She hadn’t needed it; Obie was the ultimate persuader. She had lost the ability, somewhere, and she couldn’t seem to discover where. Take Marquoz—he still had it, had always had it. The Chugach was firmly in charge not only of himself but of those around him, the way she used to be. And Gypsy—whoever, whereever he was—he, too, had it. Where did they get it? They weren’t born with it, certainly. It was something you acquired as you grew—something some acquired. And how did you lose it? By not using it constantly, as Marquoz and Gypsy had always used it.
She was, she thought, like the big frontier fighter who had fought and clawed his way to the top, then wound up in a huge mansion with all that he desired at his beck and call. Take that away after many years and he would be lost. His skills would be rusty, out of date, or, worse, atrophied from long years of disuse.
Atrophied. That bothered her. The wild catlike animal she had been had become tame, domesticated, fat, and lazy. Now that it was thrown again into the wild, its pampered self found that wilderness an alien place, no longer its element at all.
There was no getting around that fact, although she hated to admit it even to her innermost self. She not only needed other people, she needed people she could depend upon, even trust with her life. Perhaps if she had had more time, or were more in control of events and able to alter the plan or the schedule to suit her, she might have reclaimed more of her old abilities, reverted to the wild whence she had come. But she could not, and time was running out even now. Events beyond her control would soon force actions and reactions of which she had foreknowledge— her best weapon—but could not change.
She walked along the riverbank in the late afternoon thinking about this when a curious, harelike animal leaped into view. Its gigantic ears and exaggerated buckteeth gave it an almost comical, cartoon-ish quality that was offset by one look at those powerful legs. It was also more than 150 centimeters high, even without the ears—a formidable size indeed —although the species was harmless. It stared at her, more in curiosity than in fear, and she stared back. Somewhere in the corners of her mind a notion stirred and forced itself to the fore. There was something decidedly odd about the animal, something she couldn’t quite place but which seemed somehow important.
In a moment she realized that the animal was brown from the face down to its shorter forelegs, but beyond that the hair slowly was replaced by snow-white fur. Looking closer, she could see signs of occasional white fringes even in the light brown.
She had seen such creatures before, but they had been mostly white or mostly brown. Now, suddenly, she knew why. White was its winter coloration, making it almost invisible against the snow. Now, with spring here and every day getting a bit warmer than the last, the animal was turning brown, a better protective color for the now blossoming forest. Slowly the white was being pushed out, with the seasonal change—and that meant that, for one of two times a year, the beast was unable to rely on its camouflage for any sort of protection. Now, during early spring as it would be later in fall, it was a target. Hunting parties were coming Uplake now; she had seen them, and cursed herself for not putting the facts together.
Hunting was a major industry for Dillians; the natives used the furs and skins for a variety of things and sold the meat to adjoining hexes. Hunting parties —professionals, mostly—meant tough people who knew their way around. But the hunting wasn’t done in Dillia—that was possible only in Uplake, and Uplake’s wildlife was reserved for Uptake’s permanent residents in order to conserve it. No, Dillian hunting was done in Gedemondas, on the high trails.
She decided that her best place was back in town after all, this time looking for a way into Gedemondas. What she needed from Dillia could be arranged for later; Gedemondas was more critical, particularly since there might not be time enough later to do anything.
Early attempts at linking up with an expedition resulted in failure. Although the hunting parties were composed of females as well as males, the Dillians having few sexual distinctions when there was a job to do, she was too soft, too pretty for them to take seriously. It was a frustrating experience for her. All her life she had been not merely small but tiny, and had never been taken seriously then, either—until it was too late. But now, to be scorned because she was too attractive, that was an unkind blow. Not that the hunters, particularly the huge, strutting males, weren’t interested in her—they just weren’t interested from the business standpoint.
She felt as if she were going back to her beginnings, when, poor and trapped on a backward frontier world, she had gained money, influence, and eventually a way out by renting her body and other services. But things were different now; Dillia had some similarities, but not that way out—not now and not here. And she had nothing else, not even a thick coat for the wintry cold of the hunting grounds, nor any real weapons skills. Oh, she knew a laser pistol and its related cousins inside and out, but this was a semitech hex, where nothing beyond combustion weapons would work; and the hunting ground, Gedemondas, was a nontech hex, where killing was accomplished with bows and arrows and similar weapons, weapons that required a constant honing of skills, of which she had almost none, particularly in this new and larger body.
She was becoming discouraged, and some attempts with both bow and crossbow hadn’t given her any more of a lift. She was lousy with them.
Still she continued to meet, greet, and talk to the parties still coming in, now in a rush to make sure they would still be able to stake out some unclaimed hunting territory. They were all at the bar, and one man, the leader of a party, was gustily downing huge mugs of ale and telling the locals about Gedemondas. Most had never been there and never would go there; it was a mysterious and dangerous place even for those who knew it well, and what common sense didn’t prevent, superstition did. Despite the fact that Dillian young could discuss hexes and creatures halfway around the Well World, nobody knew much about their next-door neighbors. They maintained no embassy at Zone, and histories said nothing about them. Geographies generally described them as shy, but nasty, savages glimpsed only from distances. Dillia did not have permission to hunt in Gedemondas, but there had never been an objection. All these made the hex an eerie, forbidding place of legend.
The hunter, whose name was Asam, was a big burly Dillian in early middle age but aging extremely well. His tanned lean, muscular figure was matched by a craggy, handsome face that looked as if it had seen the misery of the world; yet, somehow, there was a kindness there, perhaps accented by his unusual deep-green eyes. His beard, flecked with white, was perfectly trimmed and he was, overall, rugged but well-groomed. His voice matched his looks: thick, low, rich, melodic, and extremely masculine.
“It’s always winter up there,” he was saying between long pulls on a two-liter-plus mug of ale. “Aye, a warm summer’s day could freeze yer hair solid. We hav’ta take extra care, rubbin’ each other down regular so the sweat don’t turn into little iceballs. And y’do sweat, make no mistake. Some of them old trails are almost straight up, and yer’ carryin’ a heavy pack. Sometimes you lose the trail completely—hav’ta go out onto the snow and ice, which is double bad this time o’ year, for snow melts from the ground up and the sun do beat down, it does. So y’get hidden crevasses that can swallow a party whole and never leave a trace, and nasty slicks and soft spots, and snow bridges, where it looks like solid ground but there’s nothin’ underneath ya but air when ya try it.”