Several characteristics of the bunda became apparent as Mavra and Joshi made their way across the plains. The beasts were lazy, complacent, easily spooked, and so dumb, Joshi concluded, that should a bunda come upon a three-meter fence section attached to nothing else, it would turn around before figuring out how to walk around it.
The bundas probably weighed sixty or more kilos on the average. Fat hung off them everywhere. And they certainly bred-four per litter every five weeks, weaned after only two or three weeks, and full-grown in about a year. They had no natural enemies except the Ecundans, who managed them well.
From a distance an Ecundo would, they hoped, see only a pair broken off from a herd, maybe odd-looking and long-eared, and with perhaps a little less fur than usual. Two bundas not to be disturbed, for more food was on the way.
On the sixth day their theory was put to the test. They were getting used to the herds thundering through the plains on trails made by generations of bunda herds tramping the same ways, and, except for staying out of their way, Mavra and Joshi paid them little mind. This time, however, the herd seemed in a panic. Ordinarily Mavra and Joshi would travel by night, but if one is going to pretend to be a bunda, one can"t be moving when bundas sleep, and so the sun shone warmly on them around midday when the stampede occurred. They barely dodged it, moving off in a hurry, but there was something in the animals" manner and almost frantic blind rush that made them pause.
The two lay down in the tall gra.s.s and waited several minutes before they saw the cause: five Ecundans, each standing on six two-meter-long crab-like legs, were coming down with amazing speed after the fleeing bundas. Their beady stalked eyes looked ahead-long tail-sections raised and nasty stingers dripping venom, the two claws raised at the ready before them.
The Ecundans intersected the herd near Mavra and Joshi. The two pressed into the ground and held their breaths as one pa.s.sed almost over them, its eyes following the game ahead. It smelled lousy.
The Ecundans fanned out, driving the herd first one way, then the other, and, finally, almost in circles. Having tired the beasts, they closed in, claws grabbing, stingers flashing with incredible speed.
But those stung initially were just to help as barricades, to limit the frantic animals to a single avenue of escape, which was, in turn, covered by other Ecundans with great nets. The herd ran right into them, and even as the leaders stumbled and fell squealing into the trap, the others mindlessly followed, until the controlling Ecundans considered the haul sufficient and drew the net tight. Two nets held at least twenty bundas apiece, and the great scorpions carried the heavy load as if it were nothing.
Satisfied, the Ecundans let the rest of the herd pa.s.s, and all hands fell upon the paralyzed bundas that had formed the living corral, cutting with sharp claw-teeth and eating them, bones and all, in large gulps through mouths that opened wide in four directions. The Changs could see no chewing motions; either the Ecundans digested the chunks whole or their teeth were far back beyond the thorax.
"Oh, boy," Joshi breathed unenthusiastically as the Ecundans rumbled off with the day"s catch. "I"d rather talk to them than have to argue with them."
"Wouldn"t do much good," Mavra responded glumly. "Those hard cases on the ship said that Ecundans are very nasty about strangers they don"t invite. They eat them or just paralyze them and send them home by ship as object lessons. No, we"ll not get any help from the Ecundans, believe me."
On the ninth day their food supplies were running low. It concerned them both.
"How much farther to this Wuckl border or whatever?"
"Shouldn"t be far," Mavra replied. "We"ve been making d.a.m.ned good time." Particularly since seeing that Ecundan roundup, she added silently.
And they had had made good time. The interior valley was mostly flat, there were few obstructions, bunda trails were everywhere, and they had had the sun at some point every day to keep their bearings. The flat land and trail had allowed them to trot; they were making forty to fifty kilometers a day, by Mavra"s figuring. If they"d been keeping to the correct direction, the border should be close by. She told Joshi so. made good time. The interior valley was mostly flat, there were few obstructions, bunda trails were everywhere, and they had had the sun at some point every day to keep their bearings. The flat land and trail had allowed them to trot; they were making forty to fifty kilometers a day, by Mavra"s figuring. If they"d been keeping to the correct direction, the border should be close by. She told Joshi so.
"It better be," he replied. "d.a.m.n! What do they eat in Wuckl, anyway?"
"Pretty much what we do," she replied. "A lot less meat, though. They are a really funny people, as I recall. You"ll have to see one to believe it-I won"t even try to describe it. Mostly vegetarians by choice, they do some fresh-water fishing in interior lakes. They"re high-tech, but slow breeders with a small population. And if the Trader Trader"s information is accurate, they have a lot of parks and game preserves just for enjoyment."
He nodded. "But won"t it be risky asking for food?" he wondered. "After all, a high-tech hex. The people who want us are bound to look there, too."
"We won"t ask unless we have to," she told him. "There"s a lot of wild fruit and vegetable stuff growing in those parks and lake areas, and I don"t think we"ll have to hustle long."
She was right. They made the border near dusk.
It was a forest, but not a dense one, just a parklike wood, complete with pebble-filled trails. The place was beautiful-they could see wild berry bushes and even several citrus trees bursting with fruit. It looked like the land of milk and honey, and the Wuckl were neither antisocial nor deadly.
But there was a hitch.
"Look at that," Joshi grumped. Four strands of coppery barbed wire about two meters high, the fence was attached to metal poles every four meters or so as far as the eye could see.
"To keep the Ecundans out?" Joshi wondered.
She shook her head. "To discourage a bunda invasion of the Wuckl parks and an attack on their goodies, I"d say. Probably put up by both countries in their mutual interest."
"That top line of barbs looks kind of nasty. How are we gonna get over it?"
"We"re not," replied Mavra Chang. "We"re going under under it. There"s a good fifty centimeters clearance, and I think I can stand a barb or so to get through. Game?" it. There"s a good fifty centimeters clearance, and I think I can stand a barb or so to get through. Game?"
Joshi looked at the little barbs, which didn"t seem all that sharp, then thought about the Ecundans chopping up bundas. "Who"s first?" he asked.
"I"ll go. With any luck I might just wriggle right under it. Then I can help you through."
He nodded and she approached the fence. "Funny," she said thoughtfully. "A little humming sound. Vibration?"
He heard it but shrugged. "Who knows?"
"Here I go!" she announced, and crouched down as low as she could. The exercise was painful, and she started regretting that extra fat she"d laid on over the years.
She still made it about halfway under when her hips touched the bottom wire.
She screamed and Joshi heard a loud buzz as activators were tripped; she yelled and jerked spasmodically.
"Mavra!" Joshi cried in panic as he rushed to her aid. As soon as he grabbed at her twitching hind leg with his mouth he felt the shock, too.
Ecundo was a semitech hex, but, unfortunately, Wuckl was a high-tech hex, and the fence was one meter inside Wuckl.
And it was electrified.
Hookl
The skies had cleared, the weather was warming, and all was right with the world for the crew of the Toorine Trader Toorine Trader. Seas were under two meters, and she was under a full head of steam heading north-northwest, great clouds of gray-white steam leaving a kilometer-long double line from her twin stacks. They had lost some time in Nocha"s storms; now they were making it up.
On the back hatch, two pinkish Twosh were relaxing, enjoying the feel of sun on their bowling-pin shapes. With ten cigars in little holsters on its belt, one Twosh was balancing itself well on one broad hand while its other hand removed a cigar and stuck it in a tiny, almost circular mouth. It never lit one; it just kept sucking and nibbling on the cigar until it had ingested the whole thing.
"Big thing, in flight twenty degrees off the starboard bow!" the lookout suddenly shouted from the radar console.
The Twosh with the cigar looked up and located a faint, faraway shape, then turned big lemon eyes to its twin. "Not another another one!" it groaned. one!" it groaned.
The other Twosh strained. "I"ll be d.a.m.ned if it don"t look like a horse this time. That"s all we need. A stampede on the high seas!"
"And you know who"ll have to clean up the deck," the first one added ominously.
The great deep-purple horse, swan"s wings spread wide to take advantage of the updrafts, circled the ship several times as if making certain that it was the one sought and, if so, allowing its rider to figure out how to land. It was a tricky problem. An Agitar pegasus didn"t just land like a bird; it had to have a little room to run on the ground, to break its momentum. It could land in water, of course, but while the sea was calm enough for the Trader Trader, it was pretty rough for anything smaller.
The captain and crew stared at the newcomer, wondering what he was going to do.
"Be d.a.m.ned if I"ll slow for him," the ghostly captain growled in his fog-whistle voice. "If I"d known we were gonna get all this company in the middle of the ocean, I"d have taken up something more peaceful, like the Army."
Tbisi nodded his long, thin furry neck. "Maybe we"re missing a bet here, Cap," he said half-seriously. "I mean, charge "em landing fees, heavy fees for each question asked, fifty times the fee for each answer given, and five hundred times for the truth."
Renard decided that the starboard deck was clear enough and long enough for a try at least, and he brought Domaru, grandson of Doma, in.
Domaru refused the first pa.s.s; unlike his distant cousin the horse, the pegasus was neither a stupid nor foolish animal. There was not only the narrow and possibly too-short lane, probably filled with obstacles, ropes and stuff, to contend with, but also the yaw and pitch of the ship with the rolling seas. A second pa.s.s was refused by Renard, who cursed that no one below seemed to have the slightest inclination to help him or even move, but on the third try both horse and rider committed, and it was a narrow success. Once down, the pegasus, on a trot, had to fold its wings to clear the area between rail and superstructure. If Domaru couldn"t stop at the bow, it would probably break his neck.
The sight of the fast-approaching bow chain seemed to help. The horse put on the brakes with barely fifty centimeters to spare and managed a turn.
Taking a little time to recover his breath and his nerve, Renard looked around at the crew, who were watching him curiously. For the first time he wondered whether or not he should have asked permission or something to come aboard. Two nasty-looking Ecundans were sunning themselves atop the bridge, stalked eyes staring at him; the two Twosh eyed him with expressions more bored than hostile.
He got down and nervously approached the Twosh with the cigar. "Uh, excuse me, but is this the Toorine Trader Toorine Trader?"
The Twosh took a bite of its cigar, chewed, and swallowed. "Since you took so much trouble to drop in, I"ll have to say yes to that."
This reply embarra.s.sed him a little. He wasn"t sure how one greeted a little pink brown-eyed bowling pin. Shake hands? No, then what would it stand on? Oh, well . . .
"My name is Renard," he tried. "I"m from Agitar."
"That"s interesting," the Twosh responded helpfully.
Renard cleared his throat and tried again. "I"m, ah, representing Amba.s.sador Ortega of Ulik."
The Twosh surveyed him critically. "My, my! Where"s your other four arms?"
He sighed. "No, I"m just working with him. I"m searching for a woman, a person named Mavra Chang, who disappeared from Glathriel."
"Does she do other tricks?" the second Twosh put in.
Renard felt frustrated, and the sn.i.g.g.e.rs from the rest of the crew didn"t help any.
"Look," he said earnestly, "I"m an old friend of hers. I heard she was in trouble, and I"ve come to help. We"ve traced her to this ship, and I"d appreciate some help in locating her. It"s extremely important."
The Twosh with the cigar eyed him suspiciously. "Important to whom?" it asked.
"To me, mostly," the Agitar replied. "And to her."
"I"ll bet," the other Twosh said under its breath. "Well, if you"ve traced her to this ship, she must be on it someplace, eh? You"re welcome to search away, although I"m afraid that on a ship at sea the crew is a bit too busy to a.s.sist you." Its black, straight eyebrows suddenly dipped until they touched the upper part of its eyes. "But I"ll tell you right now it won"t do any good," it whispered. Its small head gestured to the two Ecundans perched atop the bridge housing. "They ate her, you see."
For an uncomfortable moment Renard thought the little creature was telling the truth. But he dismissed it with a queasy feeling and was certain now that she was not aboard. They were trying too hard.
"You"ve only made landfall once since Glathriel," he told them, "and that was in Ecundo. Did you drop her there?"
The Twosh looked shocked. "Of course not! When we disembark someone, we lower him gently gently over the side!" it huffed. over the side!" it huffed.
Renard threw up his hands. "How you people can be so flippant about all this is beyond me!" he fumed. "That"s a dangerous hex for someone like her!"
The Ecundans on top of the bridge suddenly got up on their six legs. "Say, goat-man! Are you insulting us?" one sneered. Two stingers rose.
He felt total defeat. "I give up!" he said, disgusted.
"If you think she"s in Ecundo, then you"d better go there," one Twosh suggested. "The way everybody"s looking for this person or whatever it is, you will have us covered in Domien. Watch it in Ecundo, though. Those two up there were thrown out for being such nice nice guys." guys."
"Wait a minute. The way everybody everybody is looking? Have others been here?" is looking? Have others been here?"
The answer to that question the Twosh saw no reason to disguise. "Sure. Big b.a.s.t.a.r.d with pretty orange wings and a little b.i.t.c.h about as big as your knee flew in this morning. We weren"t as helpful to them as we were to you, you bein" such a nice nice guy." guy."
He was learning to ignore the sarcasm. "A Yaxa and a Lata? Did they run into each other?" He was concerned for Vistaru, from whom there"d been no word for several days.
"Considering one was perched on top of the other, I"d say they would have a hard time running into each other," the Twosh observed.
That bothered him even more, and he took great pains to describe a Lata to them to make certain they weren"t putting him on some more. A Yaxa and a pink Lata-almost certainly Vistaru-together? It seemed almost impossible. It seemed almost impossible.
"Did either one seem in command?" he asked them. "I mean, did it look like one was, say, a prisoner of the other?"
The Twosh thought about it. "Nope. I wouldn"t say they were buddies-but, then again, I don"t think anybody could be buddies with that orange iceberg. But they sure seemed to be working together."
That bothered him. Had the Lata, for some reason, deserted Ortega after all this time and joined their old enemies? That was unthinkable-and yet, it had been so many years. People change, he told himself. Governments change, individuals change.
It didn"t sound good.
"Hey, mate!" one of the Ecundans called.
He was startled. "Huh?"
"How you gonna take off?" it asked in an amused tone.
The question brought him up short for a moment. He just hadn"t thought about it. The sea was too rough, and Domaru definitely needed as long a runway to take off as he did to land-and with wings spread.
He was stuck until landfall at Domien, another day in the direction opposite to where he wanted to go.
They were all snickering now. Finally it was left to Tbisi to administer the coup de grace coup de grace. "Pa.s.sage is twelve gold pieces a day," he said, approaching Renard.
The Agitar sighed and mentally kicked himself. "I"ll get it out of Domaru"s bags," he said resignedly.
"That"s another thing," Tbisi added. "The horse is freight. One piece per kilo."
Wuckl
The chatter of a few birds flittered back and forth between the shady trees and sometimes, although rarely, back and forth between the hex border and the forest. There was something in the air of Ecundo the Changs didn"t like and soon learned to avoid if possible.
The underbrush crackled as something inordinately large moved in this placid world of bird and leaf. Whatever it was, it was not in a hurry. It moved steadily and deliberately toward the electrified fence bordering Ecundo, a sentinel in response to a silent alarm.
The creature that reached the fence was a large biped. Its body, an almost perfect oval covered with thick, wiry black hair, was suspended on enormous birdlike feet, each with five long, clawed toes. The legs looked like long helixes, making the creature appear as if standing on springs; those thick meter-long legs could bend in any direction.
The Wuckl stopped and looked at the fence and at the two unconscious creatures with curiosity. Then it walked over to the fence and almost touched it. Its head swung this way and then that on its long, golden-ringed neck, as it studied every angle of fence wire and trapped creatures.
The Wuckl was plainly puzzled by them. From a distance they had looked like bundas, but close up they looked different from anything in its experience-bundalike, but distorted somehow.