01. When the Changewinds Blow (36 page)

"My God! What are
those?"
Sam asked.

Boday frowned. "Most likely the man is the Pilot," she answered. "The other two are probably natives of some sort. Odd little ones, are they not?"

Odd was not the word. The pair on either side of the Pilot were hardly half his height and seemed little more than brown humanoid blobs, but they were riding in tiny saddles atop what looked like the largest mice in all creation, and mice that not only had saddles on their backs but stood on their hind legs and hopped like kangaroos.

The Pilot shook hands with Jahoort, then looked back at the train, nodded, then turned to look ahead. He barked some orders to the little creatures, and they whirled their strange mounts and went forward, hopping rapidly, until they were perhaps a hundred feet ahead of the lead. Then Jahoort gave the cry, and they started forward once again.

The valley twisted and turned before it opened up into an enormous expanse flanked by high volcanic peaks. The valley had several large rivers and streams running through it, and seemed about as lush and green as it was possible to imagine. It seemed to go off in the distance forever.

The road dipped down into it and men followed a broad and fairly straight river. At the road's junction with the water there was a-well, a village. There seemed to be hundreds of conical grass huts of varying shapes and sizes, all built atop stilts at least ten feet in the air and some far higher. There were no ladders, no stairs, but there were small porches in front of the oval-shaped door openings, and there were people on some of them, as well as below on the ground.

Well, not people, exactly.

They were small, all between three and four feet high, and they all seemed to have broad, muscular brown bodies that seemed hard and tough as leather or maybe rock, with small, thick legs and short, stubby arms and heads that were very round and hairless, with enormous bulging brown eyes, thick, flat noses that ran half the distance of their face, and mouths that ran the entire distance. They were ugly as sin and they all looked kind of alike, although you could tell the males from the females. The females had small, round, hard breasts and were also, it seemed, a few inches taller on the average than the males. Most wore brightly colored loincloths and nothing else; the younger ones wore nothing at all.

They ran by the dozens out to greet the train as it passed, all yelling and gibbering in some odd-sounding language that was high-pitched and totally unintelligible. Others popped out of the stilt huts to join them, simply jumping out off the little porches and sliding down the not very smooth-looking stilts like firemen answering an alarm. When they got real close to the slow-moving wagon and seemed to be shouting up at her and grinning with those incredibly wide mouths, Sam felt repulsed and tried to shrink away lest they jump up or try and touch her. Charley, looking out from behind the seat, was finally able to see them as well. They
were
ugly, even repulsive in a way, but she felt no particular fear of them. This was, after all, probably
their
land.

Their fellow Bi'ihquans who were working with the Pilot whirled on their mounts and hopped back, coming down either side of the train and shouting at the natives and pushing them away with whip-like tools that looked like giant wicker dusters. They weren't hurting anybody, but the crowd moved back.

Giant brown and gray tailless mice were the best description for those mounts, too, although the creatures were clearly bipedal, with very large and powerful rear legs oriented that way and very small forelegs mounted on thin, short arms. Charley was less tolerant of their sight when she could finally see them; she had never been very fond of mice.

"Boy, I'd hate to be a cat in this place," she remarked, still being flip, but not really feeling funny right now.

Those creatures could
hop,
though. There wasn't a horse that could move that fast or turn that much on a dime. For the little people who could ride them, they were an amazingly versatile form of transportation.

They were past the village in no time, but others could now be seen popping up in the distance. In fact, they seemed to be scattered, yet pretty numerous; in between were lush fields that were obviously carefully cultivated. In one they could see lots of the little people walking down neat rows of plants taller than they were, carrying baskets and picking something or other. From the plants nearest the road Sam guessed it was the local Tubikosan style of banana. It tasted like one, but it was green on the outside all the time
and
green on the inside as well.

There were still occasional thermal areas but they weren't as pervasive as at the entrance to the land. Some steaming blue pools here and there, and off in the distance there could be seen an occasional geyser spouting off, sending its plume high into the air.

The banana seemed to be the main crop of the land, but every once in a while they would see a large amount of acreage planted with other fruit trees, or bushes bearing large, almond-colored nuts, and here and there what might have been a purplish relative of sugar cane. Mostly the small villages dominated, but here and there in the distance they saw some very large if conventional-looking houses with massive bams and other outbuildings that looked entirely out of place here, and areas that were cleared of all but thick grass and which had horses and monstrous-sized longhom cows grazing.

About four hours in they pulled off the trail and toward one of those large houses, stopping just short of it in a large grassy field. Charley looked at the house-it was almost a mansion-and then around at the fields. "Kind'a looks like
Gone With the Wind,"
she noted. "Sure looks more like plantations than farms or ranches."

They set up in the field, allowing the horses and nargas to get water and do a little grazing, and allowing themselves to stretch and fix something to eat. The crew warned them that this would be just a ninety-minute stop, so they ate as fast and light as possible in order to have some time to look around.

Master Jahoort and the Pilot had gone into the big house and emerged only about forty minutes later, along with a young-looking couple and their four children, all Akhbreed. The woman and two of her daughters wore the long saris of the Tubikosans, and scarves, but clearly the business of young unmarried girls going in white and masked was out the window here. This was less formal.

Work was going on around the place; dozens of the little people were scurrying this way and that, carrying large things on their heads with balanced ease and hauling and repairing and cutting and sawing and all the rest. Two females attended the Akhbreed family.

Sam had Boday point out a couple of the train crew who had been part of the company Charley kept the previous night and walked over to them. She was curious. One of them, called Hude, a tall, lanky guy who always had a cigarette in the corner of his mouth but never seemed to light or smoke it, felt talkative.

"Yeah, most of these are big places," he told her. "It's the usual thing. Most of the produce here will be shipped by a train goin' where we just come from back to Tubikosa's markets. Them, they're the relatives of rich or powerful folks back in Tubikosa but they got the life out here. Hell, I bet they live as good as some kings and queens, only they don't got all the politics and shit you do if you're royalty."

Sam nodded. "But it's the land of these little people, right? I mean, they look so poor and primitive."

"Yeah, but they're ugly little brutes. All this volcanic stuff makes some of the richest farmland anywhere. Just drop anything at random here and it grows. They never did nothin' with it, though. Just squatted in their little huts and went out and picked wild fruit to eat back in ancient times. The Akhbreed come in, they made it a science. Growin' ten times as much, gave the little buggers medicine and sanitation and stuff like that. Taught 'em the work ethic. They never had it so good."

"Yeah, maybe," Sam responded, but she wondered if Charley's first impression of the old slave-owning South might not be a better example, or maybe some of the colonies in the old days when the English and French and others went all over the place "civilizing" the world. These little people didn't seem much better off than Hude said they were before the Akhbreed "made it a science." It was real clear to see who was bringing the tea to who, and who was dressing good and living in mansions and who was living in primitive huts, carrying water back to their places on their heads, and begging wagon trains.

Charley though so, too, but she wasn't all that surprised. "It's like we were told at the start, remember? The Akhbreed run all this. 'Sectors!!' 'Wedges!' They should call 'em what they really are-colonies!"

The Pilot and the navigator, along with the plantation owner, walked toward the rest, still talking, and their conversation now could be overheard.

"... Much real trouble?" Jahoort was asking. "Only out near the nulls," the Pilot, who kind of looked to Sam and Charley like a shaved Mark Twain in a bush outfit, responded. "We're getting some cross banditry whenever the synchronicity is right. We've asked for more troops but it's the usual story, you know. Things are pretty good here, you should see what some of the others are facing, we're spread thin, that sort of crap."

Jahoort shrugged. "Yeah, well, I've been talking to some of the other navigators at the Hall and they say there's been scattered outbreaks of outright resistance in some of the wedges, particularly in the more permissive kingdoms. Would you believe it?
Resistance! Natives
killing Akhbreed! And it's spreading. Mark my words, we're going to have a nasty mess on our hands if we don't stop it now, but the damned monarchs and their asshole advisors can't even agree on when to go to the bathroom, let alone unite."

"Laxity, that's the root of it," said the young plantation owner. "We've gotten too gentle and too permissive as a race over the years. Keep a tight rein and a whip and treat them fair and you'll have no trouble, I say. You don't see any of that rot seeping in
here!
Fairness and toughness, that's the answer. You talk as if it was some sort of worldwide conspiracy afoot."

As he said that Charley noticed a little native behind them pick up a melon and make as if to throw it at the owner. He didn't, but the thought was there. Charley smiled at him and he grinned. If they were bold enough to even show off like that, she thought, this idiot was in for a lot of trouble and couldn't see it if it was right in front of him. This place was grand, but it was dependent on native labor and the next Akhbreed plantation was a good ways from here. They were very vulnerable; only the threat of reprisal kept them alive and in this arrogant and ignorant state of wealth.

"Some think it
is
a conspiracy," the Pilot remarked. "I take trains through from all over. There's lots of talk about whole villages of natives disappearing in some sectors, and there's been more changewinds reported in the past year than in any one year in my entire memory. None here, yet, thank the gods, but you never know."

"You really think there's some dark conspiracy that might overthrow the Akhbreed?" the plantation owner asked in a very skeptical tone.

"I can't see how they could actually overthrow us," the Pilot admitted, "but if somebody was mean and powerful enough they could cost massive loss of lives and property and break the system. The hubs have gotten too damned soft and dependent. Jahoort can tell you. You stop the imports from the sectors and you'll have starvation, unemployment, maybe revolution."

The plantation owner chuckled. "Oh, come on! I can't take you two seriously! Revolution indeed. So one king and clan is traded for another. The army and the sorcerers still suppress things and that's that. Besides, it would be an inconvenience, nothing more. Why, it would take the revolt by a majority of sectors to more than irritate the hub. Besides, nobody in their right mind would foment such a disastrous and doomed uprising. There would be no gain in the end, only losses all around. Even the unhappiest of natives wouldn't follow such a course when it meant defeat and possible genocide for their people. I can see some power mad madmen dreaming of it- there are always psychotics-but actually getting a following? Come on, gentlemen! When the gods gave the Akhbreed the power, this system was
ordained.
One can scratch it, but hardly alter it."

It was an interesting debate, and one neither Sam nor Charley wanted any part of. In the end, the owner was right. The Akhbreed were in power because they
had
the power. Their sorcerers were demi-gods, the navigators alone could go where they like and bring troops to bear on any problem area while any revolt would have to trust to luck for help from anywhere else. But you had to wonder . . .

Boolean had said that whatever it was about Sam involved the fate of everybody, and not just Akahlar, either. Suppose somebody like the horned wizard
had
figured out a way to solve the problems? Suppose his biggest problem was convincing enough sectors to support and go along with him? It'd take lots of time, but these sorcerers had that time and the natives of all these worlds would be offered hope for the first time.

Suppose, just suppose, you could lock up the Akhbreed in their hubs so only the ones out here were around. If the sorcerers and the troops couldn't get out for some reason, then these Akhbreed would be outnumbered by a whole lot. And all sectors led to the hub. . . . What if most of the natives from most of the sectors all decided to attack the hubs at the same time?

"Impossible, darlings," Boday assured them. "Such a thing could not be. Only Akhbreed has sorcerers of such general and unlimited magic. No other race could do it but we against ourselves and that was settled in wars long ago. It is like everything, darlings. We have the power. There is no way to take that power away and we alone have it. You worry about everything, I think."

Sam remembered her strange visions and the horned sorcerer. "Yeah, but suppose some of the sorcerers went real bad? A lot of 'em?"