02. Shadows of the Well of Souls (10 page)

The colonel, still quivering, was also thinking furiously. "Well, give me until tomorrow morning at least. One more night. That is not asking too much, I think. If I do not come up with anything useful, you can still leave."

Brazil frowned. "And what makes you think you can come up with something in so short a time when you haven't been able to come up with anything for weeks?" he asked suspiciously.

"Oh, well, ah, we have been waiting for the ship to be completed to go where you wished to go, have we not? And if you leave on your own, you will have to make a very circuitous route, is that not so? While it is true that I might not be able to get you near your destination, I can certainly get you on the same
continent.
Let me look at what ships are in. What I find might not be very comfortable, but at least it will get you somewhere closer. Agreed?"

A half smile crept over Nathan Brazil's face. "I believe I understand things perfectly now, Colonel. In fact, I feel somewhat chagrined that it took me this long. Tell you what—you go and see what you can come up with and then contact me back here. If I'm still here, we'll talk some more. If you find that I've checked out, forget me. That is the best I can do."

"I—I think you are being very unreasonable, but I will try and find something with all speed, I promise you. Wait for my call. Until tonight at least."

"We will see, Colonel. We will see."

He watched the creature slither off and knew that he didn't have much of a window of opportunity. Within minutes the colonel would be calling in, reporting to whoever had sent him here, telling them to find him some kind of passage in a hurry, but something slow and sure to wind up going in the wrong direction. Others would be dispatched to put a close watch on him in case he did try to leave.

Of course, there was also the shadow, but somehow he didn't think that whatever it was worked for the same people who obviously employed the colonel. He wasn't sure why he felt that way, but as usual, he knew to trust his instincts.

The girl seemed surprised when he went back toward the room, but she followed. He'd gotten into the habit of using the stairs with her most of the time, not because it was easier for her but because he'd felt he was getting soft and needed the exercise. Well, he'd get his exercise now, that was for sure.

The shadow rarely followed them to the room either because it had trouble with the stairs or because it didn't feel it needed to cover him from that point.

He'd been settling his bill on a day-to-day basis, so he didn't need to clear anything with the desk. If they wanted to complain that he hadn't formally checked out and owed another day, well, let them find him to collect.

It was easy to pack, particularly now. He wanted to travel light and had almost everything he needed in a backpack. He already wore the warm clothing required, and while he might get a little gamy after a while from the lack of too many changes of clothes, he'd coped with that and worse before.

The thermal windows were not designed to open, not only to insulate the room but also to contain any climatic adjustments that inhabitants from other hexes might require, but he'd long ago figured out how they were fastened on and how they were removed for servicing and replacement. It took him about twenty minutes to undo the window he'd picked long ago and to scoop out the puttylike sealant. The window was stubborn, and while working it he almost caused it to fall outward and crash down below, but he managed at the last minute to catch it and carefully manipulate it into the room. Another bill they'd have to send him.

The girl watched, both puzzled and fascinated, as the cold, damp wind blew into the room. She watched, too, as he took out a thin rope of some very strong synthetic material, looped it and buckled one end to a grate just inside the window, then let the rest drop almost five stories to the extended lobby roof below. Satisfied that he had a good solid hold, he put on the backpack and his hat, hoping he wouldn't lose it in the wind, and went over to the open window. He looked down a bit nervously, then nodded to himself and turned back to her. There was no way around this, and he felt he knew her well enough that she'd figure a way to follow. Her refusal to use things was more a belief pattern than anything imposed, and as with most religious tenants, followers could and did compromise when they had to.

"Well, you either come out this way or you stay here," he told her. "I am going, and I am not coming back. At least I
hope
I'm not."

She stared at him, not comprehending the words, but she got the idea as he climbed up onto the sill and grabbed on to the rope. She knew that he was leaving, sneaking away so that he wouldn't be seen or followed, and it was no contest in her mind between using the rope and remaining until somebody opened the door. She ran to the window as he was making his way down the side of the building and looked down. When he was clearly close enough to the roof level to jump, she reached out, grasped the rope, and began to descend.

Brazil watched her come down, admiring her seeming effortlessness at the pretty daunting descent. When she reached his side, he took the rope and twirled and twisted one end; the other came free and fell at their feet. He quickly coiled it back up and went to the left side of the roof area.

They had been clever in making certain he had a front-facing room, although he doubted that they had expected anything like this. The roof ran the length of the building's front but had only a small turn on either side, tapering quickly down to nothing. It was constructed of some metallic-looking synthetic, smooth as glass and unlikely to take anything driven into it with any power he could muster. The drop itself was five, maybe closer to six meters— makable, but he preferred not to unless it was forced on him since it would be onto a stone-hard surface. Nor was there anything he felt was secure enough to attach the rope to. He wished he had plungers or a basic chemistry kit, either of which would allow him to create some kind of suction cup, but while such things were readily available, their purpose would be easily divined by anyone watching him, and he
knew
they were watching him. Maybe more than one group.

He took a deep breath. Well, there was nothing for it but to jump and risk a break or sprain. He'd jumped worse and made it. He was just getting up the nerve when he felt her hand on his shoulder. He turned, puzzled, and she pointed to the rope. Curious, and relieved at least for the moment from thinking about the jump, he handed it to her. She took it and twisted a fair amount of it around her waist, then handed the rest back. He understood immediately what she was offering to do, but he was unsure about the wisdom of it. She wasn't, after all, any taller than he was, and while she undoubtedly weighed more, it still would be quite a load with no handholds. Still, he could hardly argue with her, and if she managed to hold long enough for him to get halfway, he could easily drop the rest of the distance. He assumed that she would then jump; she was extremely athletic for one of her hefty build.

It was starting to rain, one of the icy rains that passed for a warm front in beautiful Hakazit, but in this case he didn't mind since it had pretty well cleared the streets of general traffic. Not that there weren't various denizens of the hex and people of various stripes from the hotel bustling about, but they were hurried and busy. Still, it would have to be fast.

"Okay," he told her with a sigh. "Here goes." With that he dropped the rope over the side, took it, and climbed quickly down hand over hand. It wasn't until he dropped the last little bit to the sidewalk that he realized that the rope had been rock steady.

She did not wait to uncoil the rope but jumped the instant he was down, hitting on her bare feet, flexing the knees, then standing up straight. For all it had seemed, it might have been a one-meter jump. She slipped the rope off and handed it to him. He did not wait to coil it but took off for the rear of the building, the girl quickly following behind.

Walking the long distance out would have been absurd; both Brazil and the girl stuck out like lighthouses in this hex. The watchers would have the transport terminals covered, of course, and even if they didn't, they could trace them easily. That was why Brazil had decided not to leave in those ways but rather in his own.

As the rain came harder, mixed now with ice and creating a frigid slush, he made his way by the alleys and service lanes down toward the docks.

He didn't care if the Hakazit workers saw them; they were doing nothing illegal or improper using the back ways, and so they would be nothing more than idle curiosities in a boring routine. He was in his element once they reached the docks, where he'd even managed to give the slip to the mysterious shadow.

The lousy weather, even for Hakazit, was something of a blessing to him. He brushed wet snow from his beard and walked along an alley about a block from the docks, heading west toward the commercial fleet and the shipbuilding area.

Just beyond was Pulcinell, a water hex whose dominant race, he gathered, was a bottom-living species that somewhat resembled lobsters with tentacles and that tended vast undersea farms and built vast, strange cities out of coral, sand, and shell. The higher, lighter layers were inhabited by various kinds of the usual sort of sea life, including a kind of jet-propelled swimming clam called a
zur
that was considered a delicacy by many land races and by a species of water-dwelling mammals called
kata,
who, in carefully rationed numbers, were used for fur, leather, and meat. A delicacy and quite limited in the allowable catch, the creature was a high-profit item. The Pulcinell had been known to somehow punch large holes in the bottoms of poachers' boats. A nontech hex, they had some needs that required trading, and they wanted their share of the carefully managed harvest.

A
kata
boat was a bit too large for him to manage alone, but a small
zur
trailer was generally a two-person craft and could, with its single mast, be handled by one man. It would be no picnic to cross an ocean in it, even at a narrow point, but he'd sailed halfway around the world alone in something not much better, and if he could move down the coast or use some of the small islands to get water and provisions, it might not be a dangerous trip.

Still, he fervently wished that he could somehow communicate with the girl and teach her how to set a sail and otherwise handle a boat. It would make life a lot simpler.

There were a
lot
of the small craft in. Small wonder, considering that the weather visible just beyond the hex barrier didn't look all that much better than the weather here. He didn't care. There were no conditions he could imagine that he hadn't already faced at one time or another in almost any type of craft.

Of course, he'd sunk quite a few times, too, but he preferred not to think about that.

And there they were, down the small street through the dock buildings, bobbing in the water between two long warehouses, "parked" in diagonal slots on both sides of three long piers.

Although the design of the small boats differed markedly, as would be expected considering the number of races that built and sailed them, there were certain basic similarities to all of them, and none looked so bizarre as to be unmanageable. The physics of floating objects didn't change all that much, either. At least, if it
did,
then more was wrong here than he suspected.

The trick was to steal the one owned or operated by a race that ate what he could eat and would be likely to have palatable supplies aboard.

He walked down the alley, crossed the main street, and walked out onto the center pier, where a large number of the boats were tied, the girl following. He was not worried about being spotted; for one thing, the sleet was turning to steady, fine snow and starting to lie on the street, piers, and boats, and the dock area was nearly deserted.

Experience had also taught him that one of the best ways to be barely noticed was to go where one wanted and act like one belonged there. With so many different races in at this ocean port, it was unlikely anybody would even figure out his species—or care.

A number of the small boats could be rejected out of hand. For one thing, about twenty percent of them had people aboard, and that disqualified them. He had no stomach for a fight if it could be avoided, particularly not against creatures that might have nasty natural defenses or firearms, and he was never big enough to win even a fair fight with his own kind.

Of the rest, about half could be dismissed as being too alien either to run efficiently or to have a chance of containing useful supplies. A winch was a winch, it was true, and a wheel was a wheel, but the designs were very different if one was using tentacles or suckers or something other than hands.

He was getting cold, wet, and somewhat snow-covered himself by the time he found what he was looking for. It was an attractive little sloop, sleekly built and designed to take heavy weather at a good clip under sail. The creatures who had sailed it here definitely had hands, and the design was in many ways quite conventional for Earth circa, perhaps, the early 1800s. There was no sign of a stack, so either it was built from the ground up as a no-frills sailing craft or it came from a nontech hex and did much of its business in similar places. That suited him, since the passage between Hakazit and Agon was either nontech or semitech and the useful high-tech navigational aids would be of no use anyway in those waters. He would in fact have little problem staying out of high-tech hexes entirely if he made a direct crossing and then proceeded along the coast.

Something inside him just told him that whatever these people were, they ate what he could eat. More of his "intuition," he supposed, drawn from the Well's own catalog.

Looking around and seeing no one obvious, he climbed down onto the trim little craft, and the girl followed, eyes darting around, ears alert for any signs of danger.

There were no tides to speak of on the Well World, but there were many currents, and ports in general were designed to take advantage of them. The diagonal bloat slips were the first step; each was basically a small canallike lock which filled when the ship was docked and raised it a few meters above the surrounding sea. If he triggered the lock mechanism, it would open, and, casting off at the precise moment, the ship would float out into the harbor on the outflowing water. Then he could turn, raise a single sail by that winch over there, and make his way out and into Pulcinell. The wind wasn't entirely favorable in the storm, and it would mean moving quickly, but he thought it was possible.