Chalker, Jack L. - Well of Souls 02 (34 page)

Yulin admitted he had.

"I been around in my youth," Cilbar continued. "Things are different everyplace, of course, but our system here's a little more different than most. It's the biology that does it. We get criticized by some other hexes, but that's the way things are."

"What do you mean?" Yulin wondered.

Cilbar sighed. "Well, a lot of races, they have two, maybe more sexes. Your old one did. There's some differences, but basically they're variations of the same critter. Brain power's the same, and take away the sex stuff and the bodies aren't that far different, either. Right?"

"I'm following you," Yulin replied.

"Well, you mighta noticed that we don't look like the cows," the farmer said. "Not just the udder. We're smaller, squatter, got shorter single-elbow arms, bigger, different heads, like that."

"I did notice it," Ben Yulin acknowledged.

"Well, we are different. Don't know why. First of all, there's only an average of one male for every one hundred females. That's why I was surprised not that you were an Entry but that you were a male. You see?"

Yulin did. All the more remarkable since he'd gone through the Well as a biological female. What was it Ortega said? The Well classified you according to unknown standards.

"Anyway," Cilbar continued, "just from a social standpoint that makes males more important than females. There's less of us, so we're not expendable. On top of that, we're a hell of a lot smarter."

"How's that?" was all Yulin could manage.

Cilbar nodded. "Some scientists from a couple of other hexes once came in to prove to us that it wasn't so. All they did was bear out what we already knew. Their brains are less developed. Trying to teach one to read is like trying to teach this chair. Oh, teach 'em to do any basic job and they'll happily do it for hours. Plowing, harvesting, simple carpentry, hauling and such, sure. Hell, tell 'em to dig fence holes and they'll happily do it forever until you call 'em off. Ask 'em how many holes they dug and they couldn't tell you."

The green light of understanding went on in Ben Yulin's head. "You mean," he said, "that the women do all the labor and the men run things?"

Cilbar nodded again. "That's about it. The women built this farm, but a man designed it. The women work it, but I run it. Same with the art, the books— all by men for men."

Yulin was intrigued, and he thanked the Well even more that he'd come out as he did. This was the kind of place he was going to like.

"You speak very well, very cultured," the Entry remarked. "You have a lot of education?"

The farmer chuckled. "Every male gets everything we can give him. I think we're a group of spoiled brats, myself. I often wonder what we'd have to do in a pinch if things get tough. Yeah, a son is special. He gets it all. Then, if he's got some particular aptitude, like art, or writing, or teaching, or trading, he takes it up. If not, like me, he takes over somebody's farm when they get too old or too tired."

"There's a small population here, then," Yulin surmised.

He nodded. "Very small. About ten thousand farms, more or less, with a bunch of small towns, rarely more than a few thousand in each, servicing them. A million and a quarter tops, no more."

"That means only a hundred thousand or so males," Yulin pointed out.

"Probably less," agreed Cilbar. "I may be way overestimating the number. We don't get around too much once we settle down. One time I remember somebody saying in some class that there were only seven hundred fifty thousand Dasheen and seventy-five thousand bulls. Could be."

"And what happens if the new young bull has no useful aptitudes and no farm's open?" Yulin wondered.

"Thinking about yourself, eh? A scientist in a non-tech hex! I can see the problems. Well, you can find a skill or job, do some traveling while you wait for an opening, like I did, or you can pick a farm, call out the owner, and fight him to the death, winner take all."

Suddenly Yulin understood why the farmer had been so upset at his initial appearance: he thought a young bull was calling him out.

"What kind of government do you have, then?" he asked.

"A small and simple one," Cilbar told him. "All the farmers in a district elect somebody to a council. The towns elect one for every ten males. There's a small bureaucracy to keep things together, and we meet in emergencies or twice a year for a few days in a small town named Tahlur in the center of Dasheen, where the training schools and the Zone Gate are."

"That's where I should head, then," the ex-scientist decided. "If I can get there without starving to death or getting run through by somebody less willing to listen to me than you."

Cilbar laughed deeply. "Look, they've called a council meeting for some time next week. Our own representative, Hocal, will be going. I'll feed you, put you up for the night, and get you introduced to him. That should solve that problem."

Yulin thanked him. This was too easy, he thought, and too good. There had to be a fly in the ointment somewhere, and he waited for it.

* * *

Hocal wasn't the fly but he was the instrument of it. He looked very surprised when Yulin was introduced to him.

"That's what all this business is about!" he exclaimed. "You people really messed up some things! Never thought one of you'd show up here, though. Seems some folks want to talk to us about reclaiming some of those parts of that spaceship. War's been rumored. War! I hope we can keep out of it, but we'll see. We're right in the middle of things here geographically."

Yulin suddenly became interested. "How's that? You mean the other ship, the one that came down in the South here?"

Hocal nodded, and got down a large map, spreading it out on the table in front of him. It was ingeniously printed for the benefit of a color-blind race; it contained all the details in amazing black, white and gray contrasts. Yulin could interpret it, but he could not read the key or names. He would have to cure that, he decided.

Hocal pointed a stubby finger at one hex. "Here we are in Dasheen," he said.

Yulin looked. They were close to the Equatorial Barrier, something Hocal translated as Cotyl occupying two half-hexes at the Barrier; then Voxmir to the northwest— unfriendly and inhuman, Hocal assured him; Jaq to the southeast— volcanic and hot as hell, too hot for a Dasheen to survive; Frick to the southeast— they had crazy, fat flying disks with steam jets; and Qasada to the southwest— from the description a highly advanced technological civilization of giant rats.

"This is where the problem is," Hocal pointed again. Just below Qasada and to the southwest of Frick was Xoda, a land of great, fierce insects— and a module. "There's another in Palim, below it, Olborn, to the southwest, and, most important, only four hexes south, Gedemondas, about which little is known. The engines of the downed craft landed there, and they are, as you will appreciate, the big prize. I suspect we'll know a lot more about Gedemondas before this is finished."

Yulin nodded. "I'd think that one of the others— the rats, for example— might make a better run for it," he noted.

Hocal agreed. "They should, but that's a funny area. The races in there aren't that friendly, or, like the Palim, have been, like us, peaceful too long to think of conflict. No, the trouble comes from way over here."

He pointed again far to the west, well beyond the far coast of the Sea of Storms.

"This is Makiem, and up here is Cebu, and to the east is Agitar. Makiem is run by some clever and ruthless politicians and is a nontech hex, as we are. Cebu is semitech, and its people have the power of flight, which is particularly useful. Agitar is high-tech, and while we've been able to learn very little about it, they seem to have flying animals— which means their range isn't limited by their machines— and some natural abilities with electricity that transcend the Well limits. They have formed an alliance to get the ship parts."

"But they couldn't use them, even if they put them together, without a qualified pilot," Yulin objected. "That's not a simple rocket, you know."

"We are well aware of that," replied Hocal, looking directly at him. "The war was to be the topic, but, I suspect, with you on hand, the discussion will be even livelier."

* * *

The trip was easy and made in less than two days. They went in a comfortable coach pulled by six Dasheen cows from Hocal's herd, and they made better speed than Yulin would have believed.

Additionally, the tired pullers did everything for them, cooking delicious stews, rubbing them down, everything. Yulin loved being waited on; he saw how easy it would be to get spoiled here. The cows engaged mostly in small talk among themselves, occasionally playing childish games with one another, but they carried out their jobs without complaint, as if this was what they were born to do and they were happy doing it. In deference to his host, Ben Yulin kept at a distance from them.

They arrived at Tahlur at midday to find most of the other members already there. They were taking nothing lightly, and grave discussions were already underway in the town's alehouses. As on the farm and road, the females did all the work— all the cooking, cleaning, serving, all the basic labors. Yulin couldn't do anything for himself. A cow was always there to get him a chair, to bring food or drink, to take him to a comfortable room in an inn, to prepare and clean everything. They even ran to open doors for the males.

Even though the service was easy to take, he wondered about it, about whether it was truly mental inferiority or just a rigid social system. They weren't automatons; they talked and laughed sometimes and sulked sometimes and generally acted like people.

And there were the rings and collars. All the cows wore them— large rings welded in their huge noses, and brass collars welded around their necks, with small hooks on the back. They were distinctive; they bore the marks of the herd the cow was from. The females were even branded on the right rump, he found, with the herd-mark.

Did they ever get fed up and run away, he wondered. Was that why there were so many ways to identify them as being out of place?

The towns had guild-herds. There were guilds for the different classes of workers, and they lived in dorms through the town.

He worried about this a little more when he found out that the great quantities of milk the men consumed, gotten from the cows, was more than supplement. The males like himself could not manufacture their own calcium. They required almost a gallon of the calcium-rich milk a day to stay healthy, ward off arthritis, bone diseases, rotting teeth, and the like.

Without cows, the men would die. Slowly, and in great agony.

That was why they and their system were so well known in other hexes. Young bulls waiting for an opening often traveled, sometimes widely. They could exist on almost any native carbon-based grasses, and their own systems purified natural water, so few provisions were needed. But the men were so used to being waited on, and their bodies so desperately dependent on the cow's milk, that they had to take at least four cows with them. He could imagine the effect this would have on races that were unisexual, or where sexual discrimination was not present, or, worse, in a matrilineal society.

But there was little time for such speculation. He was too busy being passed around, introduced to the politicians, and discussing the crisis.

The council met the next day. In a communal society— money wasn't even used here, everyone drew his share— such bodies on a small scale were normal. They elected a chairman without much problem and proceeded to the business at hand.

Using maps, charts, and diagrams, the central bureaucracy explained the problem. There was a general sentiment to stay clear of it; it was none of Dasheen's business. Yulin they regarded as a complication; it was debated, much to his chagrin, whether or not to hide him away, imprison him for the war's duration, or perhaps kill him! None of these alternatives were seriously considered by the council as a whole, much to his relief, but he was aware of danger here. Those who proposed them were deadly serious, and some of these hotheads might easily take such solutions into their own hands.

On the third day of the conference little had been resolved, and Ben had the feeling that they just loved to argue; they would never come to any agreement unless forced to.

But on the third day a newcomer arrived who changed things. Its entrance was such that it panicked people on the streets, and the creature did little to reassure them after coming to ground. In the air it was magnificent and beautiful; a great butterfly with a two-meter wingspread, brilliantly orange and brown against a black body that still stood 150 centimeters when it landed in the street and stood on the rearmost four of its eight long tentacles. Its face was a large, black painted death's head, with great, eerie eyes that looked like pads recessed in the hard, dark skull.

The Yaxa, however, had been expected.

Its manner, its voice, was cold, hard, sharp, and cutting. It sent chills through those who heard it. Even Ben, who had to have a running translation, felt it. Unlike the others he'd met on the Well World— the Dasheen, Ortega, the Ambreza, even the plant-creature— this one was different. Not inhuman, unhuman, as alien as those paintwash creatures of the North.

The Yaxa had a proposition.

"First," it said, "let me summarize what the situation is to date. I have been able to keep in touch on my journey here as new developments broke, and things are breaking fast.