Paragaea (21 page)

There would always be other cultures, though, increasingly remote, wherein he could perform his “experiments,” so perhaps he would not.

After more than a full month of riding, they came in sight of the river Pison.

“Finally,” Balam said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Some variety after all the damned endless grasslands.”

Leena could not help but agree. “Even so,” she said, “it is perhaps not the most beautiful river I've ever seen.”

In the distance, still some kilometers before them, the river looked like a murky, brown scar on the land, winding slowly from southeast to northwest.

“We've wasted enough time,” Hieronymus said, spurring his horse into a gallop. “Let's not waste more in idle chatter.”

Leena watched Hieronymus ride ahead for a moment, and then glanced over at Balam, but when their eyes met, he just shrugged, shaking his head sadly. The jaguar man seemed to have no better idea of what vexed Hieronymus than she did. Their friend had been in a dark mood for long days, since Benu had related to the company the
story of his “son.” Perhaps there was something to Benu's tale that cast a shadow over Hieronymus's thoughts, but what it might be, Leena could not begin to guess.

“Come on, Benu,” Leena said, goading her horse to speed while calling back over her shoulder to the artificial man. “I'm tired of this damned saddle, and I'm looking forward to our brief respite.”

The plains gave way to scrub brush, which gave way to a stretch of gravel leading down to the shores of the river. But the river was edged not by sand or by rocks, but by an ancient and pitted quay that ran along the river's shores for as far as the eye could see, up-and downriver. The whole river was paved with some sort of concrete, as though it had once been a massive spillway.

A short ride downriver, they found the ferry station. The city-state of Bacharia was another day's journey south, following the river's course, but considerable traffic took this more northern route, avoiding the city and its Polity's strictures altogether.

The ferry station was little more than a ramshackle building, long and low, that housed both the offices and residence of the ferry owner, as well as a rough canteen providing food and drink for ferry customers waiting for passage. There were stables and pens set up out back, with a half-dozen horses and an equal number of domesticated animals milling about aimlessly. The ferry owner was a heavyset woman of advanced years who seemed to have started life as human but consumed such enormous quantities of food in the succeeding decades that she had evolved into a species of her own. She seemed to weigh as much as the four of them combined, lumbering with surprising grace out of the offices as they arrived.

“You needing to cross, I take it?” she said, without preamble or preface.

“Yes, indeed,” Balam said, bowing in the saddle. “Now, as to your fees…”

“It'll cost you,” the owner said, cutting him off. She took a step forward, crossing her massive arms over her prodigious chest, her forearms barely touching. “Now,” she said, a hungry look in her eyes, “what have you got that's worth a tinker's damn?”

The toll was steep, and they had little currency with which to pay. And the ferry owner was not interested in trading secrets or knowledge, as the Roamish had been. So the company traded six of the horses for their passage, leaving each of them one to ride, with two packhorses to carry their remaining supplies. It was a steep price to pay, little more than bald-faced extortion, but they would reach their destination in a matter of days anyway, after which the horses would no longer be of any use to them. They'd sell the rest once they reached Masjid Empor, to fund their passage on a southbound ship.

“You'll have to wait until tomorrow for the ferry to arrive,” the owner explained as a small brown-skinned girl appeared from within the residence to lead the six horses around the building to the stables. “The journey t'other side takes most of a day, and it's a two-day round trip.”

She pointed a finger the size of a sausage at the far end of the ramshackle building.

“Your cost of passage includes a meal at the canteen. There ain't no rooms, as such, but you can bunk along the wall at no extra cost, providing you don't bother any of the other passengers with snoring, excessive flatulence, or noisy bundling.”

“We shall endeavor not to offend,” Hieronymus said, a dark edge to his words.

That night, they sat in the canteen, their feet propped on the rough-hewn table, relaxing as best they were able. Having eaten the meager fare available on the board, they now busied themselves drinking the marginally passable spirits available to passengers at a small upcharge, some manner of oily liquor served in clay jars. They were alone in the canteen, the owner and her minion—the small, brown-skinned girl—coming in on occasion to ensure their needs were met, at least as well as they could be.

When the company had worked their way through several rounds of clay jars, even Benu making an effort to metabolize the sour stuff, in an effort better to fit in, two newcomers appeared at the door.

It was a pair of humans. They entered the canteen, giving the company a wide berth while staring at the four of them openly, expressions of disgust on their faces. The pair crossed to the far side of the room and, when the brown-skinned girl had filled their orders, sat huddled together, whispering and casting fierce glances at the company.

“What ails those men?” Leena said, her brows knitted in annoyance. She had little liking for the scorn with which the two men regarded their quartet.

“They are Bacharian, I would guess, as evidenced by their clothes and manner,” Benu said.

“What is that to me?” Leena asked. “I understand their laws make travel to their city inadvisable, but why should they look upon us with such scorn, who have not darkened their door?”

“It is not merely their laws that are unpleasant,” Balam said. “Their cultural character in general leaves much to be desired.”

“The Bacharian Polity holds that the various races and species should not intermingle, and the sight of humans and a metaman traveling together—in addition to whatever type of creature they take Benu to
be—must seem anathema to them. What Bacharians would be doing beyond their city walls is unclear, but I would lay odds that they are agents of the Polity sent out on scouting missions into the wider world.”

Leena wondered whether they should fear that the pair might mean some mischief, but before she could voice her concerns one of the Bacharians answered the question for her.

“Hey,” the taller of the two said, lifting his chin imperiously and calling out to them in heavily accented Sakrian. “You.” He pointed at Hieronymus, whom they evidently took to be the leader of the company, as he was both human and male. “We in Bacharia have had trouble with the mongrel metamen in recent years, prowling around our borders. In particular those zealots who adhere to the calling of the Black Sun Genesis. Is your…jaguar”—he spat the word, an insult—“such a one?”

“I can answer for myself, thank you,” Balam growled. He stood, taking a few steps forward, towering over the seated Bacharians. “I have no more love for the followers of Per than I have for the mewling humans found in Bacharia. Both cultures, exclusionary and pig-ignorant, represent the worst tendencies of Paragaean history.”

The Bacharians jumped to their feet, eyes flashing, and reached for bulky pneumatic blunderbusses hanging at their belts. Cumbersome firearms, they were inaccurate and low-yield over a distance, but dangerous in close quarters.

Leena and Hieronymus were just as quick to jump to their feet, but even quicker to draw their pistols.

“Might everyone relax for a moment,” Benu said calmly, still in his seat, “before matters escalate out of control?”

The five of them stood frozen in a tableau, pistols and blunderbusses aimed and cocked, but not yet fired—the two Bacharians on one side, Balam in the middle, and Hieronymus and Leena on the other.

“Don't point those things at me, Bacharian.” Balam bared his fangs, his claws extending.

Leena saw the two Bacharians' eyes flick to her Makarov and Hieronymus's Mauser.

“You have not seen firearms like these before, I'd wager,” Hieronymus said, his tone level and cool.

The Bacharians did not answer, but their aims drifted slightly, so that their barrels were pointed at Leena and Hieronymus, and not at Balam between them.

“We'll not breathe the same air as you mongrel trash,” the shorter of the two Bacharians said.

“We can arrange that,” Balam growled, rising up on the balls of his feet.

Leena glanced to her right at Hieronymus, who nodded silently without taking his eyes off the two Bacharians.

“Now!” Hieronymus shouted.

In the crowded moment that followed, three things happened:

Balam lunged forward, claws slashing at either side;

Leena ducked to the left, and Hieronymus dove to the right, each firing a single round at one of the Bacharians;

And the Bacharians, finally, emptied their blunderbusses, their buckshot of compressed carbon pellets sailing through the empty space Leena and Hieronymus had occupied the second before.

In the next moment, it was over. The two Bacharians tottered for an instant, their spent blunderbusses dropping to the floor, each of them gored on one side by the passage of the enraged Sinaa, each with a single gunshot wound in his chest. They blinked, and looked at one another confusedly before finally collapsing in a heap on the floor.

“You're cleaning that mess up,” the owner said from the door, pointing one of her sausage-fingers at the two bodies on the floor, “or I'm charging you extra for my trouble.”

Leena climbed to her feet, holstering her Makarov. She glanced at Benu, still sitting calmly in his seat. “Were you planning on helping?” she asked.

“You three seemed to have things well in hand,” he said, smiling slightly. “And besides, I thought it might have seemed disrespectful to the Bacharians' beliefs, if they were to be dispatched by an artificial being. As it eventuated, it was likely the bullets which proved fatal, as much as I must admire the artistry of the Sinaa's attack, and so these two humans go to their maker—if they believe in such—having been felled by one of their own kind, which one hopes would serve as some endorsement.”