Quest for the Well of Souls - Jack L. Chalker [119]
Four women scrambled eagerly up to him.
"There's a horse out there at the other end of the bridge," he told them. "It's more than a horse. It is a person inside a horse's body and it can talk. It is one of the people opposed to me. A very dangerous one, the most important one. We must get it inside here. However, others are waiting just out of our sight and may rush you." He thought furiously for a moment. "When you reach the horse, work your hypnos on it. Give it all you have. Tell it it is your horse and must follow you, then lead it, ride it, or in any other way possible bring it and yourselves back here."
"What of the others, My Lord?" they all asked in unison.
"Numbers one and three, up here with your weapons!" he yelled. Two more women came. They held energy pistols.
Obie couldn't design an organic defense against energy pistols, but he could make them easily enough.
"You will follow the others to about halfway across the bridge," he told them. "Keep your pistols ready, and get into position so you can cover both them and the hall opening. If you see anything coming out of that opening, kill it. If the horse gives the sisters any trouble, stun the whole batch and bring them back. Understand?"
"We hear and obey, My Lord," the two responded.
He nodded, then turned back to the control board. "Obie, on my count, you will drop out of defense mode and open the door. You will reinstitute defense mode on my command the instant I order it. Got that?"
"Got it, Ben."
"Get ready, girls. All right, Obie—five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . now!"
The door slid open and Wooley, Vistaru, Nikki, and Mavra rushed out. A few seconds later the pair followed, pistols ready. In two groups the six ran low and carefully out across the bridge.
Mavra saw them immediately. "Okay, Bozog, Ghiskind! Now!" she hissed.
Like a flash the Bozog was across the bridge and over the side. The women, still carefully keeping low, didn't see it.
Renard was almost dragged into the archway by the sudden force of the uncoiling wire and he struggled to keep his legs in position. He was afraid that he would lose the wire, or that the Bozog would pull him into the opening.
Mavra was acutely aware that the wire was visible and very noisy as it unreeled. Since she did not want it noticed, she was left only one choice. She reared up like a wild horse, kicked off, and charged across the wide bridge.
At first, the women were taken by surprise, but they recovered quickly and waited for their quarry to come to them.
Mavra got up so much speed that she decided to try to run right past them, into the open door of the control room. The four lead women leaped out of her way, leaving a path for her, which Mavra took. Just as she passed them she felt, first, a sharp series of stings and then the sudden force of someone jumping on her back. Then more stings, this time in the neck.
She tried to throw the rider, but things suddenly slowed, her mind clouded, and she came slowly to a dizzy halt.
"Keep going, horsie," a soft, sexy feminine voice said to her. "Right through the door, at a trot."
She obeyed unthinkingly. The three other women jogged alongside, and the two backups followed last, ensuring that there was no pursuit.
"Defense mode on, Obie!" Yulin yelled. The door slammed shut as the bulk of a horse almost crowded him out. He managed to turn and asked, "Obie, any life forms now in the bridge and shaft area?"
"No, Ben," Obie responded. "No life forms in that area."
Vistaru still rode Mavra's back, smiling like a child with a new toy.
"Such a nice horsie," she said to Yulin. "Can we keep it? As a pet?"
He chuckled, but he liked the idea. The more he thought about it, the better it sounded.
"Take her down to the disk, my love. A pet you'll have, but a new kind."
The girls had some problems negotiating the winding stairs with Mavra, but they managed it. The horse-woman was taken to