Quest for the Well of Souls - Jack L. Chalker [41]
He sighed. "No, I'm just working with him. I'm searching for a woman, a person named Mavra Chang, who disappeared from Glathriel."
"Does she do other tricks?" the second Twosh put in.
Renard felt frustrated, and the sniggers from the rest of the crew didn't help any.
"Look," he said earnestly, "I'm an old friend of hers. I heard she was in trouble, and I've come to help. We've traced her to this ship, and I'd appreciate some help in locating her. It's extremely important."
The Twosh with the cigar eyed him suspiciously. "Important to whom?" it asked.
"To me, mostly," the Agitar replied. "And to her."
"I'll bet," the other Twosh said under its breath. "Well, if you've traced her to this ship, she must be on it someplace, eh? You're welcome to search away, although I'm afraid that on a ship at sea the crew is a bit too busy to assist you." Its black, straight eyebrows suddenly dipped until they touched the upper part of its eyes. "But I'll tell you right now it won't do any good," it whispered. Its small head gestured to the two Ecundans perched atop the bridge housing. "They ate her, you see."
For an uncomfortable moment Renard thought the little creature was telling the truth. But he dismissed it with a queasy feeling and was certain now that she was not aboard. They were trying too hard.
"You've only made landfall once since Glathriel," he told them, "and that was in Ecundo. Did you drop her there?"
The Twosh looked shocked. "Of course not! When we disembark someone, we lower him gently over the side!" it huffed.
Renard threw up his hands. "How you people can be so flippant about all this is beyond me!" he fumed. "That's a dangerous hex for someone like her!"
The Ecundans on top of the bridge suddenly got up on their six legs. "Say, goat-man! Are you insulting us?" one sneered. Two stingers rose.
He felt total defeat. "I give up!" he said, disgusted.
"If you think she's in Ecundo, then you'd better go there," one Twosh suggested. "The way everybody's looking for this person or whatever it is, you will have us covered in Domien. Watch it in Ecundo, though. Those two up there were thrown out for being such nice guys."
"Wait a minute. The way everybody is looking? Have others been here?"
The answer to that question the Twosh saw no reason to disguise. "Sure. Big bastard with pretty orange wings and a little bitch about as big as your knee flew in this morning. We weren't as helpful to them as we were to you, you bein' such a nice guy."
He was learning to ignore the sarcasm. "A Yaxa and a Lata? Did they run into each other?" He was concerned for Vistaru, from whom there'd been no word for several days.
"Considering one was perched on top of the other, I'd say they would have a hard time running into each other," the Twosh observed.
That bothered him even more, and he took great pains to describe a Lata to them to make certain they weren't putting him on some more. A Yaxa and a pink Lata—almost certainly Vistaru—together? It seemed almost impossible.
"Did either one seem in command?" he asked them. "I mean, did it look like one was, say, a prisoner of the other?"
The Twosh thought about it. "Nope. I wouldn't say they were buddies—but, then again, I don't think anybody could be buddies with that orange iceberg. But they sure seemed to be working together."
That bothered him. Had the Lata, for some reason, deserted Ortega after all this time and joined their old enemies? That was unthinkable—and yet, it had been so many years. People change, he told himself. Governments change, individuals change.
It didn't sound good.
"Hey, mate!" one of the Ecundans called.
He was startled. "Huh?"
"How you gonna take off?" it asked in an amused tone.
The question brought him up short for a moment. He just hadn't thought about it. The sea was too rough, and Domaru definitely needed as long a runway to take off as he did to land—and with wings spread.
He was stuck until landfall at Domien, another day in the direction opposite to where he wanted to go.
They were all snickering now. Finally it was left to