Quest for the Well of Souls - Jack L. Chalker [68]
There, then, was the problem. Assuming that Mavra Chang could be snared and Joshi taken hostage, what to do with them to make them useful during the journey and to fit in a spacesuit that would have to be one removed from an Entry—someone who had fallen into a Well Gate out among the stars or on a deserted Markovian world and wound up in Zone.
The suit problem was acute. Though dozens of races had apparently reached space, many more had not. There were limits. The problem remained until the Yaxa themselves suggested a solution.
Over two centuries before, the near-legendary Nathan Brazil—perhaps the last living Markovian—had walked the Well World. Only a few who saw it were still alive, and a lot of propaganda had gone into convincing most that he was a legend, nothing more. Most of those witnesses were on Ortega's side—indeed, Ortega himself had been there.
But one witness was on the side of the Yaxa, and that was all that was necessary.
In the far-off land of Murithel, inhabited by the ferocious Murnies, who ate living flesh, Brazil's body had been battered and broken beyond repair, and the Murnies had somehow transferred his consciousness, that which was truly he, into the body of a giant stag.
Others knew of the process, although they couldn't study it, for the Murnies tended to eat anyone first and ask polite questions afterward. Still, it had been done, and at least another two races in the North knew about it.
A Yaxa stuck her head in the surgery. "The Cuzicol are here!" she announced. From the North, the Cuzicol were a race that traded with the Yaxa.
A strange creature, like a metallic yellow flower with hundreds of sharp spikes, stood on spindly legs. In the yellow disk that was its head several ruby-red spots flashed as it spoke. "Bring in the first one," it commanded.
The others would assist. Happily. Any of them would have sold his soul—if he believed in it—just to witness this operation, which most didn't believe really possible, for it did, in fact, presuppose the existence of something not quantifiable, but real and transferrable, nevertheless. And they witnessed it, not once but twice, the transfer into an animal which was part surgical, part mystical. It was not the same method the Murnies had used, and it depended a great deal more on technological skills, but it worked.
And all agreed that the twin problems of spacesuit fit and usefulness to the travel party were well served, while minimum disruption of the subjects' habits was observed. They were accustomed to being four-footed, hooved animals, and such they would remain.
The Wuckl's skill was used in constructing rudimentary larynxes for the two and in implanting a translator in Joshi. Their voices would have low amplitude and sound somewhat artificial, but they would do. The only thing the translator required was something to modulate.
* * *
Mavra Chang awoke. The last thing she remembered was running across the barren salt flats away from her rescuers when four powerful tendrils suddenly wrapped themselves around her and another two pairs snared Joshi, jerking them into the skies. Something had stung painfully, and she had blacked out.
Now she was in a room. It was definitely made for creatures different from those she knew—there were odd cushions, strange furniture and implements all about.
She was still near-sighted, and now color-blind as well. This disturbed her; much more than the very slight fisheye effect she was getting. She had enjoyed color, and that was now taken from her.
She knew that they'd transformed her again. It was obvious from the change in perception and also from the fact that her height and viewing angle were different.
For someone who had never yet been through the Well of Souls, never been made by that great machine into a creature of this world, she had been more creatures than anyone else on the Well World, she thought.
Whatever she was, she had a fairly long snout. Her eyes were set back from it, making that obvious. She tried to move, and found that shackles held her four feet in check.
A nearby noise