Quest for the Well of Souls - Jack L. Chalker [69]
"Joshi?" she said to herself, wondering, but she said it aloud.
The other stirred. "Mavra?" came a strange, electronic-resonant voice.
"Joshi! We can talk again!" she exclaimed excitedly.
He looked at her with his horse's head. "So we're talking horses now, are we?" he responded morosely. "What next? Horse flies?"
"Oh, come on!" she scolded. "We're no worse off than before. We're alive, we're healthy, we're together."
That last got to him. It was the first time she'd really said anything so endearing to him, and it seemed to energize him. "All right, all tight," he replied. "So who got us? The thing on the horse or the butterfly?"
She looked around. "The butterfly for sure. Why and for what I have no idea as yet, but I think we'll soon find out."
They talked on, more for the joy at being able to communicate again than for any serious purpose. Neither had really been conscious of how much their earlier isolation had affected them until they could speak once again.
After a half-hour or so, a door panel slid back with a whine. A Yaxa entered, looking no less huge and fierce and formidable in black and white and shades of gray than it had in color.
"I see you are awake," it began in the eerie, ice-cold voice of the Yaxa. "I am Wooley. You know who you are, and so do I."
"What's all this about?" Mavra demanded.
Wooley's death's-head looked at them. "Would you like to get back to New Pompeii?" she asked.
Mavra almost gasped. New Pompeii! Space! The stars! But— "I'm a hell of a pilot as a horse," she responded sarcastically.
Wooley showed no reaction to the comment. "We do not need you as a pilot, except, perhaps, as a backup. Do you remember Ben Yulin?"
Mavra thought a moment. The truth was, she had seen very little of Yulin—the young scientist at Trelig's test panels. Not even a picture of him came to mind. All her experience had been with Trelig, not Yulin.
"Vaguely," she responded. "Scientist who worked for Trelig. So? I know he's the one you depended on to get you to New Pompeii after the wars over twenty years ago. Kind of fizzled on that one, didn't you?"
Wooley let it pass. "We have Yulin, we can penetrate the North, we can reach New Pompeii, but it won't be easy. You are our backup. Would you trust a former lieutenant of Antor Trelig?"
She had to admit that she wouldn't. But, then again, she wouldn't trust Mavra Chang, either, who owed no loyalty to the Yaxa.
"It wouldn't have more to do with the fact that, if I'm with you, then Ortega can't use me?" she prodded.
The Yaxa's antennae waved a bit. "That is part of it, yes. However, we could kill you and accomplish that. No, we are interested in you as a check on Yulin. We want someone else who knows New Pompeii, and we want someone who can make certain he is not planning a double-cross. You are the best we can do."
"But why horses?" Joshi asked, a little miffed at being left out of the conversation.
"Relatives of the horse, yes," Wooley said, "but not horses. You are extremely strong, for one thing."
"So we help carry the freight," Mavra noted, understanding. "I can see that."
"Also, your new bodies are not strictly herbivores. Your breed is from a hex to the east, Furgimos, and you can eat almost anything, in much the same way you could as pigs. Your water-storage capability is excellent. Two weeks or more. You can see how this simplifies travel problems."
They did. "I take it that there's a long journey after we get North, then," Mavra guessed.
"Very long," Wooley admitted. "For one thing, the rebreathing apparatus necessary is only usable in a semitech or high-tech hex, so the shortest route is out of the question. The shortest route avoiding nontech hexes is blocked because the Poorgl are extremely nasty high-tech creatures who would be death to us. That means a seven-hex