Quest for the Well of Souls - Jack L. Chalker [72]
Most of the supplies had been shifted earlier; the suits in which the expedition would live in the North had been fitted with small but complex rebreather apparatus. For himself, Yulin adopted a "human" suit, of old design. The Yaxa had their own suits from Entries—and Mavra and Joshi used modified Dillian equipment. The Torshind did not breathe as the South understood breathing, and so needed nothing.
Transfer was simple. The Torshind simply glided up to the transferee, melted into the other's body, awkwardly took control of it, then moved down the hall and into the Zone Gate.
The drugs made the Torshind's task easier, and each transferee had undergone at least one test earlier.
* * *
Consciousness returned slowly.
Mavra Chang shook herself, stretched her limbs outward, and moved her head around as if clearing cobwebs.
They were in a strange chamber, a hall of some glassy substance. The light was poor but sufficient, and she could see the others struggling to one or another degree to regain control.
One thing seemed clear: the Well had been fooled. They were all in Yugash now, including the Torshind.
Other shapes moved about, as spectral as the Torshind but sharp and clear in the gloom. Mavra's color-blindness actually helped the contrast; to her the Yugash were sharp white outlines against a dark-gray background.
Another creature could be seen in the room, a thing apparently of the same substance as the walls, an angular crystal sculpture of a crab with glassy tentacles instead of claws. It wore an incongruous device around its midsection, a transmitter that enabled the translation device inside the creature to send to the radios in their suits.
"Welcome to Yugash," came the thin, electronic voice of the Torshind. "I shall keep to this ptir—this creature you see—for much of the trip. As soon as you all feel able, we will cross to a chamber prepared to your requirements. I suggest that we brief everyone on the route and problems and then get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow we will begin this epic journey."
They nodded in agreement. They sensed that history was being made, that they were to be the focal point for events that would shape the future.
Still slightly groggy, they followed the Torshind out of the Zone Gate chamber and into Yugash.
* * *
It was a dark hex; the sky seemed slightly overcast, the sun somehow much farther away. It was like this in some hexes, where the Well facets changed things to simulate worlds closer to or farther from primary suns. Each hex, after all, was a laboratory simulation of an actual planet onto which the creatures of the hex were to have been sent to establish, build, and develop a normal culture.
The city was built of twisted glass, or at least that was the way it looked. Huge spires rose to the sky, and even basic buildings looked melted, twisted, or otherwise malformed. Thousands of crystal creatures like the Torshind's ptir scurried to and fro on unguessable business. Grown to the specifications of their owners on great crystal farms, they were every combination of creature imaginable. Only rarely did the group see a Yugash in its natural form, though.
The large room prepared for them was extremely comfortable; rugs and drapes had been hung to mask its glassy structure, and quantities of provisions suitable for all their needs were neatly arranged. Only an occasional hiss from the pressurization system reminded them that this was a sealed room, and that here alone the atmosphere and pressure—a compromise of their respective hexes—were made sufficient for them to live without suits.
After Wooley and the Torshind had removed her suit, Mavra groaned. "I could sleep for a week," she told them. There were muttered assents.
Wooley managed to shake herself out of her stupor to inspect some of the leatherlike pouches. With mittenlike hands on her tentacles, she opened one, pulled out a large folding map, and spread it out on the floor. The others gathered around, and the Torshind