Quest for the Well of Souls - Jack L. Chalker [95]
"The biggest problem was physically moving it," the Bozog told him. "The Uchjin are nocturnal, absolutely powerless in daylight, so that's when we do most of the work. They don't have the mass or means to replace it, so the only problem was protecting the moving party from night attacks. We did this by turning night into day with phosphor gel. It was simply too bright for them."
Yulin nodded. "Like you'd build a campfire in the wilderness to keep the wild beasts away. But how are you moving it?"
"Slowly, of course," the Bozog admitted. "It's been several weeks of work. We actually started when we received word of the breakthrough in north-south travel. It all has to be done by manpower alone—we lifted it with chains, pulleys, and the like onto a huge platform, a feat that took nine days in itself, and since then over twelve thousand Bozog have been pulling it along in shifts. Today, the great project is nearing completion."
Yulin thought about it. "That's a tremendous cost in manpower and matériel," he noted. "Why did you do it?"
"It was a challenge, a great undertaking," the Bozog replied. "It was a feat that Bozog will sing of for generations. A tremendous technical problem that was solved, proof that any problem can be solved if enough thought and energy is expended on it. You might say it was an act of faith."
They began to hear rumbling in the distance, like the sound of millions of horses in stampede, or a violent storm. The huge ship, resting on its left wing and secured by chain and cable, was riding on thousands of giant ball bearings connected by some sort of mounting network. It was slow, but the thing moved, pulled by huge numbers of Bozog.
"It won't be long now until they are close enough to attach cable from the giant winches," the Bozog pointed out. "It can then be pulled into Bozog quickly."
"When do you think you'll be ready to put it on the launch column?" Yulin asked, genuinely awed by the undertaking and the casual way that the creatures seemed to approach it.
"Tonight," the Bozog responded. "Sometime late tonight."
* * *
Mavra Chang had avoided everyone and all the excitement of the arriving ship. She didn't want to talk to anyone, speak to anyone, could feel nothing for the expedition anymore.
The more she thought about her life, the less meaningful it became. Brazil had gotten her off Harvich's World, to Maki. Brazil had shielded her from arrest, arranged for her "independent" career, sent Gimball, watched over her. She thought of the mistakes she had made in robberies: yet, somehow, overlooked alarms failed to go off, or pursuit was accidentally diverted elsewhere. Even on New Pompeii, she realized, Brazil had been replaced, supplanted by Obie.
Obie had given her the plans and schematics for the planetoid. Obie had given her the codewords. Obie had actually used her as his vessel for his own ends. On the Well World she'd always been somebody's pawn. The Lata rescued her from the Teliagin cyclopes on Ortega's orders. Here she'd become an object in Ortega's plans, controlled, moved around, manipulated by circumstance and hypno to do exactly what the snake-man wanted. Protected, too, in the end, by Ortega and by her own grandparents. Even here in Bozog she was controlled by her captors, including her grandfather—and Joshi. During the fight, control of her had passed to the Ghiskind, yet when the mistake was made, and she should have died, Joshi had blocked the shot and died instead.
I'm Mavra Chang, I can do anything, she thought bitterly.
I can die, she reflected. That much I can do on my own.
But not quite yet. Lie or not, one small piece of unfinished business. One small attempt to salvage a tiny shred of her honor and self-respect was left to her . . . on New Pompeii.