Pig—all the elements that made up the animal to which she was now akin—struggled with human personality and point of view. What, after all, did she owe humans? What had they done for her? Even in the old days, as one of them, she’d been apart, different, an odd element that felt itself somehow superior to, alien to the “normal” people around her. They hadn’t done much for her, only a lot to her. In turn, she had used them, as one would use a tool in completing a task. She had been among them but not of them, always, for as long as she could remember. They had made her an animal; very well. She would be one. A pig or whatever this was. A very smart pig, to be sure, but a pig just the same.
The competing elements inside her mind stopped their warfare. A pig she was and would always be, and it was all right.
Dusk found them both feeling as if they were starving to death. Cautiously they made their way toward some lights in the distance. This was a high-tech hex; the Wuckl were obviously creatures of the day, but, like humans, they could exist at night and were active then.
It was a small town; not the major population center, no, but a community of several thousand. They would be on the lookout for two escaped animals, so Mavra Chang and Joshi had to be careful. They circled the town, searching with the heightened senses of their new noses for the telltale smells that had to be present Had to. These people had garbage cans, but she preferred not to nose into them if she could avoid it—too much noise and clatter. But garbage cans meant a garbage dump, and they spent half an agonizing night looking for it.
What they found was a landfill—lots of trash and garbage all around and mounds of dirt that were being bulldozed to fill in a marsh. Some of it had been chemically treated to avoid contamination, but their noses led them to the untreated garbage. They managed to gorge themselves on material that in their former existence would have revolted them. As wild pigs, it didn’t bother them in the least, and the thought barely entered their minds.
Unfortunately, their hunger was omnipresent; even when it lessened they found it difficult to leave a sure source of food, for they knew they would soon need it as much as ever. They had to make time for traveling, though; Mavra knew that to remain in the area would mean inevitable capture, and at best a return to a much more secure compound, even a cage—a horrifying thought.
Earlier, the sun, now long gone, had indicated which way was east, and they headed overland. Much of the area was marshy, but they did not mind; their breed of pig was a tireless swimmer in the deep places, and neither dampness nor mud bothered them. In fact, mud smelled rather good to them, indicating to Mavra that their land was originally from a swamp like this.
Things seemed to break their way. The second night found them near what appeared for all the world to be a near-ripe corn field, and this was like Christmas to them, particularly since an ear eaten here or there would hardly be noticed, and the standing vegetation provided excellent cover.
On the third night they could hear the roar and pounding of the surf from afar, and it was almost too much for Joshi to bear, particularly when they reached a cliff and looked out into the darkness and smelled the mildly salty air. This was the eastern side of the Sea of Turagin, but it reminded them of home.
Blinking lights not far offshore marked dangerous reefs, and powerful lighthouses warned of more extensive dangers.
They savored the sights and smells for some time, but Mavra did so with mixed emotions. The sea represented a curious contradiction. There was freedom, salvation, and escape—and a nearly insuperable barrier to such things. Beyond were the water hexes. This was probably Zanti, which led to Twosh. That was too far from their goal. Beyond it was Yimsk, which led to Mucrol, next to Gedemondas, but also next to the spider hex of Shamozan, which was in league with Ortega. To the north was Alestol, with its deadly gas-shooting plants. They still had hundreds of kilometers of swamp to get to Mucrol, and at least one hex side to Gedemondas. Yet somehow their goal seemed so very close, just beyond her reach.
Joshi seemed to catch her thoughts. “Now what?” he signaled.
Now what, indeed, she asked herself. They couldn’t swim. If her memory served her, as it always had, those lights meant that they were just north of the chief Wuckl seaport, the very place where they were to meet the Toorine Trader once again if all went according to plan.
But how long had it been? What day, week, month was it? And, even if they were still in time, how could they board without attracting attention, and then convince the crew of their true identities?
Well, there’d be garbage there, and a place to sleep.
They started south along the beach, and as they did she could almost hear the voice of the Gedemondan coming in on mystic breezes and roaring seas.
You will descend into Hell, it whispered. Only then, when hope is gone, will you be raised up…
Hope was only gone when you were dead or might as well be, she thought. Two pigs would tell that to the Gedemondans in their ice-covered volcanic caverns, and throw it in their smugly all-knowing faces.
Near the Ecundo-Wuckl Border
He had searched for weeks, knowing that they had to be there. The Trader’s course, speed, and location assured him that Mavra could not have been dropped off anywhere but in Ecundo.
Renard cruised low over Ecundo, searching as he had for more than two weeks. He knew her well enough to guess her plan; he’d seen the bundas. He had also seen more than one vicious Ecundan roundup, the first of which had made him violently ill. There would be no defense against those great, fast scorpions and their deadly stingers and chopping blades if Mavra and Joshi were caught. He himself had discovered how nasty the Ecundans were when he’d sent Domaru down and tried to question some of them.
They had attacked, snarling curses and epithets at him, and he was forced for the first time in many years to use the great power of the Agitar in combat. The little satyrs were masters of electricity; they were immune to its effects and could store charges of thousands of volts in their bodies, discharging selectively at a distance using long, copper-clad steel rods called tasts. They always maintained quite a charge; it was required for proper health and was built up when their wooly blue fur generated static electricity as they walked.
The Twosh on the Trader had been right; the Ecundo in that crew had been nice people compared to their brethren back home.
What kept Renard going was his confidence in that strange woman he’d not seen in over twenty years. She wouldn’t change; her successful flight and demonstrated resourcefulness proved it. He wondered how they had managed to keep her down so long.
A glance at a map had convinced him that she would have only one goaclass="underline" Gedemondas, a fixation of hers. He’d been in that cold hex with her and watched as the engine module was toppled by the echoes of the observers who crowded the valley; he had watched the unit break through the lava crust and melt. But none who had been there could remember seeing the mysterious Gedemondans themselves; only Mavra insisted that they not only saw them but were their guests, and that the strange snow creatures had somehow doctored or hypnoed all the minds but hers.
Sometimes in his dreams, Renard seemed to see them, and occasionally it worried him that she might have been right—she’d always been right before. An Agitar psychiatrist using the most sophisticated mind-retrieval techniques had been unable to expose any blocked memories, though, and had finally convinced Renard that he, not Mavra, was right, and that his dreams were reflections of her delusions heightened by his respect for her.