"Why haven't you given the alarm already?"
"As to the first, stranger, I am taking you where you wish
to go, to the head of the Troom Pass. I can understand why
you wish to go there, though I do not think you will end your
journey alive. Yet perhaps you will be fortunate and make it
successfully back to your own lands."
"You know what we are, then?" asked a puzzled Jon-Tom.
The driver nodded. "I know that beneath those skins of
chitin there are others softer and differently colored."
"But how?"
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Alan Dean Foster
The driver pointed to the back of the wagon. Mudge
looked uncomfortable. "Well now wot the bloody 'ell were I
supposed to do? I thought 'is mind had been turned to mush
and I 'ad to pee. Didn't think 'e saw anyway, the 'ard-shelled
pervert!"
"It does not matter," the driver said.
"Listen, if you're not magicked and you know who and
what we are, why are you taking us quietly where we wish to
go instead of turning us over to the authorities?" Jon-Tom
wanted to know.
"I just told you: it does not matter." The driver made a
two-armed gesture indicative of great indifference. "Soon all
will die anyway."
"I take it you don't approve of the coming war."
"No, I do not." His antennae quivered with emotion as he
spoke. "It is so foolish, the millenia-old expenditure of life
and time in hopes of conquest."
"I must say you are the most peculiar Plated person I have
ever encountered," said Clothahump.
"My opinions are not widely shared among my own
people," the driver admitted. He chucked the reins, and the
wagon edged around a line of motionless carts burdened with
military supplies. Their wagon continued onward, one set of
wheels still on the roadway, the other bouncing over the rocks
and mud of the swampy earth.
"But perhaps things will change, given time and sensible
thought."
"Not if your armies achieve victory they won't," said
Bribbens coldly. "Wouldn't you be happy as the rest if your
soldiers win their conquest?"
"No, I would not," the driver replied firmly. "Death and
killing never build anything, for all that it may appear
otherwise."
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THE HOUR OF THE GATE
"A most enlightened outlook, sir," said Clothahump. "See
here, why don't you come with us back to the warmlands?"
"Would I be welcomed?" asked the insect. "Would the
other warmlanders understand and sympathize the way you
do? Would they greet me as a friend?"
"They would probably, I am distressed to confess," said a
somber Caz, "slice you into small chitinous bits."
"You see? I am doomed whichever way I chose. If I went
with you I would suffer physically. If I stay, it is my mind that
suffers constant agony."
"I can understand your feelings against the war," said
Flor, "but that still doesn't explain why you're risking your
own neck to help us."
The driver made a shruglike gesture. "I help those who
need help. That is my nature. Now I help you. Soon, when
the fighting starts, there will be many to help. I do not take
sides among the needy. I wish only that such idiocies could
be stopped. It seems though that they can only be waited
out."
The driver, an ordinary citizen of the Greendowns, was full
of surprises. Clothahump had been convinced that there was
no divergence of opinion among the Plated Folk. Here was
loquacious proof of a crack in that supposed unity of totalitar-
ian thought, a crack that might be exploited later. Assuming,
of course, that the forthcoming invasion could be stopped.
Several days later they found themselves leaving the last of
the cultivated lowlands. Mist faded behind them, and the
friendly silhouettes of the mountains of Zaryt's Teeth became
solid.
No wagons plied their trader's wares here, no farmers
waded patiently through knee-deep muck. There was only
military traffic. According to Clothahump they were already
within the outskirts of the Pass.
Military bivouacs extended from hillside to hillside and for
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Alan Dean Foster
miles to east and west. Tens of thousands of insect troops
milled quietly, expectantly, on the gravelly plain, waiting for
the word to march. From the back of the wagon Jon-Tom and
his companions could look out upon an ocean of antennae and
eyes and multiple legs. And sharp iron, flashing like a million
mirrors in the diffuse light of a winter day.
No one questioned them or eyed the wagon with suspicion
until they reached the last lines of troops. Ahead lay only the
ancient riverbed of the Troom Pass, a dry chasm of sand and
rock which in the previous ten millenia had run more with
blood than ever it had with water.
The officer was winged but flightless, slim, limber of body
and thought. He noted the wagon and its path, stopped filling
out the scroll in his charge, and hurried to pace the vehicle.
Its occupants gave every indication of being engaged in
reasonable business, but they ought not to have been where
they were. The quality of initiative, so lacking in Plated Folk
troops, was present in some small amount in this particular
individual officer.
He glanced up at the driver, his tone casual and not hostile.
"Where are you going, citizen?"
"Delivering supplies to the forward scouts," said Caz
quickly.
The officer slackened his pace, walked now behind the
wagon as he inspected its occupants. "That is understand-
able, but I see no supplies. And who is the dead one?" He
gestured with claws and antennae at the limp shape of Talea,
still encased in her disguise.
"An accident, a most unforgivable brawl in the ranks,"
Caz informed him.
"Ranks? What ranks? I see no insignia on the body. Nor
on any of you."
"We're not regular army," said the driver, much to the
relief of the frantic Caz.
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THE HOUR OF THE GATE
"Ah. But such a fatal disturbance should be reported. We
cannot tolerate fighting among ourselves, not now, with final
victory so soon to come."
Jon-Tom tried to look indifferent as he turned his head to
look past the front of the wagon. They were not quite past the
front-line troops. Leave us alone, he thought furiously at the
persistent officer. Go back to your work and leave this one
wagon to itself!
"We already have reported it," said Caz worriedly. "To
our own commandant."
"And who might that be?" came the unrelenting, infuriat-
ing question.'
"Colonel Puxolix," said the driver.
"I know of no such officer."
"How can one know every officer in the army?"
"Nevertheless, perhaps you had best report the incident to
my own command. It never hurts one to be thorough, citizen.
And I would still like to see the supplies you are to deliver."
He turned as if to signal to several chattering soldiers stand-
ing nearby.
"Here's one of 'em!" said Flor. Her sword lopped off the
officer's head in the midst of a never-to-be-answered query.
For an instant they froze in readiness, hands on weapons,
eyes on the troops nearest the wagon. Yet there was no
immediate reaction, no cry of alarm. Flor's move had been so
swift and the body had fallen so rapidly that no one had yet
noticed.
While their driver did not believe in divine intervention, he
had the sense to make the decision his passengers withheld.
"Hiui-criiickk!" he shouted softly, simultaneously snap-
ping his odd whip over the lizard's eyes. The animal surged