He nodded. “And I’ll have a day’s head start. I plan to leave tomorrow night. A few of those Agitarian Entries we picked up a few days ago aren’t what they seem. They’re Nautilus crew and they’ve got a couple of those pegasus—pegasi? Eh, who cares? Anyway, I’m about the same size as one of them and they can carry double, anyway. We’ll form half the team. A couple of Eflik will take Mavra with us on a conveyance designed for that purpose. Don’t look alarmed, Asam, we tried it and it’s perfectly safe and the Eflik are more than able to handle the weight if we don’t fly more than a couple of hours at a time.”
“It’s not that I’m thinkin’ of,” the centaur said darkly.
Brazil sighed. “I told you I wouldn’t force anything on anybody. Don’t look at me like that. I’m not going to do a damned thing. It’s up to Mavra all the way. It’s her show, really.”
“She’d better change the act, then,” said a voice behind them. They all whirled around, startled.
Standing there, looking very much his old self, was Gypsy.
“They caught me before I was ready,” the newcomer said disgustedly. “Nothing I could do. They were going to drug me.”
“Oh, shit,” Brazil muttered. “Well, I guess we go now, then. It might still work.”
“Why shouldn’t it?” Marquoz wanted to know. “So you have to go an extra few hours’ flight. That shouldn’t be more than an inconvenience.”
“It’ll be tough on the Eflik,” Brazil replied, “but a little more risky for us. We’ll have to fly by night, hide by day. Verion will be impossible to cross for the next few days—it’s some kind of rutting season there and those worms glow like electric lights. We’ll be spotted, and what can be spotted can be reported and maybe shot down. That’ll mean a southern route—and Yua’s Awbrians aren’t far enough along yet to have drawn Khatir’s forces away from the Avenue or even provide a good diversion.”
“I’ve helped with that,” Gypsy told him. “I stopped off and dropped in on Yua to explain the situation. She’s proceeding with all speed. It’s riskier than it would be night after next, but the odds are still pretty much with us. I say we go.”
Brazil nodded, looking over at Asam. “Get Mavra, will you?”
For a moment the Dillian hesitated, thinking, perhaps, that if she didn’t go there was no further threat.
“Not thinking of changing sides now, are you, Asam?” Marquoz prodded the centaur. “If you did, you’d lose her anyway.”
The Colonel sighed and went out to find Mavra.
Brazil turned to Gypsy. “You old son of a bitch, you’re going to have to explain yourself to me before this is over.”
Gypsy grinned. “Maybe. Before it’s over,” he said playfully. “Hey, Marquoz, about time we got together for this! We’re a team again this time!”
“Could be,” the Hakazit responded thoughtfully. “Could be…”
Brazil shifted uncomfortably. “Wonder what’s keeping Asam? Damn it, we’ve got to get a lot of stuff together before we go, and we have to go as quietly as possible. Gypsy, can you cover for us?”
He nodded. “For a little while, which is all we need. It’s a big army, a big, long line. I think I can put in the required Brazil appearances with no trouble and maybe occasionally become Mavra if the question comes up.”
“Okay, then. Damn! What’s wrong out there? Is Mavra so mad at me she won’t even come back? Or did Asam…?” He let the thought trail off.
Suddenly they were all on their feet, nervous and anxious. Brazil looked at Gypsy. “Give yourself some protective coloration,” he told the dark man. “We’re going to find out what’s up.”
Gypsy shimmered, changed, became a Hakazit.
“That’s a female Hakazit,” Marquoz noted playfully.
“Got to keep up your reputation,” Gypsy came back, and they went out.
They spread out, looking around the flat valley floor. Thousands of creatures of many different races were camped out there, firelights stretching in all directions, but they couldn’t see any sign of Asam or Mavra Chang.
Brazil called his humans to him and gave them instructions to comb the area. Gypsy, disguised as a Hakazit, quickly memorized names and faces as Brazil did so.
As more time passed and no word came, Brazil turned to Gypsy and said, “I don’t like the feel of this.”
“Me neither,” Gypsy agreed. “You think maybe we’ve had it our own way too long and the odds are starting to balance out now?”
“I’m afraid—” Brazil began, but was cut off by a shout from one of his humans. He took off at a run in the indicated direction and Gypsy lumbered along behind him.
Very near the small river was a grove of trees, and it was to these that the runners directed them. Brazil reached the river first and spotted Marquoz, standing there and looking at something in the river mud. Next to the Hakazit stood Asam, looking stricken.
“Right in the middle.of the whole goddamn army!” Marquoz snarled. “God! We were so damnably cocky! Those sons of bitches!”
Brazil looked down at the mud. He could see the hoofprints of a Dillian, walking along the river and very near the clump of trees. Part of the bank was torn from its moorings just ahead and there the hoofprints became a tangled, blotched mess. No other prints could be seen anywhere.
“Damn it! How the hell do you snatch a five hundred kilo Dillian out from under the noses of ten thousand friendly troops?” Marquoz fumed.
Asam looked up at Brazil, his face ashen, his expression a mixture of grief and bewilderment.
“She’s gone,” he rasped in an unbelieving tone. “They’ve got her.”
Gypsy lumbered up behind them, stopped, and instantly realized what must have happened.
“Oh, shit,” said both Nathan Brazil and Gypsy in unison.
Bache, Later That Night
They studied, probed, interviewed, and investigated all through the wee hours to no avail. A few Dillians in a camp nearby thought they might have heard a disturbance, some Hakazit close to the trees vaguely recalled seeing some dark shapes in the air, but all really heard and saw very little. Like their leaders, they felt secure inside their own camp and tended to discount any disturbance or commotion as obviously none of their business and certainly not enemy action.
“Why her?” Asam continued to moan. “Why not you, Brazil? You’re what they want, not her.”
“But they couldn’t get to me,” he pointed out. “It had to be a small operation, probably only a few creatures, mostly ones also found on our side so they weren’t even noticed. Besides, they’re skittish now. Suppose they snatched me and I laughed at them, changed into somebody else, then vanished? Then where are they? Uh uh. Now, taking Mavra is a whole different situation. The Dillians idolize her—and, frankly, so do you—so it’ll have a demoralizing effect on the troops and their commander. And they know her story—mostly from Ortega if from nowhere else. They know she means something to me—the only family, I guess you’d say, I have. It’s possible they know, from capturing some key people or something, that I insisted on her going through the Well with me. Blackmail, a doorstop, I don’t know. But it makes sense.”
Asam looked angrily down at him. “And you? What will you do now?”
Brazil shook his head. “I don’t know. I really don’t, Colonel. All I can do right now is get our people to work on this, but time’s short. I’ll have to decide by tomorrow night, that’s certain. I still think I can reach the Well, but it’s clear they would take this action only if they were moving on this spot even now. I can’t afford to wait or they’ll have me cut off.” He paused. “And, damn it, it’s not right! I don’t want the responsibility of turning that machine off. All those people out there… All gone, like they’d never been. All the great and small, everybody. I don’t know whether I could bring myself to do it.”