Jack Chalker - Ghost of the Well of Souls

There weren’t any drinks in a Kalindan bar, of course; the idea of drinking would be ludicrous to a water-breathing race. Still, the solids—created both from organic substances and by artificial ones—served the same purpose as alcoholic drinks and mild recreational drugs in their old Terran culture. You ate some. Others were put in the mouth and allowed to slowly dissolve while the drugs moved through the system and out the gill-like structures. They both knew how to use them, but they weren’t used to their particular effects, nor had they tried more than a fraction of them. More important, from their point of view, was knowing how to take one with minimal effect, or no effect at all. That was the real trick to getting information in a bar.

Day and night meant little in Kalinda, which was deep enough to find the change of light irrelevant. Yabbo was high, and the topside limit was close enough that there was a sense of the passage of time through the amount of available light. Even so, like all but a handful of underwater races, it was considered handy, not something one established a society around.

Still, like Kalinda, the Yabbans had fairly well-developed eyes, and thus they appreciated a reasonably well-lit area. With their semitech capabilities and rich volcanic sources of energy, they had a system of gas lights throughout the city that made it look exotic. Inside the Kalindan dome, though, these same gas jets, sealed in special ball lamps with only a source for the gas and a tiny bit of oxygenated air to enter, were used to illuminate the interiors. In the case of the bar, the large glowing orbs were all over the place, and yet gave it a dull, half-lit look and feel. It was good enough, particularly for a saloon.

It didn’t take them twenty seconds after entering the place to sense that something very odd was there as well.

Ari, there are Kalindan men here! Ming breathed. With a lot of sexual foolery going on, as there always was in places like this, the biochemistry of sex was easily smelled in the water.

So that’s what that is! Hey! No fair! We were supposed to be guys, too, remember?

More important, it means that whatever did the change in Kalinda is limited to the hex… The guys here didn’t change.

Yeah, and I bet none of ’em are in any hurry to go back to home sweet home, either, Ari commented sourly. Still, I wonder if this means we’ll change back once we’re here?

Maybe, but I doubt it. I think that whatever you are when you leave home is what you stay. It sure means that these guys are havin’ a field day. All the replacements are female, no added competition.

Well, at least we know what’s turning us on, Ari commented. All those male hormones in this compact little place.

Yeah. I think maybe you should just relax and let me take control for a while, Ming suggested. At least I’m in my element here.

I’ll bet you are. I’ve seen you in action, although not exactly from this vantage point.

The bar was not crowded, but there were a dozen or so Kalindans—maybe five males, seven females. Ming wasn’t looking for just anyone; she had two categories of targets in mind, one for business, one pragmatic. The lonely and talkative sort would be useful for business; lonely and well-heeled would beat sleeping at the top of the dome if such a one were here and available.

Even back in the old days, when Ari was a male Terran and Ming a female, and with all the high-tech options for super sex without complications, it still often boiled down to a lonely man or woman in a bar far from home. The fact that she’d been a cop and he’d been an agent for a criminal organization was irrelevant; they both still had the same job, just different moral compasses.

It had been long enough since they’d seen a male Kalindan, and in fact male and female Kalindans didn’t look that different. The genitalia were essentially concealed until put into active use, as it were; both sexes had egg pouches that could be used to nurture an egg until it hatched; and both could nurse a new hatchling if the egg had been more than a few days in the pouch. But though other races couldn’t tell the sexes apart, there was no confusion among Kalindans.

Ming had barely begun to survey the field when a guy she’d hardly noticed drifted toward her with the clear intent of putting the moves on her.

“You are new here,” the man stated.

“Yes, new here, new in Yabbo,” Ming responded. “Does it show that much?”

“You are far too young to be here on any sort of work contract, and I know just about all the regulars and their families here. Nothing mysterious,” the man replied. “I am Kalimbuch. My official title is Deputy Consular Officer for Trade, which is a fancy way of saying that I am a government accountant. My job is to log the business we do, particularly the new business. I keep an eye on trade balances as well as, of course, ensuring that what gets into Kalinda is what we wish to get in, and what we wish to stay out stays out.”

Ming had a cover story ready, partially prepared by others back in Kalinda and then amplified by conversations and reactions with those they’d met on the way. “I am Mingchuk. I have passed all my exams and decided to travel while waiting for the university lists to open.”

“Ah! I thought as much! What district are you from?”

“Well, Jinkinar as much as anywhere. My family was military, and we were posted to different missions. In truth, I know more about some faraway places than I do my own native land and region, which is why I’m using the time this way.”

There. That should cover any slips on local families and geography. If anybody asked about some of the foreign hexes she’d visited with her “military adviser” parents, she could make up something convincing since she knew a lot of races from her previous life who had counterparts here. Chances were, nobody who asked about them would know truth from falsehood anyway.

“Most efficient use you could make,” Kalimbuch responded. “Might I buy you something as a welcoming libation, perhaps?”

“I—I’m just getting used to such things, having only come of age in the past month,” she responded demurely. “What would you suggest?”

“I know just the thing!” the consul responded, and floated over to the bar where a bored-looking Kalindan female stirred enough to take the order.

“A stuska,” Kalimbuch told her. “And my usual.”

Watch it, Ari cautioned her silently. Remember, I’m in the same body, so if this stuff screws you up I won’t be any help.

I think we can stand one or two of these. Most Kalindans can, and we’ve had some of this stuff before.

Neither of them knew what a stuska was, though.

The bartender came back with two containers, one with a pastel-blue spongy compound, the other a red-and-white-striped concoction that came on a stick. Kalimbuch gestured toward a table away from anyone else, and they drifted over to it and hovered there. Ming was surprised to find that the blue stuff was hers and the thing that looked like a confection was the consul’s. He stuck the thing in his mouth so that only the stick showed, sucking on it as he slowly breathed in the water. She wasn’t sure what to do with the blue stuff, and Kalimbuch quickly realized it.

“Apologies,” he said. “Just take a small piece and pop it in your mouth and chew. Swallow when it gets to be just a substance in the mouth giving nothing else off, and then take some more. It’s quite mild and very flavorful.”

She broke off a small piece, popped it in her mouth, and chewed on it slowly. At first it seemed to release a mostly sweet taste like licorice, but as it dissolved and went back through the gill area, it had a surprising, pleasant kick to it. This was something you went slow on if you didn’t want to get very high very fast.