Jack Chalker - Echoes of the Well of Souls

The old city area was along the docks. The port itself ran for a couple of miles, or so it seemed, with large piers, massive warehouses, brick and cobblestone streets, and broad silver-gray strips that proved to be much the same as the railroad tracks used by futuristic vehicles moving freight and supplies to and from the port area.

The services area of the port ran from the opposite side of the main north-south docks for about three blocks before a row of older, seedier-looking office buildings drew a line of demarcation between the actual port and the rest of the city.

There were a few larger ships in, although most of what was there seemed to be coastal steamers, tuglike boats, and even a few of what looked like fishing trawlers. What was fascinating was the odd juxtaposition of technologies between the ships and the shore services: the latter were very modern with magnetic trains and robotic longshoremen, and the ships often had smokestacks and, on the larger ones, two or even three tall sailing masts as well. It was as if ships of the American Civil War era were tying up and being serviced at some twenty-first-century port.

Nathan Brazil was familiar with the design and the reasons behind it. He was impressed to see that some of the ships weren’t wood anymore but were metal-plated or, in a few cases, seemed to be made out of wholly artificial new plasticlike substances. Their odd nature, though, remained out of necessity; literally just a few meters outside the harbor entrance, visible by day but hidden in the night and city lights, was another hex boundary. Beyond it, where these ships had to sail, a different technology level was imposed. Flotish was a semitech hex; mere steam or sail power could be used but nothing electrical worked. Batteries would not hold charges, generators and alternators might truly give off energy, but it could not be controlled and dissipated just about as fast as it was made. Even powerful broadcast signals from a high-tech hex like Ambreza would fade quickly once they passed that boundary, no matter how strong the source. Running an internal combustion engine large enough to be useful would result in the most beautiful and rapid burning up of an engine anybody had ever seen.

Beyond were a few hexes that restricted all technology except direct mechanical devices. There great steam boilers would virtually explode, making it impossible to power any device, ships included. To travel those distances one had to use the most ancient of methods, the wind in the sail.

That also meant that each ship had to carry a highly trained crew expert in both steam and sail and willing to live for long periods aboard ship. Such crews were highly paid and highly prized, and they acted like it. Ship’s law was the only law they respected, and the companies tended to pay for or gloss over any excesses in port. They also tended to be from a great many races, and here, at this port, Terry began to get a sampling of just what other sorts of creatures this world contained.

Two large scorpionlike creatures moved down a side street to her left, startling her. They looked huge, mean, and menacing. Elsewhere were several man-sized bipeds wearing clothes that looked like they were out of some Renaissance movie epic, but they more resembled Sylvester the Cat, with their expressive, almost comical feline faces and fur and large fluffy tails. And there was a creature that looked half woman and half vulture, with a pretty face and mean killer’s eyes that seemed to glow in the dark. Like the Ambreza, most embodied some aspects of creatures she knew or at least knew about, but the association with familiar Earth creatures was merely a way of cataloging them so that her mind could deal with what she was seeing. The reference points were far from exact, but they were the only way she could cope with the many alien beings she encountered.

Some, however, were beyond easy mental cataloging. Creatures with mottled, leathery dark green skin that went along at a fast clip on what seemed to be hundreds of spindly legs and whose entire bodies seemed to open into rows of sharp, pointy teeth; wrinkled, slow-moving dark gray masses that could only be thought of as hippos without apparent bones; squidlike monstrosities whose tails seemed topped with giant sunflowers. There were so many, and they were so bizarre both individually and collectively that she could only look at one and then another and hope nobody noticed her staring.

But this was no freak show or chamber of horrors; these were people, people of ancient races, races as established as her own, from their own hex-shaped countries. She had to always remember that.

Brazil pulled up in front of a lighted office and dismounted, tying his horse loosely to what he knew was a fireplug. Terry wasn’t sure what to do. Her impulse was to remain outside, but she had no idea what this place was or how long Brazil might be. After a moment she got down and followed him into the office.

Almost immediately she felt a sense of claustrophobia, of being hemmed in, of the walls and ceiling maybe closing in on her. She repressed it as best she could and managed to stay with him, but she didn’t like the feeling.

The creature behind a counter was a large, irregular lump maybe only a bit taller than their own height that seemed to be an animated mass of tiny red and green feathers from behind which, much farther down than would be expected, two huge, round yellow eyes looked back at them.

“Yes?” the creature asked Brazil pleasantly, barely giving Terry a glance.

“Are there any ships in now outbound to Agon or Clopta or anywhere else semitech or above in the northwest?” Brazil asked it.

“Nothing direct,” the creature replied. “The Setting Sun down at Pier 69 may be your best bet. It stops at Kalibu, Hakazit, Tuirith, and Krysmilar. You might be able to change, particularly at Hakazit, since there’s a lot of cross-channel stuff out of there.”

“Nothing else coming in that might be more direct?”

“Sorry. Not until sometime next month, and that won’t give you any time advantage. The only other possibility for Agon is something like the Northern Winds leaving in two days for Parmiter, but your chances of a westbound connection from there are slim to none, and you’d have to walk overland.”

“Yeah, well, that would be a solution if Agon were my final destination, but it’s not. I’ll have enough overland without starting that early. When does Setting Sun sail?”

“Let me see…” The huge eyes dropped down to look at something below the counter. “They’re still finishing offloading, and they have a lot to get on. They’re scheduled for high tide… the day after tomorrow. About nine in the morning local time.”

“That sounds reasonable. I need to book passage on that sailing to Hakazit if it’s available, with a cabin if possible.”

“Yes, sir. For two?”

He turned and looked at Terry, who was showing her discomfort and staring around the office with a queasy look. Still, she was here.

“Yes,” he sighed. “Might as well. What’s the weather supposed to be en route?”

“Possible storms in west Ronbonz, otherwise choppy but not uncomfortable. The winds, however, are unpredictable in this crossing, particularly in storms.”

“I’ll still take it. You have anything on the basics of Hakazit or a general hex guide? I want to see if it’s feasible to book the horses on as well.”

“Animals are not guaranteed in shipment,” the strange clerk warned him. “There is a bookshop on Vremzy Street, two blocks in and one left. It’s closed by now, but it will be open all day tomorrow. You can get what you need there. Outfitters and suppliers are along that street as well. We can probably add two animals with no problem if you come back here by nine or ten tomorrow night with your prepaid ticket. In the meantime they can be quartered at the livestock area, Warehouse 29 just along this street. Now, I’ll need to know your native hex so that sufficient edible provisions can be laid on for you and the cabin prepared properly.”