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  Perched atop the tallest of the half dozen restrained brund, Pip gazed down at master and guide with imperious indifference. The one on which she was resting was chewing contentedly on the narrow, downward-slanting leaves of a slender tree. Next to it a second brund, having finished all the leaves on another tree, was munching the bare top of the narrow trunk itself, gnawing it down as if eating a dark brown carrot.

  Gray bodies that resembled clumps of metal wool terminated in thick forward-facing skulls dominated by wide mouths filled with flat, sharp-edged teeth. Chisel-like incisors were backed by grinding molars that did the hard work of masticating cellulosic material. Beneath ridges of bone that protruded from the front of the skull, large brown eyes gazed cow-like at their surroundings. Tall tufted ears flanked a breathing tube not unlike those of the shomagr, with the exception that it was far less flexible.

  Head and body were some two meters in length and half that in width and in depth. The remaining five meters of brund were all legs.

  Unlike the lead-gray bodies and heads, the legs varied in color from yellow to umber. Some limbs were spotted, others streaked. None was larger in diameter than Flinx’s torso. Each had a single joint located two-thirds of the way off the ground. The thickly padded, perfectly round feet boasted four toes that splayed out in all four directions, providing a solid base for the otherwise spindly-looking legs. Flinx now thought he understood why Wiegl had settled on the brund as their mode of transport. With a single double-legged stride, the smallest of the creatures could span an impressive distance or easily negotiate a flowing stream. He was right in his analysis, except it did not go far enough.

  “The land will be easy to scan, from such a great height,” he murmured, “but where does one ride, where does one sit, as I see no saddle atop the head?”

  “Not on the head,” Wiegl informed him, “which sports a bony crest hidden beneath the thick fur, but to one side, below an ear of one’s choosing.” He pointed.

  Following the guide’s direction, Flinx was able to make out the leather tack that wrapped around the base of the skull and the neck. No riding kit was presently in evidence, but there was no need to burden the brund with saddles unless they were in use.

  “Beneath an ear of one’s choosing, you say very plainly. But if that is possible, cannot two ride one creature, an individual to each side?”

  The Larian tootled his assent. “Two brund can carry four riders with ease, it is plain for anyone to see, yet though there are only two of us, on our return journey we hope to be four.”

  “Oh, of course.” The Firstborn Preedir ah nisa Leeh would require a place to sit as well, he reminded himself. He acceded to the need. “I count on you as my experienced guide, to strike as hard a bargain, as possible for our rides.”

  While Wiegl proceeded to haggle with the herdsman, Flinx studied the brund more closely. He was going to be traveling with this animal for an unknown number of days and he wanted to know as much as possible about their mounts. Though he had spent time on many worlds and observed hundreds of alien species, the brund with their steel-gray bodies, chiseling teeth, and stilt-like legs were as exotic as anything he had encountered. As for the one that was presently providing Pip with a lofty perch, he was not as sure that it was ignoring her as he was that her slight weight must be relatively imperceptible to so large a creature.

  Wiegl concluded the negotiations, Flinx paid, and they disappeared back into the market with the herder’s assurance that their mounts would be ready for them by evening, complete with all necessary tack. Wiegl engaged a couple of porters, and between the four of them they managed to fill the storage packs and spare saddles of both brund with supplies for the journey ahead. In order to make up time in hopes of catching up to their quarry, Wiegl had proposed that they skip the modest pleasures offered by any small towns they might pass along the way, and try as hard as they could to catch up to the strideship before it reached its final destination.

  “And where might that be?” Flinx inquired tunefully. “For I cannot believe that in all your asking, that one question, you have failed to put forth.”

  Tension roiled the Larian, his true feelings open to Flinx’s perceiving. It was encouraging, he told himself, that the guide’s emotions were not overwhelmed by fear.

  “Uncertain it is, uncertain to know, unsure and unsteady were the replies I received, when casually I posed that query.” He indicated their bustling surroundings. “But words travel fast, even those holding secrets, and are sooner opened, than a banker’s mind.” Stepping closer, he dropped his singing to a lullaby. “Swift it is said runs a strideship, homeward to its whispered base. Crewed it is by lethal nasties, led by one with a crooked snout, helped by one with a naked face.”

  “Our offworlder!” At Wiegl’s puzzled expression, Flinx hastened to frame his response in proper singspeech. “The offworlder it appears, is helping in the abduction, much as was theorized, by those at the station, by those who send me onward. Of word was there any, as to this ship’s destination, as to where it might be going, to this whispered base?”

  Raising a hand, Wiegl twisted it in the moist air. “Traders will talk and traders will ramble, merchants will sing and merchants will lie, but in any soup there is always meat floating; the trick is to separate the flesh from the bone. Some say assuredly the ship is westward turning, heading for the Leeth of Aberkam Drot. Some say it will stop at Pierncrae Crossing, there to set sail for lands across the Great Breath.”

  Flinx was puzzled. If this ship hadn’t already “set sail,” then how was it advancing northward? What was its motive power if not sails? Come to think of it, since leaving Borusegahm they had crossed as much land as water despite the inescapable presence of the large shallow lakes and long saltwater inlets that dominated so much of Larian terrain.

  With regret, he realized that despite his intensive studies there was still much about this world and its dominant Larian society that he did not know. And of course he had not been able to bring with him anything of an advanced nature, like a vorec, which would have allowed him to look up the answers to such questions. He restrained his curiosity, knowing that he was likely to encounter explanations soon enough. If they could catch up to their quarry before it reached…?

  “But you, my friend, believe none of that, believe no such tales, but have drawn a different conclusion?”

  Wiegl’s upper lip curled, revealing his teeth. “There are stories that percolate south, from the rugged Northlands, of a change of leadership in one of the larger Leeths. Tales are told of a powerful Hobak, new to governing but not to politics, who craves fame and attention more than most. Felelagh na Broon is the name of this neophyte, of whom it is said he lusts for more power, to extend the reach of the Leeth of Minord, far beyond its present boundaries. He is fêted for cunning, reported for nuisance, and would apparently be the last one, to join a broad union of Leeths.”

  Flinx nodded, hoping that by now Wiegl understood the meaning of the gesture. “A troublemaker, it seems, without recent precedent, in this part of your world. Not unknown to my Commonwealth, are such individuals, who would build their own ego, before hospital or schools.”

  Wiegl’s ears and nostril dipped forward: his version of a nod. “Perhaps also is this na Broon a bit of the fanatic, if what they say is true, about his aversion to a union of Leeths. Perhaps even maniacal enough, in his self-centered narcissism, to try to put a stop to it, by abducting another Hobak’s Firstborn; to raise himself up, by bringing another down.”

  “I think we will see,” said Flinx, “when we catch up to this ship, and when I have a chance, to speak with its offworlder. Who I think is a human, as well as a renegade.”

  “A confrontation for which I do not hunger,” Wiegl sang back, “but which I have no doubt, will prove both educational, and entertaining.”

  Regardless of whether it is the renegade or I who emerges from it intact, Flinx told himself grimly. Thus far his guide had proven himself to be nothing if not di
rect in his feelings.

  Bemusement as to how they were to mount the pair of chosen brund, not to mention load the awkward-looking creatures with supplies, occupied his thoughts until it was time to leave. After conversing in counterpoint with the herder, Wiegl approached the nearest of the placid beasts, sang out a command, and Flinx had his answer.

  The brund neither knelt nor bent over. Instead, they simply sat straight down. Slender but powerful tendons and joints allowed them to squat so that the rounded undersides of their compact bodies nearly touched the ground.

  “Here, a look, without unnecessary explanation,” Wiegl sang.

  As soon as the guide showed him around to the dorsal side of the animal, Flinx was able to make out the protruding vertebrae in its back. Pushing his way through the long, thick fur allowed him to climb the knobby bones as easily as a ladder. Though the basket-like arrangement of leather straps and woven netting into which he then settled himself was designed for the comparatively longer torso and shorter legs and tail of a Larian, he was able to squirm into it securely enough to ensure that he wouldn’t fall out. At least, that was his hope, since when at Wiegl’s second command the loaded brund stood, Flinx suddenly found himself some six meters off the ground.

  The second saddle, located on the other side of the brund’s body, was stuffed with supplies, counterbalancing its single passenger. Flinx allowed his backpack, which among other things contained his nutritional supplements, to be packed there with everything else. All he kept with him was the metal tube, although Pip seemed to have happily abandoned its insulated interior in favor of the deep fur atop the brund’s head.

  At a fortissimo from Wiegl, the herder released the chains that had bound the brund in place. In contrast, the guide did not have to raise his voice to call across to Flinx. With Wiegl seated in the left-hand saddle of his mount and the human in the right side of his own, they could practically reach out and grasp hands.

  “Ready then, to take a ride most interesting, regardless of objective?”

  Clutching the single leather rein that was attached to the slightly projecting bone beneath the wide, toothy mouth off to his left, Flinx took a deep breath and nodded. He had ridden many creatures on many worlds, but never one so tall and outwardly fragile. As it turned out, the brund proved to be anything but frail. At a command from Wiegl, both animals lurched forward.

  A single enormous stride carried them over and outside the corral where they had been held. Below, irritated traders and travelers scrambled to make way for the round flat feet and the long but strong legs attached to them.

  The gait of a brund was awkward: a herky-jerky forward motion that initially threatened to catapult Flinx out of his saddle. Quickly, and of necessity, he learned to anticipate each double-legged forward stride. To his astonishment, by the time he had adapted to and settled into the rhythm, they were already well outside the town limits of Grndalx proper.

  Ahead lay long, lonely granite ridges interspersed with lakes, rivers, and oceanic inlets, often hidden by dense red- and purple-tinged heath or tall, twiglike forest.

  Seeing that Flinx had grown quickly comfortable, or at least tolerable, of his brundian seat, Wiegl trilled a new command. Flinx’s mount accelerated, splashing water as it strode through those tributaries too wide to step across and sending small semiaquatic creatures fleeing.

  It was almost as swift a method of transportation, he reflected as he hung on for dear life, as it was an uncomfortable one.

  8

  ■ ■ ■

  Chela Voh was short but not unusually so, and slender enough to be described as sylphlike. A cascade of tight, black ringlets tumbled to her shoulders and framed a face that was wholly elfin except for the eyes. Downcast, they made her resemble a troubled sprite slipped from some ancient children’s fairy tale. Raised and focused, they could burn. Not literally, of course—though some who had been subjected to the directness of that stare might choose to differ.

  Used to traveling by herself on many worlds, she felt reasonably comfortable with her surroundings after a couple of days spent wandering the grounds of the Commonwealth station north of Borusegahm Leeth. She would have spent more time talking to long-term personnel, but she had a job to do and delays made her uncomfortable. Nor could she make inquiries of the local Church representative in hopes of accelerating her work. The organization to which she belonged and the United Church had…philosophical differences. When the human personnel at the station proved vague or unhelpful in their replies to her queries, she eventually chose to confront a trio of natives who were visiting the station on personal business.

  At first, the two males and one female tried to ignore her. Humans, especially those newly arrived, tended to want to discuss all manner of foolish things. They certainly did not expect her to speak Lari. Least of all did they expect her to singspeak it as well as she did.

  “I seek one of my kind, who is operating outland; beyond the Leeth, beyond the usual contacts, and out of touch with the station authorities.”

  The group of locals gazed at the offworlder in astonishment, until the female member of the trio finally spoke for the three of them.

  “Many are those of your kind who have come here, who in their work and in their talking, seek to communicate with us freely.” Her short ears were standing straight up, as were those of her two male companions. “But never have I heard, until just this moment, an offworlder voice sweet enough, to match the best of our own.”

  “Your words soar like a slickback gliding through clouds,” the male on her right added admiringly, “redolent of thunder, kissed with melody. Had I not myself heard them, just now, just here, in this place, I would have thought them nothing more than rumor.” Inclining to their right, both males executed the Larian equivalent of a bow.

  “What can we three,” the female asked as a breeze stirred the veil-like material of her attire around her supple form, “do for you, heart-singer of fancies? Do not fear to extend your question, so that we three may hear clearly, and enjoy the tones of your response, unprecedented for your people.”

  “I seek one of my own kind,” Chela repeated in perfect trilling and without acknowledging any of the compliments, “who also travels alone. A male of notable abilities, who surely also knows, how to throat your singspeech. One who like myself, is not afraid, and is comfortable sojourning, on worlds not his own.”

  As Voh looked on, the three fell to discussing among themselves. No operatic trio ever sounded more harmonious, nor argued with such tunefulness. When they finished, all three turned back to the impatient human.

  “Here at this station, home to offworlders, we have heard it spoken, of one who has done this.” The male puffed out his narrow chest, perhaps trying to impress the wonderful human singspeaker, or possibly simply gathering wind. “One who travels devoid of any humans for company, and seeks no one knows what, though rumors abound.”

  “What sort of rumors, of this one traveling, can you tell me, the better that I might plan, my own goings?” Voh sang back intently.

  The trio proceeded to relate the gossip that swirled around the kidnapping of the Hobak’s Firstborn. That it had been carried out by the minions of another Hobak, one whose country lay far outside the Borusegahm Leeth and possibly to the north. That was where the rumors, if not the truth, converged. In fact, it was said that a lone human had recently left for that region, in the company of a somewhat notorious escort.

  Though this was enough for Chela, the trio was reluctant to let her go. The novelty of her splendid rendition of the local singspeak threatened to saddle her with a celebrity she did not want, as other curious natives came to see what all the fuss was about, and she finally managed to extricate herself from the growing crowd only by offering up a multi-octave farewell in agitato time.

  A sole human was said to have gone north. One who might or might not be involved in a matter of local politics. Additional questioning of station personnel only served to further confirm the tale the
Larian trio had sung. Very well—she would go north. Though lingering was not her personal style, neither did she need to rush to conclude her assignment. What mattered to the organization of which she was a part was its eventual success, not its timeframe.

  Having by now absorbed the general details of the abduction of the Hobak’s Firstborn, she knew that the initial information that had been provided to her prior to her arrival on this underdeveloped world was accurate. There were domestic sociopolitical problems with which an offworlder, a male human, was presently involved. Though she had not been able to obtain his physical description, it was evident that he must be the one her group had been searching after for some time. Her organization could have sent several operatives to track him down. This had been tried before, and on each occasion had come close to success only to fail spectacularly at the last moment. This time only one had been sent in pursuit. One who was unlikely to attract attention and thereby possibly warn the organization’s quarry that he was being pursued.

  Clad in lightweight rain-repellent gear, she was finishing her preparations prior to departing the station for Borusegahm proper. How long it might take to find the one her organization sought did not trouble her. She quite enjoyed Largess’s cool ambient temperature and its accompanying dampness. While others of her kind might find the gray skies and frequent drizzle depressing, she quietly reveled in a landscape that was more monochromatic than colorful.

  Unable to restrain himself any longer, the supply master who was filling out her requisitions finally broke the silence that existed between them.

  “You don’t talk much, do you, Chela?”

  “Ms. Voh.” She spoke the curt reply while studying the depth-dimensional images of Larian terrain that lined one wall of the supply facility. Rock, oddly shaped vegetation, water everywhere, more rock. She was looking forward to the journey as well as to its inevitable termination. The weather here, the landscape—everything suited her disposition. It would be fun. Or at least, as much fun as someone in her chosen profession could have while on the job.