03. Gods at the Well of Souls (18 page)

He was appalled at the size and scope of the place. Jeez! Don Francisco Campos  was a two-bit piker, wasn't he? This place is the fuckin' Maui Hilton! Wonder  where the swimming pool and saunas are. He wondered how Juan Campos managed to  fit into this kind of setup. For crime, this was strictly first-class, and  classy to boot. 

He was careful not to enter any of the rooms until after they'd tossed in the  stun bombs. It was quickly clear, though, that the complex went off in both  directions for some distance, and just tossing those things in the first room in  a series of rooms didn't get too many people. Oh, there were a couple lying  about in the first room he entered, but the others either stayed back out of  that exposed area or came in after the blast, when the soldiers would feel safe.  Damn if some of 'em didn't look like real live Donald Ducks. Not too  funny-looking, though; some of 'em looked real tough. Even so, there was a  veritable United Nations of the Well World represented here. Gooey things and  mean-looking suckers and women with goat heads and humongous breasts and a  walking toadstool or two, not to mention a couple of two-legged alligators  wearing pants and the biggest damned frogs he had ever seen. 

He went from room to room to room, cataloging what he saw in low tones and  warning the squad if any of the critters emerged with weapons in hand or lay in  wait. He reckoned he was saving a number of lives, and that made him feel good,  if not any less scared to death. With this big a zoo, there was no telling if  he'd run into one or another creature that might not have a problem seeing  Dahirs. 

Finally, in one rear room that looked like a luxury suite at the Waldorf except  for the fact that it was clearly built for some large humanoids with bull heads  and horns and some of their cowlike girlfriends, whose unconscious forms he'd  passed two rooms earlier, he found the jackpot. This was clearly a visitor's  suite, and visitors could easily get lost in a place like this. He couldn't read it, but it sure as hell looked like a map of the whole place. Welcome to the Drug Lord Ritz, he thought with some amazement. Man! Had they  ever been cocky and arrogant! He made his way carefully back out to the main  corridor and hunted for the officer. "Got something that will make life a lot  easier if you can read it," he told the startled Agonite. 

The officer looked at the maps, and his reptilian jaw opened in amazement. "I  should say you did!" He looked at the first level map, then the second, then  looked up and pointed. "Nine more doors up. Emergency stairs." "I'm surprised they don't have elevators," Gus commented, still amazed at the  place. 

"They do, but they don't have power now. Besides, do you want to be in the first  car when the door opens?" 

"You got a point there." 

"As soon as we do a linkup and get a first level secured, we go down. I'll radio  command and control where the other access stairs are." 

"How are we doin' so far?" 

"Well, we knocked out about a third of 'em. The rest so far have been equally  divided between giving up and fighting it out. We hope it'll be easier below,  since they know they don't have a way out if we get down there, but you never  know. A lot of their security people will be down there, and the bosses probably  kept their loyalty with drugs. When an addict is faced with losing his drugs or  is charged up on them, who knows?" 

"Yeah. Thanks for the optimism," Gus commented dryly. 

As expected, they had captured a huge number of the staff trying to flee out of  the main entrance into Liliblod. The explosion hadn't completely sealed things  off-there were more entrances and exits than they had thought-but it had trapped  enough. 

The colonel had come in with the first wave but didn't stay for the wrap-up.  Instead, he pressed himself against the wall and slowly and carefully oozed up  it to the ceiling, then began a slow but steady flow back toward the middle  group well ahead of the commandos. A Zhonzhorpian with an energy beam rifle  emerged from a doorway beneath the suspended Leeming, huge crocodilelike jaws  open and dripping saliva, eyes blazing mad. 

A pseudopod shot out and struck the gunman on his head. He dropped the rifle and  roared in pain, clutching at his head, but his hands went into thick goo and  seemed to be stuck there. With slow deliberation, Lunderman flowed down and  around the man and engulfed him. He remained like that for a short while. There  was a sort of hissing sound as if something were being dissolved in acid, and  then a larger Lunderman reached up and flowed back onto the ceiling area. There  was no trace of the very large gunman who had been there except his rifle, still  lying where he'd dropped it. A few moments later various metallic and plastic  pieces fell from the ceiling to join it as the Leeming rejected what could not  be digested. 

Far from being satiated, Lunderman was instead irritated. There was a limit to  how many of this size he could absorb without going dormant and dividing, and  this bubble-brained idiot had known nothing of importance. 

Worse, Lunderman had no idea what his limit was. He hadn't ever eaten more than  one a week until now, and that had been sufficient. Even dissolved, the  additional mass of one was significant if not any sort of handicap. Judging from  the added mass of this one, the upper limit might well be no more than five or  six. If he doubled his size, he could not stop the process. 

It was unlikely that there would be many of the cartel on this level who had any  information except by sheer chance, anyway. He began to search for a way down.  Best to find it quickly, anyway, lest some nervous soldiers spot him and not  recognize him as a friend. 

As he heard the concussion grenades going off not far in front of him and just  as the lights came on, he found it. Some sort of service elevator, he decided,  linking the upper rooms with perhaps the kitchen or even the labs. It didn't  matter. The door was easy enough to dissolve with the extra energy he'd  absorbed, and to his great relief the car was down at the bottom. He flowed  along the tiny, meter-square shaft until he reached the second level. The  automatic trip on the door was obvious from this side; he didn't have to burn  through it to open it. 

On the other side was a small room that possibly served as a crew lunch room or  break station. Nothing special, and expected. It was deserted, and he moved to  the door, listened carefully, but saw no crack or opening where he might extend  a pseudopod to scout what was beyond. He flowed back up to the ceiling, reached  down, and used the manual grip to push the door open slowly. 

The room beyond was lit by recessed emergency lighting, giving it a dull orange  glow. It was a big place and looked very much like a state-of-the-art, high-tech  lab, which it was. There didn't seem to be anybody there, although some things  were still cooking and bubbling away. 

It still wasn't what he needed, but it was one step closer. Below this, if he  could find another easy way down, would be the master computer room.   

There was no way Tony could get down one of those tunnels, something Kurdon  surely had known when he had agreed to allow the centaur to come along. Now she  stood just inside the border, staring out into dark Liliblod. 

"Damn! They say there's like three entrances out!" one of the soldiers  commented. "We got the main one, but the other two are beyond our reach by this  point. They say the complex is bigger than an office building! Crime sure pays  sometimes." 

"Until now," Tony commented. "What about those other entrances? Anybody covering  them now?" 

"We sent a few people up there, but any of the big fish who wanted to get away  are well into Liliblod right now, and our people are heading to shut them down  from inside by now. One's just kind of a side door, I guess, for private comings  and goings, but the other one's like a stable. They say they got some very  strange animals in there." 

Tony was suddenly alert. "Any of them with a body like mine? Animal head,  perhaps with a horn, but a body like mine?" 

"I dunno. I'll check. Hold on a moment." The soldier said something into his  communicator and waited for the reply. "A few with bodies kinda like yours, but  nothing with a horn." 

"See if you can have somebody from the middle group contact Julian. That's the  name. Report this to whoever you can get and ask them to get word to her. If  he's anywhere around there, she'll recognize him." 

"Who?" 

"Just do it." 

The soldier complied. "Message received and relayed, they say. That's all. I  can't guarantee it'll be passed on. They'll be linking and going down to level  two shortly." 

Tony thought furiously, frustrated at not being able to get down there to see  what was going on for herself. "How far is this stable? And how far in from the  border is it?" 

"About four leegs that way, and maybe just a harg inside, but that's far enough.  Why?" 

Four leegs was maybe half a kilometer, and a harg was no more than ten meters.  "I was thinking maybe I could enter from there." 

"Lady, you don't wanna do that. You got colonies of them Liliblodians right up  there in the trees; I don't think they're real happy with us at the moment, and  they don't give a shit about diplomacy and protests and all that other crap.  They'd be on us like a plague if any of us went across that border, high-tech  weapons be damned. They got sense enough to know they'd be wiped out, but they'd  take a ton of us with 'em before they went and might figure it's worth it.  They're probably so mad at us for blowing up the main entrance in their  territory, they're just waiting for one of us to stray ever so slightly in." "I came through there once before, and they didn't even show themselves. And I'm  not of Agon. They might hesitate." 

"Yeah, and if they don't, you'll be dead in ten seconds. Don't think your size  will save you. Dozens of 'em will drop down on top and cover you, and you'll get  enough poison in the first few seconds to kill half the world. Besides, even if  you managed to get in, how would you ever get the heck out?" 

It was a good point. Still, she was determined to do something. 'Tell your men  up there I'm coming and not to shoot. Don't worry. I accept your argument; I am  not going to try it. But if I can be very close, perhaps I can be of some help." With that, she trotted off toward the north. 

Julian was frankly relieved to get the call. Frustrated and feeling useless, she  was in no mood to follow them down to farther levels. 

Assured that at least level one was now secure, she made her way forward toward  the main entrance, from which someone would guide her to Tony. She was most of  the way there when, just behind her, something came out of a doorway roaring  with fury and charged right at her back. 

She didn't even think, she just acted, shifting forward on her forelegs, rearing  up the powerful hind ones, and kicking with all the strength she could muster. The hooves struck the creature in the face and snapped it back. The thing gave a  startled cry and then was flung backward against the far wall with the force of  the blow. 

Julian came down slightly unbalanced and with her hind legs splayed. She was a  moment realizing what the trouble was and easing herself back up. Turning, still  on all fours, she could feel her heart pounding in her throat and whatever the  Erdomese used for adrenaline coursing through her. She feared a second attack,  but the creature was not moving at all, just lying limply like a rag doll thrown  to the floor by a bored child. 

With some shock, she realized that the thing was dead. Looking around lest there  be any more ugly surprises, she carefully approached the body as a couple of  Agonite commandos ran toward her. 

The thing looked like somebody's nightmare of a teddy bear, perhaps a meter and  a half tall when standing. Those teeth and that fierce expression, now frozen in  death, were never on any teddy bear she'd have around, though. Two commandos approached the creature cautiously, then checked it out. "Dead,"  one said, and the other nodded. 

"Lady, that's some mean kick you got," the first one commented to her. "I think  you broke its neck and maybe its back." 

"Yeah," the other agreed with grudging respect. "That guy must've weighed three  times what you do, and he flew." 

She was beginning to calm down a little and realize what she'd done. Now, where  had that come from? It had been so natural, so automatic, she hadn't even had  time to think before it was over, but she sure hadn't known she could do that. Maybe she'd been the one to underestimate the Erdomese female. The only thing was, she couldn't stand back up. She was locked in the  four-footed position. She didn't mind that much; it was both comfortable and  natural, and she used it often by choice, but now she guessed that it was part  of the defense built into her. About the only problem was, it made her slightly  shorter than the Agonese, even with her head up and forward on her long neck.  Oh, well. 

She felt suddenly terrific-euphoric, even. She'd actually done something! She  wasn't as defenseless or helpless as she'd thought! 

Not wanting to admit that at the moment she couldn't get back up, she said  confidently, "I think I'll go the rest of the way on all fours, boys. I don't  think my arms could take too many more bounces like that." 

They watched her go on with obvious respect in their eyes. 

"I hope my wife doesn't have any hidden tricks like that," one of them said. The other felt his own throat. "Yeah." 

Gus carefully scouted the stairway down to the second level. It was quite dark,  and even his night-adjusted eyes had a problem with it, but there were small  bumps of yellow rights running down both sides, powered by some internal source,  that made footing not a problem. Seeing was something else again, but the  sterile, flat walls carried sound well, and he could hear nothing close by. If they were waiting for company, those on the second level certainly weren't  doing it on the stairs or landing. Gus figured that they would expect a grenade  to be tossed down the chute here, and with the echo, nobody would last very  long. Most likely they would be waiting beyond the doors to this level. While they might not be able to see Gus, they could certainly expect the door to  open and probably wouldn't wait to find out who or what had opened it. He  pressed up against the door and could hear voices which made him pretty sure  that a nasty welcome awaited.