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And she was most definitely right, Brazil decided.
The last time he had seen anything remotely resem-
bling it was on a long-ago, month-long bender.
Imagine an elephant's head, floppy ears and all, but no tusks, with not one
but two trunks growing from its face, each about a meter long and ending in
four stubby, jointless fingers grouped around the nostril opening. Mount the
head on a body that looked too thin to support such a head, armless and
terminating in two short, squat, legs and flat feet that made the walker look
as if he were slightly turning from side to side as he walked. Now paint the
whole creature a fiery red, and imagine it wearing green canvas dungarees.
Nathan Brazil and Wu Julee didn't have to imagine it. That was exactly what
was walking at a slow pace toward them.
"Oh, wow!" was all he could manage. "I see just what you mean."
The creature spotted them and raised its trunks, which seemed to grow out of
the same point between and just below the eyes, in a greeting. "Weli, hello!"
it boomed in Dillian in a voice that sounded like an in-
jured foghorn. "Better weather on this side of the line, hey?"
"You can say that again," Brazil responded. "We al-
most got caught in the storm and missed the road-
house. Spent the night over in the field, there."
"Heading out, then?" the Slongornian asked pleas-
antly. "Going to tour our lovely country? Good time of year for it- Always
summer here."
"just passing through," replied Brazil casually.
"We're on our way to Czill."
The friendly creature frowned, which gave it an even
169
more comical aspect that was hard to ignore. "Bad business, that- Read about
it last night."
"I know," Nathan replied seriously. "One of the vic-
tims the Czillian was a friend of mine. Ours," he quickly corrected, and Wu
Julee smiled.
"Why don't you go into the roadhouse, have break-
fast, and try to bum a ride through?" the creature sug-
gested helpfully- "All of these trucks'll be going back empty, and you can
probably hitchhike most of the way. Save time and sore feet."
"Thanks, we'll try it," Brazil called after the
Slongomian as that worthy climbed into the covered truck and started backing
it out, controlling the steer-
ing with a trunk on each lever. The truck made a whir-
ring noise but little else, and sped off down the road at a pretty good clip.
"You know, I bet he's doing fifty flat out," he said to
Wu Julee as the truck disappeared from view. "Maybe we can move faster and
easier than we figured."
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They walked over the border to the incongruously snow-clad roadhouse. The cold
hit them at once, Wu
Julee being unclad except for the pack, and his cloth-
ing not much more than protection from the sun. They ran to the roadhouse, and
she was inside almost a min-
ute ahead of him.
Five Slongornians stood at a counter shoving what appeared to be hay down
their throats with their trunks. One drained a mug of warm liquid somewhat
like tea and then squirted it into its mouth. The inn-
keeper was a middle-aged female Dillian who looked older than her years. Two
young male centaurs were sorting boxes in the back, apparently arranging the
de-
liveries the Slongornians had made.
And there was one other.
It's a giant, man-sized bat! Brazil thought, and that is what it did look
like. It was taller than he was by a little bit, and had a ratty head and body
with blood-red eyes; its sharp teeth were chewing on a huge loaf of
sweetbread. Its arms were slightly outstretched and they melded into the
leathery wings, the bones ex-
tended to form the structural support for the wings. It had long, humanoid
legs, though, with a standard knee covered in wiry black hair like gorillas'
legs, and end-
170
ing in two feet that looked more like large human hands, the backs covered
with fur. The thing was ob-
viously double- or triple-jointed in the legs, since it was balanced on one
with no apparent effort while holding the loaf in the other, the leg brought
up level with the mouth.
The creature seemed to ignore them, and no one else in the place seemed to pay
any attention. They turned and ordered breakfast, a thick porridge in a huge
bow! served steaming hot with wooden spoons stuck in the stuff. Wu Julee just
ordered water with it,
while Nathan tried the pitch-black tea. It tasted in-
credibly strong and bitter, and had an odd aftertaste, but he had found from
the days he had spent in Dillia that the tea woke him up and got his motor
started.
It didn't take long for one of the Slongomian truck drivers to strike up a
conversation. They seemed to be an extraordinarily friendly and outgoing
people, and when curious about this strange-looking one in their midst felt no
hesitancy in starting things off. Between comments about the weather, the
porridge, and the hard and thankless life of truck drivers, Brazil man-
aged to explain where he was going and as much of his reason as he had told
the one in the parking lot.
They sympathized and one offered to take them the nineteen kilometers to his
base in the nearest Slongom-
ian city, assuring them that they could probably hitch rides from terminal to
terminal across the country.
"Well, Wu Julee, no exercise and no aches today,"
Nathan beamed.
"That's nice," she approved. "But, Nathan don't call me by that name anymore.
It's somebody else's name somebody I'd rather not remember. Just call me
Wuju. That's Jol's nickname, and it's more my own."
"All right," he laughed. "Wuju it is."
"I like the way you say it," she said softly. He re-
flected to himself that he didn't feel comfortable with the way she had said
that.
"Excuse me," said a sharp, nasal, but crystal-clear voice behind them, "but I
couldn't help overhearing you on your travel plans, and I wondered if I. could
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tag along? I'm going in the same direction for a while."
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They both turned, and, as Brazil expected, it was the bat.
"Well, I don't know . . ." he replied, glancing at the willing truck driver
who cocked his head in an un-
mistakable why-the-hell-not attitude.
"Looks like it's all right with the driver, so it's all right with us,
ah what's your name? You've already heard ours."
The bat laughed. "My name is impossible. The translator won't handle it, since
it's not only a sound only we can make but entirely in the frequencies be-
yond most hearing." The creature wiggled his enor-
mous bat ears. "My hearing has to be acute, since, though I have incredible
night vision, I'm almost blind in any strong light. I depend on my hearing to
get
around in the day. As for a name, why not call me
Cousin Bat? Everyone else does."
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