[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Up-lake's wildlife was reserved for Uptake's permanent residents in order to
conserve it. No, Dillian hunting was done in Gedemondas, on the high trails.
She decided that her best place was back in town after all, this time looking
for a way into
Gede-mondas. What she needed from Dillia could be arranged for later;
Gedemondas was more critical, particularly since there might not be time
enough later to do anything.
Early attempts at linking up with an expedition resulted in failure. Although
the hunting parties were composed of females as well as males, the Dillians
having few sexual distinctions when there was a job to
do, she was too soft, too pretty for them to take seriously. It was a
frustrating experience for her. All her life she had been not merely small but
tiny, and had never been taken seriously then, either until it was too late.
But now, to be scorned because she was too attractive, that was an unkind
blow. Not that the hunters, particularly the huge, strutting males, weren't
interested in her they just weren't interested from the business standpoint.
She felt as if she were going back to her beginnings, when, poor and trapped
on a backward frontier world, she had gained money, influence, and eventually
a way out by renting her body and other services.
But things were different now; Dillia had some similarities, but not that way
out not now and not here.
And she had nothing else, not even a thick coat for the wintry cold of the
hunting grounds, nor any real weapons skills. Oh, she knew a laser pistol and
its related cous-ins inside and out, but this was a semitech hex, where
nothing beyond combustion weapons would work; and the hunting ground,
Gedemondas, was a nontech hex, where killing was accomplished with bows and
arrows and similar weapons, weapons that required a constant honing of skills,
of which she had almost none, partic-ularly in this new and larger body.
She was becoming discouraged, and some attempts with both bow and crossbow
hadn't given her any more of a lift. She was lousy with them.
Still she continued to meet, greet, and talk to the parties still coming in,
now in a rush to make sure they would still be able to stake out some
unclaimed hunt-ing territory. They were all at the bar, and one man, the
leader of a party, was gustily downing huge mugs of ale and telling the locals
about Gedemondas.
Most had never been there and never would go there; it was a mysterious and
dangerous place even for those who knew it well, and what common sense didn't
prevent, superstition did. Despite the fact that
Dillian young could discuss hexes and creatures halfway around the Well World,
nobody knew much about their next-door neighbors. They maintained no embassy
at Zone, and histories said nothing about them. Geographies gener-ally
described them as shy, but nasty, savages glimpsed only from distances.
Dillia did not have permission to hunt in Gedemondas, but there had never been
an ob-jection. All these made the hex an eerie, forbidding place of legend.
The hunter, whose name was Asam, was a big burly Dillian in early middle age
but aging extremely well.
His tanned lean, muscular figure was matched by a craggy, handsome face that
looked as if it had seen the misery of the world; yet, somehow, there was a
Page 30
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
kind-ness there, perhaps accented by his unusual deep-green eyes. His beard,
flecked with white, was perfectly trimmed and he was, overall, rugged but
well-groomed. His voice matched his looks: thick, low, rich, melodic, and
extremely masculine.
"It's always winter up there," he was saying between long pulls on a
two-liter-plus mug of ale. "Aye, a warm summer's day could freeze yer hair
solid. We hav'ta take extra care, rubbin' each other down regular so the sweat
don't turn into little iceballs. And y'do sweat, make no mistake. Some of them
old trails are almost straight up, and yer' carryin' a heavy pack. Sometimes
you lose the trail completely hav'ta go out onto the snow and ice, which is
double bad this time o' year, for snow melts from the ground up and the sun do
beat down, it does. So y'get hidden crevasses that can swallow a party whole
and never leave a trace, and nasty slicks and soft spots, and snow bridges,
where it looks like solid ground but there's nothin' underneath ya but air
when ya try it."
His accent was peculiar; it translated to her brain as something out of a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl szamanka888.keep.pl
Up-lake's wildlife was reserved for Uptake's permanent residents in order to
conserve it. No, Dillian hunting was done in Gedemondas, on the high trails.
She decided that her best place was back in town after all, this time looking
for a way into
Gede-mondas. What she needed from Dillia could be arranged for later;
Gedemondas was more critical, particularly since there might not be time
enough later to do anything.
Early attempts at linking up with an expedition resulted in failure. Although
the hunting parties were composed of females as well as males, the Dillians
having few sexual distinctions when there was a job to
do, she was too soft, too pretty for them to take seriously. It was a
frustrating experience for her. All her life she had been not merely small but
tiny, and had never been taken seriously then, either until it was too late.
But now, to be scorned because she was too attractive, that was an unkind
blow. Not that the hunters, particularly the huge, strutting males, weren't
interested in her they just weren't interested from the business standpoint.
She felt as if she were going back to her beginnings, when, poor and trapped
on a backward frontier world, she had gained money, influence, and eventually
a way out by renting her body and other services.
But things were different now; Dillia had some similarities, but not that way
out not now and not here.
And she had nothing else, not even a thick coat for the wintry cold of the
hunting grounds, nor any real weapons skills. Oh, she knew a laser pistol and
its related cous-ins inside and out, but this was a semitech hex, where
nothing beyond combustion weapons would work; and the hunting ground,
Gedemondas, was a nontech hex, where killing was accomplished with bows and
arrows and similar weapons, weapons that required a constant honing of skills,
of which she had almost none, partic-ularly in this new and larger body.
She was becoming discouraged, and some attempts with both bow and crossbow
hadn't given her any more of a lift. She was lousy with them.
Still she continued to meet, greet, and talk to the parties still coming in,
now in a rush to make sure they would still be able to stake out some
unclaimed hunt-ing territory. They were all at the bar, and one man, the
leader of a party, was gustily downing huge mugs of ale and telling the locals
about Gedemondas.
Most had never been there and never would go there; it was a mysterious and
dangerous place even for those who knew it well, and what common sense didn't
prevent, superstition did. Despite the fact that
Dillian young could discuss hexes and creatures halfway around the Well World,
nobody knew much about their next-door neighbors. They maintained no embassy
at Zone, and histories said nothing about them. Geographies gener-ally
described them as shy, but nasty, savages glimpsed only from distances.
Dillia did not have permission to hunt in Gedemondas, but there had never been
an ob-jection. All these made the hex an eerie, forbidding place of legend.
The hunter, whose name was Asam, was a big burly Dillian in early middle age
but aging extremely well.
His tanned lean, muscular figure was matched by a craggy, handsome face that
looked as if it had seen the misery of the world; yet, somehow, there was a
Page 30
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
kind-ness there, perhaps accented by his unusual deep-green eyes. His beard,
flecked with white, was perfectly trimmed and he was, overall, rugged but
well-groomed. His voice matched his looks: thick, low, rich, melodic, and
extremely masculine.
"It's always winter up there," he was saying between long pulls on a
two-liter-plus mug of ale. "Aye, a warm summer's day could freeze yer hair
solid. We hav'ta take extra care, rubbin' each other down regular so the sweat
don't turn into little iceballs. And y'do sweat, make no mistake. Some of them
old trails are almost straight up, and yer' carryin' a heavy pack. Sometimes
you lose the trail completely hav'ta go out onto the snow and ice, which is
double bad this time o' year, for snow melts from the ground up and the sun do
beat down, it does. So y'get hidden crevasses that can swallow a party whole
and never leave a trace, and nasty slicks and soft spots, and snow bridges,
where it looks like solid ground but there's nothin' underneath ya but air
when ya try it."
His accent was peculiar; it translated to her brain as something out of a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]