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with the mules and wagons, or where I just stayed a few hours."
"That's not a problem," he responded, understand-
ing that they were in fact negotiating. "Most duggers don't go into Fluxlands
because they don't want to or they're afraid they might get kidnapped or used
by the powers that be. Some of 'em are just sensitive about their looks and
don't feel com-
fortable outside the void. As for Anchors, I've had a problem the last couple
of years because I didn't have any total humans to help me with the packs
going in. Had to depend on the locals, and they charge. The average layover is
three days, and would have been back there if things didn't feel funny and if
I didn't have this big human cargo to de-
liver down the line, eating me broke the longer I
have that many on my hands."
She nodded. "Fine. So the Anchors allow only people they consider as human as
they are inside, and you need humans. I'm human. I don't know whether Dar
would pass their inspection, though."
SOUL RIDER: SPIRITS OF FLUX AND ANCHOR 187
"Probably. They're not as fussy so long as you look normal. They have the
mental image of duggers as you know them. He, or she, or whatever it is,
would have to be careful that nobody found out that secret, though. Anchorfolk
are so damned scared of anything different that a mob would tear him to bits
and get a medal for it. You should know that."
She nodded. "I think he'd take that risk. I as-
sume we work for expenses in the various places."
"Expenses, hell! You get a salary on account.
Anything you spend anyplace you get deducted.
Anything left over at the end of each circuit, which is most of a year, you
get credited to a stringer account. If you live long enough, don't get fired,
and keep your costs down you can retire to the
Fluxland of your choice someday. Or sucker some friendly wizard into making
the pocket of your dreams, which is what most of 'em do."
"So there are some friendly wizards- I'd begun to wonder. Seriously,
though how many duggers that you know of ever lived long enough to retire?"
He shrugged. "Well, none personally ..."
"Uh huh. It's a deal."
He laughed- "Impulsive, aren't you? You decided on this first thing, didn't
you?"
"Well, I admit I had it in mind. I wasn't sure whether you wanted to travel
with a Soul Rider, though."
"That's more serious than you think. But there are pluses with the minuses on
that. Potentially you're stronger than any wizard, although it's use-
ful only in defense, I hear. That's fine. What pro-
tects you protects the train. Of course, you're a magnet for trouble, but out
here I'm not sure I
could tell the difference anyway. At least your
Rider's concern is also mine now, so maybe we'll work together to get rid of
that and it'll be done with you."
188 Jack L. Chalker
She looked at him with interest. "Then you're going to report this?"
"Honey, I'm going to do at least that. Haldayne's bad for business right where
he is, at the intersec-
tion of three good routes. He ordered an attack on, and was responsible for, a
massacre of a stringer train, so nobody's safe until he's eliminated. As soon
as we unload as much as we can in Globbus, not to mention alerting them there
s6 the route
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from this side can be closed, we're heading for
Pericles. Not the whole train I'll just have to eat expenses on what I can't
unload, although I'm going to take some merchandise with me to Pericles
because I think there might be a market for if."
"What's this Pericles?"
"The home of one of the oldest, battiest, most degenerate and powerful wizards
on all of World
and, incidentally, the dean of the current Nine
Who Guard."
She gasped. "So there is a Nine! But what do you mean by 'current'?"
"Nobody lives forever, even out here. I think the old boy told me once that
his grandmother was one of the originals. He's barely, he says, six hun-
dred years old."
"Six hun oh, my! Do you think he's really that old?"
"Could be. But he's the strongest of the Nine, and therefore the only one
publicly known. If he's been around that long, and known for at least a
hundred years, then he must be one hell of a wiz-
ard because that makes him automatically one hell of a target." He sighed.
"Well, I guess that concludes our business. See if your friend wants to go
along or what, but the job's open either way."
"We haven't settled anything," she responded.
"I just got hired, that's all. I still want some of my friends free."
He sighed. "You need an advance, so the four
SOUL RIDER: SPIRITS OF FLUX AND ANCHOR 189
horses will take care of that for two of you. But what if I freed four of your
friends in an even trade? They'd have no jobs, no defenses, no place to go,
and I'm not about to hire on six new hands, none of whom can even shoot. All
you'd do is kill
'em for sure, or give them to Globbus or some-
place else for free. In the Fluxlands, everybody's either owned, if they have
no Flux power, or em-
ployed if they do. If any of that lot had much power we'd have seen it by
now."
She hated to admit it to herself, but she had to agree that he was right. It
was very easy to say
"You are free!" and feel good about it, but they would be free in a land where
they would be at the mercy of just about everyone and powerless to
prevent slavery at no gain to themselves or anyone else, and no input by
anyone into how and where they would be used. If she could free them to return
to Anchor that would be one thing, but even she would only be a visitor in
that realm now, there at the sufferance of authorities and on a limited
permit. "Well, there are three I'd like to free, anyway."
"Nope. Two is tops. I can't handle any more.
After that the cost becomes counter-productive.
The only reason I can handle four of you is that
I'm sure one or two of you will screw up and never return from one place or
another, at least in any usable form. And those two will work strictly for the
value of the other two slaves we sell until they exhaust their accounts. Then
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