“I1 don’t know. But that has nothing to do with it.”
“Depends on what you mean by ‘it.’ But maybe we can argue about that later. What are your orders. Your Excellency?”
“I haven’t an order in my head,” 12-Upjohn said with sudden, disarming frankness. “We’d better try to make some sensible plans first, and stop bickering. Robin, stop snuffling, too. The question is, what can we do besides trying to survive, and cherishing an idiot hope for a rescue mission?”
“For one thing, we can try to spring the man from the Dragon’s crew that these worms have still got alive,” Oberholzer said. “If that’s what he meant when he said they dissected all but one.”
“That doesn’t seem very feasible to me,” 12-Upjohn said.
“We have no idea where they’re holding him”
“Ask them. This one answered every question you asked him.”
“and even supposing that he’s near by, we couldn’t free him from a horde of Calleans, no matter how many dead bodies they let you pile up. At best, sooner or later you’d run out of ammunition.”
“It’s worth trying,” Oberholzer said. “We could use the manpower.”
“What for?” Robin One demanded. “He’d be-just one more mouth to feed. At the moment, at least, they’re feeding him.”
“For raising ship,” Oberholzer retorted, “if there’s any damn chance of welding our two heaps of junk together and getting off this mudball. We ought to look into it, anyhow.”
Robin One was looking more alarmed by the minute. If the prospect of getting into a fight with the Calleans had scared him, Oberholzer thought, the notion of hard physical labor evidently was producing something close to panic.