They came back a bare minute later. “Indade,” said Eamon cheerfully, “there are no sounds of digging. And ’tis awful conceited those few Maggots who got through were. They couldn’t even defend themselves.”
“Conceited? Did they think they could beat you, Eamon?” asked Chip.
“I think he means they were stuck-up,” said Ginny. She had soft-cyber language experience on her side. “Now what?”
Chip grinned. “R and R time. We give it . . . say five minutes. Then we go back out . . . the way we came in.”
He dug the GPS out of his pack. “If we’re right about where we’re going, we’ve got less than a mile to go.”
“Just the last little bit,” she said. “Isn’t that great news, Professor?”
Chip answered, his voice serious now. “The last bit is going to be the worst. It’ll be wall-to-wall Maggots in the inner part. I honestly never believed we’d even get this far. Eamon, I think you’d better wire up a limpet to the trailer. We might as well go out in blaze of glory.”
Eamon looked at him appraisingly. “Indade. You’re thinking almost like a bat. You’re an odd human, Connolly.”
Chip shrugged. “Where do you think all those odd ideas in your head came from, bat? Have you still got some of those distance-trigger mines left?”
Eamon shook his head. “I’ve still got two,” said Bronstein. “But you’re wrong, Chip. Some of the words—and words color your thinking—I’ll grant you, come from humans. But we are still bats at the core.”
“Indeed. It would be impossible to segregate the physiological and evolutionary from the implant . . .” Doc Pararattus had barely got started when Pistol, Nym, and even Melene, who usually listened, all said: “SHUT UP.”
Fal and Doll’s voices were absent from the chorus. Chip decided it was a poor time to ask where they were.
Doc sighed. “I don’t suppose anyone brought any food, did they?”
“The Maggot back there is full of glue,” replied Eamon gloomily.
Chip dug in his pack. Produced two bottles and three small tins with snaptops. “Sauerkraut. A couple of tins of smoked mussels in cottonseed oil and a bottle of Roll-mops. And I’ve got some biscuits.”
The condemned woman, man, rats and bats prepared to eat a hearty meal. Only the galago looked miserable. Chip looked at him. And dug deep in his pack. “Fruit, huh?”
“Or insects or acacia gum, señor,” said the galago wistfully.
Chip pulled out a jar. “Here. Try these preserved green figs. They’re traditionally served with fine cheese. But I can’t oblige you there.”
The galago looked longingly at bottle. “Señor Chip, I love figs. But they have on the insides of me a most distressing effect.”
Chip handed him the jar. “Eat them. You probably won’t be alive to worry about the aftereffects.”
They even saved a bit of food for out-of-breath Fal and Doll.
“What happened to candy?” Both of them gave Chip a filthy look, before diving on the food.
“Now let’s get out of here.” Suddenly Chip saw the weakness of his strategy. He had a good three hundred yards to reverse. He peered back up the tunnel. It was long and curved. “Goddamn stupid bastards. Why didn’t they build it like a wheel with spokes? Nice straight spokes going to the middle, instead of this damn spiral. Now I’ve got to reverse this trailer.”
Doc took up an oratory pose. “My hypothesis is that they are like us.”
That was a curious enough statement not to get him shouted down. “Methinks not even humans build in spirals,” said Melene.
“No, I mean they are trapped within an evolutionary and construction milieu. This was once a defensive structure.”
Chip edged the tractor backwards, and spoke through gritted teeth. “Bull, Doc. It’s a disaster, defensively.”
“It is now, against us. But once it must have effectively channeled and split their foes. And insured that if an enemy did get into the tunnels the guard stations along the way would stop them. Note how easily and neatly the entries fall—every time. They were built to collapse. They were built as traps. I will bet you would find a keystone in each, that they do not need explosives. You see, explosives and the tractor alter the equation. Their previous foes did not have those.”