There was one other unexpected occupant in the chamber. Seen from above, the Korozhet simply looked like a ball of red spines. The Magh’ were a healthy distance off. “A prisoner!” whispered O’Niel.
Eamon’s voice was as cold as ice. “Look on the ground next to the Korozhet.”
There were two small scruffy bags on the ground in front of it. One was a batpack. Open, and with the contents scattered on the ground. The Korozhet poked through the debris as they watched.
“Siobhan’s.” Eamon’s voice was so quiet it was almost inaudible. “What you’d not be knowing, Michaela Bronstein, is that she was my lifemate.”
“She told me, Eamon,” said Bronstein, quietly. “She loved you, even if she could not abide your politics. She said you were the handsomest bat in all batdom.”
“The other bag is Doc’s,” said O’Niel, in a choked voice.
There was silence. Then, eighty feet below them another scene enacted itself. They heard the Korozhet speak, in a language they should not have known. Yet obviously the language-coprocessor in their heads had no trouble with Korozhet. “I am hungry, client-species. I want fresh food.”
Even hidden eighty feet above in the vent, the three bats all felt the compulsion to fetch it something to eat.
One of the little Magh’ which was tending a huge-Maggot, detached itself. Watching from above it was obvious that the creature did not wish to approach the Korozhet. But it did.
The bats above became the first part of the human alliance to see a Korozhet kill—and live to tell the tale. They watched as the Korozhet humped its way onto the twitching victim.
Bronstein was the first to speak. She sounded if she was going to be sick. “The creature is still alive!”
O’Niel just scrabbled at the opening, trying to force his plump body through.
Eamon hauled him back. “No! You’ll not fling your life away, O’Niel. Vengeance—bloody vengeance—I swear will be mine and mine alone. Treachery!”
“Enough!” snapped Bronstein. “Your vengeance is but a small thing. I’ll not deny it to you. But we see the whole of the bat-folk betrayed here. Treachery, I agree. Treachery as black as . . . blood. An enslavement both vile evil and insidious. An enslavement of our very minds and wills. The bat-folk must know of this . . . treachery. And I swear our vengeance and hatred forever against the . . .”
The words dried in her throat. But she could not and would not be defeated by the whiles of soft-cyber bias. She could not proclaim hatred for Korozhet. So she would fight them stratagem for stratagem. “Crotchet.” She spat out. She could say that. And she could hate and believe “Crotchets” capable of any vileness.
O’Niel nodded. “‘Tis true for the rats too. They are as betrayed as we are.”
Eamon stood up and shook his wings. “Yes. Even the rats! Even the humans. We must ally with them! Common cause against a greater evil.”
If Bronstein had not still been so choked with anger she’d have fallen on her back, laughing. Who would have thought Eamon could ever even think of an alliance with humankind?
“O’Niel, I do believe I would be liking some of that brandy after all,” said Bronstein, quietly.
“Indade. I’d be after having some meself,” muttered Eamon.
The plump bat handed them the small bottle. “Drink up. We must go back to our comrades.”
Eamon paused in the act of raising the bottle. “Indade. My fellow bats . . . forgive me that I ever thought to desert our comrades-in-arms. I was wrong.”
Bronstein choked on her mouthful of vile brandy.
Eamon wiped himself fastidiously. “That was not called for, Michaela. Now I shall smell like a wino’s hat.”
“Indade, and a waste of a foine vintage,” grumbled O’Niel.
Bronstein smiled. “I just wanted you to smell like our rat-allies. Come. O’Niel’s right. Let’s go back.”
“We can’t tell them what we have seen . . .” said O’Niel.
“And explain that we came to betray humans—to Chip and Ginny?” said Bronstein, distastefully. “No. Least said, soonest mended. We can fight and die bravely beside them instead.”
“Amen to that!” said Eamon, fervently.