Bronstein closed her eyes briefly. “And what happens once they are detected?”
“Ah! She is hooked up to the device of the rapid firing of the projectiles. See.” The galago pointed. “That thing she is standing over there. It is locking on to the object and firing.”
“Slowshields? Would they help?” asked Melene.
“No,” said Doc. “We’d just fall. And keep falling until the shooting stopped.”
Below them somebody said something in Korozhet. But it wasn’t the Korozhet. It was several of the Maggots speaking together. Still, they all understood. “Where are the tailed and the winged ones?” the group-mind was demanding.
* * *
Chip didn’t understand the Maggot. That didn’t stop him from replying, of course. “Same to you, O High Hemorrhoid. Why do you play with yourself in public?”
* * *
Ginny, of course, did understand. “We won’t tell you.”
The creatures globbered.
“Is it talking Crotchet too?” demanded Chip. “What did I tell you, Ginny? What do the fat uglies say? Tell them we’d give them indigestion.”
“They want to know where the rats and bats are. I said we wouldn’t tell them.” She squeezed his hand.
Chip assumed his best expression of innocence and humility. It certainly would never have fooled Henri-Pierre, but then the Maggot group-mind was less perceptive than the sarcastic little Frenchman. “Tell him it is just too bad that they were all killed when the tunnel collapsed.”
She did.
Once again the Magh’ spoke in their weird chorus. “That explains why the eggs and larvae were spared. The Korozhet had told us they were vicious, insatiable grub-eaters. The larvae tenders could not believe the grubs were untouched. Of course some will be born stunted and have to be killed.”
“What do the bug-uglies say?” Chip wanted to know.
She told him.
He snorted. “Ask them if they always believe what the Korozhet say.”
It wasn’t a direct questioning of the Korozhet. She could ask.
“Yes,” the group mind answered. “The Korozhet always tell us things. How did you find your way through the maze-tunnels of the Magh’mmm? This is the first attack to get near to our precious selves. We must prevent it ever happening again.”
Without being asked, Ginny translated.
Chip grinned. “Tell them the Korozhet guided us here. That they sell us arms and advise us.”
Ginny felt as if she was walking into a morass. Her head kept saying “this may damage your friends.” But it was true, so she could say it. It was difficult until she prefaced it with “My mate says . . .”
“Lies!” The Korozhet spiked forward. “Deception, Magh’mmm! I have told you I was a prisoner and a hostage in their unprovoked attack.”
The Korozhet pointed spines at them. “The soft squashy life-forms are pathological liars. We would never sell arms to such a species. Never. We have been your reliable providers for thousands of cycles. Always we provided the group-minds with the finest ships, the best shields. Have we ever failed the Magh? Bah. The one with the long head-filaments claims ‘her mate says.’ But I ask her now: Could we Korozhet ever do anything so evil?”
Now Ginny felt as if her head might explode. What she’d said was true. It was. It was! It was! It was! She knew that it was true. Undoubtedly and incontrovertibly true. And now she knew also, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the soft-cyber implant was influencing her thoughts. Obviously the Korozhet who designed the things had built in a pro-Korozhet programming.
Cold sweat beaded her forehead. She couldn’t say it.
“Well?” prompted the Korozhet. “We Korozhet do not sell arms to other species. Tell the Magh’mmm you lied.”
Chip squeezed her hand. “What’s Pricklepuss saying?”
Ginny forced her vocal chords to do what part of her brain said they should not. Her voice came out in a squeak. But it was a loud determined squeak. “I do not lie.”
The ball of prickles raised a spine . . . and lowered it again.
Chip squeezed her. “What’s happening, dearest?”
She looked at him, with victory in her eyes. “You were right about that—alien. It’s just tried to claim they never sold arms to humans.”