Reaching up and probing the—ceiling? it seemed too gritty for a ceiling—she rapidly established that there was no room for the Professor to be hanging from the ceiling either.
Sighing heavily, she lay down on her back. Where am I? she wondered. Suddenly her thoughts turned to the last thing she’d seen. Fluff. “Oh, Fluff! My poor baby!”
“I’m here,” said a sleepy voice near her ear.
“Oh, Fluff!” she squealed. An instant later, her hands were groping for the galago. But she couldn’t feel him anywhere.
“What is happening?” she demanded, fighting to control her rising hysteria. “Where are we? And where are you?”
“I’m here.” The galago’s voice was alert, now. “There is a sort of air hole here. Hang on, I’ll be back with you in a minute.”
Virginia heard a scrabbling noise. A moment later, the galago landed on her shoulder and nuzzled her ear.
“Oh, Fluff!” She stroked his furry-velvety little body.
“It’s all right, Virginia. I, Fluff, will look after you. Have no fear. Fluff is here!”
“Where are we, Fluff?”
The galago seemed to hesitate. Then: “We appear to be inside the tunnels of a Magh’ scorpiary.”
Chapter 5: Way behind enemy lines.
Chip stood at the head-end of the old quarry, in plain view of the advancing Maggots. There were more this time. At least there were no diggers. Most of the pursuit seemed to be the long-legged sun-spidery ones. If Chip remembered his sketchy boot camp training correctly, those were the ones called Magh’urz. According to the Korozhet who had brought the warning of the oncoming Magh’ invasion, each variant and subspecies of the quasi-arthropods had a different suffix to delineate them.
But Chip hadn’t paid much attention at the time, and had never had occasion to regret the loss. As far as he and every other grunt was concerned—Vat, rat and bat alike—Magh’ were Maggots and they only came in two varieties: dangerous ones and all the rest. The dangerous ones always attacked and the others never did.
These, as it happened, were dangerous. Which, under the circumstances, was exactly what Chip wanted. But—
Damn! The stupid bastards!
The things had somehow not spotted him. They were veering away from the rocks, following the route the rats had taken. Chip cursed under his breath. He didn’t enjoy being bait, but if he was going to play worm on a hook, the least they could do was notice him.
He took a deep breath and bellowed. “HEY! MOTHER-FUCKERS!”
One of the Maggots paused, as if considering the statement. At face value, of course, the accusation was absurd. As far as human xenobiologists knew, fighter Magh’ had no sex life at all.
Chip blew it a raspberry. Now, it was obvious that all the Maggots had heard him. They had all stopped, skittered around, and were staring up at him.
Dammit, do they think this is one of Doc’s philosophical discussions?
The last thing Chip wanted was to set the Maggots thinking. They might realize that the bait was bait. But how did he stir them into action? How did he taunt a Maggot?
When in doubt . . .
The old ways are always best.
Chip turned around, dropped his pants, and mooned them. The Maggots stormed forward, stridulating loudly. Plainly he had at last bridged the Maggot-human communication gap. It didn’t sound like it was going to lead to an instant outbreak of peace. . . .
The Maggots were just beneath the shaky cliff-corner. The bats reckoned that one well placed satchel-charge would bring it all down. If it didn’t, he was going to have to “please explain” that last gesture to the Maggots.
“Now!”
The explosion sounded tiny. For a moment it looked as if it would be totally ineffective. Chip’s legs tensed and his heart sank. Damn those know-it-all bats! Then, with a tiny spurt of dust from the cracks, the entire cornice quivered. And fell.
Even where he stood, three hundred yards off, the ground shook and rocks tumbled all over the quarry.
Bats fluttered up, peering down into the dust. Several of the rats were leaping down already. Only three maggot-survivors had escaped the rockfall. In vain—the bats were swooping upon them.