Bronstein rolled her eyes. “Siobhan, fly up and tell the silly creature not to go out past the last level. Chip’s not expecting him. Chip’ll probably turf him down again if he suddenly appears. Now, let’s get these bags tied on.”
“We could have used the bigmouth. His hands are better for this sort of thing than my paws are.”
* * *
False dawn had faded the stars. Chip was a very nervous man by now. He couldn’t leave his post, or the rats would be unable to get back up. On the other hand, Maggot constructors were already visible in the distance working on the tunnel-mound. Some of the Maggots were sightless, he knew, but some them weren’t. It was getting lighter by the second, and he felt very exposed out here in the open, next to the mound. It had been a long, cold, anxious wait up here in the now disappearing darkness. The line began to thrum under his hand.
What could that be? His imagination conjured a climbing-Maggot.
His hand went to the Solingen. If he cut that line now . . . Splattermaggot. But he couldn’t. What if he was wrong? He’d trap them down there. No. He’d have to deal with whatever monstrous thing was climbing as it came through the opening. He waited, nerves as tense as a cheese-slicer-wire.
The little door popped open. Chip lunged forward, knife first. He got a sudden view of cute, huge, dark eyes set in a tiny gray-white furry face. There was a squeak of terror and the face disappeared.
“Dammo!” panted Siobhan. “You daft beast. Come back! Hell! Now I shall have to chase it. And it can climb so fast. It beat me flying up here. Did you have to frighten it out of a year’s growth, Chip?”
Siobhan fluttered away, back down into the mound. The three sharp tugs Chip had been awaiting came, and he began hauling. The thin line, with added weight, proved to be hell on the hands. He wrapped his jacket around them and went on slowly hauling. Next thing, the little cute-face came up again. In the improving light he could see that it was a lemur-like thing, complete with what must once have been a delicately embroidered red velvet waistcoat. It looked very, very wary. Siobhan was with it.
“See, you idiot. He’s a human, not a monster.”
Chapter 17: The hero to the rescue!
“Explain,” said Chip. Bronstein would have added, “and you’d better make it good,”‘ but Chip was feeling guilty. The little fellow looked more like some kid’s soft toy than a problem. He’d frightened it into a wide-eyed silence because of his own nervousness. He might easily have killed it.
“You are the commander of the rescue force?” The galago sounded doubtful.
“Commander?” Chip shrugged. “Hell, we’ve never got around to having one of those. Bronstein is the highest ranking of us, but as a human I could claim I was in charge . . . if I was that stupid.”
“Better to make it my fault, to be sure,” said the bat, from where she hung on the miraculously intact crystal light-fitting in the tasting room.
“And as for being a rescue force,” Fal picked his teeth, “belike what gave you that idea?”
“Indade, we’re in need of being rescued, but I don’t see how or why it would happen,” Eamon chipped in.
The little creature’s face crumpled. “You have not been sent to rescue my princess?”
Chip shook his head. “We just got ourselves trapped behind the lines in the last push. We haven’t been sent to rescue anyone.”
“Yeah. We’d just like to get out alive . . . Don Gigolo,” said Fal, pausing in the very act of getting outside the contents of a bottle of wine.
The big eyes sparkled dangerously. “I warned you before, you fat mouse.”
“Mouse?! MOUSE?! Who are you calling a mouse, you . . . you . . . whoreson caterpillar!” Fal tried to grab the galago, who leapt onto one of the wall-fittings.
“That’s enough!” Chip and Bronstein bellowed in unison.
The galago didn’t think so. “He insulted my honor!”
Neither did Fal. “He called me a mouse! And he’s trying to seduce our girls!”