Phylla sneered. “Methinks you should grow up, Fal! We’re not ‘your girls.’ ” There was a very dangerous edge to her voice.
Chip sighed. “Here we are, refugees trapped in the middle of enemy territory, and you’re calling each other names and fighting. Now will you both QUIT IT.”
“In heaven’s name, just don’t start the little one bellowing,” said Bronstein wearily. “He has a louder voice than you have.”
The galago was practically hopping with fury. “Nobody calls Don Juan el Magnifico de Gigantico de Immaculata Concepcion Major de Todos y Saavedra Quixote de la Mancha a—a gigolo!”
“Make me stop,” swaggered Fal, his paunch wobbling and his tail doing a little wave.
Chip sighed again. “If I have to, I will, Fal.”
“And if he doesn’t, we will,” said Doll. “Hey girls?”
“And if all that fails, there is always me,” added Bronstein.
“You all gang up on me,” whined Fal.
“Okay, we all gang up on you,” agreed Chip. “Now leave off calling him names and you—Don Whatsisname—you leave off calling fat Fal a mouse. He’s an ugly rat and proud of it. Now tell us, Don, who did you think we were here to rescue?”
“But of course I thought you had come to rescue my fair princess from the durance vile and clutches of the wicked, evil Magh’. I was wrong. But, of course, now you will volunteer bravely to do it. You will become heroes!”
“Dream on,” snorted Chip. “We’re conscripted grunts, sunshine.”
“Methinks heroes are the humans with the gold bird-dropping on their shoulders. We just want to stay alive. And out of any volunteering.” Fal’s nose was plainly out of joint.
“And anyway, we need no other humans,” added Eamon. “The one we have is more than enough.”
The little galago rocked on his heels, furled its mobile delicate ears, and stared at them. In quite a different voice, with a sob lurking in it, he addressed himself directly to Chip, “But surely—señor!—you cannot leave a beautiful girl to die? Slowly and horribly, she will die! She will die without water or food, walled up, alone, desperate, in the darkness . . .”
Chip looked at the Maggot-mound. Hell’s teeth! He was no hero, damn it. Not one of these handsome devil-may-care idiots whom the Company spent like water to stop the Maggots. He was just an ordinary conscript grunt who kept a low profile and kept himself alive.
“Bugger it . . .”
“Then I will go back . . . by myself,” interrupted the galago. There was both despair and determination in his voice.
“Let me finish, will you?” grumbled Chip. “I was trying say—bugger it, I wouldn’t leave a dog to die trapped down there. A . . . friend died like that. Buried.”
He sighed heavily. “I’ll give it a go.”
“You, sir, are a hidalgo! A true knight! A Siegfried!”
“I’m a sucker, never mind this Siegfried character. Or was he a sucker, too? Are you sure this girl’s still alive?”
“Oh indeed. I was fetching food for her when I met your—” The galago sneered and looked down his nose at animals taller than himself. “Brave companions.”
“You watch your mouth or I won’t come along,” snapped Nym.
“You are coming, señor rat? You are one of great courage!”
“Oh, we’ll be there too,” piped Melene. “We girls could hardly refuse to follow such a brave—and sexy—caballero.”
“Are you all loons?!” Fal was incredulous. “Here we’ve got away, safe, and you want to go back in again and risk your lives down there?”
Phylla sniffed. “We got away with it once.”
“The contentions of this frail mortality in the light of absolute . . .”
“Oh shut up,” said Fal, sourly. “I suppose you’re going too?”
Doc pushed his wire pince-nez back on his snout. “Yes. It is not logical, but yes.”
Bronstein tapped her head with a wing-claw. “You’re all crazy. Crazy. Loony. Mad. Insane. You’re rats. RATS. Rats do not volunteer, ever.”
“Well, look at it this way,” said Pistol, “We either go, or let that little Molly in the pooftah red jacket show us all up.”
“It’s a very elegant waistcoat, Pistol,” said Phylla, “and you’re just jealous.”