“It is I, Virginia! I have brought the rescue!”
“Oh—Fluff! Dear God, you’ve been gone so long. I thought you were dead!” The voice on the other side of the wall was young, female, and sounded thoroughly miserable.
“Fluff?” Fal grinned broadly.
Chip was relieved that it hadn’t all been a wild goose chase. He was also not mentally prepared to speak to her. He had privately suspected the “princess” would prove to be some ancient-Shareholder-bitch . . . if there was going to be anyone at all. “Uh, ma’am . . .”
The reply was a few seconds in coming, as if she was thinking it over. “Is there somebody else out there . . . ? I heard voices. Am I hallucinating? Fluff?”
“Indeed, it is I, Virginia,” said the galago with pride and reassuring affection. “Really. Here is my tail. I have brought some brave soliders. We have come to rescue you!”
“Really? You’ve come to get me out?” There was wild hope in her voice.
“Yes. Really. Please keep it quiet, ma’am,” begged Chip. “Here, Don Fluff, push this end of the flexible saw through.”
Bronstein took charge of the rest of the operation. “Okay, the rest of you. While Chip saws, I want you rats to get to the corners. Find somewhere to duck out of sight if possible. Siobhan, you and Behan take those passages. I’ll take this one, and Eamon and O’Niel can stake out the others between you.”
“Bats always get to do the risky work, indade.” But Eamon fluttered off to do it readily enough.
The carborundum-toothed saw hissed through the Magh’ adobe. It was easier with two of them working—or it should have been. The “princess” kept jerking his fingers against the wall in her eagerness to be free.
“There’s a bunch of digger-maggots down in the big passage coming this way,” warned Behan.
“They’re coming to get me!” The girl’s voice sounded on the edge of hysteria.
She probably was, poor kid, trapped in there for God knows how long. Chip looked at the cut. It was about eighteen inches down, by ten inches across. “How far off are those diggers if they’re coming here?”
“At least three minutes.” Behan, like all bats, was an expert at time estimation.
Chip looked at the cut; turned to the hovering galago. “How big is she?”
The galago gestured with wide arms. “Immense. Compared to me, that is. Humans are overgrown.”
“Compared to me, you ass!”
“Perhaps a little taller,” said the galago.
“Stand clear in there,” Chip whispered into the hole. “I’m going to shoulder-charge this, to see if I can knock it down. Then be ready to run.”
He hit it. The wall cracked. His shoulder felt like it had cracked as well. He tried again, and the whole section fell in. The air, already dusty from their sawing, was full of swirls.
Light reflected off heavy-framed glasses. The girl-prisoner had missed a lot of meals, apparently. Her face was muddy and tear-streaked. With her hair pulled back tightly from her angular face, she looked about twelve years old . . . except that she was distinctly taller than he was. “Quick! Take my arm. We’d better move out.”
Eagerly she scrambled through the hole. She was all ragged clothes, thick glasses and long legs. She struggled to get out of the hole, hooked a foot, and fell out into his arms. Chip found himself being hugged fiercely. “Oh, thank God!”
Poor kid. Poor damn kid. “It’s all right.” She nuzzled into him. He kissed her cheek, gently comforting. Her lips found his. Parted eagerly . . .
Chip started back in alarm, but she held onto him.
Chapter 18: The hero’s regrets.
The piece of masonry fell. Lumifungus light streamed into her dusty darkness. He stood there framed by the light. A hero. Her hero. He was Heathcliff, Heathcliff—to the life! She climbed out and fell into his arms. . . .
“Will you two stop behaving like rutting rats!” snapped someone. “We’ve got to move!”
She looked up. Focused with difficulty though her dusty glasses. And screamed. Briefly. Her hero clapped a hand over her mouth.
It was a huge bat, with a wingspan the size of a full arm-stretch. A satanic apparition, black and evil in the eerie tunnel-light. The monster’s long canines gleamed white and cruel. She cowered against her savior.