“Left, left. Bear left. Hard!” shouted Siobhan from where she clung to the headlight.
Cursing, Chip swung the wheel over.
“Army left! Moron!” bellowed Eamon.
Chip swung the wheel the other way.
“Why don’t we just put the headlights on?” asked Virginia.
Chip had no immediate answer for that. “Um. Er. Maggots might see us.”
“More left!” yelled a bat.
They skidded onto gravel. “Not so much!” shouted a rat.
“Even if they see us, we’ll crash without light. I think it is one of the buttons on the dashboard.” She felt for buttons and hit them. The one working headlight lit up and . . .
“HEEEHAW! HEEEHAW!”
The horn brayed electronic jackass. The joke of some dead Vat-mechanic nearly had them all off the tractor. Fluff jumped from Virginia’s shoulder to the rear of the swaying trailer and back again, squealing all the while. Very poor form, actually, for a machogalago.
In the backlight from the dash, Virginia saw Chip crack a grin. “Not a bad battle cry for us. Effing appropriate.” For all the fright of the moment, she felt her heart suddenly leap. There was nothing Heathcliff-heroic about the dirty, wiry man sitting next to her, his hands wrestling with a steering wheel. Just—
Hers. By damn—and she would see to it!
Bronstein came diving in. “To be sure, let them find out how hard the jackass can kick!”
“And bite!” added Melene, showing teeth.
They came to an upgrade. Now, had Chip been even slightly more experienced at driving he would have downshifted the gears, or accelerated sooner. Instead he just kept hoping. . . .
Their gallant steed was losing revs . . . She wasn’t going to get to the brow of the hill . . . She was going to stall. Chip gritted his teeth. The diesel coughed, spluttered, missed. He hastily put his foot on the clutch.
Well, that stopped them from stalling. But . . . they were rolling backwards already. He got the blade down hastily. They stopped.
Chip realized that he faced that nightmare of all inexperienced drivers: The hill-start. And worse . . . The hill-start without a handbrake . . .
“Get some rocks, quickly! Put them behind the wheels.”
* * *
The rocks were in place. The bats fluttered about like anxious dishcloths. Chip wasn’t a religious man, but he did some praying as he put the tractor into first. Trying his best to let the clutch out gradually, he did it a bit too fast. She jerked, and the blade gave a metallic screech against the paved roadway. The tractor hiccuped. Chip thrust his foot on the clutch again. “Ginny, you’ll have to lift the blade while I deal with this clutch.”
She bit her lip. “Just tell me what you want me to do.”
” ‘Tis not everyday you get that sort of offer, hey Chip?” Pistol winked from his post next to the air filter.
Chip ground his teeth. “Oh, shut up! There must be some time when you don’t think about sex.”
Pistol gave that fair consideration. “Well, I’d liefer think about sex and drink. But two things at once is beyond you, eh, Connolly? Still, I must care for the whoreson who owes me ten cases of whiskey . . .”
“Just ignore him,” Chip said to Ginny. “Here. It’s these two levers. I’m going to count to three. Start pushing this one up first; then, up slowly on two. Then the other fast on three. Can you manage that?”
Virginia could do calculus in her head. This was far more alarming. “I will do my best to give satisfaction, sir.”
He snorted. The rats chortled. “You do choose your words, don’t you Ginny?”
She was desperately glad he couldn’t see her blush. She didn’t choose her words. Something in her head chose them for her.
“One. Two . . . three . . .” And, with scarcely a jerk, they were off, and lumbered over the top. He gave her an unconsidered hug. “You were great. We’re the ‘A’ team, huh?”
She smiled like a child and hugged him back.
” ‘Ware Maggots!” shouted O’Niel.
“WereMaggots! Argh! Not wereMaggots!” shouted Chip. Snarling: “If we shoot them with silver bullets do they turn back into Shareholders?” The tractor was going straight for the fifteen long-legged spindly stilt-runner-Maggots.