As soon as the rats were back up on the tractor, Ginny filled the back-tunnel with atomized alcohol. If it affected the Maggots the same way it did humans, they’d be too drunk to ever reach the expedient mines. Then Chip drove out, away from the heart of the spiral, before breaking in again.
There were already Maggot sentries on the entryway to the main passage. The group-mind was learning. But there were only two of them, unshielded. Not warriors. Child’s play to this group. But now the tractor’s position was known to the group-mind. What it didn’t know was the convolutions of Bronstein’s mind.
“Straight across,” she ordered. “And rats, set some trip wires further up the main passage. Quickly! Chip, you keep her running down this passage, slowly. We’ll catch up.”
“You do your thing, Bronstein. And tell Eamon not to nip back and watch the big bang,” said Chip.
“Methinks it must be ooh, hours, since I last had one of those.” Melene cheekily rubbed a furry thigh against the galago.
But Fluff had an answer for her. “Alas, señorita, I should love to oblige, but I am entirely out of candy.”
Fal nearly fell off the trailer laughing.
Chapter 30: To Banbury Cross.
That was definitely a feminine squeal. And rather a lot of panting coming from the other side of the door.
There’d been no answer to the major’s demanding knock on the outer door. Being who he was, Conrad had tried the door before starting to kick it down. It wasn’t locked. The keys lay hastily tossed onto the ormolu hall table.
Ariel had said: “They’re upstairs.”
The major hesitated for an instant at the upstairs door. Then, gritting his teeth, he knocked.
No answer.
“They’re busy, from the sound of it,” chuckled Ariel. “Won’t pay no attention at all to a measly knock.”
Fitzhugh shrugged, and opened the door.
His timing was exquisite.
The general’s gum-chewing secretary Daisy was occupied in an equestrienne pursuit. Or that was what she was dressed for. Well, half-dressed for. There were parts of her distinctly undressed. She shrieked.
Her steed definitely needed more exercise. He was rather paunchy . . . and very undressed.
For a moment Fitz nearly retreated and slammed the door behind him. Then his sardonic humor asserted itself. “I seem to have come at an inopportune moment. Unfortunately, General, my business is pressing and won’t wait.”
Ariel stuck her head out of his pocket. “Methinks, your general won’t be coming at this opportune moment.” She giggled nastily. “And I don’t think his business is pressing any longer.”
Daisy shrieked again. “A rat! A rat! In his pocket!”
Ariel showed her teeth. “Shall I get out of this pocket and give you a reason to jump on the table and do some more shrieking? I could nibble your toes instead of your bare tits.”
The general found his wind at last. “What is the meaning of this outrage?”
His rider suddenly realized that her excessively generous frontage was exposed. Maybe Ariel’s nibble comment had gotten through. Fitz had always suspected it took ideas a long time to penetrate all that hair. She tried first to pull her inadequate jacket to cover herself, before remembering that it had been designed not to cover the cleavage. She snatched the frilly continental cushion from behind the head of her gray steed. His head thumped onto the wall.
This was all too much for Fitz’s gravity. There were men dying out there, sure, and a war to be won or lost. But walking in on the pompous ass being boffed by his bimbo-secretary, playing mount-the-(snort)-stallion, was truly priceless.
“Sir. I’ll withdraw for thirty seconds, to allow you time to assume a more dignified—ah, position. I’ve no desire to disturb your private life, but I need to talk to you about urgent military business.” He almost managed not to smile.
The red-faced general almost managed not to look at the telephone.
Fitz unplugged it, and walked out with it. “Don’t infuriate him,” he hissed at Ariel.
The rat just winked. Fitz sighed. She’d do it her way. She always did. He put the telephone unit down on the parquet floor and they went back into the room.