He slithered wildly down the steep, microjet-irrigated bank of artistically textured "wild" violets and hanging maidenhair ferns. Daisy was of course dragged willy-nilly headlong down the bank with him.
The fat koi-carp in the pool probably wished they were piranhas a few seconds later, when the general's nether end landed in their tranquil beauty spot. A second later a shrieking Daisy arrived. A flailing handful of violets knocked his cap flying. Then she landed facefirst in the water.
Daisy was soaked to the skin. The general was better and worse off. He wasn't as wet. His top half was dry. Well, except for the whisky-wet area. His dark-blue towel was somewhere in the dark water. He felt around in the mud and the hairy lily roots. A forgiving koi nuzzled his hand. He shrieked and hastily gave up looking for the towel or one of his shoes.
The moon appeared. Daisy stood up, dripping. "This is all your fault!" she shouted hysterically. "My skirt is ruined, my makeup is ruined, and my stockings are ruined!" Sobbing, she hit him in the eye. Which was perhaps uncharitable, since the general had paid for all of the ruined things in the first place.
In the guard post the corporal lit a weed. "Spanking parties these generals have," he said dryly.
"Yeah. No wonder the major warned us."
It didn't get better. The moon hid itself again in embarrassment at the acrimonious scene below. Then there had been the riot of climbing roses…
When the general found the fence, it had been a relief. The landscapers had carefully hidden it in the shrubbery. On the other side was open space and easy walking. All they had to do was to follow the fence. The general was a broken man. All that kept him going was the delightful thought of hanging, drawing, quartering-and immersing in cold oil, which he would slowly bring to the boil-one Major Conrad Fitzhugh.
Of course, walking along the outside of the fence meant that he approached his own gate from the outside.
"Impersonating an officer. Drunk. Disorderly. Public indecency. Failing to produce identity card. Attempted assault of the arresting officer." The MP prodded the unfortunate general in the stomach with his nightstick. "Are they going to throw the book at you, sunshine!"
"What about me?" shivered Daisy. The evening was cold and she had quite a distracting case of shrivel-nipple.
"If you're lucky I won't run you in for soliciting. Get lost."
"But how am I going to get home?" she whined.
"Stick around, sweetie. We'll sort you out," said the corporal. "We're due for relief in a few minutes."
His mate said "For a fee, of course."
The corporal grinned. "Nothing a girl like you can't spare."
It was six in the morning before the general's wife came along to bail him out… and she was going to go straight out to the estate.
…
Eric Flint
Rats, Bats amp; Vats
Chapter 42:
When head and heart do war.
THE MAGGOTS, who came in a seemingly endless stream past the open cell where Ginny and Chip lay, were all of a closely related kind. They all had hooked feet which enabled them to run up and down the brood-racks with terrific speed. Many had long injection-like mouthparts, or odd little plate-shaped palps. They weren't warriors, or even particularly dangerous looking. It was very apparent that their main interest was the brood and that as long as Chip and Ginny lay there and didn't interfere…
But orders apparently came down from on high, which overrode the pressing instinctive need to see to the grubs. Chip and Ginny were prodded to their feet by hard but fairly harmless palps, and herded along. They were pushed down the newly-chewed passage.
The wall through which the diggers had burst, Chip noticed, looked just the same as all the other walls. It was obviously a hidden hard plug the Magh' had in the tower wall. In one place there was a crack in the tunnel through which fine sand was still seeping. It should have been obvious, thought Chip. Of course they would have a way in for just such an emergency as the tunnel to the brood-heart being dropped.
At the head of the passage waited a troop of seventy scorps. Obviously, ordinary Maggots didn't go into the brood chamber.
Chip thought that they'd die right there. But the scorps parted to allow them to walk forward into the middle of the warriors. Then they found themselves forced to walk up. And up. Past Maggots clearing blast damage with Maggotlike efficiency. Then they stopped. By the time Chip and Ginny realized that they'd stopped because the scorps needed to reoxygenate, another troop had arrived.
Chip's legs wished they'd been given a chance to reoxygenate too. He'd not realized there could be anything worse than abseiling down this lot… until he had been forced to walk back up it. He didn't have the breath to talk. A glance showed him that Ginny was in an even worse state. Limping. Panting.
The Maggots kept them separated. He couldn't even get close to her to give her an arm. A quivering sting menaced him when he tried.
And then they came to the level with the bridge to the tower. Here they had to wait, and could at last catch their breath. Another party was coming across the newly rebuilt narrow tracery of spars.
"Professor!" Ginny shrieked in delight.
The Korozhet, bold as brass, and a lot more red and prickly, spined along calmly between an escort of Maggots.
Chip noticed that while the Magh' pressed close to Ginny and himself, they kept their distance from that damn Crotchet.
"My dear Virginia!" exclaimed the Korozhet. "I am so relieved to see you safe and well. I was just on my way to try to rescue you! I have negotiated your release into my custody. You will be safe, Virginia, safe!"
Her mind was at war, fighting a terrible internal battle. She'd been so glad to see him. Relieved and happy. And then, unbidden, had come the questions. Her mind, or something in her mind, said that the questions were wrong, impossible. Yet they kept recurring, recurring.
But if the Professor could get them out of here…
"Can you get Chip and me free, Professor?" she asked.
"Yes, Virginia. I have used my status as a fellow exoskeletonite to convince the Magh' that we are just civilians caught up in the tide of war. Innocent bystanders. That you were lead astray by evil companions."
She shouldn't have laughed… but after what they'd done, at his urging! "So Chip and I can go?" she said incredulously. "But you were…"
The Korozhet clacked its spines. "Alas, the other human is a combatant. A prisoner of war. He will have to remain. I have begged for clemency for him, of course. The Magh' have assured me he will be kept prisoner under the most gentle of conditions, given the best of slops…"
"Ah, bullshit, Pricklepuss," sneered Chip.
It might still have gone differently if the Professor hadn't been advancing and Magh' hadn't stood aside. That had allowed Chip to move next her. To put a gentle hand on her shoulder. And to allow her to loop an arm around his waist.
"Virginia, cease clinging to the human and come with me!" ordered the Korozhet. "It is a troublemaker. A lower life-form, one of those Vat-bred creatures."
She looked at the red, spiny alien. She couldn't bring herself to say "No." But she shook her head and clung more tightly to Chip.
The Expediter had had a long and trying time of it since these stupid, irritating humans had "rescued" it from its bath. And, of all the annoyances, that human soldier had been the worst. And now he had made one of the Overphyle's implanted slaves resist! The Expediter was suffering from a lack of gamete discharge. She knew this made her extremely short tempered…
There was only one cure for rebellious slaves, and that was killing them. But the resources attached to the Virginia slave were just too valuable to dispose of lightly. As sole "heir"-such an odd notion!-to the humans' largest chunk of wealth, the creature could be very valuable to the Expediter. As long as the wretched thing was under proper control…
The Expediter struggled with rage. It had been pleasant to deal with that rat who had dared to overcome the soft-cyber conditioning. She had also vented some of her rage on the bat, who had chosen to come into the tunnel at the wrong time. But she was still angry. Furious, in fact.
These Earth-creatures were poor slaves. They used their natural sophistry to disobey. Well, commands issued in English they could still twist and misinterpret. It was a language fraught with imprecision. But the Expediter could order in Korozhet. That was the default language and allowed no chance for disobedience. Her ocelli focused on the scruffy little Vat-soldier. This one had done worse than any of them. He'd laughed at the Overphyle! He had dared to use derogatory terms!
"You know," said Chip, "the difference between you and a car full of sh… officers, is that the car has the little pricks on the inside."
The human soldier should never have made that comment. The Expediter was sensitive about her spine-length. She finally lost her temper completely.
Chip had survived an inordinate time in the trenches, fighting warrior-Magh'. They were fast. Really fast. The main reason he was still alive was that he was one of those lucky individuals with naturally fast reactions. The Expediter had only killed rich, middle-aged humans before. This was different. Chip saw the spines come up. He grabbed Ginny and dived across the back of the nearest scorp.
The hissing harpoon darts went home… into the scorp.
The Expediter was too late to stop the first toxin pulse. And it saw Chip reach for his belt. Fools! The Magh' hadn't even disarmed them! Magh' regarded bodies as weapons, and had yet to truly come to terms with the alien propensity for sharp-edged or heavy artificial tools of destruction. If the Vat creature still had his four-pound hammer, the heavy tool would smash right through her calcareous test. At a time like this, it was best to cut and run. She could grow new harpoons.
In a cloud of gas, the Expediter severed her harpoons and legged it away on fast-flexing spines.
The hiss…
"Hold your breath!" shouted Chip. He hoped the gas might affect their guards, but it didn't seem to, or, perhaps, they were holding their breath too.
Chip and Ginny were thrust forward again.
Eventually, they just had to breathe. The air simply tasted of Maggot-pong, but Chip found himself feeling a bit odd, and slightly light headed. Ginny kept swaying into him. Not that he really minded that, of course. Actually, after a few seconds, the whole incident seemed like a good joke. The two of them started giggling. Chip even found himself chuckling about the fact that the stinking Crotchet could run at least as fast as a man and could climb perfectly well.
It was a good bridge to cross slightly stoned, even if that wasn't quite the safest way it could be done. There were no sides and the two of them could barely walk abreast. And the scorps weren't even following. So the two them stopped midway for a bit of lip-and-tongue gymnastics. They got rather distracted. Quite distracted, actually. Eventually a scorp had to come and prod them on. They crossed the rest of the way hugging each other, occasionally swaying into the outstretched chelicerae.
Eric Flint
Rats, Bats amp; Vats
Chapter 43:
Third thoughts.
GETTING THEM UP the shaft was slow, and awkward. The oppressive warm darkness was overfull of depressed rats and bats. Bronstein was getting to the stage where if she heard another sigh, she was going to bite whoever did it. Given the way things were going, it would be Eamon or Nym.
She sighed. Then realized what she'd just done.
Oh, well. Fair was fair. She bit herself. "Yow!"
"Hwhat is going on now?" said O'Niel, in a "hope-I-can-bite-somebody" tone.
"Nothing," she said grumpily. Then reconsidered it. "Oh bejasus, O'Niel. There is a decent bit of ledge here. The rats and that galago can stop here. You and I can go for a fly up the shaft and see whether it actually does lead out or not."
O'Niel plainly liked the idea, even if it involved flying. "If it doesn't, we can go back, indade."
"Go to it," grunted Nym from the ledge. "I'll bring the rest up. 'Tis a ridiculous idea to keep climbing, if we just have to come down again. And methinks you should take Eamon. He keeps sighing like a leaky gasbag."
The bats fluttered upwards. And upwards. The shaft curved slightly so that they could not sonar too far ahead but, at length, Bronstein detected what she both longed for and dreaded. Space. And then there was a circle of light.
They flew out into the first rays of early morning sunlight. Daylight was never a bat's favorite. Still, being out of the Maggot mounds felt… free. Looking back, and carefully substituting the word "Crotchet" for another word which must not even be thought, Bronstein could see that it had all been rank insanity. All driven by that Crotchet wanting to get back to its true allies. Treacherous, foul alien. She would hate it forever and ever.
She thought about their journey through the tunnels. Scenes came unbidden and clear. Madness! But, ah! What a glorious madness it had been. And they might even have succeeded, despite the traitor. They'd come so close to the group-mind before the Crotchet had misled them. It had taken them down instead of up.
It hit her like the morning sunlight. Warm, beautiful and wonderfully liberating. "Let us go down, fellow bats. Let us go down and finish what we came to do, to be sure!"
Eamon blinked at her "Bring them up here, you mean. 'Tis daylight. It will…"
Bronstein shook her head. "No! Eamon, it goes against my grain to admit this, but you are a better bat with explosives than I. Could we be bringing down that roof above the place where we saw the… Crotchet?"
Eamon's face shifted from gloom to a savage crinkled grin. "Michaela Bronstein, it goes against my grain, but you are a better thinker than I. Yes, indade, it'd take most of what we still have, but if we blew away those trusses… I am sure that the ceiling would fall, anyway. The whole roof it could be. And at the very least we'll avenge them!"
O'Niel looked somber. "We will have to explain it to the rats."
Bronstein bit her lip. Eamon too was silenced. The big bat looked shrunken. He looked like a bat carrying all the weight of the world on tired wings. Then he straightened his shoulders and spread his wings in Harmony And Reason's bright sunlight. "Indade. And you may put the blame on me, where it rightly belongs. But I'll not let my pride stand before our vengeance." He stepped backwards and fell into the shaft.
O'Niel chuckled. "Pistol has the right of it. When he does that, he looks like he's most terrible constipated. Come. Let's get to it, then."
Bronstein dropped into the shaft, and nearly hit the swearing Eamon on his way back up.
The rats and the galago perched uncomfortably on the ledge. Bronstein addressed them even as she fluttered down. "There is a way out. It is morning out there."
"Methinks, not for Chip and Ginny," said Fal lugubriously. "He was just like a rat, that human. Aye, and he was."
"Down to the tail," said Bronstein tartly. "Now listen. We could go back and die beside them."
"Whoreson. Back through that tunnel where I nearly stuck fast like a cork? Ah, well, what must be done, must be done." Fal didn't sound too dejected by the idea.
"Which will serve no purpose, and is what they have begged us not to do," said Bronstein sternly.
"Sometimes a rat has to make up his own mind. I just wish I hadn't squeezed through that tunnel first, just to squeeze back," said Nym. "At least Fal could just suck his gut in…"
"Or we can go ahead and do exactly what the Korozhet wanted us to do." Bronstein knew that was dirty pool. But she was playing to win. "When we came out earlier we found our way to above the brood-Magh'. The thinkers. We could go and bring the roof down on them. That would avenge Chip and Ginny. And if they really are the group-mind… it could even save our human comrades."
"Whoreson Achitophel!" said Pistol explosively. "Well, come on then. What are you bats waiting for? Move out, move out! We don't need this rope. We can chimney up this shaft."
"No, Pistol. We have to put this to the vote. It will leave us without explosives for our flight," said Bronstein.
"I' faith," Fal grunted. "Next you'll be wanting a sacred bullet, Bronstein."
Sarcasm, as always, passed right over Bronstein's head. "No, a show of hands will do."
"If I show you my hands, I shall fall off this ledge," said Doll. "Besides I can't see anything. I agree with Pistol."
There was a chorus of yesses. Even the galago nervously agreed. With a goal before them, the rats suddenly showed that they could manage the shaft. They just hadn't been ready to try before.
Doc, of course, put his finger on the crucial question. "It occurs to me that you could have told us this before."
Eamon cleared his throat. "I am to blame."
"Usually, but that's because you guzzle so much sauerkraut," said Pistol, from higher up the shaft.
But even Pistol's deflationary cracks weren't going to deprive Eamon of the joys of a histrionic confession.
Eventually, even the galago told him to shut up. Risking damage to life and limb was better than listening to any more bat soul-searching.
A second scorp had followed the first over the narrow bridge. In his mild dose of Korozhet chemically induced hysteria, Chip thought the scorps moved even more tentatively than the humans. The group walked forward into the heart of the scorpiary.
The mushroom hothouse had been brightly colored. This place was just plain garish. It was startling enough to send Chip into the giggles again. And that was enough to set Ginny off also. The two humans came into the presence of the group-mind laughing until the tears ran down their faces. After all, there is nothing quite like laughing in the face of death. Of course, it would have been a good idea to look behind them while they did this.
In the ceiling the sound of their laughter stopped work. Now the entire crew was peering anxiously down.
"Whoreson!" said Pistol admiringly. "They must be stand-up fall-down drunk."
Melene looked at the way the two clung to each other. She smiled.
And then, behind the laughing two came the shock of the rats' lives and the horror of the bats: the Korozhet.
"Whoreson! we have to get down there," said at least three rats, led by Fal.
The little galago agreed. "Indeed, senor rat! But… how do we get past the grid?"
"What grid?" asked Fal. "Come on, we need to open this hole a bit more."
The galago looked startled. "The light grid? You cannot see it?" Fluff squinted down into the chamber. "I believe humans could not see it either. She is too far into the ultraviolet for humans to see, and obviously also for the bats. Look, the projector, there she is."
He pointed to a device on the far side of the room. "Senor Shaw, he had one too. A special Korozhet device, very expensive, for the detecting of flying objects. This looks very similar."
Bronstein closed her eyes briefly. "And what happens once they are detected?"
"Ah! She is hooked up to the device of the rapid firing of the projectiles. See." The galago pointed. "That thing she is standing over there. It is locking on to the object and firing."
"Slowshields? Would they help?" asked Melene.
"No," said Doc. "We'd just fall. And keep falling until the shooting stopped."
Below them somebody said something in Korozhet. But it wasn't the Korozhet. It was several of the Maggots speaking together. Still, they all understood. "Where are the tailed and the winged ones?" the group-mind was demanding.
Chip didn't understand the Maggot. That didn't stop him from replying, of course. "Same to you, O High Hemorrhoid. Why do you play with yourself in public?"
Ginny, of course, did understand. "We won't tell you."
The creatures globbered.
"Is it talking Crotchet too?" demanded Chip. "What did I tell you, Ginny? What do the fat uglies say? Tell them we'd give them indigestion."
"They want to know where the rats and bats are. I said we wouldn't tell them." She squeezed his hand.
Chip assumed his best expression of innocence and humility. It certainly would never have fooled Henri-Pierre, but then the Maggot group-mind was less perceptive than the sarcastic little Frenchman. "Tell him it is just too bad that they were all killed when the tunnel collapsed."
She did.
Once again the Magh' spoke in their weird chorus. "That explains why the eggs and larvae were spared. The Korozhet had told us they were vicious, insatiable grub-eaters. The larvae tenders could not believe the grubs were untouched. Of course some will be born stunted and have to be killed."
"What do the bug-uglies say?" Chip wanted to know.
She told him.
He snorted. "Ask them if they always believe what the Korozhet say."
It wasn't a direct questioning of the Korozhet. She could ask.
"Yes," the group mind answered. "The Korozhet always tell us things. How did you find your way through the maze-tunnels of the Magh'mmm? This is the first attack to get near to our precious selves. We must prevent it ever happening again."
Without being asked, Ginny translated.
Chip grinned. "Tell them the Korozhet guided us here. That they sell us arms and advise us."
Ginny felt as if she was walking into a morass. Her head kept saying "this may damage your friends." But it was true, so she could say it. It was difficult until she prefaced it with "My mate says.. ."
"Lies!" The Korozhet spiked forward. "Deception, Magh'mmm! I have told you I was a prisoner and a hostage in their unprovoked attack."
The Korozhet pointed spines at them. "The soft squashy life-forms are pathological liars. We would never sell arms to such a species. Never. We have been your reliable providers for thousands of cycles. Always we provided the group-minds with the finest ships, the best shields. Have we ever failed the Magh? Bah. The one with the long head-filaments claims `her mate says.' But I ask her now: Could we Korozhet ever do anything so evil?"
Now Ginny felt as if her head might explode. What she'd said was true. It was. It was! It was! It was! She knew that it was true. Undoubtedly and incontrovertibly true. And now she knew also, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the soft-cyber implant was influencing her thoughts. Obviously the Korozhet who designed the things had built in a pro-Korozhet programming.
Cold sweat beaded her forehead. She couldn't say it.
"Well?" prompted the Korozhet. "We Korozhet do not sell arms to other species. Tell the Magh'mmm you lied."
Chip squeezed her hand. "What's Pricklepuss saying?"
Ginny forced her vocal chords to do what part of her brain said they should not. Her voice came out in a squeak. But it was a loud determined squeak. "I do not lie."
The ball of prickles raised a spine… and lowered it again.
Chip squeezed her. "What's happening, dearest?"
She looked at him, with victory in her eyes. "You were right about that-alien. It's just tried to claim they never sold arms to humans."
The Korozhet might have been out of gas and harpoon darts, but it wasn't out of wind. "This species is incapable of the truth, Magh'mmm!"
"Translate," said Chip quietly.
She did.
"Ask the Maggots if they haven't got another alien they can ask," he said in a whisper.
She did. The Magh'mmm seemed to like that idea.
The Korozhet did not.
Pistol had to be restrained from cheering when Chip called the Maggots hemorrhoids. But when the conversation switched to Korozhet, Bronstein backed off. She knew in her bones that this might be where she had to kill one of their rat-comrades because of the treacherous soft-cybers. She wasn't sure how well the rat psyche would deal with what she was certain would come.
It was a good thing that she was ready. She had to stop three of the rats-from clapping and whistling.
Doc could not restrain himself. "I told you all so!" he hissed. "I told you the Korozhet betrayed us."
Fal sounded positively choked. "Methinks our Ginny is as near to a rat as you'll find in human form. I'd liefer have put ratsbane in my mouth than try to say that!"
Eamon showed teeth. "She's far better than a rat!"
"Begorra!" O'Niel spat, "Be forgetting the silly arguments then. We need to get down there and help."
Nym looked at the gap. "If we made it bigger we could abseil down. The rope is a bit short, but not much…"
"That detection grid. Could the rats avoid it, Don Fluffy?" asked Bronstein.
The big-eyed galago shook his head violently. "No. The beams they move. It would not be at all of a possibility."
"Can't we just do it?" said Melene. "Some of us will make it."
"No. The first one to go will get shot at. That'll activate his slowshield and sever the rope. It is too far to fall," said Nym.
There was a long silence. "We'll have to drop the roof," said Eamon.
"No," said the galago quietly. "I will do it. For my Virginia I will do it. I can see the projector beams. I can climb down and avoid them. I alone am the one who can see them. I too am the only one who can climb upside down along the roof and the wall. Give for me a device of the explosive and I will destroy the projector." The little creature shivered.
Eric Flint
Rats, Bats amp; Vats
Chapter 44:
Fluff at the Bridge.
" 'TIS A VALIANT FLUFF! You're a hero!" said Doll, in a voice that suggested that receiving the hero's rewards didn't have to wait until after the deed.
The little creature shivered again. "No. I am just a scared galago. I… I admit. Not very brave, I am. You are all big tough soldiers… Me… I am a rich lady's toy."
Doc patted the galago's shoulder. "The true nature of courage is to know fear, and overcome it."
"I think it overcomes me!"
"Here," said Pistol, "have a stoup of Dutch courage."
The galago took Pistol's bottle with shaking hands, and took a deep chug. He shuddered. "Now I must go and pee on my hands and feet, even if 'Ginia says it is a habit of the most vile. You can please make the hole bigger for me?"
Doll was distinctly puzzled. "Pee on his hands and feet?"
"Urine washing," said Doc. "It increases the adhesiveness. The hyraxes and some lesser primates practice it."
"Art sure he's not just kinky? I wouldn't have thought you'd have to practice it… much." Melene was definitely doubtful on this one.
Pistol chuckled. "Methinks his aim is lousy. Let's nibble that hole bigger. Fal's got to get through, never mind the galago."
The galago looked doubtfully again at the trigger bar. Then at the tiny bat-mine. "Senorita Bronstein, I am not very mechanical."
Eamon grunted impatiently. "Let me be explaining to this numbskull, Michaela."
"Good luck." said Bronstein dryly, going off to take down some of the mines they'd rigged on the stanchions. That galago was definitely overdue to get bitten. Damn those rats for giving it strong drink first. She'd swear it was swaying on those glistening black feet. Mind you, at least it had stopped shivering. That was a plus.
"See, you twist this arming button. Click it to `remote.' Then you move off. As soon as you're more than thirty yards away, you depress both triggers. Simultaneously." The trigger bar was designed for bat-feet. The twin trigger at either end of the bar was a logical safety device. Eamon could work one in his sleep. It was difficult for him to grasp that any semisentient could not easily take one apart and reassemble it.
"Just show me one more time," said Fluff.
"Look. I'll arm it." Eamon was exasperated by now. "You're not supposed to move it once it is armed, but we have to take some risks. Then all you've got to do is press the triggers. Any fool can do that."
"I think so," said the galago doubtfully.
And then, because things were getting heated down there… he was off. With just a mouthful more brandy for the road.
Galagos are possibly one of the most acrobatic small primates around. Being nocturnal, however, they don't normally have an audience.
Fluff finally had the audience he'd so often craved for his magnificent, elegant gymnastic skills. However he kept finding that somehow he wasn't climbing with panache. It was odd. He felt like a superstar. He just wasn't focusing too well.
The rats and bats watched in horror as the galago swung wildly across the roof, flinging itself with remarkable drunken inaccuracy at small knobbles of Magh' adobe… and somehow sticking.
"It doth piss glue," said Nym. "There is no other…"
Everybody gasped.
Fluff's lurching progress had nearly come unstuck. A piece of adobe decide to stick to his hand instead of the curving roof.
Somehow, by giving the law of gravity a complete raspberry, the galago caught hold of something else with the other hand.
Then it was hanging there, with a piece of loose Magh' adobe in one hand and a minuscule handhold in the other.
"I shall have to throw it to you," whispered the galago.
It was surprising the Magh'mmm didn't hear the sound of gritting teeth in the ceiling. But the Magh'mmm was in debate with the Korozhet. "If it is indeed as you say, then we must redouble our efforts. This species must be pushed to extinction."
The galago weighed up the throw. Then, tossed the chunk of adobe. Eamon dropped through the hole, snatched, and was back inside the ceiling before you could say "bogtrotter."
Fortune favored them. Neither the appalling throw nor the dart into the room had been detected.
The galago continued his progress. Lower. Lower. And lower down the wall. The projector was in full view of any life-form with eyes in the hall below. It sat on a platform just above human head-height.
The roof crew watched, hardly daring to breathe. And then when the galago was mere feet from the platform…
The Magh'mmm spoke: "But we do not see the need to keep these aliens alive any longer. You asked us to keep all the specimens in good condition. But we have sufficient humans for larval conditioning. Since you say they are incapable of telling the truth, they will not give us the information we have asked for. Once we have confirmed it with the Jampad prisoner, these are of no further…"
Eric Flint
Rats, Bats amp; Vats
Chapter 45:
"Thar she blows!"
THE GRUB-TENDERS had finished their frantic tending of their instinctively most precious charges. Now they began cleaning. The inputs to the group-mind from myriad Magh' in a scorpiary were just too numerous to have each individual directed specifically and individually all the time. Much of what the individual Magh' did was simply instinctive, within the broad parameters of the group-mind orders. The stack closest to the old entryway had an untidy wire to the old doorway. There was considerable alien junk lying there. There was also a mess of sticky diesel and fertilizer and a rat-trap and a bangstick-cartridge trigger.
The grub-tender pulled the wire.