THEY'D BROKEN OUT, and, this time with difficulty, broken in again. The space between the spiral arms was getting narrower and narrower. There just wasn't the sort of turning space a tractor needed. Then they'd knocked over the guards. And hastily turned down another cross tunnel.
The bats and rats had had to hold off the Maggots while Chip hastily knocked holes. Ginny and the galago poured fertilizer and diesel and inserted the primacord, before clipping on the bat limpet. Chip adjusted it, one minute twenty second fuse . . .
They were getting to be pretty fair sappers, with all the practice. Still, even the tiny HE bat-limpets and thick-cotton primacord were getting low. Chip had the can of floor-tile glue ready and bellowed for the rats and bats as soon as he clicked the limpet relay shut. Ginny, bright girl, was already up getting the tractor started. The Crotchet was holding forth at her again. Well, at least Chip didn't have to listen.
Bats and rats hurried past, as Chip poured glue. Then he dropped the can and ran. A Maggot was coming and, besides, Nym had managed to get the tractor going. In the interest of the poor tractor he had to get back to it. Somebody tossed a Molotov past his ear.
Panting, he made it to the stabilizer bar, hauled himself up onto the seat, and took over the driving. Even getting the tractor to move along faster was easier now.
Behind them came the sweet sound of detonation.
"Foine! More of the same?" asked O'Niel, a bottle in hand. Maybe he was just getting a Molotov ready.
Chip smiled, his crooked teeth matching Ginny's. "Nope! Always more of something different. This is like the restaurant trade. Your customers get sick of the same meal again and again, no matter how good. So innovation is the name of the game. First, you bats 'ud do us a favor if you'd check on whether there are any live Maggots in our tunnel. If not, we can have a little rest."
Siobhan fluttered up and touched a wing to Chip's head. "To be sure, the boy's brain's overheated."
"Methinks, 'tis too little sex," sniffed Fal. He leered at Ginny. "Eh, girl?"
Her dusty glasses twinkled at him. "Why, sir, he never gives me candy."
It was a joke, but Chip detected just a touch of wistfulness under it all.
"Or flowers, I suppose," added Melene, dryly.
"Or even a drink," said Doll.
"Ahem." Doc cleared his throat. "He's right, you know . . ."
Pistol clapped. "I agree. I'd liefer get off this candy scale."
Doc sighed. "Explain to him, Bronstein. The Maggots do not expect us to stop. So therefore we must."
But Bronstein and Eamon had already flown back down the tunnel.
They came back a bare minute later. "Indade," said Eamon cheerfully, "there are no sounds of digging. And 'tis awful conceited those few Maggots who got through were. They couldn't even defend themselves."
"Conceited? Did they think they could beat you, Eamon?" asked Chip.
"I think he means they were stuck-up," said Ginny. She had soft-cyber language experience on her side. "Now what?"
Chip grinned. "R and R time. We give it . . . say five minutes. Then we go back out . . . the way we came in."
He dug the GPS out of his pack. "If we're right about where we're going, we've got less than a mile to go."
"Just the last little bit," she said. "Isn't that great news, Professor?"
Chip answered, his voice serious now. "The last bit is going to be the worst. It'll be wall-to-wall Maggots in the inner part. I honestly never believed we'd even get this far. Eamon, I think you'd better wire up a limpet to the trailer. We might as well go out in blaze of glory."
Eamon looked at him appraisingly. "Indade. You're thinking almost like a bat. You're an odd human, Connolly."
Chip shrugged. "Where do you think all those odd ideas in your head came from, bat? Have you still got some of those distance-trigger mines left?"
Eamon shook his head. "I've still got two," said Bronstein. "But you're wrong, Chip. Some of the words—and words color your thinking—I'll grant you, come from humans. But we are still bats at the core."
"Indeed. It would be impossible to segregate the physiological and evolutionary from the implant . . ." Doc Pararattus had barely got started when Pistol, Nym, and even Melene, who usually listened, all said: "SHUT UP."
Fal and Doll's voices were absent from the chorus. Chip decided it was a poor time to ask where they were.
Doc sighed. "I don't suppose anyone brought any food, did they?"
"The Maggot back there is full of glue," replied Eamon gloomily.
Chip dug in his pack. Produced two bottles and three small tins with snaptops. "Sauerkraut. A couple of tins of smoked mussels in cottonseed oil and a bottle of Roll-mops. And I've got some biscuits."
The condemned woman, man, rats and bats prepared to eat a hearty meal. Only the galago looked miserable. Chip looked at him. And dug deep in his pack. "Fruit, huh?"
"Or insects or acacia gum, señor," said the galago wistfully.
Chip pulled out a jar. "Here. Try these preserved green figs. They're traditionally served with fine cheese. But I can't oblige you there."
The galago looked longingly at bottle. "Señor Chip, I love figs. But they have on the insides of me a most distressing effect."
Chip handed him the jar. "Eat them. You probably won't be alive to worry about the aftereffects."
They even saved a bit of food for out-of-breath Fal and Doll.
"What happened to candy?" Both of them gave Chip a filthy look, before diving on the food.
"Now let's get out of here." Suddenly Chip saw the weakness of his strategy. He had a good three hundred yards to reverse. He peered back up the tunnel. It was long and curved. "Goddamn stupid bastards. Why didn't they build it like a wheel with spokes? Nice straight spokes going to the middle, instead of this damn spiral. Now I've got to reverse this trailer."
Doc took up an oratory pose. "My hypothesis is that they are like us."
That was a curious enough statement not to get him shouted down. "Methinks not even humans build in spirals," said Melene.
"No, I mean they are trapped within an evolutionary and construction milieu. This was once a defensive structure."
Chip edged the tractor backwards, and spoke through gritted teeth. "Bull, Doc. It's a disaster, defensively."
"It is now, against us. But once it must have effectively channeled and split their foes. And insured that if an enemy did get into the tunnels the guard stations along the way would stop them. Note how easily and neatly the entries fall—every time. They were built to collapse. They were built as traps. I will bet you would find a keystone in each, that they do not need explosives. You see, explosives and the tractor alter the equation. Their previous foes did not have those."
"It's a trap all right, to reverse out of. By the time we get out of here, even Maggots will have figured this out."
"Hey Chip. Methinks you could just go forward and turn around," said Fal.
"No space," said Chip shortly, putting the tractor into first. He was trying to get into a better position to reverse from.
Fal chuckled. "Just keep going forward. There's a sort of chamber, a bit ahead, that Doll and I, um, found."
"The candy store no doubt," snorted Chip.
Even the rats had the grace to look embarrassed. "Well. It might have been our last chance."
Chip noticed Virginia was looking at him very speculatively.
Chip eyed the chamber. It might have looked big to the rats. "I can go in. But then I can't turn around."
"Go past. Back the trailer in and then go out again forwards. Or go in forwards and then come out backing the trailer the other way," said Ginny.
"You know a hell of a lot about it for someone who can't drive," said Chip sourly.
"Just do it!" snapped Bronstein. "And be quick about it."
So he drove the tractor in cautiously, dropped the blade—with some skill by now—and started cranking the wheel over.
"No," said Ginny. "The other way—if you want to reverse."
He kept turning his way. "That doesn't make sense."
"It does mathematically. Please, Chip."
He shrugged, and tried it her way. "Holy Mackerel! So that's how it works! Why didn't you tell me before?" They were around! He pushed the throttle out a bit fast for the last bit, before they could drive back down. And the trailer jackknifed in earnest. Shaft-snapping earnest.
Fortunately, the drive shaft snapped at the link. If it had snapped at the pump it would have killed the Korozhet. The piece of ricocheting steel just touched across Ginny's high forehead. Even a quarter-inch closer and she'd have been dead. A sudden line of red appeared, and then beaded with blood.
Chip stared at her in open-mouthed horror. "Oh, shit! Are you all right! I didn't mean . . ."
"I'm fine," she said faintly. "Just drive." This time, when she put an arm around him, he did not pull away.