ROMANTIC PLACES ARE made thus by the people in them. This was not the windswept gritstone edge above the stark and wild Yorkshire moors of her dreams. But the towering stacks of Maggot-grub cells through which they wandered hand-in-hand made a magical, beautiful place too, thought Ginny. Even the relentless munching noises from the racks had an almost musical charm.
Chip had explored the area. Off on the far side were any number of little open Magh' adobe cells. It took them some time to get there, because they kept stopping to work on this kissing bit. At the last stop Chip had nearly decided that this was a good enough place anyway . . .
Ginny looked at Chip. "This looks like the cell I was walled up in."
"Would you like to go somewhere else?" His hands were caressing her breasts, and his fingers were gently coming in to touch her nipples through her blouse, arousing her to the point where she wasn't thinking logically any more. Well, other than about how to get the material out of the way.
"Not if I'm here with you," she said, breathlessly, unfastening his shirt buttons, her fingers clumsy with haste.
And then, from the other side of the wall, someone said something. Both of them stopped, their hands in very compromising positions.
The voice from the other side of the wall spoke again.
Ginny's heart rose, despite wishing desperately that the interruption hadn't happened for another few, precious few, minutes. It wasn't a bat or a rat voice. It certainly wasn't Fluff's. Who else was there except the Professor? Well . . . it could be someone else, she supposed. "Er. Who's there?"
"Tell him to piss off," Chip whispered in her ear, through clenched teeth.
The reply they got could easily have been an excerpt from the Kama Sutra. Well, an alien version thereof, because whatever language that was, it wasn't human. And human voices didn't hit those sorts of notes. It could have been nearly anything because she didn't understand a word of it. She tried some Korozhet. She'd been amazed at how easy that had been to learn.
There was a silence. Then, in appallingly accented but clear Korozhet, the voice informed her that the Korozhet would get absolutely nothing out of it.
"We are not Korozhet," Ginny said hastily. That was a shocking idea, to be denied at all costs.
The appallingly accented Korozhet speaker asked, "Well, what are you then? Are you Magh'?"
"I understood two words. Korozhet and Magh'," said Chip. "What is it saying?"
"Um. It asked whether we were Magh'," Ginny translated.
"I'd like to know what the hell it is, even if it has the shittiest sense of timing in the entire universe." Chip's tone of voice was pure irritation.
She looked into his eyes, her mouth easing into that tiny almost anxious smile, revealing those slightly skew teeth. Hell, to make her smile he'd forgive anything. Chip sighed. "I suppose it is a Crotchet. Ask if it can get you out of here."
"Not without you." Her long fingers crumpled his shirt. She spouted a string of alien. It talked back.
"It says it is a prisoner too. Live larvae food like us. Its ship was tracking the Magh' slowship routes to offer alliance to whoever the Magh' were attacking this time."
Ginny was glad to have the language mystery cleared up. "So that is why you speak Korozhet. They are our allies. They also came to give us warning. We owe them our lives."
There a long silence. Then whatever was on the other side of the wall replied. "Yes. The Korozhet warned us too. They had some very useful war materials for sale. Very convenient. Very expensive."
"What's it say?" demanded Chip. She translated.
"I'll say!" Chip sounded as if he might almost forgive the alien for being there. Almost. "Ask it whether they got slowshields from them. I'm really suspicious about those, after Doc's comments. I'll bet they sold them soft-cyber stuff and not an FTL drive."
Ginny shook her head violently "I'm sure you're wrong! You just don't like the Korozhet! But I'll ask. I'm certain you're wrong!"
She asked.
The alien made a noise like steel pan being caressed with a castanet. "Apologies. That is just ticklish . . . I mean . . . funny. Yes, they sold us kinetic movement shields and tried to sell us `enhancement' cybernetics. Of course we would not buy such a crazy thing. No sentient is going to put alien-built logic-circuits in its head. And no, of course they didn't sell us an FTL drive!"
"So. What did he say?" demanded Chip.
Somewhat reluctantly, she told him.
"You can say that again. Well, at least we're not crazy enough to put soft-cybers into human heads. Ask it whether they managed to beat the Maggots."
Miserably, Ginny asked.
"Once we discovered that the Korozhet were passing all our military information to the Magh', it wasn't that hard," replied the alien voice.
"That's a lie!" shouted Ginny furiously, as soon as she finished translating. "The Korozhet saved our colony! The Magh' would have taken us by surprise and wiped us all out."
The creature on the other side of the wall sounded heated too. "The Korozhet farm wars. The Magh' are their animals."
"You LIE! You LIE!!!"
"We Jampad do not lie."
She turned instinctively to Chip. He held her gently and stroked her head. "What's wrong, Ginny?"
"It says . . . It says." She found the words impossible to get out. "It says it is a Jampad. They killed my parents." She turned on the wall and pounded it with her fists. "You murdered my parents you . . . monster. I hate you. Come out here and I'll kill you."
The creature on the other side of the wall appeared equally upset, if volume was any way to judge Jampad emotion.
"My ship—and my people only had the one FTL ship built—was destroyed! I saw how the Korozhet destroyed helpless lifepod after lifepod. My clan-kin are dead. My pod was damaged by their fire as I entered the atmosphere. I had no directional controls. I made a forced landing on the top of the Magh' force field. Then, when it opened, I fell through. I made the gesture of submission to the Magh'. I was brought here, for larvae food. I would hope that what you say is true. I would be delighted if my clan-kin had killed your silly kind. It would mean someone else survived. But they are all dead. Do you hear me. Dead. Who told you that the Jampad had killed your kin? Who? The stinking Korozhet told you. They lie. About everything!"
Virginia was now sobbing, her face pressed into Chip's shoulder. "There, Ginny. Don't talk to it any more," he said gently. Chip thumped on the wall with his fist. "You in there! I don't understand what you're saying, but I'll come in and beat your fucking brains out if you don't shut up and leave her alone."
He started guiding her away. "Come on, Ginny. Let's go somewhere else."
The creature on the other side of the wall didn't understand his words, despite Chip's faithful obedience to the First Law of Translation. Shout. It kept babbling something.
Ginny sniffed determinedly. "No, Chip. I've got tell it how wrong it is about the Korozhet." She turned and faced the wall again. "You. Jampad. There are a few things you should know. Firstly, we're not prisoners like you. We are trapped in this brood-chamber, but we're not walled up and we got here by fighting our way in. We killed many Magh'. And we did that with a brave Korozhet at our side. He was also a prisoner." And she briefly told it the story of how they had got there.
There was a long silence. Then it asked. "Where is this Korozhet now?"
"It got separated from us. At the last. Just before we were trapped in here," she said.
"Ah. So. How many did it kill with its killing spines and its gas spines?" asked the alien.
She was spared having to answer that one, by the sound of falling masonry.
The alien continued. "It sounds as if the Magh' have broken in. Well. Should you not be able to escape immediately, I suggest the gesture of submission. At home there are stories of several prisoners who managed to escape. Magh' are stupid. Live to fight another day."
"How do we do that?" she asked, curious despite her anger.
The alien jangled. "Do you have anterior limbs? If so lie, down on your backs. Do you have backs?"
"Yes."
"Then lie down on them and cross your anterior limbs above your head. Magh' are creatures of instinct. The lower castes are not really intelligent at all. The different nests communicate with gestures. Our xenobiologists think that is the gesture whereby one nest would accede to another in a territorial struggle. But beware of the Korozhet!"
Chip shook Virginia gently. "Ginny, the Maggots have busted in somewhere else. No explosions." He hugged her fiercely. "Sorry, kid. We're gonna die. Can we spare the talking and have a last kiss?"
She hugged him fiercely. "No, Chip, we must lie down."
Despite the situation, he grinned. "Haven't we left it a bit late for that now?"
She blushed. "Unfortunately. But no, that's not what I mean. The alien says if we lie down on our backs and cross our arms above our heads, that's the gesture of surrender."
Chip snorted. "Ha. I'll be dipped in shit first! I'll go out fighting."
She held him. "Please. The alien is right. We'll just get killed. If we pretend to surrender . . . we just might escape. It says its kind have, in the past. Please. For me."
"It's not honorable," he said stubbornly.
"Stop being so Batty!" She caressed his chest. "Think what . . . Doc would say."
He sighed. "All right, Ginny. We'll try it your way." He pulled the four-pound hammer from his belt. Pushed it into the ventilation hole which led into the alien's cell. "They'll probably search us, and take everything away from us. Tell him to break out if he can."
"My mate," she said in Korozhet, and she said it with pride, if not perfect truth, "gives you this tool to break out with."
The alien jangled. She figured the noise must be the equivalent of a sigh. "Thank you. Good luck, alien," it replied.
She smiled at Chip. "It said `good luck.' Lie down next to me, please. I can hear them coming."
"I should get invitations like that every day from beautiful girls." He lay down next to her, and then burrowed a hand into his pocket. He produced Melene's chocolate. "Can I offer you some candy? I'm afraid that's probably as near as we'll get to the rest of it," he said tenderly.
She tried to swallow away the lump in her throat. "How about if we shared it," she finally managed to croak.
It was very old chocolate. It had melted and reset a good few times. It had traveled a long way in a rat's pack. But still . . . it could have tasted of soap and it wouldn't have mattered. It was still the finest chocolate they were ever likely to eat.
A Magh' paused at the doorway. It looked at them and then went on, hastily. And then the one next came.
"It worked!" said Chip in tones of amazement. "They didn't just kill us."