Brain Ships - Anne McCaffrey [176]
A richly alcoholic wheeze almost knocked him off his feet. "You see anybody else around here, kid? Who d'you think I am?"
"The corycium mine—"
"Dead. Defunct. Abandoned. Kaput, all gone splash, stinko," Grade 11 Supervisor Harmon said with relish. "Went bust. Owner sold the mine to me for a case of spirits before he pulled out."
"What went wrong?"
"Labor. Company couldn't keep miners here for love nor money. Not that they offered much love—even a corycium miner ain't desperate enough to try and get it on with a Loosie, heh, heh, heh." Another wave of alcohol-flavored breath washed over Blaize.
"Loosie?"
"Homosimilis Lucilla Angalii to you, m'boy. The veg-heads Lucilla Sharif discovered, damn her soul, and reported as possibly intelligent on the FCF, double-damn her, and for her sins we're stuck administering Planetary Technical Aid to a bunch of walking zucchini. All the company I've had since they closed the mine. And all you'll have for the next five years. Next PTA transport comes by here is taking me off-planet." Harmon looked enviously at the sleek length of the XN-935, her tip now gleaming in the sun that peeked over the jagged mountains. "Nice perks you High Families kids get, transport like that. I don't suppose you could persuade that brainship—"
"I doubt it," Blaize said.
Harmon chortled. "No, didn't much sound like it, way you come out yelling and screaming over your shoulder, with it dumping your luggage after you. You musta pissed it off real handsome. No matter. Next PTA shipment oughta be along any day now. And when it comes, my new assignment should be ready." He stretched luxuriously, took a deep drink from the bottle beside him, and sighed with anticipated contentment. "Reckon I've earned myself a nice long tour of duty on Central, in a nice office tower with air conditioning and servos and no need to pay any bloody attention to bloody nature unless you happen to feel like looking out the window. Sit down, Madeira y Perez, and don't look so miserable. Do your five years and maybe they'll post you back in civilization. You're in luck, coming when you did."
"I am?" The sun was over the mountain by now, and it was hot on the mesa. Blaize pulled his largest grip under the shade of the awning and sat down on it.
"Sure. Today's feeding time at the zoo. Put on a real show for you, the Loosies will." Harmon waved again, this time as if beckoning the cliff that towered above them to come on down. Blaize stared in shock as craggy bits of mountain broke loose and trickled down to the mesa top, shambling like crazy puppets made of rocks and wire. Strange costumes—no, they were naked; that was their skin he was looking at.
"Yaohoo! Feeding time! Whoee!" Harmon yodeled, simultaneously jerking the cord that ran along the side of the PTA prefab. One of the sacks overhanging the muddy basin opened and brownish-gray ration bricks spilled out in a torrent, piling up in the mud below the mesa.
The Loosies scurried to the edge of the mesa and let themselves down into the muddy sea, fingers and toes clinging to crevices in the rocks. The first ones down threw themselves on the ration bricks as if they were greeting a long-lost lover; the later arrivals piled on top of them, swinging uncoordinated limbs and wriggling to burrow into the muddy heap of rations.
Blaize felt a rumbling vibration coming up through the soles of his feet.
"Look out!" Harmon roared.
Blaize jumped and Harmon chuckled. "Sorry to startle you, kid. You wouldn't want to miss the other big show of Angalia." He pointed to the western horizon.
It seemed to be moving.
It was a wall of water. No, mud. No—Blaize struggled for the right word and could only find the one that had first occurred to him: glop.
The "Loosies" had ignored Harmon's shout as if they were deaf, but something—perhaps the rumbling vibration that Blaize felt—alerted those still at the bottom of the quagmire. They swarmed up the sides of the mesa, clutching their ration bricks in teeth and fingers. The last one got out of the way just before the advancing