Honor - Kevin Killiany [3]
The chittering clicks and ticks continued from the other side of the wall covering. The third chiptaur was evidently continuing its side of whatever conversation Corsi had interrupted. When it paused she knew from the give and take of the earlier exchanges that whoever was out there expected a reply from either her captive or the being looking on with an unnervingly level gaze.
She prodded the back of her captive’s skull with her shoulder, the only thing she could think of to urge it to respond. She was certain it understood, but it remained silent, as motionless as a statue in her grip.
“Speak,” she murmured in the round ear next to her cheek. Probably a useless sound without her combadge and its universal translator. “Answer him.”
The round ear flicked at the feel of her breath, but that was all.
After a moment there was a short series of ticks from beyond the doorway. A query, Corsi suspected, though there was no rising inflection.
Still the creature beneath her remained unmoving. But for its breathing she would have thought it was carved from the same wood as the room.
The behavior of the second chiptaur was even stranger. Unencumbered by a clinging human, it showed no inclination to either answer its companion on the other side of the curtain or leave on its own. It simply sat, or lounged, and regarded her with an expression of what looked to Corsi like unflinching resolution.
At last the third chiptaur evidently decided to investigate the silence and thrust its head around the edge of the curtain. It blinked once, its already wide eyes going wider in an almost comical expression of surprise at the sight of Corsi evidently strangling its companion.
Then, with an almost human—and clearly heartfelt—sigh, the tension left its body. With the same unhurried resignation as the others, it tucked its legs up under its body and settled down, blocking the doorway in its repose.
Corsi considered her tactical options.
A tug on her captive’s head confirmed it had no intention of moving. It was clear if she wanted it to come with her, she was going to have to drag it. Now that she had a feel for how densely muscled it was, she estimated its mass at about one hundred kilograms. Not an easy burden, particularly given its awkward shape. Not to mention the problem of keeping her hostage hostage while shifting its equally massive and inert companion out of the only exit.
With a heartfelt sigh of her own, Corsi released her captive’s neck. She wasn’t going anywhere.
Chapter
2
P8 Blue sat in darkness, looking toward a patch of grayish light her sensors told her was the mouth the hundred-meter tunnel Waldo Egg had made.
Egg without the Waldo, Pattie corrected herself. The arms came off while we were still in the stratosphere.
The good news was the soft peat was firm enough to hold its shape. At least the tunnel showed no signs of collapsing in the immediate future.
The bad news was the peat was firm enough to hold its shape. Which meant it was dry enough to ignite if she fired her attitude thrusters. Not that the heat of burning peat would present a threat to the EVA pod; it had recently withstood the temperatures of atmospheric entry, after all. But if the peat burned it may close off her only escape route.
At least, she thought the material was peat. Her field was structural engineering, not organic chemistry. And Waldo Egg, as Faulwell had dubbed the EVA pod, was designed to operate in space. Which meant the sensors could accurately assess the molecular makeup of the densely packed, fibrous, organic material in which she was suspended, but the computer was not programmed with the vocabulary to give it a name.
Whatever it was filled a basin over a kilometer in diameter with a mean depth of two hundred and thirty meters. Which meant if the peat beneath her caught fire she could conceivably sink another one hundred and ninety meters.
Pattie had thought the peat basin was a dry lake bed coming in. Not that she’d had a good look at it. She’d just had a momentary impression