Lost and found_ a novel - Alan Dean Foster [68]
George emerged first, oriented himself as he fell, and bounced lithely off the already ascending lift, scattering the neatly piled food bricks in all directions. Sque followed immediately, her multiple limbs allowing her to secure a better purchase on the lift’s surface than any dog could have managed. Even so, given the speed of the ascending elevator, she had just enough time to squeeze her semiflexible body between the piles of rising brick and the underside of the rigid surface that now formed their overhead. Encountering no opposition to their presence, hearing no Vilenjji hisses of surprise, dog and K’eremu scrambled madly for the nearest cover.
Though darkness descended at regular, predetermined intervals within the grand enclosure and most individual holding areas in order to allow their inhabitants to have the benefit of their normal sleep cycles, much of the vast Vilenjji vessel remained at least partly lit at all times. Even those areas where automatics held sway and the owners rarely needed to call in person were graced by a certain minimum illumination.
Still, George and Sque took no chances. Remaining concealed beneath the complex of machinery they had seen, a fair distance from the small lift that provided food to the Tuuqalian cell, they waited for the equivalent of night to fall in the enclosures that now hung heavy over their heads. Meanwhile they used the time to clean themselves, and to study their new surroundings.
Not unexpectedly, the inside of Braouk’s mouth had been hot and wet. George had enjoyed the warmth but was now forced to engage in an orgy of licking to try to glean the Tuuqalian equivalent of dried saliva from his fur. In contrast, Sque had actually enjoyed the additional moisture but had reacted poorly to the increased temperature. All that mattered, really, was that both of them had survived the experience.
Minimal maintenance illumination provided just enough light for them to see by. Walker would only have stumbled around blindly in the murky enclosed space, but both the dog and the K’eremu had much more acute night vision than any human. The unlikely pair had the benefit of George’s sensitive nose as well.
That was not why they had been chosen to try to make the escape, however. It was because of the four conspirators, only they were small enough to fit inside the Tuuqalian’s voluminous orifice, and only he had a mouth large enough to hold someone else. That left Walker out of the oral loop, so to speak. Also, it was vital that Sque, who alone among them knew something of Vilenjjian technology, be among those who attempted the breakout. It was decided that George should go along to provide assistance, and to watch her back, such as it was.
Walker had shrewdly noted that the only possible route out of the enclosures, the only places that were not secured by the electrical barriers put in place by the Vilenjji, were the small circular lifts that three times a day supplied food and water to the captives. These could not be used in escape attempts, had not been used, for the self-evident reason that anyone trying to flee through the short-lived openings, even if they succeeded in squeezing through the temporary gap without getting crushed by the machinery, would easily be spotted by sophisticated surveillance equipment and dealt with appropriately. How to carry out such an attempt while concealing it from watching Vilenjji was a challenge that had occupied his thoughts for some time.
It was only while watching Braouk dine one day that a possible solution as absurd as it was audacious had occurred to him. Assured by the initially unenthusiastic Tuuqalian that he could manage his part of the scheme, there remained the problem of distracting the Vilenjji and somehow persuading them that Braouk had eaten the individuals he had ingested instead of just holding them in his mouth the way a squirrel stores nuts. Eventually, it was the Tuuqalian