Lost and found_ a novel - Alan Dean Foster [76]
“Braouk!” Walker moved as close as he could without getting himself brained by the very airborne, very dead Vilenjji. “It’s me, Marcus Walker! The human.” He indicated the eager quadruped at his side. “George has come back. He says we need to go with him!”
“Now,” the dog added as sternly as he could.
Slowly, the Tuuqalian stopped swinging the dead Vilenjji, letting the lifeless mass dangle from one pair of cablelike tentacles. “Walker. George. Much pleasure given, it is to me, seeing again.” He started toward them.
“You can leave that.” Walker nodded in the direction of the mush-headed Vilenjji whose lower limb the Tuuqalian still gripped unbreakably.
“Ah, yes.” Letting the flaccid corpse fall limply to the deck, Braouk rejoined his friends.
Sque’s prediction had been correct. As human and Tuuqalian joined George in retracing the dog’s route, all around them was chaos, the noise and confusion compounded by the unceasing shrieking of the Vilenjji alarm. Vitalized by unexpected freedom, captives ran, crawled, slithered, and in at least one case, glided wherever they could. Their efforts were ultimately futile, of course. Trapped on the ship, with nowhere to go, they were each and every one doomed to recapture and reincarceration. So were Walker and his friends, but they were determined to postpone that seeming inevitability for as long as possible. And unlike their fellow captives, they had discovered a prospective means for doing so.
The ramp that led downward lay directly ahead. But instead of following George, Walker literally skidded to a halt on the slick floor.
“What are you doing?” With Braouk looming over him, an anxious George paused at the top of the ramp to look back at his friend.
“Just a quick piece of unfinished business.” Ignoring the dog’s protesting yips, his expression grim and set, Walker disregarded the ramp as he continued past it and on down the corridor.
The Ghouaba never saw the human coming. Wandering aimlessly, marveling at both its unforeseen liberty and new surroundings, its large, slightly protuberant eyes were focused on the far end of the corridor. Old skills unforgotten, Walker tackled the much smaller biped from behind, much as he had once brought down opposing quarterbacks.
Since the Ghouaba could not have weighed more than sixty pounds, the impact of a moderately large biped nearly four times its mass hitting it from behind was devastating. As the much lighter alien gasped from the shock of the concussion, Walker felt slender bones snap beneath his weight. The long, slim arms crumpled, fractured in several places. Rising from the writhing jumble of stretched skin and broken bones, Walker began methodically booting the daylights out of the still-living carcass. A firm tug on his drawn-back leg restrained him.
It was George, jaws locked firmly but gently on the human’s pants. “Let it go, Marc,” the dog instructed his friend as he released his grip on the increasingly ragged jeans. “You want the Vilenjji to find you here?” He nodded at the trashed Ghouaba. “You want the Vilenjji to find you here doing this?”
Walker hesitated. It would only take a moment to break the alien’s neck. Then he decided it would be better to leave it the way it was. If the Vilenjji wanted to take the time and trouble to try to fix the damage he had done, the work might keep a few of them busy. Vilenjji occupied with repairing the Ghouaba would be Vilenjji who would not have time to look for him and his friends. Or, he thought, grinning wolfishly, they might decide instead to sell the Ghouaba at a reduced cost and as was: damaged goods. But then, he reflected as he turned to follow George back to the top of the rampway, the malicious little alien had been damaged goods from the beginning.
Braouk had not been bored waiting for them. Racing up the ramp to the enclosure