Lost and found_ a novel - Alan Dean Foster [77]
They encountered no further resistance as they raced down the ramp. With those freed captives who had not yet been rounded up now scattering deeper and deeper throughout the ship, the Vilenjji were being forced to split up as well in order to pursue them. And while the other fleeing prisoners, sadly, fled without direction or purpose, the oddly matched trio that came barreling down the ramp knew exactly where they were going.
With an excited George reminding Braouk to duck, they passed through the door the dog was getting to know so well. Partway down the corridor on the other side, a frantic Sque was waiting to greet them. Mounting anxiety had caused her to tie several of her tentacles in knots.
“I was beginning to wonder if your combined paucity of intellect had led you astray,” she told them as they slowed to meet her.
“We’re glad to see you again, too.” Walker was breathing hard, but with the amount of adrenaline that was surging through him at that moment, he felt as if he could run all the way back to Earth. “I don’t know how you did it, Sque, but you did it.” And leaning over, he planted without hesitation, a loud, echoing kiss smack atop the shiny dome of her head.
She squirmed away from him. “How dare you! After what I have just done for you!”
“That is a sign of endearment among my kind,” he informed her. A glance showed an amused George nodding confirmation.
“Oh. I suppose that is all right, then.” A tentacle tip brushed self-consciously across the top of her head. “As a superior being, one must learn to tolerate the archaic affectations of primitive peoples, I suppose. At least the gesture was not dehydrating.”
As she finished, full illumination returned to the corridor. Four sets of eyes that varied considerably in size and shape scanned their immediate surroundings. They were still alone.
“Seems the Vilenjji have succeeded in restoring their lighting,” Walker murmured uneasily.
“Your kind must be famed for its ability to restate the blindingly obvious.” Sque immediately headed off to her right, scuttling past the control box. “We need to absent ourselves from this place.”
“Drowning in freedom, my hearts are glad, onward advancing,” Braouk declaimed as he followed.
“But advancing where?” Walker wanted to know. Having grown used to the K’eremu’s innate sarcasm, he was able to largely ignore it.
“I have not just been standing here, tentacles aflutter, waiting for you to put in an appearance.” Thanks to her flexible body, Sque was able to look back at him without slowing her forward motion. “In addition to instrumentation, in the time that was available to me I was able to access a selection of schematics of this vessel. It is, as I originally surmised, fairly large. Large enough to hide even one so grossly unwieldy as a Tuuqalian, if we are careful in our movements.” They were heading, Walker saw, deep into a rapidly darkening maze of conduits, machinery, and related equipment.
“Won’t the pointy-heads have some way of tracking us down as we move through their ship?” George trotted alongside his human, occasionally glancing back over a shoulder. The corridor behind them remained empty as the control box receded around a curve.
“Why should they?” Sque was comfortably, if not justifiably, confident. “No one treks the service ways of a vessel who does not belong there, and anyone encountering difficulty or needing help would carry with them the means to summon it. There