Lost and found_ a novel - Alan Dean Foster [84]
On her immediate right, one of the snare wielders balanced his gear carefully in both arm flaps, the multiple suckers gripping it securely. All they needed was a glimpse of the obdurate giant and the tranquilizing mesh would seek its own target. If that failed, there was always the snadh. Nothing could, nothing would, escape the team’s attention. Dven-Palt knew that despite the amusing diversion the mass escape had provided, Pret-Klob was keen to bring the last vestiges of it under control so that ship and crew could get back to normal. In a few moments, she hoped, that would come to pass, and this interesting but diverting episode in the life of the association would come to a satisfying conclusion.
“Over here,” one of the other team members murmured, gesturing for his companions to join him.
Maintaining their high level of alertness, they gathered around one of the many delivery tubes that supplied sustenance slurry to the Libdh portion of the ship. What had drawn the team member’s attention was not the small leak in its side, but the cryptic diagram that had been painted onto the deck nearby using the dried foodstuff itself. When its nature became clear, Dven-Palt felt her orifices tightening. Emboldened by its success at remaining free, the inventory was becoming impertinent. It was evident that in addition to returning them to their respective enclosures, educational measures of a physical nature would need to be applied. Correction was in order. Extending a pod flap, she moved to scuff the diagram of dried foodstuff into oblivion.
Her sock-encased flap struck something immovable. There seemed to be a lump of some more solid material beneath the desiccated brownish-white foodstuff. As the latter was smeared away, a sensor was revealed. There ought not to be a sensor located in that portion of floor, she realized. With realization came unexpected emotion; unexpected emotion led to rapid movement; rapid movement led to the realization that it was not going to be rapid enough.
Triggered by the transplanted sensor, the conduit burst. Milky-white food slurry exploded in all directions, showering the recovery team with thick white fluid that dried quickly to a chalklike consistency. In the resulting alarm and confusion, one of the already stressed booster wielders accidentally fired his device. Seeking the nearest objective within range of the equipment’s automatic targeting sensors, the tranquilizer mesh efficiently enveloped one of the other team members. Crumpling onto his pod flaps, that unlucky individual promptly went quiescent and collapsed to the deck, effectively narcotized.
Remaining weapons were raised and swept in all directions. Within the service passageway, nothing moved. Finally assured they were still alone and had been the victims of a deliberate incident, Dven-Palt realized she had no choice but to contact Pret-Klob and inform him of what had happened. In doing so, she was sufficiently preoccupied with what had transpired to forget to mute the visual on her transmitter.
Eyeing her disheveled, food-streaked upper body, the commander of the ship and the head of the association was most definitely not pleased. It was one thing to be outwitted, however transiently, by inferior life-forms. It was quite another to be made a fool of.
Two more days passed, ship-time, without any sign of the four remaining escapees. It was as if they had vanished from the vessel. Their continued presence, lurking unseen and undetected somewhere within the ship’s service passages, was beginning to affect crew efficiency. Confidence in their own superiority did not keep the individual Vilenjji working at his or her station