Lost and found_ a novel - Alan Dean Foster [94]
“Screw that,” George shot back. “It’s time I was treated like a dog.” So saying, and before a startled Walker could move to stop him, he reached out with his front right leg and gently pawed the bundle of hovering lights.
His claws went right through the drifting shape. They were nothing but lights, after all. Then a rising hum made both of them turn.
“I told you not to touch anything,” Sque called down to them from her perch atop the Tuuqalian’s extended limbs. Encouragingly, she did not sound any more than usually scornful, much less worried.
The upper half of the front of the chamber was retracting.
As it slid upward into the ceiling, the universe was revealed. Distorted by whatever engine or drive drove the Vilenjji craft, but still stunning in its expanse and glory. It was far more impressive, and more overawing, than had been the view through the modest passageway port they had encountered earlier. Curving halfway around the forward chamber in imitation of a Vilenjji eye, it also allowed them, for the first time, a view of part of the Vilenjji ship itself.
It was immense. Even after days of wandering through its dimly lit passageways, Walker had not really succeeded in acquiring an honest impression of its true size. And they were seeing only a small part of it, he reminded himself. Only that portion that was visible through a corner of the secondary craft’s viewport. Certainly it was bigger than your average ocean liner or cruise ship. The sheer scale of it brought home to him in a way nothing else could the magnitude of what they were attempting. The starship was intimidating in ways he had not envisioned. Surely they had no chance of escaping the grasp of beings who could construct, operate, and steer something that was infinitely beyond the collective capability of the entire human species.
“Podal toggle,” Sque announced from on high, by way of explanation for what they had done.
So that was what the impudent George had activated. The cluster of dazzling hovering alien luminosity, an incomprehensible mystery, was nothing more than a foot switch. And why not? A wandering spider could short out a massive computer. A skittering rat could interrupt a beam of light, setting off all manner of unforeseen consequences. And a curious, defiant dog could trigger an alien photonic input.
You didn’t have to be able to explain the physics of an internal combustion engine to know how to drive a car, he reminded himself. Maybe, just maybe, their chances of actually escaping the clutches of the Vilenjji were a shade more than minuscule.
Turning to study the thousands of silent, alien stars now visible through the sweeping curve of the forward transparency, he came to a solemn conclusion.
He would allow himself at least as much hope as a dog.
14
Although to all intents and purposes it appeared that they had succeeded in gaining entry to the secondary craft without being observed, it was their activity there that finally alerted the Vilenjji to their presence. As the smaller vessel’s internal systems were accessed and brought on line by the busy Sque, notification was passed to relevant instrumentation elsewhere within the main ship. These instruments in turn alerted those whose responsibility it was to monitor such matters.
The fact that every one of the secondary craft’s internal monitors had been shut down from inside was in itself instructive. As far as the hastily informed Pret-Klob was concerned, the only question remaining was how many of the still-at-large inventory had managed to gain access to such a sensitive installation. Certainly the missing female K’eremu must be counted among them, since of the four remaining escapees she alone theoretically possessed sufficient skills to control such advanced functions. Perhaps allowing the specimen in question to occasionally accompany selected Vilenjji outside her enclosure had not been a notion that could, in hindsight, be commended for its wisdom.
What of the dangerous giant, the Tuuqalian? Was it still with her? Analysis of the multiple excretory