Lost and found_ a novel - Alan Dean Foster [95]
He proceeded to issue the necessary directives.
“Our captors are trying to access the outer lock.” From her seat atop the rock-solid Braouk’s supportive tentacles, Sque studied the concentrated barrage of flashing lights and drifting colors that filled the air before her. To Walker the condensed light show reminded him of what he saw when he squinted his eyes tight together while driving past a bunch of neon signs at night. He was glad that the coronal hodgepodge made more sense to the K’eremu, because it was nothing but a colorful blur to him.
Braouk’s flexible eyestalks allowed him to scan his immediate surroundings without having to put her down. “I see nothing, viewed from my perspective, like weapons. Nothing with which, taking even utmost care, for defense.”
“No need to stock weapons in a lifeboat,” Walker conceded. A dull thump drew his attention back the way they had entered, through the spherical chamber with its scoop seats, to the now sealed inner lock and beyond. “I wonder if they’d damage their own backup craft just to get at us?”
“Why not, if we’ve made them mad enough?” George was pacing restlessly back and forth. “Sque said this ship has several others.”
“I have sealed the outer lock as best I can,” the K’eremu announced from on high. “No doubt they are even now seeking a means to override what I have done. Once they have succeeded at that, they will then need to compute a new sequence to forcibly open the inner portal. We can further seal ourselves in here, but that would only postpone the inevitable.”
“Then what do we do?” George asked her.
She spared a glance for the fretful dog. “Remove ourselves from such eventualities—I hope.”
The distant thump was not repeated. Standing in the forward chamber with George panting nervously at his side, Walker experienced the kind of helplessness he had not felt since he was the smallest lineman playing for his Pop Warner football team, always facing bigger kids. At such times, he’d gotten run over a lot. Then his growth, both physical and mental, had taken a sustained spurt, and he was the one doing the pancaking.
Now it was like he was ten again, back in kids’ league, wondering what kind of stance he ought to assume. Facing the spherical chamber through the open portal of the control room he knew one thing for certain: Die here he might, but he was not going back to the enclosure the Vilenjji had fashioned for him. He’d had enough of Cawley Lake, both the real and the transplanted. Whatever happened next, he was done once and for all with being caged.
Stepping back into the forward chamber, he joined Braouk in searching for something that could be used as a weapon.
The smaller ship rolled slightly to its right. Possessed of an athlete’s balance (albeit one who had put on some weight over the previous nine years), he managed to stay upright. Four-footed and with a low center of gravity, George had no problem handling the unexpected jolt, nor did the immovable Braouk. Sque murmured something Walker’s implant was unable to translate effectively. Flashing through the air, multiple maroon tentacles conducted light. All the K’eremu needed was a baton and accompanying music, Walker mused, and the illusion would have been complete.
A second jolt followed, stronger than the first. Despite being prepared, this time he was knocked forward, to land on hands and knees. Braouk was hard-pressed to simultaneously maintain his stance while providing a steady perch for Sque from which to operate.
“I cannot proceed effectively if I am to be shaken