Lost and found_ a novel - Alan Dean Foster [97]
“This craft’s internal instrumentation is no longer responsive. Either it or the mechanics it commands have been arrested. I can do no more.”
“Then that’s it.” George looked from one companion to another. “Everything we’ve done has been for nothing. The Vilenjji will open this secondary craft up like a can of old dog food and in a couple of hours we’ll be right back where we started. In our cages.”
Despite Walker’s resolve not to be returned to the enclosures, he did not see that there was anything more they could do to prevent that dismal eventuality from occurring. Braouk might go down fighting, taking a Vilenjji or two with him, but even that seemed unlikely. Surely their captors had learned their lesson by now and would take proper precautions before attempting to repossess the powerful Tuuqalian. As for himself, there was not much he could do against beings seven feet tall who outweighed him by a hundred pounds or more. The last thing he wanted to do, the one thing he had determined not to do, was surrender meekly. Yet without so much as an old razor blade to his name, there was little he could see himself offering in the way of resistance. At least George could take a bite out of a dark leg flap before the Vilenjji wrapped him up in a helpless bundle. He, Walker, could not even do that.
They waited for the end in silence: frustrated man, resigned dog, self-contained K’eremu, pensive Tuuqalian. An odd foursome, cast together by a shared longing for freedom and a mutual hatred of their captors. Walker did his best to reconcile himself to the inevitable. It had been a good run, he told himself. For all they knew, one unprecedented in Vilenjji memory. A few of their captors were dead, a few more humiliated. They had accomplished more than they had any right to expect. As to what the future held for him, he tried not to think about it.
As it developed, he had quite a lot of time not to think about it.
The interior lock of the craft they had commandeered did not cycle open. The outer lock was not blown. They continued to drift between the two larger vessels—one huge, the other immense—like an ant caught between an elephant’s forefeet. No attempt was made to communicate with them. Nor was he the only one to be struck by the continuing calm.
“This is very odd.” Having been set back down on the floor, Sque roused herself, her body rising upward from the middle of her cluster of tentacles. Silver-gray eyes contemplated the unresponsive instrumentation above her head. A few of the controlling lights were in motion. Though he had noticed the activity, Walker had thought nothing of it, believing it to be part of normal onboard operation. It was plain to see that Sque felt otherwise.
“It would appear that someone is talking to someone else. But no one is talking to us. Yet I should think our presence here would be the focus of any conversational activity.”
“Probably deciding thoughtfully, between both of them, what happens.” Braouk had settled himself against a wall, his four massive upper limbs crossed across his long gash of a tooth-lined mouth, his eyestalks slumped to where they were nearly level with the deck.
George piped up defiantly. “Well, I wish they’d put their pointy heads together and make up their feeble minds. I’m getting sick of waiting!”
Sque eyed him mordantly. “Freedom wearying on you already, little quadruped?”
The dog growled. “How about I see what one of those ropy excuses you’ve got for appendages tastes like? See if you find that wearying.”
A disgruntled Walker spoke up. “We won’t gain anything by fighting among ourselves.” He tried to find a reason, any reason, to be optimistic. “Maybe they’re having trouble forcing their way in. Maybe what Sque did when she sealed us off screwed with their programming or something,