Deluge
- Автор: Маккефри Энн, Скарборо Элизабет
- Серия: The Twins of Petaybee #3
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Deluge». Краткое содержание книги:
Meanwhile, the powerful and avaricious Company is making another attempt to take over the world of Petaybee for its resources, and the twins parents, Yana and Sean, along with the entire planet, must fight for the independence of their sentient world once and for all...
As Adrienne was led away, the other prisoners either jeered or called what encouragement they could, but their attention was diverted from the cell, which suited Zuzu. She squeezed through the bars and inched her way beneath the bars until she came to the nearest rat hole, which gave her access to the space between the floors of Adrienne’s block and the ceilings of the block below. The thumping footsteps of the guards and Adrienne’s lighter ones vibrated the underside of the corridor above her, and she followed them easily. The trick would be finding another opening farther along, so she could come out again.
Zuzu followed until she heard one of the guards order Adrienne into a room and then heard a door slamming. She crept to a spot right below the center of that room and crouched, waiting, but nothing happened. Her tight little curl of a tail twitched-not with impatience, because she was a supremely patient hunter and stalker, but from anxiety for Adrienne.
After a few moments she sat up on her haunches and looked around. On her journey from Adrienne’s cell, the cat had kept a lookout for light shining in from more rat holes. There were three, but she didn’t know exactly where the holes were on this side of the bars. Rotating her ears to keep alert for any sound indicating that Adrienne was under interrogation or simply being chatted up, Zuzu cautiously strolled over to the gap between offices and looked down the length of the modules on her side, searching for more crude rat-shaped windows on the outer world.
Under the next room she heard voices-one familiar and beloved, one hateful and vicious. Her fur bristled at the sound of it, though the vicious voice was speaking so softly she could not make out the words. Madame Marmion, the other speaker, spoke calmly, but the cat sensed the tension underneath.
“I do not see what is to be gained by tormenting my crew, Major. We have no secrets and we have done nothing wrong. You cannot keep us here forever, and once we are free, you will be held responsible for any harm that befalls us.”
“Yes, but some of you will be just as dead, or inconvenienced by the absence of certain bodily parts or functions,” the man said. “You overestimate your importance in the galactic scheme of things, Madame.
You have more influential enemies than you realize.”
“And more friends, I trust, than you can fit into this prison.”
“Your first mate will be paying for your arrogance in a moment. I trust your ringside seat here allowed you to see and hear everything that happened there when the communications officer was questioned.”
Madame said nothing, but Zuzu sensed her pain and fear. Ears alert, she prowled her way under two more chambers, at last spotting another small hole leading into the corridor. Heading for it, she heard loud voices.
Zuzu peeked out the hole but could see nothing. The voices were coming from a corridor perpendicular to the one she occupied, around a bend. She could smell something odd, though, something not rat, not human, yet familiar.
Squeezing through the hole, she crept down the vacant corridor, keeping close to the wall. To her relief, she passed a low grid improperly attached to the wall. It no doubt covered a duct, and it would do for a cat’s bolt-hole if the need arose. She brushed past it, ears pricked.
“There it goes! Zap it! Zap it!” someone cried.
A sizzle like a laser blast sounded from farther inside the administration area. “Damn, missed!” the apparent shooter exclaimed.
“What the hell was that?”
Claws scrabbled down the corridor.
“Biggest damn rat I ever saw. Come on, let’s get it!”
Far down the corridor behind Zuzu, the door to Madame’s chamber slammed open and shut. She hugged the wall. The man who had spoken to Madame stalked forward. “What the frag is going on out there?” he demanded.
“Sorry, sir. Nagy shot at a rat.”
Madame’s captor strode past her so closely he almost kicked her. She was very glad she did not have the usual sort of long loose tail for him to step on.
He marched up to the other men, and very quietly, very slowly, the creature began moving toward her again.
She heard its slightly labored breath and smelled a strong odor of fish.
A friend who is not an otter and not a seal!
Zuzu clearly heard its thoughts, and it didn’t feel rat-shaped. Nevertheless, she hissed in warning. The not-rat ignored her, poking a long brown nose around the corner.
Zuzu raised a paw to stripe the nose, should it be so impertinent as to venture within her personal space, but before she could attack, the rest of the creature followed the nose, bending its brown self around the corner against the wall’s dark molding and bowling her over in its joy to see her.
Cat? It was Sky, the otter. She had been too preoccupied to recognize him by his fish-breath, but now his other quite strong parfum was also in overpowering evidence. Much to her relief, he rolled off her.
Otter! she replied. There is not a moment to waste, mon ami. We must conceal ourselves. Allez.
She bolted back to the loose grid and squeezed through it, aided by the weight of the otter pushing behind her. With a whip of his long flat tail, he pulled the last of himself in behind her, while outside, Madame’s tormentor and his evil minions stomped down the corridor, searching for their prey.
“What was it?” the officer demanded.
“Biggest rat I’ve ever seen, sir. The warden could have mounted the thing’s head on his wall for a trophy.”
“What was it doing here?” the officer asked. “Rats are not authorized in this section of the building. The warden doesn’t mind them in the cell blocks-says it adds to the ambience-but they don’t belong here.
Unsanitary. Catch it.”
“Be glad to, but where’d the damn thing go?” guard number one said.
“It disappeared,” number two replied, not without admiration. “They do that, you know. Rats are smart, and that huge sucker had to be the king of all rats.”
“Didn’t look like a rat to me,” number three insisted.
“Find it and exterminate it, and all of its little rat friends who can’t stay where they belong,” the officer said. “And be quiet about it. I have prisoners to interrogate.”
“Yes, sir.”
I know you, cat, the otter told Zuzu. You are the space cat.
Mais oui, I am Zuzu, advisor to the first mate of the Piaf. And you also are known to me, although as yet we have not made the formal acquaintance.
I am the sky otter who dens with the river seal twins. We are friends. Friends means relatives who are not otters. You are not an otter but you are pretty and clever. Otters notice these things.
Zuzu remembered the otter well. For a creature who was not feline, he had a certain je ne sais quoi. It would be good to have a four-legged ally with friends who were the allies of her friends.
Her welcoming purr was interrupted by a piercing scream.
Adrienne! she cried, recognizing her human’s voice. It did not sound like pain so much as rage, but she felt that that would soon be altered.
Sharks? Sky asked anxiously.
Worse! Zuzu told him. Allez, allez, sky otter. My Adrienne is about to be tortured. But as she tried to run forward, she found that she and the otter were confined within a rectangular tube just big enough for each of them to pass through singly. Alors! We find ourselves in the conduit for the air, she told her companion. This affords us less freedom of movement than I would wish, and is somewhat disorienting, but my sense of direction is very keen, and aboard the Piaf, I have often traveled in narrow places without losing my composure. The chamber de torture lies this way.
What is torture? Sky asked, his long body rippling along behind hers.