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when he was at last able to get a word in. "Pog!"
Everyone looked around, but the bat was nowhere to be seen.
" 'Ere 'e is!" Mudge pointed toward a large boulder.
They ran to the spot to find the bat squatting resolutely on the gravel behind
the rock. He looked up at them with determined bat eyes. 
"No way am I going up dere and sticking my nose in one
of dose black pits. No telling what might take a notion to bite it off."
"Come now, mate," said Mudge reasonably, adjusting his
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Alan Dean Foster
parka top, "be sensible. You're the only arboreal among us.
If I didn't think that vine'd bust under me weight, I'd give a climb a good
try. But why the 'ell should one o' us 'ave t'
risk that, when you could be up there and back in a bloody minute or two
without so much as strainin' your wings?"
"An accurate evaluation of our situation." Caz positioned his monocle tighter
over his left eye. He'd steadfastly refused to surrender the affectation, even
at the risk of losing the monocle in the snow. "You know, you really should
have been up there and back already, on your own initiative."
"Initiative, hell!" Pog flapped his wings angrily. "One more display of
'initiative' from dis crazy bunch and we'll find ourselves meat on somebody's
table."
"Now Pog," Clothahump began wamingly.
"Yeah, I know, I know, boss. Go to it or ya'll turn me into a human or worse."
He sighed, unfurled his wings experi-
mentally.
"perhaps i could get up there at least if i can't fit inside, i could attach
to a hole above and hang down to, look in."
Ananthos sounded awkward, wanting to contribute.
"You know that surface is too slick for you to get a hold on, and if you could
you probably couldn't get in and move around in there. Your leg span is too
wide. Besides, I think
Pog should have a chance at this." Clothahump was firm.
"A chance at what? Meeting my maker in a cold hole in da sky?"
Ananthos looked pained, but Jon-Tom gave Pog encour-
agement with his eyes.
"If you're all determined den to see poor Pog get his throat laid open, I
expect I'll have ta be about da business. I warn ya, dough, if I don't come
back alive I'll come back dead and haunt ya all to an early grave."
"Don't take any chances, Pog," Jon-Tom advised him.
"Probably you won't find anything, or anyone. Just fly up
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and check out one or two caves, see if this place is really as deserted as it
looks. If it is, maybe you'll leam the reason
why."
"Maybe one of da reasons is hiding in one of dose caves!"
snapped the worried bat, gesturing upward with a wing thumb.
"If so then don't hang around to argue with it," said
Talea. "You're going up to look, not to fight. Get your butt back down here as
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fast as you can."
Pog hovered just above the ground, lit on top of the boulder he'd been hiding
behind. "No need ta worry 'bout that, Talea lady." He pulled his knife from
its back sheath and slipped it between his jaws.
"Wish me luck," he mumbled around the blade.
"There is no need for luck when intelligence and good
judgment are exercised," said Clothahump.
Pog made a rude noise, flapped his wings, and launched himself from the crest
of the rock. He dropped, skimmed inches above sharp gravel, and then began to
climb, using the warm currents rising from the bare plateau to ascend in a
steady spiral.
"You think he'll be okay?" Flor shielded her eyes from the glare and squinted
at the sky where a black shape was growing gradually smaller. Pog now looked
like a toy kite against the pure blue curtain overhead.
"Instinct is a powerful aid to self-preservation."
"Oh?" she said with just a hint of sarcasm. "What book did that come out of?"
Jon-Tom was also leaning back and looking toward the lip of the iron cloud. He
just swallowed Flor's remark.
Hemarist, da tall human lady had called it. No, dat wasn't right. Hema...
Hematite. Like in a tight spot, which is what you gots yourself into, Pog
thought to himself. He was high above the rocky plain now. The figures of his
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Alan Dean Foster
companions were sharp and distinct against the gray gravel. He could tell they
were watching him.
Waiting ta see how I get it, he thought miserably.
He circled before the lowest of the globular projections.
His personal sonar told him nothing moved inside any of the several caves he'd
flown past. That at least was a promising sign. Maybe the place was deserted.
Black iron, huh? It looked like a vast black face to him, with no eyes but
lots of little mouths ready to swallow you, swallow you whole. Pretty soon he
was going to have to stick his head into one of 'em.
Why couldn't ya have listened ta your mudder, he berated himself, and gone
inta da mail soivice, or crafts transport; or aerial cop work?
But nah, ya had ta fall hard for a pretty piece o' fluff who won't give ya da [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]