Bott had heard of the Biereyen, but this was the first time he’d been in a Imperial compound rich enough, and large enough, to keep a herd of them for the torment of prisoners. Immense lugubrious beasts, they watched with hollow eyes as the mining boat rolled toward them.
Their long horns clattered together, their furry sides thumping into each other as they jostled for position in the ravine. Omnivorous, the Biereyen were always hungry due to a hopelessly inefficient digestive system. Prey were swallowed alive, to emerge alive and breathing some thirty minutes later, just a bit corroded by the journey. Bott knew tales of Imperial prisoners eaten and excreted and eaten over again for four years before finally dying.
He looked left and right, checking the walls of the tunnel for any possibility of surviving a jump. Nubry was studying the walls and floor of the mining boat.
“If this is a boat, where’s the anjor?”
“The what?” Bott demanded.
“Something to make it stop,” she shouted back. “A weight on a chain or something?”
Bott could see nothing in the corridor for an anchor to catch on, so he checked instead for any tabs to control the boat. Mining boats seldom had more than three of these, so he didn’t have to hunt for long.
“Here!” he cried, reaching down.
“No, wait!” The librarian grabbed his arm.
He would have asked her about that, but just then the boat sailed off the end of the track. Five massive heads banged together, each trying to get its mouth in the right position.
“Now!” Nubry shouted. Bott lurched forward to jam a thub on the tab.
The hooked weight sailed out behind them. He turned to Nubry. “Why….”
Then he landed on top of her as the boat jerked to the end of its chain. “This way!” Throwing her arms around him, she rolled to the left.
The boat swung down. Bott braced his feet on a wall of the boat, forcing himself to stay against the floor, which was coming up to become a wall itself. The five monsters in the ravine bellowed, with complete surprise, “”Huwinch?”
“Ackth!” said Bott, as his face tried to embed itself in the ball of hair on his partner’s head.
“Eep!” she replied, her feet sliding as the boat swung upside down.
Twisting, clutching, turning, the prisoners managed to stay in the boat until it came to rest. The vessel still rocked a bit, but seemed to be standing on its forward wall.
“Where are we?” Bott demanded.
“Ssssshh1” she told him. “Take a look. But be careful.”
Bott opened his eyes slowly, and found four other pairs of eyes staring into his. It took him one second to realize where the fifth pair must be.
“We’re on top of the big one’s head!” he said, pulling back into the boat.
“Ssssshh!” the librarian said again. “They may forget we’re here. They’re not supposed to be very b-r-i-g-h-t.”
“What?” said Bott.
But now the boat jerked again, to an echoing “Skwee whee whee whee whee!” It was a clear cry of pain.
“The oil!” Nubry guessed, correctly, as she flew into the air.
Bott, who had been no more securely braced than she when the big beast leapt away from the searing liquid, flew after her. The wall they were headed for showed eight different ledges, each with its own marked door. They hit the sixth one down, rolling end for end, Nubry in the lead.
The librarian landed hard against the door. With a loud “Crack!”, it spun and swallowed her whole.
The pirate hit the door next. A thud followed the impact, but the door’s appetite appeared to be satisfied.
Not waiting to catch his breath, he jumped to his feet and threw a shoulder against the door. This did the door no harm and his shoulder no good. He kicked the door at the base, left and right, trying to recall which way it had spun. It still showed no desire to swallow him.
He turned to study the ;ledge, wondering if Nubry had hit some switch he hadn’t seen. There was a white square on the ledge, but this turned out to be her book.
“Hey!” he shouted at the door.
“Hwink?”
Bott turned to find a shaggy head regarding him. “You keep out of this!” He ordered. Snatching an antique grenade from he satchel, he armed this and let it fly.
The animal watched it come, a great furry mouth opening to welcome it. The vintage weapon burst just seconds before becoming a canape, exploding in complete silence.
Bott and the beast watched the white powder filling the air. Then the head drew back, scrunching its features, and sneezed. Bott pulled back. Then he ran forward.
“Sooheeeee!” he shouted, getting a handhold in the fur of the shaggy head. “I can ride anything when I’m sober and I haven’t had a drink in three days!”
The beast took a long, wheezing breath and sneezed again. Bott sailed backward and hit a wall. He sat down hard on the ledge.
Then he sneezed. The five shaggy heads were now all sneezing together. This bewildered them, but Bott found his own head clear.
“That last bit,” he told himself. “Not exactly sane, was it? No sense going crazy just yet.”
He turned to regard the door, which had a different symbol on it than the one that had resisted him. Either the ship had changed symbols on him, or he had been sneezed onto one of the other ledges. After a glance at the sneezing beasts behind him, he gave the door a good hard push.
He swung to the side as spears sailed past him from each side of the door frame. Then he rolled under a third spear coming from the top. The door swung shut behind him with a click, and he pulled himself up to look around the room. “So! I did that pretty well.”
“Don’t give up your night job, lummox.”
Blogsy Babbles 