learn to recognize it.”
“Man,” Sturvin complained. “This place smells like a swamp.” His foot crunched on a pile of broken glass. “Someone really trashed it, too.”
Ognian frowned as he looked around. “Hy dun see nottink vorth barricading dis place over. Not ennymore, ennyvay.”
Dimo stepped through a doorway. “Dere’s anodder whole cavern back dere. Fulla more machinery, too... uh oh.”
Instantly Ognian was at his side. “Someting is moffink out dere,” he sang out.
From a large vat, a glowing bubble arose, it continued to expand until dozens of eyes cleared the lip and focused on the Jagers. When it saw them, tentacles slid over the edge and began to advance. Several similar creatures arose from nearby containers.
“And that’s why the door was barricaded,” Sturvin pronounced glumly.
Ognian eyed the slowly moving creatures skeptically. “Dose tings? Dey dun look like moch.”
Maxim smacked him in the back of the head. “Oh now hyu iz just askink for it,” he snarled.
“And he’s got it,” Krosp yelled. The group spun to see that the vats they’d strolled past were now disgorging swarms of smaller glowing creatures. They looked like small, fat, gelatinous pillows, with two stumpy legs. A single pale stalk sprouted from their heads.
“Aww,” Ognian protested, “Dey iz cute.” All the stalks swiveled towards him.
Zeetha moved away from him. “They closed the lab off rather than fight them,” she reminded him in a soft voice.
“Hey! Hey!” Sturvin called out from the corner. “An elevator! Since the room was sealed off, it looks like they didn’t disable it!”
“But...” Lars looked up the shaft. “Where does it go?”
“Anywhere but here is looking mighty good,” Krosp snapped. “Everybody! Get on!”
Dimo watched as the creatures wobbled slowly in their direction. “Listen to der kitty. Hy dun like dese tings!”
Kalikoff examined the control panel and swore. “The controls are locked!” He snapped open his knife and attacked the panel. “Gimme a second.”
Dimo looked back at the creatures. One of them shuffled ahead of the rest. It swiveled its stalk towards the worried Jagermonster. Instinctively, Dimo raised his left hand in front of his face, which was why the thin, barbed tentacle that shot from the stalk stung his hand, and not his face.
Astonishingly, Dimo screamed, and stumbled backwards aboard the elevator, just as Kalikoff wrenched a restraining bolt free. A fat spark jumped, and the entire elevator shivered.
“Everybody better be on,” Sturvin yelled as he threw a lever, “’Cause we’re going up!” With a jolt, the elevator cage began to rise. There was a soft pattering, as several dozen of the little barbed tendrils smacked into the bottom of the lift.
Ognian leaned over a kneeling Dimo, who looked up at him with agony on his face. “Dat ting got me mit poison,” he spat.
Ognian bit his lip. “Iz bad?”
“Very bad,” Dimo spoke through clenched teeth. “Hy ken feel it moffink op my arm! Hurry!”
Ognian stood up. With a flick of his fingers, the gigantic halberd spun in place, faster than the eye could follow. He then stopped it instantly, held out his hand, and caught Dimo’s arm as it dropped from above.
Dimo’s eyes closed and he let out a strangled scream before collapsing to the ground.
“You cut his arm off?” Lars asked horrified.
Ognian examined it critically. “Dis vas der correct vun, jah?”
Suddenly his face twisted as the severed arm began to liquefy, oozing out of the sleeve onto the floor. Ognian dropped it with a look of relief. “Yop. Dot vas it.”
Meanwhile, Maxim was already applying a tourniquet to the stump of Dimo’s arm. Ognian leaned in solicitously. “How hyu doink now, brodder?”
With a hiss, Dimo tentatively released the death grip he’d maintained on his upper arm. Maxim eyed the wrapping he’d applied, and gave a nod of approval. Dimo managed a shaky grin. “Better, Oggie, tenk hyu. Dot vas a goot cut.”
Ognian let out a deep gust of breath and grinned back.
“Remind me,” Lars said in a weak voice, “to never tell you guys I have a headache.”
With a groan, the elevator came to a stop. Everyone looked out. A faint chemical light flickered, revealing an empty platform, and what they realized was—
“It’s another elevator,” Kalikoff declared. “This is just a transfer stage. We must be really deep if one elevator wasn’t enough.”
“Does it look safe?” Krosp tentatively patted a paw on the new elevator’s dusty metal floor.
“Hy suppose ve ken dizcuss it vile ve vaits to see if doze poisontings ken climb,” Maxim said archly.
“Everybody get on!” Sturvin ordered.
“Let me give you a hand,” Zeetha offered, then looked stricken. “Uh—sorry.”
To her surprise, the Jager laughed. “Ho! A joke!” He saw her distress and waved his hand. “Dun vorry, dollink. Hy iz not dead. Efferyting else ken be fixed!”
Sturvin threw the lever, and with a squeal, the lift began climbing upwards past endless walls of blasted rock.
“Fixed by whom?” Zeetha asked. “Lars once said that the Jagers don’t let doctors near them, even if they’re wounded. He says that you’re waiting for a Heterodyne to fix you up.”
Dimo eyed a preoccupied Lars. “Huh. Dot vun, he knows hiz stories,” he conceded.
Maxim waved his mechanical arm. “Iz true. Sum uf uz have vaited for a very lonk time.”
Ognian draped an arm over Dimo’s shoulder. “Yah! But lucky for Dimo, ve got—”
Zeetha didn’t see Dimo’s arm move, but suddenly his fist was buried in Ognian’s midsection. The Jager gasped and dropped to the ground. “Hokay!” Dimo said brightly, “Right arm? Schtill feelin’ goot! Tenks, Oggie!”
From the floor, Ognian wheezed, “S’okeh, brodder.”
Sturvin called out. “Pay attention, people. We’re nearing the top. We don’t know what’s up here.”
As it turned out, there was disappointingly little. It was evidently just another platform stage, but the other elevator had been disabled by the crude, but effective, method of filling the shaft with large rocks.
“No way we can clear this,” Kalikoff declared with finality.
“But—but we can’t go down again,” Lars said. “The lift is too noisy. Those things will be waiting.”
“Ve could climb down,” Maxim suggested.
“But Dimo—”
“Aw, he bounce pretty goot.”
The subject of this discussion slumped to the floor, and gingerly rubbed his shoulder. “Eediots,” he muttered. “Ve must find anodder vay. Miz Agatha—”
“—Is a Heterodyne?” Zeetha asked quietly.
Dimo froze, and then gave a forced chuckle. “Vot? Dot’s krezy tok.”
“One of you is always near her,” Zeetha said flatly.
Dimo rolled his eyes. “She safe uz. Ve gots to pay her beck.”
“And so you did. On the bridge to Passholdt.”
Dimo frowned. “Dot vas for me. Maxim and Oggie gotta vait for dere turns.”
Zeetha snorted. “Good one. You remind me of some of the people I knew back home.” She crossed her arms. “I know you don’t work for the Baron. Lars says that you wild Jagers are still looking for a Heterodyne heir. I think you’ve found one.”
The two eyed each other. Finally, Dimo let his head thump back against the wall. “Iz hyu gunna expose her?”
“Of course not,” Zeetha huffed. “She is zumil. My student. I protect her. So you can tell those elephants sneaking up behind me to relax.”
Ognian and Maxim froze, looked at each other and then straightened up with embarrassed looks upon their
