'You want the straight screw? I felt pretty bad when it happened,
but it was a lot worse when I was talking to them. Not 'cause of
anything they said. I've heard all that till I could sing it. 'Cause they
didn't take my stripes. I never thought I'd say that, but that's what it
was. They could've done it, only they didn't 'cause they knew they
didn't have authority from the calde, and I kept thinking, you don't
have to tell me to wipe them off, I'll wipe them off myself. Only that
would just have made them feel worse.'
'I never liked working for anybody but me,' Auk told him.
'You got to have somebody outside. Or anyhow I do. You feeling
pretty good now?'
'Better'n I did.'
'I been watching you, 'cause that's what Patera wants. And you
can't hardly walk. You hit your head when the talus bought it, and
we figured you were KIA. Patera sort of liked it at first. Only then,
not so much. His essential nobility of character coming out. Know
what I'm saying?'
Dace put in, 'That big gal cryin an' yellin' at him.'
'Yeah, that too. Look here--'
'Wait a minute,' Auk told them. 'Chenille. She cried?'
Dace chuckled. 'I felt sorrier fer her than fer you.'
'She wasn't even there when I woke up!'
'She run off. I was over talkin' ter that talus, but I seen her.'
'She was around when I came to,' Hammerstone told Auk. 'She
had that launcher, only it was empty. There was another one, all
smashed up, where we were. Maybe she brought it, I don't know.
Anyhow, after I talked to Patera about you and a couple other
things, I showed her how to disarm the bad one's magazine and load
the SSMs in the good one.'
Dice told Hammerstone, 'She got her'n up the tunnel whilst the
augur was fixin' you. This big feller, he was off watch, and didn't
nobody know rightly how bad he'd got hurt. When she come back
an' seen he wasn't comin' 'round, she foundered.'
Auk scratched his ear.
'You've broke your head-bone, big feller, don't let nobody tell
you no different. I seen it afore. Feller on my boat got a rap from
the boom. He laid in the cuddy couple nights 'fore we could fetch
him ashore. He'd open the point an' talk, then sheer off down
weather. We fetched him the doctor an' I guess he done all he was
able but that feller died next day. You're in luck you wasn't hit no
worse.'
'What makes it good luck?' Hammerstone asked him.
'Why, stands ter reason, don't it? He don't want ter be dead, no
more'n me!'
'All you meatheads talk like that. Only look at it. No more
trouble and no more work. No more patrols through these tunnels
looking everywhere for nothing and lucky to get a shot at a god. No
more--'
'Shot god?' Oreb inquired.
'Yeah,' Auk said. 'What the shag are you talking about?'
'That's just what we call them,' Hammerstone explained.
'They're really animals. Kind of like a dog, only ugly where a real
dog's all right, so we say it backwards.'
'I've never seen any kind of shaggy animal down here.'
'You haven't been down here long, either. You just think you
have. There's bats and big blindworms, out under the lake especially.
There's gods all around here, only there's five of us and me a
soldier, and quite a few lights on this stretch. When we get to
someplace darker, watch out.'
'You don't mind dyin',' Dace reminded him. 'That's what you
says a little back.'
'Now I do.' Hammerstone pointed up the tunnel to Incus, a
hundred cubits ahead. 'That's what I was trying to tell you. Auk said
he didn't need an outfit or a leader like Patera, or anything like that.'
'I don't,' Auk declared. 'It's the shaggy truth.'
'Then sit down right here. Go to sleep. Dace and me will keep
going. You feel pretty sick, I can tell. You don't like walking. Well,
there's no reason you've got to. I'll wait till we're about to lose sight
of you, then I'll put a couple slugs in you.'
'No shoot!' Oreb protested.
'I'll wait till you've settled down, see? You won't know it's
coming. You'll get to thinking I'm not going to. What do you say?'
'No thanks.'
'All right, here's what I been trying to get across. It doesn't
sound that good to you. If I kept on about it, you'd say you had to
take care of your girl, even when you're hurt so bad you can't
hardly take care of yourself. Or maybe look out for your talking
bird or something. Only it'd all be gas, 'cause you really don't
want to, even when you know it makes more sense than what
you're doing.'
Sick and weak, Auk shrugged. 'If you say so.'
'It's not like that for us. Just sitting down somewhere down here
and letting everything slow down till I go to sleep, and sleeping, with
nobody ever coming by to wake me up, that sounds pretty good. It
would sound all right to my sergeant, too, or the major. The reason
we don't is we're supposed to look out for Viron. That means the
calde, 'cause he's the one that says what's good for Viron and what's
not.'
'Silk's supposed to be the new calde,' Auk remarked. 'I know
him, and that's what Scylla said.'
Hammerstone nodded. 'That'll be great if it happens, but it hasn't
happened yet and maybe it never will. Only I've got Patera now,
see? Right now I can walk in back of him like this and keep looking
at him just about all the time, and he isn't even telling me not to
look like he did at first. So I don't want to sit down and die any more
than you do.'
Oreb bobbed his approval. 'Good! Good!'
Farther along the tunnel, Incus asked with some asperity, 'Are you
