Against A Dark Background by Banks Iain M

Author:Banks, Iain M. [Banks, Iain M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781857230314
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 1993-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

14 Vegetable Plot

`I can’t believe I’m doing this,’ Miz whispered.

Dloan shrugged. He scratched his head, looking down at the great broad tail lying on the dust of the reeking cage. He lifted the tail, then put it back down again. ‘I need something to hold it up,’ he whispered.

`Well don’t look at me!’ Miz hissed, crouching at the stom’s snout with a tank of gas. He pumped the handle a few times and pulled the trigger again, squirting the gas towards the beast’s nostrils. Miz put his kerchief up over his mouth and coughed.

Dloan looked round.

Hurry up!’ Miz said.This stuff is making me sleepy!’

Dloan took his knife and went to the stom’s side; he reached up and started cutting the ropes holding the animal’s left wing into its body.

‘Dlo!’ Miz said, eyes wide. `Are you crazy?’

Dloan said nothing; he let the ropes fall to the stinking floor of the cage. The stom’s great black wing unfolded gently like a collapsing tent. The beast stirred a little. Miz flinched back, gulping, then came forward again, spraying the gas quickly into the stom’s snout. Shh!’ he told the sleeping animal.Shh! There, there . . .’

Dloan removed one of the planks that had held the wing straight, took it to the rear of the beast and by propping it between the wall and the cage floor, used it to keep the stom’s tail up off the dust. Then he disappeared underneath the tail.

Miz glanced at the front of the cage. Even with the intensifier glasses on the night was appallingly dark. Zefla was watching the zoo night-watchman’s hut, but Miz felt horribly vulnerable stuck in this cage crouched centimetres from the snout of an animal that looked like it could swallow him whole.

Not that he was sure he’d have swapped with Dloan. He watched Dloan’s feet kick on the floor of the cage as he pushed himself further in underneath the stom. Miz looked away.

He looked up at the barred ceiling of the cage. Of all the things he could ever have imagined doing in his life, squatting in a stinking cage surrounded by the rotted, half-eaten corpses of glidemonkeys in the middle of the night in the remotest, most backward part of the Entraxrln of Miykenns drugging an animal the size of a light aircraft while an accomplice interfered with the beast’s genitals, would not really have been the first to leap to mind.

The stom made a deep, sighing noise. Miz pumped more gas at it. Dloan wriggled out from underneath its rump.

Got it?’ Miz asked. Dloan nodded. Miz patted the animal’s snout gently.Poor bitch; probably the most fun she’s had in years, and she slept through it.’

Dloan stood there, holding a wooden scraper and a small sealed pot, his trous and jerkin stained. He had an odd expression on his face.

Miz squirted one last burst of gas at the animal then stood up. `Right; let’s get going before she starts screaming rape.’

`No,’ Dloan said, coming towards him.

`No?’ Miz said, letting Dloan take the gas canister from his hand.

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