Crudrat by Gail Carriger

Author:Gail Carriger [Carriger, Gail]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781944751371
Publisher: GAIL CARRIGER LLC

Maura wished she knew what to expect. Still she’d gone and thrown herself into this, might was well see it through to the exit. The hallway she now walked though felt a tad more spaceborn than others so far, but not by much. It was appropriately narrow and tight fitting, but it was still made of stone not metal or plastic. It was many stories high, with plaster above, and plaster below, painted white. The stones were fit tight to each other, but pillowed out slightly in their middles. Despite the fact that there appeared to be not a bit of space between them, a soft white light shone from the cracks, illuminating the hallway. Oddest, to Maura’s eyes, was the absence of crud dust in the air. The light stayed white with no blue edge to it at all. So far as she could tell, there didn’t seem to be air ducts either. Which meant no tunnels. This last made her nervous twice over. How are we breathing? And where do I hide?

The hallway was ever so slightly warmer than the landing area had been. Not enough, mind. Maura had never before been this cold in her well-regulated Wheel life. A right unpleasant sensation. Her teeth were rattling up against each other and she couldn’t seem to stop them.

The hallway kept on going for quite some ways. There were little lead-offs to more hallways, and here and there fabric covered doorways that she supposed were private residences. It was all very illogically set up. Why mix residence with working areas? How was one to determine Spoke? Who outranked whom? Periodically, two little walls would poke out into the hallway from the sides, forcing them to single file. These bits would be dangerous if the ice city had to be evacuated. Maura’s mind teemed with questions, but as the three warriors held silence and led them a brisk pace, she kept her peace.

Eventually, they deviated into a smaller even narrower hallway, up a set of three stairways, down another little hall, and through a curtained entrance into a large empty room.

“We will leave you to her,” said the smallest warrior.

“Sooner you than us,” said the middle one.

The large female said nothing only nodding to them once and marching the others back out of the room.

Maura looked at quoin Fuzzy.

Quoin Fuzzy looked at Maura.

“Can I call you Quy, too?”

"You might as well, everyone else here does." His tone was resigned.

“What are the... “ Maura started to ask the next in her long stored-up string of questions.

“Hush, listen.” Quy shook his fuzzy head, interrupting her.

Maura hushed and listened.

A voice echoed down the hallway outside. “…squeeze like a rotten melon after spring festival!” it was saying and then, “Where in the arse end of space is that little floating fish turd of a nibling of mine? I’ll use his entrails for earrings, you see if I don’t!” The voice was loud, but not as angry in tone as the words it uttered would make a person think it should be.

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