The next moment, the wall in front of us collapsed, revealing a hole. In the hole was a face, which took up the entire opening. A pair of dull yellow eyes was staring at me. When the mouth opened, I could see enormous jagged teeth far more lethal-looking than any knife I’d ever seen.
Luc looked at the creature and said some words that I had no way of understanding. They appeared to be a cross between grunts and hisses. Then he turned to look at us. “They know Thorne’s not with us. No need to worry now.”
I looked down at the morta. “Then why do you have that out?” I asked.
“Well, grubbs might’ve struck first and then found out Thorne wasn’t here. Pays to be cautious when dealing with anything as big and unpredictable as a grubb. That one there weighs about a ton.”
I crept forward and rested my gaze on the grubb. It gazed back at me.
“Why is the grubb staring at me like that?”
“Well, you look like Thorne. A Wug, I mean.”
“Can you tell it that while I am a Wug, I’m not a Wug like Thorne?”
“Already did, Vega. It’s why it hasn’t tried to kill you.”
My stomach lurched and I found myself backing up a pace or two.
“Its name is, well, no use saying it, you won’t be able to pronounce it, much less remember it. We’ll just call it Grubb.”
“Hello, Gr-Grubb, sir,” said a panicky Delph.
“Matter of fact, ’tis a female, Delph,” said Luc. “You can tell by the eyes. Yellow for the females and blue for the males. Don’t know why, just the way it is.”
Luc marched forward and patted the grubb on its, or, rather, her head. The grubb let out a sound that I had heard before. But then it had been a feline purring.
“Peaceful creatures,” said Luc. “Keep themselves to themselves. They tunnel down here. Can eat through rock faster’n gnomes with their claws can.”
“They eat rock?” gasped Delph.
I watched as Harry Two sidled over to the grubb and sniffed it. My canine was perilously close to those enormous teeth and I was about to call him back, when Harry Two licked the thing.
Before I could move, a long, slithery tongue appeared between the jagged teeth and the grubb licked Harry Two back. I moved forward and cautiously put out a hand, stopping and looking questioningly at Luc.
“G’on, then,” he said encouragingly. “Grubb knows you’re okay.”
I patted the grubb’s head and then Delph joined me in doing so. It was far softer and not nearly as slimy as I thought it would be. It was like touching a cattail down by the pond back in Wormwood. I could see that it was about twice the size of a creta, which was very large indeed. It must eat a lot of rock.
As we were petting the grubb, Delph’s and my fingers touched. I looked up at him and he down at me. We smiled at the same time.
“Like being down at the pond in Wormwood,” he said. “You remember?”
“I was just thinking of the cattails we used to rub,” I said, blushing a bit.
The grubb licked Delph’s hand.
“She’s taken a right shine to you, Delph,” said Luc.
“What?” gasped a thoroughly wonked Delph. “No, I don’t think... why, what business is it of yours if Vega Ja—”
I felt so badly for Delph that I interrupted him and said, “I think he means the grubb, Delph.” I could feel my cheeks afire.
Delph stared openmouthed at me for what seemed ten slivers. His face held so many different expressions, one tracking another, that it was all I could do not to laugh, though I was as embarrassed as he.
“Oh, right, o’course he does,” he said in a voice he was trying so hard to make firm that it wobbled badly.
“Um, why do they hate Thorne so?” Delph asked, keeping his gaze away from me.
“Well, they have good reason.” Luc pointed to the creature’s skin and then rubbed it. “Its hide is strong. But it can also do something else.”
“What?” I asked.
“It can expand. Big as you want it to. It’s why Thorne kills ’em.”
“He kills them?” I exclaimed.
“Slaughters ’em, more like it. Least he did.”
“Why is the skin so important to Thorne?” Delph asked.
“For the bladder,” answered Luc.
“The bladder, on the aero ship?” I said. Then I realized what he meant. “He uses the grubb’s skin to make the bladder?” I added, horrified.
Luc nodded. “Has ’em stitched together. And the grubb’s blood? It hardens good and stout when you mix it with a few other ingredients. Where the needle holes are in the bladder when they stitch the hides together? Thorne uses the blood concoction to seal ’em so no air leaks out.”
I turned to look at the grubb. While I knew it probably could not understand us, I sensed a deep misery in its eyes. Her eyes.
Why did there have to be Wugs like Thorne? Whose only interest was furthering their own goals and not caring a whit about the effect on others? I whispered this thought to Delph.
He nodded and said quietly, “ ’Tis a good lesson for us all, Vega Jane.”
Luc said, “But he hasn’t caught a grubb in a long time now.”
“Why?”
Luc said his next words in a low voice. “ ’Cause I come and warn ’em and they go hide.” He shook his head sadly. “They might not be much to look at, I know. But underneath that hide, they’ve a heart as big as any you’re likely to ever see.”
I looked back at the grubb and could see that her yellow eyes were filled with moisture. When I shot a glance at Luc, he had anticipated my question.
“A grubb can sense things like we never can. They can feel what we’re feeling. I don’t know if we give off a scent or what, but they know. They just know. She understands that we’re sad. And so she’s sad too. And with that sadness, it also tells her that we’re, well, that we’re good creatures, not bad.”
I had never been referred to as a creature before. But then again, a Wug was just one thing among many other living things, I reckoned.
I turned to look at the grubb and gently rubbed her face.
I said, “I think you’re very beautiful.” And I smiled.
The purring sound filled the passageway again.
I smiled even more broadly, and though I couldn’t be sure, it seemed that she was smiling back at me.
“Now she senses happiness,” explained Luc.
I said, “Thorne said they’ve tried to kill him, many times. How?”
“They can tunnel through anything. Never know where they might pop out. Only thing gives ’em away is the sound of their tunneling.”
“So I’m sure Thorne, being as cunning as he is, takes precautions?”
“Patrols down the passageways and has things on the wall that measure the smallest of vibrations. Gives him early warning when and where they might be coming. And his sleeping chamber is lined with iron. Grubbs can work their way through iron, but it takes a while. Plenty of time for Thorne to get away, but even so, early on, they came close to getting him.”
He looked at the grubb, and his face became embarrassed. “Right more courage than I got.”
“But you warned them against Thorne,” Delph pointed out. “That takes courage.”
“Not the same, is it?” said Luc. “No, not the same.”
“It’s Cere and Kori, isn’t it?” I said. This statement made Luc glance at me. I continued. “He’d hurt them, right? If you turned against him? She was worried that you were showing us these places. She’s afraid Thorne will find out.”
Luc slowly nodded. “He has ekos fiercely loyal to him. They’d kill their own flesh and blood. I think he’s done something to their minds, but I have no proof of that.”
A great many thoughts were swirling through my head. I turned to Luc, my determination resolute. “How long did it take Thorne to build the aero ship?”