"I think we're going to need a torch," Keselo said. "There are probably bugs out there that can see in the dark, but my eyes aren't quite that good."

Omago reached into the canvas bag hanging from his belt and took out a pale, round object that appeared to be glass. "Use this," he said, handing the glass ball to Keselo. "When you need some light, squeeze it, and it'll give you all the light you need. When you want darkness, loosen your grip."

Keselo examined the round ball rather closely. "I don't really see anything in this that could produce light," he said.

"It isn't in there," Omago said with a faint smile. "It's in here." And he tapped his forehead.

"Oh," Keselo said. "I probably should have realized that."

"That's our Keselo for you," Rabbit said. "He seems to need to know how everything works. Don't let him get too close to the moon, Omago. He'll probably take her apart to find out what keeps her up in the night sky."

"Curiosity isn't a bad thing, Rabbit," Omago replied.

"I was only teasing," Rabbit said. "It's all right to tease your friends, isn't it? Come along, Keselo," he said then. "Let's go out and see if we can find any of Big Mommy's puppies."

"Big Mommy?" Omago asked, sounding a bit perplexed.

"It's sort of what's called an 'in-house joke,' Omago," Rabbit said. "I'd explain it, but it'd take much too long. Shall we go, Keselo?"

"We might as well," Keselo agreed.

The far wall of the vast main chamber was at least a mile from the place where the "care-givers" were eating the Vlagh's babies, but the Vlagh's screams were still quite audible. "She's got a big mouth, hasn't she?" Rabbit said to his friend.

"Oh, yes," Keselo agreed. "I wouldn't want to try to sleep anywhere within ten miles of this place." Then he pointed at a part of the back wall about fifty yards off to the left. "It looks to me like there's a sizeable hole in the wall over there. It might lead to another part of the nest."

"Squeeze that light ball," Rabbit suggested. "Let's make sure that it works before we go crawling into any dark places."

"Omago wouldn't lie to us, Rabbit."

"I'm not saying that he would. The light ball probably works just fine when he squeezes it, but let's make sure that it'll work for you as well. Always test equipment before you need to use it."

"If it makes you happy," said Keselo, squeezing Omago's toy.

When the glass ball began to glow, Rabbit nodded. Then he looked around at the vast chamber that was still echoing to the screams of the Vlagh. "This might take us quite a while, Keselo," he suggested. "If this mountain—or whatever we want to call it—is jam-packed full of bug-people, there could be hundreds of chambers where they hole up when they're not out in the open eating people-people."

"We'll never know for sure until we take a look," Keselo said. "The more we see, the more we'll know."

The hole in the rear wall that Keselo had seen was not exactly what Rabbit would have called a doorway, but there were many signs that it was used fairly often by the assorted children of the Vlagh. When Rabbit and Keselo crawled through the hole, they came out in what appeared to be a shaft that reached far, far up in this imitation mountain.

"I think we're in trouble," Rabbit said.

"Oh?"

"We didn't think to bring a ladder."

Keselo squinted up. "The walls of this shaft aren't really very smooth," he noted. "It looks to me like there are plenty of handholds on the sides of the shaft."

"Bugs have hands now?" Rabbit said, pretending that he was astonished.

"Funny, funny, Bunny," Keselo replied sarcastically.

"Bunny?" Rabbit protested.

"I filched that one from Eleria," Keselo replied with a faint smile. "Let's see if we can make our way up this shaft. If it gets too risky, we'll go back and see if Omago can create a ladder for us."

They climbed slowly up the wall of the shaft, and Rabbit noticed that there were many, many small round holes in the solid rock. Evidently generations of bugs had been climbing up and down the shaft for hundreds of years. "It looks to me like there are quite a few openings in the walls of this up and down corridor," he said.

"Separate quarters, most likely," Keselo suggested. "I'd say that the various kinds of bug-people avoid each other when they possibly can."

"Just ahead," Rabbit whispered. "I just saw a bug poke its head out of that hole in the wall just ahead of us."

"Do you think it might have seen us?"

"Probably not. It seemed to be looking up the shaft instead of down. To get down to the bald truth, Keselo, I'm not really thrilled by the notion of crawling into a hole in the wall that might just be filled to the brim with hungry bugs."

"I'm with you all the way on that one, Rabbit," Keselo replied. Then he leaned back slightly and peered up the gloomy shaft. "There's a much larger opening about fifteen feet above the little one just ahead of us. That one might be a safer one to investigate."

"I do like the word 'safe,' my friend," Rabbit agreed.

They carefully climbed up the rugged shaft wall until they reached the larger opening. Rabbit quickly poked his head around the edge of the opening and then jerked it back. "No bugs," he whispered. "Are we still invisible?"

"I think the word Omago used was 'unnoticeable,'" Keselo replied. "I'd say that it's still in place. If any one of the bugs had actually seen us, she'd be making a lot of noise by now."

"I'm never going to get used to the idea that all our enemies are women."

"I wouldn't think of them as 'women,' Rabbit," Keselo said. "Female is one thing, but 'women' is something entirely different."

The larger opening appeared to be the mouth of a cave of some sort, and, much like the cave that had led to the vast chamber down below, this cave also led to a much, much larger room. When the two of them reached that chamber, they stopped. There were thousands of bugs there, but they were not all of the same variety, and the different kinds of bugs were staying away from each other, for some reason. Each group was all clustered together in the same place, and it seemed to Rabbit that there was a growing antagonism in the clusters of some varieties of bugs. Some of the groups seemed to be speaking inaudible sounds and others were reaching out with their front legs to touch the front legs of others. "I don't imagine that you learned bug-language when you were going to school," he whispered to his friend.




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