A Princess of The Linear Jungle by Paul di Filippo Page B

It’s just the six of us left, I fear. No supplies either. At the mercy of these creatures.”
    A storm of hissing sounded, and Merritt saw that their temporary immobility had brought to a halt another dozen or so roaches and twice as many ratmen making up the back portion of their Jungle train. The ratman in charge of the roach bearing Cady and Dan now chittered in a complex fashion, both at the humans and the roach, and the caravan got underway.
    “Definite semantic structures,” mused Vinnagar. “I’m sure with a little time I could begin to translate….”
    Merritt found she could walk all right, and in fact continued exercise seemed to improve her initial stiffness.
    The humans said nothing amongst themselves for a time, until, by some mild trotting, they had rejoined the forepart of the slow-moving caravan.
    Merritt noticed then that some of the other roaches bore supine, incognizant riders as well: ratmen injured in the battle.
    “They show some human qualities,” said Merritt. “Caring for their injured and all.”
    Ransome laughed with an edge of hysterical bitterness. “Oh, yes, they’re really quite human. In most ways.”
    Merritt looked inquiringly at Arturo, but he defered to Professor Vinnagar.
    “Those ratmen are not merely injured, Miss Abraham. They are thoroughly dead. Corpses, in other words. The Pompatics, it appears, hold no dominion over their empty vessels.”
     
     
    Both Daysun and Seasonsun were descending, minting paired purple viridian shadows aslant the treetops, when the caravan came to a stop. By curt but no hostile gestures, the ratmen induced the humans to sit in a tolerably comfortable cluster on the soft fragrant turf.
    Cady Rachis and Dan Peart now numbered among the conscious. The pampered torchsinger—no longer quite so glamorous as when onstage as Loona Poole—was bearing up better than Merritt had anticipated. Comforting noises and stroking from Ransome Pivot achieved the same effect on her that the ratman’s solicitations worked on the cargo roach, thought Merritt, before mentally criticizing herself as bitchily uncharitable.
    Cady glared at the ratmen, then spat onto the grass. “Flea-bitten murderous bastards! Eat poison and die!”
    Dan Peart, noted Merritt, was actually suffering more acutely than Cady. A long, crusted cut from a ratman lance blade ran from his temple, down the side of his face to his jaw. But although undoubtedly painful, the cut must have paled when compared to Peart’s remorse at his inability to protect his cyclist comrades. He clucked his tongue and muttered their names over and over as a sad litany.
    “Bunyan and Hunko. Darcy and Sickafoose. Lorne and Ross. All gone now….”
    As soon as they had composed themselves on the grass, the humans were encircled within a living barricade of roaches made to lie head to butt. This softly hissing, waist-high barrier discouraged escape very effectively. Within minutes, two ratmen returned to their captives and dumped big armfuls of fruit within their pen.
    Everyone looked to Professor Durian Vinnagar.
    “I don’t recognize these species, but they’re not saliva tree pods. And I cannot imagine our hosts would choose such a contrived way to slay us, after taking care to capture us alive.”
    With that reassurance, the famished humans fell upon the feast. Merritt found that the delicious fruit slaked her thirst as well as filled her stomach.
    Arturo Scoria wiped his pulp-smeared drippy face with the back of one hand, then cleaned the hand upon the grass. “Any of these fruits would fetch a high price on a Wharton greengrocer’s stand, if they could be cultivated. Perhaps we should save the seeds….”
    Cady looked incredulously at Scoria, as if at an addle-pated child. “Do you really believe we’re ever going to leave this horrible green prison alive?”
    “Oh, I’ve been in bad fixes before—maybe none worse than this, I admit—and I’ve come out of ‘em just fine. Once Durian susses out