"You want the Microfabridae to chew through the lock?" the voice-in-her-head asked gently.
"That's what I had in mind," Orison said.
"I know," Elder Compassion said. "Please look at the lock, so that I may direct our little friends to it."
Orison gazed at the lock. A line of Microfabridae snaked up the steel door-frame and entered the keyhole. From inside the door came a chittering sound, like a clock gone berserk. Then the crustacea reformed and marched down the door to the floor. Orison pressed the door-catch. The eviscerated lock gave way.
The captain stepped out to stare at the Microfabridae. "Miss," he said, "you and I could make a fortune with a team of those trained termites. There isn't a bank in the country that could stand up against us."
"It's been thought of," Orison said. "Help me get this man down from the tank, please, and we'll be on our way." Between them they lifted the cocooned guard, wrapped like a larva in Microfabridaean silk, to the cot, the little workers snipping with their chelae the threads that had bound him to the steel.
"Can you unlock the steel doors?" Orison asked.
"I don't have the key," the Captain said.
"Then we'll have to go through them," Orison said. "Can we do it?"
"We've got thirty-five tons to roll up that ramp," the captain said. "If we can't bust out with a punch like that, shame on us. Seems kind of rough on the taxpayers to bulldoze through that expensive door."