Now a globe came drifting down the corridor, and Revel got quickly to work, prying coal from a vein with his pick. The thing passed him, flicking his mind lightly with its own, and went on to the end of the tunnel. He watched it from the tail of his eye. Its glow brightened with interest; it shifted back and forth before the rampart of rocks.
They hadn't kept a tight enough check on their excitement yesterday! The globes could sense emotions long after the man who'd had them left a spot, and if the emotion were anger or grief or strong excitement, the globes could detect their residue as much as forty-eight hours later.
The thing floated back to them, briskly now, and ordered Revel telepathically to pull down some of the rocks at the end.
He eyed it coolly, his various brains walled with the protective screen that he had learned to erect between his thoughts and the outside world. This screen was made of shallow ideas, humdrum speculations on prosaic things—the last woman he'd had, the good feeling he got from working this rich vein of coal after some days of poor luck, even (to make the god think it was hearing secret desires) a wish that he might taste the wine that the gentry drank. He could throw up the screen and forget it, using his core of brains for serious plans.
A dozen rocks displaced, he thought, and we're doomed. For not telling the gods about the cave, he and Jerran would be given to the squires for the next big hunt.
So, without much hope of living through the next minute, but believing it was the only thing he could do now, he shoved Jerran to one side, raised his pick and slammed it with all his might into the center of the small, gold, eight-tentacled sphere.
And Revel had killed a god!
The feel of the pick slashing through it told him that: it was like hitting an overripe melon. The globe recoiled, dragged itself off the pick, and sank toward the floor, wobbling and dripping yellow ooze, with its aura of energy fading quickly into air. Jerran said quietly, "No others in sight. We're lucky!" and began to make a hole in a pile of discarded rocks. "Help me hide it, Revel."
"You can't hide it," he said dully. "They're telepathic, after all. It must have signaled its consorts."
"They can't hear or send messages through rock," said Jerran, working away. Revel automatically started to help him.