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They all stood watching as the yellow cloud began to roll down the slope

‘I’d say that we aren’t the only ones having trouble with this,’ Danal said, looking on down the slope ‘The bug-people are streaht like so aas about to happen to theh the memories of the various courses he’d taken at the University of Kaldacin Then he re to do with the way bugs breathe, Brigadier,’ he said

‘Breathing is breathing, isn’t it?’

‘Not exactly, sir Bugs, insects - whatever we call them - don’t have noses like people or anih a series of holes down their sides instead A s wouldn’t really havetheir sides are very thin These giant bugs we’ve encountered here, though, would haveholes If one of them happens to take a deep breath in the ood chance that it’d suck in enough sand to clog up the breathing holes If that happens, it’s entirely possible that the bug will die of suffocation’

‘Aw,’ Danal said in ret, ‘what a shame’

‘Is it at all possible that this silly sandstorm will kill them all, Keselo?’ Andar asked

‘I don’t really think so, sir,’ Keselo replied ‘That Wasteland out there is pretty much all desert, so sandstor-people have co down into the ground,dead friends up in heaps and then crawling under theests that they know just how dangerous a sandstorm can be, and I’m sure that they instinctively kno to protect themselves’

Then from far out in the Wasteland there came a shrill scream that seelittering yellow desert

‘Could that possibly be the Vlagh itself o asked

‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ Keselo replied ‘Then again, though, it probably wasn’t The Vlagh has many servants whose only purpose in life is to protect their queen They won’t let anything happen to her’

‘I don’t think I’ wars against females is so unnatural’

‘That particular fe to eat, Andar,’ Danal disagreed ‘Ordinary courtesies go right out thein a situation like that, wouldn’t you say? Let’s face it, h happens to invite you to dinner, you’re likely to be the main course’

The Inland Sea

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