The cesspit was reproducing. Out onto its level banks, in a series of convulsive jerks, came spurting out one after another, bits of whitish rippling goo. They rolled along the earth, helpless and blind, then stopped, flattened out, threw out cautious pseudopodia and suddenly began moving purposefully - still fussing, still prodding about, but now in one set direction, wandering from the direct path, now and again colliding, but in one set direction, along one radius from the womb, out into the thickets, on and out in a single flowing off-white column, like gigantic clumsy, slug-like ants...
"It's a quagmire all around here," Acey was saying. "We'll plop in so deep no tractor'll ever get us out - the ropes'll just snap."
"Do you want to come with us?" said Stoyan to Quentin.
"Rita's tired."
"Rita can go home and we'll push on..." Quentin was wavering. "How d'you feel, Rita, dear?" he asked. "Yes, I'll go on home," said Rita. "Well, that's fine," Quentin said. "We'll go and take a look eh? We'll be back soon enough I expect. Not long,eh, Stoyan?"
Rita threw away her cigarette end and went off along the track toward the biostation, without saying good-bye. Quentin shuffled in indecision before saying to Pepper in an undertone:
"Allow me ... get past..."
He pushed through into the back seat; at which moment the motorbike with tremendous roar, tore itself from under Acey and bounding high in the air, hurtled into the cesspit. "Stop!" Acey shouted, as he sank to his haunches. "Where are you off to?" Everybody froze. The bike raced over a hummock, squealing wildly, stood on end and fell into the pit. Everybody rushed forward. Pepper thought the protoplasm rose up under the bike, softening the blow; then it easily and soundlessly accepted it and closed over it. The motorbike shut off.
"Clumsy bastard," said Stoyan to Acey. "What the devil are you doing?"
The cesspit had become a maw, sucking, tasting, enjoying. It was rolling the machine around inside, the way a man rolls a mint from cheek to cheek with his tongue. The motorcycle was swirling around in the foaming mass, now disappearing, now surfacing, helplessly waving its handlebars; with every appearance it got smaller and smaller, its metal plating thinner and thinner, now transparent as thin paper. Already the engine innards could be glimpsed through it, then the plating melted away, the tires disappeared, the bike dived down for the last time and appeared no more.
"Swallowed it," said Acey with idiotic joy.
"Clumsy bastard," repeated Stoyan. "You'll pay me for that. You'll be paying me the rest of your life for it."
"Well all right then," said Acey. "So I'll pay for it! Was it my fault? I just turned the throttle the wrong way," he said to Pepper. "That's how it got away. I really wanted to throttle down, Monsieur Pepper, so it didn't rattle so much, well I just turned it the wrong way. I'm not the first or the last to do that. Anyway it was an old bike... I'm off then," said he to Stoyan. "I'm no use here now. I'll go home."
"Where are your eyes wandering then?" Quentin said abruptly with an expression that caused Pepper to step aside involuntarily.
"What's the matter?" said Acey. "I look where I want."
He was looking back at the path, where Rita's orange wrap was flickering under the dense yellowy-green awning of branches as she receded.
"Come on, let me pass," said Quentin to Pepper. "I'll just have a word with him."
"Where're you going, d'you think?" mumbled Stoyan. "Think on, Quentin..."
"What d'you mean, think on? I've known what he was after long enough..."
"Listen, don't be a kid... Just stop it! Just think on!"
"Let go, I tell you, let go my arm!"
There was a noisy struggle around Pepper who was being shoved from both sides. Stoyan held Quentin's jacket firmly by the back and sleeve, as Quentin, now red and sweating, keeping his eyes fixed on Acey, was fending off Stoyan with one hand while bending Pepper double with the other in his attempt to step over him. He was jerking about and emerging farther from his jacket with each jerk. Pepper chose this moment to tumble out of the landrover. Acey was still looking after Rita, his mouth half-open, his eyes lustful and tender.
"What's she doing wearing trousers," said he to Pepper. "It's the latest craze they've got, going about in trousers..."
"Don't defend him!" roared Quentin in the car. "He's not a sexual neurasthenic, he's just a bastard! Let me go, or I'll give you one as well!"
"They used to wear skirts," said Acey dreamily. "A piece of material wrapped around and fixed with a pin. And I would get hold of the pin and unloose..."
