Shadows in Flight, enhanced edition

were already completely dried up by then -- all this breakage came recently, and they've been dead for a century."
    "So they died when the Hive Queen died," said Cincinnatus.
    "Presumably," said Ender. "That's what Formics do."
    "The rabs didn't eat them," said Carlotta.
    "Guess they can't work the levers," said Cincinnatus.
    "Not smart enough to understand them," said Ender. "They're strong and dextrous enough."
    The whole length of this standpipe had apparently been sealed off from the rabs. They ran into no more corpses, and no hostiles, either. But when they came out of the standpipe passage into another perimeter corridor, it was a different story.
    The air was filled with debris, floating like dustmotes in a beam of light. It took a moment to determine that they were body parts. The helmet's heat sensor showed Cincinnatus that there might be living creatures beyond the curve of the corridor in both directions, but none within line of sight.
    Ender came through and began picking pieces out of the air to examine them.
    "Bits of rab bodies, but also bits of other life-forms. Wings like insects. Really big ones. Lots of little skeletal bits, skin I don't recognize."
    "En, stay close; Lot, can you tether him so you can tug him? Don't want any gaps opening."

     
    He knew that Carlotta would obey, hooking a three-meter cable from herbelt to Ender's. He had no time to check, anyway, because rabs now came hurtling through the debris, rebounding from wall to floor to ceiling, scattering a hailstorm of bones and shells and wings and skin bits as they came. It was like intertwining tornadoes coming up the corridor.
    Up the corridor. All at once Cincinnatus understood how useful Ender Wiggin's "enemy's gate is down" doctrine could be. Cincinnatus dropped onto his back and then braced his feet against the walls, the narrow way, and shot the spray down between his legs.
    The spray -- if it worked on rabs at all -- was supposed to be very quick. It shot out from the nozzle in a fine aerosol fog, but at such speed that it filled the corridor for at least ten meters ahead. The smell was very faint.
    Naturally, the sedative fog did nothing to slow the rabs' forward progress; Cincinnatus had his shotgun in firing position at once, aiming downward between his legs, as he waited to see what condition the rabs were in when they arrived.
    They were still bouncing off the walls, but now he could see it wasn't a controlled movement. Instead of always landing on legs, any part of their bodies might hit the wall, and they tumbled end over end instead of jaws first.
    "Spray's working," said Cincinnatus.
    He reoriented himself so he could walk in the corridor again. Drugged-up rabs from Ender's direction pelted him in the back as rabs hit him in the front. The suits absorbed much of the shock, but not all of it. Not enough of it. There'd be some bruising, and when they hit Cincinnatus's facemask, the impact rocked his head back. He moved forward briskly, firing off a short burst of spray every ten meters or so. Ender didn't fire at all -- they were moving into the residue of Cincinnatus's spray, leaving Ender's original burst of fog to guard the passage behind them.
    Cincinnatus passed a large airtight door on the right, leading toward the center of the ark. He made a quiet bet that Carlotta would choose this one, because it wasn't open and therefore might be rab-free. Sure enough, she levered it open and there was no debris inside, though a good amount of it began osmoting through, along with fog.
    He saw Ender move through the door and Carlotta closed it. The amount of debris that had come through was relatively slight, and Cincinnatus led the way along this corridor at a brisk walk.
    After a short way, the corridor opened out into a huge sandwichlike chamber. Cincinnatus forced his mind to reorient to the way Formics would have seen the room. The space between floor and ceiling was no more than a meter, but both surfaces undulated. And both surfaces were pocked with indentations. Deep ones.
    "Sleeping quarters," Carlotta guessed.
    She had to be right. Each indentation was deep enough for a Formic worker to crawl in to sleep. The soft, organic surface would protect them from the stress of acceleration. Cincinnatus reached a hand inside and pressed against it. It broke. Once it might have been resilient, but it had dried out. Probably the Formics moistened their own cells when they slept, to keep them supple. But now the walls crumbled