43 - 19/20 - Concrete

I continued along the surface until it became almost flat and I found what I thought was the top. Taylor said we would strike fairly high. I never guessed we would strike at the center.

There were no cracks or openings anywhere. It was completely continuous. How could I break through?

The Taxxon knew what to do.

I opened my Taxxon mouth wide. Full capacity. I swiveled my teeth so they scraped the concrete like a drill. A hundred teeth screeched across the stone. Friction made my mouth hot. Caustic Taxxon spit burned and dissolved the rock.

I gnawed deep into the shell of the dome, a hole four or more feet across and almost as deep. My body felt heavy and ill. And at last I saw a flicker of red light.

(...)

A thousand horrors. A crazy, mixed-up hell right here on Earth. A melting pot of enslaved, alien races. A sea of two kinds of motion: the slow, deliberate movements of bodies who aren't free, and the wild, desperate spasms of doomed, caged prisoners.

From my vantage point, the pool itself churned directly below. Hard to say how far down. Not more than a hundred feet. Then there was the infestation pier, built out above the slugs. Human after human cursed or spit or wailed before the Hork-Bajir forced their head under to accept a Yeerk master.