It wasn’t charred Tarsian remains, as I had first feared. It seemed to be glass—but not ordinary bottle glass. This was thinner, and curved. There was other debris on the floor, too; mostly rotting cardboard food packages.

Now the pipe curved away to the right, obscuring our view of anything that lay ahead. I more than halfway considered leaving the diapers here and backing out, but I had come this far and I’d be damned if I wouldn’t see it through.

Though it might be more difficult than I had supposed. As we rounded the bend, I saw a rusted grating in one of the walls. Fluffy tapped it with her paw. I gave the grating a tug, and it came right out in my hands. With the flashlight, I could see where someone had cut through the flanges holding it to the wall with micrometer precision, so when the grating was in place it looked completely secure.

The hole it left behind was plenty big for a Terran kid—but a Tarsian cop and a Dhancougar were going to have an interesting time fitting through.