Chip grinned. There was something reassuring about the fact that after all they'd been through, the bats still stuck to their phony Irish accent, right down to the detail of saying "indade" instead of "indeed."

"The normal method," he explained considerately, "is to drink some more." Bats were new to strong drink. It was only in the interests of trans-species friendship that they'd ventured on it at all.

The cyber-uplifted bat's genome had been spliced heavily with the leaf-nosed Rhinolophidae. It wasn't possible for the evil black crinkled face to turn pale. But the bat shuddered. "Indade… no. I… I couldn't, Chip." Somehow the voice managed to carry the very essence of a green pallor.

A long nose twitched up from underneath the seat. It was the front part of a ratlike creature the size of a small Siamese cat, which, with a stoatlike lithe sinuosity flowed up onto the seat. The ratty thing had an eye-patch, a bottle of grog and a suitably piratical expression to go with these accouterments. He waved the bottle at O'Niel in a friendly fashion. "Here, you fat swasher, take some sack."

The bat shuddered, shook his head so vigorously that his large ears flapped. By the pained grimace that followed, he plainly regretted that action. "No…" he said, weakly.

The elephant shrew wrinkled its long nose, and with a red-toothed snigger waved the bottle under the bat's nose. "I'faith, methinks 'tis a fine brew, and here we are back on wheels. 'Twas the best way to travel you said. You had to choose between drinking and flying, and, as you had a vehicle, you gave up the flying."

"To be sure, I am fond o' vehicles, Pistol," said the bat. He looked disdainfully at the truck. "Though, indade, this one is no patch on a foine noble beastie loike the tractor, but I'm after wondering if they can arrest the motion o' this one for a while. 'Tis vilely ill I think I am about to be." O'Niel descended in a sprawl of wings onto the seat.