3: Imprisonment
As Vilthuril was carried through the building she was both frightened & astonished at what she saw; there were hrair objects making an unusual noise and flashing with blue lights, other things she saw were things being pushed around with ease, riddled with items she thought were best left unknown. So many things in such short time, it was giving her a headache, so she decided to have a snooze since it seemed impossible to escape at the moment!
Eventually she woke up & found herself still being carried, but in a large chamber filled with cages containing a wide variety of animals; some she recognised, like the mice & rats, others were a complete mystery to her. It wasn't long before she was brought to an empty cage, which she soon worked out was where she'd spend most of her time whilst she was here; the man put eth end of the carrier cage to the larger cage and removed the wire from that vicinity. By tipping the carrier cage Vilthuril was forced into the larger cage, whereupon it was closed.
'Well,' she thought, 'at least it has more room than that eth.' She looked up to see the man making marks on something flimsy & white, followed by him putting it on her cage & leaving; Vilthuril quickly noticed that he'd put it with the marked side facing away from her. 'At least I can see some of the others,' she thought; as she looked around she realised that some of the familiar creatures had strange things that were a part of them! Eth mouse had a human ear on it's back, a tarli had a manipulative tail coming out of his flank, everywhere she looked there was eth normal-looking animal and eth bizarre animal. 'Embleer Frith,' she thought, 'what will happen to me?'
Next Morning, back on Watership Down, Fiver came towards Hazel-rah with an idea. Hazel was very happy to find his younger brother coming up with something as he very often gets things right!
"Hazel," spoke Fiver as Hazel-rah turned towards him, "If we continue following the route Bigwig has told us we can find Vilthuril!" Hazel-rah was slightly surprised at Fiver's comment; he had to ask him about it.
"Fiver," He replied gently, "How can we find her when there's a risk of us getting caught as well? We've got to spot her over a large area; it'd be like trying to look for corn in a field ol wheat!" Fiver looked into Hazel-rah's eyes with a haunting air that always came when he'd had eth of his omens.
"When we get there," Fiver explained, "She won't be hard to miss!" This reassured Hazel greatly, but he couldn't work out how Vilthuril would be easy to spot. At that Fiver left him stumped at this cryptic explanation, but he was sure it'd come to him, either directly (Actually seeing Vilthuril or Fiver giving him a better explanation) or indirectly (He himself working it out as logically as possible).
Meanwhile, back at the science lab, Vilthuril was aroused by a clanging noise in the room; once she'd fully opened her eyes she could see a man going round the cages putting into them green stuff & brown stuff, observing the eager gobbling of the other animals she immediately worked out that this was flay. When he got to her cage & put the flay in she recognised the stuff straight away, but it wasn't even vao enough to match grass.
"Soggy Lettuce & Potato PEELINGS?" She groaned; but she realised this was what she was going to get any way, so she started on the lettuce & peelings, the rabbit equivalent of gruel.
Meanwhile, upstairs in a committee room, a group of leading scientists were discussing tests on the captured animals, which test subject would be given what test, that sort of thing. Amongst the scientists Elaine, the one who didn't like animal testing at all, was there, she was in charge of the minutes; as they continued through the meeting their final test subject on the agenda was Vilthuril! Her test number, which was put upon her cage the night before, was Subject #229.
"I believe," spoke the chairman, "That subject #229 would be ideal for testing the irritation level of our new shampoo formula, you know, to see if we can promise 'no more tears'." One of the other scientists was totally shocked; this was the last available subject for the day, and he wanted it to be tested on cosmetics, just like all the previous ones. He had to protest.
"Sir," He cried out, "Shampoo is not a life/death item, can't we use this subject to test this new drug to counter-balance all forms of cancer? Whereby the body will be able to reject the useless cells naturally because of the evenness of their distribution, that'll stop any serious cancer!" The chairman turned to him disapprovingly before choosing to put it in a more democratic situation. Elaine felt deeply offended by both suggestions.
"Right," spoke the chairman softly, "All those in favour of cancer drug!" 70 of the committee put their hands up. "All those opposed?" Elaine & 3 others put their hands up. "Carried!" The chairman commented, "Subject #229 shall be subject to cancer testing. Right, any other business?" There was no response, so the chairman called the meeting to be adjourned; as they left Elaine pulled the one who made the cancer-test suggestion to the side.
"You fool!" She cried, "Have you any idea how much that rabbit could suffer?" The man turned to her, puzzled, before replying.
"No," He said, "And I don't particularly care!" Elaine pushed him away with extreme disgust; if she wasn't so well controlled he'd be on his way to hospital by now.
'Just you wait,' she thought, 'one of these days this animal testing shall get you lot into a lot of trouble!' She was happy that this was the last time she'd be responsible for the minutes, tomorrow she'd be transferred to the keeping of the animals; so she could take care of them whilst they'd have no suffering relating to the tests. But the disadvantage was seeing those that have been tested on suffer, she wouldn't really like that.