They were nearly flattened by seven of the long-legged Maggots they'd seen foraging, busy collecting literally every scrap of organic material. The running creatures paid them no attention, but ran on, fleeing as if their trousers were afire.
The bats were still fluttering in confusion and the rats scampering for cover when the reason for the panic came blundering through, stridulating blue murder. It was an eighth Maggot. And its trousers were on fire. Well, its hind-end was alight, anyway. Maggots didn't wear trousers, or anything else for that matter.
"Man, look at that thing go!" cheered Nym.
"Got its afterburners on!" sniggered Pistol.
Even Eamon was impressed. "Indade, 'tis not often you be seeing them from behind."
"Not often!" Melene was smiling toothily. "Why, Fal said he'd give up drinking if he ever saw one run away."
Pistol curled his own thin lips in the savage way that showed amusement. "And you said the only way he'd see them run was to give up drinking in the first place. To which he replied that he'd see a lot of other things too if he did. And then you-"
"We'd better go and look for those rats," interrupted Chip, scrambling to his feet.
The bats located the portly rat and Doll not seventy yards away, in a neat little hideaway that Fal had plainly organized. He and Doll were still lying on Chip's jacket, their tails entwined. Chip hadn't even noticed that the rat had stolen the jacket. The two were alive, and intact… it was just their wits that seemed to have gone begging.
For once even the fat rat was at a loss for words. And the brassy Doll's voice quivered when she finally found it. Her first question was addressed to Fal. "Art thou not hurt i' the groin?"
Fal just stared wide-eyed. Finally he shook himself. "I' faith that was bad timing!" The fat rat shook his head, untwisted his tail, stood up, and stared at the broken glass. " 'Tis a great waste," he mourned.
Pistol poked him in the gut. "Your waist is very great-but just what did you do to those whoreson Maggots?"
Fal paid the questioning Pistol no attention, and instead scrabbled among the rocks. "My lighter! It's got to be here somewhere."
Chip leaned over and picked up a pseudo-antique zippo. The gadget was designed for rats: smaller, overall, than the human version, but with an oversized striker to suit the relatively clumsy "fingers" of a rat's forepaws. It was inscribed: Ours is not to do or die, ours is but to smoke and fly. In some ways, rats were sticklers for tradition.
"That's mine!" cried Fal.
"And that is my jacket you swiped for your little bit of private whoopee-nest," said Chip, grimly. "Now, let's have the story."
"Gimme."
"Story." Chip held the lighter up, out of reach, and then, when Fal bared his teeth, he tossed it to the fluttering Bronstein.
"All right," muttered Fal. "Give it and I'll tell you. That's a genuine heirloom, that lighter."
Chip jerked his jacket out from under Doll. "After he's told us, hey, Bronstein."
"If ever," said the bat.
The plump rat glowered at them. "All right. Well, we just slipped off for a bit of… privacy, and I was just lighting up, after, when this Maggot stuck his face in. Well, I thought we were dead… . Doll threw my bottle of 160 proof." Fal looked at her reproachfully. "She missed. It hit that rock over there, broke and showered over the Maggot. The falling liquor was slow enough to go through the thing's slowshield, obviously. Then I must have lost my grip on my lighter."
"Panicked and threw it when he was trying to get up and run," interpolated Doll, obviously feeling more like her usual obstreperous self again.
"WOOF… next thing the Maggot took off like…"
"Like its tail was on fire."
"Exactly. Now can I have my lighter back?"
"I guess. So you're giving up drinking, Fal? Now that you've seen one run?" Bronstein asked.
The rat's whiskers drooped. He looked mournfully at the broken glass. "For now I am."
There were easily twice as many Maggots this time. They took one look at the quarry and, even with Chip playing bait, did not enter it but set off around. Chip and the rats and bats had to flee, the trap unsprung.
"They knew," said Bronstein, clinging to Chip's shoulder again.
Chip shook his head. "But how? We killed every single one, last time"
"Comms," the bat said, quietly.
"But they don't carry anything." It was true enough. By comparison the naked bats and rats were overdressed. They carried small packs and bandoliers. No Maggot lugged any hardware at all.
Bronstein gave the bat equivalent of a grimace. If anything, it improved that face. "Not that we've seen, anyway."
"Where could they hide them? I mean between you and the rats you've eaten whole Maggots. If there was anything there you'd have found it." Chip grinned wryly. "The rats would have shat it out by now. Like they do the slowshields."
"Maybe they're built into the slowshields," she said pensively, rubbing her chest over the spot where her own slowshield was implanted. "Ours don't have anything like that, but…"
Chip shrugged, nearly dislodging her. "Well, whatever it is, they communicate. Even when they're dying. And even if we win every fight, we're getting into a worse and worse situation, Bronstein."
The bat looked around at the tunnel-mounds that walled in the half mile wide strip of wasteland they'd found refuge in. The mounds were higher, and the strip narrower. "We need to break out of here," she said.
Chip voice reflected his tiredness. "We need to stop being chased."
"They won't stop until we're dead," mused Bronstein. Her face folds wrinkled even further. Chip thought that if there was anything in the world uglier than a bat's face, it was the face of a thinking bat. Then she said slowly… "So maybe we should die for them, then. Let them tell their commanders we're dead."
Chip snorted. "What do you suggest? We hold them over a fire and make them say: `The enemy are dead, Commander'?"
"Something like that," muttered Bronstein. "I'll think of something…"
The next ambush centered on a roll of barbed wire, either a relic of the war or a leftover from when this had been farmland. It was impossible to tell. What had once been fertile fields dotted by the occasional farmhouse had been completely ravaged-first by the fighting, and then by the typical Magh' methods of expanding their scorpiaries.
The party of Maggots that were closest and had to be ambushed were foragers or scouts. Probably scouts, because there was nothing left to forage. This area had already seen intensive work from the foragers. Not so much as one blade of grass survived. The Magh' always removed any organic material and stowed it somewhere in their scorpiaries. Metal scraps, however, were usually ignored.
Hence the roll of barbed wire that Chip had literally stumbled upon.
He swore.
"Not tonight," piped Melene immediately. "I've got a headache."
Chip grinned. "You'd be so lucky."
God help him, he was starting to enjoy his flirtation with Mel. If only she'd been a human female. Sigh…
He examined the wire, as Doc with blessed silent efficiency cleaned and strapped the slash on his leg. The wire was tightly spooled. A memory of Chip's only attempt at fencing came back to him. He'd unrolled the pig wire carefully. As he'd been cutting the stuff, the brick he'd left on the other end, to keep it unrolled, must have got up and walked away.
It was not a nostalgic moment. Still…
"Hey, Eamon!" he called out. "What about this idea?" Chip explained how the newly unwound wire sprang back.
"You cannot be using that stuff. It'll rip our wing membranes," said Behan, one of Eamon's pack-followers.
"Indade, it's a fool you are, Behan. 'Twill tangle the Maggots up, not us." Eamon's head was a closed shop-except for taking in ideas for generating mayhem. There he was as sharp as… as batfangs.
"Why should we wear them, when the bats don't?"
"Because they can fly, Phylla." Chip knew he was going to lose it soon. The rats were being cranky about Bronstein's idea. The wire ambush had been a resounding success, but they'd been able to watch how the Maggots, dipping their long feelers to the broken ground, had been able to track them, step-by-step. They plainly followed a scent trace.
The rat-girl looked at her feet, encased in strapped-on pieces of Magh' pseudo-chitin. "But they're so… ugly."
"Look good on you, Phyl," Nym rumbled.
That was enough. Nym's rare comments were valued. "Do you really think so?"
"Yes. Give you a bit of extra height."
"But they're not really my color."
I'm going to lose it! Chip concentrated on making himself a pair of exoskeleton sandals, while the rats debated not the clumsiness or the slipperiness of the "shoes," but their sex appeal.
They hid out on the hillside and waited and watched. A purposeful mob of Maggots arrived within twenty minutes.
"They knew exactly where to come. I told you. Comms, built in," said Bronstein.
"It does seem the logical conclusion," concurred Doc. "Philosophically valid, too. All the great logicians agree on the supremacy of mind over matter. I suggest we are observing, in action, Immanuel Kant's famous noumenon, the thing-in-itself unknowable to the mere conscious intellect."
Going to lose it…
"Doc," grated Chip, "would you mind giving me a translation? Before I just tell you to shut up?"
The rat reached up a stumpy forepaw and adjusted his pince-nez spectacles. "To put it crudely-inaccurately-we are seeing racial telepathy at work."
Chip stared at the Maggots. The Magh' fighters stood and muddled around their dead, or what was left of them. Eventually the mob split into little search parties, wandering hither and thither, plainly searching scent traces.
"See," said Bronstein. "They don't know where we've gone. I told you so."
It wasn't a popular statement, because it never is, but it was true. "They'll still find us," muttered Chip. "There are just too many of them."
He glanced down at G.W.F. Hegel, perched on his hip and peering over the boulder. "And if Doc's right…"
"Any time we fight one, the rest of them know about it," concluded Bronstein. Oddly, however, the thought seemed to cheer her up.
"But meanwhile"-she nodded toward the Maggots wandering aimlessly across the torn-up landscape below-"it gives us time."
"Time for what?" snorted Chip. "Time to sleep?" He found himself yawning.
"No," replied Bronstein firmly. "A time to die. Philosophically speaking, that is. Even-" She fluttered her wings. "Artistically!"
"I'm going to lose it," muttered Chip. "Completely."
Eric Flint
Rats, Bats amp; Vats
Chapter 6:
Meanwhile, back at the chateau…
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL BLUTIN'S family were second cousins to the Shaws. Even if he hadn't been overall commander of military operations he would have been an important man on Harmony And Reason. He was a short, fat, choleric man. His tailored uniform, despite the expensive material and the care and attention that his four Vat servants lavished on it, always looked as if should have been worn by a smaller, more upright sort of fellow.
But no one could argue that the uniform itself, and the avalanche of medals and ribbons which poured down its expanse, were out of place in the general's headquarters. Once a Shareholder's mansion, the huge edifice had been redesigned to the general's own detailed specifications. Damn the cost and labor! A war needs a suitably martial headquarters from which to be waged.
Major Fitzhugh thought the crenellations were a particularly nice touch, along with the portcullis. Completely useless, of course, against Magh's weaponry and tactics. But-certainly martial. Essential, no doubt, for maintaining the army's elan vital.
The major's attention was drawn back to the moment. Judging from the general's puce complexion-just the other side of beetroot-Fitzhugh thought the martial fellow was on the verge of completing his peroration. He'd better be, for his own sake. If the general puffed himself up any more he'd burst those polished buttons. He looked uncommonly like an angry bullfrog, without the anatomical design to make the swelling survivable.
But, fortunately, the major had gauged the affair correctly. At that very moment, the general finished his train of thought.
"So, explain yourself, Fitzhugh!" he spittled and thundered. "What do you mean-`No'?!"
Despite his appreciation of the superb spittling, Fitzhugh thought that the thunder was a bit spoiled by the rising squeak at the end. And while the halitosis undoubtedly added a certain charm, it fell far short of terrifying.
But the major thrust aside these idle connoisseur's musings and pulled himself even more rigidly upright. A response seemed appropriate for the moment. So From his towering height, Fitzhugh gazed down at the general over a long, bony, aquiline nose. As always, he kept his head tilted back a bit, giving his stare that certain panache. It was a habit they'd tried to break him of in OCS, but Fitzhugh had simply taken advantage of the criticism to perfect the mannerism. Disrespect toward one's superiors, of course, was a court-martial offense. But how could it be proved that a man could sneer with his nose?
"The word `no' implies the negative, sir. Actually, it defines the negative. In this instance, the word `no' actually means `no.' I cannot do it, sir."
The fat general glared up at him. But, within seconds, his eyes moved away. Flinched away, really.
Fitzhugh was accustomed to that also, and was quite willing to take advantage of it. His face wasn't a pretty sight, to say the least. A Magh' claw had done for that.
Still, puff-guts had plenty of wind. He managed another little puff. "That's a direct order, Major!"
If the general's snarl was intended to abash the major, it fell very wide of its mark. To the best of Fitzhugh's knowledge, he was the only high-stock Shareholder-officer to have actively led his men, from the front, into combat against Magh' scorps. By comparison this large, plush office in Southern Front Headquarters was a cakewalk.
"Yes, sir. The order is also in direct contravention of the Military Code. Chapter 15, section 3.1, paragraph 4. `Military personnel shall at all times remain under command of military officers.' So if I disobey your direct order, I face court-martial. If I obey your direct order, I face court-martial. Shall I proceed to hand myself over to the MPs?" He hefted the bangstick. "Or should I make it worth my while?"
The general scuttled back a few steps. He obviously didn't think the intelligence officer was joking. Which, since Major Conrad Fitzhugh had a certain reputation, was perhaps understandable.
The general's scuttling took him behind his desk. Given that the desk was approximately the size of a battlefield, he apparently felt a bit safer on the other side.
He plopped down into his chair. His face was as pale as it had been livid a few moments before. "Threatening a superior officer.. ." he mumbled. He started piling the reports spread across the huge desk into tall stacks, as if creating fieldworks to protect himself from assault.
"Nonsense, sir!" boomed Fitzhugh. "If you'll forgive me saying so, the very idea is an affront to your valorous reputation. Which, as I'm sure you know, is a byword among the troops in the front lines."
Fitzhugh lowered the bangstick. "Now, if I can explain." His next words were spoken in a very dry tone of voice. "The intelligence section is comprised of four members. Myself. Captain Dulache, who, alas, has been called away again on urgent personal business. Something to do with settling another inheritance dispute, I believe. That leaves me Corporal Simms and Private Ariel, both of whom, as you know, have been declared medically unfit for further front line service due to injuries sustained in combat."
Fitzhugh decided there was no need to remind the general that Private Ariel was a rat. There was certainly no need to inform him that the private was in his magazine pocket right now. There was no rule, after all, that stated explicitly that headquarters staff could not wear combat fatigues, with capacious pockets.
"Between us, we are responsible for intelligence gathering on the Magh' effort. I have put in, at last count, twenty-three motivations for more staff."
"We'd all like more staff," snapped the general, beginning to recover his wind.
Fitzhugh gave the general his patented double-bore gaze. Then, slowly, he swiveled the gaze to examine the office and its polished woodwork, brassware, and thick pile carpet. More manpower went into cleaning this office than Fitzhugh actually had in the two tiny rooms that were MI.
"Yes sir. We would."
He brought the stare back to the general. Blutin seemed to shrink a bit under that scrutiny. But it was difficult to be certain, given the disparity between the general's size and the luxuriant enormity of his chair…
"If I may continue-sir. I have no spare staff to devote to searching for a missing civilian-sir. I have no people to give to the Chief of Police for foot patrols as you have ordered-sir."
He cleared his throat forcefully. "Mind you, General, if one of the chief's staff holds a reserve commission I shall be glad to second Captain Dulache to him for that purpose as soon as the captain returns. Whenever that might be. I should be delighted to do so, in point of fact. The word `ecstatic,' actually, would not be inappropriate to the occasion. `Delirious from joy' also comes to mind."
"Humph," humphed Blutin. Whatever his other failings as a commanding officer, the general had no superior at the ancient skill of spotting an escape clause. "Hmph! Why didn't you say so at once, then? Yes, that'll do splendidly. Captain Dulache it is, as soon as he returns. I shall so inform the civilian authorities."
He wagged his plump little hand. "Go on, now. Get out of here. And don't let me see you with that uncouth spear again!"
Fitzhugh ported the bangstick. "It is a regulation weapon-sir. I am obliged by terms of the Code to carry it-sir." Then, saluting crisply and turning even more crisply on his heel, he was out of the door in an instant. The general's sigh of relief sufficed to close the door.
As soon as Fitzhugh had passed through the outer offices-a trek in itself-he entered the mansion-now-quasi-castle's dining room. The servants were already preparing the table for the upcoming "staff lunch." Four of them were spreading the linen tablecloth, like seamen struggling with a sail, while a small army of others stood waiting with the silver service in hand. Yet another host of servants clustered here and there bearing platters of food.
Seeing Fitzhugh enter the room, the majordomo stiffened. The servant standing next to him, newly assigned to his duty here, failed to notice and was already hurrying to the major's side.
"May I have your name, sir?" this worthy asked unctuously. "So that we might set the proper card at your place."
The majordomo hissed. All the other servants in the room froze.
Fitzhugh stared down at the fellow. Then, slowly, the shark grin spread across his ravaged face. The servant paled a bit, perhaps, but managed not to flinch outright.
The bangstick was suddenly in the major's hand, pointing to the far end of the table. "I always sit directly across from the general himself," he murmured. "He finds it aids his digestion."
The bangstick flicked out and speared a honey-and-sesame-seed-glazed half-quail breast from one of the platters. Holding it upright, Fitzhugh turned on his heel and strode toward the far exit. "And the name's Banquo. Make sure you spell it properly."
Once he'd left the dining room and had reached the unpopulated regions of the corridor beyond, a long and furry nose popped out of the large pocket of the major's fatigues. Black and beady eyes regarded him. "I thought for a moment you were going to skewer that fat blue-bottle Blutin."
The eyes moved to the quail. The major lowered the bangstick. The juicy morsel was instantly plucked therefrom and began disappearing into Private Ariel's maw.
"I can't say I wasn't tempted!" Fitzhugh heaved a small sigh. "But what's below him is worse. Blutin's a bumbling idiot whose rich relations put him here to get him out of the way, back when there was no reason for an army. But if he goes we should automatically get Carrot-up."
The last term came with a ferocious scowl. General Cartup-Kreutzler was Conrad Fitzhugh's ultimate bete noire, in a menagerie of sooty beasts.
Ariel belched and began scattering quail bones on the polished floor. "So why didn't you say we'd happily go looking for this What's-her-name, then? Virginia Shaw, was it? 'Tis a fact that Carrot-up bins your reports as soon they arrive on his desk anyway."
Fitzhugh looked down at the rat. There was nothing of frigid hauteur in that glance. Ariel was the reason he had any face at all. And he was the reason she didn't have a tail.
"Because we might find her, dimwit."
They had reached the staircase leading to the basement where MI's offices were located. Fitzhugh took the stairs two at a time. As always, he found the confines of the former servants' quarters refreshing. Dank and dingy, true, but at least they allowed him the illusion that he was actually fighting a war.
"Christ," he growled, now striding through the basement itself, "I'm delighted to have that stupid rich-man's-burden bastard Shaw out of the equation."
There was no further need for concealment, so Fitzhugh plucked Ariel out of his pocket and perched her on his shoulder. Scowling fiercely, he continued. "You know that jackass was insisting on an `oversight' of all battle plans. Christ! Half of them would be date-expired before they were set in motion."
They reached the door leading into the MI's offices. There was no need to unlock the door before pushing through. Nobody except the major and Ariel and Corporal Simms ever came here. Not since the unfortunate affair of Colonel d'Avide, which had done wonders for Fitzhugh's reputation. Captain Dulache, though he was officially assigned to MI, had set foot in the place exactly twice.
Fitzhugh laid the bangstick across a corner of his desk. That piece of furniture was scarred and worn, and the weapon looked right at home. "Maybe now that Shaw's out of the equation we can fight some kind of real war. Maybe."
As Fitzhugh lounged into his wooden chair, Ariel leapt nimbly onto the desk and began nibbling at the bowl of comestibles which the major always kept there for her.
"You're getting fat," grumbled Fitzhugh. Ariel waggled her tailless rump in cheerful agreement. "The daughter-if found," continued the major, "would probably be more of the same as her father. Cronies for general staff, and war-materials-contracts for buddies."
He sat up straight and reached for a pile of as-yet-unstudied intelligence reports from the front. "Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. I wouldn't be surprised if who ever did it was trying to do the war effort a favor. Ought to be decorated, if anybody wants my opinion."
He started scrutinizing the first report. Sourly: "Which they don't."
Eric Flint
Rats, Bats amp; Vats
Chapter 7:
Even heroines need to eat.
VIRGINIA HAD GOTTEN over feeling nauseated… eventually. Naturally enough, she hadn't gotten over being scared. But enough time in the unchanging darkness passed for her to start thinking, puzzling things out and piecing them together.
"How did we get here, Fluff?"
He nuzzled her neck. "I don't know, Virginia."
"Last I saw you, you were clinging to the back of the car."
"Um. You don't remember any more?" Fluff sounded distinctly embarrassed.
"No." She tried, but it had just… vanished. "Tell me how we got here?"
"I woke up here. Just like you," answered Fluff.
Fluff was definitely being evasive. "I saw you outside the car, Fluff. Where did we go? How did we get captured? And is the Professor all right?"
"I don't know, Virginia."
"Then how did you get here, Fluff?"
There was a silence. Then, in a small voice: "Inside your blouse."
"What?!"
"But I was unconscious! I swear it! On my mother's grave-I swear it, Senorita!"
When Fluff was deeply disturbed he went all Spanish. That was a side effect of his Cervantes download.
"Tell, Fluffy."
The galago hated to be called Fluffy. But-it was a sign that all was forgiven. So:
"The car stopped… the policemen came closer, and the Professor opened the door. I jumped in. I do not think he noticed. You were… asleep… I was a little, um, upset. I burrowed into your blouse. The door closed… and then I woke up with you. Here. I explored this cell and I found this hole. I looked out and there were Magh'. Then I heard you speak. That is all."
"So, maybe they don't know you're here! The Magh' must have captured the Professor, too. Oh, I hope they aren't torturing him! We must escape, Fluff, and rescue him!"
"How are we going to escape, Virginia?"
"You can get out, Fluff. You must steal the key to my cell. We can unlock the door and go and rescue the Professor."
He nuzzled her neck. "Um. There is no door, Virginia."
"But…"
"We are walled in. There is just the air hole. And I do not know if I can squeeze through it."
"But we'll starve!" Already, just thinking about it, she felt hungry and thirsty. "Or will we die of thirst first?"
"Never fear, Virginia. I-Fluff!-will go out and find food and drink for my beloved!" The little creature shivered on her shoulder.
"Oh, Fluff! What's wrong, dearest?"
The galago was silent for a moment. Then: "It is all very strange. I'm frightened."
"Then stay."
"No! A hidalgo must do what he must do. Honor demands it! I shall go."
"Just be careful. Please. You're not really a hidalgo, you know. You're a galago who's way less than a foot tall and weighs hardly anything."
Fluff bounced off her shoulder. "For you, I dare anything! I will prove to you I am a hidalgo." She heard him scrabbling at the air inlet.
Then, seconds later, there was a muffled voice… Fluff's. "I'm stuck."
"I can pull your tail," she offered.
"No!" he squeaked. "Don't pull-push."
"Breath out. I'll do my best."
The little galago's feet thrust against her hand. She knew it had to be her imagination but already the air in the hole seemed stale. Would she die in here, the air inlet plugged by Fluff?
Then suddenly he popped out like a champagne cork. She heard him land.
"Are you all right?"
"My dignity, she is bruised. Otherwise I am intact. And now-I go!"
Silence followed; a long, long silence. Virginia understood now how Cathy Earnshaw must have felt, exiled from Heathcliff. Bleak desolation.
Despite the downloaded Bronte, Virginia was basically a practical girl. She had made do for herself, largely, during the years after her accident. Later, after the Korozhet soft-cyber implant had returned her intelligence, she realized that the servants had neglected their brain-damaged charge in the knowledge that Virginia could not report their slackness to her mother. But even then she had not done so; nor had she requested new servants. Truth be told, Virginia preferred lazy servants. Less bothersome.
So, after a few weepy moments she got to her feet, bumped her head again and began to make a systematic examination of her prison, by feel. She had just concluded that Fluff was right about the lack of door or any other exit except the air hole, when he returned.
"Virginia." Never had the sound of her own name been so sweet.
Relief! "I was so worried, Fluff! Come and give me a hug."
"I don't think I can." There was real misery in the galago's voice. "I might stick fast forever. There is no one to push me through on this side."
"Oh no!" Virginia felt more deserted than ever. "What are we going to do?"
"I am just glad to be back near you, Virginia," said the galago, sounding piteous. "I was so scared I would not find my way. These tunnels! There are so many of them, and they are all so alike."
"Fluff! You must mark the way somehow."
"With what, Virginia?" he asked.
She was at a loss. "I suppose… I could tear pieces off my blouse."
"The Maggots might spot that. I scratched little marks. I just found them hard to… find."
"Did… did you find any food or any water?"
"Indeed I did." There was pride in the galago's reply. "Great store bins of grain, and things all thrown into huge pits."
"And a drink… I'm parched."
The galago was silent for a few moments. "Yes. Although… short of bringing it in my cheeks… but I will make some kind of plan."
Eric Flint
Rats, Bats amp; Vats
Chapter 8:
We who are about to die give you the finger.
NATURALLY, MAGGOT-MOUND construction played havoc with existing watercourses. And stripping the ground bare did not make for gentle runoff. Whatever the Maggot equivalents of civil engineers were, they had got it wrong in this space between their tunnel-mounds. Dry gullies turned to raging watercourses. True, thought Chip, it was probably a temporary situation. The tunnel-mounds were obviously still being built, and getting wider. Eventually the Maggot engineers would just use up the wasteland altogether and join one tunnel-mound to the next. Chip had once seen an orbital photograph of the Magh' scorpiaries. They looked like red cow patties with spiralling arms.
Chip had been glad when the rain started. His water bottle had been nearly dry. For food he was down to an "energy bar," which took more energy to chew than it provided. But he supposed if the worst came to the worst he could eat Maggot too, like the rats and bats. He was sure that if he could have cooked it, he could have made it edible-even tasty. A little garlic, some spices and a fire and it would have probably fetched four hundred dollars a portion at Chez Henri-Pierre, especially if called Navarin de Magh' au poivre vert. At present, however, Raw Maggot was the only choice on the menu. And that did not appeal, no matter what Fal said about it. Not even calling it Magh' Sushi de elementare could have sold it.
But it hadn't been a brief shower, and Chip was growing tired of being a one-man tent to a bunch of bickering rats and bats. His issue poncho had kept them all dry. Well, sort of dry. Like most raingear it had a seam around the neck ensuring a slow Chinese water-torture drip. For near on two hours they sat there, until the rain lifted in the late afternoon.
The rain was not welcomed by the Maggots, either. The minute it stopped, Maggots appeared on the outside of the tunnel-mounds, doing repairs. Clinging as they did to the outside of the tunnels, the Maggots had a wonderful vantage point. The bats flew off to disable them… and flew back. "They're blind. They don't have eyes. We can press on."
Unfortunately that wasn't true either. Between the hill slope of the wasteland and the scorpiary walls was a lovely new lake of muddy water.
"We'd better get swimming," said Chip, not happy with the idea. He hadn't swum much. Trips to the coast were for Shareholders. Part of his Company-sponsored education had included "swimming." But it had stopped at the level of "drown-proofing." Chip couldn't even see the other side of this body of water. It was lost around the corner of the Maggot-mound spiral.
"The water looks cold," said Melene. Gingerly, she touched it with her tail tip. "Freezing!"
"One must be philosophical about this," said Doc, looking as if this he'd rather be anything but.
"Water's not good for you," pronounced Fal, edging away. "Shrinks the skin. As pleasingly rotund as I am, I can't afford that."
Fal eyed the bats. "Can't you give us a lift?"
"You're far too heavy," said Eamon, sizing him up.
"We could sit on Chip's head," said Phylla hopefully. "He could ferry us across, one by one."
"I'm not sure I can swim that far," replied Chip. "Not even once, let alone six times." He sighed heavily. "But it's swim or die, I'm afraid."
"We bats can fly," stated Eamon. "I do not really know why we've stuck together so long anyway."
"Eamon," protested Siobhan, "we cannot just be leaving them!" She was plainly incensed, to dare to challenge the big bat directly. Normally, only Bronstein would do that.
"Be easy, Siobhan," said Bronstein, perching on Chip's shoulder. She wrinkled her face in that exquisitely grotesque manner by which bats expressed a sneer. "Eamon can leave if he has not the stomach for this."
The big bat rose to that fly beautifully. "I can fight with the best, and certainly long after you've decided to wing your way hence!"
"To be sure, you can fight," said Bronstein, dismissively. "But can you die well?"
"I can fight and die as well and as nobly as any son of the revolution! I can die with both courage and dignity." The bat spread his wings, assuming what he apparently considered a dramatic and heroic stance. To Chip, he looked like Dracula suffering from hemorrhoids.
"It's eating too much Maggot," snickered Pistol, mimicking the stance. "It's made me constipated too. Got any laxatives for us, Doc?"
Chip suddenly hooked on. "Die artistically." That's what she'd said. "Shut up, Pistol." He winked hastily at the one-eyed rat. Then he turned on the affronted-looking bat, and said "You can die with courage. But can you die with drama?"
"What?!"
"With great agonized howls and much flip-flopping before you are finally still," said Chip.
Eamon was affronted. "I? Die like some coward slave! Have you lost your wits, primate?"
"I knew he couldn't do it," Chip said to Bronstein in a stage whisper. Bronstein furled her wings with her own dramatic, dismissive flair. "Yes," she sniffed. "Clear enough, 'tis beyond him."
"Yeah, we rats will show you how it's done. Leave it to us!" Pistol hadn't figured out what was going on. But he could play along as well as the next rat.
"Bah!" hissed Eamon. "Anything you rats can do we bats can do better."
"Anything?"
"Anything!" Eamon paused. "Except drink and fornicate."
"We always master the important things," pronounced Fal.
It was, Chip decided, the finest dramatic production ever to grace the planet of Harmony And Reason. Perhaps it was the nature of the rats' downloads. Whatever the reason, the rodents were actors par excellence. The fight between Fal, Nym and Pistol was worthy of the Globe Theater itself. Chip was glad he managed to land himself a brief cameo appearance, "dying" quickly, so he could watch the rest, peeping as he lay still on the muddy shore.
They had a captive audience. It was certainly the best show the two surviving Maggots of the patrol would see for the rest of their lives. At the rate the water around the barbed-wire bound Maggots was rising… "the rest of their lives" was about three minutes off. He hoped that Eamon had finished dying by then. Even the fat lady in that opera that the Company had bussed the Vats off to watch as part of their "cultural education" had died quicker, and with less histrionics. With less noise, even.
Finally Eamon, with a last despairing shriek, flopped over backwards with Chip's knife apparently protruding from his chest. The water was rising steadily. Eamon should have chosen to die a bit higher up. If Bronstein and Doc were right, the audience was far larger than the two victims. It wouldn't do to have the late leading bat get to his feet, just because his ears were getting wet. But Eamon lay and allowed the water to creep higher and higher. The Maggot eyes were lost in the muddy water. Only Eamon's nose protruded when the rest of the rest of the dramatic company got to their feet.
"I' faith. Do you think he really did it?" whispered Doll in a hushed voice.
Chip was one of the three who ran into the water's edge to see.
Eamon sat up. Spat water. "Here's your knife, Connolly. I cut myself on the damned thing. Bah. I hate getting wet, indade. Well, could you rats have done better?"
He got the standing ovation he deserved.
Still wearing their chitin "shoes" they retreated from the scene, in case another Maggot patrol came to check on the previous one. The rats, nature's own looters, had carted away two of the Maggot patrol killed before the "command performance."
Well…
They carried them about thirty yards, before begging Chip to give them a hand. He did, simply because hungry rats are dangerous rats. The shrew genes gave them phenomenal metabolic rates. They hid out on the hillock, amid a slabby tumble of rocks. They chose a good high spot, but it proved unnecessary. At about midnight the Magh' engineers must have arranged some essential drainage, and the huge dam's level began going down.
And not one Maggot came looking for them.
"Now that we have shaken our pursuit," said Bronstein, "we can rest, recuperate and plan."
One of the rats burped. "Got another bit of Maggot going spare there, anyone?" asked fat Fal.
"Do you rats never think of anything but your stomachs?" snapped Bronstein.
"Hur. Of course. Are you offering, sweetie?" Pistol gave her a lewd wink.
"Nice legs," opined Nym. "Shame about the face." Bronstein swiveled her face and gave the huge rat a look that combined irritation with wariness. The trouble with Nym was that it was hard to tell when he was being serious.
"Stop teasing Bronstein, you guys," said Chip. He was little low on humor with the guzzling rats himself. Half an energy bar had provided a challenge for his teeth, and precious little for his stomach.
Suddenly Bronstein's face broke into a nasty, toothy smile. "I hope the gluttons are enjoying their Maggot-feast. It is their last one, to be sure. You do realize, rats, that we can't kill any more Maggots."
"Why not, Bronstein?" demanded Fal. "Do you have a conscience suddenly? I will not stop for that!" His nose twitched. "Maggot's not a patch on a fine grasshopper, mind you, but it is still better than that muck the Company fed us in the trenches. And there is plenty of it."
"You fool. The minute we kill one they'll be after us again. And there are a million Maggots to every one of us."
She had the satisfaction of knowing she'd silenced them. Then, Doc spoke up. "Indeed there is more."
"What!"
"Well, imprimis there is eating. Then, as the ancient Pistol indicated, secundum, there is sex, and tertius-I said there was more-there is strong drink. These are the philosophical contentions of rats."
Bronstein buried her face in her wings.
Reason's moon was bigger than Earth's. Even the crescent sliver was enough for Chip to see the still-working construction-Maggots. The tunnel-mound was getting wider and higher.
"I still think it's a crazy plan," he said, looking at the dark bulk of the mound. In daylight, with ropes and things it would be hard enough to climb. They wanted him to undertake a six hundred foot climb
… as soon as the moon was low enough to have this wall in darkness. And then, on the other side-six hundred feet down again. By that point the moon should be down.
"All right. Stay here forever then," hissed Eamon.
"Until you starve or get caught and eaten," Behan backed Eamon up.
"Until I lose my temper with you," said Bronstein, far more frighteningly. "Now climb!"
Chip climbed. So did the rats. It was easier for them as their paws were smaller, enabling them to use tiny pockmarks in the rock. Their strength to weight ratio was also much better than Chip's. The rats' problem was simply reach. A handhold Chip could grab, they had to do three extra moves to get to. Chip just had to face up to being too big and too wide and too heavy for the climb. He still had to do it though, feeling for handholds and footholds in the darkness. The rats could see better than he could in low light conditions, and of course the bats, to whom it mattered not at all, were at home in total darkness.
They'd chosen a zigzag Maggot construction ramp, which began perhaps thirty feet above ground level. Without that they really would have battled. The ramp was about eight inches wide and zigged and zagged its way at a forty-degree angle up nearly a third of the mound's height. For the rats it was a highway. An uphill highway so that they could complain, but a highway all the same. For Chip it was sweating terror and purgatory. He edged his way along, upwards, upwards, not daring to look down… again. He'd nearly plummeted off into the hungry darkness when he'd risked that first brief look. He'd gone all giddy and had to clutch frantically while Siobhan flapped around him like an annoying mosquito, telling him to "be climbing not shaking."
The rats, by now near the top of the ramp, were pretty full of their climbing ability. "Easy this. Methinks 'tis like a Sunday afternoon stroll, if it wasn't uphill," said Mel.
"The uphill will waste me away," grunted Fal. "I'm sweating my whoreson chops off."
"You've plenty to spare, before your waist's away," said Doll.
Then Eamon and O'Niel had fluttered up. "Over the side. And be quick about it! There is a builder-Maggot coming!"
"Uh. Over the side?"
"Now!" snapped the bat.
They had to cling there in the darkness, while just above them the Maggot click-sauntered past. By the time they got back onto the ledge, the rats were considerably chastened. There was nothing like hanging by your hands in the darkness over a huge drop to make you more appreciative of having something under your feet. At the top of the zigzag ramp, there was an entry into the Maggot-mound. They avoided this and had to traverse across a hundred yards or so to the next ramp.
From being near-vertical, where Chip had had to use tiny holds to hang on, the angle of the mound had eased off. He discovered that once he pushed away from clinging like a slime mold to the wall, he could actually stand on his feet on the tiny knobs. He was getting quite blase about it when a knob of Magh' adobe decided it wasn't designed for a hundred and sixty pounds of human. He managed to jerk back. Overcorrected. He scrabbled for a real handhold… started to slide.
Claws dug viciously into his back. Several sets. "Get a hold, Connolly," huffed some bat behind him, obviously through clenched teeth. Whether by bat-lift or luck, his slipping foot found purchase and his hand one of the occasional Magh' adobe struts. Chip clung there, panting. From far below came the sharp sound of the knob hitting the bottom, and bouncing away.
"I nearly gave myself a hernia," grumbled Eamon, settling on the wall. "What did you go and do a silly thing like that for, Siobhan Illich-Hill?"
"You and Longfang O'Niel were already clinging to him when I joined in."
"O'Niel, for what did you do crazy like that!?"
"Foin," said the normally taciturn O'Niel, "make it my fault then. When you know it was yourself who was first, Eamon."
"Whoever it was, I owe you," interrupted Chip.
"Well, if you owe me… then I have favor to ask," said Eamon.
"Ask away." Chip was feeling sick. Luckily, there was nothing much in his stomach to come up.
"Just don't tell everyone. The other Batties would expel me," muttered Eamon. He fluttered off into the darkness.
Chip stared after him. He'd known the bats were divided up into a jillion factions. They seemed to compensate for their infrequent mating by devoting their energies to political disputes. But he'd never once imagined that even the surly Eamon belonged to the extremist "Bat Bund."
"Ha," said Siobhan, landing on the strut. "He forgets I am not of the Bund. And I was here too-precisely because Bronstein didn't trust him alone with a human. And he was the first to try to hold you! All big talk, that Eamon. His mouth will get him into trouble his teeth can't get him out of, one day. Now, you must go on, Chip. Bronstein reckons that you and the rats must be off the mound by first light, and that is a bare four hours off."
Chip pressed on, somehow. As the angle eased, so did the climbing. He dislodged a few more fragments of Magh' adobe, but by now it was not enough to make him fall.
Eventually, Chip and the rats stood on the very top of the Maggot tunnel-mound. They had climbed the entire way in near total moonshadow. Now they could see a last moon-sliver poking its way into a shimmer of sea, perhaps thirty-five miles off. Thirty-five miles with many many stark folds of Maggot tunnel-mounds between them and it.
The bats hung in the air, twisting about them. "It's a long way to the sea, Bronstein," said one of the rats quietly. It was Fal. Obviously the distance, and perhaps the climbs that lay between them and it, had overawed the normally bumptious rat's nature.
"I' faith. A long and wearisome way." Doll looked at her paws, as if asking whether they were up to this.
"To be sure," agreed Bronstein. "It is a long way, for you earthbound creatures. And then we'll have to wait our chances for the force field to go down. Find driftwood. Make a raft. Do you rats have any other ideas? If not, you'd better get to climbing down."
Chip sighed, and began walking forward. "No other ideas, Michaela. We'd never get through the front lines. The sea is the only option. But it is a damned long shot."
"So is our surviving behind enemy lines. And what else can we do?"
"Nothing." Chip frowned. "But a length of rope and a grappling hook or even a few spikes would up my chances of making it."
"We'll look, then," stated Bronstein. "The forager-Maggots don't take metal away. Perhaps we can find something. But I think you are wishing for a great deal."
"Right now, all I'm wishing for is getting down from here fast, without getting down too fast," said Chip, looking nervously into the darkness ahead of him.
The climb down was the same again, but worse. It was also nearly the end of Melene. The rat-girl was the lightest and smallest of them, and had found the climb the easiest. Then, having paused to help Phylla, she missed her footing. Plunging headfirst past Fal she frantically tried to grab him. Fal's prehensile tail wrapped around her. The plump Fal stood as firm as a pylon as she found holds.
"I' faith, my hempseed lass, I know you like exotic positions. But this is a bit too bizarre a tail-twisting even for me. Besides I'm getting a little too fat for such athletic cliff-ledge frolics. Couldn't you have waited a few minutes? Was your desire for my body just too inflamed, to even hang on for another moment?"
Mel was too shaken to say anything at first. Then she started to swear. Chip was impressed by the extent of her vocabulary.
They headed on down. Chip fell-slithered the last five yards or so, but there were no bones broken, and no Maggot came storming out of the dark to see who was making such a racket. And besides, lying there, groaning, he made a softer landing for Doc.
"Uh! Did you have to land on me?"
"My apologies, Chip. When I heard you fall I came with all haste to see if I could render you any assistance. Alas, thesis became antithesis. As always, the unity of opposites is matched by their struggle."
As Doc said this, Phylla landed on Chip too. "Sorry. A bit steep that last bit," she apologized. "The handholds seem to have been rubbed smooth."
"Now, are you all right, Connolly?" asked Doc, as Phylla removed her feet from his midriff. "Can you move?"
"Ooh. Damn right I can move. And even if I can't, I'm going to, before fat Fal is the next to come tumbling down!"
Eric Flint
Rats, Bats amp; Vats
Chapter 9:
A brave new world.
IT WAS A PROMISING landscape. The fields, once overgrown with disgusting alien trash, were now suitably bare. Macroscopically sterile. The more the Expediter thought about it, the more remarkable the synergy between the two species was. The Magh' and the Overphyle came from vastly different worlds and ecologies, but it was almost as if the Magh' had been especially created to prepare worlds for the Overphyle. And in the process of farming Magh', the Overphyle also turned a handsome profit.
There was no denying that Magh' did a magnificent job of clearing undesirable alien life-forms. As far as the Overphyle knew, they'd only failed once in millennia of conquest. True, in several cases it had been against primitives, hardly worth turning a profit from.
The Magh' did an equally magnificent job of leveling terrain. When the sea level was raised the Magh' adobe crumbled. It made for superbly fertile tidal mudflats.
The Expediter knew that she, and all those of the Overphyle who had participated in this venture, expected the spawnlings of their spawnlings to live out pleasant full lives on this world. It would be well stocked with prey from home. There would be plentiful slaves to work in the factories. The Overphyle could live the life for which they were destined. It would be several generations before the Overphyle set out after the Magh' slowships again. Conquest by Magh' was a leisurely process.
She regarded the red tunnel-mounds on either side of her with some satisfaction. The Magh' were doing an excellent job with these "human" vermin. Yes, the scorpiaries were a pleasant sight, indeed.
The closer prospect made her twitch her interambulacral plates. Her optic-supporting processes clattered in annoyance. The near view was not a pleasant sight. Well, hopefully, if all went well, it would be all over soon. But these humans and their vassals-serfs were very trying. Very trying indeed. They would suffer for this.
Eric Flint
Rats, Bats amp; Vats
Chapter 10:
Loose Fluff.
THE GALAGO IS A nocturnal primate. Those huge eyes are well adapted to seeing in the leaf-dappled moonlit forest-margins of Africa. Those beautiful, fragile, erectile ears can hear a woodworm belch at fifty paces. The tiny black hands and long-toed feet are strong, dexterous, and almost adhesive. The long tail is like an extra hand. Agile hunters in the fragile branches of the upper canopy, they are capable of prodigious leaps and silent movement. They also have, weight-for-volume, the loudest voices in the animal kingdom, but this was the one evolutionary advantage Fluff did not use while moving through the dim tunnels of Maggotdom.
He was still terrified. The first time he had hung silent up near the roof of the tunnel while the Magh' streamed below him, his chattering teeth must have almost betrayed him. At least, by now, he had established that up near the ceiling he was effectively invisible.
Hanging outside the air hole of Virginia's prison he listened to her tearing material. If only he could get into her prison! He scratched at the hole, but galagos were not much good at digging, and the Magh' adobe was hard. The best he could do was to stick his long tail through the hole. Virginia would stroke that. But this time she had tied something onto his tail. He pulled it out. It was a long strip torn in a careful concentric circle from her skirt. To the end of that was tied another strip from her blouse. "If you soak these in water and bring them back to me, I can at least suck them."
So Fluff had undertaken several journeys to the water cisterns for her. He could not bring her back much to drink in the dripping cloth. He knew it wasn't enough.
Food too had been a problem, for both of them. His own natural diet was insects, gum, and fruit. A wild galago wouldn't have said no to occasional scorpions, birds or reptiles either. Of course Fluff had never had to forage for himself. The Company dieticians had made up a special-supplement diet for him, which Virginia enlivened with extra titbits, such as hideously expensive acacia gum. Of course there had also been a daily delivery of fresh termites of which he had been particularly fond.
Down here the only insect-like things were the Magh'. There was certainly no gum. He'd found ample grain, loads of harvested and decaying greenery, but other than three wrinkled lemons, harvested along with the tree and not yet rotten, nothing much either of them could eat. He'd given them to her. At least they had a little juice.
"I must go further, Virginia. I must find some more food, and some kind of container for water."
Her voice was full of anxiety. "Just be careful, Fluff. I couldn't bear it if you didn't come back."
"I will be. Promise."
It was a troubled galago that had set out. He'd actually been on one other long foray. He hadn't told Virginia what he'd found, and it was pressing on his mind and conscience. He'd found the Korozhet prisoner. Her Professor. He should go to help the alien. He really should. It was pricking his conscience terribly. He must help the Korozhet. But there were just so many Magh' there with it. He was too scared. He knew if he told her about it she'd insist on him trying to get to the good Korozhet.
Even braving a journey into the unknown was better than dealing with this dilemma.
Eric Flint
Rats, Bats amp; Vats
Chapter 11:
Biter bit.
DAWN COULD NOT be far off. The mound-top was already dark against a lighter sky. "We need cover," said Eamon, looking at the skyline.
"And sleep and food," Behan added.
"And strong drink," said Fal, mournfully.
"And tickets in the Managing Director's box to see a full Monty production of Carmina Burana," put in Chip.
The bats fluttered off to find a spot. They came back a few minutes later and led the human and the rats to a muddy undercut bank. As a hideout it was lousy. Chip was too exhausted to care.
"Well, Fal, your tail saved my bacon. I have a haunch of maggot stowed in my pack," said Melene, with real regret in her voice.
The plump rat had been looking a bit seedy in the dawn light. At the mention of food he perked up. He rubbed his ratty paws together. "Well, good friends, we have a place to sleep. We have food. If only we had a drink…"
"I have some alcohol impregnated swabs for cleaning injection sites," offered Doc. "We could suck those."
"Ah! Now, if the bats are familiar with this Common Boo Rana, we could just rename this tranquil rural beauty spot, `The Managing Director's Box,' and Chip too would be satisfied," said Fal, contentedly.
Pistol peered into the muddy puddle just below the hideout. "Hey, Fal, what would a `Rana' be then?"
"Some kind of frog, I should guess, my ancient Pistol."
Doc nodded in agreement. "Indeed, there is a genera of frog by that name, I believe."
"Ah." Pistol gave his best one-eyed wink. "There's a toad in here. That's close enough. I'm sure that would do, eh, Chip?"
Gnawing hunger awoke Chip. He'd heard if you stopped eating you stopped feeling hungry. Only he'd been eking out his rations. Eating less and less, but still eating. Now the cupboard was bare. And his stomach was not satisfied with some silt-flavored water.
Earlier presleep jokes about the toad having to be careful about not becoming a double amputee, with a chef around looking for frogs' legs, stopped seeming so funny. It was time he started to eat off the land, time he got rid of his foibles. He would starve otherwise. The thought of raw toad was still hard going though. Maybe he could toast it over fat Fal's zippo.
Then he realized he should have woken up earlier. Only a last webbed foot protruded from Fal's face. Then, with a crunch, that too was gone.
Fal told him it had tasted awful. Anyway, Nym and Phylla had got most of it. "We're going out foraging. We have to. Oh. And I'm afraid we ate your shoes."
Chip looked down. With relief he realized that they meant the maggot-hide sandals.
"We've got a real problem." Chip said to Bronstein.
The bat hadn't appreciated being awakened. "Other than being stuck behind enemy lines with a crazy human and a bunch of lowlife rats, I have no problems. That one is bad enough. And I love being woken up, to be sure."
Chip closed his eyes and counted to ten. "Okay, I've got a direct problem. You can just fly away. But, bat, when the Maggots catch on they're going to get serious about hunting you. Really serious. They've got aerial movement detectors. We know that. The Brass got at least a thousand bats killed proving it. They zap your slowshields with rapid-fire tracking projectiles. Keep it hard so that you can't fly. And once you are on the ground, you bats are no match for even the feeblest Maggot. The rats have got to get food. If they don't, they'll turn feral. It's the shrew genes. You heard what happened in that caved-in bunker on the eastern front?"
Bronstein looked at him. "You mean… where they ate the others? I thought that was just a story."
"No. It was true. I knew one of the kids on the cleanup squad. The platoon was trapped in there for four days. Without food. The rats ate the humans. They managed to catch and eat the bats. Then they started on each other. There was only one left to face court-martial. We've got to feed those rats, because otherwise they'll go out of their minds hunting food. Sure, they'll start on me. Then they'll go out hunting Maggots. And then the Maggots will be onto you."
Bronstein shook her head. "I'll get the others. It's nearly twilight. We'll see what we can find."
"Good-o. I'll start turning over rocks. The Maggots have cleaned up all the surface stuff. But I might find worms or something."
"Be careful that the rats don't bite the hand that feeds them, Chip."
Chip grinned wryly. "Never mind biting it. They'll probably eat it."
"It's about half a mile off," said Siobhan. "The farmhouse itself must have copped a direct hit. It is pretty well flattened. But the outbuildings are intact, or mostly so. The ground is stripped bare, but surely there must be some food in sealed containers?"
"There can't be less than here," grumbled Chip, looking at his muddy hands. "Let's go. It looks like it is coming on to rain yet again, and I'd rather have a roof over me, than be one for you lot."
The farmhouse must once have been a very large and beautiful one. Now it was nothing more than a masonry shell. Chip poked through the remains of the kitchen. The pickings weren't very good, so far. Three jars of marmalade, which had miraculously survived the explosion. There had been a walk-in freezer room and cold room, but these had been blown open and thoroughly gutted by the Magh'-foragers.
"Hey!" There was a shout. "Methinks we're going to die happy! Look at this, you bacon-fed knaves!" Chip went to see, visions of a secret food hoard lending him speed.
Fal had found an outbuilding such as the place where good rats think they will go when they die. It was a small winery. The rat was eagerly sounding stainless steel vats. "This one is nearly full! And there is a pot-still here! That means brandy!"
"There is something down here too," called Pistol. The Maggots had taken the wooden doors, leaving the dark stairway into the cellar unguarded. Here were ten thousand bottles, packed in their serried ranks.
"Well strap me, if I don't crack a bottle or two to celebrate!" said Pistol, cheerfully. "Can I offer you a drink, Fal?"
"I never thought to hear those words! Pistol offering someone else a drink, instead of scrounging it! Indeed you may!"
"Stop!" said Chip. "Don't touch that stuff! Do you hear me, Fal?"
"Boy, tell him I am deaf," said Fal, ignoring Chip pointedly.
"You must speak louder sir. My master is very deaf," said Pistol, obligingly, cracking a bottle neck against a pillar.
Chip snatched the bottle from the one-eyed rat. Red wine sloshed onto the floor. Pistol looked startled. "Now, Chip. There is plenty for all of us."
"Don't be fools, Pistol, Fal. You're both still starving-hungry, right?"
"Yes. But what we want for in meat we'll have in drink." The fat rat eyed the bottle greedily.
"While you're sober, you're keeping your wits. Keeping your hunger in check. Get a bit drunk and all you'll want is food, and once you're good and drunk, and this hungry, you won't care where you get that food. You'll eat me. You'll eat each other. We've got to find food first-before you drink."
The rats were silent.
"You can put the bottle down," said Fal, seriously. "Food first, eh, Pistol?"
"I reckon. I wouldn't want to eat Chip. Not while he owes me a crate of whiskey." The rat sniffed at the robust, berry-rich inky bouquet of the spilt wine. "And it is a lousy vintage, anyway."
"A rat! I have found a rat!" Nym bellowed.
They all ran back upstairs. The big Nym had cornered a large black rat. The real thing, too-a descendant of unwanted stowaways on the slowship, not a creation of genetic engineers. A real, non-cyber-uplifted rat. It bared its yellow rodent teeth at them.
"Dinner!"
Fal lifted his long nose. "Sexy smelling dinner!"
"Yeah. Nice body!" said Pistol, eyeing the rat lecherously. "Shame we're just gonna eat it."
Fal straightened. "Hur. That's where you're wrong, Ancient Pistol. There is something we've got to do first. 'Tis our soldiering duty after all. Tradition! Tradition's clear as crystal on the subject. Says soldiering's got killing, looting and rapine." Fal rubbed his paws and eyed the rat. "Fighting Magh', o' course, 'twas a moot point. But now methinks we've gotten lucky!"
"Hark at him, lads!" cried Pistol. "This soldiering business has really got it all!" He turned his head to let his one good eye get a proper look at the captive.
"You're a bunch of paltry rogues," sneered Melene. "Kill it and let's eat."
"Well, just now!" protested Pistol. "I mean a rat's gotta do what a rat's gotta do!"
Fal nodded solemnly. "Duty first! We're just going to have to steel ourselves to it." He smiling toothily at the captive rat. It hissed back at him.
Nym looked at the wild rat. Then at Pistol. "You know what his ideas usually get us into."
"What, good Nym?" exclaimed Fal. "Can I believe my ears? A valorous whoreson rat not willing to put up his naked weapon? What manner of rat are you?" Fal strutted back and forth before them, his paunch wobbling, his chest out and his head back. He flourished his bristly tail. "Where is your martial vigor?"
Nym still looked skeptical. "I'm remembering that time when you. .."
"Don't be disgusting, you lot!" Phylla did not look amused. "Get on and just kill it. My stomach thinks my throat has been cut, while you fool around."
Siobhan had fluttered in. "You are not going to eat that rat, surely?!" she said in tones of horror. "Why, it is nothing better than cannibals that you are!"
"In sooth. Doth it speak? Is it a tame shrew?" demanded Pistol.
Doc had wandered in, by now, and immediately begun pontificating. "Indeed, that is the question. The morality of the deed rests on this. Does it think deep thoughts? If it does not, then wherein lies the problem? Not in the mere fleshy envelope."
"There is as much going through its mind as there is going through one of you rats' minds!" snapped Siobhan.
"Therefore," said Fal reasonably, "as you bats have assured us nothing goes through our heads, the killing of this rat is no sin."
"They're planning to rape it first," hissed Phylla.
The bat looked as if was going to throw up.
Fal put on a mournful expression. "We really don't want to, of course-but the soldierly duty's to be done, to be done!"
The fat rat, paunch wobbling gloriously as he resumed strutting back and forth, gestured histrionically and burst into a singsong rendition from Henry V:
"But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, conjure up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favoured rage!"
"Tradition!" chorused Pistol. "Anyway, what difference does it make? We're going to kill it and eat it, anyway. It's a dumb animal, even it looks a bit like us. What difference does it make if, uh, we do our soldierly duty first?"
"It makes a difference to you!" Siobhan was practically choking from indignation. "Rape! How can you even think of it? I'm going to call Bronstein."
"Hmm." Doc's eyes were almost crossed, as he pondered the ethics of the matter. "But consensual sex implies and indeed presupposes an intellect. Therefore, where there is no intellect…"
"You know, Doc, you're about as much fun as an enema!" snarled Fal. "I'm proposing soldierly rapine! That's not a matter of intellect. It is a matter of tradition! Like pillaging and burning! We soldiers have a reputation to keep up. It is our soldierly duty!"
"Since when, you buffoon?" Chip had the average conscript's respect for his uniform, but this was a bit much.
"Always! 'Tis in my memory banks!"
Nym finally came to his own conclusion. "I know. We'll kill it first. Then it won't mind."
"Take the logic through to the end," Doc immediately countered. "Eat it first, kill it later and rape it after that."
Chip shuddered. "I'm going to kill it now and get it over with, you sick bunch."
Fal sighed. "Chip, you are a sorry gutless hobgobbin. A spoilsport. You won't let me get drunk. You won't let me force my will on this svelte little rat-maiden… and she rather fancies me. Don't you, my sweetness?" The plump rat reached out for the wild rat.
She bit him, and ran.
"Yow! After her!"
But they were too slow, and the rat dived down a hole.
Fal nursed his paw. "She bit me."
"Good," said Bronstein, who had come in behind them.
"Now, where is our dinner?" demanded Doll. "Get down that hole after it, you idiots!"
"That's dinner that bites. Besides I don't think I'd fit down that hole."
"I've a good mind to kick you down it!" Phylla snapped. Hunger made her very irritable.
"Hullo. What is going on here?" asked Melene, who had just wandered in.
"These stupid, randy, male sots have just let our dinner get away, in their quest for more bawdy lechery. They've let a tasty wild rat escape away entirely with their dumb oversexed behavior!" Phylla aimed a kick at Fal, who was still sucking his paw.
"That's males for you," sniffed Melene. "Come, I have found us something to eat. We'll leave them to their bit of wild-tail, seeing as we're not good enough for them." She linked arms with Doll and Phylla.
"Wait…" said Fal, hastily.
"Stick your private parts in the rat hole, you tripe-visaged sots." Doll smiled nastily back at them. "Maybe the wild one will bite them off."
Shamefaced, the male rats followed them.
"No, no, stick to your 'soldierly' duties," said Phylla, showing teeth.
"Ah, come on…" begged Nym.
Doll showed teeth. "Bugger off and go and enjoy your wild rat."
"We too have found some useful things, Connolly, although not to eat," said Bronstein. "I was just on my way to find you."
"Fine. Let's just go and see what the rats have found. The honest truth is, Bronstein, I could have eaten that rat myself. Raw. A bit of a come-down for a former sous-chef, eh?"
The bat chuckled. "We also need food, Chip. We aren't as voracious as the rats, to be sure, but flying is an energy-expensive exercise."
"Well, let's go and see what they've found. But, knowing their tastes, don't expect smoked salmon," said Chip, with a half-smile.
He was quite correct. The smoked salmon, presliced and inadequately preserved, had gone off. In the tasting room next to the cellar, where the wine farm had provided delicate little snacks for its wealthy Shareholder clientele, was a small fridge. Without power, much of what was inside was simply gag-making rotten. One or two of the soft cheeses had actually evolved to self-awareness, and had to be forcibly suppressed. But there were a fair number of sealed bottles and tins. And up on the wall was a cupboard full of cellophane-sealed packets of dry crackers.
A few minutes later the male rats came along. The bats, Chip, and the female rats were gathered around a table on the terrace. The trellis above, which must once have been vine hung, was now festooned instead with batforms. Their dark silhouettes were stark in the moonlight. Occasionally one would swoop down on the table.
"We can't get to it… have you got anything to spare?" the male rats asked from below, an edge of dangerous hunger in their voices.
Food had had a mellowing effect on the rest of them. "All right. Come up. There just might be a few scraps left." Phylla gestured at the stairs with a slopping wine glass. "Connolly made us some fancy chow."
The male rats fairly galloped up the stairs.
Chip, on seeing what they had found, had pushed the rats and bats aside. "I'll prepare it. Go and find us a bottle of wine." This was what he had done for five years… well, for the first year he had scrubbed pots… but he had an eye for this sort of thing.
Several by now half-empty filigree-edged silver platters rested on the table, filled with an array of delicate, elegantly presented canapes. Even the starving rats could only gape.
"Here, Fal. Try one of these bits of meatloaf," said Mel cheerfully. "What's it called again, Chip?"
"Pate de foie gras, with truffles and cognac." Chip winced, watching the fat rat shove it into his face and chew. Twice. Gulp.
"Methinks 'tis not bad for tinned meatloaf, really," Fal pronounced, washing down the exquisite delicacy with a draft tipped straight from the bottle.
"Hey! What do you think glasses are for, you Philistine?" demanded Nym, helping himself to a glass and a biscuit piled with slices of pickled quail's eggs in chopped aspic, topped with mayonnaise and dusted with caviared trout-roe.
"Dunno. What?" Fal had another pull at the bottle, and another piece of "meatloaf."
"Drinking out of," said Chip, raising his glass, swirling the ruby liquid and savoring the bouquet.
Fal clung to the bottle, pointedly ignoring the glasses. "A waste of time, when the bottle is handy." This time he examined the pate briefly, before putting it in his face. He gave it a cursory chew before asking in a spray of crumbs: "What was the little black bits in it? Con nyak, it's called? Some sort of testicle?"
"Cognac is brandy, you pleb," said Nym, looking curiously at the strange thing on the toothpick.
Fal grabbed for the platter. "Gimme. Gimmeee! Food and drink at once!"
"Too late, Pistol got there first." Nym chewed the toothpick. By the looks of it, he had decided that the stick tasted better than that pickled fishy-roll.
The odd food had even mellowed Eamon. "Just watch out for those little black balls he's put on those round biscuits. Chip's admitted 'twas just buckshot softened in fish oil, indade."
"What about the big ones in that bowl? Some kind of droppings?" inquired Pistol, reaching happily for them.
Siobhan swooped down and took a spiral of smoked oyster and gherkin slivers. "Black olives," she said, distastefully. "Beware, I tell you. There are pips in them. Nearly broke my teeth on one."
"Besides, what kind of fruit is salty?" demanded Phylla. Suspiciously: "I think Chip was having us on."
"S'like t'ose snake eggs." The plumpest bat belched and pointed a wing.
"Pickled quail's eggs, O'Niel," said Chip, grinning over his wineglass.
O'Niel condemned them with a lordly flap. "T'ay taste just like the eggs in boot camp."
Melene laughed "The ones we used to bounce?"
"Myself, I like those little bits of fish with green bits in the middle." Doll burped in an unladylike fashion and swilled back some of the Director's Reserve '03 Cabernet.
"Which do you mean?" inquired Doc. "The ones with the crunchy green-bits or the dark red ones with the wrinkledy bits of stuff in the middle." He inspected the one of each in each paw, squinting through his spectacles.
"The crunchy ones. What did you call it, Chip? Oh yeah. Roll-ups."
"Are you sure you're not supposed to smoke them?" asked Fal. "And the other fishy ones? Tried those?"
Doll swilled back some more wine, dripping it down her chin. "Nah. I thought they was bad. I mean, going green in the middle. I was just being polite and not saying so."
Chip chuckled. "It's an anchovy rolled around a caper, you ass."
"That wrinkled green thing is not a caper!" Doll leaped on the table, and pirouetted clumsily. "Thish ish a caper!" Fortunately Chip caught her before she could land on the snack platter.
"Bah, drunken rat revelers!" Eamon's temper was rising. "They can think no further than the ends of their long noses. Wasters and drunks!"
Phylla fixed him with a slightly glazed eye. "You know what, Eamon? You're right."
The big bat was taken aback. "I did not expect…"
"And you know what else?" She winked at him.
"Er… what?" asked the bat, in the cautious fashion of one who has just received praise from very unexpected quarters.
"You're really dead sexy when you're angry." She hefted the bottle. "What do you shay we shlip off and get totally rat-assed together?" Another thought crossed her ratty-soft-cyber mind. "Or what 'bout flying? Never tried that. Fly 'nited." She giggled and slumped forward onto the table.
Eamon hung on the trellis wires, gaping. Bronstein and Siobhan were definitely laughing at him.
He was not a bat that took kindly to being laughed at.
Eric Flint
Rats, Bats amp; Vats
Chapter 12:
A little something.
THE MAGH' SCRAPER tried to do its task as far away as possible from the Expediter. The Magh' apparently found the chemical exudate from the Overphyle hard to bear.
The Expediter lowered herself into the saline recliner. The scraper continued ineffectually. Strange. The Expediter had to admit that it was odd that chemical intolerance was all that had kept the Overphyle from being dinner to the savage wild Magh', back in that primitive scorpiary. Thus one of the most fruitful partnerships in space had nearly floundered. There were many billions more Magh'-even these lowly Magh'tce, now. And the Overphyle had found the Magh' very profitable… to farm.
Still, this new species was proving a tougher carapace to crack than had been anticipated at first. The opposite of the Magh' in many respects. Individually, the Magh' were almost mindless. As a collective scorpiary-mind they were… a bit uppity. Not too uppity. The Overphyle took great care to remind them just who the masters were.
Now the humans, on the other hand, could be relatively sharp and incorrigibly disobedient as individuals, and yet were as stupid-if not more stupid, than individual Magh' when they attempted to act together. What did they call it? Mob intelligence. An interesting datum. A contradiction in terms. A shame the humans were unreliable. They were better chelate-scrapers than this purpose-bred Magh'. But implants would fix that, if the Overphyle decided any were worth keeping.
Appetite stirred in the Expediter. Changing sex involved considerable energy expenditure. Well. Chemical exudates might have stopped the Magh' eating the Overphyle… darts leapt from her tubes and ripped into the joints-space of the scraper's chela. Nothing stopped the Overphyle eating Magh'.
The creature twitched briefly and was still. Overphyle toxins were singularly effective on Magh'. The onset of paralysis was rapid. That was good. The digested protein always tasted better when the animal wasn't entirely dead. The Expediter retracted the barbs, pulled the harpoons back, then humped out of the recliner, dripping. She clambered over the victim. The victim was too stupid to understand more than pain, but the group-mind would know that a tiny piece of itself was being ingested. Know, and feel, and remember just who the master was.
The seven-sided mouthparts spiraled open. The Expediter poured her inverted stomach out of her mouth… and in through the harpoon hole into the faintly twitching victim, oozing her stomach into the narrow gap. Then, in the delicious half-digested soup inside the Magh' shell she began to secrete more enzymes, and feed. The Expediter felt herself relaxing. So what if the Magh' made poor chelate-scrapers? It was good to be back among proper subjects. And there was nothing like the feeling of a good meal outside your stomach to make you feel truly at home.
Eric Flint
Rats, Bats amp; Vats
Chapter 13:
They also serve who only jump and wait.
THE TELEPHONE JANGLED Conrad Fitzhugh's concentration. Preparing this report and these analyses was a thankless, fruitless task. Conrad still tried to turn in something he could be proud of, even if that mindless jerk Carrot-up would probably refuse to read it. Conrad had had no formal training for this. Before the war he'd been nothing but a relatively spoiled son of a Shareholder, with a penchant for danger-sports. Yes, his parents were unusual, in that Conrad's father's fortune owed far more to business acumen than to the modest size of his shareholding. But otherwise Conrad had not been that atypical. Now he wished he knew more about data analysis. The phone rang again. He ignored it.
Dammit. There's something going on here. Sector Delta 355…
The phone rang again.
"Answer it, Simms."
There was no reply, except another ring of the telephone. Fitzhugh remembered that Corporal Simms was out at satellite tracking, collecting pictures. Sat-trac refused to send it electronically. He was alone in the dank office. Even Ariel was out foraging somewhere. She couldn't sit still for too long. Irritated, Fitz snatched the instrument from the cradle.
"Intelligence," he snapped.
A gargantuan laugh came down the line. "Were you on the job, my boykie, that you took such a long time to answer?" The voice could have done a fair double as a foghorn.
Fitz's frown slipped. A smile actually began to ease through. "Bobby, you dumb bastard. You haven't bounced yet?"
"So long as I don't let you pack my 'chute again, I'll be all right," rumbled Major Robert Van Klomp of the 1st HAR Airborne. "Listen, boeta, I've got a big favor to ask. If I have to do one more damn `display-jump' I'm going to go mad and bite somebody's balls off. I begged and kissed ass to get this unit formed. Sure, I've only got one-fifth of the men I was promised, but I've trained them into a halfway decent strike group. Maybe they've even got a bit more backbone than a bowl of herrings."
Fitz knew this translated as enormous pride. Bobby had pushed those men to the limit of his own gorilla-like endurance. The paratroopers were as tough as you could make soldiers without putting them under fire. The parachute major thought the world of them. But Van Klomp would never say that.
The parachute major sighed. "So what do we do, Fitzy? We jump out of airplanes or helicopters at parades. Five-way linkups with pretty colored smoke for the Korozhet observers. I'm fucking sick of it, and so are my boys."
Fitz snorted. "And what do you expect me to do about it, Bobby? Tell this bunch they can't have their parades? They'd shit themselves. That's the purpose of war! Anyway, the best I could do for you is to recommend you go on doing a parade a day and never see active service. That's how well General Cartup-Kreutzler listens to my recommendations."
"Ja. I wondered how well you'd fit in there. But I don't need your general, Boykie. Just a set of orders from someone you've managed to bully."
It was Fitz's turn to sigh. "I'll try, Bobby. But I've blotted my copybook here already. And after last time, Carrot-up has circulated a memo to all Headquarters staff. `In future any action recommended on the basis of intelligence reports is to be coordinated through his office and signed by his high-and-mighty self.'"
"So what are you still doing there, Boykie?" demanded Van Klomp.
"I don't know, old friend. I really don't know."
Eric Flint
Rats, Bats amp; Vats
Chapter 14:
There's got to be a morning after.
THE RADIO CRACKLED. "The getaway vehicle has been spotted on satellite photographs at the Shaw Plantation, which is now in enemy hands. In the opinion of the Chief of Police, Ben Hudrum, the kidnappers made a severe misjudgement in their choice of hideout. Now we cut to Doctor Victor T. Slade, an expert in Criminal Psychology at the Sydney and Beatrice Webb College for his comments on the choice of hiding place. Dr. Slade, in your opinion…"
"I'm damned if I know why you listen to that Company propaganda rubbish, Chip," said Bronstein. The bat had fluttered silently up to where Chip was sitting against the wall, toasting his balls in the morning sun, and thinking wishfully about coffee while listening to his cheap portable radio.
Chip snapped the droning hot-airhead off. "Dunno myself, Bronstein. For the music, I guess. And to remind me that there is a world and other people out there. Looking out from here you could forget that there was another life, where we could be huddled in trenches. Beautiful this. Tranquility in desolation." The farmhouse was on a hilltop. The morning mist, still hanging below them, was kind to the war-shattered and bare-foraged lands. The Maggot tunnel-mounds were red and sharp and clear above the mist-sea.
Bronstein looked. "You're a human of hidden depths, Connolly. Unexpected. I always thought you were little more than a two-legged rat… Anyway, now that you've eaten and slept, come and look at what we've found." Bronstein flew off.
Chip followed. The bat led him to a large shed some distance away from the smart facade of the tasting hall and the winery. The shed must have once been hidden behind the farmhouse. Obviously out of the public eye, it was as utilitarian and plain as the other buildings were ornate. The "Public-eye" buildings must have had wooden doors that the Maggots had taken away. This had ordinary corrugated iron ones, pop riveted onto a steel frame.
"You'll have to break the lock," said Bronstein
It was a sturdy, workmanlike padlock, attached to a chain that passed through the doors.
Chip looked at it and shook his head. "I could do it, if I had two trench knives." There wasn't a grunt alive who hadn't broken a padlock or two like that. People were forever losing their keys, aside from anything else. He rattled the doors. They were neatly made and fitted tightly.
"We got in through the eaves. But you're too big. Let me go and see what I can find." The bat flew up, wriggled through a narrow gap between the roof and the wall, and disappeared. In the meanwhile Chip looked around. There was a diesel tank up on a stand. A pile of bricks and piece of rusting tarpaulin-covered machinery beneath a lean-to. Chip shook the doors again, wondering if he could lift them off their hinges.
Bronstein reappeared, just as Melene came around the corner. The rat-girl was plainly suffering from a hangover. "Will you stop rattling those things," she said, irritably.
"To be sure. Stop rattling and start sawing, Connolly." Bronstein had a hacksaw blade, a shiny new hacksaw blade, in her claws.
It was a substantial lock. Chip looked at the blade. Then at the thickness of the hasp. "Bronstein, this had better not be your idea of joke."
The bat showed her fangs. "Just get to work, Connolly!"
Chip started sawing. "Flying foxes are considered good eating," he said, dryly.
Melene took a seat and shook her head. "Bronstein would give anyone indigestion. She's guaranteed to disagree with you. Besides, they're only part flying fox. Can't you saw a bit more quietly? That squeak is making my ears curl."
"Why don't you just go away?" grumped Chip.
"What, and have to listen to this thumping in my head on my own?" The rat smiled cheekily at him. "Anyway, I'm curious."
Chip had a distinct weakness for Melene. "Curiosity killed the rat." He felt the blade and pulled his hand away hastily. "Shit! This thing is hot."
Melene chuckled. "As the actress said to the bishop…"
"What?
She winked. "Get on with it."
"Take the other side then." The rat shrugged her shoulders and did.
They sawed away. At least Chip sawed, with the rat steadying the blade. Rat-paws were lousy for any work that required dexterity. Still, the cut went faster. "We should be able to snap it now," said Chip, flexing aching fingers.
Of course they couldn't, but did it at the next try. The metal doors swung open.
Aladdin's cave could not have been more full of treasures.
It was the farm workshop, and included all the essentials of a good farm workshop. It had everything from the really important dark, oily tins of mysterious miscellaneous bolts and bits, to unused, shiny-new workshop manuals. There were several coils of the most essential of farm-mechanics' equipment, used to fix everything from wristwatches to combine harvesters: eight-gauge wire. There were two engines in various states of disrepair. There was a cutting torch, an arc welding unit and enough scrap metal to justify a slowship shipment back to Japan on Old Earth. The bits ranged from rusty sections of reinforcing rod to the inevitable pieces of expensive stainless steel mesh, cut-to-measure, just slightly wrong.
There was a whole wall devoted to tools, complete with hooks and spray-painted patterns. One or two of the tools were even still on the hooks. The rest, of course, were in their natural place… in a wide radius around a dinky little vineyard tractor. The teensy narrow tractor must have been someone's pride and joy. It was probably the main working tool of the farm and even had a little hydraulic blade. The left front wheel was off, but otherwise the tools seemed to have been engaged in putting it back together. Quite a lot of fresh eight-gauge wire had obviously just been judiciously applied.
"There. Next to that stack of fertilizer. There's a whole load of rope!"
Well. It was rope all right. Typical farm rope. Not exactly the right stuff for a budding mountaineer, and not particularly light or oil free. But there certainly was plenty of it. About a thousand feet, at a guess, in various untidy coils. "Well, gee, Bronstein. Now that's really worth the blister I got cutting my way in here. Now, if I just take that crop-sprayer tank off the trailer, I can carry it all."
There was an audible sound of clicking teeth from Bronstein. "Then it is without it you can damn well do! Useless, ungrateful human. If you don't want my help, don't ask me for it!"
Chip sighed. "Sorry. I was out of line. Look, I appreciate the rope. We'll even find some we can use. And we'll use some of the metal junk for anchors. It was just… well, I was working it out. We found a little food. We've got… oh, say enough for a week with the rats on rations. Did you see how many tunnel-mounds we've got to scale?"
The bat nodded. "To be sure. I counted them. Thirty-two."
Chip grimaced. Felt his bristly chin. "In a week?"
"Ha." Melene appeared from behind a pile of metal junk. "First you're going to have to persuade Fal and the others to move. They think they've died and gone to heaven. Except for the food, of course."
Chip couldn't help smiling. "What's wrong with the food, Mel?"
"Well, no insult, Chip. It can be eaten, yes. But it isn't a good plate of curried pigs' tripes."
Chip bowed his head, humbly. "Alas. It isn't. We'll have to go looking for pigs. Mind you, I thought you rats were doing a fine imitation."
Mel took him seriously. "Well, I was thinking we should at least go and scout for some ordinary provender. Use this place as a base. We're bound to find some stuff. Stock up, equip ourselves and be in a decent shape to make a long, fast bolt."
"To be sure, that was what I myself was going to suggest." Bronstein was plainly impressed.
"You bats aren't the only ones who can come up with a bit of elementary strategy," said Melene loftily, rat-nose in the air.
"Ah. But we are the only ones who do."
"What! Go out foraging? But we just found all this prog!" Pistol had a bottle in one hand; in the other, a three cracker Dagwood of anchovies, quail eggs, pickled onions and caviar with marmalade. Plain to see, he was not keen to move.
"I'd liefer put ratsbane in my mouth," agreed Fal. "Pass that salad dressing, when you've finished hogging it, Nym. I shall try some with fish-oil soaked buckshot. It might make it edible."
Chip had to resort to bribery. "Curried pigs' tripes."
The rats sighed in unison. "Now, I'd go foraging for that," said Fal.
"Well, the shop here is closed, you gluttons." Chip started gathering crackers, jars, cans and bottles. He realized just how big a dent in the supplies the rats had already made. "So you might as well go foraging for that."
"Says you and who?" demanded Pistol, his one eye gleaming dangerously, as he clung to a pickle jar.
Eamon had fluttered over. "Says me. Never mind anybody else. Just me. Want to make something of it?"
Red-tipped rat teeth flashed at him, but Pistol parted with his pickle jar. "Don't like gherkins much anyway."
Chip took the jar. "Sleep. We're all short of it. This afternoon I'll provide a frugal meal and we can go out scavenging in earnest."
"Not too frugal, I hope?" said the smallest rat-girl.
Chip grinned. "We've got to make it last, Melene."
Pistol eyed her and grinned toothily. "Eh, my pretty little rat-maid from school. We can't eat, but we can drink and do other things. We can make that last too."
"You should have hung onto one of those little cocktail gherkins, Pistol. You'd have been so much better equipped."
Chip spent a couple of hours in sleep, and a couple of hours fossicking about in the workshop. He was surprised to find Nym there too. "Got a liking for mechanical devices," the big rat admitted. "I know it is not very ratly, but they fascinate me."
It was he who clambered up on the tractor and, while fiddling around, gave the key a twitch. The engine actually burped and gave a bit of a grumble. The rat was already out of the door… The nose came back first, timidly whiffling around the door. Then Nym followed it back, doing his best imitation of casualness. "Gave me a slight start, that," he admitted.
"And how fast can you move when you get a real fright?"
"Methinks you should consider that I'm at about the right height to bite one of your balls off," growled Nym, walking a bit closer to where Chip sat. "So what happened?"
"You turned the key. The motor nearly started. The battery is probably flat, and that was the last bit of juice in it."
"So why don't we blow up the battery, pour some more juice into it and start it up?" The rat was bright-eyed at the prospect.
"You don't know one hell of a lot about these mechanical things that fascinate you, do you, Nym?"
"Give me a break, Connolly. Four months ago, I woke up with all sorts of things inside my head and boot camp to get through. I've been in the trenches since then, and from before that I sort of remember a big cage with a lot of other rats."
Chip swallowed. It was a longer speech than he'd ever heard Nym make in the whole month they'd served together. He'd never really thought about where the rats came from. "Um. Didn't think. But it doesn't work quite like that."
"So how does it work?" Nym asked eagerly.
"Jeez. I dunno. I was a trainee sous-chef, Nym. Not a mechanic or a farmer. Big Dermott could have told you." That last just slipped out. He had been very carefully trying to avoid thinking about her since they'd arrived at this farm. She would have loved the workshop.
He turned away. The rat wouldn't understand and he didn't want him to see.
"She was a good kid, that," the big rat said quietly, which showed Chip how wrong he could be about rats too.
"Yeah." His voice was a bit thick. He fumbled blindly through one of the cupboards. Nym discovered other things to poke and pry at. Chip found himself staring blankly at a packet. "The Wonder flexible emery-wire saw." For no good reason he thrust it into his pocket. "I'm going out to get some air. Don't do anything dangerous, rat."
"Go and have a drink, Connolly."
"You think that's the answer to everything, don't you, rat?" Chip was suddenly bitterly angry.
Nym shrugged. "Nah. But 'tis the sort of answer a good rat would give. And I don't know what else to say."
Once again Chip was embarrassed at how wrong he had been. Considering that Nym's intelligence stemmed from a piece of plastic-like stuff the size of lentil, and that the rat had only that and few months of life experience, the rat was remarkably humane… and remarkably human.
In the gathering dusk the foragers went out, following their keen noses. Well, Chip blundered around. For what his effort was worth, he might as well have stayed back at the ruined farmhouse. By comparison to the natural equipment of the bats and rats, even his sensitive chef's nose and surgically enhanced eyes were feeble.
After they'd wandered through the debatable lands an hour in the dark, a thunderous eruption roared just next to his ear. Chip dived for cover.
Eamon had the grace to sound embarrassed. "Sorry. 'Tis that bedamned bottled sauerkraut."
Chip stood up. The bats had taken to the pickled cabbage in big way. "I've come to tell you that we've found the smell of much food," said Eamon.
"With luck there won't be any more ruddy sauerkraut," Chip muttered. He sighed. They would not just come and inform him for fun, or out of politeness. "Where? Is it far? Must I come and carry?"
"You must come to council," said the big bat sententiously. "We need to talk."
Now Chip's suspicions were truly aroused. "Why?"
"Because it is inside the Maggot tunnels."
Eric Flint
Rats, Bats amp; Vats
Chapter 15:
The great pantry raid.
"SO… YOU SAY somewhere down inside there, there is lots of food." Chip pointed to the tiny aperture, about a finger-width in size in the side of the Magh' mound. It looked like a black speck in the moonlight. Chip put his nose to it. It had the typical Maggot-tunnel fungus-and-hint-of-Gorgonzola whiff. He was damned if he could smell anything exceptional about it. "You're sure?"
Fal raised his eyes heavenward. "Your nose is not worth a gooseberry, Chip! If it were written in ten-foot neon letters, it couldn't be clearer. Some of it is spoiled. Down there lies the Maggot's pantry."
Chip shrugged. "So. What are we going to do about it? I'd say that in there it is out of our reach."
Eamon spread his wings. "If we could get in, we could fly down, raid their store and be away, with the Maggots none the wiser. We bats are the quietest of fliers. We can drift in, silent as autumn leaves."
"Unsmelt by any Maggot," said Chip, waving his hand in front of his nose. "Phew, are you rats sure that `spoiled' bouquet is coming from down that hole? If you ask me, it's the inside of Eamon that has gone bad."
"Um. That was me, actually," Bronstein admitted quietly, in the reluctant voice of the inherently truthful. "That is one of the reasons we need other food."
Chip wrinkled his nose. "Best reason I've come across yet. Mind you, I still think you're crazy. Listen, you'll be caught for certain."
"Indade, you would be caught," said Eamon, dripping scorn.
"We know it is risky. To be sure, otherwise we'd just have done it." Bronstein's tone was more conciliatory.
"Ha. Methinks they just called you because they couldn't work out how to get in through the mound-wall," said Doll, "otherwise they'd have just gone ahead, instead of telling you about it."
There was a brief, embarrassed silence.
"No!" and "Never!" said two bats with equal insincerity.
"Oh well, in that case," said Chip, "as you don't need anything from me, besides help in your decision, I say 'do it.' Don't let me stop you. Now, can I go back to the farmhouse?"
There was a longer silence, finally broken by Bronstein. "Damn you, loudmouth rat!" She flapped her wings with irritation. Then, sighing: "All right, Chip, how do we get in?"
"Well…" Chip looked at the wall. Tapped it. It was brick hard. He breathed in deeply. Stuck his hands into his pockets. Encountered something. Pulled out the packet he'd thrust into his pocket in the workshop, earlier. "As it happens I have just the thing here. Unfortunately, I'm going to need to go back to the workshop and fetch a drill and a piece of wire."
Among the many, many things which Chip had always wanted and known he'd never get around to owning was an electric screwdriver. He'd spotted one, back at the workshop, as well as a little case of ninety-six "useful" bits for it. Of course the only two really useful ones were missing, but obviously the mechanic had had little use for drill bits. Those were still all there.
With those and a piece of wire, Chip came striding back. He'd show them.
The battery pack of the neat little cordless screwdriver lasted about thirty seconds. He cursed. Fortunately-so to speak-the dinky gadget could be reset for manual operation. The drill struggled to bite into the hard Magh' adobe. It wasn't brick or concrete, but it was as hard as hardwood. Chip went on drilling and swearing in darkness. Eventually he got through. Then he did it again.
"What is takin' you forever, begorra!" demanded O'Niel, eventually.
"I've bent a curve in this wire, attached this emery-wire. I've pushed it through from this side. Now I'm trying to get it back." Chip spoke through gritted teeth. Being manually dexterous was supposed to be what humans did well.
"Indade? So why is it taking so long?" Eamon was dancing with impatience.
"Because I can't see the goddamn other hole," answered Chip tersely.
"I' faith, you should ask fat Fal to help. With that great girth of his it's been years since he's been able to see the hole," grinned Doll wickedly.
Just then the wire encountered the hole. "Ah! Here it comes."
Mel cocked her head sideways. "Funny, isn't that just about what Fal says too, eh Doll?"
There were two little lead balls on the ends of the flexible saw. Handles keyed over these. Chip clipped them in and began pulling the saw to-and-fro. The saw positively hissed through the Magh' adobe. Then Chip had to push the wire through the other hole. Saw, saw and then again. Soon he was able to hook a neat triangular little "door" out of the Maggot-mound wall.
When Chip finally had the piece out, he took a long, careful look it. Then he did a spot of swearing. He could see now why he'd struggled so with the drilling. The convenient indents on the surface, which had stopped the drill bit slipping around, marked the solid struts in the hollow-block material. He'd chosen to drill six inches instead of one inch, then an air space, and then another inch. Still, it could have been worse. There was a foot-thick stanchion next to one of the holes.
Well, it was no use crying over wasted energy. Chip bowed, flexing his tired hands. He pointed at the hole with an elbow. "There you go, messieurs et madames. Be pleased to entair."
"Who ate madames?" asked Fal, ever hopeful.
"I dunno. Wasn't me. Must have been the bats. Do you think that's what giving them such gas?"
The bats fluttered down into the hole, from which Maggot-lumifungus cast a wan light. Chip rigged a string onto the little door of Magh' adobe, and replaced the triangular piece. The bats would knock to come out, and the keen-eared rats would remain on standby to listen for them.
They waited in the darkness. After a while even the rats' banter died away. Chip decided he'd rather take risks than wait while others took them. A lousy attitude for a soldier, but his own. Anything was better than this waiting.
The silence and darkness grew more and more oppressive. Time dragged. Finally, Fal said what was on everybody's minds. "They've been caught."
Doc assumed his favorite professorial pose and spoke in a doom-laden voice. "Lost in the tunnels. Fated to wander for ever and ever…"
Knock-knock.
Chip pulled open the door.
The bats emerged… sans food.
"What the hell kept you?" demanded Chip and the rats in unison.
"'Tis a foine welcome back, indade," said O'Niel, clinging tiredly to the mound-wall.
Chip counted bat heads. All present and correct. "Where's the food?"
"We couldn't find it. 'Tis a long way down, and that whole level smells of it. We found spoiled stuff being shovelled into Maggot fungus beds."
Fal voiced the general rat disapproval. "Your noses could not smell their way to a privy. We'll have to do it for you."
"For once, rat, I'd say try it, and welcome. It's a maze down there," said Bronstein, tiredly. "But how do you think you'll get down? The Maggots are chewing rock down there, it's so deep."
For once Pistol came up with the answer. "We could abseil."
"What?" The bat looked at him as if he was a talking brick.
Pistol shook his head pityingly. "Abseil. Rappel. Slide down a sodding rope. Don't you bats know anything?"
Chip knew what they were talking about. He remembered with shuddering horror having to do that on the two-day "adventure experience" Company school had sent them to. The "adventure center" had been controlled by a major Shareholder, so of course it had been a part of their curriculum. The expense was naturally charged to a vatbrat's account for later repayment. Since it was considered a "luxury," the charge had been steep, too.
Hell's teeth, Chip thought gloomily. That had been a foretaste of the army if there ever was one. "Do you rats know how to do that?" he asked.
"O' course," said Nym. "Part of basic training. Buggered if I know why."
Pistol nodded. "Yeah. Like most of the rest of boot camp. Dafter than bat-logic."
"Be watching your tongue, rat!" snapped Eamon. The big bat bared his fangs for an instant. Then, his temper easing: "Not that I can't but agree with you about the craziness of that institution called `boot camp.' But don't call it bat-logic. 'Tis an affront to our intelligence."
"What are you going to use to abseil down?" Privately Chip agreed with them about boot camp. In this army the surest ticket out of active service was to be an instructor, and the best way to be sure you stayed one of those was to be a brainless sadistic asshole. That was what the Powers-That-Be, who didn't know combat from a hole in the ground, expected of an instructor. Discipline! That was the thing. But if they got onto the subject they'd be here all night. Best to move along, even if he'd like to ask if they'd also had to brush the hairs on their blankets. It was vital to military skill that the left-hand side of the blanket's hairs faced left, and the right-hand ones right. How could one defeat the enemy otherwise? And starching and ironing of the corners of the bed to knife-edge creases was of course essential. That meant you quickly learned to sleep under your bed, rolled in a spare blanket, which made sleeping in the mud in the trenches quite homelike.
"There's a big spool of braided nylon back at the workshop," said Nym. "Methinks it wouldn't support you, Chip, but it'll be fine for us. There is nylon webbing the farmers must have used for tying down loads. We can make harnesses out of that. There is plenty of chain. We can contrive harness links and descendures out of that. Piece of cake. Now, tell me, did they also make you humans do all that stupid marching stuff?"
"Yep. And you?" Chip couldn't imagine rats marching while some company drill sergeant bellowed.
Fal laughed. "Hah. Tell you about it as we go back. The drill sergeant's father was a bachelor. We used to have to march with our tails straight. Do you know what that does to your balance?"
It was Eamon's turn to laugh. "Hah! Soft you had it, indade. We use to have to march too. Sheer insanity! `Swing those wings!' I can hear still the loudmouth shouting it."
"I believe both the logic behind it, and the methods used, to be ridiculously archaic. Rooted in formation combat. In terms of phenomenology, a classic confusion between self-certainty and Reason."
Doc, as usual, silenced them all for a while.
Then Bronstein continued. "To be sure, 'tis a system which is all well and good for incompetent fighters, like most of your species, Chip. It makes mediocre fighters of the bad. But to try and teach hunting creatures like us to fight like clockwork-men, is a sure waste of talent. It assumes the enemy will fight like clockwork too."
O'Niel snorted. "And that's like these foine `battle plans.' They nivver survive a moment's real battle. And why for should hand-to-hand combat be any different?"
"Oh, but we cannot make as many holes in an enemy's battle as in a woman's petticoat. That would take intelligence." Sarcasm was definitely Phylla's strong point.
"Military intelligence?" demanded Chip. "Don't make me laugh!" There was the conscript's love of the army in his voice.
Phylla laughed. "Ha ha. The fool who taught us to abseil made one intelligent statement."
Chip's curiosity was aroused. "And what was that?"
"He promised us we would hate him. And we did. I believe he lived."
"Hey, Chip! Remember you said you charged for giving a rat a lift?" prompted Melene.
"Yeah."
"Well, would you take payment in kind? My feet are killing me," said the rat-girl.
Pistol whistled. "Woo-hoo! You got a roll of sticky tape, Chip?"
"You rats are really disgusting," said Siobhan, and fluttered off, before she had to listen to more.
The cord was discovered. Generously, the rats allowed Chip to saw the chain links from which they made up descendures. They tied their own webbing-sling harnesses, and told Chip he'd be fortunate enough to be allowed to haul them back up. As even fat Fal plus his wobbly paunch weighed only a few pounds that was plausible. With a piece of angle iron to brace across the hole, and an empty woven-plastic fertilizer bag for loot, they went back to the hole. A bat took the line down, as it would not be a straight abseil.
"Go carefully," said Chip to Nym.
"Oh, certainly. We shall steal upon them with catlike tread." The rat promptly fell over the angle iron and nearly disappeared down the hole, without being attached to the rope. He landed next to the edge with a thump.
"A fly's footfall would be twice as loud," said Phylla, dryly.
"Don't worry. We're just swapping soldiery for burglaree," said Fal. "Seeing as you disapprove of us doing soldiery properly."
One by one, the rats untied the rope, threaded their homemade descendures-because snap links were beyond Chip's limited skill as a machinist-retied the rope, and stepped through the small doorway. Then they were gone, down into the Maggot-mound.
Chip was left sitting alone in the darkness again. He liked it even less this time.
Eric Flint
Rats, Bats amp; Vats
Chapter 16:
A brave caballero!
BRONSTEIN WAS GLAD to have the rats along. She would never have admitted it out loud, of course. There were a number of places where the bats had had to alight and wriggle through a gap. The lead rat at the first of these paused, wrinkled her nose, and said: "Over there." They pulled the rope up and moved it across to a far wider adit. This brought them to a wholly different level where even the bats could have found the fresh food. Unlike the bats, the rats worried not at all about the mazelike nature of the place. They could smell where they'd been and also how long ago. In addition they seemed to have a sense of direction the bats could not match.
They also had the gift of nearly walking into sleeping Maggots. The hours between midnight and early morning appeared to be "quiet-time" in the tunnels. A Maggot would just stop right where it was and catch some shut-eye.
"Back," whispered Eamon, shooing the rats with his wings. "There is another Maggot."
"This place must be fairly crawling with them when they're up and about. This burglaring lark isn't as easy as a-lying in the sun," whispered Fal. "But I'll admit you bats make fine brothers in filching," he added, to Eamon's chagrin.
Finally they came to a long chamber. There was yet another Maggot asleep at the partially sealed mouth of it. "There is good stuff in there," whispered Melene, hunger in her voice, her long nose twitching.
"To be sure," Bronstein said. "There is also a Maggot in the way."
"We could fly over it?" ventured Behan.
"Risky," vetoed Bronstein. "What's left of that entry is particularly narrow."
Siobhan nodded. "But the echo beyond it says the chamber behind is huge."
The fat rat grinned. "Let's go as far as we can from the Maggot and make a rat-hole."
To Bronstein's over-tense ears the digging rat was making more noise than a cross between a steam shovel and an oompah-band. Still, no Maggots had arrived on the scene yet.
"Make it a decent size," whispered Fal, "we'll have to get the food out."
Mel snorted. "Not to mention you in."
Eamon fluttered back. "Be keeping the noise down, you fools," he hissed.
Melene, from inside the hole said, "There is a waxy layer here now. Easy to get through."
"Come out." Nym hauled at her tail. "Methinks we should make the hole through the hard stuff wider first."
Bronstein's patience was sore tried by now. "Move it up, rats."
Pistol lifted his long nose at her. "If you can dig faster yourself, come and do it. Otherwise, shog off."
She snarled. "If I bite your tail, you'll dig faster."
"Bullying witch," grumbled Pistol, nibbling at the hole edge.
"We're through!" said Nym. "Keep guard. Come on, rats."
The rats bundled through the hole, the smell of foodstuff beyond drawing them on as if they were on a string. Warily, watchfully, Bronstein checked out the passage. It would be just their luck to have some Maggot trot along now. She was totally and utterly unprepared for the shriek of pure fury from inside the hole.
"What the devil!?" she said, and then began issuing orders. "Go for the Maggot on the far side, Eamon, Siobhan-and you, Behan! You stay here, O'Niel. I'll get in there!"
Bronstein struggled through the hole. She was not designed for creeping and crawling, but whatever monster was in there sounded far bigger than a handful of rats could handle alone.
The creature standing on top of the pile of looted human foodstuffs could only be described as large of eyes and voice. The animal and its red frogged waistcoat would have fitted into a big human soup mug. But could it bellow! Right now it appeared to be virtually incoherent with rage.