The Rats, the Bats & the Ugly

by Eric Flint

  "Objection."

  * * *

  Fitz listened to the stream of objections, testimony and questions. Well, at least this was no kangaroo court. Ogata was also making no attempt to deny the "crimes" that Fitz had committed. Instead he was using Fitz's deeds to expose the simple lack of competence of the officers testifying. Whether they convicted him or not, Fitz knew that he'd finally opened up the army's General Staff like a tin can. And Ogata was taking care to expose the worms in that can to public scrutiny. Fitz wondered just how General Cartup-Kreutzler was enjoying this public demolition.

  Strangely enough, his concentration was not entirely on the trial. It was rather on the information that Ariel had brought him in the small hours of the morning. Details of what she called "the Crotchets' " military methods. There had to be ways of defeating those. And, if he read things aright, it was an issue that was going to be current pretty damn soon. If he got out of here, instead of on his way back to death row, that was going to be the next problem that was going to loom large.

  When the first of the prosecution's spying charge witnesses got up to testify, Fitz expected things to go backwards. After all, it was as neat a "stitching" as he had ever come across. It was his word against the counterintelligence security agent, and the agent had photographic evidence that would have convinced Fitz had he been one of the panel. Officer Paype gave his evidence with a straight face and great professionalism. He detailed convincingly how Major Conrad Fitzhugh had passed on detailed battle plans and taken large sums of money.

  Ogata stood up to cross-examine. "Officer Paype. As a counterintelligence officer of Special Branch, would you describe yourself as a skilled professional?"

  "I think that would be a fair description, sir," said the Special Branch operative.

  "And this . . . sting operation? Is it something of which you have prior experience?"

  "My record speaks for itself, sir. This is fourth one I've testified in, with the court reaching guilty verdicts in all cases. The Special Branch is the elite. We know exactly what we're doing."

  "And you would describe everything, including your record keeping, as 'professional'?" asked Ogata.

  The witness nodded. "As far as possible, sir. We are engaged in covert activities, so some of our records are restricted. We also can't compromise ongoing surveillance and operatives in place."

  "You've been one of these 'operatives in place'?"

  "Yes, sir," said Paype. "That's how I entrapped Major Fitzhugh."

  "In other words you're skilled at deception?"

  "Objection! The defense is attempting to lead the witness." Tana could see where this was going.

  Ogata was all innocence. "Your Honor, I am simply attempting to clearly establish the skills of the witness. I think it a fair question. We have established he has successfully deceived a number of people in the past. That means he must be a very skilled liar. I don't see any other possible conclusion. I think we have established that he could possibly have lied his way into Major Fitzhugh's confidence. Is this not a fair conclusion?"

  The judge thought about it. Nodded. "It would seem that his profession must require a certain, shall we say, 'flexibility' with the truth. Continue, Lieutenant Colonel Ogata."

  "I have no need to, on that issue, Your Honor. I just wished to establish that the prosecution's witness is a professional liar."

  "Objection!"

  The judge looked thoughtful again.

  "May I put it another way, which perhaps my colleague will not object to," said Ogata, calmly. "The witness in question might have the very highest standards of loyalty to the State, but in order to do his job professionally, has to be a very good liar."

  The judge nodded. Ogata's sheer imperturbability had that sort of effect.

  Ogata turned back to Paype. "So tell us, Officer. How did you manage to be turning over a hundred thousand dollars to Major Fitzhugh, and receiving war plans, on the night for which you claimed Travel and Expenses for operations in Port Durnford? We have logged the pay records as evidence." There was no need to point out that the rats had brought out the Special Branch pay records.

  "That's where the exchange took place," said Paype easily. "It proves rather than disproves my point."

  Ogata smiled for the first time in the entire case. "Being glib is an advantage to a liar. Sometimes it can trip you up. Are you sure this was the case?"

  The smile plainly put the wind up the witness. "I can't reveal operational details," he said, hastily.

  "How convenient," said Ogata, still smiling. "And what would you say if I told you that at the time you claim this exchange was happening, Major Fitzhugh was with General Cartup-Kreutzler at Divisional headquarters in Stanford?"

  "I said that I can't reveal exact details," said the agent. "But let's say that I wasn't actually in Port Durnford. I was entitled to T&E, but we have to be careful. We can't have some clerk in the pay-office giving away our place of operations."

  "I see. So we may assume you were in some place outside town? Possibly close to Stanford on the North Eastern Front?" asked Ogata in a mild tone.

  "You wouldn't be far wrong," smirked Paype.

  Ogata shook his head regretfully. "It is a great pity, for you, that I am not going to say that Major Fitzhugh was with General Cartup-Kreutzler visiting Divisional Headquarters in Stanford. If I did say that I would be as much of a liar as you are."

  After this, using convenient background information which the rats had brought in, Ogata soon had the confident Special Branch man falling nervously over his own feet.

  * * *

  "He'll make the man necrotic yet," said Ariel quietly, from where she'd somehow managed to slip into the wainscoting above him.

  "You mean neurotic."

  "No, that's what Falstaff did to Visse's secretary."

  And thus passed the first day.

  * * *

  Things went rather awry on the next day, when the defense called Doc to the stand to testify that they had created a target of opportunity. Doc and the judge had differing opinions.

  "To do so, rat, was against the law!" snapped the judge.

  "Judges," explained Doc kindly, "appear to think that the law is an immutable divinity, and that you are the voice of that divinity, to be obeyed. Unfortunately, Judge, history has proved that this is not the case."

  "I do not need to be instructed on the subject of law, rodent," said the judge, irritably. "The law is the foundation of our society and must be preserved. Now continue your testimony before I find you in contempt."

  Doc, caught up in the throes of a debate, cheerfully pressed on despite the threat. "Actually, metaphorically speaking, law is more like the mortar. It comes after, and to reinforce civilization, not before. And when the people, who are the bricks of our society, need to be reorganized, it's the old mortar that has to go. Justice, however, usually prevails eventually, because justice is actually a flexible and changing concept that is based on current mores, and exists in the eyes of most of the beholders. And I am not a rodent." He bared his sharp teeth. "As ought to be obvious, even to a judge."

  Needless to say, this went down like a ton of building rubble into the judge's swimming pool.

  He didn't like finding out that a military animal could not be held in contempt, either, as it was not actually a "person," legally speaking—but then, that's how the judge was trying to speak.

  Chapter 48

  Inside the rock beneath the feet of the people.

  "You need to see this, Liepsich," said Lynne Stark. "The HAR Times and HBC were things we never counted on. We never made any plans for them. But they've obviously responded to the fact that Cartup is out of the equation and that they need market share. They've jumped onto the anti-Korozhet bandwagon. I'm faxing the front page of the HAR Times through to you. It's also on HBC's Today broadcast. You'll need to move even faster."

  When the fax arrived, Liepsich started swearing. "Damn those idiots to hell. Why the hell couldn't they have wait
ed another twenty-fours?"

  KOROZHET MAY HAVE BEEN

  SUPPLYING BOTH SIDES!

  Spectrographic examinations of metal items taken from the captured Magh' scorpiary and the metal parts of slowshields (shown below) are identical. Metallurgist Dr. Jason Fiennes confirms that this is "simply too improbable."

  "The one time in his life Fiennes has to be dead right," muttered Liepsich. "And it had to be today." He picked up the phone. Then put it down again, and left as fast as his falling-down jeans would allow.

  HARIT was almost an outgrowth of the old slowship. The ship's hull-metal was still the toughest human-made substance on the planet. The door he entered would have passed for a broom cupboard easily. Indeed, inside were several buckets and a mop.

  He used the password to activate the secret door.

  "Open Sez Me."

  * * *

  The elevator dropped him into a part of Harmony and Reason that the colony had forgotten. When the ship arrived they'd been justifiably cautious about their Earth-ecology seeded planet. First access had been into the isolation test-chambers below the ship, from whence the portals had dealt with the remote sample vehicles, and later the suited scouts. The test chambers had been built tough. Tough enough to withstand anything the colonists could—or couldn't—think of. Within a month, the initial labs below the ship had been abandoned. Hull-metal and multiple layers of reenforced concrete-plaz lay above. Rock and a Faraday-cage surrounded it. Liepsich still had to marvel at the idea of having the kind of technology that could build something like this . . . and then abandon it. Harmony and Reason had been close to the Eden that the eco-seeders had promised. There were no inimical land-lifeforms, not even microscopic ones. There was no need for this place, and after that long confined journey onboard the slowship, no desire for anyone to stay here.

  The place wasn't abandoned now. When Sanjay Devi had shown it to him, back when the Korozhet had first arrived, only a few key technicians and scientists had come down here. At that stage, the Aladdin cave's entry had been undisguised. They'd started work on hiding it almost immediately. The ship still had treasures—too few to make a difference in the war—but too precious, as Sanjay had said, to give to those idiots to waste. It was down here that the soft-cybers and the slowshields had been researched. It was down here that the first scientists had died of the booby traps. Liepsich still had a piece of the shrapnel in his thigh.

  In the last three weeks, a lot of hardware from the captured scorpiary had found its way down here. So had a great deal of the command and control equipment from the ship above. So had a lot of the crew. The crew were the odd-fish in the colony. Granted a single share for their needed technical skills, many of them had stayed with the essential technical tasks that the colony needed them for, in those early years. Some had gone off to try business, or farming. But many had stayed. They were well rewarded and reasonably comfortable—and doing jobs that could only be done with the old Earth-made equipment on the ship.

  In the last three weeks they'd mostly been moved down here. It was crowded and busy. It was down here that the "virus" program was being created. In the meantime it was one of the places that no implanted person or animal could be allowed to know existed.

  One of the techs saluted him as he got out of the lift. It was getting too damned military down here for his taste.

  "Henry." He held up the piece of paper. "You'd better move us to condition orange. The Korozhet are not going to like this. They're not going to like it at all. If they lie their way out we've got some time. If there is no denial within the next couple of hours we've got problems, I reckon."

  "Condition orange declared two minutes back," said Henry M'Batha. "We picked it up too."

  As Liepsich walked over to the section that held the virus programmers, to see how they were getting on, he sighed. He got the feeling that humanity was riding around in a huge black fog-cloud, that was now turning into a thundercloud . . . with a lot of thunderheads rolling around loose in it. It was quite a question as to whom they would hit. And there was not a lot he could do about it.

  * * *

  Talbot Cartup looked absolutely nothing like his normal self.

  Sanjay Devi found that very satisfying.

  "Are you sure that these calls can't be traced?" he demanded.

  "Trust me, Talbot. I was in charge of setting up the first telephone exchange here. Neither your call to Virginia Shaw nor to your various henchmen can be traced, Macbeth."

  "Macbeth?" He looked puzzled. "Oh. The play."

  "The Scottish play. Life often resembles it," said Sanjay, going back to her paper-laden desk. "You'll be safe enough here . . . till Birnam Wood to Dunsinane doth come," she said wryly.

  "Well, I wish you'd give as much attention to my problems as that rubbish. I've sent a request to my contact on the Korozhet ship, but I haven't got a reply yet."

  "Patience. You might try calling them up on that communicator of theirs again. You've been Thane of Glamis as the master of the colony Security. When Shaw died . . . you became Cawdor. Now, offer them enough, and they will make you King."

  "You know, sometimes I think you're entirely mad! We don't have a king," he said irritably. Nonetheless, he went to fetch his Korozhet-built communicator.

  * * *

  She looked at him from under lowered brows. "Double, double, toil and trouble." It was a trifle awkward him using a Korozhet instrument, but the room pickups would doubtless still get it. Liepsich's computer enhancement tools back at the ship would take all the feeds and make it an audible recording.

  A few minutes later he bustled over, looking far more cheerful. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I should aim for a monarchy. It's a novel idea. It would sort out a few problems."

  "So what have you arranged, Talbot?" Sanjay thought that no statement of hers deserved an award for dramatic integrity more. She could only bottle down her disgust by pretending it was a stage performance.

  "Tirittit had to take it to their high-spines," said Talbot. "But what they really wanted from Connolly was to interrogate him properly. So, as soon as they've done that, as long as I deal with this anti-Korozhet sentiment, hard, they'll release him. I'll be getting audio-recordings from them tomorrow, reassuring Shaw. I had to give them certain guarantees, something of a more formal alliance and certain . . . what they call 'levies' of Vats, but they've promised to back me up, militarily if need be. The last thing I thought I'd do was come out of this mess stronger. But I've got the votes of—"

  He proceeded to list Shareholders that Sanjay had tried for years to establish the names of. "—in my pocket. I've still got control over the Special Branch. We set up a redundancy for this sort of contingency. Special Operations Director Perros is still in place. I'd better contact the others and then Shaw. Damned good thing Perros' men failed to take her out at that Vat meeting. You can be sure I'll reward you well for this, Sanjay."

  She raised her eyebrows. "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten it. Call them."

  "You could confuse a saint. I meant a portfolio on the new Council. Not perfume," said Cartup.

  She stood up. "I don't want to confuse saints. Make your calls, Talbot. I'll use my mobile. I make you one prophecy. You can be sure that no man of woman born will kill you."

  "More of your gibberish. I suppose I'm safe then." He picked up the 'phone and began dialing.

  Sanjay walked out onto her balcony and drew the glass door closed behind her. She looked out across the city. Hard to believe it had been nothing but scrub once. Now the suburbs and trees looked like they'd always been there. The remains of the great slowship that had brought them here still dominated the skyline, with the huge pumpkin-shape of the Korozhet ship a close second.

  She drew a deep breath, ignoring the stabbing pains in her chest, and dialed. She was not in the least surprised that the answerer enquired "And who doth call?" in a haughty tone. She'd always had a soft spot for Pooh-Bah. He'd always struck her as the perfect example of successful s
ocialism in one body.

  * * *

  The little golf cart swayed dangerously around corners. The candy-striped vehicle's steering was being pushed to its limits and microns beyond. Virginia didn't even seem perturbed. "How good is this information?"

  "As good as itself," said Gobbo, clinging onto the rail. "And the tears of it are wet."

  Virginia had no time right now for Shakespearian sophistry. "How do you know we can trust her?"

  "Meilin said she was one of the founders of the VLO. She gave some passwords that no one else would know."

  "It just seems insane. Why should he go to someone like that to hide?" asked Virginia, suspiciously.

  "And thereby hangs a tail," said Melene. "Methinks she hath cozened a cozening rogue."

  "She said something about giving him enough rope. Perhaps she thought he would go into rope-selling, and when he did not, she decided to turn him in."

  Pooh-Bah found this quite logical. "Marry, 'tis passing strange to a person like myself, of haughty and exclusive pre-adamite descent, to engage in vulgar trade. But I believe that the Master of the Buckhounds and the Groom of the Back Stairs have invested heavily in a scheme to make inflatable rattesses."

  Before there could be any more startling commercial revelations, they arrived at Sanjay Devi's home on the hill that overlooked the town. The rats poured off the golf cart and began moving in. Virginia followed them, and the paratroopers following the golf cart, followed her.

  * * *

  Dunsinane

  "No answer from Shaw," said Talbot Cartup, pacing.

  "She is coming here," said Sanjay, tranquilly.

  "What!"

  Sanjay looked askance at him. "You do seem to have trouble understanding things, Cartup. Perhaps it is because you're so stupid. But then, I did choose you for your stupidity. And your vanity."

  "What?" Talbot stared at her.

  She'd never insulted him before. She relished it. And she was playing the role of her lifetime. "I've betrayed you to her," she explained.