by Eric Flint
"I am surprised it's not a full-on debauch you'd be indulging in," said a disapproving Bronstein.
***
Chip was good at ignoring Bronstein, at least while he was kissing Virginia. Well, if by "ignoring" he meant not standing to attention and doing what Senior BombardierBat Michaela Bronstein said. The bat was one of nature's organizers. But kissing Ginny was a powerful distraction. He'd wasted a lot of time thinking her one of the vile Shareholder class. Someone better put up against the wall and shot, than kissed. It had taken everything the war and treachery could throw at him to change his mind.
Fat Falstaff, the paunchiest of the rats, snorted. Chip watched him with one eye while continuing his lip-and-tongue gymnastics. Fal turned to his henchman, Pistol, who was sampling the canvas cover of the jeep for flavor. Knowing the rats had engaged in rampant gluttony less than an hour ago, and, in the way of field soldiers on this or any other world, had packs bulging with looted food, Chip wasn't too worried. Otherwise-given the rats' metabolic rate-once they started to eat the furniture, it was usually a sign that you might be next on the menu. For all that the alien cybernetics had uplifted the cloned creatures they remained essentially shrewlike. Their morality was not that of humans. Actually, they only had any morals at all, if and when it suited them.
"Well, Auncient Pistol? What think you? Methinks 'tis fine talk from a set of cozening flyboys who have mass orgies."
Pistol shook his head mournfully and spat out a piece of canvas. "No texture this stuff has. I say for a good long-lasting well-flavored chew you can't beat Maggot-hide, and a few little kickshaws on the side-like a fresh Maggot. But," he added, composing his villainous face into his best effort of injured sanctimoniousness, "if you refer to the amorous peck of our companions, and the self-righteous 'plaint of the bats… You have the right of it. To think of all of them indulging in the slipping of the muddy conger in concert, in a public place like that. Shocking, I call it."
The bats rose to the bait. Bats, Chip had long since concluded, were a trifle dim that way. They thought deeply about things, which rats never did. Politics was meat and drink to them, and argument about it was as intrinsic as breathing. Humor and sarcasm, natural to the rats, came only with effort to the bats-if it came at all.
"Indade, 'tis not like that!" protested Eamon. "We're a social species, and live together. Estrus just occurs simultaneously. We're faithful to our spouses."
Doll Tearsheet, reputed to be the naughtiest rat-girl in the army, lowered her eyelashes and said thoughtfully: "I'faith, 't must be true they're full. To think of waiting a year before having to do it again."
"You mean, to think of being able to wait a year," grinned Melene, the littlest rat-girl. Her tail was firmly entwined around her chosen partner, the philosopher Doc. "Mayhap after such a public orgy they know not how to look their fellows in the face again, until the level of passion doth again become too much."
"Begorra! It's not like that, I tell you!" The bat O'Niel was now plainly feeling better, having cast up the cause of his afflictions. He turned to his friend and chief drink-purveyor, the rat philosopher. Doc-or Georg Friedrich Hegel, or, as he had lately renamed himself, Pararattus-was an experiment in the download tolerance of the soft-cyber implant. They'd put the whole of Hegel's Phenomenology of the Spirit and Science of Logic into the chip's memory.
The chip hadn't cracked, but one had to be less certain about the philosophical rat's sanity. Still, given the dire state of the war effort, even experiments such as he had been drafted into the line. He was-as an aside from being a bad philosopher-a very good medic.
"Doc, explain to her, 'tis not wanton slaves to constant lust that we be, like rats or humans. 'Tis… 'tis…"
Doc nodded. "Merely biologically different, with each species considering theirs the only right and proper way to do things," he supplied, wrapping his tail around his love's in turn. "And you bats should, by now, comprehend that it is not disgust, but envy, that motivates the mockery of such as Pistol."
The bats blinked at the idea. Michaela Bronstein was, as usual, the quickest on the uptake "You mean…?" She looked in horror at the one-eyed rat, who was winking lewdly at her.
Pistol nodded cheerfully. "We'd love an invitation next time, you saucy winged jade."
Bronstein shook her head. "Rats!"
"That's us," said Fat Falstaff cheerfully. "Mind you, I am not so sure about doing it upside down. There is a great deal of me to hang by the feet, while distracted." He hauled a small bottle of the looted brandy out of his pack. "Methinks I'll quaff a stoup of this sack. At least we can drink in public, even if our girls prefer some privacy for other pastimes."
He looked at the others. "What? Do I drink alone?" he jeered. "What paltry rogues!"
"I might as well join you," said Chip with a grin, taking the bottle from Fal. "We humans don't feel the same as the bats do about sex in public either. So, although heaven knows when I'll get to see Ginny again, after this, and I'd rather be doing other things, I might as well drink. We're bound to be stuck here for ages."
It was obviously an inspired decision, because a ten-ton truck immediately came around the bend. It drove straight past, showering muddy water at them as they tried to flag it down.
Chip was just working up to a good swear… when the truck stopped, and began reversing cautiously. The rain, the muddy road, and poor light all made good reasons to reverse cautiously. But when the truck got closer it was apparent the real reason was Bronstein. She was clinging to the little sill above the driver's side window. By her wing-claws. She had the trigger bar of a bat-limpet mine between her feet.
When the truck drew level with them, they saw that the limpet mine was attached to the glass just in front of the driver's wide-eyed face.
"Nice of you to offer to help," said Chip evenly.
***
Once a little misunderstanding got cleared up, the driver had been very cooperative.
The misunderstanding had been that they couldn't do this to him.
They drove on, all squashed into the cab, through the rain and the gathering darkness, showering a convoy of motorcyclists in mud.
"Wonder why they were out here? This road doesn't really lead anywhere except to Divisional headquarters and the Front. Those looked like civilian police," said the driver.
"They're probably looking for Ginny," said Chip, giving her a squeeze.
Ginny shook her head. "For all of you. You're important people, too. Major Van Klomp said so."
"Huh," said Chip, with a conscript's natural suspicion of any officer coming to the fore. "Van Klomp should stick to parade jumps. That's not how the army works. They're looking for you."
"But that's not right," said Ginny, determinedly. "After all, you are all heroes. If it hadn't been for the rats, bats, Fluff and the Jampad, we'd have died, and the army would never have captured the scorpiary. You'll surely get promoted and be used to train the army. Every general must just be dying to talk to you. To shake your hand. Or paw," she said, after the briefest of pauses.
Chip laughed. "Not in this man's army! You watch, Ginny. We're more likely to be charged with desertion, negligent loss of equipment, and failure to salute an officer."
***
Chip was quite wrong.
That wasn't more than a quarter of the charge sheet.
Chapter 2
Eric Flint
The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly
An odd but unpretentious house perched above a small ravine and waterfall, on the wooded outskirts of George Bernard Shaw City.
Sanjay Devi was an unlikely conspirator. She was the colony's Chief Scientist, and the "mother" of the rats and bats that now fought beside humans against the Magh' invaders of Harmony and Reason. Their genetic engineering was in no small part her work, and the choice of material downloaded into their soft-cyber brain implants all her own.
In her choice of download material, as with everything she did, Devi had her reasons, not all of them obvious.
Perhaps it was just that she was fond of Shakespeare, and nothing more sinister. After all, she was one of the founding patrons of the New Globe Thespian Society, and a devoted amateur dramatist. One of her favorite statements, in fact, was that life tended to imitate the Scottish Play.
Right now she was attempting to decide whether to clutch the dagger that she saw before her.
It was an odd-shaped dagger, and made entirely of paper. Part of it was a pile of news-reports. Part of it was a printout of several confidential biographical snoops prepared by the HAR Special Branch. Part of it was a history book-a rare thing on HAR. She'd been carefully reading up the details of the trial and fate of an obscure artillery captain.
His name had been Alfred Dreyfus.
She took a deep breath, then muttered: "If you can look into the seeds of time and say which grain will grow, and which will not…"
If only it were that simple. She needed to select and promote an evil grain. It had to be both evil and weak, if it was to work as she planned it to. There were three possibilities-and each of them would kill innocents, and destroy lives. She'd cultivated all of them carefully.
Finally, she made up her mind and reached for the telephone. She'd grown up using a bonephone-implant and vis-vid. But, chasing the dream, Sanjay had left the technological advances of Earth behind. Here, on Harmony and Reason, there had been none of the vast interlocking support systems a technological society required to support itself. They'd had to step backwards to technology that didn't require such an interfacing of support-systems. Back to carbon-granule telephones, for one thing.
At least no one saw your face while you spoke to them. That sometimes had advantages.
"Talbot," she said, when the phone was picked up on the other end. "Fascinating news about this Major Fitzhugh."
She waited for the explosion from the man who was in charge of the colony's Security portfolio to subside.
"The general is a fool, Talbot. Even if he did marry your sister. That was probably the one and only intelligent thing he ever did. You'll have to lead him. He's not exactly mentally capable."
She shook her head sympathetically at Talbot Cartup's pungent reply.
"The answer seems obvious," she said calmly. "Treason, Talbot. You have the means to arrange the evidence. He may not be a Vat, but he's plainly a Vat-sympathizer. He not only trained with them, he volunteered to train with them. That's as good as an admission of guilt to me. Why would any man who was not some sort of fanatic do that?"
As it happened, she had a very a good idea why Fitzhugh had done it. But Sanjay Devi always played her cards close to her chest.
Apparently, Talbot Cartup found himself in bitter and complete agreement with her. And found her suggestion remarkably attractive.
After she put the telephone down, Sanjay sat for a long time looking at the odd-shaped dagger. At last she sighed.
That hurt, as usual. Deep breaths always did, but there was nothing that could be done about it other than to take painkillers. And she couldn't afford to take those. She needed her mind sharp for the time she had left.
Finally, the pain eased. She muttered "by the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes," and reached for the telephone again. But this time she clipped a little piece of solid-state circuitry onto it. It was a relic of old Earth, a piece of technology this colony could not dream of mastering for another two centuries. The scrambler-recorder was singularly useful to a conspirator.
"Major General Needford, please."
The JAG switchboard system was slow. But she got hold of Needford eventually.
He listened to her in silence. He was unnerving in that way, as well as in others. John Needford had a mind like a razor, and Devi knew that he was neck deep in the "young Turks" in the Army. He asked incisive questions-as always.
She was surprised to find that his special investigator had encountered Fitzhugh before… but she shouldn't have been. Their paths had been bound to cross, given the nature of the men.
When the conspirator put the phone down, she muttered "eye of newt" with some satisfaction. None of the other three calls would be as stressful as the one to the man she privately called "the Spanish Inquisition." It was almost a pity his ancestry was Liberian instead of Iberian.
She saved the most enjoyable of the calls for last.
She answered the sour grunt from the other end of the line with a carefully planned insult. "Liepsich, you stink. And HARIT's physics is at grade school level."
A smile twitched across Sanjay Devi's face at his pungent reply.
"And the same to you. With brass knobs on. Now, how goes the slowshield research?"
***
She put down the phone for the last time, detached the device she'd used, murmuring "and toe of frog." She bit her lip, thoughtfully.
"I still need some more ingredients. Wool of bat… and although it is part of the witch's role… the rat without a tail."
Chapter 3
Eric Flint
The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly
A mock-chateau on the edge of HAR wineland-country.
Now the Divisional Military Headquarters of the Fifth Brigade.
No one had explained to the Vat driver about the wisdom of avoiding the rats' stolen booze. In fact it was a good thing that Chip had restrained him after the first unwary swallow or he might have had more, and they'd have ended up in the second ditch… if they were lucky.
But even that one fiery chug had been enough to relax him. He joined them in some rowdy songs and was quite cheerfully willing to drive up to the front porte-cochere of the huge fake chateau that had been expropriated as Divisional Headquarters, instead of around to the vehicle park.
A number of brass in full-dress uniform were standing on the steps, looking anxiously out into the dark. There were a fair number of television cameras and reporters too. When the ten-tonner blundered towards them a couple of frantic lieutenants and a sergeant major tried to stop it. The two lieutenants had to dive out of the way. But the sergeant major was made of sterner stuff. The truck had slowed slightly to avoid actually killing the two lieutenants, and he managed to leap onto the running board.
"You stupid bastard!" he bellowed through the inch of open window. "Get out of here! There is a reception for a really important person. The outriders should be here at any minute. Get this vehicle out of here before I have you mucking priv-aaaagh!"
"Indade, I cannot stand this being yelled at," muttered Eamon, licking blood off his fangs with a long red tongue.
No one really heard him. The others were all too busy singing. As O'Niel and Bronstein were singing "Casey Jones" and the rats were singing a bawdy version of the same, which involved a conger, the noise in the cab was pretty horrendous.
They screeched to halt-a belated halt, as the truck mounted the first step. The reception party showed its mettle and fell over each other in their haste to get out of the way.
Chip opened the cab door, and they all piled out.
As the singing died away, the enormity of the sea of brass they'd nearly driven into dawned on Private Chip Connolly. There was an awful silence. The kind of silence that presages serious repercussions.
And then one of the stunned cameramen said: "That's her! That's her! That's Virginia Shaw!"
***
When she'd been trapped in the scorpiary, walled into a tiny cell, Virginia had dreamed of being free. Of getting back home. As their madcap adventure through the scorpiary had continued, being with her new-found comrades had become more important to her than anything else. She'd never had actual friends before. And finding love had made escape-while certainly desirable-not really something she had thought about much.
Now she realized she hadn't thought about dealing with the reality at all.
The camera-flashes, the barrage of questions. The people crowding around. She found herself desperately wishing that she was merely facing certain death at Chip's side on a little vineyard tractor without any brakes. She
was suddenly aware that both her skirt and blouse had been partially torn up for rags and were now very skimpy indeed. She was muddy. She had a bandage around her head.
However, she was Virginia Shaw, and these were the heroes who had rescued her. They deserved recognition. But how to get a word in edgeways?
"Santa Maria! San Cristoforo!" bellowed a sergeant major voice. "This asking of questions all at once, she is too much!" roared Fluff. He rose to his full height, perched on her left shoulder.
"One at a time, and the Senorita Shaw will do her best. One question each. No more!" He pointed to one of the thrusting microphones. "You. You with the mustachios of the most inadequate. Ask."
The startled reporter-who would shortly be clean shaven-took his cue. "Abe Telermann of Interweb here, Ms. Shaw. Were you present when your parents were murdered?"
She felt Chip's hand on her other shoulder and found her voice. "No. But my kidnapper told me that they had been killed."
"Who kidnapped…"
"Enough!" bellowed Fluff. "You with the hair of the color of my jacket. Ask."
"Er. Sandy Degan here. IPN. Who kidnapped you?"
Virginia knew the terrible compulsion provided by her soft-cyber chip's inbuilt bias. "My tutor. He drugged me and took me behind Magh' lines." They would find out who her tutor had been soon enough. But for now she'd beaten the compulsion to believe the best of the murderous Korozhet "professor."