Rats, Bats and Vats rbav-1

by Eric Flint

  "Methinks it needs a drink," said a fruity rat-voice from the darkness.

  Chip shone his beam savagely at Fal. "Shut up," he snarled. "Anyone else with bright ideas can try pulling it themselves."

  "I'll try." Virginia said, eagerness glinting off her glasses.

  Chip knew exactly what would happen as soon as he gave her that starter cable. The goddamn thing would start.

  Which, of course, it did. First pull.

  Maybe the thing had been flooded by his previous attempts… At least it had the decency to die when they put the load on, and then to fail in starting again for her.

  He put the choke in, and it started on the second pull. "Now leave it running for a bit before we plug it in."

  And then… there was light. A sunrise is a joyous thing, but Chip hadn't realized just how much he'd missed the normalcy symbolized by an ordinary incandescent globe. Once long ago-in a life that seemed to have belonged to someone else-it had been something so… accepted. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed it.

  "Right… weld first, I think." His voice was a bit thick.

  "It's just so lovely to see the light," whispered Virginia.

  Chip felt a twang of sympathy, surprised at the common ground between them. But all he said was "Don't look at the arc light," as he slipped the welding mask over his face. He spoke with a confidence he was far from feeling. True, "Armpits" Jones had showed him how it should be done. Armpits had even let him try. He felt himself blush and was glad of the mask.

  "I'm going to try to muffle the sound from the generator," she said.

  "Fine." Chip was concentrating on working out the best approach to the welding job. He tapped the rod against the metal. The rod sparked actinic arc light, hissed and…

  Stuck. Welding hadn't miraculously gotten easier in the intervening years.

  ***

  "Well, let's get on to the drilling then," said Nym professionally, rubbing his paws. "Come on, Pistol. You hold that short piece of steel in place. I'll pull the handle down."

  The one-eyed rat looked at the drill press nervously. "I'd liefer wait for Chip."

  Nym looked at him with scorn. "Stop blithering, rat. It's a basic piece of machinery, for goodness sake. I pull that lever down. The drill comes down. What could be simpler?"

  "Get Fal to hold it," suggested Pistol.

  Nym's icy gaze would have withered polar lichen. "Tch. He can hold your hand if you like."

  Even Pistol wasn't proof against that. "No, if you're sure…"

  "Well, we'll do those small pieces first," Nym condescended. "Start with the easiest."

  He started the drill. Virginia tried to hold the second mattress wrapped around the generator with two hands, while she tried to tie it in place with a third and a fourth hand she didn't have.

  The big rat hauled at the press handle. "Whoreson! This bedamned lever is stiff." He threw his giant-rat weight and strength into the project.

  The high-speed drill bit came down fast, and bit into the mild steel. The piece of steel proved an efficient transmitter of torque.

  What followed was the first airborne rat-strike in history. A process that went something like "AAAAAHHHH!!!!"

  THUD. Fortunately, Pistol hit Virginia's mattress and rolled to the floor unhurt, still clinging to the steel section. He was paralyzed with fear and shock.

  Well… except for his mouth.

  "YOU FUGGING BACONFED WHORESON RATCATCHER!"

  Virginia stood there, wide-eared with amazement, while Pistol shredded Nym's character and morals, etc. etc., unto the fifteenth generation back. He was working on the sixteenth when he stopped abruptly.

  The mattress, alas, had caught fire.

  ***

  Stamping on it was ineffectual. Oil had seeped into the mattress, and it burned even though it was still partly wet. The workshop was a hell's-cauldron of smoke, steam and little dancing flames. Virginia bolted from the Dante-esque scene.

  Chip cursed her under his breath as he stamped on the mattress. Just like a fucking worthless Shareholder bitch to run!

  She was back an instant later, armed with a fire extinguisher.

  ***

  Some time later, the place still was acrid with burned mattress and the ozone smell of welding. Virginia gazed admiringly at the hitch-wishbone. "You're brilliant!"

  It really wasn't a bad piece of "hedgehog" welding. There weren't more than seven stuck welding rods cut off with side cutters. There were even a couple of really nice spot-welds. Chip had skilled hands and exceptionally fine motor control, as befits a master chef. Still, you don't learn to weld very well in ten minutes.

  "Hey, Chip! Is this thing supposed to come off again?" Nym wrestled with the C-clamp. "Because I need it for the drilling."

  Chip looked. "Um. No. That clamp is now a permanent fixture."

  Eric Flint

  Rats, Bats amp; Vats

  Chapter 23:

  Baring the Bronte.

  THE DRILL WAS SILENT at last. So was the generator. Careful bat-patrols had shown no sign of Maggot-awareness. The bats had flown off to trail some more droppings and trigger another explosive… two valleys away.

  The rats were off filling Molotov cocktail bottles with alcohol. On a "one-for-me, one-for-the-Maggots" basis, Chip suspected. The dexterous galago had gone to screw on lids-Melene and Doll were still keen to get him to screw on anything and anywhere. That left Chip alone with Virginia, who had appeared to have the same in mind earlier. But he needed the strength of another human for these jobs.

  Chip and Virginia began maneuvering the little tank trailer out of the workshop. The task was difficult, since the new rack of bolted-on pieces of angle iron kept catching on the doorframe. In addition, the trailer was festooned with a tangle of barbed wire rolls, on top of knee-buckling loads of fertilizer bags, on top of diesel drums. Once empty fertilizer bags were now bulging full of wire snares, pipe bombs, homemade caltrops, and everything from aerosol cans to a gallon can of floor-tile glue. The remaining space was taken by bundles of hinged ceiling planks set up with tenpenny nails and bangstick cartridges. There were still bags of Molotovs to come.

  And the insecticide bombs, which consisted of powder stuffed into the condoms which Virginia had found in the back of a desk drawer in the workshop. Someone had obviously believed in the colony policy of increasing the human capital-as soon as they'd got this reproductive act perfect, which, of course, required practice.

  Virginia had asked him why anyone would need rubber balloons in a workshop. Chip had managed to choke out some kind of preposterous answer, which she had accepted without question. He was beginning to realize that, for all the girl's evident shy passion for him, she was an utter naif. The odd combination was giving him…

  Fits.

  He could feel his defenses crumbling. For all his detestation of Shareholders, Chip could no longer fool himself into thinking that the girl was simply toying with him out of idle-rich-girl ennui. Now, watching her wrestling energetically with the trailer, he felt his defenses crumble some more. Virginia's forehead was beaded with sweat. Trickles of it coursed through the dust and grime on her face. Her lips were pulled back in a grimace, exposing slightly-skewed front teeth. For all the world, she reminded him of Dermott. Except this girl was prettier-a lot prettier-and…

  Sigh. Smarter, yeah. A lot smarter. And…

  Virginia noticed him staring at her. Her grimace turned into a smile. Not a coy smile, or a coquettish one. Just-a smile.

  Sigh. His eyes shied away from her and came to rest on one of the insecticide bombs. The sight of that bulging container triggered off a rapid free association in his mind.

  He drove those thoughts away, fiercely, almost frantically. That road led to disaster!

  ***

  Finally, they got the trailer outside. Next came filling the tank. They found a hose. Now all they had to do was start a raw brandy siphon. Oh, and calm the rats. They were going to get hysterical about Chip swiping their booze.

/>   In the gray dawn light Chip caught sight of the distant flicker of returning batwings. He couldn't but feel relieved. Funny. In those far off days, about a week ago, bats, rats and humans shared a war and little else. Now… they were welded together by their struggle to stay alive. Even this Shareholder girl. She'd worked like a Vat. Chip had to admit she looked a bit like a Vat. The glasses and the skew teeth did it. A good Shareholder had those made-of-plastic-looking regular teeth and contacts or eye surgery at the specialist unit in the ship. "Toss me that rope."

  She did.

  "I've been meaning to ask-why do you have to wear glasses?"

  "Because I can't see much without them," she said shortly. It was apparent he had trodden on a nerve.

  He proceeded to make a bad thing worse. "What I meant was, what about surgery? They implanted infrared lenses into us soldiers. They do stuff with lasers…"

  "My corneas are too thin. Back on Earth they could transplant. Here I'm stuck with it." Her tone said: Talk about something else. Don't ask me about contact lenses.

  Tact was Chip's strong point, only if compared to his ability with seventeen-dimensional theoretical geometry. But this warning-off was clear enough to anyone, and it finally even got through to him. He kept his mouth shut. She must have realized that he was backing off. She initiated another subject, hastily. "What are you going to do after the war, Chip?"

  He smiled. "First thing-get out of the goddamned army. If I live that long. Go back to work I suppose. Henri-Pierre would probably take me back. The SOB hates my guts, but then he wouldn't have to teach a new Vat from scratch."

  "Did you like working there?" she asked, timidly.

  "I couldn't stand it. But I was serving my apprenticeship. Apprentices do what they're told."

  The grimness in his voice spoke volumes. But, after a moment, he relented. "I enjoyed cooking well enough. I just couldn't stand Henri-Pierre, or his ideas of food. Silly fancy overdressed stuff. Some of it was pure poison, honest. And such small portions."

  He paused, uncertain whether to continue. But the friendly interest in her face sparked him onward, almost against his will. "What I always dreamed of doing was opening a steakhouse. A steakhouse and a pizza place. Where I could cook real food. Good robust stuff, chunky and tasty. Italian food, too. The only French thing I'd do is fries. And I'd like it to be just across the road from Chez Henri-Pierre. Just upwind of it, so people in there with their little bitty portions of pretty can appreciate the smell of ribs and french fries."

  She began to laugh, a delicious sound, and it was a laugh which even twinkled her eyes. It would have turned stronger men than Chip to jelly.

  Crumble, crumble. Disaster!

  "Sorry," she choked, "I wasn't laughing at you, honestly. I was just remembering Daddy taking me to Henri-Pierre when I was a teenager-and being so hungry after lunch. His customers will go mad smelling that. That's beautiful!"

  There was a flash of teeth in the predawn light. Chip used the reminder of coming mayhem to haul himself back from the precipice.

  "Yeah," he said gruffly. "Enough talking! Let's get a move on."

  ***

  Bronstein swung to hang under the eaves of the ruined outbuilding. "All right. What is it you want to speak to me about, Eamon?"

  The big bat looked about the dawn uneasily, before hanging beside her.

  "We have a chance to be free," said Eamon. "A chance to cast off the yoke of humanity forever. No more in slavery's chains to labor, and shed our lifeblood for tyrants."

  "I've heard it all before," she snapped. "It would be a betrayal of trust."

  "But the end justifies the means, Bronstein. We do this for bats, all bats. You can't make a revolution without breaking a few humans."

  She was silent, her head turning. Then: "I can smell naphthalene. The Korozhet is somewhere about. We'll talk later."

  ***

  Chip was doing his best to be persuasive. Calm, reasonable.

  "Look, I don't want to be a wet blanket, but you're going to be a hindrance in combat. Distract us from keeping ourselves alive. You and the Crotchet would be safer here. You've some small chance of escape."

  Virginia shook her head. "No chance at all. There is a statistically increasing probability of us being caught, each step we take away from this place." She seemed almost inhuman when she got onto math…

  She stood erect, her chin upraised, defiant, determined. "No, I am not staying. This is my war as much as it is yours." She smiled at him. "To die is far more sweet…"

  "Bullshit, lady!" So much for his calm reason, thought Chip. "Pardon my language, but that's pure, pure bull. No kind of death is sweet. Death in war is just plain ugly, mostly."

  "Surely you think dying nobly for a good cause is better than starving to death slowly?" she retorted, staring at him challengingly.

  "Indade!" said Eamon.

  "Hear, hear!" Siobhan clapped her wings.

  "Anything is better than starving," added Fal, with feeling.

  Chip tried a different tack. "What you and the Shareholder high command don't understand is it takes a lot of skill to kill a Maggot in a slowshield."

  Virginia sniffed. "I must show you what I found when I ran for the fire extinguisher."

  She walked into the workshop, her head held high, her fine-boned face set in a determination that shone in those glasses-magnified eyes. She emerged with a serious weapon. A chainsaw. It was a small one, perhaps intended for vine trimming. "I've seen these used. I don't believe I need much skill. And if I have to walk behind you all the way, I'm coming along. Accept it."

  She was a mystery to him. Like lace on a suit of armor. The first bit might be froth and tears and romanticism, but there was a steel underneath it all that he could not match. Chip wasn't a fool. Short of tying her up he saw no way of stopping her. That wouldn't stop him trying. Still, the rats did their best…

  "Methinks 'tis-Virgin Chainsaw-chick!" cheered Pistol, giving her a lewd one-eyed wink and a ratty-wolf whistle.

  "What about giving our Chip a quick circumcision of the puissant pike?" sniggered Fal. "Just to prove to him you know how to use it, you lusty jade."

  "But do it properly, my sweet little rouge. Don't take any short cuts!" Pistol laughed so much he fell off his perch on the trailer.

  She bent over and put the chainsaw down. Pulled the cord. Miracle of miracles, it started. She picked it up and gunned it. Her heavy glasses shone through a cloud of blue two-stroke smoke, and her slightly skew teeth were revealed in a feral smile. "I'd rather use you as an example, rat. How would you like an instant sex change?"

  Pistol scurried away.

  "You're learning, Ginny," approved Melene.

  ***

  "It'll roll." Chip kicked the tractor wheel. "The damn thing is heavy, sure, but I can move it on my own. The two of us should be able to push it easily."

  "So? What's the problem then, Chip?"

  Virginia studied him as he stared at the wheel. She was learning to read him. That realization both pleased and surprised her. The romances had never mentioned that necessity…

  Chip never approached a situation with a "how-shall-we-do-it" question. Instead he always stated the possible facts that pertained to the problem. Set out the building blocks for his solution…

  He breathed in, sucking air across his teeth in a pensive hiss. "So just who is going to drive?"

  That was a question! Ginny thought about it. "We could put Nym on the brake pedal?"

  Chip shook his head. "In most respects, he's an exemplary rat. But entrusting Nym with mechanical devices is like giving a backsliding alcoholic a bottle of gin to look after. The mad rat would try to drive the thing."

  There was a lot of truth in that, Virginia acknowledged to herself. She'd seen Nym perched on tip toes on the saddle of the tractor, clinging to the steering wheel, making odd brmm-brmm noises. When he'd realized she was looking at him he'd pretended to be clearing his throat. Nym seemed to assume that since he adored mechanical devic
es they returned the affection. Virginia started to snicker, until she realized that she had made much the same mistake with her romantic inclinations toward Chip.

  "Doc, then? Or Melene? She's very sensible." Virginia felt herself blush remembering the very frank talk Melene had had with her…

  Chip pulled a face. "Doc would probably get distracted by the philosophical contentions of whether to push the brake pedal or not to push the brake pedal. Melene would be good, but she's by far the lightest rat. That's a stiff pedal, that. I think it'll have to be fat Fal."

  "But Fal… he's so… so like Hindley," she shuddered.

  "Who?"

  "Oh, you wouldn't know," Virginia spoke as lightly as she could. "A character out of Wuthering Heights."

  "I do, actually," came Chip's morose reply. "I had to read it at Company school. I guess you did, too. Shame. I didn't realize they did that sort of thing to Shareholders as well. I thought it was torture reserved for Vats."

  "That book is part of me!" she started to protest. But she managed to choke off the words. It was part of her download, but she couldn't explain that to him. Chip had made clear enough his suspicions of "cyber-intelligence."

  "Oh? I hated it, myself. That Cathy was such a total wet-lettuce. Five minutes of guts and there would have been no book." He didn't realize he was being Heathcliff to the life.

  ***

  Fal stared distrustfully at the pedal. "This had better work, Connolly."

  "Trust me, Fal. There's nothing to it." Chip almost crossed his fingers behind his back.

  "Are you sure it's the right pedal?"

  "Of course," said Virginia indignantly. "You think Chip wouldn't know something like that? Just be sure to stop the tractor when it gets to the hill."

  Chip held his tongue. There were three pedals. He'd worked out clutch easily enough. The other two must be brake and accelerator. Must be.