by Eric Flint
That would give Fitzy an extra hour of a small chance…
***
The only one who waited well was Henry M'Batha. The others had all given up waiting for more fireworks and trickled off to bed, or back to their stations. But Henry refused to believe that it was all over. His relief didn't come in until seven. And then Henry would find reasons to stay a while longer…
Eric Flint
Rats, Bats amp; Vats
Chapter 40:
Maybe not.
ROMANTIC PLACES ARE made thus by the people in them. This was not the windswept gritstone edge above the stark and wild Yorkshire moors of her dreams. But the towering stacks of Maggot-grub cells through which they wandered hand-in-hand made a magical, beautiful place too, thought Ginny. Even the relentless munching noises from the racks had an almost musical charm.
Chip had explored the area. Off on the far side were any number of little open Magh' adobe cells. It took them some time to get there, because they kept stopping to work on this kissing bit. At the last stop Chip had nearly decided that this was a good enough place anyway
…
Ginny looked at Chip. "This looks like the cell I was walled up in."
"Would you like to go somewhere else?" His hands were caressing her breasts, and his fingers were gently coming in to touch her nipples through her blouse, arousing her to the point where she wasn't thinking logically any more. Well, other than about how to get the material out of the way.
"Not if I'm here with you," she said, breathlessly, unfastening his shirt buttons, her fingers clumsy with haste.
And then, from the other side of the wall, someone said something. Both of them stopped, their hands in very compromising positions.
The voice from the other side of the wall spoke again.
Ginny's heart rose, despite wishing desperately that the interruption hadn't happened for another few, precious few, minutes. It wasn't a bat or a rat voice. It certainly wasn't Fluff's. Who else was there except the Professor? Well… it could be someone else, she supposed. "Er. Who's there?"
"Tell him to piss off," Chip whispered in her ear, through clenched teeth.
The reply they got could easily have been an excerpt from the Kama Sutra. Well, an alien version thereof, because whatever language that was, it wasn't human. And human voices didn't hit those sorts of notes. It could have been nearly anything because she didn't understand a word of it. She tried some Korozhet. She'd been amazed at how easy that had been to learn.
There was a silence. Then, in appallingly accented but clear Korozhet, the voice informed her that the Korozhet would get absolutely nothing out of it.
"We are not Korozhet," Ginny said hastily. That was a shocking idea, to be denied at all costs.
The appallingly accented Korozhet speaker asked, "Well, what are you then? Are you Magh'?"
"I understood two words. Korozhet and Magh'," said Chip. "What is it saying?"
"Um. It asked whether we were Magh'," Ginny translated.
"I'd like to know what the hell it is, even if it has the shittiest sense of timing in the entire universe." Chip's tone of voice was pure irritation.
***
She looked into his eyes, her mouth easing into that tiny almost anxious smile, revealing those slightly skew teeth. Hell, to make her smile he'd forgive anything. Chip sighed. "I suppose it is a Crotchet. Ask if it can get you out of here."
"Not without you." Her long fingers crumpled his shirt. She spouted a string of alien. It talked back.
"It says it is a prisoner too. Live larvae food like us. Its ship was tracking the Magh' slowship routes to offer alliance to whoever the Magh' were attacking this time."
***
Ginny was glad to have the language mystery cleared up. "So that is why you speak Korozhet. They are our allies. They also came to give us warning. We owe them our lives."
There a long silence. Then whatever was on the other side of the wall replied. "Yes. The Korozhet warned us too. They had some very useful war materials for sale. Very convenient. Very expensive."
"What's it say?" demanded Chip. She translated.
"I'll say!" Chip sounded as if he might almost forgive the alien for being there. Almost. "Ask it whether they got slowshields from them. I'm really suspicious about those, after Doc's comments. I'll bet they sold them soft-cyber stuff and not an FTL drive."
Ginny shook her head violently "I'm sure you're wrong! You just don't like the Korozhet! But I'll ask. I'm certain you're wrong!"
She asked.
The alien made a noise like steel pan being caressed with a castanet. "Apologies. That is just ticklish… I mean… funny. Yes, they sold us kinetic movement shields and tried to sell us `enhancement' cybernetics. Of course we would not buy such a crazy thing. No sentient is going to put alien-built logic-circuits in its head. And no, of course they didn't sell us an FTL drive!"
"So. What did he say?" demanded Chip.
Somewhat reluctantly, she told him.
"You can say that again. Well, at least we're not crazy enough to put soft-cybers into human heads. Ask it whether they managed to beat the Maggots."
Miserably, Ginny asked.
"Once we discovered that the Korozhet were passing all our military information to the Magh', it wasn't that hard," replied the alien voice.
"That's a lie!" shouted Ginny furiously, as soon as she finished translating. "The Korozhet saved our colony! The Magh' would have taken us by surprise and wiped us all out."
The creature on the other side of the wall sounded heated too. "The Korozhet farm wars. The Magh' are their animals."
"You LIE! You LIE!!!"
"We Jampad do not lie."
She turned instinctively to Chip. He held her gently and stroked her head. "What's wrong, Ginny?"
"It says… It says." She found the words impossible to get out. "It says it is a Jampad. They killed my parents." She turned on the wall and pounded it with her fists. "You murdered my parents you. .. monster. I hate you. Come out here and I'll kill you."
The creature on the other side of the wall appeared equally upset, if volume was any way to judge Jampad emotion.
"My ship-and my people only had the one FTL ship built-was destroyed! I saw how the Korozhet destroyed helpless lifepod after lifepod. My clan-kin are dead. My pod was damaged by their fire as I entered the atmosphere. I had no directional controls. I made a forced landing on the top of the Magh' force field. Then, when it opened, I fell through. I made the gesture of submission to the Magh'. I was brought here, for larvae food. I would hope that what you say is true. I would be delighted if my clan-kin had killed your silly kind. It would mean someone else survived. But they are all dead. Do you hear me. Dead. Who told you that the Jampad had killed your kin? Who? The stinking Korozhet told you. They lie. About everything!"
Virginia was now sobbing, her face pressed into Chip's shoulder. "There, Ginny. Don't talk to it any more," he said gently. Chip thumped on the wall with his fist. "You in there! I don't understand what you're saying, but I'll come in and beat your fucking brains out if you don't shut up and leave her alone."
He started guiding her away. "Come on, Ginny. Let's go somewhere else."
The creature on the other side of the wall didn't understand his words, despite Chip's faithful obedience to the First Law of Translation. Shout. It kept babbling something.
Ginny sniffed determinedly. "No, Chip. I've got tell it how wrong it is about the Korozhet." She turned and faced the wall again. "You. Jampad. There are a few things you should know. Firstly, we're not prisoners like you. We are trapped in this brood-chamber, but we're not walled up and we got here by fighting our way in. We killed many Magh'. And we did that with a brave Korozhet at our side. He was also a prisoner." And she briefly told it the story of how they had got there.
There was a long silence. Then it asked. "Where is this Korozhet now?"
"It got separated from us. At the last. Just before we were trapped in here," she said.
She was spared having to answer that one, by the sound of falling masonry.
The alien continued. "It sounds as if the Magh' have broken in. Well. Should you not be able to escape immediately, I suggest the gesture of submission. At home there are stories of several prisoners who managed to escape. Magh' are stupid. Live to fight another day."
"How do we do that?" she asked, curious despite her anger.
The alien jangled. "Do you have anterior limbs? If so lie, down on your backs. Do you have backs?"
"Yes."
"Then lie down on them and cross your anterior limbs above your head. Magh' are creatures of instinct. The lower castes are not really intelligent at all. The different nests communicate with gestures. Our xenobiologists think that is the gesture whereby one nest would accede to another in a territorial struggle. But beware of the Korozhet!"
Chip shook Virginia gently. "Ginny, the Maggots have busted in somewhere else. No explosions." He hugged her fiercely. "Sorry, kid. We're gonna die. Can we spare the talking and have a last kiss?"
She hugged him fiercely. "No, Chip, we must lie down."
Despite the situation, he grinned. "Haven't we left it a bit late for that now?"
She blushed. "Unfortunately. But no, that's not what I mean. The alien says if we lie down on our backs and cross our arms above our heads, that's the gesture of surrender."
Chip snorted. "Ha. I'll be dipped in shit first! I'll go out fighting."
She held him. "Please. The alien is right. We'll just get killed. If we pretend to surrender… we just might escape. It says its kind have, in the past. Please. For me."
"It's not honorable," he said stubbornly.
"Stop being so Batty!" She caressed his chest. "Think what… Doc would say."
He sighed. "All right, Ginny. We'll try it your way." He pulled the four-pound hammer from his belt. Pushed it into the ventilation hole which led into the alien's cell. "They'll probably search us, and take everything away from us. Tell him to break out if he can."
"My mate," she said in Korozhet, and she said it with pride, if not perfect truth, "gives you this tool to break out with."
The alien jangled. She figured the noise must be the equivalent of a sigh. "Thank you. Good luck, alien," it replied.
She smiled at Chip. "It said `good luck.' Lie down next to me, please. I can hear them coming."
"I should get invitations like that every day from beautiful girls." He lay down next to her, and then burrowed a hand into his pocket. He produced Melene's chocolate. "Can I offer you some candy? I'm afraid that's probably as near as we'll get to the rest of it," he said tenderly.
She tried to swallow away the lump in her throat. "How about if we shared it," she finally managed to croak.
It was very old chocolate. It had melted and reset a good few times. It had traveled a long way in a rat's pack. But still… it could have tasted of soap and it wouldn't have mattered. It was still the finest chocolate they were ever likely to eat.
A Magh' paused at the doorway. It looked at them and then went on, hastily. And then the one next came.
"It worked!" said Chip in tones of amazement. "They didn't just kill us."
Eric Flint
Rats, Bats amp; Vats
Chapter 41:
A walk in the park.
MAJOR FITZHUGH HAD underestimated the determination of General Cartup-Kreutzler. The general had wasted precious time trying to find the telephone, at last finding the downstairs instrument which didn't work… In the process of finding it, there had been this big vase… The general knew he was going to have to go on the offensive with his wife for breaking that. But it was her own fault for putting it there.
The general realized he had underestimated his wife's paranoia about their little country place being burgled. Theft was an increasing problem on Harmony And Reason, because of unruly Vats. The general was among those calling for harsher penalties. His wife Maria's contribution to the war on crime had been to spare no expense making their houses as thief-proof as possible. It hadn't stopped a burglary three weeks before. Among the things taken had been all the clothing in the house. So, Maria had reinforced her precautions with the finest building materials available…
The general rubbed his shoulder. He thought it might be broken. The front door still seemed remarkably intact.
"Are you all right, Stallion?" enquired Daisy from the darkness.
The general bit back an angry retort. He didn't have any trousers. A dark blue towel was the best he could do. His tunic top was soaked with whiskey, and his shoulder was damned sore. "Yes," he said in a grumpy voice that indicated the opposite. "And I'm going to crucify Fitzhugh. I'll try a chair."
"I'll get you one, Kreutzy-pie," she said sympathetically.
Minutes later he stood with the smashed remains of the chair, in front of a still obdurate door. A horrible thought trickled through his mind as he felt the velvety remains. "Where did you get this chair?" he choked.
"From the dining room. Do you want another one?"
In darkness of the hall, the general felt his face go white. Maria was going to kill him. He dropped the remains of the priceless Queen Anne chair as if it was burning hot. It was a matched set of three now…
***
A marble statue of Cupid finally proved harder than the door. The lock, however, was of excellent quality. The general had to smash panels out of the door itself to get out. Then he had to get Daisy through in her tight skirt and high heels. Attempting to suck splinters out of his hand, he went down to his staff car. At least the guards wouldn't be able to see that he didn't have any trousers on while he was driving.
When he saw the open hood, he nearly returned to the house in despair. But he was determined. "Come on. We'll have to walk. And I'm going to skin Fitzhugh alive!"
"But Kreutzy, we can't walk…"
"We've only got to walk to the gate. I'll get a car sent," he snapped.
"But you haven't any trousers!" she wailed.
He gritted his teeth. "I'll put that onto Major Fitzhugh's account, too. Come on. It's only about half a mile."
In his car, the general had never noticed the gentle gradient in the long curve of the driveway. It had been twenty years since he'd last walked half a mile. And his highly polished shoes were less than two days old.
Daisy was in a similar state. "My heels are killing me," she whined. "Isn't there a shorter way?"
He snapped his fingers. "You're right! We'll cut across the parkland. That'll be half the distance. It's all grass. I can walk barefoot."
At first it seemed like a brilliant strategy. Then the weather betrayed him. Cruelly. The moon disappeared behind a bank of clouds. The satellite center could have told him that there was a front on its way. In fact, they had told him, but the general had paid no attention. It hadn't concerned Fitz, either, because it wasn't heading towards the war zone.
The general discovered that a genteel stroll through the moonlit park had a become a nightmare obstacle course from hell. It was wall-to-wall tripping roots and snagging bushes, and he only had one free hand with a pair of shoes in it, as Daisy insisted on clutching the other hand. She was terrified of getting lost alone. So they were both lost together, instead.
He stubbed his bare toes on a rock and stumbled forward.
"AAARGH!"
He slithered wildly down the steep, microjet-irrigated bank of artistically textured "wild" violets and hanging maidenhair ferns. Daisy was of course dragged willy-nilly headlong down the bank with him.
The fat koi-carp in the pool probably wished they were piranhas a few seconds later, when the general's nether end landed in their tranquil beauty spot. A second later a shrieking Daisy arrived. A flailing handful of violets knocked his cap flying. Then she landed facefirst in the water.
Daisy was soaked to the skin. The general was better and worse off. He wasn't as wet. His top
half was dry. Well, except for the whisky-wet area. His dark-blue towel was somewhere in the dark water. He felt around in the mud and the hairy lily roots. A forgiving koi nuzzled his hand. He shrieked and hastily gave up looking for the towel or one of his shoes.
The moon appeared. Daisy stood up, dripping. "This is all your fault!" she shouted hysterically. "My skirt is ruined, my makeup is ruined, and my stockings are ruined!" Sobbing, she hit him in the eye. Which was perhaps uncharitable, since the general had paid for all of the ruined things in the first place.
***
In the guard post the corporal lit a weed. "Spanking parties these generals have," he said dryly.
"Yeah. No wonder the major warned us."
***
It didn't get better. The moon hid itself again in embarrassment at the acrimonious scene below. Then there had been the riot of climbing roses…
When the general found the fence, it had been a relief. The landscapers had carefully hidden it in the shrubbery. On the other side was open space and easy walking. All they had to do was to follow the fence. The general was a broken man. All that kept him going was the delightful thought of hanging, drawing, quartering-and immersing in cold oil, which he would slowly bring to the boil-one Major Conrad Fitzhugh.
Of course, walking along the outside of the fence meant that he approached his own gate from the outside.
***
"Impersonating an officer. Drunk. Disorderly. Public indecency. Failing to produce identity card. Attempted assault of the arresting officer." The MP prodded the unfortunate general in the stomach with his nightstick. "Are they going to throw the book at you, sunshine!"