Rats, Bats and Vats rbav-1

by Eric Flint

  "Is it talking Crotchet too?" demanded Chip. "What did I tell you, Ginny? What do the fat uglies say? Tell them we'd give them indigestion."

  "They want to know where the rats and bats are. I said we wouldn't tell them." She squeezed his hand.

  Chip assumed his best expression of innocence and humility. It certainly would never have fooled Henri-Pierre, but then the Maggot group-mind was less perceptive than the sarcastic little Frenchman. "Tell him it is just too bad that they were all killed when the tunnel collapsed."

  She did.

  Once again the Magh' spoke in their weird chorus. "That explains why the eggs and larvae were spared. The Korozhet had told us they were vicious, insatiable grub-eaters. The larvae tenders could not believe the grubs were untouched. Of course some will be born stunted and have to be killed."

  "What do the bug-uglies say?" Chip wanted to know.

  She told him.

  He snorted. "Ask them if they always believe what the Korozhet say."

  It wasn't a direct questioning of the Korozhet. She could ask.

  "Yes," the group mind answered. "The Korozhet always tell us things. How did you find your way through the maze-tunnels of the Magh'mmm? This is the first attack to get near to our precious selves. We must prevent it ever happening again."

  Without being asked, Ginny translated.

  Chip grinned. "Tell them the Korozhet guided us here. That they sell us arms and advise us."

  Ginny felt as if she was walking into a morass. Her head kept saying "this may damage your friends." But it was true, so she could say it. It was difficult until she prefaced it with "My mate says.. ."

  "Lies!" The Korozhet spiked forward. "Deception, Magh'mmm! I have told you I was a prisoner and a hostage in their unprovoked attack."

  The Korozhet pointed spines at them. "The soft squashy life-forms are pathological liars. We would never sell arms to such a species. Never. We have been your reliable providers for thousands of cycles. Always we provided the group-minds with the finest ships, the best shields. Have we ever failed the Magh? Bah. The one with the long head-filaments claims `her mate says.' But I ask her now: Could we Korozhet ever do anything so evil?"

  Now Ginny felt as if her head might explode. What she'd said was true. It was. It was! It was! It was! She knew that it was true. Undoubtedly and incontrovertibly true. And now she knew also, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the soft-cyber implant was influencing her thoughts. Obviously the Korozhet who designed the things had built in a pro-Korozhet programming.

  Cold sweat beaded her forehead. She couldn't say it.

  "Well?" prompted the Korozhet. "We Korozhet do not sell arms to other species. Tell the Magh'mmm you lied."

  Chip squeezed her hand. "What's Pricklepuss saying?"

  Ginny forced her vocal chords to do what part of her brain said they should not. Her voice came out in a squeak. But it was a loud determined squeak. "I do not lie."

  The ball of prickles raised a spine… and lowered it again.

  Chip squeezed her. "What's happening, dearest?"

  She looked at him, with victory in her eyes. "You were right about that-alien. It's just tried to claim they never sold arms to humans."

  The Korozhet might have been out of gas and harpoon darts, but it wasn't out of wind. "This species is incapable of the truth, Magh'mmm!"

  "Translate," said Chip quietly.

  She did.

  "Ask the Maggots if they haven't got another alien they can ask," he said in a whisper.

  She did. The Magh'mmm seemed to like that idea.

  The Korozhet did not.

  ***

  Pistol had to be restrained from cheering when Chip called the Maggots hemorrhoids. But when the conversation switched to Korozhet, Bronstein backed off. She knew in her bones that this might be where she had to kill one of their rat-comrades because of the treacherous soft-cybers. She wasn't sure how well the rat psyche would deal with what she was certain would come.

  It was a good thing that she was ready. She had to stop three of the rats-from clapping and whistling.

  Doc could not restrain himself. "I told you all so!" he hissed. "I told you the Korozhet betrayed us."

  Fal sounded positively choked. "Methinks our Ginny is as near to a rat as you'll find in human form. I'd liefer have put ratsbane in my mouth than try to say that!"

  Eamon showed teeth. "She's far better than a rat!"

  "Begorra!" O'Niel spat, "Be forgetting the silly arguments then. We need to get down there and help."

  Nym looked at the gap. "If we made it bigger we could abseil down. The rope is a bit short, but not much…"

  "That detection grid. Could the rats avoid it, Don Fluffy?" asked Bronstein.

  The big-eyed galago shook his head violently. "No. The beams they move. It would not be at all of a possibility."

  "Can't we just do it?" said Melene. "Some of us will make it."

  "No. The first one to go will get shot at. That'll activate his slowshield and sever the rope. It is too far to fall," said Nym.

  There was a long silence. "We'll have to drop the roof," said Eamon.

  "No," said the galago quietly. "I will do it. For my Virginia I will do it. I can see the projector beams. I can climb down and avoid them. I alone am the one who can see them. I too am the only one who can climb upside down along the roof and the wall. Give for me a device of the explosive and I will destroy the projector." The little creature shivered.

  Eric Flint

  Rats, Bats amp; Vats

  Chapter 44:

  Fluff at the Bridge.

  " 'TIS A VALIANT FLUFF! You're a hero!" said Doll, in a voice that suggested that receiving the hero's rewards didn't have to wait until after the deed.

  The little creature shivered again. "No. I am just a scared galago. I… I admit. Not very brave, I am. You are all big tough soldiers… Me… I am a rich lady's toy."

  Doc patted the galago's shoulder. "The true nature of courage is to know fear, and overcome it."

  "I think it overcomes me!"

  "Here," said Pistol, "have a stoup of Dutch courage."

  The galago took Pistol's bottle with shaking hands, and took a deep chug. He shuddered. "Now I must go and pee on my hands and feet, even if 'Ginia says it is a habit of the most vile. You can please make the hole bigger for me?"

  Doll was distinctly puzzled. "Pee on his hands and feet?"

  "Urine washing," said Doc. "It increases the adhesiveness. The hyraxes and some lesser primates practice it."

  "Art sure he's not just kinky? I wouldn't have thought you'd have to practice it… much." Melene was definitely doubtful on this one.

  Pistol chuckled. "Methinks his aim is lousy. Let's nibble that hole bigger. Fal's got to get through, never mind the galago."

  ***

  The galago looked doubtfully again at the trigger bar. Then at the tiny bat-mine. "Senorita Bronstein, I am not very mechanical."

  Eamon grunted impatiently. "Let me be explaining to this numbskull, Michaela."

  "Good luck." said Bronstein dryly, going off to take down some of the mines they'd rigged on the stanchions. That galago was definitely overdue to get bitten. Damn those rats for giving it strong drink first. She'd swear it was swaying on those glistening black feet. Mind you, at least it had stopped shivering. That was a plus.

  "See, you twist this arming button. Click it to `remote.' Then you move off. As soon as you're more than thirty yards away, you depress both triggers. Simultaneously." The trigger bar was designed for bat-feet. The twin trigger at either end of the bar was a logical safety device. Eamon could work one in his sleep. It was difficult for him to grasp that any semisentient could not easily take one apart and reassemble it.

  "Just show me one more time," said Fluff.

  "Look. I'll arm it." Eamon was exasperated by now. "You're not supposed to move it once it is armed, but we have to take some risks. Then all you've got to do is press the triggers. Any fool can do that."

  "I thi
nk so," said the galago doubtfully.

  And then, because things were getting heated down there… he was off. With just a mouthful more brandy for the road.

  ***

  Galagos are possibly one of the most acrobatic small primates around. Being nocturnal, however, they don't normally have an audience.

  Fluff finally had the audience he'd so often craved for his magnificent, elegant gymnastic skills. However he kept finding that somehow he wasn't climbing with panache. It was odd. He felt like a superstar. He just wasn't focusing too well.

  ***

  The rats and bats watched in horror as the galago swung wildly across the roof, flinging itself with remarkable drunken inaccuracy at small knobbles of Magh' adobe… and somehow sticking.

  "It doth piss glue," said Nym. "There is no other…"

  Everybody gasped.

  Fluff's lurching progress had nearly come unstuck. A piece of adobe decide to stick to his hand instead of the curving roof.

  Somehow, by giving the law of gravity a complete raspberry, the galago caught hold of something else with the other hand.

  Then it was hanging there, with a piece of loose Magh' adobe in one hand and a minuscule handhold in the other.

  "I shall have to throw it to you," whispered the galago.

  ***

  It was surprising the Magh'mmm didn't hear the sound of gritting teeth in the ceiling. But the Magh'mmm was in debate with the Korozhet. "If it is indeed as you say, then we must redouble our efforts. This species must be pushed to extinction."

  ***

  The galago weighed up the throw. Then, tossed the chunk of adobe. Eamon dropped through the hole, snatched, and was back inside the ceiling before you could say "bogtrotter."

  Fortune favored them. Neither the appalling throw nor the dart into the room had been detected.

  The galago continued his progress. Lower. Lower. And lower down the wall. The projector was in full view of any life-form with eyes in the hall below. It sat on a platform just above human head-height.

  The roof crew watched, hardly daring to breathe. And then when the galago was mere feet from the platform…

  ***

  The Magh'mmm spoke: "But we do not see the need to keep these aliens alive any longer. You asked us to keep all the specimens in good condition. But we have sufficient humans for larval conditioning. Since you say they are incapable of telling the truth, they will not give us the information we have asked for. Once we have confirmed it with the Jampad prisoner, these are of no further…"

  Eric Flint

  Rats, Bats amp; Vats

  Chapter 45:

  "Thar she blows!"

  THE GRUB-TENDERS had finished their frantic tending of their instinctively most precious charges. Now they began cleaning. The inputs to the group-mind from myriad Magh' in a scorpiary were just too numerous to have each individual directed specifically and individually all the time. Much of what the individual Magh' did was simply instinctive, within the broad parameters of the group-mind orders. The stack closest to the old entryway had an untidy wire to the old doorway. There was considerable alien junk lying there. There was also a mess of sticky diesel and fertilizer and a rat-trap and a bangstick-cartridge trigger.

  The grub-tender pulled the wire.

  ***

  6:28 A.M.

  Henry M'Batha's vigil finally had its reward. In another ten minutes the sun's heat would have masked the infrared explosion signature coming from the brood-chamber. He was dialing before the heat had dissipated.

  "Van Klomp." The voice was very tense.

  "Major! Another explosion! Right from the middle, sir! Right from the MIDDLE!"

  There was silence. Then a big exhalation boomed down the line. "Boykie. That's the best news I've had for hours. We'll get airborne, just in case. I've given you the contact frequencies. Stay on it. You got me? Stay on it! And call that corporal of Major Fitzhugh's."

  But there was no reply from Corporal Simms. Someone just clicked the beeper off. And the office wasn't answering either.

  ***

  "We're looking for Major Conrad Fitzhugh," said the lieutenant to Corporal Simms. His voice had that I am going to get answers or you are going to get hurt quality to it. Behind him, the squad of MPs hefted their billy clubs.

  Simms reached into his pocket and clicked the insistent beeper off. "The major hasn't been in this morning," he said truthfully. "But there is an envelope here, addressed to the military police."

  The MP lieutenant tore it open. Johnny didn't get to see the letter. But he did see the rat-dropping Ariel had contributed.

  ***

  Fitz's bangstick rested against the force field. An assegai balanced against a twinkle in the air.

  ***

  This far from the brood-chamber, it was little more than a dull thump. However, it was plain that the Magh'mmm had felt a great deal more. "Aliens! You said the grub-devourers were dead! You lied to us. You lied!" The hundred or so Magh'mmm chorused.

  "I said they lied all the time," snapped the Korozhet.

  "Kill them," commanded the group-mind.

  "No. No!" shouted the Korozhet. "Spare the one with long head-filaments-she is valuable to me."

  The Magh'mmm were past listening. "No. Kill-"

  The galago shrieked in his ear-piercing fashion and jumped for the projector platform, trying to pull the mine from his waistcoat pocket as he leaped. He succeeded, but then he had the mine in his hands, and nothing to grab the platform with. He hit the projector with a whuff of breath that even the rats and bats heard. The mine skittered out of his hands and lay half-on and half-off the platform.

  The galago stood up, taking the mine trigger bar from the other pocket… and slipped. He caught the edge of the platform and clung there by one hand, the trigger bar in the other.

  "AIEEE!" His bellow carried a volume which nearly deafened the sensitive-eared rats and bats above. "I die gloriously!"

  He pressed the trigger on the bar. Nothing happened. Except… one of the scorps who had been guarding Chip and Ginny advanced on him.

  The galago shook the trigger bar furiously. "She is not working!"

  "BOTH triggers-you idiot!" shouted the bats.

  The galago tried and nearly fell in its fumbling haste. "I cannot!" he shrieked.

  The Magh' scorp claw snapped at the tiny creature. Fluff squeaked in terror and flung the trigger bar at the scorp as he leaped in a twenty-five foot bound to Ginny's shoulder.

  The scorp caught the trigger bar with contemptuous ease in one outstretched claw. The bar was taken neatly lengthways, held by the ends. The scorp displayed its strength. The claw closed slowly to crush and splinter the bar.

  If only it hadn't depressed the triggers when it did that.

  "GO!" shouted Bronstein, before the debris had even fallen.

  ***

  The three-foot-high squat ball of blue fluff which called itself a "Jampad" had chosen a hell of a time to arrive. It wasted no time getting into the spirit of things, though. Those tentacles wielded a mean four-pound hammer.

  Bronstein and Eamon missed the Jampad by inches as it took out its guard. They left the fray to O'Niel, the rats, and Chip and Ginny. Eamon took the bridge, and a slash through his wing membrane, in the process of sending a stream of frantic Maggot reinforcements hurtling into the pit. Bronstein dragged him back hastily through the entry where she'd put her mines, as the big bat couldn't fly.

  Chip had dealt with the other scorp guard. The explosion which had blown away the beam projector had also shredded the first one. Ginny waded in to combat with a piece of reinforcing rod. The Magh' body-tenders, poodle-sized and with tiny little claws, flung themselves into an attack they were never designed for. Now Ginny, with her blunt weapon and more enthusiasm than skill, was the quicker Magh' killer than master craftsman Chip.

  The rats had come hurtling down the two abseil ropes. While they'd been rappelling down, the bats had flung Molotovs at the Magh'mmm. In the burning chaos, only s
ixty or so Magh'mmm and a few of their tiny body-tenders remained alive.

  And the Korozhet. The body-tenders had died like flies trying to help the burning Magh'mmm. They simply weren't big enough to make any headway against Chip and Ginny and their rat and bat allies.

  O'Niel, a broken bottle in foot, shouted from on high. "Well, me foine boyos! We outnumber them one to five! Let's slaughter the salpeens, begorra!"

  The rats found nothing wrong with O'Niel's mathematics. The pure ones, the Magh' caste of castes, the group-mind which ruled with an absolute and total power over several million of their own kind… were pitifully soft. And as they were repositories for all the genomes of the variants of Magh', they were of no warrior type. They did have stingers and claws, just as they had digging palps-but small and ineffectual ones. To boot, they were bloated virtually to the point of immobility. It was like kindergarten children against battle-hardened warriors. The Magh'mmm were plainly terrified, and had no idea how to fight.

  But then, there was the Korozhet. The Korozhet and her equalizer. If a laser beam intersects a slowshield there will be a cataclysmic thermonuclear reaction, the Korozhet had told the Military Procurement Council. That, of course, had been another lie. Maybe the council should have checked it, but the colony didn't have many portable lasers anyway, and did not have the technology to make them.

  The Korozhet's slaves built FTL for them. They were also capable of making laser pistols.

  ***

  The Expediter slid her testa-plate aside and drew out the laser pistol. First she would kill that faulty slave. Virginia was a danger to the Overphyle. Firstly, she was a rebel slave who had somehow completely overcome the mental conditioning of the soft-cyber. And, secondly, she was a person of potential influence and financial power in her society. The others were mere cogs. Lowly soldiers. The human military commanders had shown a remarkable stupidity in not learning from their front-line troops. The rest of these were of lesser importance. The Expediter did not just decide to kill her first from mere malice. The hated Jampad would get the next shot. At all costs it must be silenced. She raised the pistol with careful spines.