Nothing like a businesslike business, Orz thought as he stood up and received a slight spattering of applause. They knew of his claim to be able to control space rats with space rats and were frankly dubious. But this was nothing new to Orz.
Without even a glance at the audience, he nonchalantly snapped his fingers and tapped the top of the podium. 62 immediately leaped from his shoulder to the podium and began to sniff the wood curiously.
“This,” he began, “although a specimen of Rattus interstellus, is not a true ‘space rat’ in the full sense of the word; but his parents were. Lab-raised space rats – such as 62, here – can turn out to be quite friendly, but they are no less cunning, no less intelligent, and certainly no less vicious when cornered. These are the rats I ‘employ,’ so to speak.
“But first let's puncture a few of the myths that have grown up around the space rat. First of all, no matter what the spacers tell you, space rats have no psi powers; they don't know what you're going to do next… it's just that their reflexes are developed to such a high degree that it almost seems that way when you take pot shots at one with a blaster. They will respond to ultra-frequency tones but by no means do they have a language… they're intelligent, all right, but they're a long way from a language.”
His eyes flicked over the audience. These were traders, barterers; they recognized a man who knew what he was talking about, and they were all listening intently.
He continued. “But just what is it that distinguishes the space rat from other rats?” To dramatize his point, he allowed 62 to crawl onto the back of his hand and then held the fidgety creature aloft.
“This is the product of centuries in the pressurized but unshielded holds of interstellar cargo ships. Wild genetic mutation and the law of survival of the fittest combined to produce a most adaptable, ferocious, and intelligent creature.
“Everyone knew of the space rat's existence, but no one paid much attention to him until an ensign aboard the freighter Clinton was kept awake one night by the continuous opening and closing of the compartment door outside his cabin. The ship was in port, and, under normal circumstances, he would have spent the night in town, but for one reason or another he had returned to his quarters.
“Now, these doors which divide the corridors into compartments open automatically when you touch the release panel, and remain open as long as a simple electric eye beam is broken; when the beam makes contact again, the door closes. The doors naturally make some noise when they operate, and this is what was disturbing the ensign. But, every time he checked to see who was wandering up and down the corridor, he found no one. Checking with the guard detail he found that he was the only person authorized to be in that area of the ship.
“So he set up watch. Opening his door a crack, he peeked through to the corridor and waited. But no one came and he was about to give up when he spotted this large space rat come running down the corridor. As it approached the door it leaped over a meter into the air and threw itself against the release panel. The door slid open as the creature landed on the floor and it scurried through before the door closed again.”
The traders were smiling and shaking their heads in wonder as Orz paused and placed 62 back on the podium. “Since it is doubtful that the rat could have accidentally leaped against the release panel, it must be assumed that he learned by watching. That would make him a highly unusual rat… they thought. Then they discovered that the whole colony aboard the Clinton knew how to operate the doors! Then other spacers on other ships began watching for space rats while their ships were in port – that's when their movements are the greatest; they stick pretty much to the cargo holds in transit – and it was discovered that the Clinton rats were not so extraordinary. These reports fired the interest of researchers who figured they would go out and catch themselves a few space rats and put them through some tests.”
The audience broke into laughter at this point. They were all well familiar with the elusiveness of the space rat.
“Another characteristic of the space rat was soon discovered: viciousness. It took quite a while, but after much effort and many scars a number of space rats were caught. And, as expected, they proved virtually untrainable. We hoped to do better with their offspring.
“I was working with the offspring when I heard about a rat problem in the nearby spaceport. Traps, poison, even variable frequency sonic repellers had failed to control them. I went to investigate and found that a good many space rats were jumping ship and setting up residence in the warehouses which ring every spaceport. Another factor was added: In the warehouses they meet other strains of space rat from other ships and the resultant cross-breeding produces a strain more intelligent and more ferocious than even the cargo-ship rat. I managed to catch half a dozen in as many months, mated them and began to go to work on the offspring. Through a mixture of imprinting and operant conditioning, second-generation space rats proved quite tractable.
“But I needed more wild rats and tried the wild idea of training my lab rats to help catch other rats. It worked out so well that I decided to go into the business of space-rat control.”
He paused and glanced around the room. “Any questions?”
An elderly trader in the front row raised a bony hand. “Just how does one rat go about catching another?” he asked in a raspy voice.
“I'll demonstrate that tomorrow,” Orz replied. “It'll be easier to understand once you see the equipment.”
A huge, balding man with a grizzled beard stood up without waiting to be recognized. “I've got a question, Ratman,” he said belligerently. “If all you've got are a few trained rats, why do you charge so much?”
This elicited a few concurring mutters from other members of the audience. Here, no doubt, was the man Lesno had referred to earlier that day.
“You have me at a disadvantage, sir,” Orz replied with a smile.
“I'm Malcomb Houghton and I guess I rank third, or fourth, around here in cubic feet of warehouse space.”
Orz nodded. “Very glad to meet you, sir. But let me answer your question with another question: Do you have any idea what it costs to operate a privately owned freighter, even a small one such as mine? My overhead is staggering.”
Being a businessman, this argument seemed to make sense to Houghton, but he remained standing. “I just wonder,” he began slowly. “If you can train rats to catch other rats, how do we know you didn't land some special trouble-making rats here on Neeka a few months ago to aggravate the situation to the point where we had to call you in?”
The audience went silent and waited for Ratman's reply. Orz cursed as he felt his face flushing. This man was dangerously close to the truth. He hesitated, then cracked a grin.
“How'd you like to go into partnership with me?” he quipped.
The tension suddenly vanished as the audience laughed and applauded. Orz gathered up 62 and left the podium before Houghton could zero in on him again. He couldn't tell whether the man was stabbing in the dark, or whether he really knew something.
Lesno escorted him out the door. “Wonderful!” he beamed. “I think you're the man to solve our problems. But time is of the essence! The port residents have been on our necks for months; their pets are being killed, they're afraid for their children and they're afraid for themselves. And since the rats are based in the warehouse district, we might be held liable if we don't do something soon. And” – he put his hand on Orz's shoulder and lowered his voice – “we've been keeping it quiet, but a man went after a few of the rats with a blaster the other night. They turned on him and chewed him up pretty badly.”
“I'll start as early as possible,” Orz assured him. “You just send somebody around tomorrow with a good-sized truck and I'll be waiting.”
Rabb must have overheard them as he approached. “That won't be necessary,” he said. “We're placing a truck at your disposal immediately. I'll drive it over to your ship and Lesno will bring me back after dropping you off.”
Orz said that
would be fine and he arranged a time and place of meeting with Lesno for early the next morning on the way back to the ship. A few minutes later he and 62 were standing next to the borrowed truck watching the two League officers drive away.
“Ratman!” whispered a voice from the deep shadows under the ramp.
Orz spun around. “Who's there?” he asked guardedly.
“I'm your contact.”
“You'd better come out and identify yourself,” he said.
Muttering and brushing off the knees of her coveralls, a tall, statuesque brunette stepped out of the shadows. “Where have you been for the past hour? We were supposed to meet as soon as it was dark!”
“Just who are you, miss?” Orz asked.
She straightened up and stared at him. “You don't take any chances, do you?” she said as a wry smile played about her lips. “O.K. I'm Jessica Maffey, Federation agent NE97. I'm the one who received a smuggled shipment of fifty of your best harassing rats, drove them into town, and let them go in the warehouse district. Satisfied, Ratman?”
Orz grinned at her annoyance. “You're Maffey, all right… I've got a picture of you inside, but you can't be too careful.” He glanced around. “Let's get inside where we can talk.”
“Speaking of going inside,” she said, “there's been a steady stream of rats going through that little opening in the hatch.”
He nodded. “Good. I activated a high-frequency call before I left. All the harassers you loosed should be snug in their cages by now.”
He unlocked the hatch and led her to the rat room. As he busied himself with transferring 62 to a cage and checking on the harassing rats, Jessica looked around. From the darkened recess of each cage shone two gleaming points of light, and all those several hundred points of light seemed to be fixed upon her. She shuddered.
“Three missing,” Orz was saying. “That's not too bad… accidents do happen.” He pressed a button on the wall and the open doors on the cages of the harassing rats swung shut with a loud and simultaneous clang.
“How about a drink?” he offered his guest.
“As a matter of fact, I'd love one,” she replied, sighing with relief as they stepped back into the corridor. Orz looked at her curiously. “It gets a little dry and dusty sitting under a loading ramp,” she explained with a tight smile.
With Jessica seated in his spartan, fastidiously neat living quarters with her hand around a cold gin and tonic, Orz began to talk business. “Federation Intelligence only gave me a sketchy idea of what's going on here. You were to fill me in on the rest, so why don't I tell you what I know and you take it from there.”
“Go ahead,” she told him.
Drink in hand, Orz paced the room as he spoke. “Let's start with this planet. Neeka is a fiercely independent, sparsely populated world which exports a lot of food and imports a lot of hardware. Formerly a splinter world, it agreed to trade with the Federation but refused to join it. They were asked to join the Restructurists in their revolt against the Federation but turned them down. They want absolutely no part of the war… and I can't say as I blame them.
“However: The Haas Warp Gate is right outside this star system and the convoys stack up in this area before being shot through to the battle zones. Fed agents discovered a turncoat feeding information on the size and destinations of the convoys to someone on this planet. That someone, in turn, was transmitting the info to the Restructurists via subspace radio. He's been stopped temporarily, but as soon as he makes another contact, he'll be in business again. I was told to meet you here and stop him. That's all I know.”
Jessica nodded and drained her drink. “Right. But subspace transmissions can't be traced so we had to depend on deductive reasoning. First of all, you're allowed to be pro-Federation, or pro-Restructurist on Neeka, and you're allowed to talk all you want about either cause. Nobody minds. But try to do something to aid either cause and you wind up in prison. Strict neutrality is enforced to the letter on Neeka. Therefore, partisan natives, such as myself and the man we're after, have to go underground.
“Now, it would be as easy to smuggle in a subspace transmitter as it was to smuggle in your rats, but hiding it would be an entirely different matter. It's a huge piece of hardware and it needs a large power supply.”
“So the man we're after,” Orz broke in, “is someone with easy access to an off-planet source of information, and a place big enough to hide a subspace transmitter without arousing suspicion.”
“And a warehouse right here in port has the size and access to the necessary power,” Jessica concluded. “Since the members of the Traders League own all the warehouses, they are the obvious target for investigation.”
“But which one?”
She shrugged. “Their security is too tight for me to do much snooping. The only way to get into those warehouses is to be invited in. That's where Ratman comes in.”
Orz was thoughtful. “It really shouldn't be too difficult. I was informed by the Traders League when they retained me that their warehouses are fully automated and computer-operated.”
“With a population density as low as Neeka's,” Jessica added, “labor is anything but cheap.”
“Right,” he continued. “And, if I wanted to hide a subspace radio in one of those warehouses, I'd disguise it as part of the automation works and no one would ever be the wiser. All I've got to do tomorrow when I go into the warehouses is keep my eyes open for an unusually large computer-automation rig. When I find it I'll just ‘accidentally’ expose it as a subspace transmitter. The Neekan authorities will take care of our spy after that.”
He suddenly halted his pacing and snapped his fingers. “Forgot to turn off the call signal for the rats… I'll be right back.”
“Mind if I come along?” Jessica asked.
“Not at all.”
She watched Orz's back as he led her down the narrow corridor to the bridge. “Can I call you something other than ‘Ratman’?”
He grinned over his shoulder. “Sam will do fine.”
“O.K., Sam: How did you get started in all this?”
“Well, I got the idea a few years ago and thought I was a genius until I started looking for backers. Everyone I approached thought I was either a swindler or a nut. As a last desperate hope I went to IBA.”
“What's IBA?”
“Interstellar Business Advisors. It's a private company with some pretty canny people working for them. They dug up somebody who promised to back me halfway, then they approached the Federation with this undercover idea. Since I'd be able to get on otherwise unfriendly planets, the Federation put up the rest of the money. So now I'm a full-time Ratman and a part-time Fed man. And when my reputation spreads, IBA has got some ideas for starting a corporation and selling franchises.”
They entered the bridge as he was speaking and Jessica noticed that it was as meticulously ordered as his quarters. Two additions to the standard console caught her eye immediately.
“Improvements?” she asked, pointing to a brace of toggle switches.
Orz flipped one of the toggles to “off” and turned to her. “Those are the high-frequency signals for my rats. They've got an effective range of about two kilometers and when a rat hears the proper tone, he makes a beeline for this ship.”
“And what's that?” She indicated a bright red lever with three safety catches and “Danger” written in white letters along its length.
The lightness left his voice. “For the direst of emergencies only,” he replied.
Feminine curiosity aroused, Jessica went to touch it. “What does it do?”
“That's my secret,” Orz replied with a tight smile and snatched her wrist away from the lever. “I've yet to use it and I hope the day never comes when I do.” To draw her attention elsewhere he pointed to the far wall. “See that inconspicuous little switch over there by the intercom speaker? When that's in the down position – like now – the controls are locked.”
“You're just full of tricks, aren't you?”
she said, trying to hide a smile. He was like a little boy showing off a new toy.
“Can't be too careful.”
Lesno, Rabb, Houghton, and a few others were ready and waiting when Orz pulled up in front of the Traders League offices with the truck.
“Straight ahead,” said Lesno as he hopped in beside Orz. “We'll start with Rabb's places first since they're the closest.” Two left turns brought them up before a huge structure with a “Rabb & Co.” sign above the sliding doors. Orz waited until the others had arrived, then addressed the group.
“First of all,” he told them, “you must keep all humans away from any warehouse where my rats are at work, so give whatever employees you have the day off. Next, let me explain that space rats set up a close-knit community within a warehouse – one community per warehouse – and that each community has a leader who achieved his position by being the most cunning and the most ferocious in the community.”
He reached into the back of the truck and brought out a simple cage. Inside was a very large and very vicious-looking space rat. “This is one of my Judas rats. I've selectively bred them for ferocity and any one of these is a match for any three ordinary space rats. Within hours after his release, my Judas rat will have established himself at the top of the community's pecking order.”
Once again Orz reached into the back of the truck and brought out a cage, but this one was larger and empty. “Normally a space rat wouldn't go near a trap like this, but he'll follow the Judas if the Judas is the community leader.
And once the community has followed him inside and is busy at the bait, the Judas hops outside, releases this catch and a spring closes and locks the door. He then returns to the ship. The cage is made of a lightweight titanium alloy that not even a space rat's teeth can dent.” He held up the cage. “Tomorrow morning this should be filled with a community of very angry space rats.”
The Complete LaNague Page 97