The Rats, the Bats & the Ugly

by Eric Flint

  Talbot gaped at her. "But . . ."

  "It was necessary," said Sanjay. "I selected you as the vilest of weeds when I discovered Shaw was dead. You were a useful weed. You choked all the others out, and brought out and fed the resentment of the Vats with your stupid brutality. Some of the other weeds might have allowed more freedom. But you made sure, for me, that the only way out for them was by destroying the HAR Shareholders' monopoly on power. You did more for the VLO than I could."

  "What? How could you?"

  "Is that all you can ever say, Cartup? 'What?' " She cackled. "Cauldron bubble . . . Like the witches did to Macbeth . . . I didn't make you fall, Talbot Cartup. I simply gave you the opportunities to choose your own fate. To imagine that your petty vendettas against Fitzhugh or this Vat-boy Connolly could succeed. To not see my plans with two new intelligences . . . What you have done is to erode the very ground under your feet. You've done what I could not, Talbot Cartup. Your greed has poisoned this sick system enough to bring it down. Now your crimes can take you down with it."

  "You bitch," he said, incredulously, "you're neck deep in all the things I've done. You advised me! You hid me. You're an accomplice and I'll take you down with me."

  She shrugged. "If I'd kept my hands out of your affairs . . . you'd have crawled off and hidden in legal evasions and poisoned this society for years. I had to make sure you were eliminated. You've known all along that a second Korozhet ship landed with the Magh'. You and Aloysius Shaw both knew from the initial satellite data."

  "Shaw was an idiot. He didn't believe it could be true. He said that it would cause unrest to start such rumors."

  "I had wondered about that. He was a pompous fool, but not as much of a villain as you. And, in a way, this society needed a true villain, or it would have limped on for generations, oppressing more and more people. You were perfect for my purposes in that way, Cartup. You've colluded with the Korozhet and become wealthy and powerful. But we could never catch you. The evidence was hidden, and you had a powerful team of hiders backing you. So: when this blew up, I gave you houseroom. Recordings of all your conversations have gone out from here to the three people I trust: John Needford, Len Liepsich, and Lynne Stark. You've been entrapped redhanded. A sting, you might say."

  "You bitch." He snatched at his car keys. "You won't get away with this."

  She shook her head. "The doors on this house are very secure, Cartup. Old ship doors. At the moment they're set to only be openable from the outside. You haven't got a hope."

  He snarled, and dropped the keys for a knife lying on the table. She'd been sharpening it earlier. "I've got you, Devi. That'll do."

  She smiled tranquilly. "But not for long, Cartup. I'm dying of cancer. It's quite incurable. I wanted to see Harmony and Reason free of your sort before I went. I wanted to see our dream drawn back from the nightmare that people like you and Aloysius Shaw were prepared to delve into, for the sake of your own power and greed. Go ahead and kill me if you dare. Or are you afraid?"

  Outside, vehicles screeched to a halt. "Not of you, you old witch!"

  As he stabbed, she whispered: "I hear the wailing of the women, for the Queen is dead."

  The words were finished with a bloody froth on her lips. But, like everything in her life that she'd set out to do, Sanjay Devi had succeeded in using the line that had prepared her for that moment.

  * * *

  Talbot Cartup was still standing above Sanjay Devi with a bloody knife in his hand, when rats and bats burst into the room, with Virginia and half a dozen paratroopers behind her. There was a glass door and a balcony behind him.

  And, in the end, Sanjay Devi had chosen the right line again. It wasn't any man of woman born that killed him. Tripping over a rat, as a bat flew at his face, and falling off the balcony to the rocks below did it.

  Two paratroopers were trying to give Sanjay first aid. Another one was calling for an ambulance. She waved the one who was trying to staunch the blood away. "I'm dying, anyway. I want to speak to her."

  She beckoned Ginny closer. "I knew he might weasel out of anything but red-handed murder, my dear. I'm dying. I give my children into your care, Virginia Shaw. Take good care of them or my ghost will haunt you. Be sure of it."

  "Your children? Who?" Sanjay Devi was a well known Shareholder. She'd never married, and if she'd ever had children they'd been kept a complete secret.

  "The uplifted ones, first—the rats and bats I created in my witch's vats. I was the one who persuaded your father to put an implant into you, my dear. Because I saw you as their best chance. My other children are the Vats. I bred them up. I have millions of children, and I wanted a future for them. Not slavery. Either from our culture or . . . the Crotchets. You take over now. I've worked in secret. The time for that is over. Raise the revolution."

  The ambulance arrived, but Virginia Shaw had a feeling the medics were too late.

  All she could do was nod.

  * * *

  It took the police some time to recover Talbot Cartup's body from the dangerous and slippery rocks below the balcony. The bats had been able to tell them that he was indeed dead and not worth risking life and limb for.

  Since then the bats had been locked in deep discussion, while the rats had cheerfully looted some booze.

  "We have decided, Virginia. You have here as many rats as are likely to fight, but we need more bats for any raid on such a target. So we need to send Eamon south to raise the standard with our organizations."

  "And I might have guessed that both the Red Wing and the Battacus League would steal our password," grumbled Eamon irritably. "We used 'Easter Uprising' first."

  "First or last. We need them all," said Bronstein. "And I'd like to go myself, but you're a stronger flier and will not be turned to drink and forget your mission like this wastrel." She pointed a wing at O'Niel, who had just accepted a stoup of Sanjay's single malt from Doc.

  "Just because I am sometimes taken with drink, doesn't mean I can't think, Bronstein," said O'Niel. "Not that Eamon is not a better flier, even if Shamus Plekhanov is a better bat with explosives."

  "Hmph," said Eamon. "Well, I'd better be going. 'Tis a long fly."

  One of the paratroopers had been listening in. "Where to?"

  "To divisional headquarters, Sector 3-350," answered Eamon.

  "You should take one of the transport planes," said the paratrooper with a wry smile. "You could be there in two hours."

  Eamon nodded thoughtfully. "I'll be doing that."

  He flapped upward. "I'll return with a mighty bat brigade."

  "Is he serious?" asked the paratrooper.

  "He's always serious," said O'Niel. "Sensible, no. The airfield is the other way, to be sure. I'd better get after him and tell him."

  Fortunately, for short-sprint-flights, O'Niel was quite capable, for a plump bat.

  Chapter 49

  In the green and naphthalene reeking ship-halls

  of the Korozhet slave-ship.

  Chip knew that it was bound to end, sooner or later. He could stay in here until he starved or the slave supervisors came to haul him out.

  He'd yet to find any way of killing himself in this room. Besides, the soft-cyber in his head said that would be a disservice to the masters. So: he waited. When the time came he would find a way. The slaves were apparently supervised by low-order young Korozhets, small, short-spined and very orange. Neuters and males, according to Yetteth. They were neither very intelligent nor very strong. They tended to use aliens that the other prisoners called Nerba as brute force. Your mind would let you resist Nerba. Your body was ill-advised to. They looked like armored bipedal water buffalo, with too many joined limbs and long mobile tails which split into a two-fingered "hand."

  There was no way of telling night from day here in the vast bowels of the Korozhet ship, but Chip kept count of the food sirens. It was just after the seventh one that a Korozhet supervisor came for him, with two Nerba to carry him if need be. "Come," ordered the Korozhe
t. "Medium-spine Natt is to interrogate you."

  He got up from the sleeping shelf to walk. A lash of some kind snaked across his naked back. "Walk lower. It is not fitting that you stand taller than even a First-instar, slave."

  He hunched his shoulders and bent his legs and walked as slowly as he thought he could get away with. His eyes darted around looking for a death-chance. He waited too long. The small orange-spined Korozhet clattered his spines with impatience. "Pick him up, Nerba. Do not break his shell. We will go through the power section and save me much ambulating."

  Chip found himself carried through a section of the ship where the air smelled distinctly of hot metal, even above the naphthalene reek. Much of the machinery was so alien he could not even begin to recognize it. But one piece he did. The last time he'd seen one, a fountain of sparks had been showering from it.

  At a guess that was a force-field generator, near as dammit identical to the one in the brood-heart of the scorpiary.

  Chip was eventually tossed down in front of a slightly redder and longer-spined Korozhet, sitting in a shallow waterbath.

  Chip was planning to lie as much as he could. He'd just never realized quite what an effort defying the Korozhet and the soft-cyber had been for Ginny.

  The medium-spine asked questions. Chip answered. He could hate the Crotchets, but to refuse to answer a direct question—from a Korozhet, in Korozhet—that was near impossible. And he was struggling to think fast enough to come up with evasive answers. At length the medium-spine started to clatter his spines. "Call Third-instar Clattat. This must be heard by him. The slaves rebel!"

  The small, orange short-spined one raised his killing spines. Chip desperately wanted to dodge, but felt that would not be serving the master. "We kill any slave who rebels," said the small Korozhet.

  "Unfit-to-spawn one! It is not this slave that rebels. It is the others. I have been instructed to hand this one intact to Sixth-instar Tirritit."

  So, soon, Chip found himself being questioned by a larger Korozhet. When this one asked if the rats and bats could disobey, Chip had to answer in the affirmative.

  "A direct order?"

  "Yes"

  "How do they do this?" demanded the Korozhet inquisitor.

  Chip struggled to defend his friends. They found cover in the English language. He found refuge in Doc. "It is possible with the use of Plato's forms."

  The last two words were English. And that too came to his rescue.

  "How does this Platoforms tool work?"

  "I do not know. I do not understand it." That was true.

  "Is it used by all?"

  "No."

  "Will it be used by humans on the soft-cyber?"

  "It is a human thing. It was done to one rat as an experiment." That was true.

  "But there are many of these slaves who broke their conditioning!" said the Second-instar.

  Perhaps he could make them afraid? Fluff had tried to stop the Korozhet shooting Virginia by clinging to the laser. "One attacked the weapon of the Korozhet," volunteered Chip.

  The resultant clattering of spines and reek of naphthalene was almost overwhelming. The Third-instar Clattat spined away hastily to seek an interview with the High-spine.

  "What do we do with this slave?" asked the small orange Korozhet. "Are we to kill him because he rebelled? Any slave that rebels must die."

  "Soft-spined sexless it, that will never even become male. He has not rebelled, as I said. Send him back to his quarters. You heard the Third-instar. He is wanted in good condition."

  * * *

  Yetteth was once again on cleaning duties for the High-spines when a Third-instar dared to come clattering in, and interrupted. Yetteth had seen a Fourth-instar killed for less. "Most High-spine. I have news of slave revolts among the implants we have placed among the humans."

  That was enough to lower the dart-spines on the Deep-Purple Tenth-instar High-spine.

  "Speak. Revolts? How is this possible? There is sometimes a rare malfunction or a slave of great will who overcomes some of the programming. But it is a rare thing. Our statisticians tell us that it is unlikely in low-order uplift minds in a proportion of less than one in twenty million."

  "The humans have a device they call a Platosforms which enabled all of the slaves to rebel."

  The High-spine clattered her spines. "This is ascertained? I have worrying reports here that the human media are attacking us, too. Accusing us of supplying both the Magh' and themselves."

  "But that is correct, High-spine."

  "It is not fitting that a putative subject species be aware of this. Besides this tool might somehow be brought into the ship, or affect the slaves on the ship."

  Another one of the High-spines clattered. "The lock detectors do not exclude and incinerate implanted slaves. We could have these rebel slaves on our ship."

  "We must begin their destruction immediately," said another. "These humans are not worth the risk of farming any further. The rewards have been great, but risk outweighs the reward."

  The high-spine clattered her spines. "Agreed. We cannot take these chances. There is no greater danger to the Overphyle than rebellion of slaves. Begin the firing sequences. Contact the spawnship on the tight-beam. Tell them of this and tell them to order the Magh' advance. Send out the call for our slaves who are in the human army. The humans cannot hold the Magh' without their implanted soldier-creatures. And the soldier-creatures will come to us."

  "How do we know if they are still loyal?"

  "If they come, they are loyal. They outnumber the humans. And they are better killers."

  Chapter 50

  Hell: Because war is that place,

  no matter where you actually are.

  Down in Aladdin's cave, the movement of the missile aiming spines on the top of the vast roundness of the Korozhet ship was detected.

  "Condition red. I say again, Condition red!"

  Within a minute . . .

  "Missile launch detected. Multiple missiles. Incoming."

  All over George Bernard Shaw City, the sirens wailed. Siren systems set up when humans had still thought that this was going to be a conventional war, with missiles and air raids.

  Many people had forgotten what they meant. There was chaos, from the streets full of protestors outside the courthouse to the crenelated grandeur of the Military Headquarters. The soup course of the elegant lunch being set on the vast tables caused some inelegant and painful accidents. But that was all. None of the Korozhet missiles would be wasted on useless targets.

  The four geological/defense heavy lasers that the slowship had mounted were hooked up to the ship's power plant. They fired. They were energy expensive, never intended for simultaneous power-draw. But as the ship's fusion plant was almost certain to be a target, that made little difference.

  Their targets were not the missiles, but their launch spines.

  At the same time, not knowing just how the missiles were guided, Aladdin's cave spewed out as wide a range of jamming mechanisms as they could.

  Some of it might even have worked. Not, however, for the old human slowship. That and the power plants south of the city were successfully hit. Fortunately, the bunker underneath the slowship had been designed to withstand tactical nuclear warheads. The non-nuclear explosives being used by the Korozhet were powerful, but not powerful enough to penetrate it.

  * * *

  Just as the judge was attempting to take down the rat who was, if not helping Fitz's case, at least giving the judge a novel view of his own unimportance—the alarms started. Then the lights in the windowless courthouse went out, as the ground shook. There was the sound of breaking glass. Fitz had thrown himself down, instinctively. The explosions were large, but not close. The screaming and panic in the courtroom were far louder. Having been a front-line officer took over.

  "Quiet!" Fitz's voice was loud, but more like a whip-crack in its force. Only one hysterical screamer remained. "Shut that person up," he instructed.

  S
omeone did.

  "Right." Panic kills. If you're in charge you've got to keep your cool or your troops will lose theirs. "This building itself is not under attack," said Fitz. "Is that clear to all of you? This building is not being attacked. There is no cause for panic. Sergeant at Arms?"

  "Sir!" said a voice from the darkness.

  "Take two MPs and get out there and scout. Ariel," he knew she'd be in here, somewhere, "go with them."

  "Sir!" There was relief in that assent. Relief that someone was taking charge.

  The door opened. Several people headed after the three towards the rectangle of light.

  "Stop right there," snapped Fitz. "The rest of you, stay put. If we get an 'all clear' out there we'll move out. In an orderly fashion. There will be no running. You will all maintain physical contact with someone. Do we have any injured?"

  "I'm bleeding," said someone. "Glass I think."

  "Right. Move, or help any injured to the light at the door. Doc. Treat them."

  As this was happening, the sergeant at arms came back. "Chaos out there, sir. But no shooting. There are some fires. We saw a fire engine go past."

  "Right. Sergeant, assist the wounded. Let's get out into the light. If there are any more incoming, all of you, scatter and get down."

  He found himself with his arm being held joining the procession towards the outside. It was only when he got into the lighter passage that he realized that it was the hand of his mauve-lipsticked prosecutor, holding him.

  "I should kill you now and save myself a lot of trouble next time," she whispered poisonously.

  "Just try it," said Ariel, leaping up onto Fitz's shoulder in one of those prodigious bounds that the rats were capable of. " 'Twill be my pleasure to bite you properly. The street is full of idiotic screaming humans, Fitz. One said the missile trails came from the . . . Crotchet ship. Some of the city is on fire."

  Major Tana Gainor let go of Fitz and ran for the doors.

  They got out onto the steps and into the light. Several of the wounded were being tended on the steps. It seemed more a case of blood, minor injuries and fear than anything else.