The Rats, the Bats and the Ugly trtbav-2

by Eric Flint

  "Hmm." There came a heavy chuckle. "I have made things rather difficult for myself, haven't I?"

  There was a brief pause. Then: "Well, I gather you are a convincing speaker. You'll make another speech saying that in the light of new evidence you want me back heading the portfolio. You can arrange the checks and balances… I'll provide you with names of suitable candidates."

  "Very well."

  "And then I will want a number of shares as a deed of gift. I'll leave you with one percent of the stock. More generous than a dummy deserves, and I'll keep silent about your uplift status. That would cost you all of them."

  "You can have anything you want," said Virginia. "But first I want proof that Chip is fine. When he is free and well, you will have all the things you want."

  "You'll just have to trust me, Shaw. He's fine."

  "Cartup, I have no reason to ever trust you. You provide me with proof. Let me talk to him, and I'll start doing things. Until then, Talbot Cartup, we're hunting you. And trust me on this: if Chip Connolly doesn't get back safely, I'm going to cut you in half, personally, with a chainsaw."

  For five minutes after she put the phone down she sat there, shaking.

  Melene came in to the room. She took one look at Ginny, and handed her a small bottle from her rat-pack, without a word said.

  Ginny drank from it, glass clattering against her teeth. She stood up. "Take me to the Ratafia. Take me now. I need to start fighting and I need people who won't just talk."

  ***

  "Is simple the problem, as I see it," said Darleth. "Openly attack the Korozhet, the rats cannot. At the idea, even you wince. Even if we could, the weaponry on the ship is fierce. Force fields they have. When in place these are, the Korozhet only can use the heavy laser. What they do is to raise these for very little time, and then launch missiles from the targeting spines on the top of the ship. There are two force fields-like airlock, not one like Magh'. Many thousands of the people, the Jampad, with heavy lasers we force our way in. And then the ship was exploded, with most of the slaves and attackers killed, when the Korozhet fled in their lifecraft."

  "I don't think we can take them on frontally-even if the soft-cyber would let us. But we can raid…" said Meilin.

  Virginia had been less than surprised to see the Vat organizer there. Too many ends in this tied together. Somebody, somewhere, was pulling strings, she'd slowly come to realize. She had no idea who it was, although it was clearly someone who-for whatever reasons of their own-seemed determined to shatter the existing political setup on Harmony and Reason.

  At the moment, that was good enough. One day she'd track them down. Right now she had other priorities.

  The Jampad nodded. Virginia had learned that meant no. "To gain entry means the double-front portal. No other ingress have the Korozhet ships. The last reports from our attackers before the ship was destroyed they said there was a force field inside the entry port. We believe, but not know, that the inner portal is a fire chamber that is triggered if anything other than Korozhet or an implanted slave goes into it."

  Ginny frowned thoughtfully. "They must bring things in. I mean we've been paying them for the soft-cyber and slowshield units. We could hide in that."

  The Jampad nodded furiously. "It is irradiated. Only through the double portal do live things pass. And, from what my people could establish, only implanted victims or Korozhet themselves."

  Ginny sighed. "So what you are saying is that we can't attack them."

  The Jampad shook his head. "We can. The Korozhet, my people attacked, and their client species very successfully when they come out of the ship. Their slaves they use as soldiers, and some, like the Nerba, are very good. But while inside the ship they are hidden, they can only be attacked with great force. I prepare for the guerrilla fight."

  Ariel wrinkled her ratty snout. "Methinks I'll talk to Fitz, Ginny. Strategy and tactics are his thing. I'm going there later tonight and he goes to court tomorrow. He needs something else to think about."

  "I'm sure he has enough on his mind," said Ginny, wanly.

  Ariel patted her hand. "He has a very wide mind. It encompasses everything from chocolate to war."

  Virginia sighed. "I'm still due to see Liepsich tonight. I'm not sure when he sleeps. I'll talk to him about the problem. But I still want to hire the Ratafia. I want Talbot Cartup found. He's trying to blackmail me with Chip's freedom. If I could trust him, I'd gladly give all he asks. But if I catch him before the police do… I'll get real cooperation. Even if I have to get Fat Fal to 'circumspect' him."

  "Methinks the rats will be a bit worried," said Gobbo doubtfully, "with this move into formal employment."

  Meilin laughed. "You'll have to shift from burglary to other enterprises soon anyway. The humans are going to catch on. And once they do that, it could just become easier to work than steal."

  "Steal! Steal?" said Gobbo. "A fico for the phrase. Convey, the wise call it."

  "Call it what you like, they'll stop your conveying too. But there is work you can do."

  "I know," agreed Gobbo. "But work… it hath such an ill ring to it."

  "Regard it as I do," said Pooh-Bah. "As something one of the other seven do while I am not around."

  Eric Flint

  The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

  Chapter 46

  Eric Flint

  The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

  The office of Dr. Len Liepsich.

  A place in which you might find anything from a book on Egyptology to a treatise on the molecular structure of fullerene complexes.

  And last month's lunch, with green fur on it.

  And an espresso machine, too well used.

  It was approaching midnight and the physicist was showing no signs of slowing down. The only real clue to just how little sleep he'd had in the last few days was that his eyes looked like roadmaps. And he was talking a little too fast. Virginia suspected there was something other than the ever-present cup of coffee affecting his mind. She ran the information she'd gotten from Darleth about the Crotchet's defense system over his hairy ears. You could tell he was interested because he scarcely bothered to insult her.

  "For a blonde, you provide rare insights. And not just of a view of vacuum by peering into your ears. We'd figured the missiles. We've got some plans in place to try to deal with that. We'd figured heavy laser fire. There is some stuff still mounted on the slowship. I've got somebody organizing those. What we hadn't got is this business of double force fields."

  "I'm fascinated by what you've figured out," she said dryly. Liepsich grinned. She continued. "What I am interested in, is what we need to do to get in there?"

  He scratched his stubbly chin. "You know, there is always more than one way to skin a cat, especially if you know a lot about cats. Now, I figure that there are two ways-at least-that we can get at the ship. Their fields must be down for missile launch, as you said. We can hit them just then. It's a small window, but a window. That's the best solution a military man will evolve."

  She'd learned to read Liepsich's elliptical utterances by now. "So what would a thinking man do?"

  He grinned again. "Why don't you sign up for physics? You have too good a brain for politics. All that needs is a big mouth and the ability to lie with a straight face. You've got the mouth for it, but I'm not sure how well you lie."

  Ginny was not distracted. "Answer my question, Dr. Liepsich. I might even sign up for a physics degree. Later. If you can prove to me that you're not too dim to teach it."

  He gave her a thumbs-up. "Twin thrusts. The soft-cybers. The Jampad made it pretty clear that there are slaves inside that ship. The soft-cyber bias stops them rebelling. If you removed that bias, the ship would have an enemy within."

  "Except that you can't do that," she said.

  He raised his eyebrows. "Says who?"

  She hauled him out of the seat he was flopped into. "How? Do it! Do it now." She hated and feared the fact that her mind was not entirely her ow
n. This was indeed a holy grail.

  He shrugged, still in her grasp. "We're getting there. We've been working on the source code. The Korozhet obviously hadn't counted on the fact that even if the colony is mostly back in human nineteenth-century technology, not all of the slowship's equipment is. We've been writing a section of what would be called-in old terms-a computer virus, to reprogram the soft-cyber chips. We're getting closer. It's no small job."

  "Do it faster."

  He looked thoughtfully at her. "Do you realize that if we get it wrong, we scramble the soft-cyber system? Destroy its memory. We can do that right now. To knock out the basic bias and still leave it intact is a lot harder. Now, can I sit down again?"

  Virginia let go. She'd forgotten that she was holding him. "That would destroy my memories, right?"

  "You? Maybe," he admitted. "Most of them, probably. The chip would be intact, just the programming screwed. A rat would go back to being a rat, but we could reprogram its soft-cyber."

  "Except… they… we would lose our memories."

  Liepsich nodded. "Yep. But you'd still be alive and you wouldn't be enslaved."

  Virginia blinked. Shook her head. "I can't. I can't part with those memories. They… they're too precious. Maybe the others… I'll ask."

  "Except that we can't deal with it on a one-on-one basis. We just don't have the time to do so, or even the equipment."

  "But how else do you do it?"

  Liepsich grinned nastily. "Use some of that plastic inside your blonde head, Shaw. The Korozhet need some way of relaying orders to all of you at once, obviously."

  She looked warily at him. "What?"

  "How blonde," he said. "Hadn't you worked out that you're carrying a radio-receiver in your head? It probably constantly says 'breathe in, breathe out,' in your case."

  "It's too bad you weren't born a rat, Liepsich. You would have had a little more skill with insults. Although you'd probably still be considered the rats' village idiot. Can't you jam radio signals? And can't we just use radio to affect the prisoners inside their ship? And does this mean that the revolt we tried to foment among the rats and bats is a lost cause? Or will they be able to resist?"

  Liepsich smiled. "You really are too able for politics. We've identified the frequencies now, and got jammers set up, we hope. Inevitably the Korozhet will target the jamming devices, but we've got as much redundancy set up as we can. The radio call uses one of the master command phrases-what they used on you to make you obey Dr. Thom. I doubt if mere semantics could help the rats and bats dodge that. So, yes. The revolt that the rats and bats have tried to set up won't work. And that pumpkin-shaped Korozhet ship, unfortunately for my attempts to examine it, is opaque to just about every form of e-m radiation, including radio. It might work if you could get transmitters inside."

  "And if your jamming fails?" asked Virginia. "And our resistance fails? What happens to us?"

  Liepsich took a deep breath. "Well. Either we let you go and become the utterly loyal slave-warriors of the Korozhet. Or, if that starts to get close to the breaking point, we'll have to lose Harmony and Reason's best defense against the Magh'."

  Virginia knew exactly what he meant. She closed her eyes, briefly. "You said there was another thrust."

  "Ah. Just an idea," said the scientist.

  "Out with it, Doctor Liepsich! Or I'll get my rats to cut your tongue out. Or better, Super-Glue your lips together so you can't insult anyone."

  "You play rough, Shaw. How blonde." He smiled. "Okay. Slowshields explode if they impact a force field. We think that if you managed to make a circle of them you could, theoretically, have a hole in the field. Briefly. If you had enough slowshields you could in theory overload the entire field. But-and I emphasize the 'but'-the energy discharge would be in the multimegaton level. It would fry things for several miles around and possibly destroy the ship. We just don't know."

  Eric Flint

  The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

  Chapter 47

  Eric Flint

  The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

  Military court Complex, Court B, Judge Silberstohn presiding.

  "Do you know that there are over fifty thousand people on the street out there?" said Lieutenant Capra to his senior counsel, as they did their last pre-trial preparation.

  "They're certainly being noisy enough," said Lieutenant Colonel Ogata dourly. "And I assure you, Lieutenant, that's nothing to what it will be like if we lose this case."

  "We're not going to lose."

  Ogata turned a frosty eye on him. "Nothing is that certain, Capra. If we had a judge like McCairn, maybe. But Judge Silberstohn… He doesn't have a sense of humor. Remember that."

  "And one of our star witnesses is in Korozhet custody. I'm not sure using those military animals is a good idea, Colonel. Take my advice, and keep questions to a minimum. You're better off if you stick to Virginia Shaw's testimony. She's a good witness, and she's still got shock value."

  "I plan to," said Ogata, "but always remember: that's a military panel. They trust the military and instinctively… should I say 'look down' on nonmilitary persons. It's a subconscious attitude in some cases, but it is real. The rats and bats are Military Animals."

  "That's something that's sure to be challenged in court soon, sir. They're not 'animals,' or at least not 'dumb animals.' And they don't see the world quite as we do. They're amoral about some things and yet honorable about others."

  "Different ethos and mores. And this seems more appropriate to realms of philosophy than last minute pre-trial preparations. It's not relevant," said Ogata, sternly.

  "If that's what you think, sir," said Mike Capra, "wait 'til Doc gets up to testify. He can confuse a certified genius. That's why I kept him out of the last trial."

  Ogata frowned. "In the brief meeting I had with the rat he seemed relatively coherent, if a bit long-winded."

  "Just don't even give him an opportunity to talk philosophy," warned Mike. "And he takes the subject to a wider reach than I would have thought possible."

  Ogata looked a little startled. "I suppose it does encompass the spectrum of human thought," he said. "Now, let's get back to the case in question."

  ***

  An hour later they went into the packed courtroom. The crowd outside was even larger than it had been earlier.

  With her presentation, Major Tana Gainor demonstrated that she actually had no need to resort to foul means to win her cases. She obviously just preferred certainty to litigation.

  "Outside, and here in this courtroom, there are those who clamor for us to follow the popular will, to abandon the law and oblige the crowds. This," she said to the judge and panel, "is not what we stand for. We are not going to pander to the mob."

  Mike could tell by the judge's expression that she'd hit exactly the right chord. Well, Tana always did her homework carefully. She always did her dirty work carefully, too. Still there were some surprises awaiting Her Nastyship.

  She pointed to Fitz. "We have a man on trial here, a man who is very good at manipulating the masses for his own evil ends. Conrad Fitzhugh has abused the trust that the army and the people of Harmony and Reason have placed in their officers. We will display to you evidence, hard evidence, that can but lead you to one conclusion: This man is a spy, and a traitor who abused his rank to pursue his own goals, the goals of self-enrichment, at the expense of the lives of the men and women of our great armed forces."

  She went on in this vein, in a very convincing, indeed, heartfelt style for some time. She didn't actually say much, but that was plainly secondary to her purposes.

  Brigadier Charlesworth was an impressive witness. He was a heavily decorated divisional commander. He had been assaulted, with a deadly weapon, in front of equally impressive witnesses.

  Ogata stood up to cross-examine. "Please show us the scars, Brigadier."

  "What?"

  "The scars of this assault with a deadly weapon," said Ogata.

  "Objection!"
>
  "Overruled. Continue."

  "Did you in fact sustain any flesh wound from this assault?" asked Ogata. "If so, is there any reason that you cannot show the scars to the court? Is it perhaps actually on your buttocks?"

  "Objection!"

  "Sustained. Will the defense refrain from insulting the witness. He is a distinguished officer."

  Ogata turned to the judge. "Your honor, I can only imagine one other place that the witness could be injured that he would be reluctant to show us the scar," he said, without even a hint of a smile. "Therefore it seemed a polite alternative to the other possible question. Less embarrassing for the witness. I would not ask a witness to show his buttocks or any other part of his body that he or she considered private to the court. But in the interests of justice the scars from the wound should be displayed."

  The judge nodded. "I take your point, Lieutenant Colonel Ogata. Brigadier. Would you mind?"

  "There isn't a scar," said Charlesworth grumpily.

  By the look on Tana's face she'd have given him one. "Your Honor," she said, "I am afraid that proves nothing. Major Fitzhugh thrust a deadly weapon into the witness' stomach, with the intent to do grievous bodily harm, if not to kill the brigadier."

  "I see," said Ogata. "A thrice-decorated combat veteran, a martial arts expert, would of course have no idea how hard to strike to inflict bodily harm. Is that what you're suggesting? That's ridiculous, Major."

  "Are you going to continue your cross-examination of the witness?" asked the judge dryly.

  Ogata nodded. "Yes, Your Honor. Tell me, Brigadier, about the preparations for this plan for the attack on Sector Delta 355."

  "That's classified material," said Charlesworth. "I cannot divulge war plans."

  "Even details of long-completed plans-which, according to you, were entirely disrupted because of Fitzhugh's actions?"

  Brigadier Charlesworth nodded. "If it hadn't been for Fitzhugh, we'd have gone considerably further in our advance. He aided the enemy with his actions."