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  After they'd wandered through the debatable lands an hour in the dark, a thunderous eruption roared just next to his ear. Chip dived for cover.

  Eamon had the grace to sound embarrassed. "Sorry. 'Tis that bedamned bottled sauerkraut."

  Chip stood up. The bats had taken to the pickled cabbage in big way. "I've come to tell you that we've found the smell of much food," said Eamon.

  "With luck there won't be any more ruddy sauerkraut," Chip muttered. He sighed. They would not just come and inform him for fun, or out of politeness. "Where? Is it far? Must I come and carry?"

  "You must come to council," said the big bat sententiously. "We need to talk."

  Now Chip's suspicions were truly aroused. "Why?"

  "Because it is inside the Maggot tunnels."

  Eric Flint

  Rats, Bats amp; Vats

  Chapter 15:

  The great pantry raid.

  "SO… YOU SAY somewhere down inside there, there is lots of food." Chip pointed to the tiny aperture, about a finger-width in size in the side of the Magh' mound. It looked like a black speck in the moonlight. Chip put his nose to it. It had the typical Maggot-tunnel fungus-and-hint-of-Gorgonzola whiff. He was damned if he could smell anything exceptional about it. "You're sure?"

  Fal raised his eyes heavenward. "Your nose is not worth a gooseberry, Chip! If it were written in ten-foot neon letters, it couldn't be clearer. Some of it is spoiled. Down there lies the Maggot's pantry."

  Chip shrugged. "So. What are we going to do about it? I'd say that in there it is out of our reach."

  Eamon spread his wings. "If we could get in, we could fly down, raid their store and be away, with the Maggots none the wiser. We bats are the quietest of fliers. We can drift in, silent as autumn leaves."

  "Unsmelt by any Maggot," said Chip, waving his hand in front of his nose. "Phew, are you rats sure that `spoiled' bouquet is coming from down that hole? If you ask me, it's the inside of Eamon that has gone bad."

  "Um. That was me, actually," Bronstein admitted quietly, in the reluctant voice of the inherently truthful. "That is one of the reasons we need other food."

  Chip wrinkled his nose. "Best reason I've come across yet. Mind you, I still think you're crazy. Listen, you'll be caught for certain."

  "Indade, you would be caught," said Eamon, dripping scorn.

  "We know it is risky. To be sure, otherwise we'd just have done it." Bronstein's tone was more conciliatory.

  "Ha. Methinks they just called you because they couldn't work out how to get in through the mound-wall," said Doll, "otherwise they'd have just gone ahead, instead of telling you about it."

  There was a brief, embarrassed silence.

  "No!" and "Never!" said two bats with equal insincerity.

  "Oh well, in that case," said Chip, "as you don't need anything from me, besides help in your decision, I say 'do it.' Don't let me stop you. Now, can I go back to the farmhouse?"

  There was a longer silence, finally broken by Bronstein. "Damn you, loudmouth rat!" She flapped her wings with irritation. Then, sighing: "All right, Chip, how do we get in?"

  "Well…" Chip looked at the wall. Tapped it. It was brick hard. He breathed in deeply. Stuck his hands into his pockets. Encountered something. Pulled out the packet he'd thrust into his pocket in the workshop, earlier. "As it happens I have just the thing here. Unfortunately, I'm going to need to go back to the workshop and fetch a drill and a piece of wire."

  Among the many, many things which Chip had always wanted and known he'd never get around to owning was an electric screwdriver. He'd spotted one, back at the workshop, as well as a little case of ninety-six "useful" bits for it. Of course the only two really useful ones were missing, but obviously the mechanic had had little use for drill bits. Those were still all there.

  With those and a piece of wire, Chip came striding back. He'd show them.

  The battery pack of the neat little cordless screwdriver lasted about thirty seconds. He cursed. Fortunately-so to speak-the dinky gadget could be reset for manual operation. The drill struggled to bite into the hard Magh' adobe. It wasn't brick or concrete, but it was as hard as hardwood. Chip went on drilling and swearing in darkness. Eventually he got through. Then he did it again.

  "What is takin' you forever, begorra!" demanded O'Niel, eventually.

  "I've bent a curve in this wire, attached this emery-wire. I've pushed it through from this side. Now I'm trying to get it back." Chip spoke through gritted teeth. Being manually dexterous was supposed to be what humans did well.

  "Indade? So why is it taking so long?" Eamon was dancing with impatience.

  "Because I can't see the goddamn other hole," answered Chip tersely.

  "I' faith, you should ask fat Fal to help. With that great girth of his it's been years since he's been able to see the hole," grinned Doll wickedly.

  Just then the wire encountered the hole. "Ah! Here it comes."

  Mel cocked her head sideways. "Funny, isn't that just about what Fal says too, eh Doll?"

  There were two little lead balls on the ends of the flexible saw. Handles keyed over these. Chip clipped them in and began pulling the saw to-and-fro. The saw positively hissed through the Magh' adobe. Then Chip had to push the wire through the other hole. Saw, saw and then again. Soon he was able to hook a neat triangular little "door" out of the Maggot-mound wall.

  When Chip finally had the piece out, he took a long, careful look it. Then he did a spot of swearing. He could see now why he'd struggled so with the drilling. The convenient indents on the surface, which had stopped the drill bit slipping around, marked the solid struts in the hollow-block material. He'd chosen to drill six inches instead of one inch, then an air space, and then another inch. Still, it could have been worse. There was a foot-thick stanchion next to one of the holes.

  Well, it was no use crying over wasted energy. Chip bowed, flexing his tired hands. He pointed at the hole with an elbow. "There you go, messieurs et madames. Be pleased to entair."

  "Who ate madames?" asked Fal, ever hopeful.

  "I dunno. Wasn't me. Must have been the bats. Do you think that's what giving them such gas?"

  ***

  The bats fluttered down into the hole, from which Maggot-lumifungus cast a wan light. Chip rigged a string onto the little door of Magh' adobe, and replaced the triangular piece. The bats would knock to come out, and the keen-eared rats would remain on standby to listen for them.

  They waited in the darkness. After a while even the rats' banter died away. Chip decided he'd rather take risks than wait while others took them. A lousy attitude for a soldier, but his own. Anything was better than this waiting.

  The silence and darkness grew more and more oppressive. Time dragged. Finally, Fal said what was on everybody's minds. "They've been caught."

  Doc assumed his favorite professorial pose and spoke in a doom-laden voice. "Lost in the tunnels. Fated to wander for ever and ever…"

  Knock-knock.

  Chip pulled open the door.

  The bats emerged… sans food.

  "What the hell kept you?" demanded Chip and the rats in unison.

  "'Tis a foine welcome back, indade," said O'Niel, clinging tiredly to the mound-wall.

  Chip counted bat heads. All present and correct. "Where's the food?"

  "We couldn't find it. 'Tis a long way down, and that whole level smells of it. We found spoiled stuff being shovelled into Maggot fungus beds."

  Fal voiced the general rat disapproval. "Your noses could not smell their way to a privy. We'll have to do it for you."

  "For once, rat, I'd say try it, and welcome. It's a maze down there," said Bronstein, tiredly. "But how do you think you'll get down? The Maggots are chewing rock down there, it's so deep."

  For once Pistol came up with the answer. "We could abseil."

  "What?" The bat looked at him as if he was a talking brick.

  Pistol shook his head pityingly. "Abseil. Rappel. Slide down a sodding rope. Don't you bats kno
w anything?"

  Chip knew what they were talking about. He remembered with shuddering horror having to do that on the two-day "adventure experience" Company school had sent them to. The "adventure center" had been controlled by a major Shareholder, so of course it had been a part of their curriculum. The expense was naturally charged to a vatbrat's account for later repayment. Since it was considered a "luxury," the charge had been steep, too.

  Hell's teeth, Chip thought gloomily. That had been a foretaste of the army if there ever was one. "Do you rats know how to do that?" he asked.

  "O' course," said Nym. "Part of basic training. Buggered if I know why."

  Pistol nodded. "Yeah. Like most of the rest of boot camp. Dafter than bat-logic."

  "Be watching your tongue, rat!" snapped Eamon. The big bat bared his fangs for an instant. Then, his temper easing: "Not that I can't but agree with you about the craziness of that institution called `boot camp.' But don't call it bat-logic. 'Tis an affront to our intelligence."

  "What are you going to use to abseil down?" Privately Chip agreed with them about boot camp. In this army the surest ticket out of active service was to be an instructor, and the best way to be sure you stayed one of those was to be a brainless sadistic asshole. That was what the Powers-That-Be, who didn't know combat from a hole in the ground, expected of an instructor. Discipline! That was the thing. But if they got onto the subject they'd be here all night. Best to move along, even if he'd like to ask if they'd also had to brush the hairs on their blankets. It was vital to military skill that the left-hand side of the blanket's hairs faced left, and the right-hand ones right. How could one defeat the enemy otherwise? And starching and ironing of the corners of the bed to knife-edge creases was of course essential. That meant you quickly learned to sleep under your bed, rolled in a spare blanket, which made sleeping in the mud in the trenches quite homelike.

  "There's a big spool of braided nylon back at the workshop," said Nym. "Methinks it wouldn't support you, Chip, but it'll be fine for us. There is nylon webbing the farmers must have used for tying down loads. We can make harnesses out of that. There is plenty of chain. We can contrive harness links and descendures out of that. Piece of cake. Now, tell me, did they also make you humans do all that stupid marching stuff?"

  "Yep. And you?" Chip couldn't imagine rats marching while some company drill sergeant bellowed.

  Fal laughed. "Hah. Tell you about it as we go back. The drill sergeant's father was a bachelor. We used to have to march with our tails straight. Do you know what that does to your balance?"

  It was Eamon's turn to laugh. "Hah! Soft you had it, indade. We use to have to march too. Sheer insanity! `Swing those wings!' I can hear still the loudmouth shouting it."

  "I believe both the logic behind it, and the methods used, to be ridiculously archaic. Rooted in formation combat. In terms of phenomenology, a classic confusion between self-certainty and Reason."

  Doc, as usual, silenced them all for a while.

  Then Bronstein continued. "To be sure, 'tis a system which is all well and good for incompetent fighters, like most of your species, Chip. It makes mediocre fighters of the bad. But to try and teach hunting creatures like us to fight like clockwork-men, is a sure waste of talent. It assumes the enemy will fight like clockwork too."

  O'Niel snorted. "And that's like these foine `battle plans.' They nivver survive a moment's real battle. And why for should hand-to-hand combat be any different?"

  "Oh, but we cannot make as many holes in an enemy's battle as in a woman's petticoat. That would take intelligence." Sarcasm was definitely Phylla's strong point.

  "Military intelligence?" demanded Chip. "Don't make me laugh!" There was the conscript's love of the army in his voice.

  Phylla laughed. "Ha ha. The fool who taught us to abseil made one intelligent statement."

  Chip's curiosity was aroused. "And what was that?"

  "He promised us we would hate him. And we did. I believe he lived."

  "Hey, Chip! Remember you said you charged for giving a rat a lift?" prompted Melene.

  "Yeah."

  "Well, would you take payment in kind? My feet are killing me," said the rat-girl.

  Pistol whistled. "Woo-hoo! You got a roll of sticky tape, Chip?"

  "You rats are really disgusting," said Siobhan, and fluttered off, before she had to listen to more.

  ***

  The cord was discovered. Generously, the rats allowed Chip to saw the chain links from which they made up descendures. They tied their own webbing-sling harnesses, and told Chip he'd be fortunate enough to be allowed to haul them back up. As even fat Fal plus his wobbly paunch weighed only a few pounds that was plausible. With a piece of angle iron to brace across the hole, and an empty woven-plastic fertilizer bag for loot, they went back to the hole. A bat took the line down, as it would not be a straight abseil.

  "Go carefully," said Chip to Nym.

  "Oh, certainly. We shall steal upon them with catlike tread." The rat promptly fell over the angle iron and nearly disappeared down the hole, without being attached to the rope. He landed next to the edge with a thump.

  "A fly's footfall would be twice as loud," said Phylla, dryly.

  "Don't worry. We're just swapping soldiery for burglaree," said Fal. "Seeing as you disapprove of us doing soldiery properly."

  One by one, the rats untied the rope, threaded their homemade descendures-because snap links were beyond Chip's limited skill as a machinist-retied the rope, and stepped through the small doorway. Then they were gone, down into the Maggot-mound.

  Chip was left sitting alone in the darkness again. He liked it even less this time.

  Eric Flint

  Rats, Bats amp; Vats

  Chapter 16:

  A brave caballero!

  BRONSTEIN WAS GLAD to have the rats along. She would never have admitted it out loud, of course. There were a number of places where the bats had had to alight and wriggle through a gap. The lead rat at the first of these paused, wrinkled her nose, and said: "Over there." They pulled the rope up and moved it across to a far wider adit. This brought them to a wholly different level where even the bats could have found the fresh food. Unlike the bats, the rats worried not at all about the mazelike nature of the place. They could smell where they'd been and also how long ago. In addition they seemed to have a sense of direction the bats could not match.

  They also had the gift of nearly walking into sleeping Maggots. The hours between midnight and early morning appeared to be "quiet-time" in the tunnels. A Maggot would just stop right where it was and catch some shut-eye.

  "Back," whispered Eamon, shooing the rats with his wings. "There is another Maggot."

  "This place must be fairly crawling with them when they're up and about. This burglaring lark isn't as easy as a-lying in the sun," whispered Fal. "But I'll admit you bats make fine brothers in filching," he added, to Eamon's chagrin.

  Finally they came to a long chamber. There was yet another Maggot asleep at the partially sealed mouth of it. "There is good stuff in there," whispered Melene, hunger in her voice, her long nose twitching.

  "To be sure," Bronstein said. "There is also a Maggot in the way."

  "We could fly over it?" ventured Behan.

  "Risky," vetoed Bronstein. "What's left of that entry is particularly narrow."

  Siobhan nodded. "But the echo beyond it says the chamber behind is huge."

  The fat rat grinned. "Let's go as far as we can from the Maggot and make a rat-hole."

  ***

  To Bronstein's over-tense ears the digging rat was making more noise than a cross between a steam shovel and an oompah-band. Still, no Maggots had arrived on the scene yet.

  "Make it a decent size," whispered Fal, "we'll have to get the food out."

  Mel snorted. "Not to mention you in."

  Eamon fluttered back. "Be keeping the noise down, you fools," he hissed.

  Melene, from inside the hole said, "There is a waxy layer here now. Easy to get
through."

  "Come out." Nym hauled at her tail. "Methinks we should make the hole through the hard stuff wider first."

  Bronstein's patience was sore tried by now. "Move it up, rats."

  Pistol lifted his long nose at her. "If you can dig faster yourself, come and do it. Otherwise, shog off."

  She snarled. "If I bite your tail, you'll dig faster."

  "Bullying witch," grumbled Pistol, nibbling at the hole edge.

  ***

  "We're through!" said Nym. "Keep guard. Come on, rats."

  The rats bundled through the hole, the smell of foodstuff beyond drawing them on as if they were on a string. Warily, watchfully, Bronstein checked out the passage. It would be just their luck to have some Maggot trot along now. She was totally and utterly unprepared for the shriek of pure fury from inside the hole.

  "What the devil!?" she said, and then began issuing orders. "Go for the Maggot on the far side, Eamon, Siobhan-and you, Behan! You stay here, O'Niel. I'll get in there!"

  Bronstein struggled through the hole. She was not designed for creeping and crawling, but whatever monster was in there sounded far bigger than a handful of rats could handle alone.

  ***

  The creature standing on top of the pile of looted human foodstuffs could only be described as large of eyes and voice. The animal and its red frogged waistcoat would have fitted into a big human soup mug. But could it bellow! Right now it appeared to be virtually incoherent with rage.

  "HOW DARE YOU!? THIEVES! BANDITS! MURDERERS! DESPOILERS OF THE

  INNOCENT! LOOTERS! I'LL HAVE YOU ALL SHOT, DRAWN, QUARTERED, CRUCIFIED

  AND HORSEWHIPPED!"

  "Shut up!" hissed Bronstein.

  Doc shook his head. "It won't listen. Not even to epistemological discourse."

  "It'll listen to me, all right." Bronstein couldn't understand why the Maggot at the proper entrance hadn't arrived. Perhaps Eamon amp; Co. had nailed it. Still, she wasn't going to take any chances.