The Rats, the Bats and the Ugly trtbav-2 Read online

  More than I trust you, you snake, which is to say not at all. If I hadn't heard Daddy talking about you, and Fluff hadn't heard Thom reporting to you, and your Jailor Juliet-spy hadn't let the cat out of the bag, calling you "the boss," I might just have asked you for help.

  But she let none of that show. By now, Ginny had mastered the art of keeping her expression mindlessly vacant. It wasn't hard, really, since she had years of experience with brain damage to call on.

  "Dr. Thom has been so kind," she said dreamily.

  "So he's been helpful?"

  "Very. But I'm so tired. I hope I'll feel better one day soon. Doctor said I was just to rest."

  Cartup nodded, sympathetically. "Good advice, Miss Shaw. Good advice. I was just concerned. You know you can confide in me if you have any trouble."

  "Why, thank you. You are too kind."

  The doctor returned with a slim brown folder. "Miss Virginia, you're looking a little pale."

  "I'm just tired," she said, "and a bit shaky." She didn't have to fake the tremor in her hand. The doctor wouldn't know that it was from fury.

  "I'll call someone to take you back to your room, then."

  "I'll be fine on my own, Doctor," she said with just a trace of her mother's hauteur. "But I will ask you to excuse me, Mister Catsup." She enjoyed that little twist on his name. "Very kind of you to call." She drifted toward the door, which the doctor hastily opened for her.

  There were no servants in the hallway. Doubtless the spy-master didn't want anyone eavesdropping on him. Silently, and with no sign of the shaky footsteps she'd affected before, Ginny slipped into the adjoining Wedgewood room. Her mother had been a shrewish woman and had really disliked being excluded from some of Aloysius's private meetings-held so often in the Webb Salon. She'd had her own simple but effective way of dealing with the security measures Aloysius had taken. Virginia had seen her do it, twice, though she'd had no understanding at the time what her mother was doing-or why.

  Mechanical snooping was impossible, but… Virginia searched her memory. She found the glass behind the leather-bound books, where she remembered her mother had hidden it. Then she pressed it against the wall and strained to listen.

  She could make out the words. Barely, but enough.

  "… unnecessary charade. I was worried she might know too much about me," said Cartup.

  "I told you, Talbot," said Dr. Thom. "I have the matter entirely in hand. She's doped to the nines."

  "I wish you'd stick to injecting her. I've been told that drug absorption varies with what they eat."

  "Oral dosage is quite safe, Talbot," said the doctor. "Trust me. The stuff is quite addictive, anyway. She's already heading for the stage where she'd beg us for it, if we stopped."

  "It's not going to make her raving stoned is it?" asked Cartup. "Because we need her up, about, and apparently compos mentis, Thom. We need control of those votes of hers."

  "She'll be fine," reassured Dr. Thom. "Rather vague, but very willing. She'll do anything so long as we keep her well dosed."

  "Good. Because she'll have to appear in public eventually. Possibly a few times. There is considerable public curiosity about all this, and I haven't been able to damp it all down."

  "All the more reason for not injecting her, Talbot. These summer fashions would make finding hidden veins tricky. And intramuscular absorption really is erratic."

  "We're going to have to get her to sign those proxy forms soon," said Cartup. "Will she do that?"

  The doctor snorted sarcastically, loudly enough for Virginia to hear. "She'd lie down on her back and let you screw her if I told her to, Talbot. Besides we've got that device you got from the Korozhet. That'll make her do anything you fancy."

  Talbot laughed. "Someone else might want a dummy, but I prefer a bit more spice in my bed partners."

  "Someone did want this dummy," said the doctor lightly. "She's not a virgin any more, which she definitely was last time I examined her. I took reasonably fresh seminal fluid samples from her vagina when I examined her while she was unconscious."

  "Good lord," said Cartup, plainly amused, by his tone. "Probably some hard-up soldier."

  Ginny nearly dropped the glass. She didn't even bother to put it away in its hiding place. Some part of her mind told her to keep listening, but she was just too shaken with sheer fury.

  She fled back to her room. How dare they say that about her-and about Chip? And how dare that vile Thom pry into her unconscious body?

  She was going to get out of here! Somehow, someway. And there would be a reckoning. She cast about for a means. Her first inclination was to use something to bludgeon that creep into a pulp when he next came to "examine" her.

  Cold reflection said that wouldn't work, or be worth it, no matter how sweet the idea. She could dwell pleasantly on the thought, but Dr. Thom was a large and well-built man. To her own present disgust she'd once had something of a crush on him, and thus she knew that he was a martial-arts expert-or claimed to be, at least.

  Whether he was or not, she knew he'd been practicing faithfully every day in the mansion's gym. Even if she managed to catch him unawares… she was not sure just how hard to hit, or if she could hit hard enough. For a moment, she wished savagely for her chainsaw, the one she'd used to slaughter Magh' in the tunnels. That would deal with him! Martial arts, be damned. Riiiipppppppp. Arms and legs flying everywhere…

  She drove those thoughts forcefully from her mind, concentrating on what was feasible. Or at least might be.

  So: escape. She couldn't drive. Well, she'd never driven anything but a golf cart. So stealing a vehicle and driving it through the fence wouldn't work. Besides, the fence was electrified. And also there were various hidden booby traps along its length. She knew where the plans for those were kept, but still, it was no little obstacle. The gates would stop a tank, she remembered her father saying, never mind a mere golf cart. Anyway, there were at least three burly guards between her and the motor pool.

  And when she got out, where could she go, where they wouldn't just bring her back to the disgusting doctor's "care?"

  Eric Flint

  The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

  Chapter 15

  Eric Flint

  The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

  Military court C, southern suburbs of George Bernard Shaw City.

  "Not guilty to these charges, sir."

  Fitz had known something was very seriously wrong when Mike Capra had been pulled off his case. The young lieutenant he had acting for him now would have had difficulty spelling her own name right.

  The court too was empty, except for the defense, the trial attorney and the panel of gray-haired officers.

  He'd never seen the first witness in his life before. Nonetheless, this Mervyn Paype claimed to know him well. Paype was a counterintelligence agent with Special Branch, it seemed, and he swore that Conrad Fitzhugh had received large sums of money from him. Paype even had a number of excellent photographs of Conrad Fitzhugh handing over battle plans to himself.

  The female witness who followed, claiming to be a typist in General Visse's office who had been seduced and misled by the despicable Fitzhugh, cried quite artistically. Fitz had never seen her before in his life, either. Odd, really, given the rather graphically intimate details the woman gave of their various trysts.

  The young lieutenant defending him put up not one question, and raised not one objection. Fitz was not even called to the stand himself. Fitz had never been to a military court before. But there seemed a marked paucity of justice here.

  The entire case took less than forty-five minutes. The panel didn't need more than thirty seconds to decide on his guilt. Major Gainor smiled seraphically at him as the judge pronounced it.

  He was hardly surprised at the death sentence that the panel thought an appropriate punishment.

  ***

  "I can have you out of here in ten minutes," said Ariel conversationally to Fitz, through the bars of the paddy wagon.
She wasn't supposed to be here. But then Ariel never let that stop her.

  Conrad Fitzhugh looked speculative. "Which would effectively be an admission of guilt, wouldn't it?"

  Ariel shrugged. "Who cares?"

  "I do, Ariel. I broke the law half a dozen ways to breakfast. I'll take the consequences. I've always said that. But I won't take a load of trumped-up rubbish. That was all I wanted to say. But obviously they didn't want the truth coming out, especially about the Korozhet."

  "That's a part that not even I am sure about. They're our allies. But I love you, even if you're wrong."

  "Talk to Van Klomp about it. Actually, that's what I want you to do anyway. Can you get to the paratrooper's base on your own?"

  "I think I could. It's a longish march, but at least I know the town. What do you want him to do? Prepare a hideout?"

  "No. I want him to feed you and provide you with chocolate while I'm inside. I sent messages to that effect while Mike was still my counsel. He was supposed to be here to pick you up."

  "I'm staying with you," she said determinedly. "There isn't a prison on Harmony and Reason that can keep me out. They're all built to keep humans in. Methinks they fail on rats."

  Fitz shook his head. "One of the few things I do know is that the right of appeal is automatic in cases of the death penalty given out by a general court-martial. There's no way they can get around that. I want you to get to Van Klomp. He'll get Mike. Between them, they can get the process going. I want my chance on that witness stand. I want you there too, to tell the people of Harmony and Reason just how their general was spending the evening while he was supposedly directing operations. I need you to do this, Ariel. I need you to stay out of trouble long enough to do it."

  Reluctantly she nodded. Then, leaped up to the bars and whiffled her nose against his cheek. " 'Kay."

  Fitz heard the MP drivers arrive. Ariel slipped away.

  "Let's see. Is there any law that they didn't contravene?" asked General Needford, his fingers steepled.

  "Off-hand, no," said Lieutenant Colonel Ogata. "The entire thing should be declared a mistrial. The time and the court in which the case was taking place were altered in the record. You have the press baying furiously at you about that. The clerk of the court says that the necessary pre-trial offer of an alternative defense simply wasn't issued. In fact Judge Jeffers made several dozen straight errors of law. You're going to have to take serious action there."

  Ogata looked down at the file in his hands. "The defense… Well, to say the woman was out of her depth is the kindest interpretation." Flipped a few pages. "The panel… The phrase 'unlawfully influenced' comes to mind very easily. No Challenge was issued to any of them. General Cartup-Kreutzler must have gotten some advice from his SJA. He's a lush, but capable enough when he's sober. It must have been his idea that the charges were pressed by Major General Visse, so Lieutenant General Cartup-Kreutzler was the convening officer. Very convenient. The sooner you act, the less public outcry there will be."

  General Needford raised an eyebrow. "Ah, but I don't really want to stifle public outcry just yet. Dreyfus, Ogata, Dreyfus. That's what we need to finally start cleaning up this political cesspool. There is a historical precedent for nearly everything. By the way, you'll be conducting the defense this time. And I suggest you have young Capra as your junior counsel."

  "Capra cheeks too many judges, and thinks he's too clever to be caught out at it," Ogata said, sniffing. "But he's a bright boy, I admit."

  Ogata still looked doubtful. "And so, you think this parallels the Dreyfus case do you, sir? That might be a bit rough on Fitzhugh. If I recall correctly, Dreyfus went through several retrials over a good five years before he was pardoned."

  Needford smiled wryly. "Communications and the media move a little faster now. They call it 'progress,' I believe. I anticipate Fitzhugh going for retrial in a week or two."

  ***

  Fitz had expected things to take a rapid turn for the worse when he arrived back at the Central Detention Barracks.

  This appeared to be incorrect. He was ushered into Colonel Trevor's office.

  The officer looked more than a little uncomfortable. "Major Fitzhugh."

  Fitz felt that there was no longer any particular need or justification to giving any recognition or respect to senior ranks. "I thought I had been stripped of my rank," he said curtly.

  "Well… ah. I've just had a call from General Needford, advising me that this is not going to be the case, and advising me… Well. It seems the JAG is not entirely satisfied with your trial."

  "It wasn't a trial. It was kangaroo court. I'm hoping my appeal will be slightly better. Based on what I have experienced so far that's unlikely. But I'll give it a try. So: how do I appeal?"

  Colonel Trevor looked at his desk. "The judge ought to have dealt with that. As a death-sentence prisoner, you do have the automatic right to appeal."

  "Well, the judge didn't deal with it," said Fitz curtly.

  "I know," admitted the colonel. "General Needford pointed that out to me."

  "Who is this General Needford?" asked Fitz. "I worked in Military HQ. I thought I knew all the idiots available."

  "General John Needford is the Judge Advocate General, Major," said the colonel stiffly. "And he certainly is no idiot. He's advised me that your trial will, in the next few days, be declared as requiring retrial on the basis of substantive errors of law. Of course, it will take some time for the paperwork…"

  Trevor cleared his throat. "In the meantime, I have to treat you as if the previous trial is valid. However, I can advise you that you will be permitted visits from the attorneys that the JAG has delegated to defend you in the appeal: one Lieutenant Colonel Ogata, and a Lieutenant Michael Capra. They'll be here in approximately an hour."

  ***

  And he'd left Ariel out there, to walk. Fitz cursed himself silently. There were dangers out there.

  Eric Flint

  The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

  Chapter 16

  Eric Flint

  The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

  George Bernard Shaw city, HAR Institute of Technology,

  Genetic Bio-research Section, and latterly on the rooftops of the city.

  Darleth waved her scent tendrils at the array of substances on the plates. The trouble was… they brought so many at once. She hadn't been able to get through to them that the odors from the other foodstuffs made it so hard to decide what could possibly be safe. Besides, right now starvation made all smells too intense, almost nauseatingly so.

  Finally she decided that she had to try the least offensive one. It looked rather like a water-roach, but smelled slightly of iodine. She took a tentative bite.

  Wasn't quite sick. Swallowed. It was salty.

  Took a second bite.

  ***

  "It's eating!" Mari-Lou held her breath and clutched the lab-coat sleeve of her assistant, causing him a great deal of unnecessary worry about how to politely fend off your boss' advances.

  "Did you see those teeth!" he exclaimed. "God help you, if that thing bites you. It looks cuddly enough, but those teeth. Like little tridents!"

  Mari-Lou exhaled. "I should have thought of that. How stupid can anyone get? I wonder if I can examine the dentition properly without causing offense? But looking at it I was so sure it was arboreal!"

  "Huh?" Not for the first time, Mari-Lou's assistant scrambled to catch up with her.

  Mari-Lou Evans smiled and tapped her own teeth. "Its teeth. They're designed to catch slippery things. They're the same sort of teeth piscivorous mammals have. Which would fit in with what it chose to eat."

  The intercom crackled. "Dr. Evans. We have a party of Korozhet here, insisting on seeing the alien. They say it's a Jampad. A Magh' ally and very dangerous. Better get out of there."

  "It doesn't seem very dangerous. Oh, hell. Get me Dr. Liepsich. And make it fast, if the Korozhet are already on their way here. We'll run interference."

  *
**

  Liepsich's trousers were in grave danger of running interference themselves. They were a standing joke among the staff of HARIT, as the physicist's personal proof that gravity could be defied.

  Right now, not even the fact that he'd had to stop and haul them up was cause for laughter. All that remained of Mari-Lou Evans was too late for saving. Her assistant, Dr. Wei, was merely unconscious.

  The door to the room where the blue-furred alien had been kept was splintered. And the room within was a smoking ruin.

  Sanjay Devi was already there when Liepsich arrived. He could see the same grief and fury in her expression that he felt himself. But there was something else, too, which bordered on quiet elation.

  "The cracks are spreading," she murmured. "Finally."

  He shivered a little. There had never been any doubt in his mind which of the three witches, in the end, was the oldest, wisest-and the most cold-bloodedly ruthless.

  "You're a little scary," he grumbled.

  Her thin smile had no humor at all in it. "Big sisters are always a little scary."

  ***

  Darleth heard the alien intercom. Only one word made any sense. The gray head-furred one rushed out with her assistant, the door locking behind them.

  Something bad was coming, and Darleth wasn't planning to wait for it to get here. Even if she had to kill one of these aliens to escape… well, so be it. She was not going to fall into Korozhet hands again.

  Darleth was already heading along the skeletal girders above the buildings, moving as fast as she could on three arms, when the explosion came.

  Perhaps taking a handful of the alien food with her had not been logical. But she was beyond logic now. Beyond anything, really, except for blind flight.

  ***

  Darleth had eaten the alien food slowly, over a number of hours, waiting for ill effects. Then, had found fresh water to drink. That had been yesterday, and she had not died, been sick, or gotten caught.