Rats, Bats and Vats rbav-1 Page 15

Fal nodded vigorously. "You don't have to attend, but not to do so is a mark of scanty respect for the dead."

  Even Bronstein was caught half-cocked. "But is not our custom.. ."

  "It is ours," said Pistol with finality. "And our Phylla was first and foremost a rat."

  Virginia sidled up to Chip. "What are they doing to that dead rat?" she whispered, staring in fascinated horror.

  "Laying her out. Maybe not the way we humans would understand it, but the way a rat would." Chip's tone was very dry. "Phylla would have appreciated it. Sort of a rat joke."

  "What do I do?" she whispered, unable to stop looking at the bizarre rite.

  "Well, you can behave like a typical good little Shareholder, look disgusted at the antics of the proles and go off and sleep somewhere. Or you can stay and pay your respects. She only died because she went to rescue you and that smelly Pricklepuss." Chip walked away, leaving her between anger and tears.

  ***

  "Are you sure I have to drink this filthy stuff?" Eamon eyed the glass of colorless brandy with extreme suspicion.

  Nym nodded. "Phylla would have appreciated it. Some with each toast. It's tradition."

  The bat looked wary. "Toast? Are you going to cook her…" the bat shuddered, "and then eat her? Or do you mean drink a toast? And since when is it tradition?"

  "As far back as anyone can remember," came the sententious reply from Fal.

  "About six months," added Nym. "We didn't have soft-cyber implants before that, so no clear memories. And now hush. Pistol is about to start the toasts."

  The one-eyed rat raised his glass to the dead. "Phylla was as near to a wife to me as we rats have. I chose her because she was the best screw in boot camp 301. Ask anyone in Alpha Company."

  "To the best bonk in boot camp!" The rats raised their glasses and drank. Except for the one-eyed rat. He took his glass and poured some into the mouth of the deceased.

  Eamon watched in horror. " 'Tis debauched and debased you rats all are. Just like that rat was in life!"

  "Hear, hear! Well said! What a fine eulogy! Go and give her a drink then."

  The big bat looked stunned. They weren't joking. He flapped over to the corpse. "To the rat that propositioned even me." He poured some of the firewater into her mouth. At least it got him out of drinking some of the stuff. All round the circle rats cheered and drank. "To the rat-girl that even propositioned a bat!"

  Standing next to Eamon, Pistol sniffed. Wiped his long nose with a paw and said, thickly, "Thank you, bat. I'd forgotten about that. You know, you're not a bad fellow for a bat." He sighed. "Such a lovely corpse did you ever see!"

  Fal began to tell a story about Phylla, which, were it true, would have frightened Casanova and Don Juan into early retirement and made Dicey Riley look like a temperance union member.

  ***

  Chip looked at the late-Chairman's daughter. She was still standing there. Red as a beetroot, with eyes nearly as wide as her Fluff's. But she'd stayed. And she managed to take a small sip from the glass with each toast. Well. She had more steel in her than he'd thought. He walked over to her. "Have you got your toast ready?"

  "Me?" she squeaked.

  "Yes, you, Miss Chairman's daughter. They'll be very insulted if you don't. I notice Pricklepuss has sloped off."

  "Will you stop calling me that! I can't help who my father was. And I'd better go and see that the Professor is all right."

  "Siobhan had a word with him, I mean her, on her way out. She'll have told him, her, it, not to go too far because of the booby traps. The alien'll be fine here. This place is safe enough. And at least you had a father."

  "If you could call him that! I would have given anything for a real father, a father who loved me. Even after-" She fell silent, not wanting Chip to know about her own soft-cyber implant. The bitter thought never passed her lips. A real father would have cared for me even after a horse-riding accident left me brain damaged. My father might have had all the means in this world, but he didn't give me the only thing I wanted in those blurred days.

  "All of us Vat-kids wanted that too," Chip said sourly.

  "You had that! You had fathers or mothers who cared enough, dreamed enough to send their children twenty-four light-years to found a new utopia, away from the interference and bureaucracy of Earth." Even as she said it she realized she was echoing her father.

  "The tissue donor wasn't my father. He was myself. And if this is Utopia for anyone but Shareholders, then I'm a rat's backside."

  She pinched her lips together. Then she said, "Anyone can become a Shareholder, Connolly."

  He snorted. "Not in my lifetime. Now pay attention. Melene is about to finish her toast. I reckon Pistol will call on you or Bronstein to say something next."

  "But I don't know what to say!"

  "How gutless and ineffectual can you be?" snapped Chip, cutting her to the core. "Think of something. She died to keep your Professor alive."

  "-on the bar counter in the enlisted-rats pub. Three of them!"

  The rats cheered. Even a few of the bats did.

  "I'll just ask Don Fluffy to say a few words," said Pistol.

  The tiny galago rose magnificently to the occasion. "She was a symbol so sexy! And also of an appetite the most insatiable-magnifico! too magnifico!-and a tail so enticing and enchanting." Fluff planted one little hand over his heart and waved the other about dramatically. "Yet! She was a heroine-of courage the most great!-and her heart was as big as a lion! In my dreams she will dance for me, the dance of the extreme privacy. My machogalagohood is rampant at the very thought-but my heart is rent! Torn in my breast!" He began plucking at the fur on his chest. "Ai! Woe is me!"

  "Well shed, little one," O'Niel said thickly. "As foine as a bat she were in that last fight." Hiccup. "Calls for shong, me boyos! `Wrap the bat-wing round me boys…' " He fell off the perch he hung from. Brandy was something the bat had never met before. But nonetheless the bats began to sing, "Wrap the bat-flag round me boys, to die is far more sweet, with batdom's noble emblem, boys to be my winding sheet…"

  The bats couldn't sing very well. But they sang with feeling. The rats even joined in. And sang along with "We shall Overcome," "The Rifles of the IRA," "Solidarity Forever," "A Nation Once Again," and their own version of an old Scots favorite:

  "We were bought and sold for Company gold,

  Such a parcel of rogues is a nation…"

  ***

  Virginia found herself sobbing quietly, and joining in the chorus of songs she'd never heard before. Outside of books this was her first encounter with the emotions of real-people. She found herself singing the words with fervor, even though she barely understood them. When Pistol called on her it was not hard at all to go forward, and simply embrace the dead rat, tears streaming down her face. The fiery brandy was a libation freely given and a prayer for forgiveness.

  "We should give her a send-off fitting of a bat," said Eamon thickly to Pistol and Chip.

  "She was a rat, all rat. Not a bat."

  "Indade, 'twould have to be some thing a rat could appreciate too. A low joke. But she died like a true bat even if she was a rat."

  "I'd like to have buried her under a pile of dead Maggots, to take with her for travel-food," growled Chip. "And good bottle or two for the road."

  "Why don't we do just that?" mused Bronstein slowly. "What would you say if we gave her the explosive send-off of a bat, with a booby trap rigged so she takes a fair number of Maggots with her. With a couple of quarts of alcohol so she burns along with them."

  Melene, swaying slightly, joined them. "I'd say it would be a fine and fitting send-off!"

  Pistol nodded. "Heh. She'd have loved it. And it would take a fair number of the blue-bottle rogues with her. Where are we going to do it?"

  Bronstein, as always, had been thinking ahead. "On the other side of the mound. That'll help the Maggots to believe we're heading in the opposite direction. We'll fly her body over. If you can rig us some kind of harness, Chip? So
mehow we can spread the load between all of us."

  Chip looked across at a plumpish bat sitting on the floor with a wing around Doll's shoulders, a glass in the other wing-claw and the bat version of "The West's Awake" on his lips. "Do you think O'Niel is fit to fly?"

  ***

  Midmorning, and Chip's sleep was disturbed by a distant explosion. So. Phylla had some Maggots for the road on that long staircase to Valhalla. The way those bats used explosives she was probably a fair way up that road already. And it would buy them some time.

  Eric Flint

  Rats, Bats amp; Vats

  Chapter 21:

  A joint misunderstanding.

  VIRGINIA WAS GAZING out at the high ridges of the Magh' mound that hemmed them. Chip, standing a few feet behind and to the side, studied her for a moment. He was beginning to realize that the girl-young woman-had the sort of looks that grew on you. On him, anyway. Now that she was not frantic with fear, her face was more very-pretty-elfin than gaunt. And while her figure was tall and slender, it was most definitely female. Almost uncomfortably so, in fact. He did not need to get himself She must have become aware of him watching her. She turned to him. "Last night I thought we were out. But we're just as trapped, aren't we? Trapped between those." She pointed at the mounds.

  "So we go over the top," he said, with an easiness he did not feel. "I've been over the top of that one. Or maybe we'll go through. We've been through, too. Thirty-two more humps and we're at the sea."

  "The sea!" She seemed aglow at very idea.

  "Yep."

  "That's so romantic!" she said, dreamily. "The sea… and freedom!"

  He realized she had a hand on his arm and was staring into his eyes, her head slightly tilted to one side. He reacted like a man who has just found a rattlesnake in his path. He backed off, and kept backing. "Uh. Got stuff to do."

  He retreated to the workshop, where he found Nym fiddling and Doc contemplative. He was relieved it wasn't Fal. But Nym was good value, for a rat.

  "I've got a problem, guys."

  Doc nodded. "The human condition is problematic."

  "It's worse than a human problem, Doc," said Chip, despondently. "It's a woman problem."

  Doc squinted at him. "Preposterous. How can there be a problem between thesis and antithesis? Simply resolve it with a synthesis, which in this case is obviously-"

  Chip scowled fiercely. "Thanks, Doc! With friends like you, I don't need enemies." He turned to the other rat in the workshop. "Nym, that woman is driving me crazy!"

  The big rat looked up from his oily fiddling. "They like to tease, to fain disinterest. But she fancies you, Chip."

  "Disinterest!" Chip buried his head in his hands. "She can't keep her effing hands off me. She paws at me."

  Nym was distinctly puzzled. "Well, what is the problem then? If it's lessons you need, Fal's your man… Mind you, I'd have thought that Dermott gave you sufficient instructions. She used to call them out loud enough for the rest of us to appreciate."

  "Will you leave Dermott out of this?" Chip's voice had a dangerous edge to it.

  "Surely. I did but mention her gentle instruction." The rat grinned.

  "I don't know why I bothered to speak to you," muttered Chip, turning to leave.

  The rat took his sleeve with an oily paw. He pointed with his nose to an oilcan-armchair. "Tell us, Chip."

  "You wouldn't understand."

  "You'd be surprised," said Nym.

  That was true enough. He had been surprised by Nym before. "Okay. Well, do you understand the concept `fraternizing with the enemy'?"

  Nym looked at him quizzically. "Giving the naked weapon to a Maggot?"

  Chip smothered a snort. "That… wasn't quite what I meant. Um. But say I was doing that. You'd say I was a traitor, right?"

  The big rat snorted. "I'd say it was a dead Maggot, or you're in grave danger of… coming short." Nym clutched reflexively. Doc grinned.

  "Besides, I have seen excretory orifices on them but no reproductive organs," said Doc, pushing the pince-nez back on his nose.

  "You haven't gone strange on us and want to bugger Maggots have you?" Nym asked warily. "We haven't been under shell-fire for days. What does this have to do with Dermott or that Virginia Shaw?"

  "As far as I'm concerned, the enemy aren't just the Maggots," said Chip fiercely. "Look at it this way. Why the hell do you think we're conscripts? A good kid like Sandy Dermott is dead, instead of back at school, but `Miss Virginia Shaw' is living it up in her mansion, eating at Chez Henri-Pierre, having a good life? We're cloned cannon fodder to the goddamn Shareholders. And then she has the cheek to say, as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth: `Anyone can become a Shareholder.' Oh, yeah. I can buy a basic share as soon as I'm debt free. All I've got to do is pay off the cost of turning me from a tissue scrap to human, and of educating me into cannon fodder to die for them. Which would take me the rest of my life, even assuming I don't get killed in the war."

  "You could be worse off. Such conditions are relative. You could be a rat, created for a war in the Company laboratories." Doc stretched himself out, leaning against the tractor's wheel.

  Chip thought about this. "And how do you feel about that?"

  "Philosophical. If there was no war there'd be no rats… or bats. But that is the nature of we short-lived creatures. Though the bats find it a bone of sore contention."

  Nym got back to the point. "So if I understand this right, you don't want to prong this wench because she's Company."

  "Yep."

  The big rat grinned. "But you do, because you're as lecherous as a monkey."

  Chip looked embarrassed. "Uh. I'm not used to being chased. Hell, I'm not much to look at. I've never had to fight a girl off before."

  Nym wrinkled his forehead. "So why do so? 'Tis not hurt you'll be doing to yourself."

  Chip blinked. "Because… it'd be treachery to Dermott. Besides, if we ever get out of here, the Shareholder's dear family would see me going over the top, on my own, at a ten thousand Maggot charge, just for touching her. She doesn't understand. To her it's just a game. Something to idle away the time. Nothing to it but a quick bit of amusement."

  Nym scratched his long nose. "Your Dermott is dead. And you humans make life hard for yourselves by not having a rattish outlook on life."

  ***

  She was puzzled by his reactions. She knew she wasn't very pretty, but there wasn't a lot of competition. And he was the most heroic man she'd ever met. Not that she'd been allowed to meet many men…

  But Virginia had decided. He was her beau ideal! She'd have to make him notice her, at least. He'd called her gutless and ineffectual. Well, she'd show him that she wasn't. He seemed to like that bossy bat. So, if that was what he wanted…

  She went inside and found several bleary-eyed rats and bats eating. "Right, let's get moving. We've got a long way to go before we reach the sea. Bat, I want you to organize the food into manageable parcels."

  The silence was absolute. The array of bats and rats looked at her. She'd assumed Chip must be in the alcove. Now she realized that he wasn't.

  Fal leaned back and put his paws behind his head. He yawned artistically. "Pistol, tell her I am a trifle deaf."

  "I would rather tell her to shog off, Fal." The one-eyed rat put his feet up on the table. "Who do you think you are, wench?"

  "I am Virginia Shaw, and I'm a human, rat. And you've got to listen!"

  "Oh! Hear that, Fal?" demanded Pistol. "She's a Virgin Shore. Her face hasn't had boat keels up and down it, after all. It must look like that naturally."

  Fal snorted. "Are you Shaw she's a Virgin? Mind you, with that homely face and bad complexion…"

  "And she reckons she's human. Couldn't be!" Pistol sniggered.

  This was all going badly wrong. "You'll do as I tell you!"

  "She's got nearly as loud a voice as the Duke of Plazo-Toro," said Fal, with no obvious sign of cooperation. "So where is your ridiculous little fanny-licker, Virgin-ear?"
/>
  Pistol laughed coarsely. "Heh. When he's on top, it must be Ridiculous on the Virgin, instead of Virgin' on the Ridiculous!"

  Virginia felt herself blushing from the roots of her hair to her toes. She grabbed for Pistol and snatched him up.

  Pistol made no attempt to dodge. He just showed a row of sharp teeth, ready to sink into her thumb. "Well," he said conversationally. "Now you've got me. What are you going to with me? You want me to come and sort out that ear of yours, my sweet wench?"

  "Screw some sense into her head," said Fal, scratching himself.

  "Belike if ever there was a human that would have benefited from a soft-cyber, it's this one," Behan commented.

  This was all going wrong! Virginia, to her horror, found herself bursting into tears. Behan's remark had cut right to her heart.

  Fortunately, Bronstein intervened. "That's enough! Leave her alone. You let go of Pistol, girl. When you attack something either kill it immediately or incapacitate it so it can't hurt you." The bat unfurled her wings. "Now come," she commanded. "It is high time you and I had a talk. And stop that drizzle, right now."

  Meekly Virginia followed after the fluttering Bronstein, leaving the derision behind her-but taking resentment and misery along.

  They came to a place that commanded a view across the landscape, an old veranda. The bat hung herself on a trellis wire. "I like to perch here. It allows me to keep an eye out for Maggots. We are still in enemy territory, you know. Now, it's high time someone explained a few facts of life to you."

  Virginia looked at her sullenly, wiping the tears away. Then she sat down cross-legged with her back to the wall. "I don't have to listen to you."

  Bronstein hissed, showing teeth. "Human brats appear short of a few lessons in elementary survival, never mind manners. Now, listen or I will bite you. It is a lot of silly human ideas that you seem to have about leadership and the right to command. Maybe they work for you humans, although for the life of me I cannot see how. Why who your father was, or how much money you have, should gain you any respect, I myself cannot see. But if that's the system you humans wish to use among yourselves, that is your problem. But here, you are among rats and bats, and respect is earned. Leadership is conferred by those who respect you, not by some piece of metal or cloth or right of birth."