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  "What about me?" shivered Daisy. The evening was cold and she had quite a distracting case of shrivel-nipple.

  "If you're lucky I won't run you in for soliciting. Get lost."

  "But how am I going to get home?" she whined.

  "Stick around, sweetie. We'll sort you out," said the corporal. "We're due for relief in a few minutes."

  His mate said "For a fee, of course."

  The corporal grinned. "Nothing a girl like you can't spare."

  ***

  It was six in the morning before the general's wife came along to bail him out… and she was going to go straight out to the estate.

  …

  Eric Flint

  Rats, Bats amp; Vats

  Chapter 42:

  When head and heart do war.

  THE MAGGOTS, who came in a seemingly endless stream past the open cell where Ginny and Chip lay, were all of a closely related kind. They all had hooked feet which enabled them to run up and down the brood-racks with terrific speed. Many had long injection-like mouthparts, or odd little plate-shaped palps. They weren't warriors, or even particularly dangerous looking. It was very apparent that their main interest was the brood and that as long as Chip and Ginny lay there and didn't interfere…

  But orders apparently came down from on high, which overrode the pressing instinctive need to see to the grubs. Chip and Ginny were prodded to their feet by hard but fairly harmless palps, and herded along. They were pushed down the newly-chewed passage.

  The wall through which the diggers had burst, Chip noticed, looked just the same as all the other walls. It was obviously a hidden hard plug the Magh' had in the tower wall. In one place there was a crack in the tunnel through which fine sand was still seeping. It should have been obvious, thought Chip. Of course they would have a way in for just such an emergency as the tunnel to the brood-heart being dropped.

  At the head of the passage waited a troop of seventy scorps. Obviously, ordinary Maggots didn't go into the brood chamber.

  Chip thought that they'd die right there. But the scorps parted to allow them to walk forward into the middle of the warriors. Then they found themselves forced to walk up. And up. Past Maggots clearing blast damage with Maggotlike efficiency. Then they stopped. By the time Chip and Ginny realized that they'd stopped because the scorps needed to reoxygenate, another troop had arrived.

  Chip's legs wished they'd been given a chance to reoxygenate too. He'd not realized there could be anything worse than abseiling down this lot… until he had been forced to walk back up it. He didn't have the breath to talk. A glance showed him that Ginny was in an even worse state. Limping. Panting.

  The Maggots kept them separated. He couldn't even get close to her to give her an arm. A quivering sting menaced him when he tried.

  And then they came to the level with the bridge to the tower. Here they had to wait, and could at last catch their breath. Another party was coming across the newly rebuilt narrow tracery of spars.

  "Professor!" Ginny shrieked in delight.

  The Korozhet, bold as brass, and a lot more red and prickly, spined along calmly between an escort of Maggots.

  Chip noticed that while the Magh' pressed close to Ginny and himself, they kept their distance from that damn Crotchet.

  "My dear Virginia!" exclaimed the Korozhet. "I am so relieved to see you safe and well. I was just on my way to try to rescue you! I have negotiated your release into my custody. You will be safe, Virginia, safe!"

  ***

  Her mind was at war, fighting a terrible internal battle. She'd been so glad to see him. Relieved and happy. And then, unbidden, had come the questions. Her mind, or something in her mind, said that the questions were wrong, impossible. Yet they kept recurring, recurring.

  But if the Professor could get them out of here…

  "Can you get Chip and me free, Professor?" she asked.

  "Yes, Virginia. I have used my status as a fellow exoskeletonite to convince the Magh' that we are just civilians caught up in the tide of war. Innocent bystanders. That you were lead astray by evil companions."

  She shouldn't have laughed… but after what they'd done, at his urging! "So Chip and I can go?" she said incredulously. "But you were…"

  The Korozhet clacked its spines. "Alas, the other human is a combatant. A prisoner of war. He will have to remain. I have begged for clemency for him, of course. The Magh' have assured me he will be kept prisoner under the most gentle of conditions, given the best of slops…"

  "Ah, bullshit, Pricklepuss," sneered Chip.

  It might still have gone differently if the Professor hadn't been advancing and Magh' hadn't stood aside. That had allowed Chip to move next her. To put a gentle hand on her shoulder. And to allow her to loop an arm around his waist.

  "Virginia, cease clinging to the human and come with me!" ordered the Korozhet. "It is a troublemaker. A lower life-form, one of those Vat-bred creatures."

  She looked at the red, spiny alien. She couldn't bring herself to say "No." But she shook her head and clung more tightly to Chip.

  ***

  The Expediter had had a long and trying time of it since these stupid, irritating humans had "rescued" it from its bath. And, of all the annoyances, that human soldier had been the worst. And now he had made one of the Overphyle's implanted slaves resist! The Expediter was suffering from a lack of gamete discharge. She knew this made her extremely short tempered…

  There was only one cure for rebellious slaves, and that was killing them. But the resources attached to the Virginia slave were just too valuable to dispose of lightly. As sole "heir"-such an odd notion!-to the humans' largest chunk of wealth, the creature could be very valuable to the Expediter. As long as the wretched thing was under proper control…

  The Expediter struggled with rage. It had been pleasant to deal with that rat who had dared to overcome the soft-cyber conditioning. She had also vented some of her rage on the bat, who had chosen to come into the tunnel at the wrong time. But she was still angry. Furious, in fact.

  These Earth-creatures were poor slaves. They used their natural sophistry to disobey. Well, commands issued in English they could still twist and misinterpret. It was a language fraught with imprecision. But the Expediter could order in Korozhet. That was the default language and allowed no chance for disobedience. Her ocelli focused on the scruffy little Vat-soldier. This one had done worse than any of them. He'd laughed at the Overphyle! He had dared to use derogatory terms!

  "You know," said Chip, "the difference between you and a car full of sh… officers, is that the car has the little pricks on the inside."

  The human soldier should never have made that comment. The Expediter was sensitive about her spine-length. She finally lost her temper completely.

  ***

  Chip had survived an inordinate time in the trenches, fighting warrior-Magh'. They were fast. Really fast. The main reason he was still alive was that he was one of those lucky individuals with naturally fast reactions. The Expediter had only killed rich, middle-aged humans before. This was different. Chip saw the spines come up. He grabbed Ginny and dived across the back of the nearest scorp.

  The hissing harpoon darts went home… into the scorp.

  ***

  The Expediter was too late to stop the first toxin pulse. And it saw Chip reach for his belt. Fools! The Magh' hadn't even disarmed them! Magh' regarded bodies as weapons, and had yet to truly come to terms with the alien propensity for sharp-edged or heavy artificial tools of destruction. If the Vat creature still had his four-pound hammer, the heavy tool would smash right through her calcareous test. At a time like this, it was best to cut and run. She could grow new harpoons.

  In a cloud of gas, the Expediter severed her harpoons and legged it away on fast-flexing spines.

  ***

  The hiss…

  "Hold your breath!" shouted Chip. He hoped the gas might affect their guards, but it didn't seem to, or, perhaps, they were holding their breath too.

&n
bsp; Chip and Ginny were thrust forward again.

  Eventually, they just had to breathe. The air simply tasted of Maggot-pong, but Chip found himself feeling a bit odd, and slightly light headed. Ginny kept swaying into him. Not that he really minded that, of course. Actually, after a few seconds, the whole incident seemed like a good joke. The two of them started giggling. Chip even found himself chuckling about the fact that the stinking Crotchet could run at least as fast as a man and could climb perfectly well.

  It was a good bridge to cross slightly stoned, even if that wasn't quite the safest way it could be done. There were no sides and the two of them could barely walk abreast. And the scorps weren't even following. So the two them stopped midway for a bit of lip-and-tongue gymnastics. They got rather distracted. Quite distracted, actually. Eventually a scorp had to come and prod them on. They crossed the rest of the way hugging each other, occasionally swaying into the outstretched chelicerae.

  Eric Flint

  Rats, Bats amp; Vats

  Chapter 43:

  Third thoughts.

  GETTING THEM UP the shaft was slow, and awkward. The oppressive warm darkness was overfull of depressed rats and bats. Bronstein was getting to the stage where if she heard another sigh, she was going to bite whoever did it. Given the way things were going, it would be Eamon or Nym.

  She sighed. Then realized what she'd just done.

  Oh, well. Fair was fair. She bit herself. "Yow!"

  "Hwhat is going on now?" said O'Niel, in a "hope-I-can-bite-somebody" tone.

  "Nothing," she said grumpily. Then reconsidered it. "Oh bejasus, O'Niel. There is a decent bit of ledge here. The rats and that galago can stop here. You and I can go for a fly up the shaft and see whether it actually does lead out or not."

  O'Niel plainly liked the idea, even if it involved flying. "If it doesn't, we can go back, indade."

  "Go to it," grunted Nym from the ledge. "I'll bring the rest up. 'Tis a ridiculous idea to keep climbing, if we just have to come down again. And methinks you should take Eamon. He keeps sighing like a leaky gasbag."

  The bats fluttered upwards. And upwards. The shaft curved slightly so that they could not sonar too far ahead but, at length, Bronstein detected what she both longed for and dreaded. Space. And then there was a circle of light.

  They flew out into the first rays of early morning sunlight. Daylight was never a bat's favorite. Still, being out of the Maggot mounds felt… free. Looking back, and carefully substituting the word "Crotchet" for another word which must not even be thought, Bronstein could see that it had all been rank insanity. All driven by that Crotchet wanting to get back to its true allies. Treacherous, foul alien. She would hate it forever and ever.

  She thought about their journey through the tunnels. Scenes came unbidden and clear. Madness! But, ah! What a glorious madness it had been. And they might even have succeeded, despite the traitor. They'd come so close to the group-mind before the Crotchet had misled them. It had taken them down instead of up.

  It hit her like the morning sunlight. Warm, beautiful and wonderfully liberating. "Let us go down, fellow bats. Let us go down and finish what we came to do, to be sure!"

  Eamon blinked at her "Bring them up here, you mean. 'Tis daylight. It will…"

  Bronstein shook her head. "No! Eamon, it goes against my grain to admit this, but you are a better bat with explosives than I. Could we be bringing down that roof above the place where we saw the… Crotchet?"

  Eamon's face shifted from gloom to a savage crinkled grin. "Michaela Bronstein, it goes against my grain, but you are a better thinker than I. Yes, indade, it'd take most of what we still have, but if we blew away those trusses… I am sure that the ceiling would fall, anyway. The whole roof it could be. And at the very least we'll avenge them!"

  O'Niel looked somber. "We will have to explain it to the rats."

  Bronstein bit her lip. Eamon too was silenced. The big bat looked shrunken. He looked like a bat carrying all the weight of the world on tired wings. Then he straightened his shoulders and spread his wings in Harmony And Reason's bright sunlight. "Indade. And you may put the blame on me, where it rightly belongs. But I'll not let my pride stand before our vengeance." He stepped backwards and fell into the shaft.

  O'Niel chuckled. "Pistol has the right of it. When he does that, he looks like he's most terrible constipated. Come. Let's get to it, then."

  Bronstein dropped into the shaft, and nearly hit the swearing Eamon on his way back up.

  ***

  The rats and the galago perched uncomfortably on the ledge. Bronstein addressed them even as she fluttered down. "There is a way out. It is morning out there."

  "Methinks, not for Chip and Ginny," said Fal lugubriously. "He was just like a rat, that human. Aye, and he was."

  "Down to the tail," said Bronstein tartly. "Now listen. We could go back and die beside them."

  "Whoreson. Back through that tunnel where I nearly stuck fast like a cork? Ah, well, what must be done, must be done." Fal didn't sound too dejected by the idea.

  "Which will serve no purpose, and is what they have begged us not to do," said Bronstein sternly.

  "Sometimes a rat has to make up his own mind. I just wish I hadn't squeezed through that tunnel first, just to squeeze back," said Nym. "At least Fal could just suck his gut in…"

  "Or we can go ahead and do exactly what the Korozhet wanted us to do." Bronstein knew that was dirty pool. But she was playing to win. "When we came out earlier we found our way to above the brood-Magh'. The thinkers. We could go and bring the roof down on them. That would avenge Chip and Ginny. And if they really are the group-mind… it could even save our human comrades."

  "Whoreson Achitophel!" said Pistol explosively. "Well, come on then. What are you bats waiting for? Move out, move out! We don't need this rope. We can chimney up this shaft."

  "No, Pistol. We have to put this to the vote. It will leave us without explosives for our flight," said Bronstein.

  "I' faith," Fal grunted. "Next you'll be wanting a sacred bullet, Bronstein."

  Sarcasm, as always, passed right over Bronstein's head. "No, a show of hands will do."

  "If I show you my hands, I shall fall off this ledge," said Doll. "Besides I can't see anything. I agree with Pistol."

  There was a chorus of yesses. Even the galago nervously agreed. With a goal before them, the rats suddenly showed that they could manage the shaft. They just hadn't been ready to try before.

  Doc, of course, put his finger on the crucial question. "It occurs to me that you could have told us this before."

  Eamon cleared his throat. "I am to blame."

  "Usually, but that's because you guzzle so much sauerkraut," said Pistol, from higher up the shaft.

  But even Pistol's deflationary cracks weren't going to deprive Eamon of the joys of a histrionic confession.

  ***

  Eventually, even the galago told him to shut up. Risking damage to life and limb was better than listening to any more bat soul-searching.

  ***

  A second scorp had followed the first over the narrow bridge. In his mild dose of Korozhet chemically induced hysteria, Chip thought the scorps moved even more tentatively than the humans. The group walked forward into the heart of the scorpiary.

  The mushroom hothouse had been brightly colored. This place was just plain garish. It was startling enough to send Chip into the giggles again. And that was enough to set Ginny off also. The two humans came into the presence of the group-mind laughing until the tears ran down their faces. After all, there is nothing quite like laughing in the face of death. Of course, it would have been a good idea to look behind them while they did this.

  ***

  In the ceiling the sound of their laughter stopped work. Now the entire crew was peering anxiously down.

  "Whoreson!" said Pistol admiringly. "They must be stand-up fall-down drunk."

  Melene looked at the way the two clung to each other. She smiled.

  And then,
behind the laughing two came the shock of the rats' lives and the horror of the bats: the Korozhet.

  "Whoreson! we have to get down there," said at least three rats, led by Fal.

  The little galago agreed. "Indeed, senor rat! But… how do we get past the grid?"

  "What grid?" asked Fal. "Come on, we need to open this hole a bit more."

  The galago looked startled. "The light grid? You cannot see it?" Fluff squinted down into the chamber. "I believe humans could not see it either. She is too far into the ultraviolet for humans to see, and obviously also for the bats. Look, the projector, there she is."

  He pointed to a device on the far side of the room. "Senor Shaw, he had one too. A special Korozhet device, very expensive, for the detecting of flying objects. This looks very similar."

  Bronstein closed her eyes briefly. "And what happens once they are detected?"

  "Ah! She is hooked up to the device of the rapid firing of the projectiles. See." The galago pointed. "That thing she is standing over there. It is locking on to the object and firing."

  "Slowshields? Would they help?" asked Melene.

  "No," said Doc. "We'd just fall. And keep falling until the shooting stopped."

  Below them somebody said something in Korozhet. But it wasn't the Korozhet. It was several of the Maggots speaking together. Still, they all understood. "Where are the tailed and the winged ones?" the group-mind was demanding.

  ***

  Chip didn't understand the Maggot. That didn't stop him from replying, of course. "Same to you, O High Hemorrhoid. Why do you play with yourself in public?"

  ***

  Ginny, of course, did understand. "We won't tell you."

  The creatures globbered.