The Rats, the Bats & the Ugly Read online

  Ariel saw that one of the genuine patients was staggering towards the doorway occupied by the doctor.

  "Call of nature, sir," said the man, saluting weakly. "Needs must when the devil drives, sir."

  The doctor sighed. "Orderly. Go with this man."

  "I'll be fine on my own, sir."

  "If you're not back in two minutes we'll come looking for you," said the doctor irritably. "Go."

  The man went. But the interruption had eased some of the heat in the situation. The lieutenant colonel had had a chance to think. "Look. We'll get clearance from the Army Surgeon General's office immediately, Captain. I've got orders to apprehend and try this man ASAP."

  "And that will be after he is discharged from our care, sir. Now will you please leave. It's not visiting hours."

  "Ahem," Van Klomp cleared his throat. "If I can suggest something, Doctor. Let's just resolve this peacefully. While the colonel gets clearance to move the patient, why doesn't he just leave Major Fitzhugh under guard?"

  "So long as the guard remains outside until the patient has fully come around from the anesthetic. After that you can put a guard at his bedside."

  "He must be manacled!" snapped the lieutenant colonel, determined to seize whatever small victory he could.

  The doctor shrugged. "He's in plaster and in traction. He's not going anywhere. But if you insist. So long as we hold the key and the patient's comfort and well-being is not affected."

  This was not exactly what the lieutenant colonel had had in mind. But any further protest on his part was stymied by the arrival of a large party of soldiers. Armed and hardbitten veterans, filling the passage as far back as the eye could see. They'd arrived carrying the patient who had said that he was off to answer a call of nature. The man lolled limply between them.

  The corporal who was supporting one side of the patient managed a salute. "He walked into our platoon a few minutes ago, sir. Said it was an emergency, sir. Said some jackass was here trying to pull a field court-martial and execute Major Fitz, sir. Is it true, sir?"

  It was said loudly and clearly. It was also said in a tone that suggested that if it was true, the aforementioned "jackass" was a dead man walking.

  The doctor gave his attention to the collapsed Samuelson. "Ask the lieutenant colonel," he said shortly. "While I deal with this idiot. I hope the damned young fool hasn't killed himself."

  The lieutenant colonel's face was, thought Ariel, quite a study. But the corporal wasn't letting the doctor off the hook yet. "He also told us Major Fitz was injured, sir. Is he going to be all right, sir?"

  "He almost certainly has multiple fractures. I don't have X-ray facilities here, of course. But he should recover. I'm less than certain about this man. Come. Help me to lift him. I'll want him back in bed and I need to get IV fluids into him. And then I want this ward clear of all nonmedical personnel. Before I count to three! That includes all of you. Go!"

  Ariel had been amazed when they did. Mind you, she'd nearly scrambled out of the bed herself. And she didn't have the human disadvantage of a lifetime of conditioning to obey doctors. She lay there quietly, until the man himself came to check on Fitz, which was quite some time later. Fitz was distinctly restless. He'd already made two half-hearted efforts to sit up.

  "Is that soldier going to live? And is this really going to work?" whispered the rat.

  "He's put himself in hospital on antibiotics for another month," said the doctor quietly, checking Fitz's pulse. "But the boy should live. And as for your major here, it's a post-hypnotic, rat. So long as we stick to the story he'll believe it."

  He sighed. "Though why the hell I'm doing this I'll never know. I could be struck off for malpractice."

  Ariel shook her head at him. " 'Tis not what I meant. I meant with that base phrygian Turk who wanted to kill Fitz out of hand. We've made it so Fitz cannot even defend himself. And he certainly can't run, even if I could persuade him to. He has but to get an order from your Surgeon General. You humans have a depressing habit of following orders, even when they're really stupid. Then there'll be nothing for it but for me to kill that Jeebol."

  The medic officer laughed softly. "I suppose you've only seen this war from a rat's point of view, and in the ordinary army. Let me explain. Most of the army command has its origin in the prewar force. To understand what's happening here, you have to understand who those people were. The colony needed an army like a man needs an extra left leg. No enemies. No reason to exist. It's had twenty-seven years of getting more and more ornamental and useless. The officer corps lost everyone with even the smallest vestige of real ability or ambition. Apparently it was not uncommon back on Earth in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for the same to thing to occur between wars. That's parallel to the industrial and in many ways the social period we're going through here."

  "Oh, I know they're useless," said Ariel. "Fitz and I were at military headquarters, you know. But what does that have to do with this situation?"

  "Everything, actually. You see, back on Earth, when they had a war, even if they had this sort of loser still in the military, you always had a few that weren't. And good officers who'd left came flocking back. But, because of the age and fitness constraints on the cryopreservation, only people under the age of thirty-five came to HAR from Earth. Wealthy under-thirty-fives. Not senior officers. So, twenty-seven years on, when we finally had a military emergency—we only had these jerks."

  Ariel scratched the stump of her tail, thoughtfully. "I see. But I still don't see what that has to do with your Surgeon General?"

  The doctor smiled beatifically. "Everything, as I said. Before the war there was no Medical Corps. The Surgeon General must be a medical doctor. So: Surgeon General Paul DiMillio is a fine physician, as well as my ex-medical superintendent. Lord! I'd give anything to see his reaction when he gets General Cartup-Kreutzler on the line, demanding he order me, of all people, to release a patient."

  "Ah. So you mean the senior medical officers are not such fools as the rest of them?" inquired Ariel. Her tone was skeptical, almost caustic.

  Doctor Scott could exchange sarcasm with the best. "I wouldn't go that far. But almost all the officers were simply doctors before the war, not part of this military system. The same thing applies to the Judge Advocate's department. Most of the officers were attorneys. The quartermaster, technical and mechanical support are mostly part of the old slowship crew, so they're also fairly good at what they do, too."

  Fitz opened his eyes. Tried to move. "What the hell . . . ?"

  "Just lie still. You're fine, Major."

  "Ariel?" he croaked, trying to focus.

  "I'm right here, Fitzy. Lie still, dearest."

  Fitz blinked. "I can't move anyway."

  "Correct, Major," said the doctor. "You're in hospital in traction. You have a possible fracture of the left femur, an almost certain fracture of the right radius and ulna, a possible concussion and a possible spinal fracture. A lot of nasty possibilities."

  "What happened . . . ? All I remember was having a last drink with Bobby."

  Ariel, standing on his chest, said solemnly, "You triggered a Magh' archway deadfall, which collapsed through to the next level. You're lucky to be alive."

  "I wish I wasn't," said Fitz. "It would solve a few problems. God . . . I feel sick."

  "It's the anesthetic," said the doctor. "Don't worry. It'll wear off."

  Fitz attempted to move. With the skin-traction on his leg and strapped to a fracture board, he failed. "Not as sore as last time."

  "You're full of painkillers, and the bones have been set and immobilized. You're due for a long bedrest, but you won't feel much pain. They'll have you on electronic muscle stimulus so you won't even lose muscle tone. Six to eight weeks and you'll be as good as new. We can't take a chance on moving you yet."

  But Fitz had lapsed back into sleep.

  The doctor stood up. "Work on your story. You're not very convincing," he said to Ariel, as he turned to leave
.

  Chapter 6

  George Bernard Shaw City, an elegant, wood-panelled

  coffeehouse with Art deco styled frosted windows and

  the buzz of expensive clientele in the background.

  "You're losing the media war, you know, Talbot," said Sanjay Devi. "You've done well on the other fronts. But you should have done more there. INB has been showing live coverage of the troops running down the Magh' and countless interviews of the soldiers in that section. I won't say I suspect anything, but those interviews have all been with junior officers, or even Vats. INB has got a big Vat viewership, don't forget."

  She took a forkful of the Dobos torte from the beautiful hand-painted gilt-edged plate. "This is all stoking unrest among the lower classes. And we don't want that, do we?"

  The Cafe Gerbeaud used these beautiful fine china plates, despite the fact that it meant that every one had to be washed by hand. But then, before the war, labor had been cheap and plentiful. It was strange to think that there had been a time, back when the colony was new, that this had not been so. When the Shareholders had been all the labor there was. After the first Vat-bred kids had come onto the labor market, however, the tide had turned. The colony had had ten years of going from shortage to glut—and then the war had come.

  Sanjay wondered, sometimes, if the war could have been engineered. Or was it just fortuitous for the Shareholders? It gave her something to think about while Talbot fulminated at length about the vileness of Vats. Something other than the pain in her chest.

  "Naturally I have to agree with you, Talbot. But what are you going to do about it?" she asked.

  He snorted cake crumbs and threw his hands up. "What does one do about Vat ingratitude? I proposed that indoctrination in suitable patriotism be part of their school curriculum, but that was blocked by some bleeding heart. I mean we raised, educated and cared for them. They owe us . . . Oh, you mean about the media. Well, I've dealt with the two main ones. And nobody pays much attention to the rats and mice like INB."

  She raised her eyebrows. "I've heard rumors—and you know I am very good at hearing those—that HBC is going to start on covering the campaign again."

  * * *

  Talbot hoped that his dismay didn't show. HBC! Sanjay Devi took very little part in public life. She was head of the HAR Scientific Council, and a powerful woman in her own right. She also obviously had her sources, in among people he struggled to touch. The top Shareholders all had a greater or lesser security compliment, and his men had infiltrated most of those. But she had contacts in the business community—often minor Shareholders, but wealthy people despite this. Private wealth outside of the Share-dividend was something Talbot held in distrust. Nonetheless it was a reality.

  Sanjay obviously saw herself as a kingmaker, bridging the growing Shareholder/money divide. By the way she had sought him out and advised him, she was grooming him. Well, he certainly didn't mind. But HBC! HBC was the largest network, and he'd been sure that their disinterest would lead the public and the minor media players away from the story. It came as a bit of a shock to discover that he might be wrong.

  "Why?"

  "The board of HBC has demanded an emergency meeting to get editorial control removed from Carsey." She smiled, maliciously. "I'm a shareholder in that company and I got a call from Marcus Sidaropolis. You can't rely on him, you know."

  Marcus! Marcus was an ally. You couldn't trust anyone these days. "I'll get on top of it," he promised, his eyes narrowing.

  "Better deal with INB first."

  "Oh, I plan to. A move to have their license rescinded is already underway. That should shut them up. Their finances aren't great, according to my agents." He laughed. "If all else fails, we'll blow up their offices and blame it on the Vats."

  Sanjay Devi murmured something which Talbot couldn't quite hear. "What?"

  She shook her head. "Nothing. Just thinking aloud. If I were you, I'd try threats first. The licensing board could be tricky. And open to legal challenge."

  She was probably right. But he'd brushed against Independent News Broadcasting before . . . He'd have to think about it. He would go and lean on John Carsey first.

  Chapter 7

  Later: back at the mock-chateau on the edge of HAR

  wineland-country. Now the Divisional Military

  Headquarters of the Fifth Brigade.

  "Get out of his office before he called pest control, indade!" Eamon was dangerously close to exploding.

  Nym suppressed a chuckle. Even he didn't laugh at Eamon in this mood. The bat had a habit of translating explosive temper into explosive substance. The transport officer had been more than tempting his luck, making that statement. He was just lucky that Bronstein had restrained Eamon from taking a bite out of his throat or pushing a bat-mine where it fitted best. Still, thought Nym, they did have a genuine and serious problem.

  Breakfast.

  The lack of breakfast was not an unsurvivable problem to other species. But the rats were built on elephant-shrew metabolism. They had to eat—often, a lot, and regularly. And the army had introduced a grog-ration too. Missing it was not something rats did voluntarily.

  They'd all had a fair amount of looted grog and pieces of Maggot in their packs. Rats had nothing much against eating dead friends. Worrying about eating dead enemies was definitely an idea only something as daft as a human could find disturbing. Nym liked humans nearly as much as he liked mechanical things, especially vehicles, but they were odd in their foibles. However, the food supplies were getting low. They really needed to get back into the human supply chain before morning, or there'd be trouble. Like someone eating someone else. And most of them looked stringy, or else he was becoming positively human in his own foibles.

  "So, how do we get back to our units?" asked Melene. By the look in her eyes, she'd also started thinking ahead to breakfast. A rare rattess, that. Her current lover, Doc, might have more deep philosophical thought rattling around in his skull than was good for him, but she had the edge when it came to that rarest of rat intellectual jewels, forethought.

  "Methinks we could help ourselves to a vehicle," Nym said, without any real hope that the others might go along with it. O'Niel loved vehicular travel. But for some reason not even the fat bat wanted Nym to drive.

  The chorus of "No!" was unanimous. Unfair, it was. All he needed was a vehicle that was a bit more his own size.

  "We," said O'Niel, pointing with his wing-tips to the other two bats, "could fly, to be sure, although Eamon should not be flying far, yet. But what o' the rats? We cannot abandon our comrades."

  That was bats for you. A social species. There was some comfort in it though. Nym found himself, against his better nature, wondering what a furry flier would taste like.

  The thought was a bit ghastly, and galvanized him into action. "We need some goodly vittles. And soon! Otherwise . . . I cannot even think of mechanical things. We need to get back to camp now."

  Doc nodded. "This matter belongs in the sphere of objective spirit. We need to assimilate that which has been created by the state. If one is at the source of that, why go to the tributary?"

  "Huh?" asked Pistol, scratching his privates.

  "Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," said Fal, disgustedly. "As usual. Philosophy. Why study it? You cannot eat it, much less drink it."

  Melene looked thoughtful. "Methinks he means that this is the supply depot for the camps."

  "A remarkable understanding, my dear. We need to get into the storehouse."

  Doll Tearsheet sauntered around the corner with studied carefulness. She had a box of chocolates in her paws. "You poxy lot could have waited for me," she said. "You left me behind, rifling his desk. I had to wait until he was called out to escape."

  "Chocolate!" squealed Melene. "Remember what good friends we are, Doll."

  " 'Tis amazing what good friends a girl hath when she holds all the chocolates," said Doll. "Now, I think we should make haste. Without actually running . .
. yet."

  "Why?" asked Eamon, suspiciously.

  "Because I have set a-fire to his wastepaper basket." Doll moved along to the nearest corner at not quite a run. "Methinks he will discover it soon."

  Eamon fluttered down, and bowed to her. " 'In truth, ma'am. I've not appreciated your finer qualities enough before."

  There was a yell from behind them. "You can buss me later, my sweet rogue," said Doll, pushing him aside. "Now we need more haste and far more speed!"

  * * *

  Later, while sharing the chocolates and looking at the stores depot, the rats and bats considered strategy. "That fence looks to be electrified," said Nym. He was getting a grip on electricity. It had bitten him. And not one bit of good had come of biting it back.

  Pistol and Fal, having eaten their chocolates, paused in the act of converting complex rat strategy into action. "You mean we cannot just go though the wire?"

  "Not without dying," said Bronstein, dryly. "Not with your waistline, Fal. We'll have to fly over and take what we can. And the place is busy, even though dawn is a few hours off yet."

  Nym found himself studying the vehicles. The chocolate wasn't much, but it had sent his mind back onto its normal channels. Men were loading the trucks with small-wheeled things with a sort of fork in front. Nym eyed them with interest. They were a bit smaller than most vehicles. Nym had an eye for vehicles and for detail. "Methinks," he said slowly, "we can have our trip home and eat it too."

  It was a good idea. The only thing he didn't like about it was that he wouldn't have an opportunity to steal one of those little vehicles with the fork.

  "What do you mean, Nym?" asked Bronstein.

  "That truck being loaded. 'Tis the one used to bring rations to our old camp. We can board it, and ride back. 'Tis full of food, too."

  Chapter 8

  Amid the red Magh' adobe tunnels and galleries of

  the conquered scorpiary.