DOC GROANED. Ginny bent low over the rat on her lap. "Otherness without subject is not-being, and this sort of not-being is omnipresent like Melene's tail . . ."
The rat suddenly sat bolt upright, with his eyes wide and unfocussed. "Siobhan! Look out!"
Then he keeled over sideways, muttering, "Necessarily utterly capricious . . . that's rat-girls."
His audience didn't hold it against him. Melene appeared too worried to take it out on him anyway, and far too relieved that he was showing more signs of regaining consciousness. The smallest of the rats had been untowardly silent since Chip had emerged carrying Doc in his arms. She simply patted him gently.
Other than that, only O'Niel was near at hand, as all the others had gone to explore the huge brood-chamber. The bat was busy rigging demolition charges and a webwork of expedient mines around the iris-door. Opening it was going to have devastating effects on whatever came through.
Ginny and Melene waited for more words or movement, but Doc had slipped back into unconsciousness.
"There is no way out of here." Chip flopped gloomily down next to Melene, Ginny and the still unconscious Doc. "Look, Ginny. I've got say something. I'm really sorry about what I said . . . and did . . . back there. I just didn't want you to get killed."
She started to ease her frozen expression. Then he duffed it again. But he'd been brooding on it. Brooding on apologies when you don't think you're wrong is really a poor idea.
"It was that stupid Crotchet's fault."
Her face twitched and she assumed the expression of a perfect ice maiden. Her aristocratic nose came up. She surveyed the scruffy Vat as one might the discovery of a cockroach at the bottom of a milkshake. The worst of it was that a small part of her mind said that he might be right.
Chip proceeded to make a bad matter worse. "I don't understand why you can't see that Pricklepuss was bad news. I mean I daresay all of these guys with `Crotchet-made' chips in their heads can't see anything wrong with the Korozhet, but you're so bright . . ."
"GO AWAY!" she said fiercely.
He got up, his resentment plainly burning with a thousand-candlepower flame.
She saw him kick a towering Maggot grub-rack. And heard him swear and clutch his foot.
A bat swooped down from the roof. It spoke briefly to Chip, and then fluttered away upward. It kept going up and up and up until it was joined by the other two. She watched them head for a corner. And then they disappeared.
Bronstein was sure that it was a ventilation gap. It was only desperation that had gotten them to try sonar on the roof. There was certainly no other obvious way out, except for a long narrow chute that spiraled down from the center of the roof. There was a problem with going up that way . . . a steady stream of what could only be Maggot-eggs was coming down it. The eggs, of course were overflowing the ramp. Obviously their tenders had been summoned away.
Getting in hadn't been easy. And getting along was at first worse for the bats, who did not find themselves well designed for this rough crawling.
"Indade. These walls will be having the wings off me. Then what will I be?" complained O'Niel, who was distinctly the fattest of the bats. Eamon was larger, but not around the waist.
"To be sure, you'd be a rat, which is what you've been behaving like," snapped Bronstein. She did not like crawling, and what they were doing made her feel uncomfortable. They had talked about it often enough before, and she'd always resisted or avoided it. But her party was a minority back on the other side of the lines, and it was a minority here. A minority of one, now her dear Siobhan was dead. Bronstein was a committed Demobat. Eamon's Batty party policy on this was clear: Humans were the enemy and the interests of bats would be best served by getting rid of them.
Of course they'd had to be loyal to the Korozhet, but now that it was gone, well, bat-interests must come first. Eamon had been quite eloquent about it, for once. "Indade, it must have been a rat who killed her. There was nobody else who could have taken her pack. It was probably that Doc. I've no trust in his pontifications."
The argument had been unanswerable. Who else? The other plausible answer nagged at her, but that was impossible. Absolutely unthinkable.
Eamon had been unable to accuse the humans. But humans, other than Chip and Ginny—and she cringed even thinking about them—had abused the bat-folk. Abused them terribly for their own evil war. Enslaved them.
She was glad when the tunnel widened abruptly into a narrow shaft. She could concentrate on flying and stop thinking so much.
The air vent was a long one. There was no guarantee that it would lead out. There was no guarantee it would lead to where Eamon suspected either. But by following the air current it was not hard flying. And it beat thinking.
"I've no liking for this," panted O'Niel.
"Oh, it's much rather you'd be riding a tractor than flying as a good honest bat should," said Eamon sarcastically.
"Tractors . . . are foine beasts . . . Eamon. I'll . . . no' have you say a word against them. Anyway . . . that' no' . . . what I meant."
Eamon was by far the strongest flier amongst them. He had the wind to hold forth an argument and fly at the same time. "The Magh' must be genetic engineers of great skill. Look at the endless varieties of Maggot they produce. The humans have cruelly made it so that we cannot breed without their intervention. They hold the bat-folk in a vise. We need an ally that can free our bat-comrades from these human chains."
He certainly was full of wind, thought Bronstein. She wrinkled her pug-nose. By the smell of it he was getting some extra from that damned sauerkraut.
"The Maggots . . . have tried . . . to kill us," panted O'Niel.
Eamon showed long fangs. "They did but defend themselves against human imperialism, and against ourselves, why, we invaded their home. 'Tis but justifiable aggression and the conduct of honorable enemies."
Eamon pointed a wing. "Here is a cross tunnel. It must lead to the breeders. The eggs come from above. The Korozhet said that the breeders were the brains."
They flew into it. This tunnel was wide enough to fly through, but now they had to push against the air flow. It was none too easy. Bronstein was relieved when the tunnel opened into a big hollow space full of stanchions. They were in a ceiling full of hot, Maggot-scented air. It was of course largely dark, which didn't worry the bats. There were small pinpricks of light from below, however. O'Niel simply flopped. Bronstein was glad to do the same. The plump O'Niel dug into his pack and produced a small bottle.
"What are you doing with that daemon drink?" snapped Bronstein. Eamon had proceeded to one of the pinpricks of light some distance off. Let him. She needed a rest.
" 'Tis mine! 'Twas given to me by Doc. A foine feller that rat . . ."
"He killed Siobhan!" said Bronstein angrily.
O'Niel snorted. "Hwhat nonsense! Why I heard Doc myself, with his poor wits a-beggin' show how he'd tried to cry warning to her!"
"What?" Bronstein sat up. "That can't be true!"
O'Niel looked at her. "Oh, indade 'tis true, I was after being wonderin' hwhat was goin' on meself, when I saw him try. His wits were wanderin'. There'd be no fakin' of that. Now, would you like a drink?"
Eamon suddenly flapped over to them. "Come! Quickly!" His voice sounded very odd. Very, very odd indeed.
The vent was too narrow for them to squeeze through. But it did allow excellent vision to the three pairs of bat-eyes.
The huge chamber below was everything ordinary Maggotdom was not. Quilted and padded with rich fabrics. Well supplied with what were obviously electronic devices. Lit with lights, real lights, not Magh' lumifungus. Around a central pool lounged things which truly looked like real Maggots. Bloated and occasionally twitching. Tended by smaller scurrying Magh'.
There was one other unexpected occupant in the chamber. Seen from above, the Korozhet simply looked like a ball of red spines. The Magh' were a healthy distance off. "A prisoner!" whispered O'Niel.
Eamon's voice was as cold as ice. "Look on the ground next to the Korozhet."
There were two small scruffy bags on the ground in front of it. One was a batpack. Open, and with the contents scattered on the ground. The Korozhet poked through the debris as they watched.
"Siobhan's." Eamon's voice was so quiet it was almost inaudible. "What you'd not be knowing, Michaela Bronstein, is that she was my lifemate."
"She told me, Eamon," said Bronstein, quietly. "She loved you, even if she could not abide your politics. She said you were the handsomest bat in all batdom."
"The other bag is Doc's," said O'Niel, in a choked voice.
There was silence. Then, eighty feet below them another scene enacted itself. They heard the Korozhet speak, in a language they should not have known. Yet obviously the language-coprocessor in their heads had no trouble with Korozhet. "I am hungry, client-species. I want fresh food."
Even hidden eighty feet above in the vent, the three bats all felt the compulsion to fetch it something to eat.
One of the little Magh' which was tending a huge-Maggot, detached itself. Watching from above it was obvious that the creature did not wish to approach the Korozhet. But it did.
The bats above became the first part of the human alliance to see a Korozhet kill—and live to tell the tale. They watched as the Korozhet humped its way onto the twitching victim.
Bronstein was the first to speak. She sounded if she was going to be sick. "The creature is still alive!"
O'Niel just scrabbled at the opening, trying to force his plump body through.
Eamon hauled him back. "No! You'll not fling your life away, O'Niel. Vengeance—bloody vengeance—I swear will be mine and mine alone. Treachery!"
"Enough!" snapped Bronstein. "Your vengeance is but a small thing. I'll not deny it to you. But we see the whole of the bat-folk betrayed here. Treachery, I agree. Treachery as black as . . . blood. An enslavement both vile evil and insidious. An enslavement of our very minds and wills. The bat-folk must know of this . . . treachery. And I swear our vengeance and hatred forever against the . . ."
The words dried in her throat. But she could not and would not be defeated by the whiles of soft-cyber bias. She could not proclaim hatred for Korozhet. So she would fight them stratagem for stratagem. "Crotchet." She spat out. She could say that. And she could hate and believe "Crotchets" capable of any vileness.
O'Niel nodded. "'Tis true for the rats too. They are as betrayed as we are."
Eamon stood up and shook his wings. "Yes. Even the rats! Even the humans. We must ally with them! Common cause against a greater evil."
If Bronstein had not still been so choked with anger she'd have fallen on her back, laughing. Who would have thought Eamon could ever even think of an alliance with humankind?
"O'Niel, I do believe I would be liking some of that brandy after all," said Bronstein, quietly.
"Indade. I'd be after having some meself," muttered Eamon.
The plump bat handed them the small bottle. "Drink up. We must go back to our comrades."
Eamon paused in the act of raising the bottle. "Indade. My fellow bats . . . forgive me that I ever thought to desert our comrades-in-arms. I was wrong."
Bronstein choked on her mouthful of vile brandy.
Eamon wiped himself fastidiously. "That was not called for, Michaela. Now I shall smell like a wino's hat."
"Indade, and a waste of a foine vintage," grumbled O'Niel.
Bronstein smiled. "I just wanted you to smell like our rat-allies. Come. O'Niel's right. Let's go back."
"We can't tell them what we have seen . . ." said O'Niel.
"And explain that we came to betray humans—to Chip and Ginny?" said Bronstein, distastefully. "No. Least said, soonest mended. We can fight and die bravely beside them instead."
"Amen to that!" said Eamon, fervently.