THE KOROZHET MADE a little humph noise and pointed two of its thick spines at him. "Ridiculous! If you cannot be sensible I shall go back to my rest." Exuding a kind of sea-urchin haughtiness, Virginia's tutor prickle-ambulated out.
Bronstein cocked her head at Chip. Chip reflected, not for the first time, that the gesture was disconcerting coming from a creature hanging upside down.
"That's crazy, Connolly."
Chip stood his ground. "Why is it crazy? Listen, I know you agree with me on this, Bronstein. The way this war has been fought by high command is to use us—rats, bats and Vats alike—as if we were Maggots. Has it worked? Can we can Maggot better than Maggots?"
He glared around at them. "And who's been advising them? The Crotchets, that's who. To hell with what that critter thinks is crazy. I'm telling you this may not work, but—shit!—it'll work better than trying to blunder a hundred miles of tunnels on foot."
They were silent. Chip waited . . . and then continued. "Think about it. We know Maggots can't run for long. We can outrun them. Well, at least we can for a bit without the Crotchet. We can't keep doing it. But that little tractor can outrun them and we can lug along plenty of explosives and every booby trap you can think of. We can even take Pricklepuss in comfort, faster than we can run with her."
He squatted down and started to draw his own diagram on the floor. "We don't do this like Pistol said. The cross tunnels won't line up anyway. We go as far as we can here between the mounds, blow our way in. We can run down the main tunnel until we find a cross tunnel. Through the interstitial wall, and back onto the main drag. You know Maggots. All of the Maggots in creation will be chasing along behind us, and charging from further inside the mounds to be in front of us. If we do it right, we can come out behind them again. And keep doing it."
"I like it," Nym pronounced. "Besides, I want to ride that thing. Can I drive?"
"Myself I t'ink it a foine idea." O'Niel was the most taciturn of the bats. His support surprised the others.
"To be sure, like all military plans 'tis bound to screw up," said Bronstein gloomily. "They never survive contact with the enemy."
"So what else do you suggest?" asked Chip, trying to be reasonable.
The bat shrugged. Like the head-cocking, the upside-down gesture also struck Chip as weird. "Nothing. We just take plenty of booby traps along, and be prepared for the worst."
"Let's go and have a look at this little tractor again." Eamon swung to wing. "I'm thinking of a fair number of ways to deal with Maggots, given what we've got. And I agree with you, Connolly. Human high command have always fought this war as if they wanted the Maggots to win."
"This is something which my history-download suggests humans have often done," Doc said. "I can only put this down to the intrinsic conservatism of the human intellect, which, in turn, judging from Hegel's remarks on—"
Chip raised his eyes to heaven. "Oh, put a sock in it, Doc."
Fal nudged Pistol. "Do you think he gets girls to let him work his wicked will on 'em by threatening to go on talking?"
The one-eyed rat chuckled. "Or do you think they think all that hot air makes him rise better?"
"Ha, Ancient Pistol," said Fal assuming an attitude of profundity. "He's so windy he probably floats above them."
"It is a good thing no one's sticking a prick into him," cackled Pistol. "He'd whizz around the room."
Fal and Pistol heckled on cheerfully as they walked across to the workshop. Doc, as usual, paid them no mind.
"Are you sure this thing will fit in the tunnels?" Eamon peered doubtfully at the little tractor.
Chip nodded. "Yep. And yep again to the trailer."
Eamon's interest was definitely pricked. "Well, then. Here is some barbed wire . . . There are many possibilities here." You could almost see more ways of generating mayhem boiling out of Eamon's head as he fluttered around the room.
Chip began to rummage among the pieces of angle iron.
"Why are you doing this?" asked Doc curiously, from a perch on the chain bin. "I know you think that this idea is flawed in concept."
Chip snorted. "I think it is barking insane, never mind flawed. Think about it, Doc. A handful of rat, bat and Vat grunts, and we're going to go and take on a couple of million Maggots. As if that wasn't bad enough, we've got an alien who claims to be `an academic rather than a warrior,' a useless Shareholder girl, and a little big-eyed half-rat-sized monkey as passengers. We should be running and hiding. Doing our best to get out. We've found out all sorts of things about the Maggots that could change the war. We could take flamethrowers to the Maggots . . . we also know now it is no use trying to trick them, because what one Maggot knows all of them do. Kind of explains why all of high command's `big pushes' have gone spectacularly wrong, doesn't it? And with Shaw's daughter someone might even listen to what we've found out. Instead we're going on this suicide plunge. A mission that can't work."
The rat looked thoughtful, wrinkling his forehead. "Then why have you not decided to go your own way?"
Chip rolled the front wheel of the little tractor up to the axle hub. "Why are you going along, Doc? You sound half crazy spouting that Hegel stuff, but I've noticed there is some good sense underneath it all."
Doc thought over his reply for some time. "Hegelian philosophy contains the essence of logical thought," he mused. "But I do this . . . because I feel compelled to do it."
"If you ask me, that Crotchet-built crap in your head isn't working properly. Well, if we're gonna do this, then let's do this so that the tractor at least works. Pass me that spanner."
"Virginia, this is no occupation for a gentlegalago!" Fluff rubbed his pinched fingers and stared balefully at a pair of pliers nearly bigger than himself.
Virginia could sympathize. She'd never worked with wire before. Her hands felt raw. Yet there was no way she was going to stop. Everybody was working. Well, except for the Professor. He couldn't really manage this sort of thing, and it wasn't fair to expect him—her—to try, no matter what Chip said.
The problem wasn't just the work force, however. It was also a lack of knowledge and dexterity. Chip was the only one who had even been in a workshop before, and that had been simply been basic Vat workshop training. His knowledge of internal combustion engines was limited. When he'd been little more than a pot scrubber at the restaurant, he'd sometimes been chased off to go and help the jack-of-all-trades-mechanic who kept Chez Henri-Pierre and its vehicles running.
The mechanic had been a large, lazy, fat man who'd made his grease monkeys do as much as possible. That was why, when it came to vehicles Chip had the beginnings of an idea. . . . At least when it came to complicated stuff like "put the wheel on the studs and tighten the bolts." He just hoped like hell the rest of his "knowledge" was accurate. Experience suggested it wouldn't be. . . .
Chip decided that responsibility shared was probably responsibility quadrupled, but he'd try it anyway. "Bronstein. We need to plan this lot out. Here, Nym. Come and join us—you're as near to a mechanically inclined rat as the universe has ever seen. I've got the wheel back on the tractor. Virginia and Don Fluff have made a whole load of snares. Eamon wants eleven bags of fertilizer. We need to make brackets for putting fertilizer bags, the barbed wire and other stuff onto the vehicle. Eamon also wants holes drilled in pieces of wood for all the bangstick cartridges. We need to drill, and most of all we need to weld. The trailer has a broken hitch. We're going to need power."
Nym chuckled. "I'll just run across to the Maggots' place with a cable, shall I?"
Chip eyed Nym savagely. The rat had the grace to look embarrassed. "Nym hath heard that rats of few words are the best rats," he muttered. "Sorry."
Chip continued. "Now, there is a little generator here . . ."
"We should be careful if it makes low-frequency sounds," said Ginny. "The Professor says the Magh', particularly the Magh'tsr and Magh'evh, hear low-frequency sounds over great distances."
Chip tried glaring at her. She hadn't been invited to this conference! But she was distracted just then, by Fluff landing on her shoulder, so he wasted a perfectly good glare.
Bronstein, however, gave attention instead. "So what does that mean? Does this generator thingy make low-frequency sounds? What can we do about it?"
Chip shrugged. "Muffle it in something, I suppose. I'm not too sure what a `low-frequency sound' is. Vibrations and stuff, I guess?"
"There are a couple of battered mattresses half under masonry over in the farmhouse," Virginia volunteered brightly.
"Right, Miss Muffet. Get them," said Chip, pointing at the door. That would get rid of her.
She went, eager to help, and that left Chip feeling bad again. How the hell did the scion of all that money end up being so like an eager little puppy? It was hard to kick a puppy . . .
His mind turned to other forms of eagerness. She must have some kind of problem. Vat-shagging was a favorite male Shareholder pastime. He'd even heard of Shareholder girls slumming it with a Vat for a night. He'd never heard of a happy outcome though. Not for the Vat involved, for sure.
He pulled his mind back to the task in hand. "Anyway, what I was getting to is this: we need to line up all the projects we need power for. There's a fair chance we'll attract Maggots. We need to get the stuff ready, get the tractor going, and move out."
Bronstein nodded. "As soon as it gets dark we're going to fly up this `valley' and locate the best place for an access hole. Then we'll get everything ready. Siobhan and O'Niel are going to go and sow some more rat droppings, and maybe a booby trap or two."
"Look for a route we can drive the tractor down," said Chip. "It can't be too narrow a hole. And how are you going to find the cross passages?"
Eamon smiled nastily at him. "Relax. We have a length of string for that very purpose, indade. And now that we know of the regularity of the thing, the pattern is just too obvious. Oh, and I have been meaning to ask. You do know how to drive this thing, don't you?"
"Um, yes." There was doubt in Chip's voice. "I know how it works. I've driven something similar. And Miss Muffet will have lots of driving experience. Cars are for the rich."
But when Virginia returned, her glasses dusty and with a nasty scratch on her arm, dragging two still-damp foam mattresses, she had to disappoint them.
Chip found it weird. She must be the only Shareholder kid in existence who didn't drive. Oh well, the Shaws were the top of the heap. Maybe once you got up there you always had someone to drive for you. She went off to ask the Korozhet if he could. Apparently he'd driven the landspeeder all right. Why didn't the idea fill Chip with glee? He went and set up his little radio. They might as well have some music while they worked.
The music helped to lift his spirits. He could see the funny side of a list of booby traps being written on a wine label. A commando-style raid which had a bunch of reluctant grunts planning and executing it was a bit of a joke too.
Heh. It surely would have high command's elegant silk underwear in a twist around their nuts. No carefully orchestrated stuff where everything had to be dead on time and go absolutely right. No elegant strategy which sure as hell they had read about in some book. He could have told the stupid bastards that those plans never had a cat in a dog pound's chance of working, off paper.
"Synchronize your watches, gentlemen." Snort. Yeah. He'd been in one of those operations. Total balls-up. Well, that couldn't happen this time. Nobody had a watch, except the girl. High command could surely have learned from Bronstein: Do it when you have to, or when it's ready. And prepare for the worst. Don't expect things to go right, and when they go wrong, seize the gaps. Not that they'd ever listen to a bat!
"Yoww!"
Something on the high shelf had seized his exploring fingers. It was a mousetrap. Stepping up onto a box he saw there was a whole row of them. Some joker had left this one cocked.
"What's the shriek about, Chip?" Nym and several of the other rats peered at him from where they'd been attempting to maneuver pieces of steel pipe.
"I just found something I have a real use for." He waved the mousetrap at them.
Nym bared his teeth. The others just looked at him with reproachful black beady eyes, their upturned pointy faces filled with horror.
"How low can you sink, Connolly?" Melene couldn't have crammed more disgust into her tone with a shoehorn.
"For Pete's sake! I mean to use it as a detonator, not a rattrap!" Chip's tone was defensive.
Fal was not mollified. "Shogging whoreson! Next he'll be talking about `Rodent operatives.' Bah. Smash the things."
Chip's fingers hurt. "Oh for . . . crying out loud, you lot aren't even rodents. We had a whole goddamn speech from General Focnose on how calling you rats was derogatory and not to be tolerated because you were insectivores."
"Still disgusting things . . ." Fal was interrupted as the heavy metal doors creaked and Virginia came in, sunlight reflecting off her thick glasses.
Behind her, the Korozhet prickled along in the dust, bringing its bouquet of old clothes. "No, you will have to abandon your plan to use this thing! I can only drive things with automated controls. Miss Shaw cannot do it either. A shame. You will have to abandon your plans. We will have to resort to stealth after all. A pity indeed. I had almost come to see the merit of your plans. If you climb down into the lower regions there are very few Magh' down there . . ."
"Oh, it's all right, Professor," Virginia said sunnily. "Chip knows how to drive." The cheerful words were accompanied by a very broad smile. She had a nice smile, Chip noticed. Very nice. Something in his stomach went urp.
"Um," he said. Swallowed hard. "Um."
"We interrupt this broadcast of Forces Favorite Radio with a news-flash. Celtis Observatory reports . . ."
Crash. The Korozhet had turned abruptly and its spines knocked the radio off the workbench. Then, to add insult to injury, it stumbled and splintered it. "Clumsy me! Oh woe! It is for this reason I am not a technician! Forgive me, all! I did but turn suddenly to see who was speaking to us. A thousand apologies!"
"You did that on purpose!" Chip grabbed the hammer.
"Don't be a loon, Chip," snorted Fal. "How could he—she—plan to do something behind it? Her."
"Of course it was an accident. I saw. I had considered doing it on purpose myself," said the galago. "At least that horrible caterwauling she is stopped. Not one piece of Wagner has been played on it."
"No Strauss waltzes, either. Don't you like classical music, Chip?" Virginia apparently thought any subject was safer than the Professor's clumsiness.
"What I don't like is that self-admitted klutz near this workshop. Get her out of here, Ms. Shaw. And of course I like the classics. I'm a big Jimi Hendrix fan. And I like The Doors and Eric Clapton, too."
"An assembly line is what we need." Bronstein began organizing the rats while Chip still fumed over his smashed radio. "Fal, you and Doc can try to manage the sawing. We need fifty pipe sections. Eamon has marked where the pipe must be cut."
"But we have paws! We're not dexterous." The rats were clearly disgruntled.
Bronstein hissed impatiently, like a bad-tempered kettle. "You can manage a hacksaw between the two of you. It is only plastic pipe, for heaven's sake! Now, while they're busy doing that, I want a window-putty plug, the diesel and ammonium nitrate in and the top full of metal junk. Doll, Melene and you and O'Niel can get to filling those one gallon and five gallon cans with diesel. When you finished that, come back to me."
"Dictator," muttered O'Niel. "Tyrant." But he and the two rat-girls started lugging cans out.
Virginia followed Melene, offering her help. "Load the cans into that barrow, and I'll take them out for you."
"Good idea," said Mel. As soon as they were outside, she added: "Then you and I can have a little talk about males. Bronstein said you had a girl-problem."
Virginia blushed. "Okay," she squeaked.
Bronstein turned on the galago, who was surveying the scene with thumbs stuck in his waistcoat pockets. "And you, little one. Are you up to a man's job?"
"Of a certainty!" he said with pride.
She smiled. "Excellent. You can hammer in nails."
The galago was taken aback. Plainly enough, that wasn't what he'd had in mind. "But, señorita-bat, a man's job is to sit the shade and watch the girls dance or wash the clothes."
"Not while there is breath in this `señorita-bat's' body, it isn't." Bronstein's tone would have intimidated a pro football player. The galago got busy, hastily.
"It would have been nice to have some music with this lot," grumbled Chip.
Virginia came back in just in time to hear the last statement. "Seeing as the radio's broken, we could sing," she suggested brightly, while loading more cans in the barrow.
"And what would you be after having us sing, Miss Shaw?" demanded Eamon. The big bat's tone of voice was surly. " `Four Green Fields'? Or `Joe Hill'?"
"I don't know either. But I'd like to learn both," was her earnest reply. She hefted the handles of the now-loaded barrow, straightened, and pushed it through the door. The effort brought out all the curvature in her slender figure.
A moment later, she was gone. "Humph," grumbled Eamon. Chip said nothing. He was preoccupied with the memory of the departing figure. In the sunlight . . .
Humph. Forget it!
"Pull the pump handle for a bit," said Melene. "Now, what is the problem with you and Chip? Bronstein actually came to me, believe it or not, and asked me to advise you. She seemed to think you had a rat-type problem."
Virginia blushed again. She'd brought the barrow load of cans out to the diesel pump and now Melene was giving her the fifth degree inquisition. She didn't even know what the problem was herself.
"You can tell me all about it. Bronstein says you're one of us." The rat-girl's tone was kindly.
Virginia swallowed. One of them? Then she realized. She was. And they did not consider themselves inferior. "I'm in love!" she blurted.
"So what's the problem? Can't he get it up? Generally I found if you get them before they have too much to drink . . ."
Melene continued onward, into anatomical detail that nearly had Virginia's eyes popping out.
Finally the girl interrupted. "Uh. That, um, wasn't what I meant I was having problems with. I meant . . . um . . . Romance."
Melene looked puzzled. "Romance? Isn't that what we're talking about?"
Virginia felt her face must be a fiery beacon. "No. You're talking about sex."
The rat-girl was definitely mystified. "What's the difference?"
Virginia felt like a very inexperienced swimmer caught up in an undertow. "Well sometimes, um, romance does lead to sex."
"Methinks it seems an unnecessary complication," said Mel, dismissively. "But tell me then, what it is you're wanting?"
"Well . . . I don't know." Ginny wrung her hands. "I've never had a boyfriend. Um, in books they bring you flowers or . . . or candy."
"Instead of giving you a drink? Seems strange to me. Still, humans are rather odd. I don't think Chip has any flowers or candy." She paused. "You say you never had a boyfriend? Does that mean you've never . . ."
Virginia couldn't do more than nod.
"Whoreson!" Mel giggled. "Don't you tell Fal that. He'd get ambitions!"
Virginia shuddered.
Melene laughed outright. "Don't you let Fal push you around. Bully him back. Tell me, is that the problem? Chip wants to and you don't? That's males for you . . ."
"NO! It's not like that." Virginia said fiercely. "My nanny told me all men just wanted to . . . But he doesn't. Doesn't even seem to want to touch me."
Melene put her head on one side and surveyed the miserable human girl. "You mean you would, if he wanted to?"
Virginia stopped pumping. Bit her lip. Wrung her hands. "I suppose so. Yes. If he wanted to. I don't understand. Am I hideous or horrible?"
"Nonsense! Not to humans, anyway," Melene reassured her. "Chip used to behave almost like a rat with that Dermott-girl. And she also had virtually no tail, and an even shorter nose than you."
That news didn't seem to cheer Virginia up.
The organizing had taken some time. Everything that could be done by hand had been done. Now the welding machine had been trundled out and stood ready. The little five-hundred-liter tank trailer with the one severed bar of the Y hitch had been manhandled into position. The plate Chip was going to try to weld on to secure the hitch was clamped in place. The generator reposed on the one mattress, like some oily yellow mechanical baby. The extension cords had been located and, in one case, fixed. Next to the drill press lay the box of cartridge mines-to-be and the pieces of angle iron Chip wanted to bolt onto the trailer. They needed, somehow, to make a rack for the huge and growing pile of stuff they wanted to take along. The windows had been blacked out. The door was chinked. Chip needed his headlight to navigate towards the jenny. Well, in a minute they'd have power and there'd be an extension light on.
He grasped the little handle on the generator and pulled. Fud-dududu . . . duh again. Again. Again. And again. Sweating, Chip checked the SOB thing out. Ah. Choke. Ooops. On-off cutout.
Fud-dududu . . . fffopoppop pop.
Well, he'd achieved a curl of smoke. Nearly. So he went back to pulling . . . and it didn't start. He tried it with the choke both in and then halfway in. Not for all the swearing and sweating in creation was the cantankerous thing going to start.
"Methinks it needs a drink," said a fruity rat-voice from the darkness.
Chip shone his beam savagely at Fal. "Shut up," he snarled. "Anyone else with bright ideas can try pulling it themselves."
"I'll try." Virginia said, eagerness glinting off her glasses.
Chip knew exactly what would happen as soon as he gave her that starter cable. The goddamn thing would start.
Which, of course, it did. First pull.
Maybe the thing had been flooded by his previous attempts . . . At least it had the decency to die when they put the load on, and then to fail in starting again for her.
He put the choke in, and it started on the second pull. "Now leave it running for a bit before we plug it in."
And then . . . there was light. A sunrise is a joyous thing, but Chip hadn't realized just how much he'd missed the normalcy symbolized by an ordinary incandescent globe. Once long ago—in a life that seemed to have belonged to someone else—it had been something so . . . accepted. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed it.
"Right . . . weld first, I think." His voice was a bit thick.
"It's just so lovely to see the light," whispered Virginia.
Chip felt a twang of sympathy, surprised at the common ground between them. But all he said was "Don't look at the arc light," as he slipped the welding mask over his face. He spoke with a confidence he was far from feeling. True, "Armpits" Jones had showed him how it should be done. Armpits had even let him try. He felt himself blush and was glad of the mask.
"I'm going to try to muffle the sound from the generator," she said.
"Fine." Chip was concentrating on working out the best approach to the welding job. He tapped the rod against the metal. The rod sparked actinic arc light, hissed and . . .
Stuck. Welding hadn't miraculously gotten easier in the intervening years.
"Well, let's get on to the drilling then," said Nym professionally, rubbing his paws. "Come on, Pistol. You hold that short piece of steel in place. I'll pull the handle down."
The one-eyed rat looked at the drill press nervously. "I'd liefer wait for Chip."
Nym looked at him with scorn. "Stop blithering, rat. It's a basic piece of machinery, for goodness sake. I pull that lever down. The drill comes down. What could be simpler?"
"Get Fal to hold it," suggested Pistol.
Nym's icy gaze would have withered polar lichen. "Tch. He can hold your hand if you like."
Even Pistol wasn't proof against that. "No, if you're sure . . ."
"Well, we'll do those small pieces first," Nym condescended. "Start with the easiest."
He started the drill. Virginia tried to hold the second mattress wrapped around the generator with two hands, while she tried to tie it in place with a third and a fourth hand she didn't have.
The big rat hauled at the press handle. "Whoreson! This bedamned lever is stiff." He threw his giant-rat weight and strength into the project.
The high-speed drill bit came down fast, and bit into the mild steel. The piece of steel proved an efficient transmitter of torque.
What followed was the first airborne rat-strike in history. A process that went something like—
"AAAAAHHHH!!!!"
THUD. Fortunately, Pistol hit Virginia's mattress and rolled to the floor unhurt, still clinging to the steel section. He was paralyzed with fear and shock.
Well . . . except for his mouth.
"YOU FUGGING BACONFED WHORESON RATCATCHER!"
Virginia stood there, wide-eared with amazement, while Pistol shredded Nym's character and morals, etc. etc., unto the fifteenth generation back. He was working on the sixteenth when he stopped abruptly.
The mattress, alas, had caught fire.
Stamping on it was ineffectual. Oil had seeped into the mattress, and it burned even though it was still partly wet. The workshop was a hell's-cauldron of smoke, steam and little dancing flames. Virginia bolted from the Dante-esque scene.
Chip cursed her under his breath as he stamped on the mattress. Just like a fucking worthless Shareholder bitch to run!
She was back an instant later, armed with a fire extinguisher.
Some time later, the place still was acrid with burned mattress and the ozone smell of welding. Virginia gazed admiringly at the hitch-wishbone. "You're brilliant!"
It really wasn't a bad piece of "hedgehog" welding. There weren't more than seven stuck welding rods cut off with side cutters. There were even a couple of really nice spot-welds. Chip had skilled hands and exceptionally fine motor control, as befits a master chef. Still, you don't learn to weld very well in ten minutes.
"Hey, Chip! Is this thing supposed to come off again?" Nym wrestled with the C-clamp. "Because I need it for the drilling."
Chip looked. "Um. No. That clamp is now a permanent fixture."