Eric Flint: The Rats, the Bats and the Ugly

Van Klomp paused thoughtfully. "We could always get a cargo net and lower you down. That would be the quickest and easiest." And it would be most tempting to cut the rope, he thought, but did not add.

"Hmph. Would it be safe?"

"Safe as an elevator, sir. I'd let them lower me first," said Van Klomp earnestly.

"Set it up then," ordered the general. "As quickly as possible. An elevator would be acceptable."

"Right away, sir. Excuse me."

Van Klomp went down into the smelly belly of the Magh' mound. It still stank less than up on top. A ten-ton truck with a winch and a cargo net brought along as close as possible did the trick. Van Klomp's paratroopers scurried about attaching anchors and setting up a tripod with a pulley in it. A plank, Van Klomp knew, would have made it more comfortable, but he wasn't feeling generous.

"Uh, Major," interrupted a private, tentatively. "Those two reporters. They're still sitting in your 'office.' "

Van Klomp smiled nastily. "Bring 'em here, boy. Let them interview some top brass."

The private looked at the arrangement and the careful measuring of rope. "Major… you're not giving them the whoah-belly, are you?" he asked suspiciously.

Van Klomp's expression of saintliness should have gotten him instant canonization. "Me, Private? You know as well as I do that the winch only winds in. That you have to pull cable out. The brake does stop it being entirely unwound and perhaps damaging the cable or drum. I do promise I'll tell them that it is a bit jerky at times."

The private struggled to run and fetch the journos, he was laughing so much.

It was a two-hundred-foot drop, straight down, to the level where the ruined bridge led to the brood-heart chamber. The "moat" that protected the chamber meant that there was still another drop of five hundred feet below that. By swinging the rope ladders in and attaching them to a stick-out bastion, it was a forty-five-foot climb. Not un-strenuous, but not that long, either. But, if they wanted an elevator, by all means let the brass have one. In comparison to the whoah-belly Van Klomp had set up for training the recruits, this was a lollapalooza. He couldn't wait to try it out himself.

But then, he was an adrenaline junkie with a long-established habit.

Van Klomp stood rigidly to attention as the hysterical major general shrieked at him. "You said that it was safe! I'll have you court-martialed! Reduced to the ranks!"

"It's as safe as houses, sir. You were warned that it was jerky and I did offer to arrange transport around. You refused and insisted on doing it this way, sir. I explained that the cable winch only wound in, but used a speed-governed brake to prevent sudden jerk stresses from damaging the cable or drum. I've been up and down it twice now, and I can't say I found it unsafe. I'm sorry you found it distressing."

He was interrupted by a terrible shriek from above. The brigadier, hurtling down in the free-fall stage, obviously also found it distressing. No sense of adventure, these brass-hats.

The brake slowed the net bag's descent, and then began allowing it to accelerate again. The brigadier whizzed past them, the pitch of her shriek beautifully displaying the Doppler effect. At the next braking the winch operator hit the retrieve button, and gently winched the gibbering wreck back to level with the platform. A paratrooper leaned out with a crudely made boathook and hauled her in. The winch operator cut the power providing the final undignified drop into the arms of Sergeant Harris. Two troopers cut the net loose from the cross brace at the top. The brigadier, released from the support of the net and Harris' arms, fell to her knees and was sick.

"General, do you want me continue bringing your staff down with the hoist?" asked Van Klomp calmly. "They seem to find it rather alarming. Colonel Pumbrey has come around from his faint, by the way." The major felt rather well disposed toward the colonel. If he'd yelled instead of being silently paralyzed with terror when he and Van Klomp had done the first descent together, the general would never have dared come down. "I don't see why they should suffer unnecessarily."

"If I had to do it, they will," snarled the general.

"Very well, sir. However, I'll send a man up to tell them they've no need to worry, but that your aides have found it slightly alarming. I want a volunteer, men. Raise a hand, someone who is willing to go up. Tell them part of the descent is rather worrying, but the general says they are to come down. And warn the Korozhet too. I'm not sure how their physiology would stand up to it. If they feel that there is any danger they'd better not try this."

Every soldier present shot his hand up-even those who Van Klomp knew were not fond of the whoah-belly. Obviously a lot of enlisted men were eager to show the brass that they didn't scream or lose their lunch. The major picked on one of the smaller men-one of the most acrobatic and steel-nerved of his troops-and sent him up. "In the meanwhile one of you go and see if you can find the general some new trousers," he added cheerfully.

"Major General Fredricks?" asked the reporter, stepping forward out of the shadows. "Mike Sherry from Interweb. Can we ask you a few questions for our viewers?"

It was a great psychological moment to interview someone.

Van Klomp knew that giving the general and his staff the whoah-belly ride was a rather childish and ultimately self-defeating pastime. But it had been very sweet.

It was also nearly terminal. Private Oliver had reported back, saying that the Korozhet had said that they were capable of surviving far greater physiological stress than endoskeletal species, and were certainly not frightened. By the private's description, it was the smaller, redder one who had gotten very upset by the thought of the dead Korozhet being looked at by what, if Van Klomp understood it right, amounted to "lesser species."

The smaller, vermillion-spined Korozhet came down next. The Korozhet did not scream. But as the paratrooper swung it in with the boathook, it pointed those thickened spines at him through the net. If Van Klomp had not been primed by Connolly's description of this event, the young trooper would have been dead. As it was, Van Klomp hit the spine with a bangstick, and hauled the youngster aside. The edge of the dart gashed across the young paratrooper's arm, before striking the Magh' adobe, sending a spray of fluid across the ground.

The net bag swung wildly back into space as the vermillion Korozhet fired its second dart. It missed completely as a result. The winch operator had a moment of genius and hit the power switch. The Korozhet rose steadily, swinging wildly, hissing like a kettle that was about to explode.

"Stay away from that stuff," snapped Van Klomp, pointing to the liquid that had spilled out of the protoplasm-hosed harpoon. He was hastily tying a tourniquet onto the trooper's arm. "With any luck you won't have the poison in you, son. But let's keep it to the arm. Winch! Stop that bastard about halfway. Let him dangle until we can deal with this." He'd never forgive himself if his practical joke on the brass cost this kid his life or even his arm. "Let's get this soldier to the medics."

"It's just a gash, sir," said the paratrooper.

"It could be poisoned, Private. That liquid definitely is." He poured perfectly good booze into the wound, washing it thoroughly. He turned to look for the major general.

By all reports, Fredricks had joined the army twenty years ago, on the clear understanding that it was a nice secure job with no heavy lifting, requiring, principally, the ability to march in step. Lately, it had required the ability to play politics and golf, drink whiskey and kiss butts. It had obviously ill-prepared him for this sort of action. He cringed nervously next to a wall, surveying the nearest thing he'd seen to actual combat.