Eric Flint - The Rats, the Bats and the Ugly

He proceeded to list Shareholders that Sanjay had tried for years to establish the names of. "-in my pocket. I've still got control over the Special Branch. We set up a redundancy for this sort of contingency. Special Operations Director Perros is still in place. I'd better contact the others and then Shaw. Damned good thing Perros' men failed to take her out at that Vat meeting. You can be sure I'll reward you well for this, Sanjay."

She raised her eyebrows. "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten it. Call them."

"You could confuse a saint. I meant a portfolio on the new Council. Not perfume," said Cartup.

She stood up. "I don't want to confuse saints. Make your calls, Talbot. I'll use my mobile. I make you one prophecy. You can be sure that no man of woman born will kill you."

"More of your gibberish. I suppose I'm safe then." He picked up the 'phone and began dialing.

Sanjay walked out onto her balcony and drew the glass door closed behind her. She looked out across the city. Hard to believe it had been nothing but scrub once. Now the suburbs and trees looked like they'd always been there. The remains of the great slowship that had brought them here still dominated the skyline, with the huge pumpkin-shape of the Korozhet ship a close second.

She drew a deep breath, ignoring the stabbing pains in her chest, and dialed. She was not in the least surprised that the answerer enquired "And who doth call?" in a haughty tone. She'd always had a soft spot for Pooh-Bah. He'd always struck her as the perfect example of successful socialism in one body.

The little golf cart swayed dangerously around corners. The candy-striped vehicle's steering was being pushed to its limits and microns beyond. Virginia didn't even seem perturbed. "How good is this information?"

"As good as itself," said Gobbo, clinging onto the rail. "And the tears of it are wet."

Virginia had no time right now for Shakespearian sophistry. "How do you know we can trust her?"

"Meilin said she was one of the founders of the VLO. She gave some passwords that no one else would know."

"It just seems insane. Why should he go to someone like that to hide?" asked Virginia, suspiciously.

"And thereby hangs a tail," said Melene. "Methinks she hath cozened a cozening rogue."

"She said something about giving him enough rope. Perhaps she thought he would go into rope-selling, and when he did not, she decided to turn him in."

Pooh-Bah found this quite logical. "Marry, 'tis passing strange to a person like myself, of haughty and exclusive pre-adamite descent, to engage in vulgar trade. But I believe that the Master of the Buckhounds and the Groom of the Back Stairs have invested heavily in a scheme to make inflatable rattesses."

Before there could be any more startling commercial revelations, they arrived at Sanjay Devi's home on the hill that overlooked the town. The rats poured off the golf cart and began moving in. Virginia followed them, and the paratroopers following the golf cart, followed her.

Eric Flint

The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

Dunsinane

"No answer from Shaw," said Talbot Cartup, pacing.

"She is coming here," said Sanjay, tranquilly.

"What!"

Sanjay looked askance at him. "You do seem to have trouble understanding things, Cartup. Perhaps it is because you're so stupid. But then, I did choose you for your stupidity. And your vanity."

"What?" Talbot stared at her.

She'd never insulted him before. She relished it. And she was playing the role of her lifetime. "I've betrayed you to her," she explained.

Talbot gaped at her. "But…"

"It was necessary," said Sanjay. "I selected you as the vilest of weeds when I discovered Shaw was dead. You were a useful weed. You choked all the others out, and brought out and fed the resentment of the Vats with your stupid brutality. Some of the other weeds might have allowed more freedom. But you made sure, for me, that the only way out for them was by destroying the HAR Shareholders' monopoly on power. You did more for the VLO than I could."

"What? How could you?"

"Is that all you can ever say, Cartup? 'What?' " She cackled. "Cauldron bubble… Like the witches did to Macbeth… I didn't make you fall, Talbot Cartup. I simply gave you the opportunities to choose your own fate. To imagine that your petty vendettas against Fitzhugh or this Vat-boy Connolly could succeed. To not see my plans with two new intelligences… What you have done is to erode the very ground under your feet. You've done what I could not, Talbot Cartup. Your greed has poisoned this sick system enough to bring it down. Now your crimes can take you down with it."

"You bitch," he said, incredulously, "you're neck deep in all the things I've done. You advised me! You hid me. You're an accomplice and I'll take you down with me."

She shrugged. "If I'd kept my hands out of your affairs… you'd have crawled off and hidden in legal evasions and poisoned this society for years. I had to make sure you were eliminated. You've known all along that a second Korozhet ship landed with the Magh'. You and Aloysius Shaw both knew from the initial satellite data."

"Shaw was an idiot. He didn't believe it could be true. He said that it would cause unrest to start such rumors."

"I had wondered about that. He was a pompous fool, but not as much of a villain as you. And, in a way, this society needed a true villain, or it would have limped on for generations, oppressing more and more people. You were perfect for my purposes in that way, Cartup. You've colluded with the Korozhet and become wealthy and powerful. But we could never catch you. The evidence was hidden, and you had a powerful team of hiders backing you. So: when this blew up, I gave you houseroom. Recordings of all your conversations have gone out from here to the three people I trust: John Needford, Len Liepsich, and Lynne Stark. You've been entrapped redhanded. A sting, you might say."

"You bitch." He snatched at his car keys. "You won't get away with this."

She shook her head. "The doors on this house are very secure, Cartup. Old ship doors. At the moment they're set to only be openable from the outside. You haven't got a hope."

He snarled, and dropped the keys for a knife lying on the table. She'd been sharpening it earlier. "I've got you, Devi. That'll do."

She smiled tranquilly. "But not for long, Cartup. I'm dying of cancer. It's quite incurable. I wanted to see Harmony and Reason free of your sort before I went. I wanted to see our dream drawn back from the nightmare that people like you and Aloysius Shaw were prepared to delve into, for the sake of your own power and greed. Go ahead and kill me if you dare. Or are you afraid?"

Outside, vehicles screeched to a halt. "Not of you, you old witch!"

As he stabbed, she whispered: "I hear the wailing of the women, for the Queen is dead."

The words were finished with a bloody froth on her lips. But, like everything in her life that she'd set out to do, Sanjay Devi had succeeded in using the line that had prepared her for that moment.

Talbot Cartup was still standing above Sanjay Devi with a bloody knife in his hand, when rats and bats burst into the room, with Virginia and half a dozen paratroopers behind her. There was a glass door and a balcony behind him.

And, in the end, Sanjay Devi had chosen the right line again. It wasn't any man of woman born that killed him. Tripping over a rat, as a bat flew at his face, and falling off the balcony to the rocks below did it.

Two paratroopers were trying to give Sanjay first aid. Another one was calling for an ambulance. She waved the one who was trying to staunch the blood away. "I'm dying, anyway. I want to speak to her."