Eric Flint - The Rats, the Bats and the Ugly

She beckoned Ginny closer. "I knew he might weasel out of anything but red-handed murder, my dear. I'm dying. I give my children into your care, Virginia Shaw. Take good care of them or my ghost will haunt you. Be sure of it."

"Your children? Who?" Sanjay Devi was a well known Shareholder. She'd never married, and if she'd ever had children they'd been kept a complete secret.

"The uplifted ones, first-the rats and bats I created in my witch's vats. I was the one who persuaded your father to put an implant into you, my dear. Because I saw you as their best chance. My other children are the Vats. I bred them up. I have millions of children, and I wanted a future for them. Not slavery. Either from our culture or… the Crotchets. You take over now. I've worked in secret. The time for that is over. Raise the revolution."

The ambulance arrived, but Virginia Shaw had a feeling the medics were too late.

All she could do was nod.

It took the police some time to recover Talbot Cartup's body from the dangerous and slippery rocks below the balcony. The bats had been able to tell them that he was indeed dead and not worth risking life and limb for.

Since then the bats had been locked in deep discussion, while the rats had cheerfully looted some booze.

"We have decided, Virginia. You have here as many rats as are likely to fight, but we need more bats for any raid on such a target. So we need to send Eamon south to raise the standard with our organizations."

"And I might have guessed that both the Red Wing and the Battacus League would steal our password," grumbled Eamon irritably. "We used 'Easter Uprising' first."

"First or last. We need them all," said Bronstein. "And I'd like to go myself, but you're a stronger flier and will not be turned to drink and forget your mission like this wastrel." She pointed a wing at O'Niel, who had just accepted a stoup of Sanjay's single malt from Doc.

"Just because I am sometimes taken with drink, doesn't mean I can't think, Bronstein," said O'Niel. "Not that Eamon is not a better flier, even if Shamus Plekhanov is a better bat with explosives."

"Hmph," said Eamon. "Well, I'd better be going. 'Tis a long fly."

One of the paratroopers had been listening in. "Where to?"

"To divisional headquarters, Sector 3-350," answered Eamon.

"You should take one of the transport planes," said the paratrooper with a wry smile. "You could be there in two hours."

Eamon nodded thoughtfully. "I'll be doing that."

He flapped upward. "I'll return with a mighty bat brigade."

"Is he serious?" asked the paratrooper.

"He's always serious," said O'Niel. "Sensible, no. The airfield is the other way, to be sure. I'd better get after him and tell him."

Fortunately, for short-sprint-flights, O'Niel was quite capable, for a plump bat.

Eric Flint

The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

Eric Flint

The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

In the green and naphthalene reeking ship-halls of the Korozhet slave-ship.

Chip knew that it was bound to end, sooner or later. He could stay in here until he starved or the slave supervisors came to haul him out.

He'd yet to find any way of killing himself in this room. Besides, the soft-cyber in his head said that would be a disservice to the masters. So: he waited. When the time came he would find a way. The slaves were apparently supervised by low-order young Korozhets, small, short-spined and very orange. Neuters and males, according to Yetteth. They were neither very intelligent nor very strong. They tended to use aliens that the other prisoners called Nerba as brute force. Your mind would let you resist Nerba. Your body was ill-advised to. They looked like armored bipedal water buffalo, with too many joined limbs and long mobile tails which split into a two-fingered "hand."

There was no way of telling night from day here in the vast bowels of the Korozhet ship, but Chip kept count of the food sirens. It was just after the seventh one that a Korozhet supervisor came for him, with two Nerba to carry him if need be. "Come," ordered the Korozhet. "Medium-spine Natt is to interrogate you."

He got up from the sleeping shelf to walk. A lash of some kind snaked across his naked back. "Walk lower. It is not fitting that you stand taller than even a First-instar, slave."

He hunched his shoulders and bent his legs and walked as slowly as he thought he could get away with. His eyes darted around looking for a death-chance. He waited too long. The small orange-spined Korozhet clattered his spines with impatience. "Pick him up, Nerba. Do not break his shell. We will go through the power section and save me much ambulating."

Chip found himself carried through a section of the ship where the air smelled distinctly of hot metal, even above the naphthalene reek. Much of the machinery was so alien he could not even begin to recognize it. But one piece he did. The last time he'd seen one, a fountain of sparks had been showering from it.

At a guess that was a force-field generator, near as dammit identical to the one in the brood-heart of the scorpiary.

Chip was eventually tossed down in front of a slightly redder and longer-spined Korozhet, sitting in a shallow waterbath.

Chip was planning to lie as much as he could. He'd just never realized quite what an effort defying the Korozhet and the soft-cyber had been for Ginny.

The medium-spine asked questions. Chip answered. He could hate the Crotchets, but to refuse to answer a direct question-from a Korozhet, in Korozhet-that was near impossible. And he was struggling to think fast enough to come up with evasive answers. At length the medium-spine started to clatter his spines. "Call Third-instar Clattat. This must be heard by him. The slaves rebel!"

The small, orange short-spined one raised his killing spines. Chip desperately wanted to dodge, but felt that would not be serving the master. "We kill any slave who rebels," said the small Korozhet.

"Unfit-to-spawn one! It is not this slave that rebels. It is the others. I have been instructed to hand this one intact to Sixth-instar Tirritit."

So, soon, Chip found himself being questioned by a larger Korozhet. When this one asked if the rats and bats could disobey, Chip had to answer in the affirmative.

"A direct order?"

"Yes"

"How do they do this?" demanded the Korozhet inquisitor.

Chip struggled to defend his friends. They found cover in the English language. He found refuge in Doc. "It is possible with the use of Plato's forms."

The last two words were English. And that too came to his rescue.

"How does this Platoforms tool work?"

"I do not know. I do not understand it." That was true.

"Is it used by all?"

"No."

"Will it be used by humans on the soft-cyber?"

"It is a human thing. It was done to one rat as an experiment." That was true.

"But there are many of these slaves who broke their conditioning!" said the Second-instar.

Perhaps he could make them afraid? Fluff had tried to stop the Korozhet shooting Virginia by clinging to the laser. "One attacked the weapon of the Korozhet," volunteered Chip.

The resultant clattering of spines and reek of naphthalene was almost overwhelming. The Third-instar Clattat spined away hastily to seek an interview with the High-spine.

"What do we do with this slave?" asked the small orange Korozhet. "Are we to kill him because he rebelled? Any slave that rebels must die."

"Soft-spined sexless it, that will never even become male. He has not rebelled, as I said. Send him back to his quarters. You heard the Third-instar. He is wanted in good condition."

Yetteth was once again on cleaning duties for the High-spines when a Third-instar dared to come clattering in, and interrupted. Yetteth had seen a Fourth-instar killed for less. "Most High-spine. I have news of slave revolts among the implants we have placed among the humans."