Eric Flint - Rats, Bats and Vats

Pistol peered into the muddy puddle just below the hideout. "Hey, Fal, what would a `Rana' be then?"

"Some kind of frog, I should guess, my ancient Pistol."

Doc nodded in agreement. "Indeed, there is a genera of frog by that name, I believe."

"Ah." Pistol gave his best one-eyed wink. "There's a toad in here. That's close enough. I'm sure that would do, eh, Chip?"

Gnawing hunger awoke Chip. He'd heard if you stopped eating you stopped feeling hungry. Only he'd been eking out his rations. Eating less and less, but still eating. Now the cupboard was bare. And his stomach was not satisfied with some silt-flavored water.

Earlier presleep jokes about the toad having to be careful about not becoming a double amputee, with a chef around looking for frogs' legs, stopped seeming so funny. It was time he started to eat off the land, time he got rid of his foibles. He would starve otherwise. The thought of raw toad was still hard going though. Maybe he could toast it over fat Fal's zippo.

Then he realized he should have woken up earlier. Only a last webbed foot protruded from Fal's face. Then, with a crunch, that too was gone.

Fal told him it had tasted awful. Anyway, Nym and Phylla had got most of it. "We're going out foraging. We have to. Oh. And I'm afraid we ate your shoes."

Chip looked down. With relief he realized that they meant the maggot-hide sandals.

"We've got a real problem." Chip said to Bronstein.

The bat hadn't appreciated being awakened. "Other than being stuck behind enemy lines with a crazy human and a bunch of lowlife rats, I have no problems. That one is bad enough. And I love being woken up, to be sure."

Chip closed his eyes and counted to ten. "Okay, I've got a direct problem. You can just fly away. But, bat, when the Maggots catch on they're going to get serious about hunting you. Really serious. They've got aerial movement detectors. We know that. The Brass got at least a thousand bats killed proving it. They zap your slowshields with rapid-fire tracking projectiles. Keep it hard so that you can't fly. And once you are on the ground, you bats are no match for even the feeblest Maggot. The rats have got to get food. If they don't, they'll turn feral. It's the shrew genes. You heard what happened in that caved-in bunker on the eastern front?"

Bronstein looked at him. "You mean… where they ate the others? I thought that was just a story."

"No. It was true. I knew one of the kids on the cleanup squad. The platoon was trapped in there for four days. Without food. The rats ate the humans. They managed to catch and eat the bats. Then they started on each other. There was only one left to face court-martial. We've got to feed those rats, because otherwise they'll go out of their minds hunting food. Sure, they'll start on me. Then they'll go out hunting Maggots. And then the Maggots will be onto you."

Bronstein shook her head. "I'll get the others. It's nearly twilight. We'll see what we can find."

"Good-o. I'll start turning over rocks. The Maggots have cleaned up all the surface stuff. But I might find worms or something."

"Be careful that the rats don't bite the hand that feeds them, Chip."

Chip grinned wryly. "Never mind biting it. They'll probably eat it."

"It's about half a mile off," said Siobhan. "The farmhouse itself must have copped a direct hit. It is pretty well flattened. But the outbuildings are intact, or mostly so. The ground is stripped bare, but surely there must be some food in sealed containers?"

"There can't be less than here," grumbled Chip, looking at his muddy hands. "Let's go. It looks like it is coming on to rain yet again, and I'd rather have a roof over me, than be one for you lot."

The farmhouse must once have been a very large and beautiful one. Now it was nothing more than a masonry shell. Chip poked through the remains of the kitchen. The pickings weren't very good, so far. Three jars of marmalade, which had miraculously survived the explosion. There had been a walk-in freezer room and cold room, but these had been blown open and thoroughly gutted by the Magh'-foragers.

"Hey!" There was a shout. "Methinks we're going to die happy! Look at this, you bacon-fed knaves!" Chip went to see, visions of a secret food hoard lending him speed.

Fal had found an outbuilding such as the place where good rats think they will go when they die. It was a small winery. The rat was eagerly sounding stainless steel vats. "This one is nearly full! And there is a pot-still here! That means brandy!"

"There is something down here too," called Pistol. The Maggots had taken the wooden doors, leaving the dark stairway into the cellar unguarded. Here were ten thousand bottles, packed in their serried ranks.

"Well strap me, if I don't crack a bottle or two to celebrate!" said Pistol, cheerfully. "Can I offer you a drink, Fal?"

"I never thought to hear those words! Pistol offering someone else a drink, instead of scrounging it! Indeed you may!"

"Stop!" said Chip. "Don't touch that stuff! Do you hear me, Fal?"

"Boy, tell him I am deaf," said Fal, ignoring Chip pointedly.

"You must speak louder sir. My master is very deaf," said Pistol, obligingly, cracking a bottle neck against a pillar.

Chip snatched the bottle from the one-eyed rat. Red wine sloshed onto the floor. Pistol looked startled. "Now, Chip. There is plenty for all of us."

"Don't be fools, Pistol, Fal. You're both still starving-hungry, right?"

"Yes. But what we want for in meat we'll have in drink." The fat rat eyed the bottle greedily.

"While you're sober, you're keeping your wits. Keeping your hunger in check. Get a bit drunk and all you'll want is food, and once you're good and drunk, and this hungry, you won't care where you get that food. You'll eat me. You'll eat each other. We've got to find food first-before you drink."

The rats were silent.

"You can put the bottle down," said Fal, seriously. "Food first, eh, Pistol?"

"I reckon. I wouldn't want to eat Chip. Not while he owes me a crate of whiskey." The rat sniffed at the robust, berry-rich inky bouquet of the spilt wine. "And it is a lousy vintage, anyway."

"A rat! I have found a rat!" Nym bellowed.

They all ran back upstairs. The big Nym had cornered a large black rat. The real thing, too-a descendant of unwanted stowaways on the slowship, not a creation of genetic engineers. A real, non-cyber-uplifted rat. It bared its yellow rodent teeth at them.

"Dinner!"

Fal lifted his long nose. "Sexy smelling dinner!"

"Yeah. Nice body!" said Pistol, eyeing the rat lecherously. "Shame we're just gonna eat it."

Fal straightened. "Hur. That's where you're wrong, Ancient Pistol. There is something we've got to do first. 'Tis our soldiering duty after all. Tradition! Tradition's clear as crystal on the subject. Says soldiering's got killing, looting and rapine." Fal rubbed his paws and eyed the rat. "Fighting Magh', o' course, 'twas a moot point. But now methinks we've gotten lucky!"

"Hark at him, lads!" cried Pistol. "This soldiering business has really got it all!" He turned his head to let his one good eye get a proper look at the captive.

"You're a bunch of paltry rogues," sneered Melene. "Kill it and let's eat."

"Well, just now!" protested Pistol. "I mean a rat's gotta do what a rat's gotta do!"

Fal nodded solemnly. "Duty first! We're just going to have to steel ourselves to it." He smiling toothily at the captive rat. It hissed back at him.

Nym looked at the wild rat. Then at Pistol. "You know what his ideas usually get us into."

"What, good Nym?" exclaimed Fal. "Can I believe my ears? A valorous whoreson rat not willing to put up his naked weapon? What manner of rat are you?" Fal strutted back and forth before them, his paunch wobbling, his chest out and his head back. He flourished his bristly tail. "Where is your martial vigor?"