Eric Flint: Rats, Bats and Vats

And the price was steep, too. The Korozhet had no interest in anything humans had-except a few rare minerals, specialized agricultural products and some small animals which they said were useful medicinal products. It had meant removing precious farmland from food production. Which, in turn, had meant a leaner and even less savory diet for the colony's Vats. Needless to say, in his remaining time as a sous-chef, before he was conscripted, Chip had not noticed any decline in the quality of the Shareholders' cuisine at Chez Henri-Pierre.

He thrust the sour memory aside. The reality of the moment was more than enough to sour anyone.

Chip stared into the distance. "The front lines are a good few miles back that way. We could try to hide back there and break out when the force field goes down for the next push."

One of the rat-girls chittered distress. "Agreed. Our obvious course now-is-to hide." Chip could hear the exhaustion in Melene's voice, and accepted the reality behind it. They had to rest, and soon. The rats had speed, not stamina.

"Why don't we hide out up there?" Chip pointed to a cluster of rocks at the head of a narrow gully, maybe a quarter of a mile away. "If you bats stop fluttering around like a smoke signal, they won't see where we're going."

"We're not good walkers, Connolly," pointed out Siobhan.

"Cling onto me, then. I'll give you a lift." Despite the wingspan the bats were light-boned. Even a big bat like Eamon wouldn't weigh much more than two pounds.

The bats fluttered about him doubtfully. Then Bronstein settled on Chip's shoulder. "I vant to trink your blud." She bared her long white fangs and licked her lips with with a long, thin, red, red tongue.

Chip hoped like hell that that was just bat-humor.

The others settled on him too. " 'Tis a damned affront to my dignity, this," said Eamon glumly, clinging to Chip's left breast pocket. The sharp bat-claws pricked Chip through his combat jacket. The big male was a solid weight of bat, hanging like that.

" 'Tis the blood o' a virgin princess you fancy, Eamon?" chirruped a more cheerful Siobhan.

"Well, you're out of luck with Connolly, then," grumbled Phylla, limping along beside them. "He's as common as vatmuck. Not even a good prince, nor less a princess."

"No virgin neither," piped Melene. "Oft did I espy him a-giving the horn of abundance to Dermott."

"Belike she was giving it to him," snickered Doll. "An abundance of horn going about, anyway. Why do you humans take so long?"

"More like how do they make it last so long…" Phylla looked wistful.

Now, Pistol started whining. "My aching paws!" He peered up at Chip with a solitary beady eye. "How about a lift, Connolly? You owe me a bottle of whiskey, so a ride would be in order."

"A bottle? It was a drink-not even a double!" Chip protested.

"Whoreson caterpillar! A debt dodger. Come on, let's all ride Connolly, like a mare," said Fal, who plainly thought anything rather than walking was a brilliant idea.

Rats jumped aboard and scrambled for purchase, clinging to his head, shoulders, clothing, pack and pockets. Chip sighed and accepted the inevitable. At least even the rats were relatively light. It was no worse than an extra fifty-pound pack.

Like an ambulatory hat-and-umbrella stand festooned in clinging bats and rats, he struggled up the slope to the shelter of the rocks. Fortunately, there was a lot of strength in Chip's stocky form, and even more stamina. But it was still a brutally exhausting slog.

As he planted one foot in front of the other, Chip gasped out his warnings. "I have to… tell you, bats… I take garlic… pills. My blood… pure poison. And you… useless bunch of freeloading… Rat-hitch-hikers… I charge… Cost you all. .. in drinks. Or next time… you can carry me!"

The last phrase came out in a rush. He had reached the boulders. "Come on, all off! I want to sit down."

Rats and bats scrambled clear, and Chip flopped.

"Someone should have a quiet look to see if they're after us yet," said Eamon. "A rat or the human," he specified, folding up his wings.

"Let me just catch my breath first," said Chip. "I'm absolutely exhausted."

"The human condition does not approach the Absolute Notion." G. B. F. Hegel sniffed and adjusted his pince-nez. "Not even remotely. I'm beginning to have my doubts about Plato's Forms, too. A shadow is one thing, but this-this gasping, panting, pathetic-"

"Oh shut your face, Doc. Next time, you can philosophize on your own four paws."

A few minutes later, looking out from their redoubt, Chip stared across a bitter, barren, torn, and conquered land. Miles to the north he could see the smoke trails dark against Harmony And Reason's clear sky.

Har-de-har-har. That would be the front. They were trapped far, far behind enemy lines, sandwiched between the rising red Magh' adobe walls of the enemy tunnels. In excrement deep and dire.

He shrugged and turned away. So what else was new?

Eric Flint

Rats, Bats amp; Vats

Chapter 4:

A maiden in peril.

HER BED WAS ARRAYED with soft toys…

Virginia was the daughter of Shareholders. At the age of nineteen, even in wartime, she should have been out on the town. The social life of Shareholder children was enviable. Instead, she lay on her bed, between Mister Ted and Mrs. Wobbly, and read.

She wasn't ugly. That was just what she believed. Indeed, if she, like her Shareholder-daughter contemporaries, had employed a beautician's services she could have been almost beautiful. Not in the pinup style, admittedly, with her lean figure and elfin face. But, still…

Nor would Virginia have objected to being almost beautiful. Not in the least. Her indifference to her own appearance was simply that of a brain-damaged girl who had never really thought about it. True, the alien Korozhet had repaired the damage a year earlier-or, at least, compensated for it-but Virginia's self-awareness still lagged far behind her new reality. It was starting to catch up, however. She found herself staring at herself in the mirror lately, wondering…

Her hair, for instance, was still braided in the same way that she had had it done when she was seven. Before the accident. For eleven years she'd insisted on keeping it that way. Nobody realized that now she might be prepared to change. So, every morning, the maids braided it.

Her clothes, too, still reflected the choices of her childhood. Her mother had no interest, and the secluded life they'd had "our poor Virginia" live meant that there were no friends to ape either. Nor was there much hope of finding any. Virginia's parents had long since adopted the habit of keeping their daughter sequestered at home. There were appearances to maintain, after all. No proper Shareholder-and her father was preeminent in that number-wanted to be exposed to ridicule. It was embarrassing enough to have a brain-damaged child, without having the creature's slurring words, fits and tantrums exposed to public scrutiny. A seven-year-old mind trapped in the body of teenager was not acceptable in polite society. Not in the least. So, for years before the Korozhet soft-cyber implant had liberated her, Virginia's only friends had been Mister Ted, and Mrs. Wobbly, and all the other soft and fuzzy residents of her soft and fuzzy bed. But, for all their sweet charm and kindly disposition, they were not much help when it came to giving advice to a nineteen-year-old girl beginning to wonder about her place in the world.

So she still didn't have any friends. Well, except for her darling "Professor" and Fluff, the galago. Fluff had been a cuddly pet before he was soft-cyber uplifted.

Her parents regarded her new improved self with vast relief. At least she was no longer throwing her fits and tantrums. Now and then, they even permitted her to join them at the dinner table in their mansion. Lately, as they'd become more confident that she would not publicly shame them, they'd even taken her to dinner in town. Her mother had ordered her Vat dressmaker to make suitable garments for that. Her mother's maid came to make her up and dress her hair for these occasions. The only thing Virginia disliked more than these rare outings was her mother's maid.