Eric Flint: Rats, Bats and Vats

"Virginia, cease clinging to the human and come with me!" ordered the Korozhet. "It is a troublemaker. A lower life-form, one of those Vat-bred creatures."

She looked at the red, spiny alien. She couldn't bring herself to say "No." But she shook her head and clung more tightly to Chip.

The Expediter had had a long and trying time of it since these stupid, irritating humans had "rescued" it from its bath. And, of all the annoyances, that human soldier had been the worst. And now he had made one of the Overphyle's implanted slaves resist! The Expediter was suffering from a lack of gamete discharge. She knew this made her extremely short tempered…

There was only one cure for rebellious slaves, and that was killing them. But the resources attached to the Virginia slave were just too valuable to dispose of lightly. As sole "heir"-such an odd notion!-to the humans' largest chunk of wealth, the creature could be very valuable to the Expediter. As long as the wretched thing was under proper control…

The Expediter struggled with rage. It had been pleasant to deal with that rat who had dared to overcome the soft-cyber conditioning. She had also vented some of her rage on the bat, who had chosen to come into the tunnel at the wrong time. But she was still angry. Furious, in fact.

These Earth-creatures were poor slaves. They used their natural sophistry to disobey. Well, commands issued in English they could still twist and misinterpret. It was a language fraught with imprecision. But the Expediter could order in Korozhet. That was the default language and allowed no chance for disobedience. Her ocelli focused on the scruffy little Vat-soldier. This one had done worse than any of them. He'd laughed at the Overphyle! He had dared to use derogatory terms!

"You know," said Chip, "the difference between you and a car full of sh… officers, is that the car has the little pricks on the inside."

The human soldier should never have made that comment. The Expediter was sensitive about her spine-length. She finally lost her temper completely.

Chip had survived an inordinate time in the trenches, fighting warrior-Magh'. They were fast. Really fast. The main reason he was still alive was that he was one of those lucky individuals with naturally fast reactions. The Expediter had only killed rich, middle-aged humans before. This was different. Chip saw the spines come up. He grabbed Ginny and dived across the back of the nearest scorp.

The hissing harpoon darts went home… into the scorp.

The Expediter was too late to stop the first toxin pulse. And it saw Chip reach for his belt. Fools! The Magh' hadn't even disarmed them! Magh' regarded bodies as weapons, and had yet to truly come to terms with the alien propensity for sharp-edged or heavy artificial tools of destruction. If the Vat creature still had his four-pound hammer, the heavy tool would smash right through her calcareous test. At a time like this, it was best to cut and run. She could grow new harpoons.

In a cloud of gas, the Expediter severed her harpoons and legged it away on fast-flexing spines.

The hiss…

"Hold your breath!" shouted Chip. He hoped the gas might affect their guards, but it didn't seem to, or, perhaps, they were holding their breath too.

Chip and Ginny were thrust forward again.

Eventually, they just had to breathe. The air simply tasted of Maggot-pong, but Chip found himself feeling a bit odd, and slightly light headed. Ginny kept swaying into him. Not that he really minded that, of course. Actually, after a few seconds, the whole incident seemed like a good joke. The two of them started giggling. Chip even found himself chuckling about the fact that the stinking Crotchet could run at least as fast as a man and could climb perfectly well.

It was a good bridge to cross slightly stoned, even if that wasn't quite the safest way it could be done. There were no sides and the two of them could barely walk abreast. And the scorps weren't even following. So the two them stopped midway for a bit of lip-and-tongue gymnastics. They got rather distracted. Quite distracted, actually. Eventually a scorp had to come and prod them on. They crossed the rest of the way hugging each other, occasionally swaying into the outstretched chelicerae.

Eric Flint

Rats, Bats amp; Vats

Chapter 43:

Third thoughts.

GETTING THEM UP the shaft was slow, and awkward. The oppressive warm darkness was overfull of depressed rats and bats. Bronstein was getting to the stage where if she heard another sigh, she was going to bite whoever did it. Given the way things were going, it would be Eamon or Nym.

She sighed. Then realized what she'd just done.

Oh, well. Fair was fair. She bit herself. "Yow!"

"Hwhat is going on now?" said O'Niel, in a "hope-I-can-bite-somebody" tone.

"Nothing," she said grumpily. Then reconsidered it. "Oh bejasus, O'Niel. There is a decent bit of ledge here. The rats and that galago can stop here. You and I can go for a fly up the shaft and see whether it actually does lead out or not."

O'Niel plainly liked the idea, even if it involved flying. "If it doesn't, we can go back, indade."

"Go to it," grunted Nym from the ledge. "I'll bring the rest up. 'Tis a ridiculous idea to keep climbing, if we just have to come down again. And methinks you should take Eamon. He keeps sighing like a leaky gasbag."

The bats fluttered upwards. And upwards. The shaft curved slightly so that they could not sonar too far ahead but, at length, Bronstein detected what she both longed for and dreaded. Space. And then there was a circle of light.

They flew out into the first rays of early morning sunlight. Daylight was never a bat's favorite. Still, being out of the Maggot mounds felt… free. Looking back, and carefully substituting the word "Crotchet" for another word which must not even be thought, Bronstein could see that it had all been rank insanity. All driven by that Crotchet wanting to get back to its true allies. Treacherous, foul alien. She would hate it forever and ever.

She thought about their journey through the tunnels. Scenes came unbidden and clear. Madness! But, ah! What a glorious madness it had been. And they might even have succeeded, despite the traitor. They'd come so close to the group-mind before the Crotchet had misled them. It had taken them down instead of up.

It hit her like the morning sunlight. Warm, beautiful and wonderfully liberating. "Let us go down, fellow bats. Let us go down and finish what we came to do, to be sure!"

Eamon blinked at her "Bring them up here, you mean. 'Tis daylight. It will…"

Bronstein shook her head. "No! Eamon, it goes against my grain to admit this, but you are a better bat with explosives than I. Could we be bringing down that roof above the place where we saw the… Crotchet?"

Eamon's face shifted from gloom to a savage crinkled grin. "Michaela Bronstein, it goes against my grain, but you are a better thinker than I. Yes, indade, it'd take most of what we still have, but if we blew away those trusses… I am sure that the ceiling would fall, anyway. The whole roof it could be. And at the very least we'll avenge them!"

O'Niel looked somber. "We will have to explain it to the rats."

Bronstein bit her lip. Eamon too was silenced. The big bat looked shrunken. He looked like a bat carrying all the weight of the world on tired wings. Then he straightened his shoulders and spread his wings in Harmony And Reason's bright sunlight. "Indade. And you may put the blame on me, where it rightly belongs. But I'll not let my pride stand before our vengeance." He stepped backwards and fell into the shaft.

O'Niel chuckled. "Pistol has the right of it. When he does that, he looks like he's most terrible constipated. Come. Let's get to it, then."