Eric Flint: Rats, Bats and Vats

But, even so, a low public profile was still essential. What would people say about the Shaws having their daughter implanted with an alien-built nervous system enhancement device? The kind normally used on animals? Even Vats would whisper! (Not that the Shaws paid any attention to what the lower orders might say.)

Virginia didn't care. Much. After all, she had books. And so many! She had a whole childhood's reading to catch up on, in addition to all the adult books. There were real antique paper ones like the volume in her hand, or book-screen ones where she could blow the print up and didn't even have to use her thick glasses.

At the moment, she was devouring Regency romances from Old Earth. The download in her head had included Bronte, at her mother's insistence. Perhaps this had biased her, but she certainly enjoyed historical romances.

Fluff, on the other hand, did not. His objection was not to the genre as such, but to the activity itself. Because of the soft-cyber in the little galago's head it could read. But Fluff considered reading an effeminate pastime-and, what was worse, the wrong effeminate pastime. While Virginia was reading she was ignoring her far-more-important feminine duty, which was to pay attention to him.

He was most disgruntled. Was there anything more important to a macho hidalgo than the attentive admiration of a beautiful woman? Was there anything more natural than that she should adore him?

"Virginia, why do you read-read-read all of the time?" The little creature perched on her head and swung his long tail with its soft fur-ball at the end (that she so admired!) in front of her eyes. He knew that otherwise she wouldn't even notice him.

She plucked him off her head. Huge, limpid, dark eyes set in the tiny face of the long-tailed lemur-like creature stared back into her blue eyes. He blinked.

"So what else do you want me to do, Fluff?" she demanded. She was a bit irritated. Vernon had been on the brink of declaring himself to Frederica!

"Well… You could brush my fur, or"-hastily, seeing the start of a headshake-"we could dance?" This was a real sacrifice on his part. His soft-cyber had left him with a penchant for Wagner. She liked Viennese waltzes for similar reasons.

"Why don't you read a book instead?" she asked crossly. "I'm nearly finished with this one, and-"

"Then you will just start the next!" he protested.

Her door burst open. A ball, three feet in diameter and covered with rows of red-purple spines, came in, ambulating along on flexing spines. Virginia lowered the book and smiled broadly, her momentary pique quite forgotten.

"Professor!" There was no mistaking the delight in her voice on seeing the Korozhet. Most people found the sight of the sea-urchin-like alien somewhat unsettling. But Virginia thought the Professor was just darling. "What brings you here at this time of night?"

"Oh the relief of it! Oh, Miss Virginia! Oh, I am so glad to see you are unhurt!"

Virginia sat up straight, her eyes widening. The Korozhet's voice, transmitted through the device attached to its intricate speaking organ, expressed nothing in its tone. But Virginia, over the months, had learned to interpret many of the subtleties of the Professor's spine movements. (Much more, she sometimes thought with quiet pride and pleasure, than the Professor himself realized.) She had never seen that peculiar rattling of the spines before, but the motion and the noise practically shrieked: anxiety!

She began to ask a question, but the Korozhet cut her off. The Professor was already at her bedside, rattling its spines on the comforter. The hard organo-carbonate points left little tears in the cotton which enfolded the down interior.

"Quickly, Miss Virginia. Quickly! Come with me. We must flee at once."

Virginia flung aside the comforter and scrambled off the bed. "What's wrong?" she asked. But she didn't wait for an answer before gathering Fluff and planting him on her shoulder. An instant later, she was reaching for Mister Ted and Mrs. Wobbly. If it was a fire she must…

"Leave your possessions, Miss Virginia, leave them! It is you who are in danger, not they. Come quickly! We must away! The killers may still be here!"

"Killers?" She stopped.

"Keep moving, Miss Virginia! Your poor parents have been foully murdered! I have just now stumbled upon their corpses. The dreadful manner of their dying leaves me in no doubt: there are Jampad assassins here!"

Virginia gasped. She'd heard of the Jampad, from the Professor. "But I thought there were none of those… terrible things on the planet?"

"They must have approached secretly somehow. Oh, sorrow! That they should kill such worthy citizens!" The Korozhet was now trying to drive her towards the door. Virginia resisted long enough to put on more suitable clothing. She couldn't leave her room in her nightgown, after all. Her parents would be furious if she let the servants see Her parents were-dead? She groped for an emotional reaction, but couldn't find one.

"We must leave!" The Korozhet was starting to rap her legs with its spines, so great was its agitation. "Traitors must have told them that nothing could undermine the war effort more. Oh woe!"

Now they were through the door and into the corridor beyond. The Professor's anxiety had finally transferred itself to Virginia. And obviously to Fluff as well, by the way the galago was clutching her braids. Virginia began hurrying down the hallway. The Professor rattled in her wake, babbling in a rush.

"But at least they did not kill you, my dear! Your father-bless his wise soul-entrusted me, unworthy Korozhet that I am, with a contingency plan he had made against all eventualities." The Professor paused to replenish his wind bladder. "Such foresight! But he said to me in no uncertain terms: `I cannot be too careful, looking after my Virginia!' You were his most precious responsibility!"

Virginia swallowed. It sounded so… so romantic. But the momentary rush of affection for her father vanished almost as soon as it came. As she opened the door leading to the back staircase, she found herself repressing a sarcastic laugh. That just wasn't her father!

By the time she reached the first landing, sarcasm had been swept aside in its turn, replaced by affection for the Korozhet. Such a dear, he was! The Professor, by nature, always gave the best interpretation to everything.

The alien's next words confirmed her suspicion.

"You are his heir, Miss Virginia? I have that correctly?"

"Yes," she replied curtly. They had reached the bottom landing. She paused for an instant, pressing her ear against the door. She could hear nothing beyond. The silence left room for a sour thought. That's my father-worrying about the inheritance.

"It is a strange concept to us group-spawners," prattled the Professor. Frantically, Virginia waved her hand. Shhh!

But the alien seemed oblivious to the danger of making a noise. "I hope I can adequately fulfill your father's trust in me," said the Korozhet, talking as loudly as ever. "It is a heavy responsibility!"

Virginia sighed. The Professor was so absentminded. With a quick motion, she stooped and reached a hand into the mass of spines. It was the work of a split second to lower the volume on the voicebox. Thank heavens for standard controls.

The spines froze. Then, for an instant, bristled. Virginia realized that she had startled the alien. She had never actually touched the Professor before. She began to whisper an apology, but the Korozhet interrupted.

"Quite all right, my dear!" The spines seemed to soften. "I forget myself, you know. I am not accustomed to such peril!"

Virginia pressed her ear back against the door. Nothing. She decided it was safe to go through. Slowly, carefully, she turned the knob and cracked open the door. The action brought a stray and whimsical thought. On Old Earth, she knew, doors were opened by electronic means. But the colony on Harmony And Reason could afford no such complex mechanisms. It would hardly do to find oneself locked in because of the absence of an electronics industry.