Worlds

  Ariel tapped the side of the hip flask suggestively. "I'm in. Now this rotgut sack you have in here: 'tis remarkable easy to drink compared to issue grog, even if it doesn't have a proper bite to it. How about another, then?"

  "Well, for those who are in, naturally," said Fitz, innocently. He could afford $10,000 a month for a private army, he thought as he poured. Candy's apartment had cost him about that—and he wasn't having to pay for that anymore. He'd cancelled the lease.

  Ariel drank the whiskey slowly, speculatively, unlike most of the rats who were into chug-and-splutter. "Methinks I shall nursemaid this one," she announced. "For if he dies, we get naught." She looked curiously at him. "Besides, I want to inspect his naked weapon and see if he's adequate for a girl like me." She wrinkled her whiskers and revealed that the stories of his exploits had reached the rats. "This 'woman's underwear.' Explain?"

  Fitz was still blushing at the idea that a rat might consider his wedding tackle too small. Or interesting. The sergeant had been right about no morals . . . or inhibitions! "Ah. Underclothes. Um. Panties and brassieres. Suspender belts."

  "Doth speak riddles. Small pants? Things for grilling meat?"

  "Women . . . um, men too, wear a second pair of pants under their clothes. To cover their private parts."

  The rats would obviously have found astrophysics more comprehensible.

  Fitz discovered that Ariel took "nursemaid" to mean she was going to take up residence in his magazine pouch, or on his shoulder. But the day wasn't out before he discovered that this casual invasion of his privacy was worthwhile.

  The nightmare creatures struck just at dusk. None of the pictures or lectures had prepared Fitz for the reality. Or for the speed and ferocity of it all. They'd said at OCS that up to seventy percent of human soldiers never survived the first major assault. Now Fitz understood why. And he also knew that if it wasn't for his pocket assassin-cum-bodyguard, he'd have been dead five times over in that assault. Rats were everywhere. Blur-fast lethal killers with a terrifyingly casual attitude to their killing. And Fitz discovered that "ten each" was a gross underestimate of their potential and the Magh's sheer numbers.

  "Sector headquarters on the blower, Lieutenant."

  "Hell's teeth. Have you told them we're under attack?!"

  "They know, Lieutenant. The line on either side of us folded. They're sending reinforcements into those trenches, hoping to hold line two. They thought we—being in the center of the attack—must all be dead. They want us to retreat."

  "Tell 'em we're still holding. We don't want to be outflanked though." Fitz turned to one of the NCOs. "What are our losses like, Corporal?"

  The man was grinning like a dervish, despite the blood soaking his shirt from a gash on his chest. "Slight, sir. Five men I know of. Some wounded, but there are no more Maggots coming over. We're fighting them coming along the trenches from the sectors next door now."

  "Are we going to hold them, Corporal?"

  The man nodded. "The rats have gone kill-crazy, Lieutenant. I've never seen anything like it. The Maggots usually send a lot of 'scorps. This is all light, fast stuff. Easy to kill. Those damned rats would have killed twice as many if they didn't stop to take a claw off each one. Some kind of new rat-craze."

  "Tell 'em. Hell, no. I'd better tell them." Fitz ran for the field-telephone bunker.

  "Lieutenant Fitzhugh here."

  "Captain Dewalt here. Colonel's orders. Sound a retreat for any survivors, Lieutenant," said the voice on the other end.

  "We've held them off, sir. And there are no more Magh' coming. We're mopping up."

  His words didn't appear to have registered with the Captain. "We'll have stretcher teams in the second trench line. Leave the rats . . ."

  "We've held them off, sir," repeated Fitz, louder now. "No need to retreat."

  There was a stunned silence. "What! That's ridiculous. . . . I'd better confer with the colonel. Stay near the field telephone."

  Fitz didn't. Instead he left—at a run—to see how the fight with the Magh' from the next-door sector was doing.

  The answer was: not well. The rats were there . . . but several of them were sitting down, leaving the fight to the human troops. And those that were still fighting were going to die. It was not that the Magh' were overwhelming. It was just that the rats seemed to be behaving like clockwork toys . . . in need of rewinding. "What's wrong?" yelled Fitz to Ariel as he ran forward to the fray.

  "Methinks they're faint with hunger."

  Of course! He'd been told the elephant-shrew genes gave the rats phenomenal appetites. They must have fast metabolisms and little stamina. "Feed the rats! Give them any food you've got, especially sugar, or we're dead!"

  He hauled out the tin of sucking candy and flung it at a sergeant, before running into the fight. "Get someone across the west side and tell them," he yelled, bangstick stabbing through pseudochitin.

  He had no idea how fast the rats would recover. He was relieved to discover that it was really quick, and that the average grunt, when faced with death or parting with precious little luxuries he kept next to his skin, would reluctantly part with the luxuries. The east side trenches of the late Lieutenant Zuma soon would be free of Magh'.

  As he set off across to the west side, he was met by a panting private. "Sir. Colonel Brown on the line. He's insisting we retreat."

  Fitz stopped. "Did you give him your name, Private?"

  "I couldn't get a fucking word in edgeways, sir. Sorry, pardon language, sir."

  "This is a war, not a kindergarten, Private. A pity Private Johnstone was killed before he could give me the message. He is dead, isn't he?"

  The private grinned. "Yes, sir. I saw him die. Poor fellow."

  "Stick to that story," said Fitz. "And see that the field telephone has a convincing accident. Cave part of the bunker in. The fight's all over on the east side. If we can lick them on the west, I'm not running."

  Ten minutes later Fitz called in from the west side's field telephone. "Yes, sir. My apologies, sir. I was called away from our field telephone to deal with an immediate crisis. Unfortunately the instrument was destroyed and the man I had instructed to remain with it was killed."

  He waited for the volcano to subside and then answered the last question.

  "Where am I calling from, sir? Why Section B3, sir. On our west side. We've already secured the east side. We'd like some relief, Colonel. We're pretty thin spread holding three pieces of the line."

  There was a long silence from the other side. Then: "You're making your fellow officers look bad, Lieutenant. Hum. I'll get some men up to you at once. They're waiting in trench line two."

  7

  In the seven weeks that followed, Fitz's section survived a sequence of small probes and one more direct assault. This was somewhat worse than the first one. But Fitz's new system of buddying two rats to each human soldier worked remarkably well. The rest of the rats he used as a free-range strike force. And this attack seemed almost like a spearpoint aimed at his piece of the line. Once they'd stopped it, they didn't even have to deal with the other sections. And then even artillery bombardment slacked off.

  They eventually had to retreat after three weeks of near idleness and weapons drill, because the line had folded to the west of them. "It's almost as if they won't hit here, because we're strongest here," grumbled Fitz. He never thought he'd miss Magh' attacks, but the boredom made keeping the troops in readiness hell. There was drunkenness, gambling, and several fights about women . . . and fights about men among the women. Only the rats seemed content.

  Sergeant Ellis nodded. "It's always like that, sir. The Maggots always attack where we're weakest."

  "Suggests good intelligence, doesn't it, Sarge?"

  "Can't be military intelligence then, sir," said the sergeant, handing him a couple of sealed dispatches.

  Fitz cracked the first open. "Well, glory be! This'll cheer the troops up. We've done our two-month frontline stint and we're being pulled back to thi
rd line for a month to rest the men."

  "Be about the fullest company to get rested," said the sergeant. "Half the time the companies have to be replaced and re-formed before that. The lads'll see some leave, too. You get a week when you're on third trench," she said with relish.

  "That'll be a shock to civvy street," said Fitz dryly. Life expectancy in the trenches was about forty days at the moment. Inside, he was deeply grateful that he would be returning some eighty-three percent of his men past that. It was something you didn't dwell on here. But it did make boredom sweet. He opened the second envelope. Blinked. "It appears this bunch of ne'er-do-wells is due to attend a medals parade at sector headquarters. And yours truly is promoted to lieutenant first class. With the corresponding increase in pay of seven dollars a day, and family and retirement benefits."

  "The family and retirement benefits sound good, sir," said the sergeant. She'd given up trying to get into Fitz's pants a while back. Ariel was a good dog-in-the-manger. But the sergeant still cast sheep's eyes his way sometimes. Fitz avoided them with care. That was a set of complications he didn't need here, as their CO. Still, as a normal male there were certain intentions he was planning to follow up on that seven-day pass, when he didn't have a minder.

  In dress BDUs that now had a row of ribbons on the chest, and a second pip on their shoulders, Fitz blinked at the bright lights outside the troop disembarkation station. He put his bag down and wondered just where to go now.

  "To find some food and drink," said the bag, in Ariel's voice, obviously guessing his thoughts.

  "What the hell are you doing in there?" he demanded.

  "Methinks I am crossing my legs and tying a knot in my tail. Hurry up and let me out before I pee on your kit."

  Given the alternative, letting her out seemed the only option. And, tempting though it might be, he couldn't just run off and leave her there. She had kept him alive in the trenches, after all. So, with a curious rat peering out of his magazine pocket, he took a taxi into town. It was at her orders he stopped at the Paradise Pussy Club, too. It had a flashing neon cocktail-glass sign.

  The bouncer eyed the man in uniform uncertainly. While officers in full-dress uniform, complete with ceremonial swords, were regular and welcome visitors to the club, men in BDUs were not. However this was definitely an officer, even if he was wearing dress BDUs. Against his better judgement he'd let him in.

  * * *

  In the pale hours of morning, Fitz looked cheerfully back at the club. It had been a great evening. The lap dancer would no doubt recover from the bite on her well-padded tail-end . . .

  He gently patted the rat whose long nose protruded from his pocket, issuing ladylike snores. He'd had a wonderfully vulgar evening with a delightful girl, who had just discovered Cointreau. She'd thought that the strippers and pornographic backdrop movie were the best live entertainment she'd ever seen. Well, it was also the only show she'd seen. Of course, Ariel had also thought it was the side-splittingest comedy she'd ever seen. Rats have no taboos about genitalia or even sex. But what a wonderful girl. She had a biting sense of humor and just happened to be a rat. Damn fool of a bouncer should have understood that. The man would almost certainly recover. Saunas weren't that hot, were they?

  It seemed a little early on such a delightful evening—or morning—to go and visit the parental abode. His own residence had been sold. He'd terminated the lease on the only other place he'd had a claim on, and anyway, Candy probably wouldn't have been glad to see him. Perhaps 4:00 a.m. was a little late to go and see if Van Klomp had gone soldiering, finally. He walked idly through an alleyway, where a foolish man waved a knife at him.

  "Empty your pockets, soldier," sneered that shifty soul.

  Fitz shrugged. "On your head be it."

  A few minutes later, now in search of an all-night store that sold chocolate, he'd gently woven his way up to two men in uniform with white bands around their hats and asked directions. One had been about to prod Fitz in the gut with a nightstick, when he saw the pips on his shoulders. While the MPs were pointing Fitz toward an all-night convenience store, someone with a much faster metabolism was opening the doors to the paddy wagon. Ariel had not survived her only brush with the law not to recognize one.

  They zigzagged their course onward rather like that extra stray neutron in a fissionable mass. Letting a rat inside the doors of something like Aladdin's cave was rank foolishness. Fortunately, Fitz was by now sober enough to point out the closed-circuit television to her. She was even more fascinated by this concept and insisted on breaking into the security room to inspect the monitors. The puzzled alarm-response crew found nothing.

  Then, it was dawn, and since a passing taxi was available, Fitz had taken her to see Van Klomp. Unfortunately for the HAR Bolshoi Ballet company . . .

  Van Klomp was only due back from his new unit that night. Fitz had peacefully fallen asleep—a good soldier can sleep anywhere, anytime—on Van Klomp's sofa. So that left Meilin talking to Ariel. And the subject, naturally enough, was Fitz himself—his reputation, and the trouble he'd had with the law, and, of course . . . Candy.

  What was less predictable—unless you knew rat-nature—was that this long discussion should also involve pornographic backdrops and closed-circuit television. Meilin knew quite a lot about the latter, as that was one aspect of Van Klomp's business. Neutrons are very small. What they can cause is not.

  There was a sonic boom. Well. The return of Van Klomp, anyway.

  "Can't you keep away from troublesome women?" demanded Van Klomp, on meeting the rat with a glass of his port in her hand.

  She blew him a raspberry, a rather good one, as she'd only learned to do so the night before.

  He blew one back that nearly flattened her ears. "So what have you been doing so far, boykie? Nothing as stupid as last time, I trust."

  Fitz grinned. "We've toured one of GBS city's finest establishments, namely the Paradise Pussy Club, and visited my father. Cordial terms are restored, but his advice is that we're too alike to keep it that way if we share a house. So I've come to bum a piece of floor. It's got to be drier and more comfortable than where I've been sleeping lately."

  "And welcome. Pull up any piece you like. So, what did the old man think of a visit by a rat?" He looked disapprovingly at the bottle Ariel was clutching. "Did you steal his booze too?"

  Ariel lifted her nose at Van Klomp. "Pshaw. Of course I was well behaved. 'Twas an experience. I never met a real live progenitor before. He told me to look after Fitz, because it is obvious he can't look after himself."

  "True," said Van Klomp, taking the bottle away from her. "And having visited the ancestral home, what excitement is planned for tonight? More visits to cathouses?" he asked with vast tolerance.

  Fitz lifted his aristocratic nose. "I am going to introduce Ariel to culture."

  Van Klomp snorted. "There's a Bavarian beerfest tomorrow night. Or is that a bit upmarket for a rat who has stolen half my port? Or maybe you were thinking of Chez Henri-Pierre again. He won't let a Vat in the front door. I'm sure he'd be charmed at a rat—especially after your last visit. And then you could go and watch the HAR Bolshoi Ballet's performance of The Nutcracker Suite."

  "The latter sounds about right. I think we will give Henri-Pierre the go-by," said Fitz, loftily. "His portions are too stingy for Ariel, anyway."

  "Besides, I haven't finished all your port, yet. And Meilin is cooking dinner for us. Curried tripe," said Ariel with an expression of bliss.

  Van Klomp laughed. "I'm tempted to come along just to see what a rat makes of the ballet. But I've got work to do tonight. And beside, the beerfest is more my sort of thing."

  The acrobatic Ariel thought ballet was quite funny for about five minutes. She was mostly fascinated by the large flatscreen DVD backdrop, which was a great saving in set changes. When Ariel pointed out it was rather reminiscent of last night's pornographic one, only with worse dancing, Fitz had to turn his laughter into a fit of coughing. He still attracted
a number of disapproving "hushes."

  Ariel also alarmingly disappeared from their private box for a while. There were no screams or other sounds of pandemonium, so Fitz didn't allow the look of glee on her ratty face to worry him too much. She did however adore the Cointreau-centered liqueur chocolates he'd bought her.

  He'd have slept less soundly if he'd known that she'd spent the rest of the night driving around with Meilin, part of it in a very exclusive Shareholder neighborhood. And part of it visiting a couple of Vat-girls of negotiable virtue and adaptable morality. It was, Ariel concluded, a lot more fun than the ballet.

  "This lot should bring down the house," said Meilin with a particularly evil grin when she'd finished editing the film.