The Rats, the Bats & the Ugly

  * * *

  "Right, Charge I, assault on a commissioned officer. It's the intent to do grievous bodily harm part that weakens their case. They've got plenty of witnesses to say you actually did it."

  "Actually," said Fitz, "it was those witnesses that stopped me making it worthwhile. Charlesworth has killed more troops than any other commander on the front."

  "While that is probably true," commented Ogata dryly, "and it would be useful if we could prove it, I don't suggest you mention the temptation to homicide to the judge."

  "I did the research," said Fitz curtly. "It's in my files at Military Headquarters. And I'm only prepared to tell the truth, Lieutenant Colonel."

  Ariel made a note to get Johnny Simms to deliver the file to Capra. He was less alarming than this Ogata man.

  "And I will be asking the questions," said Ogata, "so I will choose what to ask you to tell the truth about. Now. Mutiny. Once again, they've overreached. The business about the 'intent to have massacred, to cause loss of life to soldiers of the Army of Harmony and Reason' will make this difficult to stick. Capra has collected the statistics to back us up on this. Injury and loss of life on the sectors of line you commanded as a lieutenant and a captain were very light, they show."

  Fitz nodded. "The lowest on the front, simply because the Magh' didn't attack successfully defended positions. It was something I tried desperately to get HQ to apply, without success. But when I was serving on the front line—until that final advance when divisional headquarters refused to send us reinforcements—we did very well. Even then . . . we lost less men than most sectors lose in ordinary day-to-day combat. And the death and casualty tolls for the taking of Delta 355 must have been exceptionally light."

  "There'll always be the idiot that says one combat casualty is too many—if they didn't want you to take that action," said Ogata. "But the lieutenant is working on those figures also."

  "It's a question of locating records that aren't fully into the system yet," said Capra. "And of locating the witnesses. But I have a list of people from Van Klomp to contact as long as my arm." The lieutenant winced. "Did you have to fight with quite so many soldiers close at hand? Most officers don't. And that new Corporal of Van Klomp's—Connolly's his name, the one who rescued Virginia Shaw—will be invaluable for both the spying and mutiny charges. I've been acting for him on charges just about as ludicrous as these. He'll make a good, credible witness, and prove that there was no 'prior plan' for you to have betrayed to anyone."

  "As for the 'flight' charges," chimed in Ogata, "we've got hold of the MP that Captain Van Klomp's men kidnapped and brought to you. You were injured in combat, but on hearing they wanted to arrest you, you asked that they be brought to you. That charge we should be able to at least fight on those grounds."

  "I don't think I should—"

  "It's a minor charge, Fitz," pointed out Capra. "You were planning to hand yourself over, after all. And Van Klomp stuck his neck out to give you some defense. The MP captain says you were a model prisoner, and that he regrets having had to arrest you. We might even have to get him to tone down the hero worship a bit. You're causing the high command more headaches, and you are more likely to get them to reform from jail, than you were prowling around their corridors. They're not immune to public opinion, which is going to be solidly behind you. And fixing some of the mess at HQ was your aim, wasn't it, Fitz?"

  "I suppose so, if you put it like that," conceded Fitz.

  "I do," said Capra, with mock sententiousness. "I'm a lawyer. It's my job to put the best appearance on daft deeds. Now, this business of 'attempting to disrupt a secret plan.' We can—with Lance Corporal Connolly on the stand—prove that there was no secret plan. This was a target of opportunity, a huge one, that through negligence General Cartup-Kreutzler was prepared to let pass until rank and file soldiers went ahead on their own and took advantage of. We've got supporting evidence from the guards at his gatehouse, and their major, and the arresting MPs. Getting Daisy onto the stand might be worthwhile, too. It'll destroy his reputation with the public in military terms, anyway."

  "That's his private life," said Fitz, rigidity creeping into his tone. "I don't think it's right to get into that."

  "If I might point out to you, Fitzhugh," said Ogata sarcastically, "this man has attempted to have you killed on several occasions now. I am something of a student of military history. I would estimate that he could be held responsible for the deaths of thousands of men, through sheer incompetence. It would seem to me that charges of 'aiding the enemy' are those that he will eventually face himself, for his cooperation with the Korozhet. His only interest is his own skin. I think it unnecessary that you have to try to preserve his reputation, for him. Decide where you stand, Major."

  Fitz sighed. "I was brought up to believe that a person was entitled to a private life, Lieutenant Colonel. Any person."

  "We'll try and keep away from specifics, Fitz," said Capra. "The press will be terribly sad. They love a good scandal. There's been at least one editorial every day on this. Yesterday, they had an article from the Vat sergeant who was with you when you got the GBS Cross. We might use him as witness for this spying and aiding the enemy charge."

  "SmallMac? He deserved that medal as much as I did."

  "And the lieutenant who served under you then, Cavanagh?" asked Ogata, showing he had also done his research.

  "Last I heard he was also a major now. Good kid."

  There was a rustle of papers. "I have him as assigned to the sixth division," said Capra. "He's still on strength. We're trying to contact Major Cavanagh."

  "It's the spying charges that are the best structured," admitted Ogata. "The witness, Mervyn Paype, and those photographs are their crown jewels. And General Visse's secretary . . . We're looking into both."

  "They're complete frauds!" snapped Fitz. "Anyway, Shaw and Cartup-Kreutzler both discussed the plans with their Korozhet advisors. That's a direct line to the Magh'."

  "If we can establish that, we will," said Ogata, grimly.

  Inside the leg of the prisoners' overalls, Ariel felt terribly discomforted by all this. She didn't share—to put it mildly—the confidence of the lawyers in the legal system of Harmony and Reason.

  And why should she? From a rat's-eye point of view, that legal system was a complete joke.

  Chapter 25

  Inside the Office of the Colony's Chief Scientist,

  in the remaining frontal section of what was once a

  mile-long sub-lightspeed spaceship. It is here that the technical

  heart of the colony still beats, using equipment brought

  from Earth. This is adjacent to HARIT,

  the colony's leading technical university.

  "Dr. Wei, understand this clearly," said Sanjay Devi. "You did not see Dr. Evans killed. You have amnesia about the entire incident."

  The small, plump oriental man shook his head, stubbornly. "She was murdered. I saw it happen. The Korozhet killed her, Dr. Sanjay, and nothing you can say will stop me telling everyone I can. You would have to kill me first."

  "You damn fool!" snapped Liepsich. "That's exactly what they're planning to do. We're trying to keep you alive."

  The biologist blinked, and shook his head. "This is a free country," he said, stubbornly. "It's not right that her murderers should get away with this."

  "At the moment," said Liepsich slowly, "the Korozhet blame the murder on your hairy four-armed 'guest,' which they call a Jampad, and claim that it has projective telepathic capabilities. I don't necessarily believe that, but how can we be sure?"

  Wei snorted angrily. "Why would a projective telepath be unable to give us a clue to what it wanted to eat? Look, Dr. Liepsich. Dr. Devi. My work is dietary requirements. I've watched literally hundreds of animals 'selecting' foods. We brought everything we thought an arboreal brachiating creature could fancy—from meat to fruits, bark, nuts. I know. Wrong planet, wrong biology. But without being too intrusive, we had established tha
t it was a carbon-based kilotherm, with a hemoglobin based circulatory system. The proteins from the wound dressing we examined were familiar, at least to some extent. Compared to the Magh', or even the Korozhet, that thing was our first cousin. We had to be cautious not to offend a sentient alien by treating it like a lab animal. We thought that we might get some feedback. As a joke I put some prawns from lab three in there. I've seen animals react to food stimuli. When it saw those, I knew we'd found something which is similar to whatever it eats. Its dentition, Mari-Lou said, confirmed it was like our piscivores. And now you're telling me that a creature which is a good enough projective telepath to fake that scene in the passage couldn't even tell us what it needed to eat!"

  "We don't doubt you," said Sanjay Devi. "Or at least, I don't. Nonetheless, the official story is going to be allowed to stand." She glared at the Chinese scientist. "I am still the colony's Chief Scientist, Wei. It's a shipboard rank they decided to perpetuate to keep me quiet and sweet. As such, in time of war, I have formal authority over all scientific personnel in this colony. If need be, I'll pack you off to a moribund research station in the arctic regions, with a year's fuel and dry rations. Today, if need be. We're trying to deal with this situation. Having you yelling your head off about Mari-Lou Evans being murdered by the Korozhet would complicate things immensely."

  "You mean you're going to let them get away with this?" he demanded, incredulously.

  Liepsich heaved himself up from his chair. "I've been patient and polite for long enough, Wei. If I hadn't seen your IQ scores, I'd think you were a moron. Now I wonder if that gas left you brain damaged. Haven't you heard a word Sanjay said? If you open your big yap we're all dead and so is research into—" He ground his teeth. "Look, Wei. Let's say you want to neutralize a powerful acid, and all you have is a bucket of water. Do you pour water into the acid or acid into the water?"

  Wei was equally aggressive now. "Don't speak to me like that!"

  "Answer his question, please, Dr. Wei," said Sanjay pacifically. "You know what Liepsich is like. Impossible. But clever."

  Wei grimaced. Liepsich's rudeness was legendary. So was his ability as a scientist. "Acid into water, of course," he said sourly. "Every first-year undergraduate knows that."

  Dr. Liepsich put his hands on his hips. "You, and I, and everyone here are water. You, at the moment, are wanting to jump into the acid. And we are trying to persuade you, by brute force if need be, that that will get you killed and the rest of us burned with acid. We've got to bring the acid out and slowly, gradually, add it to the water. And we need more water. That's what I've been working on for nearly two years now. That's why I didn't even raise more than a token squall when the Korozhet loaded up all my newly acquired Magh' equipment. Because there is a time to squall. And a time to sit tight."

  "You gave them all your new material?" asked Wei, incredulous despite the circumstances. Liepsich had a reputation for clinging, limpetlike, to the smallest scraps of research material.

  Liepsich nodded gloomily. "Everything we had in the lab."

  Wei shook his head. "Everything?"

  "Everything they could find," said Liepsich, with saintly earnestness. "They said it was booby-trapped. They would have to explode the traps. But they did promise to return what was left afterwards. Oddly enough, I haven't seen so much as a scrap."

  Dr. Wei bit his lip. "It's still not the honorable and right thing to do, acting as if they had done nothing."

  "As one of Mari-Lou's closest friends, and a fellow thespian for many years, I know that is what she would have wanted you to do, Dr. Wei," said Sanjay. "We are all just players, of a kind. And the play is the thing . . ."

  Her brown eyes were suddenly brimming with tears.

  Chapter 26

  A neo-classical fronted restaurant, complete with white

  pillars and a vine-draped pergola, the air redolent

  with fine cuisine and money.

  Chip found the experience of walking up to the front entrance of Chez Henri-Pierre very strange. As part of the kitchen staff he'd never approached the building from that side. The white pillars and the trellised pergola of vines on either side of the porte-cochere were not for Vats like him. Vats came in through the security system at the back, which Henri-Pierre had no interest in making pretty.

  Chip had told Lynne Stark that it was a poor idea. Even the sudden addition of more money than Chip had ever seen in his life before to his credit balance wasn't going to change Henri-Pierre's attitude to Vats. And besides, there were ten places that Chip would rather waste his money than on his old employer.

  But the owner of INB had pushed aside his objections. "Firstly, this goes on expense account. You're not actually paying for it. 'Soldier-Hero revisits his civilian life.' It'll be a great human interest story. We've got Maxine Lefeur from Interweb coming along to take the stills."

  "Have you got an axe?"

  She looked wryly at him. "That's quite a comment about the two-hundred-dollar fillet steaks. Or are you planning to kill Henri-Pierre?"

  "No. It's just for the pine tree across the road," said Chip. "You'll need a battering-ram to get Henri-Pierre to let a Vat in the front door."

  She laughed. "Henri-Pierre just loves celebrities visiting his restaurant. Any celebrity. And as of seven o' clock this evening, when the news about your trial really hit the screens, you just became one. The call and e-mail trickle also started about then. While we were interviewing you, the news that we were doing so went onto the air. The trickle became a stream. Since then Henry has leaked some teasers through, with old background shots from the satellite pictures. The stream has turned into a flood. The station has never had this number of calls and e-mails before. People want the real story. And it turns out that there are huge numbers of people who are very unhappy about MIA's being listed as 'dead.' "

  Chip shook his head. "Ms. Stark, that's not fair. You're playing with people's hopes. I'm afraid that MIA might just as well mean 'dead.' Staying alive in the Magh' scorpiaries is nearly impossible."

  "Chip. We're saying that. But before you and your rat and bat buddies proved differently, there was no such thing as 'nearly.' And there was Virginia Shaw and that alien, don't forget. Perhaps prisoners do get taken."

  Chip frowned. "I never thought about that alien. He showed us how to make the Magh' gesture of submission. That might be a useful thing for troops to know. Mind you, he said he was there to be live food for the larvae, to teach them how to kill. I guess maybe there's not a lot of point in it."

  She shuddered. "There weren't any humans held there?"

  "If there were, they got buried. The larvae must have gone to somewhere close to the egg-racks, because that was where the Jampad was prisoner. The bats rigged explosive booby traps all over that area, and the Magh' triggered them."

  Lynne Stark's eyes narrowed. "I'll pass this on to a contact of mine. It could be worth digging around there. You know what sort of story it would make if we found people, or," she said slowly, "their remains."

  Chip made a face. "It'd be tricky. The whole tower is designed not to be dug through. It's a double wall structure filled with fine loose stuff between the walls."

  "It sounds like it calls for mining engineers." She disappeared to make yet another call.

  Unfortunately, she'd come back, still intent on dinner.

  * * *

  So here he was, in the pressed new uniform they'd gotten him for his court-martial, with the new stripes and beret badge. As an "other ranker," he didn't have a dress-uniform anyway. He walked uneasily toward the brass handles of the front door of Chez Henri-Pierre.

  "Good evening." The maître d'hotel was new since Chip's time. He had, however, already perfected the art of looking down his nose at dubious guests. "You have a reservation?" he asked, in a cultivated French accent.

  The "Sir" was conspicuously absent in the question. "Mais oui, certainement," replied Lynne Stark casually.

  The maître d' Hotel looked distinctly alarm
ed. "In the name of Stark, Gaston," she said, with just a hint of a malicious smile. "This is Lance Corporal Charles Connolly, our newest war hero. Maxine, if you can just get a picture of Gaston here escorting the corporal to our table?"

  The commis who had just finished laying the table was too young to be conscripted yet. But she had already done some months in the kitchen as a dishwasher when Chip had been called up. She took one look at him, and cascaded the remainder of her cutlery onto the floor.

  "Chef!"

  In Henri-Pierre's hierarchy-ridden kitchen, a sous-chef was, to a mere plongeur, someone of vast elevation. Chip, having survived the egalitarian winnowing of the Magh'—who didn't care what rank they killed—found it mildly amusing to think that he'd once considered himself vaguely important because of it. He'd always known that his promotion to sous-chef had come about because the war had already claimed those Henri-Pierre would rather have had. He supposed that that was why this waif was now elevated from scrub to junior waiter.

  "Hello, Claire," he said pleasantly, as she frantically tried to pick up the spoons under Gaston's angry glare.

  She blushed and picked up spoons even more hastily, then scurried away to the kitchen. Chip had no doubt at all she would soon be telling this delicious titbit to her fellow kitchen slaves. Perhaps a few of them would remember him.

  The turnover of Vat apprentices in this place had always been a little frightening. Even by the standards set by HAR Shareholders, Henri-Pierre had been a savage class bigot. On the one hand, training as a Chef de partie in his restaurant was one of the few places a Vat could hope to earn a decent wage, eventually. You usually got enough to eat, too. On the other hand, the work and the hours were worse than almost anywhere else, not to mention Henri-Pierre's brutal discipline.

  Chip sighed. With any luck, the news wouldn't spread to Henri-Pierre. He didn't always see every diner, after all. If Henri-Pierre found out he was here as a guest . . . there'd be hell to pay. With the snobbery of any really excellent and successful chef, Henri-Pierre simply didn't give a damn about public opinion. A Vat war hero, so far as he'd be concerned, was just another stinking Vat. As such, not fit to be served at one of his tables.