* * *
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.”