Chapter 38: There is just time for . . .
“Where the hell have you lot been?” demanded Chip, as the bats fluttered down from the ceiling. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d have thought you’d flown off and left us.”
He turned and began moving toward Ginny and the rats. “We need to have council-of-war, and that needs you, Bronstein. Otherwise these head-plastic-for-brains bastards expect me to make decisions.”
If he’d been setting out to make the three bats look utterly hangdog and guilty, thought Bronstein, he couldn’t have done a better job. Fortunately he’d looked across at Virginia, just then.
“You’re a good leader, Chip,” Bronstein protested.
Chip was hearing the words, not the tone. “Don’t be crazy, Bronstein. Have you been drinking or something? I’m a grunt. Even Ginny is a better leader than me. When she’s not being illogical about her damned Crotchet, that is.”
“Indade, now, that’s not true . . .” began Eamon tentatively.
“Don’t you start defending the goddamn prickle-ball! I don’t know what you’ve got into your heads about that fucking thing.” Chip stopped, sniffed. “You have been drinking!”
“No. I meant I thought you had leadership skills,” said the big bat, humbly.
Chip shook his head in amazement and raised his eyes to heaven. “You’re as pissed as a newt, Eamon.” They’d arrived at the huddle of rats, Ginny and the galago near the doorway.
The self-elected grunt announced in a voice of gloom: “Well, folks, we are in excrement deep and dark and dire. Really deep. Twenty feet over nostril. Deep enough to have Eamon getting so totally rat-assed pissed that he’s claiming that humans make good leaders.”
“That is an illogical contention,” said Doc in a weak voice.
Melene put her tail protectively over him. “Now don’t strain yourself. Rest, dearest.”
Doc gazed rheumily at her. “I’ve died and gone to heaven.” He choked. “That’s philosophically awkward. I thought atheists went to hell, even if they’d been blown to bits. Will I disappear if I say to God I don’t believe in him? I suppose it is bit late for the acquisition of religious convictions.”
“He’s got his wits back,” said Fal.
Nym snorted. “Unfortunately.”
“You leave him alone,” said Melene, in voice that could cut glass.
“Logical extension of the perceptual facts say I cannot be dead and in heaven, despite Melene’s most exquisite tail being wrapped around me, because I see Pistol’s unbeauteous face. Aspects of heaven and hell belong in mutually exclusive . . .”
“Oh shut up, Doc. Have a drink. It’ll fix you up.” Fal held out a bottle.
“Indeed, I am in need of that . . . purely for its restorative properties.” Feebly, Doc reached for the bottle.
Mel swatted the bottle away. “You’re not having any of that until you feel better!”
Doc sat up hastily. “I’m feeling much better,” he said, in a far more cheerful voice than his earlier die-away tones. “And I really, really, need a drink. My mouth does not taste good, Melene dearest.”
Fal passed the bottle again. This time Melene made no attempt to stop him taking it. But the scholarly rat didn’t take an immediate drink. Instead he passed it to Melene. “Have a drink, my dear.”
Melene managed to look coy, which is quite an achievement for a rat. “I didn’t know you cared, Pararattus.”
“Doc, you Bartholomew boarpig! That’s my bottle. Get your own bottle or candy!” Fal managed to snatch back the bottle, but not before Doc had had a pull at it.
Doc shook his head and said, mournfully: “I can’t get my own bottle. The Korozhet took my pack.”
“How can you say that?” demanded Doll, hands on her ratty hips.
Pararattus gave this rhetorical question serious consideration. “It is difficult. But I find if you consider the term Korozhet according to Plato’s Forms . . . then it is quite possible to say that the Korozhet gassed me, and placed me on a pile of explosives. Then, while I lay between consciousness and unconsciousness, it killed Siobhan when she tried to come to the Korozhet’s aid. She believed that it was helping me.”
“Oh, nonsense!” piped Fal. “You got hit on the head and you were seeing things.”