“What, me?” Pistol gave her the full benefit of his eyepatch. “Jealous of a namby-pamby thing like that? Ha!”
“Well,” said Chip, getting to his feet. “I never thought I’d see the day that rats were crazier than bats. What the hell.” He gave Bronstein and the other bats a stiff little bow. “It’s been nice knowing you guys.” To the rats: “I just want to get some stuff together from the workshop before we go.”
Bronstein looked amused. “To be sure, who said we weren’t going with you?”
“‘Tis a foine and noble lost cause to die for!” O’Niel put in.
“Wrap the bat-wing round me, boys . . .” Siobhan quavered.
Fal turned to Eamon. “I can’t stand you, and you can’t stand me. I suppose we’ll have to join them or I’m fated to be left here with you. But I’m going to stock up for the trip too. With brandy.”
* * *
Chip stood in the workshop, checking his gear. He didn’t want to admit, even to himself, that he was putting off going underground again. “Flexible saw, I’ve got. I’ll need to cut a bigger door. Rope I’ve got. That’ll have to do for an anchor.” Chip tossed his attempt with some rusty reinforcing rod and the vise on the pile. It wasn’t going to win him any prizes for practical engineering, but he might have gotten one for modern sculpture.
“I better test this idea first, though.” He picked up the backpack herbicide sprayer. “I’d back off, you lot, in case the whole thing goes whoof along with me.”
He pumped up the pressure. Gingerly, he lit Fal’s zippo, held the flame up and then squeezed the trigger to his homemade flamethrower. He’d taken off the original spray pipe and replaced it with an eighteen-inch-long brass pipe, with the spray nozzle from the paint spray gun hammered into the end of it. He’d used a piece of wood to buffer the hammer, but, even so the nozzle was not quite what it used to be. It sprayed diesel rather skewly.
Nothing happened. The mist of diesel drifted back toward him . . . nothing happened. It probably wasn’t atomizing the stuff finely enough. He gave up.
“We will need you to carry a couple of bags of stuff for us,” said Bronstein, as Chip stared morosely at the failed flamethrower.
“Sure. What?”
“Two of those. Unless you can manage three or four.” The bat pointed a wing at the bags of fertilizer.
Chip shook his head. “For what, bat? It’s fertilizer, for crying out loud.”
The bat ground her teeth audibly. “I know it is fertilizer, Connolly. It’s ammonium nitrate. Don’t you know anything about explosives?”
Chip chuckled sourly. “Sure. I’m an experienced sous-chef. If you put an unpunctured squash into a microwave, it explodes.”
The bat hissed breath through its long teeth. “Listen. Just take it from me. I know explosives. Using our satchel-charges as detonators we can make that explode.”
“You listen, and just take it from me, Bronstein. Those bags probably weigh a hundred pounds each. I know heavy lifting. I’m not going to stagger down into the Maggot-tunnels carrying even one bag.”
“Half a bag?” she asked, her voice hopeful and wheedling, hardly like Bronstein at all.
It made him feel guilty. “Half a bag split into two bags.”
“Are you sure that’s all you can manage? We could do so much . . .”
“Destruction. Eamon’s idea of a good time.” Chip turned on the rats, lounging against the tractor. “And you? Anything you’d like me to carry? Besides your idle selves, that is. What about that dinky little tractor to lean against? I could put that on one shoulder, and then take a stainless steel vat of wine on the other.”
Fal grinned at him. “Don’t take it out on us because those bats want you to hump a ton of fertilizer. Anyway, what is the use of carrying wine when we’ve discovered a vat of brandy? Here, try some of this.”
Chip took the proffered glass of clear stuff. Took an unwary mouthful. Spayed it out, coughing. “You stupid bastards! That’s lighter fuel!”
The rats seemed to find that very funny. “A bit over-proof, eh?”