Nym looked at him quizzically. “Giving the naked weapon to a Maggot?”
Chip smothered a snort. “That . . . wasn’t quite what I meant. Um. But say I was doing that. You’d say I was a traitor, right?”
The big rat snorted. “I’d say it was a dead Maggot, or you’re in grave danger of . . . coming short.” Nym clutched reflexively. Doc grinned.
“Besides, I have seen excretory orifices on them but no reproductive organs,” said Doc, pushing the pince-nez back on his nose.
“You haven’t gone strange on us and want to bugger Maggots have you?” Nym asked warily. “We haven’t been under shell-fire for days. What does this have to do with Dermott or that Virginia Shaw?”
“As far as I’m concerned, the enemy aren’t just the Maggots,” said Chip fiercely. “Look at it this way. Why the hell do you think we’re conscripts? A good kid like Sandy Dermott is dead, instead of back at school, but ‘Miss Virginia Shaw’ is living it up in her mansion, eating at Chez Henri-Pierre, having a good life? We’re cloned cannon fodder to the goddamn Shareholders. And then she has the cheek to say, as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth: ‘Anyone can become a Shareholder.’ Oh, yeah. I can buy a basic share as soon as I’m debt free. All I’ve got to do is pay off the cost of turning me from a tissue scrap to human, and of educating me into cannon fodder to die for them. Which would take me the rest of my life, even assuming I don’t get killed in the war.”
“You could be worse off. Such conditions are relative. You could be a rat, created for a war in the Company laboratories.” Doc stretched himself out, leaning against the tractor’s wheel.
Chip thought about this. “And how do you feel about that?”
“Philosophical. If there was no war there’d be no rats . . . or bats. But that is the nature of we short-lived creatures. Though the bats find it a bone of sore contention.”
Nym got back to the point. “So if I understand this right, you don’t want to prong this wench because she’s Company.”
“Yep.”
The big rat grinned. “But you do, because you’re as lecherous as a monkey.”
Chip looked embarrassed. “Uh. I’m not used to being chased. Hell, I’m not much to look at. I’ve never had to fight a girl off before.”
Nym wrinkled his forehead. “So why do so? ‘Tis not hurt you’ll be doing to yourself.”
Chip blinked. “Because . . . it’d be treachery to Dermott. Besides, if we ever get out of here, the Shareholder’s dear family would see me going over the top, on my own, at a ten thousand Maggot charge, just for touching her. She doesn’t understand. To her it’s just a game. Something to idle away the time. Nothing to it but a quick bit of amusement.”
Nym scratched his long nose. “Your Dermott is dead. And you humans make life hard for yourselves by not having a rattish outlook on life.”
* * *
She was puzzled by his reactions. She knew she wasn’t very pretty, but there wasn’t a lot of competition. And he was the most heroic man she’d ever met. Not that she’d been allowed to meet many men . . .
But Virginia had decided. He was her beau ideal! She’d have to make him notice her, at least. He’d called her gutless and ineffectual. Well, she’d show him that she wasn’t. He seemed to like that bossy bat. So, if that was what he wanted . . .
She went inside and found several bleary-eyed rats and bats eating. “Right, let’s get moving. We’ve got a long way to go before we reach the sea. Bat, I want you to organize the food into manageable parcels.”
The silence was absolute. The array of bats and rats looked at her. She’d assumed Chip must be in the alcove. Now she realized that he wasn’t.
Fal leaned back and put his paws behind his head. He yawned artistically. “Pistol, tell her I am a trifle deaf.”
“I would rather tell her to shog off, Fal.” The one-eyed rat put his feet up on the table. “Who do you think you are, wench?”