“I am Virginia Shaw, and I’m a human, rat. And you’ve got to listen!”
“Oh! Hear that, Fal?” demanded Pistol. “She’s a Virgin Shore. Her face hasn’t had boat keels up and down it, after all. It must look like that naturally.”
Fal snorted. “Are you Shaw she’s a Virgin? Mind you, with that homely face and bad complexion . . .”
“And she reckons she’s human. Couldn’t be!” Pistol sniggered.
This was all going badly wrong. “You’ll do as I tell you!”
“She’s got nearly as loud a voice as the Duke of Plazo-Toro,” said Fal, with no obvious sign of cooperation. “So where is your ridiculous little fanny-licker, Virgin-ear?”
Pistol laughed coarsely. “Heh. When he’s on top, it must be Ridiculous on the Virgin, instead of Virgin’ on the Ridiculous!”
Virginia felt herself blushing from the roots of her hair to her toes. She grabbed for Pistol and snatched him up.
Pistol made no attempt to dodge. He just showed a row of sharp teeth, ready to sink into her thumb. “Well,” he said conversationally. “Now you’ve got me. What are you going to with me? You want me to come and sort out that ear of yours, my sweet wench?”
“Screw some sense into her head,” said Fal, scratching himself.
“Belike if ever there was a human that would have benefited from a soft-cyber, it’s this one,” Behan commented.
This was all going wrong! Virginia, to her horror, found herself bursting into tears. Behan’s remark had cut right to her heart.
Fortunately, Bronstein intervened. “That’s enough! Leave her alone. You let go of Pistol, girl. When you attack something either kill it immediately or incapacitate it so it can’t hurt you.” The bat unfurled her wings. “Now come,” she commanded. “It is high time you and I had a talk. And stop that drizzle, right now.”
Meekly Virginia followed after the fluttering Bronstein, leaving the derision behind her—but taking resentment and misery along.
They came to a place that commanded a view across the landscape, an old veranda. The bat hung herself on a trellis wire. “I like to perch here. It allows me to keep an eye out for Maggots. We are still in enemy territory, you know. Now, it’s high time someone explained a few facts of life to you.”
Virginia looked at her sullenly, wiping the tears away. Then she sat down cross-legged with her back to the wall. “I don’t have to listen to you.”
Bronstein hissed, showing teeth. “Human brats appear short of a few lessons in elementary survival, never mind manners. Now, listen or I will bite you. It is a lot of silly human ideas that you seem to have about leadership and the right to command. Maybe they work for you humans, although for the life of me I cannot see how. Why who your father was, or how much money you have, should gain you any respect, I myself cannot see. But if that’s the system you humans wish to use among yourselves, that is your problem. But here, you are among rats and bats, and respect is earned. Leadership is conferred by those who respect you, not by some piece of metal or cloth or right of birth.”
“But I’m a human!” protested Virginia coming up with the age-old defense . . . which is no defense. “We made you!”
The bat shrugged. “So? We may be artificially engineered creatures, with what Chip calls ‘head-plastic’ in our brains. But it doesn’t matter what we came from, it is what we are now. Now for heaven’s sake stop trying to push everyone around, especially the rats. You won friends and respect last night. Your arrogance has lost it for you this morning. Just because you’re a human, and I have a soft-cyber implant doesn’t mean . . .”
“I’ve got one too,” said Virginia, her voice scarcely audible.
Bronstein was a bat. They can hear crystals grow. She cupped her wings to her ears. “What?”
“I said, I have a soft-cyber implant too.”
“But . . . but . . . you’re human!” The bat nearly lost her grip on the trellis wire.
“Not if you define someone with an implant as not being human. By that definition the rats were quite right. I’m not human. I’m just a piece of head-plastic,” Virginia said quietly.