“But . . .”
“You don’t believe me. But it’s true,” Virginia blurted bitterly. “I was brain-damaged in an accident. My parents thought the soft-cyber implant would make me a good little robot, and no embarrassment to them. But I’m not! I’m a person! I’m still the same person I was before, it’s just that I can think again. I am the same . . . but more.”
The bat stared silently at her for almost a minute.
Virginia got up and stared back. “Well. What are you staring at? I know I’m a freak, but you don’t have to stare. It doesn’t show on the outside.”
Possibly for the first time ever, Bronstein sounded apologetic. “No, to be sure, I am staring at the first human being who can really understand that we are neither trained animals, nor cattle for slaughtering in a war. We are people, even if we are not human.”
Virginia had never thought of it that way. Even Fluff had just been a clever and beloved pet in her eyes. With sudden insight she realized he wasn’t that in his own eyes. She’d bitterly resented the fact that her parents considered her to simply be a less embarrassing talking doll now that she had the implant. She wasn’t a doll, and Fluff wasn’t a pet.
“Well, this is going to be something to tell the others.” Bronstein’s tone said she was both delighted and excited by the prospect.
Virginia cringed. “Please don’t tell Chip. Please!”
The bat scratched her head with a wing-claw. “Why not?”
This was terribly difficult, Virginia found. More difficult than admitting she had an implant. “Because . . . because then he’ll think that I’m just a talking doll. And I . . . want him to like me.”
The bat nearly fell off her trellis wire again and had to flutter both wings to regain her balance. She shook her black head. “You humans are nearly as bad as the rats. You should be more like bats. Take a longer-term view of things. Connolly! Holy Erin! I mean, he’s a decent enough human as humans go, to be sure, but it isn’t like his face has interesting and attractive folds. He’s rather ugly, to be honest with you, girl. Under that rat’s-tail fur his face is quite smooth, I promise.”
“Just don’t tell him,” Virginia begged. “And, um, I don’t think he’s ugly.”
The bat looked the human female up and down. The black crinkled face crinkled some more, in sympathy. “Well, maybe some nice facial folds will still develop. You haven’t got many yourself. Anyway, I suppose the important thing is that you like his face. What does he think of yours?”
“Most of the time he doesn’t even know I’m alive, never mind notice my face. And the rest of the time he treats me like a bad smell.” Virginia twisted her slim fingers.
“Then you must make him notice you.” Bronstein, as always, was good at decisiveness.
Virginia grimaced. “That’s just what I was trying to do, in there. All I managed to do was to get those two rats to be beastly about my name. And then he wasn’t even there.”
The bat looked at her with wide, dark eyes. “Why in Erin’s name did you think that would impress him? And pay no attention to those foul-mouthed rats. That’s just the way they are.”
Virginia finally ventured a small smile. “Because he likes you. And that’s the way you are.”
Bronstein’s mouth fell open. “Me? ME!! You think I’m bossy? That’s RIDICULOUS, I tell you! I’ll not hear such talk!”
“Yes, ma’am. If you say so.” Virginia looked down demurely.
* * *
They were all gathered together in the tasting room, even the Korozhet, when Chip came back from his long sulk.
Eamon was holding forth. ” . . . so, indade, I reckon we should go through, rather than over. We’ll battle to get the Korozhet up and down.”
“That is most wise,” said Pricklepuss, as if it hadn’t nearly got them all killed, and, in a way, been the death of Phylla.
Chip was feeling distinctly otherwise, a common male problem when the testicles are going one way and the mind another. “NO.”