Chip found it weird. She must be the only Shareholder kid in existence who didn’t drive. Oh well, the Shaws were the top of the heap. Maybe once you got up there you always had someone to drive for you. She went off to ask the Korozhet if he could. Apparently he’d driven the landspeeder all right. Why didn’t the idea fill Chip with glee? He went and set up his little radio. They might as well have some music while they worked.
* * *
The music helped to lift his spirits. He could see the funny side of a list of booby traps being written on a wine label. A commando-style raid which had a bunch of reluctant grunts planning and executing it was a bit of a joke too.
Heh. It surely would have high command’s elegant silk underwear in a twist around their nuts. No carefully orchestrated stuff where everything had to be dead on time and go absolutely right. No elegant strategy which sure as hell they had read about in some book. He could have told the stupid bastards that those plans never had a cat in a dog pound’s chance of working, off paper.
“Synchronize your watches, gentlemen.” Snort. Yeah. He’d been in one of those operations. Total balls-up. Well, that couldn’t happen this time. Nobody had a watch, except the girl. High command could surely have learned from Bronstein: Do it when you have to, or when it’s ready. And prepare for the worst. Don’t expect things to go right, and when they go wrong, seize the gaps. Not that they’d ever listen to a bat!
“Yoww!”
Something on the high shelf had seized his exploring fingers. It was a mousetrap. Stepping up onto a box he saw there was a whole row of them. Some joker had left this one cocked.
“What’s the shriek about, Chip?” Nym and several of the other rats peered at him from where they’d been attempting to maneuver pieces of steel pipe.
“I just found something I have a real use for.” He waved the mousetrap at them.
Nym bared his teeth. The others just looked at him with reproachful black beady eyes, their upturned pointy faces filled with horror.
“How low can you sink, Connolly?” Melene couldn’t have crammed more disgust into her tone with a shoehorn.
“For Pete’s sake! I mean to use it as a detonator, not a rattrap!” Chip’s tone was defensive.
Fal was not mollified. “Shogging whoreson! Next he’ll be talking about ‘Rodent operatives.’ Bah. Smash the things.”
Chip’s fingers hurt. “Oh for . . . crying out loud, you lot aren’t even rodents. We had a whole goddamn speech from General Focnose on how calling you rats was derogatory and not to be tolerated because you were insectivores.”
“Still disgusting things . . .” Fal was interrupted as the heavy metal doors creaked and Virginia came in, sunlight reflecting off her thick glasses.
Behind her, the Korozhet prickled along in the dust, bringing its bouquet of old clothes. “No, you will have to abandon your plan to use this thing! I can only drive things with automated controls. Miss Shaw cannot do it either. A shame. You will have to abandon your plans. We will have to resort to stealth after all. A pity indeed. I had almost come to see the merit of your plans. If you climb down into the lower regions there are very few Magh’ down there . . .”
“Oh, it’s all right, Professor,” Virginia said sunnily. “Chip knows how to drive.” The cheerful words were accompanied by a very broad smile. She had a nice smile, Chip noticed. Very nice. Something in his stomach went urp.
“Um,” he said. Swallowed hard. “Um.”
“We interrupt this broadcast of Forces Favorite Radio with a news-flash. Celtis Observatory reports . . .”
Crash. The Korozhet had turned abruptly and its spines knocked the radio off the workbench. Then, to add insult to injury, it stumbled and splintered it. “Clumsy me! Oh woe! It is for this reason I am not a technician! Forgive me, all! I did but turn suddenly to see who was speaking to us. A thousand apologies!”