He proceeded to make a bad thing worse. “What I meant was, what about surgery? They implanted infrared lenses into us soldiers. They do stuff with lasers . . .”
“My corneas are too thin. Back on Earth they could transplant. Here I’m stuck with it.” Her tone said: Talk about something else. Don’t ask me about contact lenses.
Tact was Chip’s strong point, only if compared to his ability with seventeen-dimensional theoretical geometry. But this warning-off was clear enough to anyone, and it finally even got through to him. He kept his mouth shut. She must have realized that he was backing off. She initiated another subject, hastily. “What are you going to do after the war, Chip?”
He smiled. “First thing—get out of the goddamned army. If I live that long. Go back to work I suppose. Henri-Pierre would probably take me back. The SOB hates my guts, but then he wouldn’t have to teach a new Vat from scratch.”
“Did you like working there?” she asked, timidly.
“I couldn’t stand it. But I was serving my apprenticeship. Apprentices do what they’re told.”
The grimness in his voice spoke volumes. But, after a moment, he relented. “I enjoyed cooking well enough. I just couldn’t stand Henri-Pierre, or his ideas of food. Silly fancy overdressed stuff. Some of it was pure poison, honest. And such small portions.”
He paused, uncertain whether to continue. But the friendly interest in her face sparked him onward, almost against his will. “What I always dreamed of doing was opening a steakhouse. A steakhouse and a pizza place. Where I could cook real food. Good robust stuff, chunky and tasty. Italian food, too. The only French thing I’d do is fries. And I’d like it to be just across the road from Chez Henri-Pierre. Just upwind of it, so people in there with their little bitty portions of pretty can appreciate the smell of ribs and french fries.”
She began to laugh, a delicious sound, and it was a laugh which even twinkled her eyes. It would have turned stronger men than Chip to jelly.
Crumble, crumble. Disaster!
“Sorry,” she choked, “I wasn’t laughing at you, honestly. I was just remembering Daddy taking me to Henri-Pierre when I was a teenager—and being so hungry after lunch. His customers will go mad smelling that. That’s beautiful!”
There was a flash of teeth in the predawn light. Chip used the reminder of coming mayhem to haul himself back from the precipice.
“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “Enough talking! Let’s get a move on.”
* * *
Bronstein swung to hang under the eaves of the ruined outbuilding. “All right. What is it you want to speak to me about, Eamon?”
The big bat looked about the dawn uneasily, before hanging beside her.
“We have a chance to be free,” said Eamon. “A chance to cast off the yoke of humanity forever. No more in slavery’s chains to labor, and shed our lifeblood for tyrants.”
“I’ve heard it all before,” she snapped. “It would be a betrayal of trust.”
“But the end justifies the means, Bronstein. We do this for bats, all bats. You can’t make a revolution without breaking a few humans.”
She was silent, her head turning. Then: “I can smell naphthalene. The Korozhet is somewhere about. We’ll talk later.”
* * *
Chip was doing his best to be persuasive. Calm, reasonable.
“Look, I don’t want to be a wet blanket, but you’re going to be a hindrance in combat. Distract us from keeping ourselves alive. You and the Crotchet would be safer here. You’ve some small chance of escape.”
Virginia shook her head. “No chance at all. There is a statistically increasing probability of us being caught, each step we take away from this place.” She seemed almost inhuman when she got onto math. . . .
She stood erect, her chin upraised, defiant, determined. “No, I am not staying. This is my war as much as it is yours.” She smiled at him. “To die is far more sweet . . .”
“Bullshit, lady!” So much for his calm reason, thought Chip. “Pardon my language, but that’s pure, pure bull. No kind of death is sweet. Death in war is just plain ugly, mostly.”