“We still can’t use guns while they have shields,” said Chip.
The rat shrugged. “You are still thinking within the terms of reference of the projectile weapons premise. The point is: while Maggots use shields they can’t use guns either. The strength of human armies wasn’t always projectile weapons. It was that they were armies relying on numbers, not on individual strengths. Believe me: Shields and the small AP mines our bats sowed helped the Maggots, not ourselves. They isolated individual humans. They made you do what your history shows that very few of you can do well: They made you fight on your own, instead of in mass attacks. We are better off without shields and AP mines. A mass of shielded Maggots couldn’t penetrate a solid wall of humans with pole-mines . . . if the humans stood shoulder to shoulder, unshielded, without interpenetration of the human and Maggot shields. There is no good reason why an unshielded human is worse off than a shielded one, in a fight with a shielded Magh’. For one thing you can run away faster.”
Chip saw the truth of it, clearly. But he had a feeling—a certainty, actually—that some desk jockey back at high command wouldn’t see it that way.
“He’s a broth of foine thinker, that,” said O’Niel. “Whould you be hafter a small drink to be whashing down all of that dry preaching, Doc, or Georg Hegel, as you style yourself?”
Doc took off the pince-nez. “Not any more, I do not. I see now that that too was a false premise, rooted in the past. Henceforth I will call myself . . . Pararattus. I will build a new philosophy . . .”
Pistol snorted. “I reckon I’ll still call you Doc. For all that, methinks, you may have something . . .”
“Yes,” said Bronstein. “I hadn’t thought about the projectile weapons . . .”
“But the Magh’ do use projectile weapons! Have you forgotten their artillery?” demanded the Korozhet from his bag. “You are wrong, rat!”
Doc regarded the spiny mass of alien. Then he shook his head. “No. I’m not wrong.”
For a moment the only noise was the tractor’s thud-thudding diesel.
“What we need is an on-off switch for slowshields, Professor,” said Ginny.
“Like I wish we had for Pricklepuss,” muttered Chip.
Eamon and Siobhan came back from scouting. “Next left.”
Siobhan settled on Chip’s shoulder. “You should look after Chip better, Virginia. ‘Tis troubled he looks. Give him some chicken soup.”
Siobhan was, however, more concerned about the rest of her flock. “Why is everyone so quiet and troubled looking? To be sure it is to certain death we’re going . . .”
Chip made a wry face. “Doc just told the Crotchet he was wrong.”
The bat nearly fell off Chip’s shoulder. “That’s surely not true?”
Chip saw the corner. Dropped a gear, and took it in what—for him—was consummate skill. “Surely is. And I agree with him.”
* * *
By now the gap outside the walls was a tight, narrow spiral. Chip started to turn back in toward the heart of the spiral—his own heart reaching for open moonlight-bathed heights. It felt like hours that they’d been traveling and fighting their way underground. It should be morning by now, surely?
“The other way,” Bronstein commanded.
“But that’s out!” Chip protested.
Bronstein shook her head at him. “Stop thinking like a Maggot. Never try the same trick twice. Tell him, Ginny.”
“She’s right, Chip. The group-mind will know.”
Chip put his foot on the clutch. “Right! Now I feel like Doc. Breakthrough. All we’ve got do is keep changing the pattern! Come on, Ginny. Turn that tap on and let’s fog this whole passage with alcohol.”
Even in the dashboard light he could see she’d turned pale. He didn’t pretend not to understand. “It wasn’t your fault, Ginny,” he said softly. “And it will keep us alive, if we play it right. The expedient mines will trigger it.”
The rats were already busy setting them. Each hinged plank had a tenpenny nail which would strike a cartridge percussion cap as soon as a Maggot stood on one. The cartridge was buried in a pile of diesel-wet fertilizer and covered in “useful” metal junk from the workshop.