Peaches spun around. As she did so the flame of the match blew wide and flared. The nearest rats jerked away as it did so, bending like a wave.
‘Maurice?’ she said.
The cat will not move, said the voice of Spider.
Maurice tried to, and his paws wouldn’t obey him.
Be still, CAT. Or I shall command your lungs to stop. See, little rats? Even a cat obeys me!
‘Yes. I see you have a power,’ said Dangerous Beans, tiny in the circle of light.
Clever rat. I have heard you talk to the others. You understand the truth. You know that by facing the dark we become strong. You know about the darkness in front of us and the darkness behind the eyes. You know that we co-operate or die. Will you… CO-OPERATE?
‘Co-operate?’ said Maurice. His nose wrinkled. ‘Like these other rats I smell here? They smell… strong and stupid.’
But the strong survive, said the voice of Spider. They dodge the rat-catchers and bite their way out of cages.
And, like you, they are called to me. As for their minds… I can think for everyone.
‘I, alas, am not strong,’ said Dangerous Beans, carefully.
You have an interesting mind. You, too, look forward to the domination of rats.
‘Domination?’ said Dangerous Beans. ‘Do I?’
You will have worked out that there is a race in this world which steals and kills and spreads disease and despoils what it cannot use, said the voice of Spider.
‘Yes,’ said Dangerous Beans. ‘That’s easy. It’s called humanity.’
Well done. See my fine rats? In a few hours the silly piper will come and play his silly pipe and, yes, my rats will scamper after him out of the town. Do you know how a piper kills rats?
‘No.’
He leads them into the river where… are you listening?… where they all drown!
‘But rats are good swimmers,’ said Dangerous Beans.
Yes! Never trust a rat-catcher! They will leave themselves work for tomorrow. But humans like to believe stones! They would prefer to believe stories rather than the truth! But we, we are RATS! And my rats will swim, believe me. Big rats, different rats, rats who survive, rats with part of my mind in them. And they will spread from town to town and then there will be destruction such as people cannot imagine! We will pay them back a thousandfold for every trap! Humans have tortured and poisoned and killed and all of that is now given form in me and there will be REVENGE.
‘Given form in you. Yes, I think I begin to understand,’ said Dangerous Beans.
There was a crackle and flare behind him. Peaches had lit the second match from the dying, flickering flame of the first one. The ring of rats, which had been creeping closer, swayed back again.
Two more matches, said Spider. And then, one way or another, little rat, you belong to me.
‘I want to see who I am talking to,’ said Dangerous Beans, firmly.
You are blind, little white rat. Through your pink eyes I see only mist.
‘They see more than you think,’ said Dangerous Beans. ‘And if you are, as you say, the Big Rat… then show yourself to me. Smelling is believing.’
There was a scrabbling, and Spider came out of the shadows.
It looked to Maurice like a bundle of rats, rats scampering across the boxes but flowing, as if all the legs were being operated by one creature. As it crawled into the light, over the top of a sack, he saw that the tails were twisted together into one huge, ugly knot. And each rat was blind. As the voice of Spider thundered in his head, the eight rats reared and tugged at the knot.
Then tell me the truth, white rat. Do you see me? Come closer! Yes, you see me, in your mist. You see me.
Men made me for sport! Tie the rats’ tails together and watch them struggle! But I did not struggle. Together we are strong! One mind is as strong as one mind and two minds are as strong as two minds, but three minds are four minds, and four minds are eight minds and eight minds… are one—one mind stronger than eight. My time is near. The stupid men let rats fight and the strong survive, and then they fight, and the strongest of the strong survive… and soon the cages will open, and men shall know the meaning of the word ‘plague’! See the stupid cat? It wants to leap, but I hold it so easily. No mind can withstand me. Yet you… you are interesting. You have a mind like mine, that thinks for many rats, not just one rat. We want the same things. We have plans. We want the triumph of rats. Join us. Together we will be… STRONG.
There was a long pause. It was, Maurice thought, too long. And then:
‘Yes, your offer is… interesting,’ said Dangerous Beans.
There was a gasp from Peaches, but Dangerous Beans went on, in a small voice: ‘The world is big and
dangerous, indeed. And we are weak, and I am tired. Together we can be strong.’
Indeed!
‘But what of those who aren’t strong, please?’
The weak are food. That is how it has always been!
‘Ah,’ said Dangerous Beans. ‘How it has always been. Things are becoming clearer.’
‘Don’t listen to it!’ Peaches hissed. ‘It’s affecting your mind!’
‘No, my mind is working perfectly, thank you,’ said Dangerous Beans, still in the same calm voice. ‘Yes, the proposition is beguiling. And we would rule the rat world together, would we?’
We would… co-operate. And Maurice, on the sidelines, thought: yeah, right. You co-operate, they rule. Surely you can’t fall for this!
But Dangerous Beans said: ‘Co-operate. Yes. And together we could give the humans a war they won’t
believe. Tempting. Very tempting. Of course, millions of rats would die…’
They die anyway.
‘Mmm, yes. Yes. Yes, that is true. And this rat here,’ said Dangerous Beans, suddenly waving a paw towards one of the big rats that was hypnotized by the flame, ‘can you tell me what she thinks about this?’
Spider sounded taken aback. Thinks? Why should it think anything? It is a rat!
‘Ah,’ said Dangerous Beans. ‘How clear it is now. But it would not work.’
Would not work?
Dangerous Beans raised his head.
‘Because, you see, you just think for many rats,’ he said. ‘But you don’t think of them. Nor are you, for all that you say, the Big Rat. Every word you utter is a lie. If there is a Big Rat, and I hope there is, it would not talk of war and death. It would be made of the best we could be, not the worst that we are. No, I will not join you, liar in the dark. I prefer our way. We are silly and weak, sometimes. But together we are strong. You have plans for rats? Well, I have dreams for them.’
Spider reared up, quivering. The voice raged in Maurice’s mind.
Oh, so you think you are a good rat? But a good rat is one that steals most! You think a good rat is a rat in a waistcoat, a little human with fur! Oh yes, I know about the stupid, stupid book! Traitor! Traitor to rats! Will you feel my… PAIN?
Maurice did. It was like a blast of red-hot air, leaving his head full of steam. He recognized the sensation. It was how he used to feel before he was changed. It was how he used to feel before he was Maurice. He’d just been a cat. A bright cat, but nothing more than a cat.
You defy me? Spider screamed at the bowed form of Dangerous Beans. When I am everything that truly is RAT? I am filth and darkness! I am the noise under the floor, the rustling in the walls! I am the thing that undermines and despoils! I am the sum of all that you deny! I am your true self! Will you OBEY ME?
‘Never,’ said Dangerous Beans. ‘You are nothing but shadows.’
Feel my PAIN!
Maurice was more than a cat, he knew. He knew the world was big and complex and involved a lot more
than wondering if the next meal was going to be beetles or chicken legs. The world was huge and difficult and full of amazing things and…
… the red-hot flame of that horrible voice was boiling his mind away. The memories were unwinding and whirling into the darkness. All the other little voices, not the horrible voice but the Maurice voices, the ones that nagged at him and argued amongst themselves and told him he was doing wrong or could be better, were getting fainter—
And still Dangerous Beans stood there, small and wobbly, staring up into the dark.
‘Yes,’ said Dangerous Beans. ‘I feel the pain.’