“Welcome to Neeka,” said Lesno.
“Could I ask you something, Ratman?” Rabb hastily interjected. He couldn't take his eyes off 62. “Is that a space rat?”
“A small one,” Orz nodded. “A baby, really.”
“Aren't you afraid of…”
“Of losing my ear?” he grinned. “Not at all. I imagine you two and the rest of the League are somewhat in the dark as to my methods, and you've probably got a lot of questions. I've found it best in the past to get everyone together and explain things to everybody at once. It saves me time and you money.”
“An excellent idea!” Lesno agreed. “We've all been anxiously awaiting your arrival…Well,” he corrected himself with a glance at Rabb, “almost all…but I'm sure there would be no problem in getting everyone together.”
“What did you mean by ‘almost all’?” Orz asked.
Rabb spoke up. “One of our more influential members was vehemently opposed to the idea of retaining you.”
“Oh, really? Why?”
“Have no fear, Ratman,” Lesno assured him with a smile, “he'll let you know why at the meeting tonight.”
“Fair enough,” Orz said. “Can someone come back and pick me up in a few hours for the meeting?”
“Why not come with us now and let us show you around a bit?” Lesno offered.
Orz shook his head and gestured over his shoulder to the ship. “Sorry…feeding time.”
Rabb and Lesno stiffened and glanced nervously from 62 to the open hatch. “Yes, quite,” Lesno muttered. “Very well, then, we'll have someone call for you in, say, three hours.”
“That'll be fine.” This settled, the two-man welcoming committee lost little time in putting some distance between themselves and the squat little freighter.
“Seem like pretty decent fellows,” Orz told 62 as he made his way up the ramp and down the central corridor. As they approached the rat room, 62 began to prance excitedly on his master's shoulder and was literally doing a dance by the time Orz hit the door release.
His several hundred fellow employees inside took up the same excited dance at the sound of the door sliding open. The cages were arranged five high along the walls of the long, narrow room. They were simple, steel-sided boxes with front doors of quarter-inch steel mesh; each was self-cleaning, had its own water supply, and was equipped with an automatic feeder.
But Orz had never trusted automatic feeders, so now he went from cage to cage and shoved food pellets through the tiny feeding hole in the front of each. He had to be nimble, for the rats were greedy and anxious and a fingertip could easily be mistaken for a pellet. His practiced eye decided how much each rat should get. This was important: A rat became fat and lazy if overfed and would gnaw his way out of the cage if underfed. A rat in either condition was of little use to Ratman.
Fifty cages stood open and empty and Orz placed a few pellets in each. 62 was frantic by now so he decided to give the little fellow something before he jumped off his shoulder and into one of the empty cages. The rat rose up on his hind legs, snatched the pellet from Orz's proffering fingers with his tiny, handlike paws, and began to gnaw noisily and voraciously.
Three hours later, Orz flipped a particular switch on the console, checked to make sure the door to the rat room was open, then headed for the hatch. There, after casting an eye through the dusk at the approaching ground car, he secured the hatch, but opened a small panel at its bottom. With 62 perched watchfully upon his shoulder, he was waiting at the bottom of the ramp when the car arrived.
Lesno was alone inside. “Well, Ratman,” he said with a smile, “everybody's waiting, so-” then he spotted 62 and his face fell. “Does he have to come along? I mean, he won't get too excited, will he?”
“Don't worry,” Orz replied, sliding into his seat, “he won't bite you.” To lessen the man's anxiety he made a point of keeping 62 on his far shoulder.
“Your advertising literature was quite timely,” Lesno remarked as they got under way, hoping conversation would take his mind off those two beady eyes peering at him around the back of his passenger's head. “The rat problem was reaching its peak when we received it. I trust that wasn't just coincidence.”
“No coincidence at all. I keep my ear to the ground and word got around that there was a space rat plague on Neeka. I figured you could use my services.”
Lesno nodded. “We had heard a few stories about you but didn't know whether to believe them or not. Your advertising claims were quite impressive. I just hope you can live up to them.”
About twenty exporters and importers were waiting in the conference room on the second floor of the Traders League office complex. It was a motley group of discordant colors, shapes, sizes, and ages. Lesno entered ahead of Orz and lost no time in bringing the meeting to order.
“We all know why we're here,” he said, tapping the gavel twice, “so there's really no use in wasting time with introductions.” He pointed to Orz. “The creature on this man's shoulder is introduction enough: Ratman has arrived and he's going to tell us something about himself and about space rats.” So saying, he relinquished the podium.
Nothing like a businesslike business, Orz thought as he stood up and received a slight spattering of applause. They knew of his claim to be able to control space rats with space rats and were frankly dubious. But this was nothing new to Orz.
Without even a glance at the audience, he nonchalantly snapped his fingers and tapped the top of the podium. 62 immediately leaped from his shoulder to the podium and began to sniff the wood curiously.
“This,” he began, “although a specimen of Rattus interstellus, is not a true ‘space rat’ in the full sense of the word; but his parents were. Lab-raised space rats-such as 62, here-can turn out to be quite friendly, but they are no less cunning, no less intelligent, and certainly no less vicious when cornered. These are the rats I ‘employ,’ so to speak.
“But first let's puncture a few of the myths that have grown up around the space rat. First of all, no matter what the spacers tell you, space rats have no psi powers; they don't know what you're going to do next…it's just that their reflexes are developed to such a high degree that it almost seems that way when you take pot shots at one with a blaster. They will respond to ultra-frequency tones but by no means do they have a language…they're intelligent, all right, but they're a long way from a language.”
His eyes flicked over the audience. These were traders, barterers; they recognized a man who knew what he was talking about, and they were all listening intently.
He continued. “But just what is it that distinguishes the space rat from other rats?” To dramatize his point, he allowed 62 to crawl onto the back of his hand and then held the fidgety creature aloft.
“This is the product of centuries in the pressurized but unshielded holds of interstellar cargo ships. Wild genetic mutation and the law of survival of the fittest combined to produce a most adaptable, ferocious, and intelligent creature.
“Everyone knew of the space rat's existence, but no one paid much attention to him until an ensign aboard the freighter Clinton was kept awake one night by the continuous opening and closing of the compartment door outside his cabin. The ship was in port, and, under normal circumstances, he would have spent the night in town, but for one reason or another he had returned to his quarters.
“Now, these doors which divide the corridors into compartments open automatically when you touch the release panel, and remain open as long as a simple electric eye beam is broken; when the beam makes contact again, the door closes. The doors naturally make some noise when they operate, and this is what was disturbing the ensign. But, every time he checked to see who was wandering up and down the corridor, he found no one. Checking with the guard detail he found that he was the only person authorized to be in that area of the ship.