Dean did appear to offer us an evening meal.
Singe saw the lay of the land. Sullen, she went back to one of her private projects.
‘‘What’s her problem?’’ Tinnie asked. ‘‘She trying to seduce you again?’’
‘‘That was just a phase. Adolescent fantasy. She got over it. Now she thinks she’s a storyteller. She says she’s written a book about me. And now she needs some interesting stories to put in it.’’
‘‘I should get together with her. I could tell her about you before you met.’’
‘‘I’m sure you could. And I’m just as sure that she don’t need any more ideas than what she’s got.’’
A faint fragrance of amusement tainted the psychic air momentarily. Old Bones no doubt conceiving a wicked notion that could find life only at my expense.
There was no one in the hallway but Tinnie and me now. And she was having no trouble with the invisible eye that’s always there when the Dead Man is awake.
It didn’t take her long to make me forget, either.
She’s got skills, that girl.
17
The brain trust had gathered. Singe. Playmate. Saucerhead. John Stretch. With Old Bones in the background, ready to kibitz. Tinnie was in the doorway. She leaned against its frame in an indifferent, sluttish pose wasted on everybody. Me included. She wasn’t happy about that.
Would you care to direct your thoughts in a less prurientdirection?
I said, ‘‘We need to brainstorm the situation at the World. Our efforts yesterday may not have done much more than stir up the bugs.’’
Saucerhead observed, ‘‘It’s freaking hard to get the bugs out of anywhere. Mice and rats, same thing. You wipe out the mess you got, another one moves in.’’
It is notoriously difficult to remove vermin and keep them removed. This instance will be no exception. But it should prove less difficult than the sort of general debugging you would find familiar. There will be a finite number of these mutant insects. Though that could be a large number. A sustained effort should destroy them faster than they can breed.
He was giving this more thought than he pretended.
You are correct, Garrett. Though not in the way you think.
I glimpsed something I didn’t have the mental capacity to grasp. A three-dimensional mind map of the universe in the earth around and under the World. Developed, with John Stretch’s help, from the minds of rats that had gone down there and had brought back memories of sights and smells. Especially smells.
John Stretch assures me that regular rats count on their sense of smell more than dogs do. Thus the thing inside the Dead Man’s mind was a visualized translation of information collected mainly by rat snoots.
Rats are crafty. But rats aren’t much smarter than a sack of hammers. I wasn’t ready to bet my life, fortune, and sacred honor on what my sidekick could put together from their mad, crippled rodent memories.
I said, ‘‘We could handle this whole thing fast if we could dump a million gallons of water into the warrens under the World.’’
Flooding the bug tunnels was an obvious move. Figuring out how to deliver the flood was not.
‘‘How about poison gas?’’ Playmate asked. ‘‘Some kinds would sink down into the bug warrens the way water would.’’
‘‘Like?’’
‘‘Fumes from burning sulfur.’’
John Stretch said, ‘‘I would like to try rats again. Using more of them.’’
The Dead Man touched me privately.Allow John Stretch the effort. Insisting on a much larger effort. Ten thousand rats if that is what is needed. Test the strength of this absurdconjunction.
‘‘Huh?’’
There must be sorcery involved. To explain the size of the bugs. The absurdity arises in the mix of insects that have mutated.
Someone was doing to bugs what had been done to rats in the last century?
You are unlikely to lose much money betting that way.
I announced, ‘‘Guys, this may be a worse problem than I thought.’’
Engage brain before opening mouth, the Dead Man snapped.Think before you pop off.
‘‘Huh?’’
You are getting ahead of yourself. It is possible the problemcan be solved by application of a large number of rats. If it cannot, thenyou have your worse problem.
So I said, ‘‘Never mind. John Stretch. By all means, take another crack. But go for overwhelming numbers. All the rats you can round up. If you can’t run them all at the same time, fine. Use them in shifts.’’
I need to know the outer bounds of the insect infestation. In all dimensions.
He didn’t say it but I understood. He wanted to isolate the point of origin of the giant bugs.
That would be handy to know. We could toss one fire-bomb in there. . . .
Garrett. The most obvious and direct approach may not be the best.
‘‘For who?’’
All concerned. You have to know what is going on before you blow things up and burn things down. You cannot approachall problems with the methods espoused by Mr. Dotes. It is possible that the bugs are an unfortunate by-blow of something positive happening in that area. The creator of the bugs may be unaware of the effect of his work on the insect population.
‘‘Evil spirits and psychotic demons are more likely.’’
No doubt. Nevertheless, it is important to examine and eliminate other possibilities. Unless you trip over some villaincasting spells on cockroaches.
‘‘While practicing his evil laugh. Yeah.’’
The rest of the crowd watched like they expected to be entertained any minute now. Except that fiscal traitoress, Pular Singe, who toddled in with fermented barley soup for all hands. On good old Garrett.
I wouldn’t earn any kudos dancing with the truth. They’d just accuse me of being a skinflint. Again.
It’s so easy to spend the other guy’s dough.
18
The weather continued favorable. The surviving city trees were about to bud. To their sorrow. The snow and ice would return.
Word was out. Garrett had a case. He had money. The street out front looked like I was gathering a wagon train for avolkswanderung . All six wagons boasted human drivers. Which said that John Stretch’s reach had gotten pretty long, pretty fast.
Playmate had brought the same coach round, too.
There were ratpeople everywhere, all of them armed with cages or baskets full of regular rats. The neighbors were out in force, being nosy. Among them would be tin whistles in disguise.
I had a mild hangover. Singe and her brother did, too. But Saucerhead and Playmate were bright and cheerful, ambling around with acres of teeth exposed to the breeze. Early birds. Let ’em eat worms.
What the hell became of all my old pals in the seize-the-night crowd?
The only positive was, Tinnie was there beside me. A morning person. A lightning rod for all those bleak disappointments that haunt the world before noon.
Saucerhead told me, ‘‘We need us some horse guys in tin suits with flags on their spears. And some halberdiers.’’
‘‘How’s your bugling? You could sound the charge.’’
‘‘That’s up to the rat king. This being all about him and his critters.’’
Saucerhead can be as literal as a hunk of granite.
John Stretch was thinking like my imagination-challenged friend. ‘‘We are ready, Garrett.’’
‘‘I are ready, too. Just waiting on Singe.’’ She’d had to duck inside. As usual.
The watching tin whistles were restless. This big a show by ratpeople made them nervous.
They will not interfere. Unless you fail to stop dithering long enough for me to fall asleep again.