Rat Trap (14 page)

Nevertheless, it would let her do the job.

Rat tapped the fire foam tank. It rang hollow. She signed, “Tell them: Need new fire foam. Laser would be nice.”

The boy stood up. “I'll bring it right to you, Rat.”

“No. No boy. Too dangerous. Send someone else. Leave supplies at rendezvous. Orders—no boy!”

Poor boy! He looked devastated. But Rat did not have to worry he would disobey her this time. The mother and the father and even the captain would see to that.

“This is very exciting, Cousin. LB wants to come with you, but LB can't. LB is stuck in a box.”

Good. The machine had already sacrificed enough.

Rat quickly frisked the spyvest. Everything in place. Picking up the scrambler, she gave the egg-shaped shell a half twist to turn it on. When she stretched her mouth wide to swallow it, the cuts on her lips broke open. Rat licked at the few beads of blood, rich with iron taste. No blood in robots. Rat shook herself to settle her hairs and her nerves.

“Open door,” she signed. The lock clicked and Rat shouldered her way out. Dropping quickly, she found a fiber-optic cable on the floor. She scurried along it into the glowing redness of the lab, stopped, arrested by the delicious sensation of so much space. Then her mission sense took over: Exposed! Danger! Go!

But first she had to do something important. The machine had always been so happy, as full of fun (and just as annoying!) as the boy in his best moods. Rat missed that. She must leave a message for the boy and the scientist in case she didn't come back.

She hurried to the console and pounced on the keyboard. Oh, but it was wonderful to make complete sentences again. She poured out her observations and theories about helping the machine recover. She felt like a scientist!

Rat turned to go. Wait! One more thing. She typed, “Rat is thinking of an eight letter word.”

“Oh, good! LB loves word games. But LB needs a hint.”

“The word begins with
s-u.
” Now. Go! Rat sprang straight up. In the half gravity, she sailed to the ceiling, then dropped onto a big pipe. Darting along, she heard the machine muttering to itself far below. “Suddenly … superior … surprise …”

Rat slipped into the dark air shaft. These passageways were not safe anymore. Danger could be waiting around any corner, in any shadow. She set out, all senses alert. Just beyond the junction where the branch from the lab and the living quarters came together, the air pressure changed. A little shock wave rippled the fine hairs at the base of her whiskers. Not far ahead, something was moving toward her.

Too soon! Nanny must not find her until she had the supplies from the mother's lab. Rat sprang into a shaft over her head, spiraled along it several feet. Waited. A fix-it robot waddled past, oblivious to Rat's scent.

Recalling the out-of-date space-station maps from the computer, Rat compared them to the accurate map in her head, made from weeks of wandering around. Yes. She knew routes to the lab that Nanny did not. With renewed confidence, Rat continued on. The jetpak tank on her back grew heavier and heavier as the gravity gradually built up to normal. She had made it safely to Ring 9.

Moments later she squirmed through a narrow pipe into the space beneath the sink. The supplies were in a cleared spot near the door: a fire foam canister wrapped in a note from the boy; a pinprobe to fit the rogue-port locks; a magnetic disk with a loop to give Rat a handhold on Nanny's super-polished body; and a mini tube of liverwurst. She took one small bite—there wasn't room for more with the scrambler—then read the boy's note:

Rat,

Everyone's afraid. I'm afraid. No one believed me about Nanny before. Now they do. I want to help you, but I know only you can do it. Be careful! Look what happened to LB! I don't want to make you nervous, but remember Nanny fooled C-10. I told Mom who really saved the project. Save us again, Rat! I love you. Jeff

P.S. Sorry, no laser your size anywhere.

Rat's whiskers twitched. A strange hotness gathered deep inside her.

The latch clicked. Her legs exploded her into the pipe, leaving a clatter of bottles behind.

“Come back!” The mother! Rat froze. What was the matter with the mother, scaring her like that? She would have kept running, but she must return for the supplies. Rat struggled through the narrow pipe for the third time, emerging to glare at the mother.

“Oh,” the mother said, “what a beautiful coat.”

Rat turned to show her full profile and lifted her chin charmingly as she shouldered out of the jetpak harness. She got to work replacing the spent fire-foam canister.

The mother said, “I probably shouldn't be here.…”

Perceptive, Rat thought as she found free pockets for the magnetic disk and the pin-probe.

“… but I needed to thank you. I understand you saved my project. So thank you, for myself and all humanity.”

Humanity? Rat cocked her head, studying the mother. If Rat did it for anyone beside herself, she did it for the boy. She signed, “Tell boy: Rat will win. Promise.”

That curious but uncomprehending look again. Bother. Another ignorant one! Rat nibbled the message into the boy's note and passed it to the mother.

“Jeff will really appreciate this,” she said after scanning the message. Now she studied Rat. “You really are an extraordinary creature, aren't you?”

It made Rat uncomfortable, being noticed by the mother. Nothing good ever came of being noticed by scientists. With a flick of her tail, she dove into the pipe. Almost immediately it opened into a broader shaft. This time Rat did not go quietly. She even allowed the tanks to clank against the shaft walls.

Her toes sensed a vibration. It might just be another fix-it, but she hoped not. Switching to her three-legged gait, she slipped the screwdriver from its pocket. She braced the end under a strap, leaving the point sticking out like a spear. After several more strides, she switched on the flashlight.

The light gleamed on the naked steel jaws of a sniffer. It was coming at her fast, tubes snuffling and eye stalks quivering excitedly. This had to be one of Nanny's sniffers. All of C-10's sniffers were gathering at the Zero-G room.

Gripping the screwdriver firmly, Rat squeezed the jetpak control. The boost swept her off her feet, turning her into a steel-pointed missile. Even before she slammed into the sniffer, the scrambler froze its brains and stopped its jaws. The screwdriver went right through its body, smashing its insides, destroying it for good. Rat braked to a stop, then pulled the screwdriver loose with satisfaction: One down, eight to go!

More vibrations, faint, far away. She had gotten Nanny's attention.

With the fire foam spluttering behind her, Rat raced at top speed through the narrow shafts, laying trails to the Zero-G room. Nanny knew Rat's fire-foam trick. Rat hoped Nanny would reason the rat was trying to hide its trails, trying to get away. She did not want Nanny to suspect she was setting a trap.

Rat came to the air vent behind the blue triangle, her old escape route. After shutting off the fire foam, she pulled the grate inward and—
click
—it stuck to the magnet on the shaft wall. The vibrations were very strong now. She heard the whine of motors at full speed.

Hurry!

Scrambling to the front of the panel, she kicked off to sail across the room to the control box. She turned on the rebound panels, setting the game to expert level, maximum kick. This was her hope for defeating Nanny's sniffers. Nanny did not know how to play any games, the boy had told her, and that meant Nanny's sniffers would not know either.

Waiting, Rat recalled her very first visit to the Zero-G room with the boy. How strange this room had seemed! What a surprise the first time she touched a panel—it had been that green square, just beside the control box. How she had tumbled and spun and twisted, learning the special character of each of the panels. And how the boy's laughter had filled the room as he watched her!

She wanted to hear that laugh again.

An eyestalk peeked over the blue triangle, then a snuffling sniffer tube. The eyestalk quivered; the tube drew deeper; the jaws started snapping. Then it flung itself into the room, trailing a slimy stream of foam that hung like clouds in the air. More sniffers followed. Rat watched and waited, counting: one, two … yes! All eight of Nanny's remaining sniffers were in the room. Every one. Now the battle could begin. Her powerful haunches bunched. She kicked off.

The battle was surprisingly brief. Rat knew all the angles, and the sniffers did not have brains enough to learn how the panels worked. With a kick here, a nudge there, a poke with the screwdriver, or a blast of gas, Rat set the sniffers on a collision course that first banged each one against an accelerator panel. Moving almost faster than Rat could see, the eight sniffers came together with a tremendous crash and shattered into a thousand pieces.

Rat floated in the center of the room, a haze of sniffer parts drifting around her.

C-10 emerged from behind the blue panel. Its strange building-block body gripped the edge of the triangle with sniffer jaw feet. A swarm of individual sniffers poured out behind it. They spread over the panels, hundreds of them, obscuring the shapes and colors.

“Warning. Nanny is coming,” C-10 said. It thrust off toward Rat, ballooning into a loosely connected ball. Other sniffers moved to join the ball once Rat slipped inside.

But something was wrong. The ball was not solidifying. In a stuttery, barely understandable voice, C-10 droned, “Error … malfunction … error … no protection.”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-F
IVE

I
N
T
HE
F
RAY

Jeff stared in horror at the big screen in the conference room. The jittery, uneven mass of sniffers surrounding Rat looked more like a wiffle ball than an armored shield. He caught a glimpse of lavender through the gaps. If he could see Rat, Nanny certainly would!

C-10's voice stuttered over the communicator in Dr. Vivexian's hand. “Malfunction. Error. Scrambler … Scrambler …”

The scrambler! Oh, no! They needed to tell Rat to turn it off, but how?

Dr. Vivexian yelled into the communicator, “Get my rat out of there! Retreat! Run!”

“Unable to comply. Nanny comes. Danger!”

The hatch to the Zero-G room opened and Nanny flew in, shooting. A flare of light erupted from the screen, followed by the ear-grating
zizzzzzzzzzz
of a laser beam. The automatic emergency system blared: “Alert! Alert! Weapons fire central core Zero-G room.”

Not wanting to, but having to, Jeff watched Nanny flying straight toward C-10, a tail of white thruster gas streaming behind it. The ball began to wobble and rotate to make it harder for Nanny to hit the gaps. C-10 still had some brains, but it was a desperate and feeble tactic.

Spare sniffers flew into Nanny's path. Nanny blasted them.
Zizzzzzzz
. “Alert! Alert! Weapons fire—”

Zizzzzzzz
. “Alert! Alert! Weap—” The system couldn't keep up as the white-hot lances of light exploded sniffer after sniffer.

Zizzzzzz. Zizzzzzz. Zizzzzzz
. Jeff gasped. Everyone gasped. Did that last one get through?

“A—A—A—” the system stuttered, a mocking reminder of Rat's favorite Morse code.

The captain bellowed, “Shut that stupid thing off!”

“NO!” Jeff shouted. “Use it!”

“Of course!” The captain slapped the intercom button so hard Jeff thought he might smash it through the table. “Control! Public address from here! Go, boy!”

“Rat! Scrambler! Shut it off!” In every corner of the space station Jeff's voice blared from the speakers. It echoed in corridors and vibrated the walls in cabins, forcing people to cover their ears. Now if only Rat was still alive to hear it.

All eyes were glued to the screen. The looseness of C-10 suddenly formed a sphere about the size of a beach ball. The walls solidified, several layers deep with interlocking sniffers, closing all the gaps. Nanny's laser beams bounced off harmlessly.

“Hooray!” Dad cheered.

Jeff sank into a chair, too overcome with relief to speak. The captain laid a hand, heavy as lead, on his shoulder. “Good job.”

Nanny stopped its attack. It hovered several yards from C-10, the green eye pulsing in battle mode. Through the communicator, they heard the robots talking.

Nanny: “The rat is mine. This space station is mine. You are an intruder. Go away.”

C-10: “Negative. My mission is to protect this specimen and deactivate you.”

Nanny: “My mission is to kill the rat. Top priority.”

C-10: “Contradiction.
A
cannot if
B
is. Simple logic. One of us must fail.”

Nanny: “Nanny never fails.”

C-10: “Inaccurate. You failed before.”

Nanny: “Nanny was … interrupted. Nanny will complete the mission now.”

C-10 made an electronic raspberry, then answered. “Interrupted! A bit of liverwurst stopped you. This unit is superior to liverwurst in every way. You will fail again.”

Nanny: “Liverwurst, liverwurst, liverwurst. No one must know about the liverwurst. Nanny will destroy you!”

C-10: “Try it!”

Nanny surged forward. C-10 swooped backward. At the same time, its sniffers swarmed Nanny. Dozens of them thrust off from where they clung to the walls, like bats leaving an attic. They dove at Nanny from every angle. Nanny's laser blazed like a machine gun, but it couldn't get them all. The survivors stuck to its body like barnacles.

Several gripper arms emerged from Nanny. They flailed at the sniffers, smashing and plucking them off. But there were too many. The blue dentures were gone and the steely jaws worked in a frenzy, snapping control cables, chewing at elbow bearings, gnawing at the tubing. One gripper broke clean off to go spinning gruesomely around the Zero-G room along with the growing cloud of smashed and blasted sniffers.