Chapter 11 #4
“Sure, sure. Regular prodigy.” He’s trying for flippant but her stare stops him. The Baron’s not up for joking right now.
“Got ahead of himself, in the farms. Broke out of their communications cordon, that they reckoned was so secure. Asking questions at first, because he saw a hundred ways the work in the Projects could be improved.”
“You taught him everything he knew, sure.”
She laughs, a liquid sound in her bulbous throat.
“At first. Then he taught us, later. Came back and gave us nineteen different ways our systems here could be improved and streamlined. All that without anyone ever talking through how we do things, just working it out from first principles. How’s a mouse do that, Skotch? ”
“Beats the hell out of me, Baron.” Feeling like he’s walked in on some boffin scientific conference he’s not remotely qualified for. “You ever think about taking him up on all those good ideas?”
“Skotch, we already did, every one,” the Baron told him. “Our operation here has benefitted considerably. Resource and power efficiency. We get a lot more for our Plangent and food rations these days. Savings we can bank for our own benefits, if you understand me.”
That he understands. It’s the game of every guild, to shave the edges off everything and keep the peelings for barter and pocket change. Except it sounds like it was more than peelings once Meece finished with his suggestions.
“I get it, mouse super-genius.” And that did not in any way preclude Meece as mouse super-monster.
Made it more likely, if anything. Sure, Szerky was a monster too, but she could only kill people one by one.
“Baron, I’m going to be straight with you, just like you like it.
I’m getting real twitchy about this Meece.
A lot of people want him dead, and I’m not necessarily the kind of guy who just goes with the majority, but I reckon it’s not just that it’s turned mouse season or something. ”
“No smoke without fire?” she says, to the drumming of the water all around them.
“Something like that. What’s his game, Baron?”
She starts moving again. “He’s unique, Skotch. No other mouse like him.”
“So what? I mean, there’s a big gap in them words you said that’s the exact same shape as any possible answer to what I’m asking you. You want him, same as everyone else?”
“Us?” Again she stops, staring backwards at him, just as she stares in all directions all the time.
“Skotch, I do not want the trouble that is Doctor Meece. Not in Gasthofmund. But what you need to know, what Sly sent you to me to hear, is that Meece is special. Enough that his premature demise would be a loss.”
“Because this special of his helped you with your tech problems.”
“Among other things.”
“Crazy special? Dangerous special?”
“Do you think you can be that special, and not be a bit of both?” Beginning to cross to the far end of the bridge.
The beams shudder and Skotch clings on, feeling the world whirl below.
“He’s a mouse who won’t accept his limitations.
Or anyone’s limitations. You can fit a lot of resentment into a mouse, if that mouse is very smart.
Smart enough to know how screwed-over he is by the world. ”
Enough resentment to do something terrible?
Skotch remembers Mother Murnau’s bitter words about the relative worth of one strain or another.
And mice most of all. All that genius, and Meece is still worth a single unit of gelt.
Any animal could break open that big brain of his and pay almost nothing for the privilege, walk away, hands cleansed of the act, by so small a piece of recompense.
“Baron, how’s the security on the water?” he calls to her. “If someone wanted to get something into the supply—”
She’s on the far side, turning, facing him, blocking off his own ability to get onto firmer ground. “That almost sounds like you’re accusing me of complicity.”
“Complicity in what?” he demands. “What’s Meece after? Revenge? Against the farms? Against humans? Is it Rule One? Baron, before he found a new bolthole he was in with the anarchists.”
The Baron chuckles, deep in the well of her body.
“Oh he doesn’t confide in me, Skotch, but I know that mouse is going to change the world.
If he gets the chance. For the better? All I can say is that he’s always been a friend to us and to Ratlabs, to all those with keen, enquiring minds.
Are you going to give him the chance to change our world, I wonder? ”
There’s a moment when he’s sure a trap is about to be sprung, when he doesn’t know whose side the frog is on, when she could be all-seeing deity or Beelzebufo and him just a clueless raccoon caught between angel and ape.
Then a couple of frogs are hustling up to her, speaking in low croaks Skotch can’t catch.
The Baron goes still, then turns back to him.
“Sly says he’s getting some attention. Time you went to see what he’s turned up,” she tells him.
“See you round, Skotch. Give my regards to the doctor.”