King Rat

Chapter 10

"All right, you guys, sort yourselves out," the King said. He waited until there was quiet in the hut and the lookout at the doorway was in position.

"We got problems."

"Grey?" asked Max.

"No. It's about our farm." The King turned to Peter Marlowe, who was sitting on the edge of a bed. "You tell 'em, Peter."

"Well," began Peter Marlowe, "it seems that rats —"

"Tell 'em it from the beginning."

"All of it?"

"Sure. Spread the knowledge, then we can all figure angles."

"All right. Well, we found Vexley. He told us, quote: 'The Rattus norvegicus, or Norwegian rat - sometimes called the Mus decumanus—'"

"What sort of talk is that?" Max asked.

"Latin, for Chrissake. Any fool knows that," Tex said.

"You know Latin, Tex?" Max gaped at him.

"Hell no, but those crazy names're always Latin —"

"For Chrissake, you guys," the King said. "You want to know or don't you?" Then he nodded for Peter Marlowe to continue.

"Well, anyway, Vexley described them in detail, hairy, no hair on the tail, weight up to four pounds, the usual is about two pounds in this part of the world. Rats mate promiscuously at any time —"

"What the hell does that mean?"

"The male'll screw any female irrespective," the King said impatiently,

"and there ain't no season."

"Just like us, you mean?" Jones said agreeably.

"Yes. I suppose so," said Peter Marlowe. "Anyway, the male rat will mate at any season and the female can have up to twelve litters per year, around twelve per litter, but perhaps as many as fourteen. The young are born blind and helpless twenty-two days after contact." He picked the word delicately. "The young open their eyes after fourteen to seventeen days and become sexually mature in two months. They cease breeding at about two years and are old at three years."

"Holy cow!"' Max said delightedly in the awed silence. "We sure as hell've problems. Why, if the young'll breed in two months, and we get twelve -

say for round figures ten a litter - figure it for yourself. Say we get ten young on Day One. Another ten on Day Thirty. By Day Sixty the first five pair've bred, and we get fifty. Day Ninety we got another five pairs breeding and another fifty. Day One-twenty, we got two-fifty plus another fifty and another fifty and a new batch of two-fifty. For Chrissake, that makes six-fifty in five months. The next month we got near six thousand five hundred —"

"Jesus, we got us a gold mine!" Miller said, scratching furiously.

"The hell we have," the King said. "Not without some figuring. Number one, we can't put 'em all together. They're cannibals. That means we got to separate the males and females except when we're mating them.

Another thing they'll fight among themselves, all the time. So that means separating males from males and females from females."

"So we separate them. What's so tough about that?"

"Nothing, Max," said the King patiently. "But we got to have cages and get the thing organized. It isn't going to be easy."

"Hell," Tex said. "We can build a stock of cages, no sweat in that."

"You think, Tex, we can keep the farm quiet? While we're building up the stock?"

"Don't see why not!"

"Oh, another thing," the King said. He was feeling pleased with the men and more than pleased with the scheme. It was a business after his own heart — nothing to do except wait. "They'll eat anything, alive or dead.

Anything. So we've no logistics problem."

"But they're filthy creatures and they'll stink to the skies," Byron Jones III said. "We've enough stench around here as it is without putting more under our own hut. And rats are also plague carriers!"

"Maybe that's a special type of rat, like a special mosquito carries malaria," Dino said hopefully, his dark eyes roving the men.

"Rats can carry plague, sure," the King said, shrugging. "And they carry a lot of human diseases. But that don't mean nothing. We got a fortune in the making and all you bastards do is figure negatives! It's un-American!"

"Well, Jesus, this plague bit. How do we know if they'll be clean or not?"

Miller said queasily.

The King laughed. "We asked Vexley that an' he said, quote, 'You'd find out soon enough. You'd be dead.' Unquote. Hell, it's just like chickens.

Keep 'em clean and feed 'em good and you got good stock! Nothing to worry about."

So they talked about the farm, its dangers and its potentials - and they could all appreciate the potentials - provided they didn't have to eat the produce - and they discussed the problems connected with such a large-scale operation. Then Kurt came into the hut and in his hands was a squirming blanket.

"I got another," he said sourly.

"You have?"

"Sure I have. While you bastards're talkin' I'm out doin'. It's a bitch." Kurt spat on the floor.

"How do you know?"

"I looked. I seed enough rats in the Merchant Marine to know. An' the other's a male. An' I looked too."

They all climbed under the hut and watched Kurt put Eve into the trench.

Immediately the two rats stuck together viciously, and the men were hard put not to cheer. The first litter was on its way. The men voted that Kurt was to be in charge and Kurt was happy.

That way he knew he would get his share. Sure he'd look after the rats.

Food was food. Kurt knew he was going to survive if any bastard did.