This time Keith did look down. Peaches and Dangerous Beans had gone.

  “You know, I never had the heart to tell them,” he said, not to anyone in particular. “They thought it was all true.”

  “In the land of Furry Bottom, possibly,” said Malicia, and stood up as the lock gave a final click. “But not here. Can you imagine someone actually invented that name and didn’t laugh? Let’s go.”

  “You upset them,” said Keith.

  “Look, shall we get out of here before the rat catchers come back?” said Malicia.

  The thing about this girl, Maurice thought, was that she was no good at listening to the way people spoke. She wasn’t much good at listening at all, if it came to that.

  “No,” said Keith.

  “No what?”

  “No, I’m not going with you,” said Keith. “There’s something bad going on here, much worse than stupid men stealing food.”

  Maurice watched them argue again. Humans, eh? Think they’re lords of creation. Not like us cats. We know we are. Ever see a cat feed a human? Case proven.

  How the humans shout, hissed a tiny voice in his head.

  Is that my conscience? Maurice thought. His own thoughts said, What, me? No. But I feel a lot better now that you’ve told them about Additives.

  Maurice shifted uneasily from paw to paw.

  “Well then,” he whispered, looking at his stomach, “is that you, Additives?”

  He’d been worried about that. Suppose the . . . the dream of Additives wandered around inside him? That sort of thing could seriously interfere with a cat’s napping time, it really could.

  No, said the voice, like the sound of wind in distant trees, it is I. I am . . . SPIDER.

  “Oh, you’re a spider?” whispered Maurice. “I could take on a spider with three paws tied behind my back.”

  Not a spider. SPIDER.

  The word actually hurt. It hadn’t before.

  Now I’m in your HEAD, cat. Cats, cats, bad as dogs, worse than rats. I’m in your HEAD, and I will never go AWAY.

  Maurice’s paw jerked.

  I’ll be in your DREAMS.

  “Look, I’m just passing through,” Maurice whispered desperately. “I’m not looking for trouble. I’m unreliable! I’m a cat! I wouldn’t trust me, and I am me! Just let me get into the nice fresh air, and I’ll be right out of your . . . hair or legs or furry bits or whatever!”

  You don’t want to run AWAY.

  That’s right, thought Maurice, I don’t want to run— Hold on, I do want to run away!

  “I’m a cat!” he muttered. “No one is going to control me.You’ve tried!”

  Yes, came the voice of Spider, but then you were STRONG. Now your little mind runs in circles and wants someone else to do the thinking for it. I can think for you.

  I can think for EVERYONE.

  I will always be with you.

  The voice faded away.

  Right, thought Maurice. Time to say farewell, then, Bad Blintz. The party is over. The rats have got lots of other rats, and even these two humans have each other, but I’ve just got me, and I’d like to get me somewhere where strange voices don’t talk to me.

  “’Scuse me,” he said, raising his voice. “Are you going or what?”

  The two humans turned to look at the grating.

  “What?” said Keith.

  “I’d prefer going,” said Maurice. “Pull this grating out, will you? It’s rusted all the way through—it shouldn’t be a problem. Good lad. And then we can make a run for it—”

  “They’ve called in a rat piper, Maurice,” said Keith. “And the Clan is all over the place. He’ll be here in the morning. A real rat piper, Maurice. Not a fake one like me. They have magical pipes, you know. Do you want to see that happen to our rats?”

  His new conscience gave Maurice a good kicking.

  “Well, not exactly see,” he said reluctantly. “Not as such, no.”

  “Right. So we’re not going to run away,” said Keith.

  “Oh? And what are we going to do, then?” asked Malicia.

  “We’re going to talk to the rat catchers when they come back,” said Keith. He had a thoughtful look.

  “And what makes you think they’ll want to talk to us?”

  “Because if they don’t talk to us,” said Keith, “they’re going to die.”

  It was twenty minutes later that the rat catchers arrived. The door was unlocked, thrown back, then slammed shut. Rat Catcher 2 bolted it as well.

  “You know where you said it was going to be such a good evening?” he said, leaning against it and panting. “Tell me about it again, ’cos I think I missed that part.”

  “Shut up,” said Rat Catcher 1.

  “Someone punched me in the eye.”

  “Shut up.”

  “And I think I lost my wallet. That’s twenty dollars I won’t see again in a hurry.”

  “Shut up.”

  “And I wasn’t able to pick up any of the surviving rats from the last fight!”

  “Shut up.”

  “And we left the dogs behind, too! We could’ve stopped to untie ’em! Someone’ll pinch ’em!”

  “Shut up.”

  “Do rats often whiz through the air like that? Or is that the kind of thing you only get to hear about when you are a hexperienced rat catcher?”

  “Did I say shut up?”

  “Yes.”

  “Shut up. All right, we’ll leave right now. We’ll take the money and nick a boat down at the jetty, okay? We’ll leave the stuff we haven’t sold and just go.”

  “Just like that? Johnny No Hands and his lads are coming upriver tomorrow night to pick up the next load, and—”

  “We’ll go, Bill. I can smell things going bad,” said Rat Catcher 1.

  “Just like that? He owes us two hundred doll—”

  “Yes! Just like that! Time to move on! The jig is up, the bird has flowed, and the cat is out of the bag! The— Did you say that?”

  “Say what?” said Rat Catcher 2.

  “Did you just say ‘I wish I was’?”

  “Me? No.”

  Rat Catcher 1 looked around the shed. There was no one else there.

  “All right, then,” he said. “It’s been a long night. Look, when things start to go bad, then it’s time to go away. Nothing fancy. We just go, right? I don’t want to be here when people come looking for us. And I don’t want to meet any of them rat pipers. They are sharp men. They pry around. And they cost a lot of money. People are going to ask questions, and the only question I want them to ask is ‘Where did the rat catchers go?’ Understand? It’s a good man who knows when to quit. What’s in the kitty— What did you say?”

  “What, me? Nothing. Cup of tea? You always feel better after a cup of tea.”

  “Didn’t you say ‘kitty yourself’?” Rat Catcher 1 demanded.

  “I just asked if you wanted a cup of tea! Honest! Are you all right?”

  Rat Catcher 1 stared at his friend as if trying to see a lie in his face. Then he said, “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Three sugars, then.”

  “That’s right,” said Rat Catcher 2, spooning it in. “Keep up your strength. You have to look after yourself.”

  Rat Catcher 1 took the mug, sipped the tea, and stared at the swirling surface.

  “How did we get into this?” he asked. “I mean, all this? Y’know? Sometimes I wake up in the night and think, It’s stupid, this, and then I come to work and it all seems, well, sensible. I mean, stealin’ stuff and blamin’ it on the rats, yes, and breeding big tough rats for the rat pits and bringing back the ones that survive so we can breed even bigger rats, yes, but . . . I dunno . . . I didn’t use to be the kind of bloke who ties up kids . . .”

  “We’ve made a big wad of cash, though.”

  “Yeah.” Rat Catcher 1 swirled the tea in his mug and took another drink. “There’s that, I suppose. Is this a new tea?”

  “No, it’s just Lord Green, like normal.”

  “Tastes a bit different.” Rat Catcher 1 drained the mug and put it on the bench. “Okay, let’s get the—”

  “That’s about enough,” said a voice overhead. “Now, stand still and listen to me. If you run away, you’ll die. If you talk too much, you’ll die. If you wait too long, you’ll die. If you think you’re smart, you’ll die. Any questions?”

  A few wisps of dust drifted down from the rafters. The rat catchers looked up and saw a cat face peering down.

  “It’s that kid’s damn mog!” said Rat Catcher 1. “I told you it was looking at me in a funny way!”

  “If I was you, I wouldn’t look at me,” said Maurice conversationally. “I’d look at the rat poison.”

  Rat Catcher 2 turned to look at the bench. A bag was missing.

  “Here, who stole the poison?” he asked.

  “Oh,” said Rat Catcher 1, who was a much faster thinker.

  “Steal it?” said the cat on high. “We don’t steal. That’s thieving. We just put it somewhere else.”

  “Oh,” said Rat Catcher 1, sitting down suddenly.

  “That’s dangerous stuff!” said Rat Catcher 2, looking for something to throw. “You had no business touching it! You tell me where it is right now!”

  There was a thump as the trapdoor in the floor slammed back. Keith stuck his head up, and then came up the ladder while the rat catchers watched in amazement.

  He was holding a crumpled paper bag.

  “Oh dear,” said Rat Catcher 1.

  “What have you done with the poison?” Rat Catcher 2 demanded.

  “Well,” said Keith, “now that you mention it, I think I put most of it in the sugar. . . .”

  Darktan woke up. His back was on fire and he couldn’t breathe. He could feel the weight of the trap’s jaw pressing down on him, and the dreadful bite of the steel teeth on his belly.

  I shouldn’t be alive, he thought. I wish I wasn’t. . . .

  He tried to push himself upward, which made it worse. The pain came back a little stronger as he sagged down again.

  Caught like a rat in a trap, he thought.

  I wonder what type it is.

  “Darktan?”

  The voice was a little way off. Darktan tried to speak, but every tiny movement pushed him farther into the teeth below him.

  “Darktan?”

  Darktan managed a faint squeak. Words hurt too much.

  Feet scrabbled forward in the dry darkness.

  “Darktan!”

  It smelled like Nourishing.

  “Gnh,” Darktan managed, trying to turn his head.

  “You’re caught in a trap!”

  That was too much for Darktan, even if every word was agony.

  “Oh . . . really?” he said.

  “I’ll go and fetch S-sardines, shall I?” stammered Nourishing.

  Darktan could smell the rat’s panic begin. And there wasn’t time for panic.

  “No! Tell . . . me . . .” he panted, “. . . what . . . kind . . . of . . . trap?”

  “Er . . . er . . . er . . .” said Nourishing.

  Darktan took a deep, fiery breath.

  “Think, you . . . miserable widdler!”

  “Er, er . . . it’s all rusty. . . . Er . . . Rust everywhere! Looks like . . . er . . . could be a . . . Breakback.” There was a scratching noise behind Darktan. “Yes! I gnawed the rust off! It says Nugent Brothers Breakback Mk.1, sir!”

  Darktan tried to think as the constant, dreadful pressure squeezed him further. Mk.1? Ancient! Something out of the dawn of time! The oldest he’d ever seen was an Improved Breakback Mk.7! And all he had to help him was Nourishing, a complete drrtlt with four left feet.

  “Can you . . . see how . . .” he began, but there were purple lights in front of his eyes now, a great tunnel of purple lights. He tried again as he felt himself drift toward the lights. “Can . . . you . . . see . . . how . . . the . . . spring . . .”

  “It’s all rusted, sir!” came the panicking voice. “It looks like it’s a nonreturn action like on the Jenkins and Jenkins Big Snapper, sir, but it hasn’t got the hook on the end! What does this bit do, sir? Sir? Sir?”

  Darktan felt the pain go away. So this is how it happens, he thought dreamily. Too late now. She’ll panic, and she’ll run. That’s what we do. When we’re in trouble, we bolt for the first hole. Even me. But it doesn’t matter. It is just like a dream, after all. Nothing to worry about. Quite nice, really. Perhaps there really is a Big Rat Deep Under the Ground. That’d be nice.

  He drifted happily, in the warm silence. There were bad things happening, but they were a long way off and they didn’t matter anymore. . . .

  He thought he heard a sound behind him, like rat claws moving across a stone floor. Perhaps it’s Nourishing running away, part of him thought. But another part thought: Perhaps it is the Bone Rat.

  The idea didn’t frighten him. Nothing could frighten him here. Anything bad that could happen already had. He felt that if he turned his head, he’d see something. But it was easier just to float in this big, warm space.

  The purple light was darkening now, to a deep blue and, in the center of the blue, a circle of black.

  It looked like a rat tunnel.

  If the youngsters were right and there is a Bone Rat, he thought, then that means maybe there is also the Big Rat.

  And that’s where he lives, thought Darktan. That’s the tunnel of the Big Rat. How simple it all is.

  A shining white dot appeared in the center of the tunnel and got bigger quickly.

  And here he comes, thought Darktan. He must know a lot, the Big Rat. I wonder what he’s going to tell me.

  The light grew bigger and did indeed begin to look like a rat.

  How strange, thought Darktan, as the blue light faded into the black, to find it’s all true. Off we go, then, into the tunn—

  There was noise. It filled the world. And the terrible, terrible pain was back. And the Big Rat shouted, in the voice of Nourishing:

  “I gnawed through the spring, sir! I gnawed through the spring! It was old and weak, sir! Prob’ly why you weren’t cut in half, sir! Can you hear me, sir? Darktan? Sir? I gnawed all the way through the spring, sir! Are you still dead, sir? Sir?”

  Rat Catcher 1 leaped out of his chair, his hands bunching into fists.

  At least, it started out as a leap. About halfway it turned into a stagger. He sat down heavily, clutching at his stomach.

  “Oh, no. Oh, no. I knew that tea tasted funny,” he muttered.

  Rat Catcher 2 had gone a pale green.

  “You nasty little—” he began.

  “And don’t even think of attacking us,” said Malicia. “Otherwise you’ll never walk out of here. And we might get hurt and forget where we left the antidote. You haven’t got time to attack us.”

  Rat Catcher 1 tried standing up again, but his legs didn’t want to play.

  “What poison was it?” he muttered.

  “By the smell of it, it’s the one the rats call Number Three,” said Keith. “It was in the bag labeled ‘Killalot!!!!’”

  “The rats call it Number Three?” said Rat Catcher 2.

  “They know a lot about poison,” said Keith.

  “And they told you about this antidote, yeah?” said Rat Catcher 2.

  Rat Catcher 1 glared at him. “We heard them talk, Bill. In the pit, remember?” He looked back at Keith and shook his head. “Nah,” he said. “You don’t look like the kind of kid that’d poison a man to his face—”

  “How about me?” said Malicia, leaning forward.

  “She would! She would!” said Rat Catcher 2, clutching at his colleague’s arm. “She’s weird, that one. Everyone says so!” He clutched his stomach again and leaned forward, groaning.

  “You said something about an antidote,” said Rat Catcher 1 to Malicia. “But there’s no antidote to Killalot!!!!”

  “And I told you there is,” said Keith. “The rats found one.”

  Rat Catcher 2 fell to his knees. “Please, young sir! Have mercy! If not for me, please think of my dear wife and my four lovely children who’ll be without their daddy!”

  “You’re not married,” said Malicia. “You don’t have any children!”

  “I might want some one day!”

  “What happened to that rat you took away?” said Keith.

  “Dunno, sir. A rat in a hat come down out of the roof and grabbed it and flew away!” Rat Catcher 2 burbled. “And then another big rat come down into the pit, shouted at everyone, bit Jacko on the—on the unutterables, and jumped right out of the pit and did a runner!”

  “Sounds like your rats are all right,” said Malicia to Keith.

  “I haven’t finished,” said Keith. “You stole from everyone and blamed it on the rats, didn’t you?”

  “Yes! That’s it! Yes! We did, we did!”

  “You killed the rats,” said Maurice quietly.

  Rat Catcher 1’s head turned sharply. There was an edge to that voice that he recognized. He’d heard it at the pit. You got them there sometimes, high-rolling types with fancy vests, who traveled through the mountains making a living by betting and sometimes making a killing by knives. They had a look to their eye and a tone to their voice. They were known as “killing gentlemen.” You didn’t cross a killing gentleman.

  “Yes, yes, that’s right, we did!” babbled Rat Catcher 2.

  “Just go carefully there, Bill,” said Rat Catcher 1, still eyeing Keith.

  “Why did you do it?” asked Keith.

  Rat Catcher 2 looked from his boss to Malicia and then to Keith, as if trying to decide who frightened him the most.

  “Well, Ron said the rats ate stuff anyway,” he said. “So . . . he said if we got rid of all the rats and pinched the stuff ourselves, well, it wouldn’t exactly be like stealing, would it? More like . . . rearranging stuff. There’s a bloke Ron knows who comes up with a sailing barge in the middle of the night and pays us—”

  “That is a diabolical lie!” snapped Rat Catcher 1, and then looked as if he was going to be sick.

  “But you caught rats alive and crammed them into cages without food,” Keith went on. “They live on rats, those rats. Why did you do that?”

  Rat Catcher 1 clutched at his stomach.

  “I can feel things happening!” he said.

  “That’s just your imagination!” snapped Keith.