Sergeant Doppelpunkt saluted smartly, to the sound of muffled swearing and falling cabbages.

  “Requesting permission to take six men to help us bring up the rest of the stuff, sir!” he said, beaming happily.

  “Where are the rat catchers?” asked the mayor.

  “In deep . . . trouble, sir,” said the sergeant. “I arsked them if they wanted to come out, but they said they’d like to stay in there a bit longer, thanks all the same, although they’d like a drink of water and some fresh trousers.”

  “Was that all they said?”

  Sergeant Doppelpunkt pulled out his notebook. “No, sir, they said quite a lot. They were crying, acktually. They said they’d confess to everything in exchange for the fresh trousers. Also, sir, there was this.”

  A newly deputized Watchman came in carrying a heavy box, which he thumped down onto the polished table.

  “Acting on information received from a rat, sir, we took a look under one of the floorboards in their shed. There must be more’n four hundred dollars in it. Ill-gotten gains, sir.”

  “You got information from a rat?”

  The sergeant pulled Sardines out of his pocket. The rat was eating a biscuit, but he raised his hat politely.

  “Isn’t that a bit . . . unhygienic?” asked the mayor.

  “No, guv, he’s washed his hands,” said Sardines.

  “I was talking to the sergeant!”

  “He’s a nice little chap, sir. Very clean,” said Sergeant Doppelpunkt. “Reminds me of a hamster I used to have when I was a lad, sir.”

  “Well, thank you, sergeant, well done, please go and—”

  “His name was Horace,” added the sergeant helpfully.

  “Thank you, sergeant, and now—”

  “Does me good to see little cheeks bulging with grub again, sir.”

  “Thank you, sergeant!”

  When the sergeant had left, the mayor turned and stared at Mr. Raufman. The bootmaker had the grace to look embarrassed.

  “I hardly know the man,” he said hurriedly. “He’s just somebody my sister married, that’s all! I hardly ever see him!”

  “I quite understand,” said the mayor. “And I’ve no intention of asking the sergeant to go and search your larder.” He gave another little smile, and a sniff, and added, “Yet. Now, where were we?”

  “I was about to tell you a story,” said Maurice.

  The town council stared at him.

  “And your name is—?” asked the mayor, who was feeling in quite a good mood now.

  “Maurice,” said Maurice. “I’m a freelance negotiator, you could say. I can see it’s difficult for you to talk to rats, but humans like talking to cats, right?”

  “Like in Dick Livingstone?” asked Hopwick the clockmaker.

  “Yeah, right, him, yeah, and—” Maurice began.

  “And Puss in Boots?” asked Corporal Knopf.

  “Yeah, right, just like in books,” said Maurice, scowling. “Anyway . . . cats can talk to rats, okay? And I’m going to tell you a story. But first I’m going to tell you that my clients, the rats, will all leave this town if you want them to, and they won’t come back. Ever.”

  The humans stared at him. So did the rats.

  “Will we?” asked Darktan.

  “Will they?” asked the mayor.

  “Yes,” said Maurice. “And now I’m going to tell you a story about the lucky town. I don’t know its name yet. Let’s suppose my clients leave here and move downriver, shall we? There are lots of towns on this river, I’ll be bound. And somewhere there’s a town that’ll say, Why, we can do a deal with the rats. And that will be a very lucky town, because then there’ll be rules, see?”

  “Not exactly, no,” said the mayor.

  “Well, in this lucky town, right, a lady making, as it might be, a tray of cakes, well, all she’ll need to do is shout down the nearest rat hole and say, ‘Good morning, rats, there’s one cake for you; I’d be much obliged if’n you didn’t touch the rest of them,’ and the rats will say, ‘Right you are, missus, no problem at all.’ And then—”

  “Are you saying we should bribe the rats?” asked the mayor.

  “Cheaper than pipers. Cheaper than rat catchers,” said Maurice. “Anyway, it’ll be wages. Wages for what, I hear you cry?”

  “Did I cry that?” said the mayor.

  “You were going to,” said Maurice. “And I was going to tell you that it’d be wages for . . . for vermin control.”

  “What? But rats are ver—”

  “Don’t say it!” said Darktan.

  “Vermin like cockroaches,” said Maurice, smoothly. “I can see you’ve got a lot of them here.”

  “Can they talk?” asked the mayor. Now he had the slightly hunted expression of anyone who’d been talked at by Maurice for any length of time. It said, “I’m going where I don’t want to go, but I don’t know how to get off.”

  “No,” said Maurice. “Nor can the mice, and nor can norma— nor can other rats. Well, vermin’ll be a thing of the past in that lucky town, because its new rats will be like a police force. Why, the Clan’ll guard your larders—sorry, I mean the larders in that town. No rat catchers required. Think of the savings. But that’ll only be the start. The woodcarvers will be getting richer, too, in the lucky town.”

  “How?” asked Hauptmann the woodcarver, sharply.

  “Because rats will be working for them,” said Maurice. “They have to gnaw all the time to wear their teeth down, so they might as well be making cuckoo clocks. And the clockmakers will be doing well too.”

  “Why?” asked Hopwick the clockmaker.

  “Tiny little paws, very good with little springs and things,” said Maurice. “And then—”

  “Would they just do cuckoo clocks, or could they do other stuff?” asked Hauptmann.

  “—and then there’s the whole tourism aspect,” said Maurice. “For example, the Rat Clock. You know that clock they’ve got in Bonk? In the town square? Little figures come out every quarter of an hour and bang the bells? Cling bong bang, bing clong bong? Very popular—you can get postcards and everything. Big attraction. People come a long way just to stand there waiting for it.”

  “So what you’re saying,” said the clockmaker, “is that if we—that is, if the lucky town had a special big clock, and rats, people might come to see it?”

  “And stand around waiting for up to a quarter of an hour,” said someone.

  “A perfect time to buy tooth-crafted models of the clock,” said the clockmaker. “At very reasonable prices.”

  People began to think about this.

  “Mugs with rats on them,” said a potter.

  “Hand-gnawed souvenir wooden plates,” said Hauptmann.

  “Cuddly toy rats!”

  “Rats-on-a-stick!”

  Darktan took a deep breath. Maurice said, quickly, “Good idea. Made of toffee, naturally.” He glanced toward Keith. “And I expect the town would want to employ its very own rat piper, even. You know. For ceremonial purposes. ‘Have your picture drawn with the Official Rat Piper and his Rats’ sort of thing.”

  “Any chance of a small theater?” said a little voice.

  Darktan spun around.

  “Sardines!” he said.

  “Well, guv, I thought if everyone was getting in on the act—” Sardines protested.

  “Maurice, we ought to talk about this,” said Dangerous Beans, tugging at the cat’s leg.

  “Excuse me a moment,” said Maurice, giving the mayor a quick grin. “I need to consult with my clients. Of course,” he added, “I’m talking about the lucky town. Which won’t be this one because, of course, when my clients move out, some new rats will move in. There are always more rats. And they won’t talk, and they won’t have rules, and they’ll widdle in the cream, and you’ll have to find some new rat catchers, ones you can trust, and you won’t have as much money because the tourists will be going to the other town. Just a thought.”

  He marched down the table and turned to the rats.

  “I was doing so well!” he said. “You could be on ten percent, you know? Your faces on mugs, everything!”

  “And is this what we fought for all night?” spat Darktan. “To be pets?”

  “Maurice, this isn’t right,” said Dangerous Beans. “Surely it is better to appeal to the common bond between intelligent species than—”

  “I don’t know about intelligent species. We’re dealing with humans here,” said Maurice. “Do you know about wars? Very popular with humans. They fight other humans. Not hugely big on common bonding.”

  “Yes, but we are not—”

  “Now listen,” said Maurice. “Ten minutes ago these people thought you were pests. Now they think you’re . . . useful. Who knows what I can make them think if you give me a half hour?”

  “You want us to work for them?” said Darktan. “We’ve won our place here!”

  “You’ll be working for yourselves,” said Maurice. “Look, these people aren’t philosophers. They’re just . . . everyday. They don’t understand about the tunnels. This is a market town. You’ve got to approach them the right way. Anyway, you will keep other rats away, and you won’t go around widdling in the jam, so you might as well get thanked for it.” He tried again. “There’s going to be a lot of shouting, right, yeah. And then sooner or later you have to talk.” He saw the bewilderment still glazing their eyes and turned to Sardines in desperation.

  “Help me,” he said.

  “He’s right, boss. You’ve got to give a ’em a show,” said Sardines, dancing a few steps nervously.

  “They’ll laugh at us!” said Darktan.

  “Better laugh than scream, boss. It’s a start. You gotta dance, boss. You can think and you can fight, but the world’s always movin’, and if you wanna stay ahead, you gotta dance.”

  He raised his hat and twirled his cane. On the other side of the room a couple of humans saw him and chuckled.

  “See?” he said.

  “I’d hoped there was an island somewhere,” said Dangerous Beans. “A place where rats could really be rats.”

  “And we’ve seen where that leads,” said Darktan. “And, you know, I don’t think there’s any wonderful islands in the distance for people like us. Not for us.” He sighed. “If there’s a wonderful island anywhere, it’s here. But I’m not intending to dance.”

  “Figure of speech, boss, figure of speech,” said Sardines, hopping from one foot to the other.

  There was a thump from the other end of the table. The mayor, who had been arguing with some of the councilors, had hit it with his fist.

  “We’ve got to be practical!” he shouted. “How much worse off can we be? They can talk. I’m not going to go through all this again, understand? We’ve got food, we’ve got a lot of money back, we survived the piper. . . . These are lucky rats.”

  The figures of Keith and Malicia loomed over Maurice and the rats.

  “It sounds as if my father’s coming round to the idea,” said Malicia. “What about you?”

  “Discussions are continuing,” said Maurice.

  “I . . . er . . . I’m sorr . . . er . . . look, Maurice told me where to look, and I found this in the tunnel,” said Malicia.

  She put something down on the table. The pages were torn and stained, but it was still recognizable as Mr. Bunnsy Has an Adventure. It had been inexpertly stitched back together.

  “I had to lift up a lot of drain gratings,” she said.

  The rats looked at it. Then they looked at Dangerous Beans.

  “It’s Mr. Bunn—” Peaches began.

  “I know. I can smell it,” said Dangerous Beans.

  The rats all looked again at the remains of the Book.

  “It’s a lie,” said Peaches.

  “Maybe it’s just a pretty story,” said Sardines.

  “Yes,” said Dangerous Beans. “Yes.” He turned his misty pink eyes to Darktan, who had to stop himself from stepping back, and added: “Perhaps it’s a map.”

  If it was a story, and not real life, then humans and rats would have shaken hands and gone on into a bright new future.

  But since it was real life, there had to be a contract. A war that had been going on since people first lived in houses could not end with just a happy smile. And there had to be a committee. There was much detail to be discussed. The town council was on it, and most of the senior rats, and Maurice marched up and down the table, joining in.

  Darktan sat at one end. He wanted to sleep. His wound ached, his teeth ached, and he hadn’t eaten for ages. For hours the argument flowed backward and forward over his drooping head. He didn’t pay attention to who was doing the talking. Most of the time it seemed to be everyone.

  “Next item: Compulsory bells on all cats. Agreed?”

  “Can we just get back to clause thirty, Mr., er, Maurice? You saying killing a rat would be murder?” said Raufman.

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “But it’s just—”

  “Talk to the paw, mister, ’cos the whiskers don’t want to know!”

  “The cat is right,” said the mayor. “You’re out of order, Mr. Raufman! We’ve been though this.”

  “Then what about if a rat steals from me?”

  “Ahem. Then that’ll be theft, and the rat will have to go before the justices,” said a little voice.

  “Oh, young—?” said Raufman.

  “Peaches. I’m a rat, sir.”

  “And . . . er . . . and the Watch officers will be able to get down the rat tunnels, will they?” asked Hauptmann.

  “Yes! Because there will be rat officers in the Watch. There’ll have to be,” said Maurice. “No problem!”

  “Really? And what does Sergeant Doppelpunkt think about that?” snapped Raufman. “Sergeant Doppelpunkt?”

  “Er . . . dunno, sir. Could be all right, I suppose. I know I couldn’t get down a rat hole. We’d have to make the badges smaller, of course.”

  “I take it that the rat Watch would only arrest rats, yes?”

  The sergeant scratched his head. “No, sir. The way I see it, they’d arrest anyone who needed arresting.”

  “What? Surely you wouldn’t suggest a rat officer could be allowed to arrest a human?”

  “Oh, yes, sir,” said the sergeant.

  “What?”

  “Well, if your rat’s a proper sworn-in Watchman . . . I mean, a Watchrat . . . then you can’t go around saying you’re not allowed to arrest anyone bigger than you, can you? Could be useful, a rat Watchman. I understand they have this trick where they run up your trouser leg—”

  “Gentlemen, we should move on. I suggest this one goes to the subcommittee,” said the mayor.

  “Which one, sir? We’ve already got seventeen!”

  There was a snort from one of the councilors. This was Mr. Schlummer, who was ninety-five and had been peacefully asleep all morning. The snort meant that he was waking up.

  He stared at the other side of the table. His whiskers moved.

  “There’s a rat there!” he said, pointing. “Look, mm, bold as brass! A rat! In a hat!”

  “Yes, sir. This is a meeting to talk to the rats, sir,” said the person beside him.

  He looked down and fumbled for his glasses.

  “Wassat?” he said. He looked closer. “Here,” he said, “aren’t, mm, you a rat, too?”

  “Yes, sir. Name of Nourishing, sir. We’re here to talk to humans. To stop all the trouble.”

  Mr. Schlummer stared at the rat. Then he looked across the table at Sardines, who raised his hat. Then he looked at the mayor, who nodded. He looked at everyone again, his lips moving as he tried to sort this out.

  “You’re all talking?” he said at last.

  “Yes, sir,” said Nourishing.

  “So . . . who’s doing the listening?” he asked.

  “I expect that’ll happen later on,” said Maurice.

  Mr. Schlummer glared at him.

  “Are you a cat?” he demanded.

  “Yes, sir,” said Maurice.

  Mr. Schlummer digested this point too.

  “I thought we used to kill rats?” he said, as if he wasn’t quite certain anymore.

  “Yes, but you see, sir, this is the future,” said Maurice.

  “Is it?” said Mr. Schlummer. “Really? I always wondered when the future was going to happen. Oh, well. Cats talk now, too? Well done! Got to move with the, mm, the . . . things that move, obviously. Wake me up when they bring the tea in.”

  He settled happily back in his chair and after a while began to snore.

  Around him the arguments started again, and kept going. A lot of people talked. Some people listened. Occasionally, they agreed . . . and moved on . . . and argued again. But the piles of paper on the table grew bigger, and looked more and more official.

  Darktan realized that someone was watching him. At the other end of the table the mayor was giving him a long, thoughtful stare.

  As he watched, the man leaned back and said something to a clerk, who nodded and walked around the table, past the arguing people, until he reached Darktan.

  He leaned down.

  “Can . . . you . . . un-der-stand . . . me?” he said, pronouncing each word very carefully.

  “Yes . . . be-cause . . . I’m . . . not . . . stu-pid,” said Darktan.

  “Oh, er . . . the mayor wonders if he can see you in his private office,” said the clerk. “The door over there. I could help you down, if you like.”

  “I could bite your finger, if you like,” said Darktan. The mayor was already walking away from the table. Darktan slid down and followed him. No one paid any attention to either of them.

  The mayor waited until Darktan’s tail was out of the way and carefully shut the door.

  The room was small and untidy. Paper occupied most flat surfaces. Bookcases filled several of the walls; extra books and more papers were stuffed in between the tops of the books and the bottoms of the next shelves.

  The mayor, moving with exaggerated delicacy, went and sat in a big, rather tatty swivel chair, then looked down at Darktan.

  “I’m going to get this wrong,” he said. “I thought we should have a . . . a little talk. Can I pick you up? I mean, it’d be easier to talk to you if you were on my desk.”