The Venging by Greg Bear Page A

was, there were rats that didn't pay much attention to him. A whole gang of rats. The leader was a big one, a good yard from nose to tail. These rats made their living (32 of 197) by burrowing under the ground in the old section of the cemetery." That did it. I didn't want to hear any more. The air was a lot colder than it should have been, and I wanted to get home in time for dinner and still be able to eat it. But I couldn't go just then. "Now the dog didn't know what the rats did, and just like you and I, probably, he didn't much care to know. But it was his job to keep them under control. So one day he made a truce with a couple of cats that he normally tormented and told them about the rats. These cats were scrappy old toms, and they'd long since cleared out the competition of other cats, but they were friends themselves. So the dog made them a proposition. He said he'd let them use the cemetery anytime they wanted, to prowl or hunt in or whatever, if they would put the fear of God into a few of the rats. The cats took him up on it. 'We get to do whatever we want,' they said, 'whenever we want, and you won't bother us.' The dog agreed. "That night the dog waited for the sounds of battle. But they never came. Nary a yowl." She glared at me for emphasis. "Not a claw scratch. Not even a twitch of tail in the wind." She took a deep breath, and so did I. "Round about midnight the dog went out into the graveyard. It was very dark, and there wasn't wind or bird or speck of star to relieve the quiet and the dismal inside-of-a-box-camera blackness. He sniffed his way to the old part of the graveyard and met with the head rat, who was sitting on a slanty, cracked wooden grave marker. Only his eyes and a tip of tail showed in the dark, but the dog could smell him. 'What happened to the cats?' he asked. The rat shrugged his haunches. 'Ain't seen any cats,' he said. 'What did you thinkthat you could scare us out with a couple of cats? Ha. Listenif there had been any cats here tonight, they'd have been strung and hung like meat in a shed, and my young'uns would have grown fat on'" "No-o-o!" I screamed, and I ran away from the woman and the tree until I couldn't hear the story anymore. "What's the matter?" she called after me. "Aren't you going to tell me your story?" Her voice followed me as I ran. It was funny. That night, I wanted to know what happened to the cats. Maybe nothing had happened to them. Not knowing made my visions even worseand I didn't sleep well. But my brain worked like it had never worked before. The next day, a Saturday, I had an endingnot a very good one in retrospectbut it served to frighten Michael so badly he threatened to tell Mom on me. "What would you want to do that for?" I asked. "Cripes, I won't ever tell you a story again if you tell Mom!" Michael was a year younger and didn't worry about the future. "You never told me stories before," he said, "and everything was fine. I won't miss them." (33 of 197) He ran down the stairs to the living room. Dad was smoking a pipe and reading the paper, relaxing before checking the irrigation on the north thirty. Michael stood at the foot of the stairs, thinking. I was almost down to grab him and haul him upstairs when he made his decision and headed for the kitchen. I knew exactly what he was consideringthat Dad would probably laugh and call him a little scaredy-cat. But Mom would get upset and do me in proper. She was putting a paper form over the kitchen table to mark it for fitting a tablecloth. Michael ran up to her and hung on to a pants leg while I halted at the kitchen door, breathing hard, eyes threatening eternal torture if he so much as peeped. But Michael didn't worry about the future much. "Mom," he said. "Cripes!" I shouted, high-pitching on the i. Refuge awaited me in the tractor shed. It was an agreed-upon hiding place. Mom didn't know I'd be there, but Dad did, and he could mediate. It took him a half hour to get to me. I sat in the dark behind a