Free Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett Page B

from? They say, if you've been a good rat, maybe the Big Rat has got this tunnel full of good eating that the Bone Rat will take you to'
    'But Fresh is still here. And I ain't seen a bony rat!'
    'Ah, but they say you only see it if it's coming for you .'
    'Oh? Oh?' said another rat, nervous to the point of mad sarcasm. 'So how did they see it, eh? Tell me that! Life's bad enough as it is without having to worry about invisible things you can't see!'
    ' All right, all right, what's been happening ?'
    The rats turned, suddenly incredibly pleased to see Darktan scurry up the tunnel.
    Darktan pushed past. He'd brought Nourishing with him. It was never too soon, he said, for a member of the squad to find out what happened to people who got things wrong. 'I see,' he said, looking at the trap. He shook his head sadly. 'What do I tell everyone?'
    'Not to use tunnels that haven't been marked clear, sir,' said Tomato. 'But Fresh, well, he's not a… he never was a good listener. And he was keen to get on with it, sir.'
    Darktan examined the trap, and tried to keep his face fixed in an expression of confident purpose. It was hard to do it, though. He'd never seen a trap like it. It looked a really nasty one, a squeezer rather than a chopper. It had been put where a rat hurrying to the water would be bound to trip it.
    'He's not going to do any more listening now, that's for certain,' he said. 'The face looks familiar. Apart from the bulging eyes and the tongue hanging out, that is.'
    'Er, you talked to Fresh in the muster this morning, sir,' said a rat. 'Told him he was raised to be a widdler and to get on with it, sir.'
    Darktan's expression remained blank. Then he said, 'We've got to go. We're finding a lot of traps all over. We'll work our way back to you. No-one is to go any further along that tunnel, understood? Everyone say "yes, Darktan"!'
    'Yes, Darktan,' the rats chorused.
    'And one of you stand guard,' said Darktan. 'There could be more traps up that way.'
    'What shall we do with Fresh, sir?' said Tomato.
    'Don't eat the green wobbly bit,' said Darktan, and hurried off.
    Traps! he thought. There were too many of them. And too much poison. Even the experienced members of the squad were getting nervous now. He didn't like to come across unknown things. You found out what unknown things were when they killed you.
    The rats were spreading out under the town, and it was like no other town they'd found. The whole place was a rat trap. They hadn't found a single living keekee . Not one. That wasn't normal. Everywhere had rats. Where you got humans, you got rats.
    And on top of everything else the young rats were spending too much time worrying about… things. Things you couldn't see or smell. Shadow things. Darktan shook his head. There was no room in the tunnels for that sort of thinking. Life was real, life was practical, and life could get taken away really quickly if you weren't paying attention…
    He noticed Nourishing looking around and sniffing the air as they trotted along a pipe.
    'That's right,' he said approvingly. 'You can't be too careful. Never rush in. Even the rat in front of you might have been lucky and missed the trigger.'
    'Yes, sir.'
    'Don't worry too much, though.'
    'He did look awfully… flat, sir.'
    'Fools rush in, Nourishing. Fools rush in…'
    Darktan could sense the fear spreading. It worried him. If the Changelings panicked, they'd panic as rats. And the tunnels in this city were no place for a terrified rat to be running. But if one rat broke ranks and ran, then most of them would follow. Smell held sway in the tunnels. When things went well, everyone felt good. When fear arrived, it flowed through the runs like flood-water. Panic in the rat world was a kind of disease that could be caught too easily.
    Things did not get any better when they caught up with the rest of the trap-squad. This time, they'd found a new poison.
    'Not to worry,' said Darktan, who was worried. 'We've come across new poisons