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 said.

“We're getting round to that,” said Maurice.

Mr Schlummer glared at him. “Are you a cat?” he demanded.

“Yes, sir,” said Maurice.

Mr Schlummer slowly digested this point too. “I thought we used to kill rats?” he said, as if he wasn't quite certain any more.

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

“Is it?” said Mr Schlummer. “Really? I always wondered when it 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, mm, tea in, will you, puss?”

“Er… it's not allowed to call cats ‘puss’ if you're over ten years old, sir,” said Nourishing.

“Clause 19b,” said Maurice, firmly. “‘No-one is to call cats by silly names unless they intend to give them an immediate meal’. That's my clause,” he added, proudly.

“Really?” said Mr Schlummer. “My word, the future is strange. Still, I daresay everything needed sorting out…”

He settled 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. But the piles of paper on the table grew bigger, and looked more and more official.

Darktan forced himself to wake up again, and 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 paper were stuffed in between the tops of the books and any space in the shelves.

The mayor, moving with exaggerated delicacy, went and sat in a big, rather tatty swivel chair, and 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…”

“No,” said Darktan. “And it'd be easier to talk to you if you lay flat on the floor.” He sighed. He was too tired for games. “If you put your hand flat on the floor I'll stand on it and you can raise it up to the height of the desk,” he said, “but if you try anything nasty I'll bite your thumb off.”

The mayor lifted him up, with extreme caution. Darktan hopped off into the mass of papers, empty teacups and old pens that covered the battered leather top, and stood looking up at the embarrassed man.

“Er… do you have to do much paperwork in your job?” said the mayor.

“Peaches writes things down,” said Darktan, bluntly.

“That's the little female rat that coughs before she speaks, isn't it?” said the mayor.

“That's right.”

“She's very… definite, isn't she?” said the mayor, and

Darktan could see that he was sweating. “She's rather frightening some of the councillors, ha ha.”

“Ha ha,” said Darktan.

The mayor looked miserable. He seemed to be searching for something to say. “You are, er, settling in well?” he said.

“I spent part of last night fighting a dog in a rat pit, and then I think I was stuck in a rat trap for a while,” said Darktan, in a voice like ice. “And then there was a bit of a war. Apart from that, I can't complain.”

The mayor gave him a worried look. For the first time he could remember, Darktan felt sorry for a human. The stupid-looking kid had been different. The mayor seemed to be as tired as Darktan felt.

“Look,” he said, “I think it might work, if that's what you want to ask me.”

The mayor brightened up. “You do?” he said. “There's a lot of arguing.”

“That's why I think it might work,” said Darktan. “Men and rats arguing. You're not poisoning our cheese, and we're not widdling in your jam. It's not going to be easy, but it's a start.”

“But there's something I have to know,” said the mayor.

“Yes?”

“You could have poisoned our wells. You could have set fire to our houses. My daughter tells me you are very… advanced. You don't owe us anything. Why didn't you?”

“What for? What would we have done afterwards?” said Darktan. “Gone to another town? Gone through all this again? Would killing you have made anything better for us? Sooner or later we'd have to talk to humans. It might as well be you.”

“I'm glad you like us!” said the mayor.

Darktan opened his mouth to say: Like you? No, we just don't hate you enough. We're not friends.

But…

There would be no more rat pits. No more traps, no more poisons. True, he was going to have to explain to the Clan what a policeman was, and why rat watchmen might chase rats who broke the new Rules. They weren't going to like that. They weren't going to like that at all. Even a rat with the marks of the Bone Rat's teeth on him was going to have difficulty with that. But as Maurice had said: they'll do this, you'll do that. No-one will lose very much and everyone will gain a lot. The town will prosper, everyone's children will grow up, and suddenly, it'll all be normal.

And everyone likes things to be normal. They don't like to see normal things changed. It must be worth a try, thought Darktan.

“Now I want to ask you a question,” he said. “You've been the leader for… how long?”

“Ten years,” said the mayor.

“Isn't it hard?”

“Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Everyone argues with me all the time,” said the mayor. “Although I must say I'm expecting a little less arguing if all this works. But it's not an easy job.”

“It's ridiculous to have to shout all the time just to get things done,” said Darktan.

“That's right,” said the mayor.

“And everyone expects you to decide things,” said Darktan.

“True.”

“The last leader gave me some advice just before he died, and do you know what it was? ‘Don't eat the green wobbly bit’!”

“Good advice?” said the mayor.

“Yes,” said Darktan. “But all he had to do was be big and tough and fight all the other rats that wanted to be leader.”

“It's a bit like that with the council,” said the mayor.

“What?” said Darktan. “You bite them in the neck?”

“Not yet,” said the mayor. “But it's a thought, I must say.”

“It's just all a lot more complicated than I ever thought it would be!” said Darktan, bewildered. “Because after you've learned to shout you have to learn not to!”