OH, RATS! By MIRIAM ALLEN DEFORD Illustrated by WOOD [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine December 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Orthedrin, maxiton and glutamic acid--they were the prescription that made him king of his world! SK540, the 27th son of two very ordinary white laboratory rats, surveyed his world. He was no more able than any other rat to possess articulate speech, or to use his paws as hands. All he had was a brain which, relative to its size, was superior to any rat's that had hitherto appeared on Earth. It was enough. In the first week of gestation his embryo had been removed to a more suitable receptacle than the maternal womb, and his brain had been stimulated with orthedrin, maxiton and glutamic acid. It had been continuously irrigated with blood. One hemisphere had been activated far in excess of the other, since previous experiments had shown that increased lack of symmetry between the hemispheres produced superior mentality. The end-result was an enormous increase in brain-cells in both hemispheres. His brain showed also a marked increase in cholinesterase over that of other rats. SK540, in other words, was a super-rat. The same processes had been applied to all his brothers and sisters. Most of them had died. The few who did not, failed to show the desired results, or showed them in so lopsided and partial a manner that it was necessary to destroy them. All of this, of course had been mere preparation and experimentation with a view to later developments in human subjects. What SK540's gods had not anticipated was that they would produce a creature mentally the superior, not only of his fellow-rats, but also, in some respects, of themselves. He was a super-rat: but he was still a rat. His world of dreams and aspirations was not human, but murine. What would you do if you were a brilliant, moody young super-rat, caged in a laboratory? SK540 did it. What human beings desired was health, freedom, wealth, love, and power. So did SK540. But to him health was taken for granted; freedom was freedom from cages, traps, cats, and dogs; wealth meant shelter from cold and rain and plenty to eat; love meant a constant supply of available females. But power! It was in his longing for power that he most revealingly displayed his status as super-rat. Therefore, once he had learned how to open his cage, he was carefully selective of the companions--actually, the followers--whom he would release to join his midnight hegira from the laboratory. Only the meekest and most subservient of the males--intelligent but not too intelligent--and the most desirable and amiable of the females were invited.