The Stainless Steel Rat eBook Collection

by Harry Harrison

  Back and forth across the cobbles they went, slashing away as if their lives depended on it. Which, of course, they did. It was pretty primitive sabre work, slash and parry, but it certainly was energetic. A cry went up as Dimonte drew first blood – a cut on Doccia’s side that quickly stained his shirt.

  This was the beginning of the end. Dimonte was stronger and angrier, high on victory. If Doccia had been drinking as much as we had been told he was also fighting a hangover as well as his enemy. Dimonte began pressing harder and harder, slashing remorselessly, pushing the other capo relentlessly across the courtyard. Until his back was to the wall of the building and he could retreat no more. Dimonte beat down the other’s guard, hammered him on the jaw with the hilt of his sword – then disarmed Capo Doccia with a savage twist of his blade.

  All of the plans for sadistic torture were washed away in the passion of his anger. He drew the blade back – then slashed out.

  It was not an attractive sight as the sharp steel tore across Doccia’s throat. It sickened me and I turned away. Just as the shadow darkened the sun.

  One person looked up, then another – and there was a gasp.

  I looked too. Only unlike the rest of them I knew exactly what I was looking at.

  The immense shining form of a D-class spacer that was equipped with atmospheric G-lift. Tonnes of ship drifting light as a feather over the courtyard. Coming to an effortless stop. Hanging there over our heads in silent menace.

  I turned and dived for the controls. There was no time to escape, no way to escape. I was scratching at the storage compartment as the first silvery spheres fell free of the ship. I gave them one horrified glance – then took a deep breath and held it as I pulled the compartment door open and plunged my arm inside. Grabbing up the leather bag as I sat back onto the driver’s seat.

  All around me the spheres were hitting and bursting, releasing their loads of gas. I dropped the bag onto my lap as the first soldiers crumpled and fell. My fingers fumbled at the seatbelt, lengthening it, as Capo Dimonte tottered then fell forward onto his dead enemy’s body.

  There was a stinging in my nostrils as I snapped the belt buckle over the bag, sealing it against me. And that was all that I could possibly do.

  My lungs were beginning to hurt as I took a last, long look around the courtyard. I had the strong feeling that it would also be my last sight of the fair world of Spiovente.

  ‘Good riddance!’ I shouted at the now silent forms, blasting the breath from my lungs. Then breathed in …

  I was conscious, I knew that. I could feel something soft under my back and there was a light burning down on my closed eyelids. I was afraid to open them – remembering the blasting headache that had accompanied the last gassing. With this thought I cringed and moved my head.

  And felt nothing. Emboldened by this tiny experiment I let one eye open a crack. Still nothing. I blinked in the strong light but there was no pain, no pain at all.

  ‘A different gas, thank you kindly,’ I said to no one in particular as I opened my eyes wide.

  A small room, curved metal walls, a narrow bunk under me. Even if my last sight had not been of the hovering spacer I should have been able to figure this one out. They had taken me aboard. But where were all my groats? I looked around rapidly, but they were certainly not in sight. The rapid movements of my head had brought on an attack of dizziness so that I fell back onto the bunk and groaned in loud self-pity.

  ‘Drink this. It will eliminate the symptoms of the gas.’

  I snapped my eyes open again and looked at the big man who was just closing the door behind him. He was in uniform of some kind, with plenty of gold buttons and stripes, the sort of thing much favoured by the military. He was holding out a plastic beaker which I seized gingerly and sniffed.

  ‘We had plenty of time to poison or kill you while you were unconscious,’ he said. A sound argument. I drained the bitter liquid and instantly felt better.

  ‘You have stolen my money,’ I said, just as he was beginning to speak.

  ‘Your money is safe –’

  ‘It will be safe only when it is in my hands. As it was when you found me, strapped to my body. Whoever took it is a thief.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me of thievery!’ he snapped. ‘You probably stole it yourself.’

  ‘Prove it! I say I worked hard for that money and I don’t intend to have it stolen for the space-war widows pension scheme …’

  ‘That is enough. I did not come here to talk about your miserable groats. They will be placed on deposit in the galactic bank …’

  ‘At what rate of exchange? And what kind of interest will it earn?’

  He was coldly angry now. ‘That’s enough. You are in deep trouble – and you have a lot of explaining to do. Professor Lustig tells me that your name is Jim. What is your entire name and where do you come from?’

  ‘My name is Jim Nixon and I am from Venia.’

  ‘We will get nowhere if you persist in lying. Your name is James diGriz and you are an escaped convict from Bit O’Heaven.’

  Well, as you can imagine, I did some rapid blinking at this information. Whoever this lad was he had one hell of an intelligence network. I could see that I was no longer playing the amateur team of the professors. They had called in the pros. And he had thrown me this curve ball to catch me off-balance, get me rattled, get me to talk freely. Except I did not work that way. I shifted mental gears, sat up in the bed so I could see him eye to eye, and spoke calmly.

  ‘We have not been introduced.’

  The anger was gone now and he was as calm as I was. He turned and pressed a button on the wall that unfolded a metal chair. He sat down on it and crossed his legs.

  ‘Captain Varod of the League Navy. Specialising in planetary mop-up details. Are you ready to answer questions?’

  ‘Yes – if you will trade me one for one. Where are we?’

  ‘About thirteen lightyears out of Spiovente, you’ll be happy to hear.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘My turn. How did you get to that planet?’

  ‘Aboard a Venian freighter that was smuggling weapons to the now deceased Capo Doccia.’

  That got his attention all right. He leaned forward eagerly as he spoke. ‘Who was the captain of the freighter?’

  ‘You are out of turn. What are you going to do with me?’

  ‘You are an escaped prisoner and will be returned to Bit O’ Heaven to serve out your prison sentence.’

  ‘Really?’ I smiled insincerely. ‘Now I will be happy to answer your question – except I have completely forgotten the captain’s name. Would you care to torture me?’

  ‘Don’t play games, Jim. You are in deep trouble. Cooperate and I will do what I can for you.’

  ‘Good. I remember the name and you put me down on a neutral planet and we call it quits.’

  ‘That is impossible. Records are kept and I am an officer of the law. I must return you to Bit O’Heaven.’

  ‘Thanks. I just got terminal amnesia. Before you leave would you tell me what is going to happen to Spiovente?’

  He sat back in the chair with no intention at all of leaving.

  ‘The first thing that will happen will be the termination of Lustig’s disastrous intervention. We were forced into that by the Intergalactic Applied Socioeconomics Association. They managed to raise sufficient funds to put into effect some of their theories. A number of planets financed them and it was easier to let them make idiots of themselves than to try and stop them.’

  ‘And they have done that now?’

  ‘Completely. They have all been shipped out and were very happy to go. Having political and economic theories is one thing. But applying them to harsh reality can be a traumatic experience. This has been done in the past – and always with disastrous results. We know none of the details now, they are lost in the mists of time, but there was an insane doctrine called Monetarism that is reputed to have destroyed whole cultures, entire planets. Now another experiment
has gone astray, so the specialists will move in as they should have done in the first place.’

  ‘Invasion?’

  ‘You have been watching too much tri-D. War is forbidden and you should know better than to suggest that. We have people who will work within the existing society of Spiovente. Probably with this Capo Dimonte since he has just doubled his domain. He will be aided and encouraged to grow in power, to annex more and more territory.’

  ‘And kill more and more people!’

  ‘No, we will see to that. Very soon he will not be able to rule without aid and our bureaucrats are waiting to help him. Centralised government …’

  ‘The growth of the judiciary, taxes, I know the drill. You sound just like Lustig.’

  ‘Not quite. Our techniques are proven – and they work. Within one generation, two at the most, Spiovente will be welcomed into the family of civilised planets.’

  ‘Congratulations. Now please leave so I can sit and brood about my future incarceration.’

  ‘And you still won’t tell me the name of the gun-runner? He could continue in his smuggling operations – and you would be responsible for more deaths.’

  I would be, too. Was I responsible for the dead in the courtyard of the keep as well? The attack had been my idea. But Dimonte would have attacked in any case and there could have been even more dead. The acceptance of responsibility was not done easily. Captain Varod must have been reading my mind.

  ‘Do you have a sense of responsibility?’ he asked.

  Good question. He was a shrewd old boy.

  ‘Yes, I do. I believe in life and the sanctity of life and I do not believe in killing. Each of us has only one go at life and I don’t want to be responsible for cutting short anyone else’s. I think I have made some mistakes and I hope I have learned by them. The name of the gun-runner is Captain Ga …’

  ‘Garth,’ he said. ‘We know him and have been watching him. He has made his last voyage.’

  My thoughts spun rapidly. ‘Then why ask me if you knew all along?’

  ‘For your sake, Jim. Nobody else’s. I told you that our job was rehabilitation. You have made an important decision and I believe that you will be a better individual for it. Good luck in the future.’ He stood to leave.

  ‘Thanks a lot. I’ll remember your words when I am cracking boulders on the rock pile.’

  He stood in the open door and smiled back at me. ‘I am in the justice business on a very large scale. And, in truth, I don’t believe in prisons and incarceration for failed bank robbery. You are destined for better things than that. Therefore I am having you returned to prison. You will be transferred to another ship, on another planet where you will be locked away until it arrives.’

  He went out, then turned back for just an instant. ‘Taking into consideration what you have told me I am forgetting that you still have a lockpick in the sole of your shoe.’

  Then he was gone for good. I stared at the closed door and suddenly burst out laughing. It was going to be a good universe after all, filled with good things to be appropriated in a manner only possible to one who knew his trade. And I knew mine!

  ‘Thank you, Bishop, thanks for everything. You have done it, guided me and taught me. Because of you – a Stainless Steel Rat is born!’

  THE STAINLESS STEEL RAT GETS DRAFTED

  Harry Harrison

  www.sfgateway.com

  Contents

  Title Page

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1

  I am too young to die. Just eighteen years old—and now I’m as good as dead. My grip is weakening, my fingers slipping, and the elevator shaft below me is a kilometer deep. I can’t hold on any longer. I’m going to fall …

  Normally I am not prone to panic—but I was panicking now. Shaking from head to toe with fatigue, knowing that there was just no way out of this one.

  I was in trouble, mortal trouble, and I had only myself to blame this time. All the good advice I had given myself down through the years, the even better counsel The Bishop had given me, all forgotten. All wiped away by sudden impulse.

  Perhaps I deserved to die. Maybe a Stainless Steel Rat had been born—but a very rusty one was about to snuff it right now. The metal door frame was greasy and I had to hold on hard with my aching fingers. My toes barely gripped the narrow ledge—while my unsupported heels hung over the black drop below. Now my arches began to ache with the effort of standing on tiptoe—which was nothing compared to the fire in my throbbing forearms.

  It had seemed such a logical, simple, good, intelligent plan at the time.

  I now knew it to be irrational, complex, bad and moronic. “You are an idiot, Jimmy diGriz,” I muttered through my tightly shut teeth, realizing only then that they were clamped into my lower lip and drawing blood. I unclamped and spat—and my right hand slipped. The great spasm of fear that swept over me rode down the fatigue and I grabbed a new hold with an explosion of desperate energy.

  Which faded away as quickly as it had come, leaving me in the same situation. Tireder if anything. There was no getting out of this one. I was stuck here until I could no longer hold on, until my grip loosened and I fell. Might as well let go now and get it over with …

  “No, Jim, no surrender.”

  Through the thudding of blood in my ears my voice seemed to come from a great distance, to be deeper in register than my own, as though The Bishop himself were speaking. The thought was his, the words might very well be his. I held on, though I didn’t really know why. And the distant whine was disturbing.

  Whine? The elevator shaft was black as the grave and just as silent. Was the maglevlift moving again? With muscle-tight slowness I bent my head and looked down the shaft. Nothing.

  Something. A tiny glimmer of light.

  The elevator was coming up the shaft.

  But so what? There were two hundred and thirty-three floors in this government building. What were the odds that it would stop at the floor below me so I could step neatly back onto its top? Astronomical I was sure, and I was in no mood to work them out. Or perhaps it would come up to this floor and scrape me off like a bug as it went by? Another nice thought. I watched the light surge upward towards me, my eyes opening wider and wider to match the growing glow. The increasing whine of the centering wheels, the rush of air exploding at me, this was the end …

  The end of its upward motion. The car stopped just below me, so close that I could hear the door swoosh open and the voices of the two guards inside.

  “I’ll cover you. Keep your safety off when you search the hall.”

  “You’ll cover me, thanks! I didn’t hear myself volunteer.”

  “You didn’t—I did. My two stripes to your one mean you take a look.”

  One-stripe muttered complaints as he moved out as slowly as he could. As his shadow occulted the light from the open door I stepped down onto the car with my left foot, as gingerly as I could. Hoping that any movement to the car caused by my climbing onto it would be masked by his exiting.

  Not that it was easy to do. My thigh muscle spasmed with cramp and my fingers were locked into place. I stepped slowly back with my vibrating right
foot until I was standing on top of the elevator. My cramped fingers still gripped the frame: I felt very much the fool.

  “Hall is empty,” a distant voice called out.

  “Take a reading from the proximity recorder.”

  There were muttered grumbles and clattering from outside as I wrenched my right hand free of the greasy metal, reached over with it to grapple with my still recalcitrant left hand.

  “Got a reading for myself. Other than that the last movement in the corridor was at eighteen hundred. People going home.”

  “Then we do have a mystery,” two-stripes said. “Come on back. We had a readout that showed this car going up to this floor. We called it back from this floor. Now you tell me that no one got out. A mystery.”

  “That’s no mystery, that’s just a malfunction. A glitch in the computer. The thing is giving itself instructions when no one else will.”

  “Much as I hate to agree—I agree. Let’s go back and finish the card game.”

  One-stripe returned, the elevator door closed, I sat down as quietly as I could, and we all dropped back down the shaft together. The guards got out at the prison floor and I just sat there in creaking silence as I kneaded the knots out of my muscles with trembling fingers. When they were roughly under control again I opened the hatch that I was sitting on, dropped down into the car and looked out slowly and carefully. The card players were out of sight in the guardroom, where they belonged. With infinite caution I retraced the route I had taken during my abortive escape. Slinking guiltily along the walls—if I had a tail it would have been between my legs—making a fumbled hash of opening the locked corridor doors with my lockpick. Finally reaching my own cell, unlocking and relocking it, slipping the lockpick back into my shoe sole—dropping onto my bed with a sigh that must have been heard around the world. I did not dare speak out loud in the sleeping silence of the cell block, but I did shout the words inside my head.

  “Jim, you are the dumbest most moronic idiot who ever came down the pike. Don’t, and I repeat, don’t ever do anything like that again.”