The Stainless Steel Rat eBook Collection

by Harry Harrison

  ‘It is liberation, not captivity,’ she said and did things with her makeup that removed the ravages of the tears. I noticed for the first time that she had white lipstick on to match her white dress and a little lacy kind of thing in her hair.

  ‘This is just like going swimming in cold water,’ she said, standing and patting my cheek. ‘Get it over with quickly so you won’t feel it. Now roll down your pants and put those shoes on.’

  I did, but when I straightened up to answer this last fatuous argument I saw that the door had opened and that a Marriage Master and his two witnesses were standing in the next room. She took my arm, gently, I’ll say that for her, and at the same time the recorded strains of the mighty organ filled the air. She tugged at my elbow, I resisted for a moment, then lurched forward as a gray mist seemed to fall over my eyes.

  When the darkness lifted the organ was bleating its dying notes, the door was closing behind the departing backs and Angelina stopped admiring her ring-decorated finger long enough to raise her lips to mine. I had barely enough strength of will left to kiss her first before I groaned.

  There were a number of bottles on the sideboard and my twitching fingers stumbled through them to unerringly find a knobby flask of Syrian Panther Sweat, a potent beverage with such hideous after-effects that its sale is forbidden on most civilized worlds. A large tumbler of this was most efficacious, I could feel it doing me harm, and I poured a second one. While I was doing this and immersed in my numbed thoughts a period of time must have passed because Angelina – my Angelina (suppressed groan) – now stood before me dressed in slacks and sweater with our bags packed and waiting at her side. The glass was plucked from my fingers.

  ‘Enough private whoopee,’ she said, not unkindly. ‘We’ll celebrate tonight but right now we have to move. The marriage record will be filed at any moment and when our names hit the computer it’s going to light up like a knocking shop on payday. By now the police will have tied us in to most of the crimes of the past two months and will come slavering and baying after us.’

  ‘Silence,’ I ordered, swaying to my feet. ‘The image is a familiar one. Get the car and we will leave.’

  I offered to help with the bags but by the time I communicated this information she was halfway down the stairs with them. With this encouragement I navigated the hazard and reached the door. The car was outside humming with unleashed power, the side door open and Angelina at the wheel tapping her foot with equally unleashed impatience. As I stumbled into it the first tentacles of reality penetrated my numbed cortex. This car, like all other ground cars on Kamata, was steam powered and the steam was generated by the combustion of a specie of peat bricks fed to the furnace by an ingenious and unnecessarily complicated device. It took at least half an hour to raise steam to get moving. Angelina must have fired up before the wedding and planned every other step as well. My solitary contribution to all this was a private drink which had been very little aid at all. I shuddered at what this meant, yet was still driven to the only possible conclusion.

  ‘Do you have a drive-right pill?’ I asked, hoarsely.

  It was in the palm of her hand even as I spoke. Small, round, pink, with a black skull and crossbones on it. A sobering invention of some mad chemist that worked like a metabolic vacuum cleaner. Short minutes after hitting the hydrochloric acid pool of my stomach the ingredients would be doing a blitzkrieg attack through my bloodstream. Not only does it remove all of the alcohol but strips away all of the side products associated with drinking as well, so that the pitiful subject is instantly cold sober and painfully aware of it.

  ‘I can’t take it without water,’ I mumbled, blinking at the plastic cup in her other hand. There was no turning back. With a last happy shudder I flipped the deadly thing into the back of my throat and drained the cup.

  They say it doesn’t take long, but that is an objective time. Subjective was hours. It is a most unusual experience and difficult to describe. Imagine if you will what it feels like to take the nozzle of a cold water hose in your mouth and then to have the water turned on. And then, an instant later, to have the water gushing in great streams from every orifice of your body, including the pores, until you are flushed completely clean.

  ‘Wow,’ I said weakly, sitting up and dabbing at my forehead with my handkerchief. The houses of a small village rushed by and were replaced by farmlands. Angelina drove with calm efficiency and the boiler chunked merrily as it ate another brick of peat.

  ‘Feeling better, I hope?’ She dived into a traffic circle and left it by a different road with only a quick glimpse at the map. ‘The alarm is out for us, army, navy, everything. I’ve been listening to their command radio.’

  ‘Are we going to get away?’

  ‘I doubt it – not unless you come up with some bright idea very quickly. They have a solid ring with aerial cover around the area and are tightening it.’

  I was still recovering from the heroic treatment of the drive-right pill and had not collected all my wits. There was a direct connection from my muddled thoughts to my vocal cords that had no intervening censor of intelligence.

  ‘A great start to marriage. If this is what it is like no wonder I have been avoiding it all these years.’

  The car swung off the road and shuddered to a stop in the deep grass under a row of blue-leaved trees. Angelina was out, had slammed the door and was reaching for her bag before I had time to react. I tried to tell her.

  ‘I’m a fool …’

  ‘Then I’m a fool too for marrying you.’ She was dry eyed and cold of voice with all of her emotions strictly under control. ‘I tricked you and trapped you into marriage because it was what I thought you really wanted. I was wrong, so it’s going to end right now before it really gets started. I’m sorry, Jim. You made an entirely new life for me and I thought I could make one for you. It has been fun knowing you. Thank you and good-bye.’

  By the time she had finished, my thoughts had congealed into something roughly resembling their normal shape and I was weak but ready. I was out of the car before she had finished talking and standing in front of her, blocking her way, holding her most gently by the arms.

  ‘Angelina, I will tell you this but once and probably never again the rest of my life. So listen well and remember. At one time I was the best crook in the galaxy, before I was conned into the Special Corps to help catch other crooks. And I caught you. Not only were you a crook but a mastermind criminal as well and a cheerfully sadistic murderess.’ I felt her body shiver in my hands and held her tighter. ‘It has to be said, because that is what you were. You aren’t any more. You had reasons to be that way and the reasons have been removed and some unhappy quirks in your otherwise pristine cortex have been straightened out. And now I love you. But I want you to remember that I loved you even then during your unreconstructed days, which is saying a lot. So if I buck at the harness now, or am difficult to deal with in the mornings, just remember that and make allowances. Is it a deal?’

  It apparently was. She dropped the bag – on my toe, but I dared not flinch – and wrapped her arms around me and was kissing me and knocked me over into the deep grass and I had a jolly time kissing her right back. The newlywed effect I suppose you would call it, great fun …

  We froze, rigid, as a pair of flywheel cycles moaned and skidded to a stop by our car. Only the police used these since they move a good deal faster than the peat-powered steamers. They are tricycle affairs with a great heavy flywheel encased between the rear wheels. They plugged them in at night so their motor-generators could run the flywheel up to top speed. During the day the flywheel generated electricity to drive the motors in each wheel. Very efficient and smog-free. Very dangerous.

  ‘This is the car, Podder!’ one of the police shouted out over the constant moan of the flywheels.

  ‘I’ll call it in. They can’t have gone far. We sure have them trapped now!’

  Nothing infuriates me like the bland assurances of petty officials. Oh yes, really tra
pped now. I growled deep in my throat as the other uniformed incompetent poked his nose around the car and gaped at our cozy cuddle in the grass. He was still gaping when I lunged an arm up and around his neck with a tight squeeze on his throat and pulled him down to join us. It was fun to watch his tongue come out and his eyes pop and his head turn red but Angelina spoiled it. She whipped off his helmet and rapped him smartly – and accurately – on the temple with the heel of her shoe. He turned off and I let him drop.

  ‘And you talk about me,’ my bride whispered. ‘You’ve got more than a touch of the old sadist in your own makeup.’

  ‘I called it in. Everybody knows. We’ve sure got them now …’ the enthusiastic remaining officer said, but his voice rattled to a stop when he looked down the muzzle of his associate’s riot gun. Angelina dug a sleep capsule out of her bag and snapped it under his nose.

  ‘And now what, boss?’ she asked, smiling happily at the two black-uniformed, brass-buttoned figures by the side of the road.

  ‘I have been thinking,’ I said, and rubbed my jaw and frowned with deep concentration to prove it. ‘We have had over four months of worriless holiday, but all good things must end. We could extend our leave. But it would be hectic to say the least and people would get hurt and you – while that is a fine shape – it is not quite the shape for flight and pursuit and general nastiness. Shall we return to the service from which we fled?’

  ‘I was hoping you would say that. Morning sickness and bank robbery just don’t seem to mix. It will be fun to get back.’

  ‘Particularly since they will be so glad to see us. Considering that they turned down our request for leave and we had to steal that mail ship.’

  ‘Not to mention all the expense money we have stolen because we couldn’t touch our bank accounts.’

  ‘Right. Follow me and we’ll do this with style.’

  We stripped off their uniforms and gently laid the snoring peace officers in the rear of the car. One had pink polka-dot underwear while the other’s was utilitarian black – but trimmed with lace. Which might have been local custom of dress but gave me second thoughts about the police on Kamata and I was glad we were leaving. Uniformed, helmeted, and goggled we hummed merrily down the road on our flywheel cycles waving to all the tanks and trucks that roared by the other way. Before there were too many screams and shouts of discovery I braked in the center of the road and signaled an armored car to a stop. Angelina swung her cycle behind them so that they would not find the sight of a pregnant officer too distracting.

  ‘Got them cornered!’ I shouted. ‘But they have a radio so keep this off the net. Follow me.’

  ‘Lead on!’ the driver shouted, his mate nodding agreement while thoughts of rewards, fame, medals danced dazzlingly before their eyes. I led them to a deserted track into the woods that ended at a small lake complete with ramshackle boathouse and dock.

  I braked, waved them to a stop, touched my fingers to my lips and tiptoed back to their car. The driver lowered the side window and looked out expectantly.

  ‘Breathe this,’ I said and flipped a gas grenade through the opening.

  There was a cloud of smoke followed by gasps followed by two more silent uniformed figures snoring in the grass.

  ‘Going to take a quick peek at their underwear?’ Angelina asked.

  ‘No. I want to maintain some illusions, even if they are false.’

  The cycles rolled merrily down the dock and off into the water where they steamed and short-circuited and made a lot of bubbles. As soon as the armored car had aired out we boarded and drove away. Angelina found the driver’s untouched lunch and cheerfully consumed it. I avoided most of the main roads and headed back to the city where the command post was located at the central police station. I wanted to go where the big action was.

  We parked in the underground garage, deserted now, and took the elevator to the tower. The building was almost empty, except for the command center, and I found an unoccupied office nearby and left Angelina there. Innocently amusing herself with the sealed – but easily opened – confidential files. I lowered my goggles into place and staged a dusty, exhausted entrance to control. I was ignored. The man I wanted to see was pacing the floor sucking on a long dead pipe. I rushed up and saluted.

  ‘Sir, are you Mr. Inskipp?’

  ‘Yar,’ he muttered, his attention still on the great wall chart that theoretically showed the condition of the chase.

  ‘Someone to see you, sir.’

  ‘What? What?’ he said, still distracted. Harold Peters Inskipp, director and mastermind of the Special Corps, not quite with it this day. He followed me out easily enough and I closed the door and slipped off the heavy goggles.

  ‘We’re ready to come home now,’ I told him. ‘If you can find a quiet way of getting us off this planet without the locals getting their greedy hands on us.’

  His jaw clenched with anger and fractured the mouthpiece of the pipe into innumerable fragments. I led him, spitting out pieces of plastic, to the room where Angelina was waiting.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘ARRGH!’ INSKIPP SNARLED, and shook the sheaf of papers in his hand so that they rattled like dry skeletal bones.

  ‘Very expressive,’ I snarled, slipping a cigar from my pocket humidor and holding it to my ear. ‘But with a very minimal content of information. Could you be more explicit?’ I pinched the cigar’s small end and there was not the slightest crackle. Perfection.

  ‘Do you know how many millions your crime wave has cost? The economy of Kamata …’

  ‘Will not suffer an iota. The government will reimburse the institutions that suffered the losses and will then in turn deduct the same amount from its annual payment to the Special Corps. Which has more money than it can possibly use in any case. And look at the benefits bestowed in return. Plenty of excitement for the populace, increased sales of newspapers, exercise for the sedentary law enforcement officers – and that is an interesting story in itself – as well as field maneuvers that were a pleasure for everyone involved. Far from being annoyed they should pay us a fee for making all these exciting things possible.’ I lit the cigar and blew out a great cloud of fragrant smoke.

  ‘Don’t play wise with me, you aging con man. If I turned you and your bride over to the Kamata authorities you would still be in jail 600 years from now.’

  ‘Little chance of that, Inskipp, aging con man yourself. You are short of good field agents as it is. You need us more than we need you. So consider this chewing out at an end and get on with the business. I have been chastised.’ I tore a button off the front of my jacket and threw it across the desk to him. ‘Here, rip off my medals and reduce me to the ranks. I am guilty. Next case.’

  With a final simulated growl of anger he filed the papers in the wastebasket and took out a large red folder that buzzed threateningly when he touched it. His thumb print defused the security device and the folder dropped open.

  ‘I have a top secret gravely important assignment here.’

  ‘What other kind do I ever get?’

  ‘It is hideously dangerous as well.’

  ‘You are secretly envious of my good looks and have a death wish for me. Come on, Inskipp. Stop sparring and let me know what the deal is. Angelina and I can handle it better than the rest of your senile and feeble agents.’

  ‘This job of work is for you alone. Angelina is, well …’ His face reddened and he examined the file closely.

  ‘Whoopee!’ I shouted. ‘Inskipp the killer, daredevil, master of men, secret power in the galaxy today. And he can’t say the word pregnant! How about baby? Wait, sex, that is a goodie. You blush to think about it. Go ahead, say sex three times fast, it will do you good—’

  ‘Shut up, diGriz,’ he growled. ‘At least you finally married her which shows you have a single drop of honesty in your otherwise rotten carcass. She stays behind. You go out on this one-man job. Probably leaving her a widow.’

  ‘She looks awful in black so you can’t get ri
d of me that easily. Tell.’

  ‘Look at this,’ he said, taking a roll of film from the folder and slipping in into a slot in his desk. A screen dropped down from the ceiling and the room darkened. The film began.

  The camera had been handheld, the color was off at times, and it was most unprofessional. But it was the best home movie I had ever seen because the material was so good. Authentic, no doubt about it.

  Someone was waging war. It was a sunny day with white puffs of cloud against a blue sky. And black puffs of antiaircraft fire in among them. But the fire was not heavy and there was not enough of it to stop the troop carriers that came in low and fast for landing. This was an average sized spaceport, with the buildings in the far background and some cargo ships nearby. Other aircraft roared in low and bomb explosions reached skyward from what must have been the defense positions. The impossibility of what was happening finally came home to me.

  ‘Those are spaceships!’ I gurgled. ‘And space transports. Is some numbskull government so stupid as to think that it can succeed in an interplanetary war? What happened after they lost – and how does it affect me?’

  The film ended and the lights came up again. Inskipp steepled his fingers on the desk and leered over them.

  ‘For your information, Mr. Know-it-all, this invasion succeeded – and so did the other ones before it. This film was taken by a smuggler, one of our regular informants, whose ship was just fast enough to get away during the battle.’

  This was a stopper. I dragged deeply on the cigar and considered what little I knew about interplanetary warfare. There was little enough to know. Because it just doesn’t work. Maybe a few times in the galaxy when local conditions are right, say a solar system with two inhabited planets. If one planet is backward and the other advanced industrially the primitive one might be invaded successfully. But not if they put up any kind of a real defense. The distance-time relationships just don’t make this kind of warfare practical. When every soldier and weapon and ration has to be lifted from the gravity well of a planet and carried across space the energy expenditure is considerable, the transport demands incredible and the cost unbelievable. If, in addition, the invader has to land in the face of determined opposition the invasion is impossible. And this is inside a solar system where the planets are practically touching on a galactic scale. The thought of warfare between planets of differing star systems is even more impossible.