The Stainless Steel Rat eBook Collection

by Harry Harrison

  All of the interior doors had unlocked automatically when we landed. I climbed the ladders down to the recently vacated combat deck and kicked my way through the discarded ration containers to the nearest ramp. The fresh sweet air of morning blew in, carrying with it the smell of dust and explosives. We had brought the benefits of Cliaandian culture to another planet.

  I could hear firing in the distance and a jet thundered by and was gone, but after this it was very quiet. The invasion had fanned out from the spaceport leaving a pocket of silence in its wake. Nor was anyone in sight when I walked, unexamined, through the customs area and, with reflex skill, found the bar. The first thing I did was to drain a flask of beer, then poured a small Antarean ladevandet to hold it down. There were ranked bottles behind the bar, new friends and old ones, and I made a good selection. I needed something to carry them in and opened one of the sliding doors beneath, looking for a box or a bag, and found myself staring into the frightened eyes of a young man.

  ‘Ne mortigu min!’ he cried. I speak Esperanto like a native and answered him in the same tongue.

  ‘We are here to liberate you so mean you no harm.’ Word of this conversation might get to the authorities and I wanted to make the right impression. ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Pire.’

  ‘And the name of this world?’ This seemed sort of a dim question for an arrogant invader to ask, but he was too frightened to question it.

  ‘Burada.’

  ‘That’s fine, I’m glad you decided to be truthful. And what can you tell me about Burada?’

  Badly phrased, admittedly, and he was too stunned to answer. He gaped for a moment, then climbed out of the cabinet and turned to root about in it. He came up with a booklet that he passed over in silence. It had a 3D cover of an ocean with graceful trees on the bordering shore that sprang to life as soon as the heat of my hand touched it; the waves crashed silently on the golden sands and the trees moved to the touch of unfelt breezes. Letters formed of clouds moved across the sky and I read BEAUTIFUL BURADA … HOLIDAY WORLD OF THE WESTERN WARP …

  ‘Looting and consorting with the enemy,’ a familiar, and detested, voice said from the doorway. I turned slowly to see my friend the colonel from our ship standing there fingering his gaussrifle with what can only be termed a filthy grin on his face.

  ‘And 10 G landing too,’ he added, undoubtedly the real cause of his unhappiness. ‘Which is not a shooting offense although the other two are.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  PIRE SHRIEKED IN A MUFFLED MANNER and drew back, not understanding the colonel’s words but recognizing his manner and his weapon. I smiled, as coldly as I could, as I saw that my hands were out of sight below the bar. Turning to the youth I pointed to the far end of the room and ordered him there. He scuttled nicely and while this bit of mis-direction was going on I slipped the tourist book into my pocket and eased my gausspistol out of its holster. When I turned back to the colonel I saw that he had half raised his rifle.

  ‘You are wrong,’ I said, ‘and insulting as well to a fellow officer who recently was a flight-major. I am aiding our invading forces by securing this drinking establishment to prevent any of your troops from becoming drunk on duty and therefore injuring our all-out efforts. And while in this place I took a prisoner who was hiding here. That is what happened and it is my word against yours, colonel.’

  He raised his gun barrel towards me and said, ‘It is only my word that I caught you looting and was forced to shoot you when you resisted arrest.’

  ‘I am a hard one to shoot,’ I said, letting the muzzle of my pistol slide up over the edge of the bar until it was centered between his eyes. ‘I am an expert shot and one of these explosive slugs will take the top of your head off.’

  Apparently he had not expected this kind of instant response from a flying officer and he hesitated for a moment. Pire squealed faintly and there was a thud. I assumed he had fainted but was too busy to look. This murderous tableau held for a moment and there was no way of knowing how it might have ended if a soldier had not rushed into view with a field radio. The colonel took the phone and went back to the war while I stuffed two bottles into the back of my jacket and went out the other exit, stepping over Pire who was unconscious on the floor and undoubtedly better off that way. I was gone before the colonel realized it and I took the drink back to the ship and sent it up the service lift to Ostrov. ‘And don’t drink more than one,’ I ordered and his voice responded with a happy cry over the intercom.

  I was on my own now and I meant to make the most of my opportunity. With the battle still being waged my movements would not be watched and I could make my observations. Of course I might also be killed, but that is one of the occupational hazards of the service. Once the invasion had succeeded movement would be sharply restricted and I would probably be on my way back to Cliaand. The guide booklet was still in my pocket, the heat of my hip keeping the action going on the cover. I opened it and flipped through the pages which were heavy on pictures and short on copy. This was the hard sell all right with low music coming from the illustration of the floating orchestra on beautiful Sabun Bay and the scent of flowers from the Kanape fields. I expected some snow to fall out of the picture of skiing in the Kar mountains, but the technology of advertising did not extend this far. There was a map showing the airport and the city, diagrammatic and worthless for the most part, though it did tell me I was standing in Sucuk Spaceport close by Sucuk City. I threw away the book and went to see the sights.

  Depressing. It would be a long time before the tourists came back to these sunny shores. I walked through the empty streets, pocked by explosions and charred by fire, and wondered what the purpose of this could possibly be. War, always a foolish business, seemed even more infantile at this moment. Horrible might be a better word; I saw my first corpses. There was the sound of dragging feet and a horde of prisoners appeared in the street ahead, guarded on all sides by alert Cliaandian troops. Many of the prisoners were wounded and few bandaged. The sergeant in charged saluted when they went by and gave a wave of victory. I smiled in return but it took an effort. What I had to do now was to find some responsible citizen of Sucuk City who was not yet a prisoner or dead and get the answers to some questions.

  The citizen found me first. I left the main road and turned down a narrow winding street ominously labeled Matbaacilik-sasurtmek – any street with a name like that could not be all good. My suspicions had some justification in fact. I discovered this when I turned a sharp corner and found myself facing a young woman who was pointing a large bore hunting rifle at me. I was waving my little fingers in the air even before she spoke.

  ‘Surrender or die!’

  ‘I’ve surrendered – can’t you see! Long live Burada, rah-rah …’

  ‘None of your sickening jokes, you foul war-mongering male, or I’ll shoot you on the spot.’

  ‘I’m on your side, believe me. Peace on Burada, good will to men – and women too of course.’

  She snorted at this and waved me towards a dark doorway with the gun. Even in anger she was a handsome woman, wide-faced with flaring nostrils and black hair hanging straight to her shoulders. She wore a dark green uniform, high boots, leather straps and all, with some kind of insignia on the sleeve. She was feminine despite this; no uniform could be made to disguise the magnificent swell of that bosom. I entered the doorway as she demanded and she reached to take my pistol as I passed. I could have done some quick business then with her arm and the gun barrel and ended up with both weapons, but I restrained myself. As long as she felt she was in charge she might talk more easily. We entered a dark inner room with a single window, an office of some kind, where another girl in uniform was stretched out on the desk. Her eyes were closed and the leg of her uniform had been cut away to disclose an ugly wound now bound with clumsy bandages. Blood had seeped through them and pooled upon the desk top.

  ‘You have medicine?’ my captress asked.

  ‘I do,’ I said, opening
the medpack at my waist. ‘But I don’t think it will do much good. She appears to have lost a lot of blood and needs medical attention.’

  ‘Where will she get it? Not from you swine invaders.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ I was busy with pressure points, tearing off the old bandages, sprinkling on antiseptic powder and applying better bandages. ‘Her pulse is slow and very weak. I don’t think she will make it.’

  ‘If she doesn’t – you killed her.’ Tears were in my opponent’s eyes, though this did not stop her from keeping the blunderbuss pointed at my midriff.

  ‘I’m trying to save her, remember? And you can call me Vaska.’

  ‘Taze,’ she said automatically. ‘Sergeant in the Guard before they took over.’

  ‘They?’ I felt slightly confused. ‘You mean them, us, the army of Cliaand?’

  ‘No, of course not. But why am I talking to you when I should be killing you …’

  ‘You shouldn’t. Kill me, I mean. Would you believe me if I told you I was a friend?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That I was a spy from elsewhere now working against the Cliaandians although I am in their Space Armada?’

  ‘I would say that you are a worm pleading for your worthless life and willing to say anything.’

  ‘Well, it’s true, anyway,’ I grumbled, realizing she wasn’t going to take my revelations on faith.

  ‘Taze …’ the girl on the table said weakly and we both turned that way. Then ‘Taze’ again and died.

  I thought I was dead as well. Taze swung the rifle up and I could see her knuckles whiten as she squeezed. I did a lot of things quickly, starting with a dive to get under the gun and a roll right into her. The gun fired – the blast almost taking my head off in the confined space – but I wasn’t hit. Before she could fire again I had the barrel in my hand and did a quick chop at the muscles in her arm and a few other things one does not normally do to women except in an emergency like this. Then I had the rifle, as well as my pistol back, and she was lying against the wall with something to really cry about this time. It would be a number of minutes before she could use her fingers again; I had stopped just short of breaking the bone.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ I said, putting my pistol away and fumbling with the archaic mechanism of the rifle. ‘I just didn’t feel like getting killed at the moment and this was the only way I could stop you.’ I worked the bolt and ejected all the cartridges, then squinted inside to make sure I hadn’t missed any. ‘What I told you was true. I am on your side and want to help you. But you will have to help me first.’

  She was puzzled, but I had her attention. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve when I handed back her rifle, then widened them when I passed over the ammunition.

  ‘I would appreciate it if you would keep that weapon unloaded for the moment. I’ll trade you information if you don’t want to give it freely. There is an organization you probably never heard of who is very interested in what the Cliaand are doing. And what they are doing is interstellar invasion – Burada is the sixth on the list and it looks as though it will be as successful as the others.’

  ‘But why do they do this?’

  I had her interest now and I rushed on.

  ‘The why isn’t important, at least not for the present, since evil ambitions are not unusual among the varied political forms of mankind. What I want to know is the how. How did they get away with this invasion in the face of the defences of the planet?’

  ‘Blame the Konsolosluk,’ she said with vehemence, shaking the rifle. ‘I’m not saying that the Women’s Party didn’t make mistakes, but nothing like theirs.’

  ‘Could you fill in some background detail, because I’m afraid you’ve lost me.’

  ‘I’ll give you detail. Men!’ She spat and her eyes glowed with anger and she was beginning to look attractive again. ‘The Women’s Party brought centuries of enlightened rule to this planet. We had prosperity, there was a good tourist trade, no one suffered. So maybe men voted a few years later than women or couldn’t get the best jobs. So what? Women suffered through this sort of thing – and worse – on other planets, and they didn’t revolt. Those Konsolosluk, sneaking around everywhere, whispering lies. Men’s rights and down with oppression and that kind of thing. Getting people worked up, winning a few seats in parliament, disturbing the country. Then their one day revolution, seizing everything, getting control. And all their promises. All they wanted to do was strut around and act superior. Some superior! Worthless, all of them. Know nothing of government or fighting. When your pigs landed more of these men ran away than fought, weak fools. And surrendering rather than fighting. I would never have surrendered.’

  ‘Perhaps they had to.’

  ‘Never. Weaklings, that’s all.’

  All of which gave me pause to think, and with thought came suspicion and after this the dawning light of discovery. Pieces began to fall into shape in my mind and I tried not to get too excited. It was a formless idea yet – but if it worked – if it worked!

  Then I would know how the Cliaandians managed their invasion trick. Simple, like all good ideas, and foolproof as well.

  ‘I’ll need your help,’ I told Taze. ‘I’ll stay in the Space Armada, at least for the moment, since I can learn more there. But I won’t leave this planet. This is where the Cliaandians are the weakest and this is where they are going to be beaten. Have you ever heard of the Special Corps?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, you have now. It is, well, it is the group that is going to help you. I work for them and they should be keeping an eye on me. They saw the fleet leave Cliaand and are certain to have followed it here. That was one of the developments we had planned for. Right now a message drone should be circling this planet. It will relay any messages to the Corps and we will have all the help we need. Can you get access to a medium powered radio transmitter?’

  ‘Yes – but why should I? Why should I believe you? You could be lying.’

  ‘I could be – but you can’t take the chance.’ I scratched feverishly on a message form. ‘I’m leaving you now, I have to get back to my ship before they begin to wonder where I have gone. Here is the message you are to transmit on this frequency. You can do it without getting caught, it’s easy enough. And you lose nothing by doing it. And you may save your planet.’

  She was still doubtful, looking at the paper.

  ‘It’s so hard to believe. That you really are a spy – and want to help us.’

  ‘You can believe he is a spy, take my word for it,’ a voice said from the doorway behind me and I felt a cold hand clamp down on my heart. I turned, slowly.

  Kraj, the man in gray, was standing there. Two other gray uniformed men stood behind him leveling their weapons at me. Kraj pointed his finger like a third gun.

  ‘We have been watching you, spy, and waiting for this information. Now we can proceed with the destruction of your Special Corps.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘PEOPLE SEEM TO BE POPPING up in doorways a lot today, ha ha,’ I said with a joviality I certainly did not feel. Kraj smiled a very wintry smile.

  ‘If you mean the colonel, yes, I had him watching you. Now try to act the fool, Pas Ratunkowy, or whatever your name really is.’

  ‘Hulja, Vaska, Lieutenant in the Space Armada.’

  ‘Flight-Major Hulja has been found in the Dosadan-Glup Robotnik Hotel, which discovery put us on your trail. Yours was a most ingenious plan and might have succeeded had not an optical pickup burned out. The repairman sent to order the matter discovered the Flight-Major and his delusion about the date and this was brought to my attention. I’ll take that.’

  Kraj lifted the message form from Taze’s unresisting fingers. He seemed very much in control of the situation. I clutched my chest in the area of my heart, rolled up my eyes and staggered backwards.

  ‘Too much …’ I muttered. ‘Heart going … don’t shoot … this is the end.’

  Kraj and his two men looked on coldly while I was going th
rough all this for their benefit, until the dramatic moment when I clutched at my throat and shrieked with pain, my body arched and every muscle taut, then fell backwards through the window.

  It was done with plenty of crashing glass, and I flipped in midair and landed on my shoulder and did a roll and came up on my feet, ready to run.

  Looking right up the barrel of a gaussrifle held by another silent and unsmiling man in gray. He scored zero as a conversationalist and for the moment I could think of nothing bright to say myself. Kraj’s voice came clearly through the broken window behind me.

  ‘Take the girl to the prison camp, we have no further need for her. The rest of us will return with the spy. Be on guard constantly, you have seen what he can do.’

  Not very much, I thought to myself in a sudden gloomy depression. Not very much at all. I had penetrated all right, and found out what I wanted to know, but I had not been able to get my information out. Which made it useless. Worse than useless. Kraj might be able to turn my message to his own ends which I was sure were pretty nasty ones. This dark state of mind persisted while the rest of the doom-faced gray men surrounded me and trotted me off to a waiting truck. There was no chance at all to escape; they were very efficient with those guns.

  It was a brief trip, though a remarkably uncomfortable one. The vehicle was a captured Burada truck that must have been used for the transport of garbage or something worse. I was the only one who seemed bothered by the permeating smell. The gray neither commented on it nor took their eyes from me once during the trip. At least the vehicle was silent and smooth; it burned gas in a fuel cell to generate electricity – supplied to a separate drive motor in each wheel. I considered desperate plans of ripping up one of the cables where it passed by my feet, or leaping out of the rear of the truck and so forth. None of this was much good and we reached our destination with our relative positions unchanged. At gunpoint I was herded into a commandeered building, into an empty room where, still at gunpoint, I was ordered to strip. With a portable fluoroscope and cold probes, most humiliating, they removed all devices and gadgetry from my person, then gave me new clothes.