The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You

by Harry Harrison

  But it had to be true. The alien outfit was a good one designed to bear the closest inspection. They had jumped me and knocked me out. At no time had they any clue that I was other than what I pretended to be--just one more alien ugly. And they must have been in a big hurry; the crude welds that held the chain showed that. They had to leave the war planet before a couple of million slimy monsters dropped on them and ate them. Pack me aboard, weld me into place, blast off for an unknown destination, then take care of me later.

  "Whoopee!" I shouted in the tiniest whisper. Then went to work to get out of the disguise.

  It was a hard wriggle but I made it, crawling out through the open neck like a newborn moth from a chrysalis. I stretched and cracked my joints and felt much better. Better still when I had abstracted my needle gun from the disguise. Now, standing on the metal deck, I could feel the slight vibration of the drive. We were in space and going somewhere. Free of my chains, with a sturdy gun in my hand, I could face the fact I had ignored earlier. The odds were at least ten to one that we were going home. To the planet of the gray men.

  That was not a very nice prospect--but the odds were also good that I could do something about it. Now, well before we landed and before someone came to see how I was doing. They would be tired, bashed about after their escape, possibly off guard. What I had to do must be done soonest. Which was fine by me. I switched the needle gun from "explosive" to "poison"--then on to "sleep." While I was sure that the gray men deserved killing a thousand times over I just could not do it in cold blood. No Knocking them out would do just as well for now. If I captured the ship I could chain them all and lock them up. If I didn't win, the number of enemies remaining would make little difference.

  "Onward, Slippery Jim diGriz, savior of mankind," I said to cheer myself up. Then was instantly depressed again when I tried the handle on the small door and found it securely locked. "Thermite, of course, how could I be so forgetful," I chided, and went back to the alien outfit. The dispenser still worked and a grenade plopped out and dropped to the deck. Then it was simply a matter of activating the sticky molecules on the end, pressing it to the lock--and setting it off. It burned nicely, filling the small room with a ruddy glow and plenty of dense smoke. Which would have started me coughing if I had not grabbed my adam's apple and squeezed. Gasping, gurgling and turning purple I kicked the still glowing door with my boot and it swung open. I dived right after it, through and rolled and fell flat and poked the gun about in all directions. Nothing. An empty corridor, dimly lit. I permitted myself a single strangled cough which made me feel much better. Then I used the gun barrel to push the door shut again. Only a small warping of the lock on the outside revealed anything wrong. And a closed door might give me the extra moments I needed.

  Which way? There were numbers stenciled on the doors and, if this were like a normal spacer, they would get lower in the direction of the bow and the control compartment. I went that way, toward the safety door in the bulkhead which opened as a man stepped through. A gray man. He looked up at me, eyes wide and mouth wider as he started to call out. My needle got him in the throat and he folded nicely. I crouched, ready, but the corridor beyond was empty. So far so good.

  Pulling him through and closing the door again took but a moment. Now where should I stow the body? While puzzling over this one I quietly opened the nearest door and peeked into an even more dimly lit sleeping cabin. And that's just what they were doing, a good dozen of the gray men, snoring away like troopers. They slept even more soundly after I had shot them. I dragged the original sleeping beauty in from the corridor and dumped him on a pile of discarded black alien disguises.

  "Rest nice," I told them as I shut the door. "You have had a long day, which is going to be even longer before I get you all back for trial."

  I could not have been unconscious very long. Ile discarded disguises and snoring men indicated that we had not been spaceborne for more than a few hours. There would be a crew manning the ship and the rest would be pounding the pillow. Should I try and find them all and put them into a sounder sleep? No, too dangerous, since there was no way of knowing how many there were aboard. And I could be surprised at any time and the alarm sounded. Far better to take the control room as soon as I could. Seal it off from the rest of the ship, then head for the nearest League station and call for help. If I could let them know where I was I could always immobilize the ship and hold out until the cavalry arrived. Great idea. Put it to work.

  Gun ready, I tramped the corridors to the control end of the ship. There was a door labeled "communications" and I opened it and said good night to the man at the companel. He slumped and slept. Then the last door was before me. I took a deep breath. My flanks and rear were secured. The end of the job was in front of me. I let the breath out slowly, then opened the door.

  The last thing I wanted was a shoot-out since the odds certainly were not in my favor. I stepped in and closed the door and locked it behind me before I counted the stations. Four of them-and all four occupied. Two necks were visible and I needed them and their owners relaxed. I stepped forward silently. The man in the flight engineer's position looked around and caught a needle for his trouble. One remaining. The commander. I didn't want to needle him since I wanted some conversation. Slipping the gun into my belt I stepped forward on tiptoe and reached for his neck.

  He turned at the last moment--warned by something--but he was a little too late. I got the grip and my thumbs dug deep. His eyeballs bulged quite charmingly as he thrashed and kicked about for some seconds before going limp.

  "Score sixteen to one for the good guys!" I cackled with pleasure, then did a little war dance around the room. "But finish the job, you daring devil, before celebrating too much."

  I was right, and I usually gave myself good advice. A drawer in the engineer's desk yielded up a strong roll of wire which I used to secure the commander's wrists and ankles, then added some more turns to tie his wrists to a pipe far from any controls. The other three men I laid out in a neat row beside him, before I tapped some questions into the computer.

  It was a nice computer that worked hard to be cooperative. First it gave me our course and destination, which I memorized, and wrote down inside my wrist in case I forgot. If this destination was what I thought it was, then it had to be the home planet of these nasties. The Special Corps would be eager to know just where it was. They had a lot coming to them and I looked forward to helping deliver it. Then I asked for League bases, found the nearest, punched for a course, set it in and relaxed.

  "Two hours, Jim, two short hours. Then the warpdrive cuts out and we will be within radio distance of the base. One brief radio message and that is the end of the gray men. Whoopee and chortle, chortle!"

  Something itched my neck, someone looking at me, and I turned and saw that the commander was awake and glowering in my direction.

  "Did you hear that?" I asked. "Or should I repeat it?"

  "I heard you," he said, in a drab, dull voice. Empty of emotion.

  "That's good. My name is Jim diGriz." He remained silent. "Come, come, your name. Or do I have to look at your dogtags?"

  "I am Kome. Your name is known to us. You have interfered with us before. We will kill you."

  "How nice to know that my reputation goes before me. But don't you think your threat has an empty ring?"

  "In what manner did you discover our presence?" Kome asked, ignoring my question.

  "If you really want to know, you gave yourselves away. You people may be nasty but you have little imagination. The wrist-chopping-off routine works well--I should know--so you keep on using it. I saw the marks on one of the admirals' wrists."

  "You did this alone?"

  Who was questioning whom? But I might as well be polite considering our positions. "If you must know I am all alone now. But in a few hours the League will be onto you. There were four of us back there with the goppies. All of whom I am sure have escaped now, along with the admirals you treated so badly. They will r
eport what has happened so you will have a nice reception committee waiting when you arrive. You and your people have not been very nice."

  "You are telling the truth?"

  I lost my temper at this and treated him to some words he had never heard before. I hope.

  "Kome, my friend, you are making me lose my temper. I have no reason to lie to you since I hold all the cards. Now if you will shut up and stop asking me questions I will ask you some of my own because there are things I would dearly like to know. Ready?"

  "I think not."

  I looked up startled, because he bad raised his voice for the first time. Not in a shout, there was no anger or feelings in the words. He just spoke loudly, commandingly.

  "This farce is at an end. We have found out what we need to know. You may all come in now."

  It was very much like a nightmare come alive. The door opened and gray men began to shuffle in slowly. I shot them but they kept coming. And the three officers I had placed on the floor stood up and came toward me as well. I emptied the gun, threw it at them and tried to run.

  They grabbed me.

  ELEVEN

  Good as I am at dirty fighting, hand-to-hand combat and general closeup nastiness, there is a limit. The limit being an apparently inexhaustible supply of the enemy. To make matters worse they really weren't very good fighters. About all they did was grapple. It was enough. I knocked back the first two, slugged the next few, chopped a couple more-and they kept on coming. And, frankly, I was beginning to get tired. In the end they simply swarmed over me and overwhelmed me and that was that. Shackles were clicked into place around my wrists and ankles and I was tossed onto the control room floor. The sound led the battered away and the officers went back to their positions at the controls. Changing my course back to the original one, I noted with dark depression. When he had done this, Kome turned his chair about to face me.

  "You tricked me," I said. Not a bright remark but something that might get the conversation rolling.

  "Of course."

  Laconic was the name of the game with the gray men. Never use a word when none would do. I pressed on, mainly out of a feeling of slight hysteria since I knew I was trapped and trapped well.

  "You wouldn't mind telling me why? If you can spare the time, that is."

  "I thought it would be obvious. We could of course use our normal mind control techniques on you, and this is what we originally planned to do. But we needed answers to some important questions at once. We have worked among the aliens for years and they have suspected nothing. We needed to know how you had discovered our presence. We of course have psychcontrol techniques for all races. It was when we were preparing brain attachments that we discovered your real identity. Metal skulls do not exist in nature. Your disguise was revealed. Your face resembled very much that of someone we have been searching for for many years. That was when I determined to use this ruse. If you were the man we were looking for we knew that your ego would not permit you to think that you had been tricked."

  "Your mother never met your father," I sneered. A feeble response but the best I could do at the moment. Because I knew that he was right. I had been fooled right down the line.

  "I knew that if you thought you had the upper hand you would answer questions that might take days to get out of you by other means. And we needed some instant answers. So we arranged the scene you played so well. Your hand weapon was charged with sterile needles. Everyone acted his role well. You best of all."

  "I bet you think you're smart" was all I could come up with since, at that moment, I was feeling very defeated.

  "I know I am. I have been organizing our field operations for many years--and they have only failed twice. You were to blame each time. Now that you have been captured your interference is at an end." He signaled to two of his men, who picked me up. "Lock him away until we land. I do not wish to speak with him any longer."

  Low? Up until that moment I had never known what low was. Depressed, dispirited, out-thought, outfought, it was enough to bring out the suicidal in anyone. Except me, of course. Where there is life there is hope. Eureka! I was even more depressed after this minor surge of rebellion because I knew this time there was just no hope at all.

  These people were too efficient. They hung my wristcuffs over a hook high on the wall and cut away my clothes, boots, everything, in a calmly depressing way. Then they cleaned me out, efficiently, operating like a vacuum cleaner klyster. All of the obvious devices, picklocks, grenades, blades, saws, were stripped from me first. Then they went over me again slowly with fluoroscopes and metal detectors removing, painfully, those other devices that were better hidden. They even X-rayed my jaws and removed a few teeth that had never been discovered before. When they were done I was pounds lighter and as bereft of helpful gadgetry as a newborn babe. It was all quite humiliating. Particularly when they took everything away and just left me lying there, naked, on the cold deck.

  Which, I discovered, was getting colder all the time. When moisture began to condense on it I found myself growing blue and chattering with the chill. I began to howl and thrash about. This warmed me up a bit and eventually led to one of the gray men poking his head in the door.

  "I am freezing to death!" I clattered through trembling teeth at him. "You are deliberately chilling the air to torture me."

  "No," he answered with utmost blandness. "That is not one of our tortures. This ship was warmed when the ports were open and is now returning to normal temperature. You are weak."

  "I am freezing to death. Maybe you chilly chaps from your icebox world can live at this temperature--but I can't. So give me some clothes or kill me quickly now."

  I think I half meant it. There really did seem to be little left to live for at this point. He thought about it for a bit, then exited. But returned fairly soon with four helpers and a padded coverall. They took off the fetters and dressed me. I made no protests while this was happening because one of them held a fully charged pistol, the muzzle of which he put directly into my mouth. His finger was bent, the trigger half pulled. I knew he meant it. I did not move or twitch while I was being dressed and the heavy boots slipped over my feet. The gun stayed there until the locks on the cuffs clicked shut once more.

  It took days to reach our destination. My captors were the worst conversationalists in the galaxy and refused to respond to even my wittiest and most insulting sallies. The food was completely unpalatable but, I am sure, nourishing. The only drink was water. A portapotty took care of my sanitary needs and I was getting bored out of my skull. My thoughts were constantly on escape and many and fearful were the plans I devised. All of them useless, of course. Singlehanded, without a weapon, I would never be able to take control of the ship even if I could break out of this room. Which I could not. I was sinking into a coma of boredom by the time we finally landed.

  "Where are we?" I asked the guards who came to get me. "Come on you chatterboxes, speak up. Would you be shot if you at least told me the name of the planet? Do you think I will tell anyone else?"

  They thought about this for quite a while until one of them finally made up his mind.

  "Kekkonshiki," he said.

  "You're excused--but don't wipe your nose with the back of your hand. Ha-ha." I had to laugh at my own sallies. No one else would.

  But it was ironic. Here I was, bearer of the information that would put an end to the gray men menace forever. The name of their world--and its location. And I couldn't pass it on. If I had any trace of psi ability I could have the troops rushing there in a minute. I did not. I had tried and been psitested often enough in the past. There was absolutely nothing that I could do.

  At least the unaccustomed action gave me something new to think about, to take my mind off of the depression that had depressed me for days. At last it was time to think about escape again.

  Nor was I mad to consider it at this time. We had landed and would be leaving the ship soon. They were taking me some place where it was guaranteed notvery-g
ood things would happen to me. I did not yet know what they were and, as far as I was concerned, life would be far more peaceful if I never found out. We would leave this ship, and even for a very brief spell, we would be in transit. That would be the time to act. The mere fact that I did not have the slightest idea of what would be waiting outside was completely and totally beside the point. I had to do something.

  Not that they made it very easy for me. I tried to act indifferent when they stripped off my chains and produced a metal collar and snapped it around my neck. Although my blood ran chill on the instant. I had worn that collar before. A thin cable ran from the collar to a small box that one of them held in his hand.

  "No need to demonstrate," I said in what was meant to be a light and bantering tone and certainly was not. "I've worn one of these before and your friend Kraj--you must remember Kraj?--demonstrated its working to me over quite a period of time."

  "I can do this," my captor said, poising a finger over one of the many buttons on the box.

  "It's been done," I shouted, pulling back. "Those very same words, I know, you never change your routines. You press the button and . . ."

  Fire washed over me. I was blind, burning to death, my skin aflame, my eyes seared out. Every one of my pain nerves switched on to full by the neural currents generated by the box. I knew this but it did not help. The pain was real and it went on and on and on.

  When it ended I found myself lying on the floor, curled up, drained of energy and almost helpless. Two of them lifted me to my feet and dragged me, legs flopping, down the corridor. My master with the box walked behind, giving me a little tug on the neck from time to time to remind me who was in charge. I did not argue with him. I could stumble along by myself after a bit, but they still kept their hands locked tight on my arms.

  I liked that. I fought hard not to smile. They were so sure I could not escape.

  "Getting cold out?" I asked when we reached the airlock. No one bothered to answer me. But they were pulling on gloves and fur hats which certainly meant something. "How about some gloves for me?" I was still ignored.