The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You

by Harry Harrison

  In the drunken party that evening that celebrated the victorious end of the war--they bad rationalized it that way with some help--I and Angelina clutched claws and looked around at the disgusting sights on all sides.

  "They are really sort of sweet when you get used to them," she said.

  "I wouldn't go quite as far as to say that. But they are rather harmless once they abandon all the war plans."

  "Rich, too," the James robot said, pouring something nasty into my glass.

  "We have been doing a little investigating," Bolivar said, rolling up on the other side. "In their various operations they have captured ships and planets and satellites. They emptied all the bank vaults since they knew that we valued their contents, though they didn't know why. They do not have money as we have it."

  "I know," I said. "They have the Eckh Unit, which is best left undescribed."

  "Right, Dad," James said. "So when they raided all the treasuries they sent the stuff here to the command battleship, hoping something, would figure out what to do with it. What they did do with it was to store it all in one of the holds."

  "Let me guess," Angelina said. "The hold is now empty?"

  "You're always right, Mom. And the transport ship is sort of full."

  "We'll have to return the loot to the sources from whence it came," I said, and was pleased at the two shocked robotic looks and one alien stare of despair.

  "Jim. . . !" Angelina gasped.

  "Do not worry. I have all my senses. I mean we'll have to return the alien loot that we found . . ."

  ". . . but we didn't recover very much." She finished the sentence for me.

  Something heavy, greenish-brown, tentacled and clawed, squashed down noisily next to me.

  "To victory!" Sess-Pula shouted. "We must drink to victory! Silence, everyone, silence, while the pulchritudinous Sleepery proposes a toast."

  "I shall!" I shouted, jumping to my feet. Aware of the sudden silence and the fact that every eyepad, eyestalk, optic tentacle, not to mention six human eyeballs, was fixed upon me.

  "A toast," I called out, raising my glass on high so enthusiastically that some of the drink slopped out and burned a hole in the carpet.

  "A toast to all the creatures that live in our universe, large and small, solid and sloppy. May peace and love be their lot forever more. Here's to life, liberty--and the opposite sex!"

  And thus we rushed down the light years toward a far, far better future.

  I hope.