The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge Read online

  "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 than 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 worry-less 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 aid 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 polk-a-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 police 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 finger 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?" be 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 3

  "ARRGH!" Inskipp snarled, and shook the sheaf of papers in his hand so that they rattled like dry skeletal bones.

  "Very expressive," I said, sliding 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 thumbprint 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 lodes awful in black so you can't get rid of me that easily. Ten."

  "Look at this," he said, taking a roll of film from the folder and slipping it 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 clouds 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 lan
ding. This was at an average sized spaceport, with the buildings in the far background and some cargo ships nearby. Other craft roared in low and bomb explosions readied 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 m the face of determined apposition 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 at different star systems is even more impossible.

  But, once again, it has been proven that nothing is basically impossible if people want to tackle it hard enough. And things like violence, warfare and bloodshed are still hideously attractive to the lurking violence potential of mankind, despite the centuries of peace and stagnation. I had a sudden and depressing thought.

  "Are you telling me that a successful interplanetary invasion has been accomplished?" I asked.

  "More than one." That evil smirk was decorating his face as he spoke.

  "And you and the League would like to see this practice stopped?"

  "Right on the head, Jim my boy."

  "And I am the sucker who has been picked for the assignment?"

  He reached out, took my cigar from my numb fingers and dropped it into the ashtray---then solemnly shock my hand. "It's your job. Go out there and win."

  I slipped my hand from his treacherous embrace, wiped my fingers on my pants leg and grabbed back my cigar.

  "I'm sure that you will see that I have the best funeral the Corps can afford. Now, would you care to squeeze out a few details or would you prefer to blindfold me and shoot me out in a one-way cargo rocket?"

  "Temper, my boy, temper. The situation seems to be quite clear. There has been little word about this in the news media because of a certain political confusion surrounding the invasions, plus a rigid censorship by the planets under consideration. As we have reconstructed it--and good men have died getting this information--the responsible world is named Cliaand, the third planet in the Epsilon Indi system. There are two score planets orbiting this sun, but only three are inhabitable. And inhabited. Cliaand took over both the sister worlds some years ago, but we considered this no cause for alarm. What is alarming is the fact that they have expanded their scope. Interstellar conquest, heretofore considered an impossibility. They have invaded and conquered five other planets in nearby systems and seem poised for bigger and better things. We don't know how they are doing it, but they must be doing something right. We have had agents on the conquered worlds but have learned little of value. The decision has been made, a high level one I assure you--you would stand and salute if you heard some of the names of the people involved--that we must get a man to Cliaand to root out the problem at the core of the woodpile and cut the Gordian knot."

  "Other than being contained in a mixed and disgusting metaphor I think the idea is a suicidal one. Instead of this we could . . ."

  "You are going. There is no possible way to wriggle out of this one. Slippery Jim."

  I tried. But nothing worked. I was given a copy of all the known details, a cortex recording of the language and the master key to a fast pursuit ship to take me there. I returned gloomily too our quarters where Angelina, tired of doing her hair and her nails, was throwing a knife at a head-sized target on the far wall. She was very good. Even underhand, after a quick draw from her arm sheath, she could hit the black spot of either eye.

  "Let me get a pic of Inskipp," I said. "It will make a more interesting target and one that you can get a degree of pleasure out of."

  "Is that evil old man sending my darling out on a job?"

  "That dirty old goat is trying to get me killed. The assignment is so top secret I can't tell a soul about it, particularly you, so here are all the papers, read them for yourself."

  While she did this I slipped the Cliaand language recording into the stamping machine. This recorded the material directly on my cortex without the boring and time consuming intermediary of any learning process. The first session would take about a half an hour with a dozen or more shorter reinforcing sessions after that. I would aid up speaking the language and having one hell of a headache from all the electronic fingering of my synapses. But there was a period of total unconsciousness while the machine operated and that was just what I felt like at the moment. I slipped the helmet down over my ears, settled on the couch and pressed the button.

  There was a flicker of no time and Angelina was carefully lifting off the helmet and handing me a pill at the same instant. I swallowed it and kept my eyes closed while the pain ebbed away. Soft lips kissed mine.

  "They are trying to kill you, but you will not let them. You will laugh and win and someday you will have Inskipp's job."

  I opened one eye a crack and looked at her jubilant expression.

  "Come home with my shield or on it? Go to glory or the grave? Are you worried about me?"

  "All of the time. But that is a wife's job. I certainly cannot stand in the way of your career--"

  "I didn't know I had one until you told me just now."

  "--and will do everything I can to help."

  "You can't come with me, for a very obvious and protruding reason."

  "I know that. But I will be with you in spirit all the time. How are you going to land on this world?"

  "Board my nimble pursuit ship, come in straight and fast behind a radar screen, zing down into the atmosphere--"

  "And get blasted into your component atoms. Here, read this report by the survivor of the last ship to try this approach."

  I read it. It was most depressing. I threw it back with the others.

  "I heed the warning. This planet appears to be militarized to the hilt. I'll bet even the house pets wear uniforms. Bulling in like that is approaching these people on their own terms, competing in the area where they are best organized. What they are not organized against is a little bit of guile, some larceny, a smooth approach covering a devious attack. Insinuate, penetrate, operate and extirpate."

  "All at once I am beginning not to like it," my love said, frowning. "You will take care of yourself, Jim? I don't think worrying would be good for me right now."

  "If you wish to worry, worry about the fate of this poor planet with Slippery Jim unleashed against them. Their conquests are at an end, they are as good as finished."

  I kissed her resoundingly and walked out, head high and shoulders back.

  Wishing that I was one tenth as sure of myself as I had acted. This was going to be a very rough one.

  Chapter 4

  My planning had been detailed, the preparations complex, the operation gigantic. I had received more than one shrill cry of pain from Inskipp about the cost, all of which I dutifully ignored. It was my neck in the no
ose, not his, and I was hedging all the bets that I could to assure my corporeal survival. But even the most complicated plan is eventually completed, the last details sewed up, the final orders issued. And the sheep led to the slaughter.

  Baaa. Here I was, naked to the world, sitting in the bar of the intersystem spacer Kannettava, a glass of strong drink before me and a dead cigar clutched in my fingers. Listening to the announcement that we would be landing on Cliaand within the hour. I was naked, figuratively speaking of course. It had taken an effort of will and strong discipline to force myself to leave every article of an illegal nature behind. I had never done this before in my entire life. No minibombs, gas capsules, gigli saws, fingertip drills, card holdouts, phone tappers. Nothing. Not even the lockpick that was always fixed to my toenail. Or . . .

  I grated my teeth at the thought and looked about me. The other revelers were knocking back the tax-free booze in a determined manner and none was looking at me. Slipping my wallet from my pocket I touched the seam at the top. And felt a certain stiffness. Memory, how it cuts both ways, revealing and clouding. My own subconscious was f igniting against me. Only my conscious mind was at all enthusiastic about landing on Cliaand without any illegal devices. I squeezed the wallet hard in the right way and the tiny but incredibly strong lockpick dropped into my fingers. A work of art. I admired it when I raised my glass. And said good-by. On the way back to my cabin I dropped it into a waste disposal. It would go on with the ship while I landed (MI this singularly inhospitable world.

  Every report and interview indicated that Cliaand had the most paranoiac customs men in the known universe. Contraband simply could not be smuggled in. Therefore I was not trying. I was just what I appeared to be. A salesman, representative of Fazzoletto-Mouchoir Ltd., dealers in deadly weapons. The firm existed and I was their salesman and no amount of investigation could prove otherwise. Let them try.

  They did. Landing on Cliaand was not unlike going into prison. I, and the handful of other debarkees, trundled down the gangway and into a gray room of ominous aspect. We huddled together, under the eyes of watchful and heavily armed guards, while our luggage was brought and dumped nearby. Nothing happened until the gangway had been withdrawn and the Kannettava had departed. Then, one by one, we were called out.