The Stainless Steel Rat is Born Read online

  "Thanks a lot. I'll remember your words when I am cracking boulders on the rock pile."

  He stood in the open door and smiled back at me. "I am in the justice business on a very large scale. And, in truth, I don't believe in prisons and incarceration for failed bank robbery. You are destined for better things than that. Therefore I am having you returned to prison. You will be transferred to another ship, on another planet, where you will be locked away until it arrives."

  He went out, then turned back for just an instant. "Taking into consideration what you have told me, I am forgetting that you still have a lockpick in the sole of your shoe."

  Then he was gone for good. I stared at the closed door and suddenly burst out laughing. It was going to be a good universe after all, filled with good things to be appropriated in a manner only possible to one who knew his trade. And I knew mine!

  "Thank you. Bishop, thanks for everything. You have done it, guided me and taught me. Because of you—!"