The Stainless Steel Rat Saves The World Read online

  Just by chance, vanity had goaded me this morning into putting on purple underwear which could easily pass for swimming attire from a distance. I stripped down to these shorts and kicked sand into the hole covering everything.

  By the time the first copter swished by overhead I was lying facedown and sunning myself, just another swimmer on a beach. They went by overhead in a line, making a sweep. I sat up and looked at them as anyone would with all this going on. Then they were past, bobbing up over the rocky spine and gone, their motors rumbling out of hearing.

  But not for long, that was certain. What should I do? Nothing. Just stay pat and think innocent. I had elected my role, and now I had to play it out.

  They didn’t take much time. Whoever was in charge ordered a sweep in line abreast covering the ocean, beach, and hills. Now they were slower, searching every inch of the way, undoubtedly with high-powered glasses. Time for another swim. I shivered when the spray curled around my ankles and I knew I was turning blue as the water crept ever upward. A wave broke over my head, and I was swimming with a stately dog paddle.

  The copters were back, and one hovered over me, sending up clouds of spray. I shook my fist up at it and shouted realistic curses into the sound of its engine. Someone was leaning out of the open doorway, calling to me, but I was not listening. After a certain amount of fist shaking I submerged and swam underwater, trying to make my one uncramped leg do the work of two. The copter was swinging away after the others as I painfully made my way ashore again and sprawled on the sand so the wind and sun could dry me.

  Now how did I get out of here?

  10

  AS SOON AS the copters were out of sight, I dug like a mole and unearthed my clothing and the bags, rushing them up the beach above the highwater mark. Another bomb and another interment, only this time I put on my trousers and shoes—and made sure some of my equipment went into the pockets. A few quick cuts transformed the long-sleeved uniform shirt into a short-sleeved sport shirt. As this clothing began to dry, it lost all resemblance to any part of a military dress, which was all for the best. Before leaving, I scuffed and dragged the sand to obliterate my digging and took careful triangulations of some large inland peaks so I could find the spot again. Then I headed for the coast road that passed a few hundred meters away.

  My luck held. I had no sooner climbed over into the northbound lane when a beetlelike open machine with high wheels came rushing toward me. I raised my thumb in the universal gesture and was answered by a squealing of brakes. I saw now that there were powered surfboards sticking out of the back and there were two tanned young men in the front, their garments even more disarrayed than mine. A fashion, I knew, so perhaps they took me for one of their own.

  “Man, you look wet,” one commented as I climbed into the back.

  “Man, I was high and took a watery trip.”

  “Gotta try that some time,” the driver answered, and the machine hurled itself down the road.

  Less than a minute later two hulking black sedans with flashing lights and howling sirens tore down the road in the opposite direction. The large letters “POLICIA” were painted on their side, and it took very little linguistic knowledge to translate that. My new friends, refusing the offer of refreshment, let me off in downtown Tijuana, then raced away. I sat at an outside table with a large tequila, lime, and salt and realized that I had just escaped from a carefully planned trap.

  And a trap it was. That was obvious now that I had the time to stop and think about it. All those jeeps and trucks had not appeared out of thin air, and it is doubtful if that amount of firepower could have been organized so quickly even if an alarm had gone off. I went back over my motions, step by step, and was absolutely sure that I had actuated no alarms.

  So how had they known what was going to happen?

  They knew because some time-hopper had read the newspapers after the event, then had jumped back in time to give the warning. I had been half expecting this to happen—but that did not mean I had to enjoy it. I licked the salt from the base of my thumb, downed the bulk of the tequila, and bit hard into the lime. The combination tasted marvelous as it burned a course of acid destruction down my throat.

  He was alive. I had wiped out his organization in this happy year of A.D. 1975, but He had gone on to bigger and worse nastiness in another era. The time war was on again. He and his madmen wanted to control all history and all time, an insane idea that might very well succeed, since they had already wiped out the Special Corps in the future, the one law-abiding organization that might have beaten them. Or rather they had wiped out all of the Corps except me, while I had bounced into the past to wipe out the wiper-outers and in doing so restore the Corps to the probable paths of future history. Big assignment, which I had accomplished 99.9 percent of. It was the vital .1 percent that was still causing trouble, the monster He who had escaped me at the end of a time-helix even though he had been nicely peppered with exploding slugs from my gun. Probably had armored guts. Next time I would use something stronger. An atomic bomb on his breakfast tray or suchlike.

  To work. I had hoped that a time-helix could be built to whip me back to the future, or rather ahead to the future; grammar leaves a certain amount to be desired when it comes to time travel. Back/ahead to the arms of my Angelina and the acclaim of my peers. But not right now since they didn’t even exist. Time war is a tricky thing and can be very confusing at times. All of the time might be more accurate. I was very glad that I did not need to know the theory but could just be whipped back and forth by others, like a temporal paddle ball, to do my violent best at whatever assignment was required.

  There was little difficulty in obtaining a car and digging up the money early the next morning, although certain plainclothes observers had to be induced to sleep soundly instead of doing their jobs. Smuggling the money back into the United States was even easier, and before noon I was in the offices of Whizzer Electronics, Inc., in San Diego. A large and complete laboratory, a small front office with a not too bright receptionist, and that was it. I had set the place up as best I could, and it was up to Professor Coypu now to take over.

  “Do you understand, Prof?” I said, talking to the small black box with his name on it. “All set up and ready to go.” I shook the box. “Someday you must tell me how your memories can exist in this recorder if you don’t exist or won’t exist in this galaxy because He and his nuts have destroyed the Corps. Better someday you don’t tell me. I’m not sure I really want to know.” I held the box up and gave it a scan around the room.

  “The finest equipment stolen money can afford. Every up-to-date research tool I could lay my hands on. Stocks of spare parts of all kinds. A supply of raw material. Catalogs from all the electronic, physical, and chemical manufacturers. A large bank balance to draw upon to buy what you need. A pile of signed checks waiting to be filled out. Language lessons neatly taped. Instructions, a history of what has happened, the works. Over to you, Prof, and take it easy with this body. It’s the only one we have.”

  Before I could change my mind, I lay back on the couch, stuck the contact from the memory box to the back of my neck, and turned on the switch.

  “What’s happening?” Coypu said, slithering into my mind.

  “A lot. You’re in my brain, Coypu, so don’t do anything dangerous.”

  “Most interesting. Yes, your body indeed. Let me move that arm now, stop interfering. In fact, why don’t you go away for a bit while I see what is happening?”

  “I’m not so sure that I want to.”

  “Well, you must. Here, I’ll push.”

  “No!” I shouted, not that it did any good. A formless blackness pressed down on me, and I spiraled out of sight into a greater darkness below, pushed away by Coypu’s electronically magnified memories. . . .

  time

  goes

  by

  so

  slowly

  • • •

  The black box was in my hand; the name “Coypu” writte
n in rough white letters across its front; my fingers were on a switch that was turned to off.

  Memory returned, and I staggered mentally and looked around for a chair so I could sit down. Until I discovered that I was already sitting down, so I sat harder.

  I had been away, and someone else had been running my body. Now that I was back in charge I could detect faint traces of memories of work, a lot of work, a great period of time, days, perhaps weeks. There were burns and calluses on my fingers and a new scar on the back of my right hand. A tape recorder rustled to life—it must have had a timer to turn it on—and Professor Coypu spoke to me.

  “To begin with—do not do this again. Do not allow this recorded memory of my brain into control of your body. Because I can remember everything. I remember that I no longer exist. This brain-in-a-box is all there may ever be of me. If I turn off the switch on it, I cease to be. The switch may never be turned on again. Probably won’t. This is suicide, and I am not the suicidal type. Impossibly hard to touch the switch. I think I can do it now. I know what is at stake. Something a lot bigger than the pseudo life of this taped brain. So I will do my best to turn the switch. I doubt if I could do it a second time. As I said, don’t do this again. Be warned.”

  “I’m warned. I’m warned,” I muttered, turning off the tape while I found myself a drink. Coypu was a good man. The bar was stocked as I had left it, and a treble malt whiskey on the rocks cleared some of the muzziness from my head. I settled down and turned the tape on again.

  “To business. Once I began investigating, it became obvious why these temporal criminals chose this particular epoch. A society just bursting into the age of technology, yet the people still with their minds in the Dark Ages. Nationalism, sheer folly; pollution, criminal; intraglobal warfare, madness—”

  “Enough lecturing, Coypu, on with the show.”

  “—but there is no need to lecture on this subject. Suffice to say that all the materials for a time-helix are available here. And the societal setup is such that a major operation of time tinkering can successfully be concealed. I have constructed a time-helix, and it is coiled and set. I have also built a time tracer and with it have ascertained the temporal position of this creature called He. For reasons best known to him He is now operating out of the fairly recent past of this planet, some one hundred and seventy years ago. I am only guessing now, but I think his entire present operation is a trap. Undoubtedly for you. In some manner I cannot discover he has erected a time block before the year 1805. So you cannot return to an early enough period to catch him as he is building his present establishment. Be wary, he must be working with a large force. I have marked the controls so you can pick any of the five years after 1805 during which they are operating. In a city named London. The choice is yours. Good luck.”

  I flicked off the recorder and went after more drink, depressed. Some choice. Pick my own year to get blasted. Nip back into the prescientific past and shoot it out with the minions of He. Even if I won—so what? I would be stranded there for life, stuck in time. A dismal prospect. Yet I had to go. In reality I only had the illusion of choice. He was tracking me down in the year 1975, and the next time he might very well succeed in polishing me off. Far better to carry the fight to him. Rah-rah. I took more drink and reached for the first book on the long shelf.

  Coypu had not wasted his time. In addition to wiring up all the hardware, he had collected a neat little library about the years in question, the opening decade of the nineteenth century. London was my destination and as soon as that was realized, the name of one man became of utmost importance.

  Napoleoni Buonaparte. Napoleon the First, Emperor of France and most of Europe and almost the world. His megalomaniacal ambitions rang a bell, for they differed hardly at all from He’s own ambition. There was no coincidence here; there had to be a connection. I did not know yet what it was, but I was dismally sure that I would find out quickly enough. In the meantime, I read through all the books on the period until I felt I knew what I had to know. The only bright spot in the whole affair was the fact that England spoke a variety of the same speech as America, so I would not have to put up with any more brain-puncturing language lessons with the memorygram.

  Of course, there was the matter of local dress, but there were more than enough illustrations from the period to show me what was needed. In fact a theatrical outfitter in Hollywood supplied me with a complete wardrobe, from knee pants and buttoned jackets to great cloaks and beaver hats. The styles of the time were quite attractive, and I took to them instantly, concealing a number of my devices in their voluminous folds.

  Since I would return to the same time in time whatever time I left the present time, I took my time with the arrangements. But eventually, I ran out of excuses. The time had come. My weapons and tools were adjusted and ready; my health was perfect; my reflexes were keen; my morale was low. But what must be done must be done. I appeared in the front office, and the receptionist gaped up at me chewingumily from over her confession magazine.

  “Miss Kipper, draw up a salary check for four weeks for yourself in lieu of notice.”

  “You don’t like my work?”

  “Your work has been all that I desired. But owing to mismanagement, this firm is now bankrupt. I am going abroad to dodge my creditors.”

  “Gee, that’s too bad.”

  “Thank you for your solicitude. Now if I can sign that check. . . .”

  We shook hands, and I ushered her out. The rent was paid for a month ahead, and the landlord was welcome to the equipment left behind. But I had fixed a destruct on the time-helix apparatus that would operate after I had gone. There was enough tinkering with time as it was, and I felt no desire to bring any more players into the game.

  It was a labor to jam myself into the space suit with all my clothes on, and in the end, I had to take off both boots and jacket and strap these outside with the rest of my equipment. Heavily laden, I waddled over to the control board and braced myself for a final decision. I knew where I would arrive and, following Coypu’s instructions, had set the proper coordinates into the machine days earlier. London was out of the question; if they had any detection apparatus at all, they would spot my arrival. I wanted to arrive far enough away geographically so they would not spot me, but close enough so I would not have to suffer a long journey by the primitive transportation of the time. Everything I had read about it caused me to shudder. So I compromised on the Thames Valley near Oxford. The bulk of the Chilterns would be between me and London and their solid rock would absorb radar, zed rays, or any other detection radiation. Once I had arrived, I could make my way to London by water, a matter of some one hundred kilometers, rather than by the ghastly roads of the period.

  That was where I was arriving—when was another matter. I stared intensely at the neatly numbered dials as though they could tell me something. They were mute. A time barrier set up at 1805, I could not arrive earlier. The year 1805 itself seemed too much of a trap; they would surely be ready, waiting and alert at that time. So I had to arrive later. But not too much later, or they would have accomplished whatever evilness they had in mind. Two years then, not too long for them to work, but enough time so that they might—hopefully—be a little off guard. I took a deep breath and set the dials for 1807. And pressed the actuator. In two minutes the time would cut in full power. With leaden feet I shuffled toward the glowing green coil of the time-helix and touched the barlike end.

  As before, there was no sensation, just the glow surrounding me so that the room beyond was hard to see. The two minutes seemed closer to two hours, although my watch told me there were more than fifteen seconds to go to springoff. This time I closed my eyes, remembering the uneasy sensations of my last time-hop, so I was tense, nervous, and blind when the helix released and hurled me back through time.

  Zoink! It was not enjoyable. As the helix unwound, I was whipped into the past while its energy was expended into the future. An interesting concept that did not interest me in t
he slightest. For some reason this trip churned up my guts more than the last one had, and I was very occupied with convincing myself that whoopsing inside a space suit is a not nice thing. When I had this licked, I realized that the falling sensation was caused by the fact that I was falling, so I snapped open my eyes to see that I was in the midst of a pelting rainstorm. And dimly seen, close below, were sodden fields and sharp-looking trees rushing up at me.

  After some panicky fumbling with the wrist control for the grav-chute, I managed to turn it on full, and the harness creaked and groaned at the sudden deceleration. I creaked and groaned, too, as the straps felt as though they were slicing through my flesh to the bone beneath—which they would quickly abrade away. I honestly expected my arms to drop off and my legs to fly by when I crashed down through the small branches of a waiting tree, caromed off a larger branch, and crashed into the ground below. Of course the grav-chute was still working on full lift, and as soon as the grassy slope had broken my fall, I was up and away again, hitting the branch a second lick for luck on the way by and springing up out of the treetop in a great welter of twigs and leaves. Once more I fumbled for the control and tried to do a better job of it. I drifted down, around the tree this time, and dropped like a sodden feather onto the grass and lay there for a bit.

  “A wonderful landing, Jim,” I groaned, feeling all over for broken bones. “You ought to be in the circus.”

  I was battered but sound, which fact I realized after a painpill had cleared my head and numbed my nerve endings. Belatedly, I looked around through the lessening rain but could see no one—or any sight of human habitation. Some cows in the adjoining field grazed on, undisturbed by my dramatic appearance. I had arrived.