The Stainless Steel Rat Joins the Circus ssr-11 Read online

  “No animals,” the driver said, looking suspiciously down at Gloriana.

  “This is not an animal,” I said as I slipped him a more than generous tip. “It is our daughter who has a piggish spell cast upon her. We are on our way to a witch who had promised, for a price, to restore her to her normal form.”

  He bulged his eyes at the story. But the money spoke louder than the fairy tale and we followed our sprightly swine into the cab. There was no way of testing the detector so we spoke of nothing important until we were in our dressing room. I swept the room for bugs with my own detector.

  “Clean,” I said folding the instrument and putting it away.

  “Good. Now we must leave a note for Bolivar telling him to wait for us here. Then we must go out and find his dressing room-so we can talk to Gar Goyle. I am sure that he will be happy to help us.”

  “Why?”

  “You will see.”

  I did not press the matter. I recognized the tone of voice. I would be informed at the right time-and not any earlier. Gloriana squealed lightly when we started to leave, then trotted happily after us when we called out to her. Then grunted enthusiastically when we opened the door to Goyle’s dressing room. It had a very barnyardy smell to it. Or zoo, I had smelled it when the act was on stage. An artificial pong to add realism to the act.

  The tuxedoed man from the act was sitting at a desk writing something; he did not look up when we came in. Was he Gar Goyle? Or was he the four-armed man who had introduced the acts? He was there now, wearing his kilt and sporran, sitting across the desk from tuxedo, speaking on the phone. I looked around. The rest of the large room was dimly lit: there was just light enough to see the cages. With things in them.

  And what things! Some had been in the act. Yet there were lots more. A two-headed carnivore of some kind was pacing its cage: it hissed and bared immense fangs when I looked at it. And there was Mr. Bones-I recognized him from the posters-taking a nap on the couch. He was at least two meters tall, but no thicker through than my arm.

  “What do you want?” a voice asked. I turned to see that Gar Goyle was still scribbling away at the desk.

  “We wish to speak to you, Mr. Goyle.”

  “About what?”

  Only then did I realize that it was the four-armed man who was talking. “Just general chitchat about the circus, you know. How do you like the weather?”

  I continued to ramble on as I walked about the room with my bug detector. I found six of them, five writhing bug bugs and only a single coin this time. I stepped on them all just to make sure. Crushing them with my heel until the detector flashed green.

  “We have heard a lot about you,” Angelina said, menacingly.

  “From the Special Corps,” I whispered.

  He sat expressionless and silent, shifting only when Gloriana came over and sat by his feet. Then she leaned over and bit him in the arm.

  “Naughty swine!” Angelina snapped. “Let go of that man at once.”

  Only then did the man look down and nod. “She can tell flesh from plastic, you see. A fine nose like all porcuswine.”

  Then he reached up with his upper set of arms and plunged his hands in the flesh of his neck and ripped down. Angelina gasped as the skin parted. He pulled the opening wide and a man wearing a kilt stepped out: he only had two arms.

  “Why do you mention the Special Corps?” I looked from him to the man still writing at the desk. “Don’t worry about him. He is a pseudoflesh robot, like all of the others. The audience watches him and never notices that I am controlling the act.”

  “Misdirection!” I said happily.

  “Of course. Now please answer my question.”

  “Mr. Goyle we have reason to believe…”

  “Call me Gar.”

  “Gar, of course. You will have heard of the Special Corps, the mythical group that fights crime and seeks justice throughout the galaxy.”

  “Of course. Everyone has heard of it even though it does not exist. But let me ask you a question. If this mythical Corps had a mythical laboratory and research program-what mythical scientist might be head of it?”

  I touched my detector again; still green. “Professor Coypu,” I said as quietly as I could.

  Gar sighed and slipped out of the rest of the four-armed flesh man. Gloriana let go of the arm and lay down. The pseudoman at the desk stopped writing and fell over sideways onto the floor. Gar took his chair. “I had a brief message from Professor Coypu. He has been of great aid to me in developing my troupe. He said that I should help you if you asked.”

  “Are you in the Special Corps?” Angelina asked.

  “I was. Retired. I worked in the forensic lab. Very boring once you got used to it. As the saying goes-see one corpse and you have seen them all. But I did get inspiration from the work, used it in developing my act. So you see, I do have a far more interesting job now.”

  “This act.”

  “A cover. I am…” He waved us close, looked around fearfully, then whispered, the word barely audible. “Guu. ”

  “Goo?” Angelina said, and he fearfully waved her to silence.

  “The Galactic Union Union,” he whispered. “You must have heard of us?”

  “Vaguely. Aren’t you union organizers?”

  “We are. We go boldly forth to organize unions were none have been permitted to exist before.”

  “Like here on Fetorr?”

  “You have it in one, comrade. And I must say that if a planet was ever ripe for organizing this one sure is.”

  “It could also do with a little more free enterprise, a good bashing for the police bullies, and the introduction of some pollution controls,” I said.

  “That about sums it up. But keep it quiet for now. Meanwhile-what can I do for you?”

  “Help us hide our son Bolivar.”

  “Is this the same Bolivar diGriz that cleaned out the bank yesterday, killing a number of women and children when he escaped from the police?”

  “The same. Minus the women and children of course. Plus the fact that he did not rob the bank.”

  “Of course.” He rubbed his jaw and looked around the room. “Do you think he would mind being Megalith Man? He’s having trouble with feedback controls, see.”

  There was a stirring in the darkness and a gray creature stumbled forward. Angelina gasped and I had to struggle not to do the same. A rotund bulging forehead almost covered its eyes. Prognathous jaw, clawed fingers and suchlike combined to produce a really disgusting simulacrum of a human being. Gar smiled and nodded.

  “Good, isn’t he? One of my best creations.” The creature groaned, rolled its eyes up-and crashed to the floor. “Your son will be safe in there.”

  “He certainly will,” Angelina sniffed. “And knowing him I am sure that he will probably enjoy it very much as well.”

  “When he arrives we will get in touch with you,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “No thanks. The Corps takes care of its own.

  I had locked our dressing-room door when we left-and it was still locked. Obviously this hadn’t slowed down the once again male Bolivar who was now staring at the computer screen.

  “Your disguise obviously worked,” Angelina said. “I’ll pack those clothes away.” He nodded abstractedly as he typed a quick command into the machine.

  “Interesting,” he said. I made quizzical noises.

  “I have been using the search engine on your employer.”

  “Chaise? Have you found anything of interest?”

  “A good deal. For one thing-he doesn’t exist.”

  “He must! We have met him!”

  “I don’t mean the physical form, he was there all right. I mean the story about Imperetrix Von Kaiser-Czarski, the richest man in the galaxy. I can find no trace of him.”

  “Those banks he owns-all over the galaxy…”

  “Are not owned by him. They are held by corporations who in turn are owned by other corporations. I have traced back through a number of owner
s and they all appear to be. different. No trace of Chaise. It looks like everything that he has told you is a lie.”

  My head was beginning to hurt. I sat down heavily and checked off the facts on my fingertips. “Firstly-he must be very rich or he would not be paying us four million credits a day. Except for yesterday of course. I checked. Not only didn’t he deposit the money-he left a very insulting note.”

  “Of course he paid you. You had to think that he was whom he said he was. The large sums involved made his story plausible. Think how suspicious you would have been if had offered, say, a hundred credits a day.”

  “I would have kicked him out! But let us stick with what we know. Secondly, we know that all those banks on all those planets were robbed-that’s a matter of public record.”

  “They were indeed. It is the secondary information about those planets that I am concerned about.”

  “Such as?”

  “The circus performances, what acts were playing on what dates, that kind of thing.”

  The coin was slowly dropping into the slot.

  “Of course! When you examine a database there is no way of telling if the events ever really happened as they are listedor if they are figments of imagination that a skilled hacker had planted. And there is no way of determining facts from planted facts on a distant planet without getting right into the records themselves, to see if they had been altered. Which, of course, cannot be done from light-years away.”

  “My thinking exactly. Which is why I have been snooping around in the databases here on Fetorr. Without much success. There are security locks on almost everything except train timetables. Lots of electronic doors were slammed in my screen.”

  “They don’t like snooping.”

  “I was sure of that before I started. So I routed all my queries though a number of other systems. I didn’t want them getting back to this computer.”

  Even before he had finished speaking the words there was a hammering on the dressing-room door.

  “Open up in there! You have thirty seconds to comply before we break this door down.”

  “Who is there,” Angelina said.

  “Computer Crime Corps. Do not attempt to resist. You are guilty of illegal computer use and the searching of restricted files.”

  Chapter 9

  The Police, of all kinds, were entirely too efficient here on Fetorr. I looked around desperately. There were no windows in the room and but the single door. There was only the screen, which offered privacy when changing costumes, which might provide even a feeble chance to hide our son.

  “Bolivar-behind the screen!” I hissed. He was across the room in an instant: the door shuddered and creaked as it was pounded. “Stop hammering-I’m coming!” I shouted.

  Angelina was moving too. She closed the computer and put it on the floor, then pulled the armchair in front of the screen, sat down on it. Holding tight to Gloriana’s chain as the disturbed porcuswine champed and raked the floor, her quills all aquiver. I went and unlocked the door and threw it wide. “Did you knock?” I asked sweetly.

  He was immensely fat with hanging jowls and giant belly. He pointed an accusatory finger at me and said, “You have been using an illegal computer on these premises.”

  “Never ! “

  “Search this room carefully, Hafifu,” he ordered. His partner, who was about as skinny as his commander was fat, scuttled into the room. He looked around slowly, beady eyes glinting, thin nose twitching like a rat’s. He looked at the computer, then looked away. Undoubtedly mistaking the computer for a leather suitcase.

  “I don’t see no computer here,” he said in a thin and reedy voice.

  “Then look behind that screen,” the fat cop blurbled. “You saw the readings. There is a computer in this room someplace. Our detectors never lie.”

  Hafifu obeyed the command and walked over and started to look behind the screen. Screamed and retreated as flashing tusks savaged his trouser legs, not to mention his ankles. Instant decision was needed-and saving Bolivar was far important than saving the computer.

  “Step back!” I ordered. “That is a savage watchpig trained to kill anyone foolish enough to approach its owner. In any case-the computer is over there. It is built into that suitcase.”

  Hafifu circled wide of his porcine persecutor and grabbed up the computer. He opened it, pulled out the keyboard, turned it on and typed furiously. “This is indeed the criminal instrument,” he squeaked.

  “What criminal? I was just searching the public records. Is that against the law?”

  “Yes!” Fatty said with great enthusiasm. “That is because there are no public records here on Fetorr—everything on record is private. I am confiscating this machine.” Hafifu was out the door with it before I could raise a word of protest. “As well as fining you five hundred credits for attempting to illegally access the private public records.”

  “You can’t do that!”

  “I certainly can. With power vested in me by the state I can make on-the-spot fines, as specified by the statues. If you have reason to believe this confiscation is doubtful in any way you may ask for a trial.”

  “A trial, right!”

  “That will require a two-thousand-credit deposit for the trial chamber, plus a five-hundred-credit fee for the judge.”

  I opened my mouth to protest. Shut it when I realized I was being stupid. “Do you take checks?”

  “Yes-but there is a fine equal to double the amount of the check if it bounces.”

  Angelina let out a bit of chain as I scribbled the check. I didn’t have a Fetorr bank account. I wrote a check for five hundred Galactic Credits. I remembered that they were on a par with the Fetorr Credit. Gloriana grunted ferociously and hurled herself forwards. Fats lurched towards the doorway, grabbed the check in passing and was gone. I locked the door behind him.

  “Very efficient,” Bolivar said, emerging from behind the screen. “We are going to need a new computer.”

  “We probably will, eventually,” I said. “But they seem to be as much use as doorstops on Fetorr. For the time being we will just have use our own brains-which were around long before the electronic ones were invented.”

  “And writing as well,” Angelina said, taking a pad and stylo from the drawer of her dressing table. “Let us first list what we know-and then what we must find out.”

  “Right,” I said as I paced the floor and cudgeled my slightly fuzzy brain. “There is the ongoing mystery about our employer, which is not germane at the present moment in time. Who or what he is can wait …”

  “As long he keeps depositing payments daily,” Angelina said with great practicality.

  “Very true. And we can forget all the other banks on the other planets that were robbed as well. They may not have any relevance to this investigation, since the facts that apparently linked them together were probably fabricated.”

  “Why?” Bolivar asked.

  “That is the question we must answer. The easy answer is that Chaise wanted us to come to this planet. Ostensibly to investigate the bank thefts. Though I am beginning to doubt that story as well. Why he did it in this roundabout way is not important now. We are here and on the job.”

  “And theoretically investigating Puissanto,” Angelina said. “Which, as I dimly remember, was the reason we came here in the first place. Shouldn’t we take a closer look at him?”

  “We should-but things have been rolling downhill at a furious rate,” Bolivar said. “What with a bank being robbed almost as soon as we got here. And me being fingered as the criminal.”

  I shook my head. “I think that was pretty accidental. The thieves had no way of knowing you would be here when they planned their heist.”

  “I agree,” Angelina said. “Chaise went to a lot of effort to get us here at this time. Bolivar’s arrival certainly wasn’t part of whatever game plan he is pursuing.”

  “What is his plan?” I asked, then answered myself. “For us to find the thieves who are emptying out his
bank or banks. To do that we must first find out just how the bank was robbed. We need someone on the inside-that’s why it was perfect when Bolivar was working there.”

  “I’m not working there any longer.”

  As he said this, and I considered the implications-inspiration struck.

  “Yes you are. You will be restored to your former pinnacle of banking success.”

  “For about two seconds before the police arrive.”

  I rubbed my hands together with gleeful self-admiration. “They won’t arrest you because they will think you are your twin brother James. Who will come here as soon as he is summoned-and incidentally will bring along a new computer.”

  “How will that help?” Angelina asked. “James knows nothing about banks.”

  “But Bolivar does!” I chortled. “He will just resume his old position. Since Chaise owns the bank he will help us to fake the identification, retina patterns and all that.”

  “Congratulations,” Bolivar said. “It sounds so insane that it has to work.”

  “I agree,” Angelina said. “I’ll send an interstellargram right now to tell him that his presence is strongly requested.”

  She unleashed Gloriana, who scratched under her collar with a rear hoof. Then the pleasant rattle of quills stopped suddenly. She was on her feet, head cocked and ears erect. I touched my finger to my lips-then pointed to the door. There was a gentle scratching there. Bolivar slipped back behind the screen as Gloriana trotted over to the door, muttering swinish oaths in the back of her throat. Something white appeared under the door and she had it in a flash.

  “A sheet of paper-a message perhaps,” I said. “Good swinelet, bring it to daddy.”

  She click-clacked across the floor and dropped it at my feet. I turned it over and read: “Burping Barney’s Robot Takeaway-free and most speedy delivery.”

  “Sounds interesting,” Bolivar said, emerging from his hiding place. “It has been a long time since breakfast.”