Harry Harrison - SSR 02 - The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge

VIP免费
2024-12-19 1 0 246.45KB 87 页 5.9玖币
侵权投诉
The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge
Chapter 1
I stood in line, as patient as the other taxpayers, my filled out forms
and my cash gripped body in my hand. Cash, money, the old fashioned green
folding stuff. A local custom that I intended to make expensive to the local
customers. I was scratching under the artificial beard, which itched
abominably, when the man before me stepped out of the way and I was at the
window. My finger stuck in the glue and I had a job freeing it without pulling
the beard off as well.
"Come, come, pass it over," the aging, hatchet-faced, bitter and shrewish
female official said, hand extended impatiently.
"On the contrary," I said, letting the papers and banknotes fall away to
disclose the immense .75 recoilless pistol that I held. " You pass it over.
All of that tax money you have extracted from the sheep like suckers who
populate this backward planet."
I smiled to show that I meant it and she choked off a scream and began
scrabbling in the cash drawer. It was a broad smile that showed all of my
teeth, which I had stained bright red, which should have helped her decide on
the proper course of action. As the money was pushed towards me I stuffed it
into my long topcoat that was completely lined with deep pockets.
"What are you doing?" the man behind me gasped, eyes bulging like great
white grapes.
"Taking money," I said and flipped a bundle at him. "Why don't you have
some yourself." He caught it by reflex, goggled at it, and all the alarms went
off at once and I heard the doors crashing shut. The cashier had managed to
trigger an alarm.
"Good for you," I said, "but don't let a minor thing like that prevent you
from keeping the cash coming."
She gasped and started to slip from sight, but a wave of the gun and
another flash of my carmine dentures restored a semblance of life, and the
flow of bills continued. People started to rush about and gun-waving guards
began to appear looking around enthusiastically for someone to shoot, so I
triggered the radio relay in my pocket. There was a series of charming
explosions all about the bank, from every wastebasket where I had planted a
gas bomb, followed by the even more charming screams of the customers. I
stopped stowing money long enough to slip on the gas-tight goggles and settle
them into place. And to clamp my mouth shut so I was forced to breathe through
the filter plugs in my nostrils.
It was fascinating to watch. Blackout gas is invisible and has no odor but
it does contain a chemical that acts almost instantly, bringing about a
temporary but complete paralysis of the optic nerve. Within fifteen seconds
everyone in the bank was blind.
With the exception of James Bolivar diGriz, myself, man of many talents.
Humming a happy tune through closed lips I stowed away the remaining money. My
benefactress had finally slid from sight and was screaming incontinently
somewhere behind the counter. So were a lot of other people. There was plenty
of groping about and falling over things as I made my way through this little
blacked out corner of bedlam. An eerie sensation indeed, the one-eyed man in
the country of the blind and all that. A crowd had already gathered outside,
pressing in fascinated awe against the windows and glass doors, to watch the
drama unfolding inside. I waved and smiled and a shudder passed through the
nearest as they pushed back in panic from the door. I shot the lock oat,
angling the gun so the bullets shrieked away over their heads, and kicked the
door open. Before exiting myself I threw a screamer out onto the sidewalk and
quickly pushed the stopples into my ears.
The screamer sounded off and everyone began to leave quickly. You have to
leave quickly when you hear one of these things. They send out a mixed brew of
devilish sounds at the decibel level of a major earthquake. Some are audible,
sounds like a magnified fingernail on a blackboard, while others are
supersonic and produce sensations of panic and imminent death. Harmless and
highly effective. The street was otherwise empty when I walked out to the car
that was just pulling up to the curb. My head was throbbing with the
supersonics that got past the plugs and I was more than happy to slip through
the open door and relax while Angelina gunned the machine down the street.
"Everything go all right?" she asked, keeping her eyes on the road as she
whirled around a corner on the outside wheels. Sirens began to sound in the
distance.
"A piece of cake. Smooth as castor oil . . ."
"Your similes leave a lot to be desired."
"Sorry. A touch of indigestion this morning. But my coat is lined with
more money than we could possibly need."
"How nice!" she laughed, and she meant it. That irresistible grin, the
crinkled nose. I longed to nibble it, or at least kiss her, but settled for a
comradely pat on the shoulder since she needed all her concentration for
driving. I popped a stick of gum in my mouth that would remove the red tooth
dye and began to peel off my disguise.
As I changed so did the car. Angelina turned into a side street, slowed
and then found an even quieter street to drive along. There was no one in
sight. She pressed the button.
My, but technology can do some interesting things. The license plate
flipped over to reveal a different number, but that was too simple a trick to
even discuss. Angelina flicked on the windshield wipers as a fine spray of
catalytic fluid sprang out of jets on the front of the car. Wherever it
touched the blue paint turned a bright red. Except for the top of the car
which became transparent so that in a few moments we were sitting in a bubble
top surveying the world around. A good deal of what appeared to be chrome
plated metal dissolved and washed away altering the appearance and even the
make of the car. As soon as this process was complete Angelina sedately turned
a corner and started back in the direction from whence we had come. Her orange
wig was locked away with my disguise and I held the wheel while she put on an
immense pair of goggly sunglasses.
"Where to next?" she asked as a huddle of shrieking police cars tore by in
the opposite direction.
"I was thinking of the shore. Wind, sun, sand, that sort of thing. Healthy
and bracing."
"A little too bracing if you don't mind my saying so." She patted the
rounded bulge of her midriff with a more than satisfied smile. "It's six
months now, going on seven, so I'm not feeling that athletic. Which reminds me
. . ." She flashed me a quick scowl, then turned her attention back to the
road. "You promised to make an honest woman out of me so that we could call
this a honeymoon."
"My love," I said, and clasped her hand in all sincerity. "At the first
possible moment. I don't want to make an honest woman out of you--that would
be physically impossible since you are basically as larcenous minded as I am--
but I will certainly many you and slip an expensive--"
"Stolen!"
"-ring on this delicate little finger. I do promise. But the second we try
to register a marriage we'll be fed into the computer and the game will be up.
Our little holiday at an end."
"And you'll be hooked for life. I think I better grab you now before I get
too round to run and catch you. We'll go to your beach resort and enjoy one
last day of mad freedom. And tomorrow, right after breakfast, we are getting
married. Do you promise?"
"There is just one question . . ."
"Promise, Slippery Jim, I know you!"
"You have my word except . . ."
She braked the car to a skidding stop and I found myself looking down the
barrel of my own .75 recoilless. It looked very big. Her knuckle was white on
the trigger.
"Promise you quick-witted slippery tricky crooked lying con man or I'll
blow your brains out."
"My darling, you do love me!"
"Of course I do. But if I can't have you all to myself I'll have you dead.
Speak!"
"We get married in the morning."
"Some men are so hard to convince," she whispered, slipping the gun into
my pocket and herself into my arms. Then she kissed me with such delicious
intensity that I almost looked forward to the morrow.
Chapter 2
"WHERE ARE YOU GOING, Slippery Jim?" Angelina asked, leaning out of the
window of our room above. I stopped with my hand on the gate.
"Just down for a quick swim, my love," I shouted back and swung the gate
open. A .75 roared and the ruins of the gate were blown out of my hand.
"Open your robe," she said, not unkindly, and blew the smoke from the gun
barrel at the same time.
I shrugged with resignation and opened the beach robe. My feet were bare.
But of course I was fully dressed, with my pant legs rolled up and my shoes
stuffed into my jacket pockets. She nodded understandably.
"You can come back upstairs. You're going nowhere."
"Of course I'm not." Hot indignation. "I'm not that sort of chap. I was
just afraid you might misunderstand. I just wanted to nip into the shops and .
. ."
"Upstairs."
I went. Hell hath no fury etc. was invented to describe my Angelina. The
Special Corps medics had stripped her of her homicidal tendencies, unknotted
the tangled skeins of her subconscious and equipped her for a more happy
existence than circumstance had previously provided. But when it came to the
crunch she was still the old Angelina. I sighed and mounted the stairs with
leaden feet.
And I felt even more of an unthinking fiend when I saw that she was
crying. "Jim, you don't love me!" A classic gambit since the first woman in
the garden, but still unanswerable.
"I do," I protested, and I meant it. "But, it's just . . . reflex. Or
something like that. I love you, but marriage is, well, like going to prison.
And in all my crooked years I have never been sent up."
"It is liberation, not captivity," she said and did things with her makeup
that removed the ravages of the tears. I noticed for the first time that she
had white lipstick on to match her white dress and a little white lacy kind of
thing in her hair.
"This is just like going swimming in cold water," she said, standing and
patting my cheek. "Get it over with quickly so you won't feel it. Now roll
down your pants and put those shoes on."
I did, but when I straightened up to answer this last fatuous argument I
saw that the door had opened and that a Marriage Master and his two witnesses
were standing in the next room. She took my arm, gently, I'll say that for
her, and at the same time the recorded strains of the mighty organ filled the
air. She tugged at my elbow. I resisted for a moment, then lurched forward as
a gray mist seemed to fall over my eyes.
When the darkness lifted the organ was bloating its dying notes, the door
was closing behind the drafting backs and Angelina stopped admiring her ring-
decorated finger long enough to raise her lips to mine. I had barely enough
strength of will left to kiss her first before I groaned.
There were a number of bottles on the sideboard and my twitching fingers
stumbled through them to unerringly find a knobby flask of Syrian Panther
Sweat, a potent beverage with such hideous aftereffects that its sale is
forbidden on most civilized worlds. A large tumbler of this was most
efficacious, I could feel it doing me harm, and I poured a second one. While I
was doing this and immersed in my numbed thoughts a period of time must have
passed because Angelina--my Angelina (suppressed groan)--now stood before me
dressed in slacks and sweater with our bags packed and waiting at her side.
Tie glass was plucked from my fingers.
"Enough private whoopee," she said, not unkindly. "We'll celebrate tonight
but right now we have to move. The marriage record will be filed at any moment
and when our names hit the computer it's going to light up like a knocking
shop on payday. By now the police will have tied us in to most of the crimes
of the past two months and will come slavering and baying after us."
"Silence," I ordered, swaying to my feet. "The image is a familiar one.
Get the car and we will leave."
I offered to help with the bags but by the time I communicated this
information she was halfway down the stairs with them. With this encouragement
I navigated the hazard and reached the door. The car was outside humming with
unleashed power, the side door open and Angelina at the wheel tapping her foot
with equally unleashed impatience. As I stumbled into it the first tentacles
of reality penetrated my numbed cortex. This car, like all otter ground cars
on Kamata, was steam powered and the steam was generated by the combustion of
a specie of peat bricks fed to the furnace by an ingenious and unnecessarily
complicated device. It took at least a half an hour to raise steam to get
moving. Angelina must have fired up before the wedding and planned every other
step as well. My solitary contribution to all this was a private drunk which
had been very little aid at all. I shuddered at what this meant, yet was still
driven to the only possible conclusion.
"Do you have a drive-right pill?" I asked, hoarsely.
It was in the palm of her hand even as I spoke. Small, round, pink, with a
black skull and crossbones on it. A sobering invention of some mad chemist
that worked like a metabolic vacuum cleaner. Short minutes after hitting the
hydrochloric acid pool of my stomach the ingredients would be doing a
blitzkrieg attack through my bloodstream. Not only does it remove all of the
alcohol but strips away all of the side products associated with drinking as
well, so that the pitiful subject is instantly cold sober and painfully aware
of it.
"I can't take it without water," I mumbled, blinking at the plastic cup in
her other hand. There was no turning back. With a last happy shudder I flipped
the deadly thing into the back of my throat and drained the cup.
They say it doesn't take long, but that is an objective time. Subjective
was hours. It is a most unusual experience and difficult to describe. Imagine
if you will what it feels like to take the nozzle of a cold water hose in your
mouth and then to have the water turned on. And then, an instant later, to
have the water gushing in great streams from every orifice of your body,
including the pores, until you are flushed completely clean.
"Wow," I said weakly, sitting up and dabbing at my forehead with my
handkerchief. The houses of a small village rushed by and were replaced by
farmlands. Angelina drove with calm efficiency and the boiler chunked merrily
as it ate another brick of peat.
"Feeling better, I hope?" She dived into a traffic circle and left it by a
different road with only a quick glimpse at the map. "The alarm is out for us,
army, navy, everything. I've been listening to their command radio."
"Are we going to get away?"
"I doubt it--not unless you come up with some bright idea very quickly.
They have a solid ring with aerial cover around the area and are tightening
it."
I was still recovering from the heroic treatment of the drive-right pill and
had not collected all my wits. There was a direct connection from my muddled
thoughts to my vocal cords that had no intervening censor of intelligence.
"A great start to marriage. If this is what it is like no wonder I have
been avoiding it all these years."
The car swung off the road and shuddered to a stop in the deep grass under
a row of blue-leaved trees. Angelina was out, had slammed the door and was
reaching for her bag before I had time to react. I tried to tell her.
"I'm a fool . . ."
"Then I'm a fool too for marrying you." She was dry eyed and cold of voice
with all of her emotions strictly under control. "I tricked you and trapped
you into marriage because it was what I thought you really wanted. I was
wrong, so it is going to end right now before it really gets started. I'm
sorry, Jim. You made an entirely new life for me and thought I could make one
for you. It has been fun knowing you. Thank you and good-by."
By the time she had finished, my thoughts had congealed into something
roughly resembling their normal shape and I was weak but ready. I was out of
the car before she had finished talking and standing in front of her, blocking
her way, holding her most gently by the arms.
"Angelina, I will tell you this but once and probably never again the rest
of my life. So listen well and remember. At one time I was the best crook in
the galaxy, before I was conned into the Special Corps to help catch other
erodes. And I caught you. Not only were you a crook but a mastermind criminal
as well and a cheerfully sadistic murderess. " I felt her body shiver in my
hands and held her tighter. "It has to be said, because that is what you were.
You aren't any more. You had reasons to be that way and the reasons have been
removed and some unhappy quirks in your otherwise pristine cortex have been
straightened out. And now I love you. But I want to remember that I loved you
even then during your unreconstructed days, which is saying a lot. So if I
buck at the harness now, or am difficult to deal with in the mornings, just
remember that and make allowances. Is it a deal?"
It apparently was. She dropped the bag--on my toe, but I dared not flinch-
-and wrapped her arms around me and was kissing me and knocked me over into
the deep grass and I had a jolly time kissing her right back. The newlywed
effect I suppose you would call it, great fun . . .
We froze, rigid, as a pair of flywheel cycles moaned and skidded to a stop
by our car. Only the police used these since they move a good deal faster than
the peat-powered steamers. They are tricycle affairs with a great heavy
flywheel encased between the rear wheels. They plugged them in at night so
their motor-generators could run the flywheel up to top speed. During the day
the flywheel generated electricity to drive the motors in each wheel. Very
efficient and smog-free. Very dangerous.
"This is the car, Fodder!" one of the police shouted out over the constant
moan of the flywheels.
"I'll call it in. They can't have gone far. We sure have them trapped
now!"
Nothing infuriates me like the bland assurances of petty officials. Oh
yes, really trapped now. I growled deep in my throat as the other uniformed
incompetent poked his nose around the car and gaped at our cozy cuddle in the
grass. He was still gaping when I lunged an arm up and around his neck with a
tight squeeze on his throat and pulled him down to join us. It was fun to
watch his tongue come out and his eyes pop and his head turn red but Angelina
spoiled it. She whipped off his helmet and rapped him smartly--and accurately-
-on the temple with the heel of her shoe. He turned off and I let him drop.
"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 landing. 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 noose, 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
摘要：

TheStainlessSteelRat'sRevengeChapter1Istoodinline,aspatientastheothertaxpayers,myfilledoutformsandmycashgrippedbodyinmyhand.Cash,money,theoldfashionedgreenfoldingstuff.AlocalcustomthatIintendedtomakeexpensivetothelocalcustomers.Iwasscratchingundertheartificialbeard,whichitchedabominably,whenthemanbe...

展开>> 收起<<
Harry Harrison - SSR 02 - The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge.pdf

共87页,预览18页

还剩页未读， 继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

相关推荐

更多
立即下载
分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：87 页 大小：246.45KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-19

开通VIP享超值会员特权

  • 多端同步记录
  • 高速下载文档
  • 免费文档工具
  • 分享文档赚钱
  • 每日登录抽奖
  • 优质衍生服务

作者详情

相关内容

更多

热门标签

人际关系 配电装置 动力学连接体 力的合成 高考理综 全宋诗作者索引 公务员考试
/ 87
评分 收藏
分享
立即下载 VIP免费下载
客服
关注