Harry Harrison: The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge

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.

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 figniting 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 on 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.

I was not first and I welcomed the opportunity to examine the local types. They were supremely indifferent to us, stamping about in knee-high boots, fingering their weapons and keeping their chins up high. Their uniforms were all the same color, a color which at first glance might be mistaken for a very unmilitary hue of carmine, a purplish red. Very quickly I realized that this was almost exactly the color of blood, half arterial blue, half venous pink. It was rather disgusting and hard to avoid locking at. And, in addition, gave no small hint about the nature of the wearer.

All of the guards were on the large side and ran to protruding jaws and little piggy eyes. Their helmets looked like fibersteel, with sinister black visors and transparent faceplates that could be droned down. Each carried a gaussrifle, a multipurpose and particularly deadly weapon. High capacity batteries stored a really impressive electrical charge in the stock. When the trigger was depressed a strong magnetic field was generated in the barrel which accelerated the missile with a muzzle velocity that equaled any explosive cartridge weapon. And the gaussrifle was superior in that it had a more rapid rate of fire, made no sound, and shot out any one of an assortment of deadly missiles, from poison needles to explosive charges. The Corps had reports about this weapon but we had never seen one. I made plans to rectify that situation as soon as possible.

"Pas Ratunkowy," someone shouted and I stirred to life as I remembered this was my cover name. I waved hesitantly and one of the guards stomped and clacked over to me. I do believe that he had metal plates on his heels to increase the militaristic effect. I looked forward to getting a pair of these boots as well: I was beginning to like Cliaand.

"You Pas Ratunkowy?"

"I am he, sir, at your service," I answered in his native tongue, being careful to keep a foreign accent.

"Get your luggage. Come with me."

He spun about and I had the temerity to call after him.

"But, sir, bags are too heavy to carry all at once."

This time he impaled me with a cold, withering look and fingered his gaussrifle suggestively. "Cart," he finally snarled and stabbed a finger at the far side of the prison yard. I humbly went after cart. This was a drably efficient motorized platform that rolled along on small wheels. I quickly loaded my bags onto it and looked for my guide. He stood by a now open door with his finger even closer to the trigger than before. The electric motor whined at top speed and I galloped after the thing towards the door.

The inspection began.

How easy that is to say. But it is one of those simple statements like "I dropped the atom bomb and it went off." This was the most detailed and thorough inspection I had ever experienced and I was exceedingly happy that I had found that lockpick first.

There were ten men waiting in the smooth-walled, antiseptically white room. Six took my baggage while the other four took me. The first thing they did was strip me mother naked and drop me onto a fluoroscope. A magnifying one. Seconds later they were conferring over a blown-up print of the fillings in my teeth. There was a mutual decision that one of them was unduly large and had a rather unusual shape. A sinister looking array of dental gadgetry emerged and they had the filling out in an instant. While the tooth was being refilled with enamel—I'll say that much for them—the original filling was being zapped by a spectroscope. They seemed neither depressed nor elated when its metallic content proved to be that of an accepted dental alloy. The search went on.