Harry Harrison - The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You

“And as your employer if I say go –you go . Without a trace. You won’t be killed, we are not that cruel, but you will be back teaching first-year physics to moronic students on a backwater planet so far from the civilized haunts of man that they think time machine means a watch. Going to cooperate?”

“You can’t threaten me,” Coypu blustered.

“I already have. You have one minute left. Guards!” Two anthropoid brutes in wrinkled uniforms appeared on each side of the little professor and seized him strenuously by the arms so that his toes dangled just clear of the floor. “Thirty seconds,” Inskipp sussurated with all the warmth of a striking cobra.

“I’ve always wanted to run more calibrating tests on the time-helix,” Coypu backwatered quickly.

“Fine,” Inskipp relented. “Toes on deck, that’s it. This will be an easy one. You will flip our friend here about one week back in time, along with the means to return when his mission is accomplished. We will give you the coordinates and time to which he is to be returned. You need know nothing else. Are you ready, diGriz?”

“As ready as I will ever be.” I looked at the spacesuit and the pile of equipment I had assembled. “Suit up and let’s get going. I am as eager to see what happened as you are, and even more eager to return since I have done this time travel gig before and it is hard on the system.”

The coiled spring of the time-helix glowed greenly, with all the attraction of a serpent’s eye. I sighed and prepared for the journey. I almost wished that I had submitted myself to the clammy, corpselike embrace of the tax man.

Almost.

The mere fact that this was not my first trip through time did nothing to alter the uncomfortable sensations of the journey. Once again I felt the wrenching in a new and undescribable direction, yet again saw the stars whizzing by like rockets. It was very uncomfortable and lasted far too long. Then the sensations ceased as quickly as they had begun, the grayness of time-space vanished to be replaced by a healthy black universe speckled with stars. I floated in null-G, turning slowly, admiring the spectacle of the satellite station as it swung into view. I took a quick bleep with the radar unit on my chest and saw that I was ten kilometers away, just the spot where I should have been. The satellite was a good-sized one, studded with aerial arrays and blinking beacons, its many windows glowing with lights. Filled, I was sure, with rotund admirals swilling and swigging and occasionally doing a bit of military business. But they had a surprise coming which I was looking forward to. I tuned my radio to their time signal broadcast and found I was an hour later than our target time; Coypu would be interested in hearing that. But I still had almost five hours to kill before the moment of truth. For all the obvious reasons I could not smoke a cigar in the spacesuit—but I could still drink. And I had taken the simple precaution of draining the water from the suit’s tank and topping it up instead with a mixture of bourbon and water. Some 32,000 years earlier, on a planet named Earth, I had developed a taste for this beverage. Though that planet had long since been destroyed, I had brought back the formula and, after a certain amount of lethal experimentation, had learned to produce a potable imitation. I wrapped my lips around the helmet drinking tube and poted. Good indeed. I admired the brilliant stars, the nearby satellite, recited poetry to myself and the hours flew by.

Just five minutes before the important event was to happen, I was aware of a sudden movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see another spacesuited figure floating nearby. Seated on a two-meter-long rocket-shaped object. I whipped out my pistol, I had insisted on bringing it since I had no idea what I would be facing, and pointed it at the newcomer.

“Keep your hands in sight and turn so I can see you. This gun is loaded with explosive shells.”

“Put it away, stupid,” the other said back still turned to me while he worked on the control panel of the rocket. “If you don’t know who I am no one does.”

“Me!” I said, trying not to gape.

“No, I. Me is you, or some such. Grammar isn’t up to this kind of thing. The gun, blockhead!”

I closed my jaw with a clack and slid the pistol back into its holster.

“Would you mind explaining?”

“I had better since you, or I, didn’t have enough brains to think of this in the first place so a second trip had to be made. To bring this spacewarp leech along.” He looked at his watch, or I looked at my watch or something like that, then he (I?) pointed. “Keep the eyes peeled—this is really going to be good.”

It was. Space beyond the satellite was empty—then an instant later it wasn’t. Something large, very large, appeared and hurtled toward the satellite. I was aware of a dark, knobbed, elongated form, that suddenly split open in the front. The opening was immense, glowing with a hellish light, gaping like a planet-consuming mouth lined with pinnacles of teeth.

“The teeth!” my radio crackled loudly, the single message from the lost—or to-be-lost satellite, then the great mouth was chomping shut and the station vanished from sight in the instant. A streak of fire seared my vision and the white form of the spacewarp leech hurled itself forward at the attacker. None too soon, because there was the sudden shimmer of an operating warp field about the giant shape—then it was gone again.

“What was it?” I gasped.

“How do I know,” I said. “And if I did I wouldn’t tell you. Now get back so I can get back or you can, I mean—the hell with it. Move.”

“Don’t bully,” I muttered. “I don’t think I should talk to myself this way.” I triggered the switch on the case of the return time-helix. And, uncomfortably, returned.

“What did you find out?” Inskipp asked as soon as my helmet was opened.

“Mainly that I have to go back a second time. Order up a spacewarp leech and I’ll be happy to explain.” I decided against going to the trouble of getting out of the suit and putting it on again. So I leaned against the wall and took a long drag on my bourbon pacifier. Inskipp sniffed the air loudly.

“Are you boozing on the job?”

“Of course. It is one of the things that makes the work bearable. Now, kindly shut and listen. Something really big appeared out of warpspace, just seconds away from the satellite. A neat bit of navigation that I did not think was possible but which obviously is. Whatever it was opened its shining mouth, all lined with teeth, and swallowed the admirals, space stations and all…”

“It’s the drink, I knew it!”

“No it’s not and I can prove it because my camera was going all the time. Then, as soon as the thing had had lunch, it zipped back into warpdrive and was gone.”

“We must get a spacewarp leech onto it.”

“That’s just what I told myself who came back with said object and launched it in the right direction.” Right on cue the leech was rolled in. “Great. Come on, Coypu, get me and this thing back to five minutes before zero hour and I will be able to get out of this suit. By the way, you were an hour out in my first arrival and I expect better timing on this run.”

Coypu muttered over the recalibration, set dials to his satisfaction, I grabbed onto the long white form of the leech and off I went again. The scenario was the same as the first time, only from a different point of view. By the time I had returned from the second trip I had had enough of time travel and wanted nothing more than a large meal with a small bottle of wine and a soft bed for afters. I got all of these, including more than enough time to enjoy them, for almost a week went by before a report came in about the spacewarp leech. I was with Inskipp when the message arrived and he did a certain amount of eye-boggling and squinting at the sheet as if rereading would change it.