The Stainless Steel Rat eBook Collection (97 page)

There were still two subjective days left in warpdrive and I put these to good use making some simple gadgetry that might come in handy. Pinhead grenades, tie-clasp pistols, ring-drills—the usual thing. I only brushed away the scraps and cleaned the shop up when the ship signaled the end of the trip.

The only city on Freibur
with a ground controlled spaceport was at Freiburbad, which was situated on the shore of an immense lake, the only sizeable body of fresh water on the planet. Looking at the sunlight glinting from it I had the sudden desire for a swim. This urge must have been the genesis of my idea to drown the stolen ship. Leave it at the bottom of a deep spot in the lake and it would always be handy if needed.

I made planetfall over a jagged mountain range and picked up not as much as a beep on the radar. Coming in over the lake after dark I detected navigation radar from the spaceport, but my ship wouldn’t get too far inshore. A rainstorm—cut through with hail—shortened visibility and removed my earlier bathing desire. There was a deep underwater channel not too far from shore and I touched down above
it while I put my kit together. It would be foolish to carry too much, but some of the Corps gear was too valuable to leave behind. Sealing it in a waterproof cover I strapped it to my spacesuit and opened the air lock. Rain and darkness washed over me as I struck out for the unseen shore. I imagined rather than heard the gurgle behind me as the ship sank gently to the bottom.

Swimming in a spacesuit
is about as easy to manage as making love in free fall. I churned my way to shore in a state of near exhaustion. After crawling out of the suit I had a great deal of pleasure watching it burn to a cinder under the heat of three thermite bombs. I particularly enjoyed kicking the resultant hissing slag into the lake. The rain hammered down and washed all traces of the
burning away. Apparently even
the fierce light of the thermite had gone unobserved in the downpour. Huddling under a waterproof sheet I waited damply and miserably for dawn.

Sometime during the night I dozed off without meaning to because it was already light when I woke up. Something was very wrong, and before I could remember what had woken me the voice called again.

“Going to Freiburbad? Of course, where else is there
to go? I’m going there myself. Got a boat. Old boat but a good boat. Beats walking …”

The voice went on and on, but I wasn’t listening. I was cursing myself for being caught unaware by this joker with the long-playing voice. He was riding in a small boat just off shore; the thing was low in the water with bales and bundles, and the man’s head stuck above the top of everything. While his jaw kept
moving I had a chance to look at him and draw my sleep-sodden wits together. He had a wild and bristly beard that stuck out in all directions, and tiny dark eyes hidden under the most decrepit hat I had ever seen. Some of my startled panic ebbed away. If this oddball wasn’t a plant, the accidental meeting might be turned to my benefit.

When mattress-face stopped to drag in a long overdue breath
I accepted his offer and reached for the gunwale of the boat and drew it closer. I picked up my bundle—getting my hand on my gun butt as I did it—and jumped in. There didn’t seem to be any need for caution. Zug—that was his name, I plucked it out of the flowing stream of his monologue—bent over an outboard motor clamped to the stern and coaxed it to life. It was a tired looking atomic heat-exchanger,
simple but efficient. No moving parts, it simply sucked in cold lake water, heated it to a boil and shot it out through an underwater jet. Made almost no sound while running, which was how the rig had slid up without wakening me.

Everything about Zug seemed normal—I still wasn’t completely convinced and kept the gun close to my
hand—but if it was normal I had hit a piece of luck. His cataract
of words washed over me and I began to understand why. Apparently he was a hunter, bringing his pelts to market after months of solitude and silence. The sight of a human face had induced a sort of verbal diarrhoea which I made no attempt to stop. He was answering a lot of questions for me.

One thing that had been a worry were my clothes. I had finally decided to wear a one-piece ship suit, done
in neutral gray. You see this kind of outfit, with minor variations, on planets right across the galaxy. It had passed unnoticed by Zug, which wasn’t really saying much since he was anything but a clothes fancier. He must have made his jacket himself out of the local fur. It was purplish-black and must have been very fine before the grease and twigs had been rubbed in. His pants were made of machine-woven
cloth and his boots were the same as mine, of eternene plastic. If he was allowed to walk around loose in this outfit, mine would surely never be noticed.

What I could see of Zug’s equipment bore out the impression gained from his clothes. The old and new mixed together. A world like Freibur, not too long in the League, would be expected to be like that. The electrostatic rifle leaning against
a bundle of steel bolts for the crossbow made a typical picture. Undoubtedly the Voice of The Wilderness here could use both weapons with equal facility. I settled down on the soft bundles and enjoyed the voyage and the visual pleasures of the misty dawn, bathed continually in a flow of words.

We reached Freiburbad before noon. Zug had more of an ambition to talk than to be talked to, and a few
vague remarks of mine about going to the city satisfied him. He greatly enjoyed the food concentrates from my pack and reciprocated by producing a flask of some noxious home brew he had distilled in his mountain retreat. The taste was indescribably awful and left the mouth feeling as if it had been rasped by steel wool soaked in sulphuric acid.
But the first few drinks numbed and after that we
enjoyed the trip—until we tied up at a fish-smelling dock outside the city. We almost swamped the boat getting out of it, which we thought hysterically funny, and which will give you some indication of our mental state at the time. I walked into the city proper and sat in a park until my head cleared.

The old and the new pressed shoulders here, plastic fronted buildings wedged in between brick
and plaster. Steel, glass, wood and stone all mixed with complete indifference. The people were the same, dressed in a strange mixture of types and styles. I took more notice of them than they did of me. A newsrobot was the only thing that singled me out for attention. It blatted its dull offerings in my ear and waved a board with the printed headlines until I bought a paper to get rid of it. League
currency was in circulation here, as well as local money, and the robot made no protest when I slipped a credit in its chest slot, though it did give me change in Freibur
gilden
—undoubtedly at a ruinous rate of exchange. At least that’s the way I would have done it if I were programming the thing.

All of the news was unimportant and trivial—the advertisements were of much more interest. Looking
through the big hotels I compared their offered pleasures and prices.

It was this that set me to trembling and sweating with terror. How quickly we lose the ingrained habits of a lifetime. After a month on the side of law and order I was acting like an honest man!

“You’re a criminal,” I muttered through clenched teeth, and spat on a NO SPITTING sign. “You hate the law and live happily without
it. You are a law unto yourself, and the most honest man in the galaxy. You can’t break any rules since you make them up yourself and change them whenever you see fit.”

All of this was true, and I hated myself for forgetting it. That little period of honesty in the Corps was working like
a blight to destroy all of my best anti-social tendencies.

“Think dirty!” I cried aloud, startling a girl
who was walking by on the path. I leered to prove that she had heard correctly and she hurried quickly away. That was better. I left myself at the same time, in the opposite direction, looking for an opportunity to do bad. I had to re-establish my identity before I could even consider finding Angelina.

Opportunity was easy to find. Within ten minutes I had spotted my target. I had all the equipment
I might need in my sack. What I would use for the job I stowed in my pockets and waist wallet, then checked my bag in a public locker.

Everything about the First Bank of Freibur begged to be cracked. It had three entrances, four guards and was busily crowded. Four human guards! No bank in existence would pay all those salaries if they had electronic protection. It was an effort not to hum with
happiness as I stood in line for one of the
human
clerks. Fully automated banks aren’t hard to rob, they just require different techniques. This mixture of man and machine was the easiest of all.

“Change a League ten-star for gilden,” I said, slapping the shiny coin on the counter before him.

“Yessir,” the cashier said, only glancing at the coin and feeding it into the accounting machine next
to him. His fingers had already set up the amount for me in gilden, even before the
currency valid
signal blinked on. My money rattled down into the cup before me and I counted it slowly. This was done mechanically, because my mind was really on the ten credit coin now rolling and clinking down inside the machine’s innards. When I was sure it had finished its trip and landed in the vault I pressed
the button on my wrist transmitter.

It was beautiful, that was the only word for it. The kind of thing that leaves a warm glow lodged in the memory, that produces a twinge of happiness for years after whenever it is nudged. That little ten credit coin had taken
hours to construct and every minute was worth it. I had sliced it in half, hollowed it out, loaded it with lead back to its original
weight, built in a tiny radio receiver, a fuse and a charge of burmedex, which now went off with an incredibly satisfactory explosion. A grinding thump deep in the bank’s entrails was followed by a tremendous amount of clanking and banging. The rear wall—containing the vault—split open and disgorged a torrent of money and smoke. Some last effort of the expiring accounting machine gave me an unexpected
dividend. The money dispensers at every cashier’s station burst into frantic life. A torrent of large and small coins poured out on the startled customers who quickly mastered their surprise and began grabbing. Their moment of pleasure was brief because the same radio cue had set off the smoke and gas bombs I had thoughtfully dropped in all the wastebaskets. Unnoticed in the excitement, I threw
a few more gas bombs in with the cashiers. This gas is an effective mixture of my own concoction, a sinister brew of regurgitants and lachrymatories. Its effect was instantaneous and powerful. (There were of course no children in the bank, since I don’t believe in being cruel to those too young to protect themselves.) Within seconds, the clients and employees found themselves unable to see and
too preoccupied to take any notice of me.

As the gas rolled towards me I lowered my head and slipped the goggles over my eyes. When I looked up I was the only person in the bank that was able to see. I was of course careful to breathe through the filter plugs in my nose, so I could enjoy the continued digestion of my last meal. My teller had vanished from sight and I did a neat dive through the
opening, sliding across the counter on my stomach.

After this it was just a matter of pick and choose, there was certainly no shortage of money rolling around loose. I ignored the small stuff and went to the source, the riven vault out of which poured a golden torrent. Within two minutes I had filled the bag I had brought and was ready
to leave. The smoke near the doors was thinning a bit, but
a few more grenades took care of that.

Everything was working perfectly and under control, except for one fool of a guard who was making a nuisance of himself. His tiny brain realized dimly that something wrong was going on, so he was staggering in circles firing his gun. It was a wonder he hadn’t hit anyone yet. I took the gun away and hit him on the head with it.

The smoke was densest near
the doors, making it impossible to see out. It was just as impossible of course to see in, so no one in the street had any real idea of what had happened. They of course knew
something
was wrong; two policemen had rushed in with guns drawn … but were now as helpless as the rest. I organized the relief of the sufferers then, and began pulling and guiding them to the door. When I had enough of a
crowd collected I joined them and we all crawled out into the street together. I put the goggles in my pocket and kept my eyes closed until I had groped clear of the gas. Some worthy citizens helped me and I thanked them, tears streaming down my face from the fringes of the gas, and went my way.

That’s how easy it is. That’s how easy it always is if you plan ahead and don’t take foolish risks.
My morale was high and the blood sang in my veins. Life was deliciously crooked and worth living again. Finding Angelina’s trail now would be simplicity itself. There was nothing I couldn’t do.

Staying on the crest of this emotional wave, I rented a room in a spacemen’s hotel near the port, cleaned up and strode forth to enjoy the pleasures of life. There were many rough-and-ready joints in the
area and I made the rounds. I had a steak in one and a drink apiece in each of the others. If Angelina had come to Freibur she would surely have passed—at least briefly—through this area. The trail would be here, I felt that in my bones. Crooked bones once again, and sympathetic to her own lawlessness.

“Howsabout buying a girl a drink,” the tart said
spiritlessly, and I shook my head no with
the same lack of interest. The hostesses, pallid creatures of the night, were coming out as the evening progressed I was getting a good share of propositions since I had taken care to look like a spaceman on leave, always a good source of revenue for these women. This one was the latest of a number who had approached me. A little better looking than most, at least better constructed. I watched her
walking away with interest that bordered on admiration. Her skirt was short, tight and slashed high up on the sides. High heels lent a rotating motion to this, producing a most effective result. She reached the bar and turned to survey the room, and I couldn’t help but appreciate the rest of her. Her blouse was made of thin strips of shimmering fabric, joined together only at the tops and bottoms,
They separated to reveal enticing slices of creamy skin whenever she moved, and I’m sure had the desired effect on masculine libidos.