The Stainless Steel Rat Goes to Hell ssr-10

by Harry Harrison

  “This is the voice of your master, your human master. Stop now you animated junkyard.” It neither slowed nor paid me any heed, dragging me along like a dead beast. I walked again, stumbling, which was somewhat better than being dragged. To a metal door set into the rock face. It opened the door and pulled me through. I heard it clang shut behind us although I could see nothing in the darkness. It started up an unseen stairway, apparently seeing all right with its single operating eye. I fell and banged my shins, fell again and again until I grew used to the stairs. I was reeling with exhaustion by the time it stopped again and opened another door. Seized me up and threw me through it.

  Behind me the door clanged shut even before I hit the ground. Reality twisted, the sensation of passing from one universe to another. There was sudden light and I banged down hard onto a stone floor.

  Cold light lit the even colder scene; my teeth began chattering. I was in a metal—walled room with a barred door set in the far wall. Snow and frigid air blew in between the bars.

  Had I been hauled down to Purgatory, then tossed through the machine, just to be allowed to freeze to death? It didn’t make sense. There certainly must be lots of easier and less complicated ways of disposing of me. My blue and bare toes, protruding from the ruins of my socks, kicked against something. I looked down at the heaped clothing, thick boots, gloves. This was a message that I was happy to receive.

  My fingers were trembling as I pulled on the heavy socks and trousers, then kicked into the boots. They didn’t fit that well—but they kept out the cold. Everything I put on was a depressing shade of ash gray, which did not disturb me in the slightest. The clothing was warm and not too uncomfortable. I wound a scarf around my neck, popped on a seedy fur hat, then wriggled my fingers into the thick gloves.

  Right on cue the barred door swung open and more snow blew in. I ignored it and turned around to see if there was any way of getting out the same way I had come in.

  “I am called Buboe,” a menacingly deep voice said. I sighed and turned to look at my newest tormentor.

  Dressed like me. Almost of a height, but he was heavier and wider. In his hands he held a flexible metal rod that I looked at very suspiciously. Particularly when he waggled it in my direction.

  “This is Buboe’s bioclast. Bioclast hurts lot. It kills too. You do what Buboe say, you live. Don’t do it, you hurt and die. This is hurt.”

  He flicked the thing at me. I jumped aside so that the tip barely grazed me.

  This was a new kind of pain. It felt like my flesh had been sliced to the bone and boiling acid then poured into the wound. I could only stand, holding my wounded arm and waiting for the pain to pass. It did, eventually, and it was hard to believe that both clothing and arm were still intact. Buboe waggled the bioclast at me and I shivered away.

  “Learn fast, live. No learn, die.”

  His linguistic abilities were not of the best but he had an unassailable and thoroughly convincing argument. And at least he could talk; I could only nod agreement not trusting myself to speak yet.

  “Work,” he said, pointing his weapon at the open door. I stumbled through it into blue—lit daylight, a desolate, snow whipped frigid hell. Large machines were moving around me, but until my eyes stopped tearing at the sudden cold I could not see what they were doing.

  I soon found out. This was an opencast mine, a great sunken pit of broken stone and heaped gravel. The black layers were being torn open by hulking machines; the rubble they heaped up was then carried away by many—wheeled devices. At first I thought that the machines were work robots. Then I saw that each vehicle had a rider or an operator. The machines did the digging and carrying under the men’s guidance.

  “You go up.” Buboe said, rapping on an immobile machine. The sight of his thin rod sent me scurrying up the handholds on its side. I wriggled into the bucket seat, looked out through the scarred and chipped window before me, wondered what to do next. A loudspeaker above my head scratched to life.

  “Detection. Unknown individual. Identify yourself.”

  “Who are you?” I asked, looking around for an operator, but I was alone. It was my steel chariot that was speaking to me.

  “I am Model Ninety—one surface debrider and masculator. Give identity.”

  “Why?” I asked angrily, having never enjoyed conversations with machines.

  “Give identity,” was all it would say.

  “My name is none of your business,” I said sulkily—then regretted the words the instant I had spoken them.

  “State work experience with this Model Ninety—one, Noneofyourbusiness.”

  “I will give the orders. Now hear this…”

  “State work experience with this Model Ninety—one, Noneofyourbusiness.”

  There was no way to win this argument. “None.” “Orientation instructions begin.”

  They did, and they went on for far too long in far too stupid detail, geared to the thought processes of a retarded two—year—old. I listened just long enough to find out how the thing operated, then looked around for some way out of this dilemma. Knowing that it was not going to be easy.

  “Power is on, Noneofyourbusiness. Work begins.” It surely did. There were levers by each knee, along with the two pedals, controlled direction and speed. A single, knobbed control moved the hydraulically powered arm that projected forward from right below the cab. This was first pressed against the rock surface and the trigger pulled. Fragments of rock blasted out in all directions—including towards the cab, which explained the thickness and scars on the forward—facing window. When enough rock had been broken free I touched the glowing red button that signaled for the bucketbil. This trundled over on its two rows of heavy wheels and backed into position below. I worked the controls for the loading arms which stuck out just below my face.

  The first time I dumped a load, I waved to the driver of the bucketbil. His grim expression never changed, but he was considerate enough to raise a thick middle finger to me. I loaded and he left.

  Light was fading from the sky. Night approached and work would cease for the day. A nice thought, but not a very accurate one. Work lights came on above, the headlights of my Model 91 illuminated the falling snowflakes and the rock face: the work continued.

  An indeterminate, but long, time later there was a warbling sound from the cab’s loudspeaker and the machine’s power was switched off. I saw the driver of the nearest stopped Model 91 climbing wearily down from his machine. I did the same, and just as wearily. There was another heavily dressed man waiting on the ground, who climbed up the machine as soon as I got down. He said nothing to me—nor did I have anything to say to him in return. I shuffled after the other shuffling man. Through a door in the canyon wall. Into a large and warm hail filled with men and redolent with the strong pong of B. O. My new home.

  It was worse than any army camp or work camp that I had ever been in. There was an overlay of despair that could not be avoided. These men were condemned and bereft of any spark of will. Or hope.

  The only note of interest came after I had found an empty bunk to dump my heavy outer clothing, then followed the others to the eating tables. I was looking at the appalling food on my battered tray when a large hand seized my shoulder painfully.

  “I eat your kreno,” said the overweight and obnoxious individual who was attached to the hand. Another hand of the same size reached for the purple steaming lump on my tray. I lowered the tray to the table, waited until the kreno was well clutched—then grabbed the wrist.

  Since he was very big, obviously obnoxious and undoubtedly strong, I played no fancy games. As his thick head went by I cracked him across the bridge of the nose with the side of my hand. He squealed in pain so I generously gave him peace by punching his neck in the right place with stiffened fingertips. He kept on going to the floor and did not move. I picked up my tray and took the kreno from his limp fingers. Looked around at the other diners.

  “Any of you lot want to try for my kreno?” I asked.<
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  The few who had bothered to look up from their food quickly lowered their eyes. The man at my feet began to snore. The only other sound was the slurp and crunch of masticating food.

  “It’s really nice to meet you guys,” I said to the tops of heads. Sat down and ate hungrily.

  Forcing myself not to think about where I was and what I was going to do.

  Or what the unforeseeable future might be like.

  Chapter 18

  A great number of strenuous days passed, not to say nights, in endless, brainless toil. The food was disgusting but kept the body’s furnace stoked. My kreno—clutching friend, whose name I had soon discovered was Lasche, was the barrack’s bully. He stayed out of my way, though he glared at me from behind the pair of black—and—blue eyes I had given him, then found other, more vulnerable men to pick on.

  The routine could not have been simpler—or more mind destroyingly boring. There were two shifts, one worked while the other slept, and there were no days off. The day started when the lights came on and Buboe appeared to stir the laggards along with his bioclast. As we filed out of the barracks the other shift stumbled in. It was the hot—bed system with one worker getting out of bed just before the other one crawled into it. Since the rough blankets were never changed or cleaned this made for an unusual miasma in the sleeping quarters. That was the way the day began; it ended when the lights went out.

  In between working and sleeping, sleeping and working, we ate the repulsive meals that had been prepared in the robot kitchen. There was very little talking among the inmates, undoubtedly because there was absolutely nothing to talk about. The only change in this routine was when I operated a bucketbil rather than a Model 91. This was even more distasteful and boring since it involved only driving away with a full load, dumping it and coming back empty.

  I had a spurt of interest when I went to dump my first load, trundling along in the wake of another filled machine. Our destination proved to be nothing more exciting than a giant metal hopper set into the ground. There was no indication at all where the crushed rock was going. Or why. Was there a cave or a conveyor underground? I didn’t think so. I had come to this planet courtesy of Slakey’s universe machine. The chances were that crushed rock was going somewhere the same way. I thought about this for a bit, but soon forgot to think about it under the pressure of work and fatigue…

  It must have been the fatigue that put me off guard. I had concerned myself with Lasche for the first few days as his shiners turned from black to green and other interesting colors. He seemed to have forgotten about me as well.

  But he hadn’t. I was wiping up the cold remains of the evening meal when I noticed the expression on the face of the man across the table from me. He was looking up over my shoulder and I saw his eyes widen. It was reflex that made me jump aside—and just blind luck that my skull wasn’t crushed. The rock that Lasche was wielding struck my shoulder a numbing blow, knocking me off the bench. I roared with pain and rolled aside, stumbled to my feet and stood dizzily with my back to the wall. I made a fist with my left hand, but my right arm was numb and powerless. I shuffled along the wall until I had a clear space before me. Lasche followed me, lifting the rock menacingly. “Now you’re gonna he dead,” he said. I felt no desire to join in the conversation. I watched his beady and nasty little eyes, waiting for him to attack.

  He did—but fell forward as the man at the table behind him stuck out his foot and tripped him. I made the most of it, bringing my knee up to meet his face as he went down. He screamed hoarsely and dropped the rock. I grabbed it up with my good hand, ready to slam it into his skull.

  “If you kill him, or maim him so he can’t work, Buboe will kill you,” the man said. He of the tripping toe. I dropped the rock and satisfied myself with a quick kick in the thug’s ribs and a punch in his neural ganglion that would keep him quiet for some time. “Thanks,” I said. “I owe you one.”

  He was thin and wiry, with black hair and even blacker grease on his hands. I kneaded my sore right arm with my hand as it tingled back to life.

  “My name is Berkk,” he said.

  “Jim.”

  “Can you operate an arcwelder?”

  “I’m an expert” “I thought you might be. I have been watching you since you came here. You know how to take care of yourself. Let’s go see Buboe.”

  Our brutal keeper had a room of his own, absolute luxury in this place. And a heating coil as well. When we found him he was stirring an unappealing orange mass in a battered pot. But it smelled all right and would surely be better than the slop we were fed.

  “What you want?” He scowled at us. Probably found the effort to speak coherently a tiring one.

  “I need help putting that Model Ninety—one back together. The one that fell off the rock face.”

  “Why help?”

  “Because I say so, that’s why. It’s a two man job. Jim here can work a welder.”

  He stopped stirring and looked at us suspiciously, his bulging red eyes moving from Berkk’s face to mine. It took some time; obviously coherent thought was as alien to him as articulate speech. In the end he grunted and went back to stirring his meal. Berkk turned to leave and I followed him out.

  “Would you care to translate?” I asked.

  “You’ll work with me in the repair shop for awhile.” “All that from a grunt?”

  “Sure. If he had said no that would have ended it.”

  “I want to thank you …”

  “Don’t. It’s heavy and dirty work. Let’s go.”

  He lifted a grease—stained finger to rub his nose—and it touched his pursed lips for a second.

  He wanted silence, he got silence. There was more here than met the eye—and I felt the first spurt of hope since I had arrived in this terrible place.

  We went down the corridor beyond Buboe’s lair to a large, locked door. Berkk obviously didn’t have the key, because he sat down with his back to the wall. I joined him and we waited some time in silence until Buboe finally appeared, still chewing some last gristly bit of his meal. He unlocked the door, let us in sealed it again behind us.

  “Let’s get started,” Berkk said. “I hope you meant it about the arcwelder.”

  “I can work that and every kind of machine tool, repair printed circuits, anything. If it’s broken I can fix it.”

  “We’ll find out.”

  The wrecked Model 91 had its side Stove in, in addition to a broken axle. I cutout the crumpled area while Berkk levered a steel plate onto a dolly and rolled it over. We used a chain hoist to lift it. Without any robots to help it was hard work.

  “We can talk here,” he said as he hammered the plate into position. “I’ve been watching you. You don’t act as stupid as the muscular morons here.”

  “Nor do you.”

  He smiled wryly. “Would you believe it—I volunteered. Everyone else here got drunk or hit in the head or something. Then woke up in this place. Not me, no. I answered an ad in the net for an experienced machinist. Incredible salary. Looked really great. I went to this lab, met a Professor Slakey. Blackout—and I woke up here.”

  “Where is here?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea. Do you know?” “Some. I know Slakey and I know that you can get here from Heaven. No, don’t look at me like that, let me explain. I was thrown into a room and ended up in a different one. In a different universe I am sure. The same thing must have happened to you when you came here.”

  While we repaired the machine I filled him in on Slakey’s operations. It all must have sounded really far out, but he had no choice other than to believe it. When the repairs were done we took a break and he produced a jar filled with a very ominous—looking liquid.

  “I got some raw krenoj from the kitchen, I go there to keep the inaclthies running. Took scrapings from some of the vegetables and managed to isolate a decent strain of yeast. Fermented the krenoj, terrible! Alcoholic all right but undrinkable. Rut, some plastic tubing—”

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nbsp; “The worm! Heat source, evaporated, cooled and condensed, distilled and now waiting our attention.” I swirled the liquid happily in the flask.

  “Be warned. There’s alcohol in there all right. But the taste—” “Let me be the judge,” I said rashly. Raised and drank, lowered the flask and retched dryly. “I think.” I gasped, and my voice was so harsh my words were almost indistinguishable. “I think that that is the foulest thing I have ever drunk in a lifetime of drinking foul beverages.” “Thank you. Now if you will pass it over.” It did not get any better with more drinking. But at least the ethyl alcohol began to take effect, which possibly made the entire exercise worthwhile. “I can put some of the pieces together,” he said, then wiped his finger across the coating on his teeth that the drink had—deposited. “We had a guy here once, very briefly, with a big mouth. Said that he had helped repair the rollers in a pulverizing mill someplace. He thought that they were grinding up our rock.” “Did he say why?” “No—and he was gone next day. He talked too much. That’s why we have to be careful. I don’t know who or what is listening—”

  “I know who. Slakey in one of his manifestations. He has this rock dug out here, then it is sent somewhere. Then it is ground up; then sent to the women who sort it and take some thing out of it.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know what—except that it is terribly expensive. In money and in human lives.” “I’m sure of it. And we won’t find the answer here. I want out of this place and I need help.”

  What music to my ears! I seized his hand and pummeled him on the back with joy. “You have a plan?”

  “An idea. I don’t think we can get out the way we came in. Through that barred room.” I nodded agreement.

  “That is undoubtedly a dimensional doorway operated by Slakey himself. But what other way is there to go? I have looked carefully and could not see any way to climb out of this valley. And even if we did—where would we go? This might be a barren planet at the end of the universe.”