Stainless Steel Rat 11: The Stainless Steel Rat Returns

by Harry Harrison

  For good or bad, the shivering pop of the Bloater field collapsing was welcome.

  As the glowing star appeared in the center of the screen, the radio crackled into life.

  “Welcome to the star system of Alpha Adonis . . .”

  “We’ve done it!” Stramm said.

  “This is a starwatch robotic beacon.”

  Gloom descended while the recording continued.

  “There are three planets in this system, and an asteroid belt. There are no settlements on any of these planets . . .”

  “Command order to beacon,” the captain said into his mike. “Does this beacon contain communication capability?”

  “Planetary coordinates follow . . . skrrk . . . This beacon’s communications consist of radio only. Nearest full communication facilities are at star system one dash thirty . . .”

  The captain clicked the connection off and turned to look at us.

  “Now what?” he said with a great weariness.

  His answer was only silence. Angelina was the one who finally broke the spell.

  “Turn it on again. Let us hear about those three planets.”

  Stripped of all excess robotic verbiage the answer was simple.

  “One gas giant,” the captain said. “Has an impressive ring, but no moons. Two planets in the habitable zone. One has an atmosphere—a bit less than one G—and sounds hot but inhabitable. The other one has a livable atmosphere but . . .”

  I added the clincher—“But it is a big and heavy world, with a gravity of almost three Gs. And oxygen tension almost a third less than normal.”

  The silence was palpable, depression dark in the air. Where did we go from here? Only Stramm showed signs of life, tapping his jaw and muttering to himself. Then, without a word, he turned to the control board and began to punch in numbers. Equations raced down the screen. After more jaw prodding he entered more figures, nodded—and turned to face us.

  “There is one possibility,” he said.

  “To do what?” I asked.

  “To escape this star system.”

  “How?” the captain snapped.

  “First, by landing on the heavy planet. The human body can work at that gravity, if only for a short time.”

  “Doing what?” Angelina asked, speaking for us all.

  “Unloading the graviton collector onto the planet’s surface. Once it began operating in a three-G environment it would take”—he turned back to his computations, then pointed to screen—“exactly three months to collect enough gravitons to make a long enough Bloat to, hopefully, another star system.”

  There was a cogitating silence as each of us considered this uncomfortable solution.

  “It can’t be done,” Angelina said firmly. “We couldn’t stay alive long under that gravity.”

  “We wouldn’t have to,” was Stramm’s surprising answer. “We land, push out the graviton collector, then take off. The only problem, a minor one, is that we might have to load more reaction mass to take off from that gravity. Then we go into orbit . . .”

  “Not possible,” was the captain’s firm answer. “Not enough food and water aboard to last us for three months in orbit. This ship was not designed for long periods in flight.”

  It was time for me to add a note of hope to this thoroughly depressing conversation. “We don’t have to stay in orbit,” I said, and beamed a smile on all. “Why don’t we spend the time on the companion planet? Warm, habitable—but not inhabited as yet. We will be the founding fathers—and mother of course,” I added tipping my head in Angelina’s direction.

  “A wonderful idea,” she said. “I didn’t realize it until now, but I have always wanted to found a planet. And what is this planet’s name?”

  The captain consulted the readout on the screen.

  “No name, just an identification number. One, x-ray, seven . . .”

  She shook her head. “That won’t do. We must have a name.”

  “Why don’t you name it?” I said.

  The captain nodded agreement. “Capital idea. You will be the first to set foot on this new world.”

  She laughed. “Then I’ll make claim to it as well!”

  Gloom-and-doom Stramm wasn’t pleased with this moment of good cheer. “We don’t know yet if we will be able to remain there. Shouldn’t we make a survey first?”

  The cold voice of reason put a damper on our earlier enthusiasm.

  “I have a suggestion,” I said suggestively. “Before we make any decisions shouldn’t we consult all the others? Everyone on this ship should be told what is involved—with their lives and their future.”

  “A fine idea,” the captain said. “Do our agrarian passengers have a leader?”

  “They do,” I said. “Regrettably it is my long-lost relative, Elmo. I also suggest we have a representative of the freed prisoners. When I was talking to them I discovered that Tomas is really Captain Tomas Schleuck, the commander of one of the captured vessels.”

  “That is an excellent idea,” Captain Singh said, obviously a steadfast member of the Captain’s Union. “I am going to transcribe the specs for both planets. I suggest a public meeting in two hours in the dining room. Do we agree?”

  “Motion carried,” Angelina said. “Make the announcement and we’ll see you there.” She looked at me and pointed at the door. “Don’t you think it’s time for a light refresher?” she asked. I didn’t have to be asked twice.

  Back in the bar I poured, then dropped into the chair.

  Dropped into a deep gloom as well.

  “Look at Pinky,” Angelina said. “That pearl among swine can read our emotions quite well.” I looked up and caught the last sight of burnished black quills scuttling out the door. Angelina looked at me and shook her head. “Is this the fearless and stainless Rat who brooks no bonds?”

  “Nor bounds no brooks. But a slightly rusty one right now . . .”

  “Nonsense. I have a feeling that that last depressing planet is still getting you down. Don’t let it.”

  “I won’t!” I cried. Leaping to my feet. Then refreshed our drinks since I was already standing. “I cleanse my head and make plans to rescue us from this spacegoing Flying Dutchman. Information—then action.”

  Imbued with my newfound energy I accessed the records and printed out the specs of our planetary home to be: I hoped.

  Angelina and I passed the sheets back and forth.

  “Nice and warm,” I said.

  “Some would say hot and humid.”

  “But bearable. More important the survey found no pathogens in the atmosphere or in the ground. At least none that would affect our metabolisms. There is no mention of visual contact with any life forms.”

  Angelina raised her eyebrows. “But no samples.”

  “Forbidden. The robotic surveyors can look but not touch. Let’s take a look at the scans that they sent back!”

  There was a single large continent set in a planet-wide ocean. The point of view dropped down and stopped above a wide, sandy beach at the shore. It tracked along it for some time, following the empty beach and the breaking waves. Nothing. It then tracked inland above what appeared to be a planet-wide verdant forest.

  “Nothing in the ocean—or on the beach. We’ll just have to land and investigate.” I clicked off the screen.

  “Time to go to the meeting,” Angelina said and ordered the scattered printout sheets into a neat bundle.

  The room was packed: the first time that all the passengers had been assembled at one time. A table had been set upon a raised platform at the far end of the hall. We joined the engineer, and the two captains, who were already there.

  “Thanks for having me here,” Tomas said quietly when I sat down.

  “It’s your right. As senior officer of the recently freed prisoners of war.”

  “Which freedom will never be forgotten.”

  Captain Singh rapped his knuckles on the table. “This meeting will now come to order.” He tapped the file of papers before him
to straighten the edges, then spoke.

  “Sire diGriz, the owner of this vessel, has asked me to call this extraordinary meeting to discuss our present situation. When I am finished we will have an open discussion.”

  He read out the details of the two planets we planned to visit. There were a lot of gaping jaws and glazed eyes among these swineherd agrarians—and I could easily understand why. We were a long, long way from the simple pleasures of porcuswine herding now. When he had finished there were a few questions about climate and ecology—food sources in particular. Then Elmo, who had done a lot of head scratching and jaw rubbing, raised a tentative hand.

  “The way I see it, it looks like we have only a couple of choices—is that right, Captain?”

  “It is.”

  “First we have to put down on this big world where we all gonna feel heavier, right?” Reassured, he went on. “If things is heavier our animals gonna be even heavier. And them boars is pretty heavy now!” There were shouted cries of agreement: the captain rapped loudly on the table. Thus encouraged, Elmo went on.

  “Now you take one of them boars—they are big critters. Take Gnasher—he must be all of a tonne. How much is he gonna weigh?”

  “I would say in the vicinity of three tonnes.”

  “Three . . . why that’s a pretty heavy vicinity!”

  He ducked his head and smiled broadly as his peers laughed loudly at his simple jest. The captain rapped loudly again. Elmo rattled on wearily, boring us all. I did not have the captain’s patience and eventually I had to interrupt his pastoral chuntering.

  “Point of order, Captain. Can we save ourselves from more of this comment now—and ask you to tell us what choices we have?”

  “That is simple. We have two . . .”

  Stillness descended.

  “The first one I have just outlined to you. Land on this high-G world and leave the graviton collector there for a three-month period. While it is working we land on the habitable planet and . . . survive.” He was working hard to keep the doubt from his voice.

  “Or what?” Elmo broke in and was shhhh-ed to silence.

  “Or we take the other choice—the longest possible Bloat towards the galaxy center, where there are the greatest agglomeration of stars. With settled planets. We use all our gravitons on this Bloat. And stop when they run out.”

  Tomas’s voice broke the silence that followed.

  “What are the odds that we will be in the vicinity of suns and planets?”

  The captain straightened up.

  “They are very slim indeed. At a rough guess—I would say perhaps a hundred to one.”

  “Then we have no choice at all,” Tomas said. “All in favor of the plan to accumulate gravitons respond by saying aye.”

  Little by little the ayes were reluctantly muttered until the response was very positive.

  Even Elmo must have realized that there was absolutely no choice after all.

  CHAPTER 27

  “This must be planned as carefully as a military operation,” I said. Looking around at my troops. Tomas had joined us on the bridge—a logical addition to the team. “Engineer Stramm, how big is this device that we have to unload?”

  “Including the graviton container—I would say no bigger than the captain’s chair.” We all turned and stared at the chair.

  “That small?”

  “Of course, it is electronic after all. And it operates at the molecular level.”

  “How much does it weigh?” Tomas asked.

  “I would guess about twenty kilos. I’ll weigh it for an exact figure.”

  “How much will it weigh when it is full of gravitons?” I asked, smug in my technical expertise.

  “Exactly the same, of course,” he snapped, mighty in his knowledge. “Since gravitons have no mass.” Implying that only a total fool wouldn’t know that. I hit back with another hard one.

  “But the machine will still weigh sixty kilos on the planet. Not easy to lift.”

  “No problem,” Stramm said—was that a curl to his lip? “I’ll put wheels on it.”

  I visualized the lower airlock . . . and the next problem. “So you put wheels on it and we roll it down to the open lock and onto the ramp. Which, as I remember, tilts down from top to bottom. How do we stop it from running away?”

  “The ramps tilts about fifteen degrees. I’ll arrange some pulleys to make a relieving tackle. With a monofilament cable. Breaking strength over a thousand kilos.”

  I had one more question before I retired from the field. “Reaction mass! You are going to need an awful lot to land—then take off fighting a three-G gravity.”

  “We have more than enough. The porcuswine have topped up the tank.”

  There were was one final question from Tomas.

  “There isn’t enough oxygen in the atmosphere to keep us alive . . .”

  “We have oxygen breathing apparatus. You’ll have to wear them,” Stramm said.

  “Then we are ready for the landing. I’m volunteering myself and my men to handle the operation,” Tomas said, and smiled. “I imagine you will prefer their technical background—rather than that of the farmers.”

  “No question!” I said. “I shiver at the thought . . .”

  Captain Singh raised another and most important point. “At the end of three months, when we return, how do we find the machine?”

  “I’ll put a transponder on it.” Smugly. This was Stramm’s final technical victory.

  “We’ll go and get the collector ready now,” Tomas said. “I’ll give the engineer a hand.”

  After they left, Captain Singh made a tick on a list. I thought of another problem.

  “Aren’t you worried about an air leak from the lower lock outer door? We had to burn the seals away after we first landed on that fractious planet.”

  “No. Stramm put a new gasket on the outer door during our stay in the spaceport—so we can keep atmospheric integrity in the ship. We’re on course now to this heavy world . . .”

  “That’s it! Heavyworld—we needed a name for it.”

  “We’ll be in orbit around Heavyworld in a few hours.”

  Something was nagging at the edges of my brain. Something important. We landed. Then what . . . ?

  We would all weigh three times as much after we were on the planet. Passengers would be on the acceleration couches for the landing. They would have to stay on them afterward. Uncomfortable but necessary. But the animals! I had a terrifying vision of what would happen . . .

  “After we land . . . what about the porcuswine? The boars will weigh three tonnes! If they try to walk—broken legs—gnashing tusks—no way!” I turned to the intercom.

  “Elmo to bridge soonest. Elmo to bridge . . .”

  He went pale when I told him the problem he would face.

  “My goodness . . . that’s shore no good, no good at all. Them sows, they’ll be no problem. They’ll lie down, right lazy. The piglets, the small ones, they’ll nurse . . .”

  “But the boars—”

  “Yep, the boars . . .” He echoed hollowly, face even paler.

  I dredged through forgotten memories of my dismal past life down on the farm, groped around among the shards. Vague memories of ill porcuswine—that was it!

  “Swine fever—we had a plague of it once!”

  “Them days happily long gone, Cousin Jim. Inoculation at birth done wiped it out and—”

  “Shut up,” I suggested. “I remember now, we had to inject them in the snout, where there were no quills. The sows were bad enough, but—”

  “Them boars, they shore didn’t take kindly to that, let me tell you! Had to knock them out first.”

  “How?”

  “Well, you know. Use the tranker.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Little teeny machine. Shore don’t know how it works, but works fine each time. Just hold it near the back of the neck an’ press the itty-bitty button. Bam! Some sort of radiation or something and that old boar just lays
down and starts snoring!”

  “And you have this tranker with you?” Gritting my teeth and resisting the urge to strangle him.

  “Dunno . . .” My fingers arched, reaching for his neck.

  “Suppose so. Should be in the swine-med box. If’n we didn’t toss it away . . .”

  I seized his arm and rushed him, complaining reedily, down to the animal deck, past the drowsing sows—to the storeroom beyond. Tore open the swine-med box . . . looked in . . .

  “I’m not shore, but that little dingus does looks like it.”

  I reverently took out the shining metal device and seized it by the handle.

  “Yep, that’s it, all righty!”

  Fought hard against the urge to try it out on his neck . . .

  I escaped the porcine grunts and swinish squeals for the peace of the engine room. The laborers appeared to be finishing up their work on the graviton collector. Mounted now on sturdy wheels, it looked very much like a rolling file cabinet lashed to a sturdy block and tackle. With a metal lunchbox strapped on.

  “Hit it.” Stramm said and Tomas pressed the button on the small radio he carried. A light flashed on the lunchbox and it bleeped.

  “Transponder works fine,” Tomas said.

  “Ready to go whenever the captain wants to,” Stramm said. “After we truck this down to the airlock and secure it outside.”

  I climbed the stairs to the bridge and reported to the captain.

  “Collector is ready to roll. The passengers will be on the acceleration couches when the order is given. Elmo and his farmers are bedded down on the sty deck. He said he’ll need about an hour to secure the animals.”

  “And you?”

  “I’ll be with the collector crew on the lower deck. We have mattresses there for the landing. The sooner the job is done, the sooner we can take off again.”

  I did not add that Angelina, reluctantly acknowledging that she had no role in the operation, would take to her acceleration couch.

  “Fine. Tell them to start securing the animals. We’ll make the landing when they’re done.”

  Stunning the boars went far more smoothly than expected. Gnasher looked at me and grunted a swinish hello, then thudded to the deck when Elmo reached out and activated the tranker at the back of his giant neck. He simply collapsed—and snored. Ignored by the others—who quickly joined him with their grating wheezing.