The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You

by Harry Harrison

  The Stainless Steel Rat

  Wants You!

  Harry Harrison

  ONE

  Blodgett is a peaceful planet. The sun shines orangely, gentle breezes cool the brow, while the silent air is disturbed only slightly by the distant rumble of rockets from the spaceport. Very relaxing-but too much so for one like myself who must stay on guard, alert and aware at all times. And I admit that I was doing none of these things when the front door announcer bing-bonged. Hot water splattered my head and I was drowsy as a comatose cat.

  "I'll get that," Angelina called out, loud enough to be heard over the splash of the shower. I gurgled an answer as I reluctantly turned the thing off and climbed out.

  The drier blanketed me with warm air while the lotion mist tickled my nose. I hummed to myself with sybaritic joy, at peace with the world, naked as the day I was born-except of course for the few devices that I am never without. Voluntarily, that is. Life had its joys and, as I appreciated my stalwart body and rugged face in the mirrorthe touch of gray at the temples did add a distinguished note--I could think of nothing to worry about.

  Other than the sudden angst that gripped me, chilling me to the bone. Was this a psi premonition? No, it was the ticking away of seconds. Angelina had been far too long at the door. Something was wrong.

  I burst out into the hall and down it at a run. The house was empty. Then I was through the front door and bounding down the path like a pink gazelle, hopping desperately on one leg as I wrenched the pistol from my ankle holster, my eyes bulging in shock at the sight of my Angelina being bustled into a black ground car by two burly types. It pulled away and I risked a single shot at its tires, but could not fire again because there was traffic beyond.

  Angelina! I ground my teeth with rage, fired more shots into the air so that the spectators who had been admiring my nude form now dived for cover. I managed to keep just enough peace of mind to memorize the numbers on the car.

  Back in the house I thought briefly of calling the police, as any good citizen would, but since I have always been a very bad citizen I instantly dismissed the idea. Mighty is Slippery Jim diGriz in his wrath. Revenge would be mine. I turned on the compterm, mashed my thumbprint onto the ID plate, punched in my priority code, then the number of the kidnap car and asked for identification. Not a very complex task for a planetary computer and the answer appeared on the screen as soon as I hit the PRINT button.

  When it did I dropped numbly into the chair. They had her.

  This was far worse than I had imagined. Now, look, don't go thinking that I am a coward. Quite the opposite, I say humbly. You are looking at a survivor of a lifetime of crimewho has also survived another lifetime of crime-fighting after being drafted into the Special Corps, the elite galaxywide organization that uses crooks to catch crooks. That I have stayed relatively sound in wind and body all these years certainly speaks well of my reflexes, if not my intelligence. It was now going to take all my years of experience to "tract my dear wife from this nasty situation. Thought was needed, not action and, though it was still early in the day, I cracked out a bottle of 140 proof Old Thought Provoker and poured a generous amount to lubricate my synapses.

  With the first sip came the realization that the boys would have to be in on this one. Angelina and I, doting parents, had labored to shield them from the cruel facts of the world, but that time was over. Their graduation from school was still a few days away, but I was sure that this could be accelerated with the correct persuasion in the proper quarters. Strange to think they were almost out of their teens already; how the years slip by. Their mother--Angelina, my kidnapped treasure!--was as beautiful as ever. As for myself, I may be older but I am no wiser. The gray in my hair has not affected the lust for gold in my heart.

  I did not waste a moment as I mumbled to myself nostalgically. Throwing on my clothes, kicking on my boots, stowing away about my person a number of lethal and technological devices, I dropped into the garage even as I closed the last closure. My bright red Firebom 8000 exploded into the drive as the door snapped open and hurtled down the road, scattering the dull citizens of the peaceful planet of Blodgett in all directions. The only reason we had settled on this bucolic world was to be near the boys while they were at school. I would be delighted to leave the place without a backward glance. Not only had it all the boredom of an agricultural planet, it was also infested by an octopuslike bureaucracy. Since it was centrally located among a number of star systems, and boasted a salubrious climate, the bureaucrats and League administrators had moved in to create a secondary economy of government offices. I preferred the farmers.

  The farms gave way to trees as I burned down the road, then to the barren rock hills. There was a chill in the air at this altitude that went with the somber stone cliffs and, when I whisked around the final turn, the damp morning perfectly matched the rough finish of the high stone wall ahead. As the spiked portcullis rumbled slowly upward I admired, not for the first time, the letters hacked into the black slab of steel by the entrance.

  DORSKY MILITARY BOARDING SCHOOL

  AND PENITENTIARY

  That my dear twins had to be incarcerated here! As a father I felt concern; as a citizen I suppose it was a blessing. What I thought was just good spirits in the lads, the rest of the world tended to frown upon. Before coming here they had been expelled from a total of 214 schools. Three of these schools had burned down under mysterious circumstances; another had blown up. I had never believed that the mass suicide attempt of all the senior masters at another school had anything to do with my boys; but vicious tongues will wag. In any case they had finally met their match, if not their master in old Colonel Dorsky. After being forcefully retired from the military he had opened the school and put his years of service, experience and sadism to work. My boys had reluctantly gained an education, served their term and in a few days would face the graduating ceremonies and parole. Only now things would have to be accelerated just a little bit.

  As always I reluctantly surrendered my weapons, was Xrayed and spy-beamed, locked through the multiple automatic doors and released into the inner quad. Dispirited figures shuffled by, beaten down by the school's foolproof and escapeproof system. But there ahead, crossing the ferroconcrete artificial grass, were two upright and brisk figures, unbent by any despair. I whistled shrilly and they dropped their books and ran up to greet me warmly. After which I rose Slowly to my feet and dusted myself off-then proved that an old dog can still teach the pups a trick or two. They laughed as they rubbed their sore spots and stood up again. They were a bit shorter than I was, taking after their mother there, but soundly muscled and handsome as gods. Many a girl's father would be out buying a shotgun after they were released from school.

  "What was that bit with the arm and elbow, Dad?" James asked.

  "Explanations can wait. I am here to accelerate your graduation because something not too nice has happened to your mother."

  Their grins vanished on the instant and they leaned forward alertly, drinking in every word as I explained what I had seen, nodding in agreement.

  "Right, then," Bolivar said, "We go stir up old Dirty Dorsky and get out of here. . ."

  ". . . and do something about it," James added, finishing the sentence. They did this often, many times thinking as one.

  We marched. In step, at a good doubletime of 120 paces to the minute. Through the great hall and past all the skeletons in chains, up the main staircase, splashing through the water running constantly down it, and into the Head's office.

  "You can't go in there," his secretary-bodyguard said, surging to his feet, 200 kilos of trained fighting flesh. We scarcely slowed and only broke step going over his uncon
scious body. Dorsky looked up growling when we came through the door, gun ready in his fist.

  "Put it away," I told him. "It is an emergency and I have come for my sons a few days early. Would you be so kind as to give them their graduation certificates and expiration of term-served papers."

  "Go to hell. No exceptions. Get out of here," he suggested.

  I smiled at the unswerving gun and decided that explanation would be more fruitful than violence.

  "This is a bit of an emergency. My wife, the boys' mother, was arrested this morning and taken away."

  "It was due to happen. You lead undisciplined lives. Now get out."

  "Listen, you dough-faced, moron-brained, military dinosaur, I came here for neither your sympathy nor malice. If this was an ordinary arrest the arrestees would have been unconscious soon after opening the door. Detectives, cops, military police, customs agents, none of those could stand before the wrath of my sweet Angelina."

  "Well?" he said, puzzled, but gun barrel still ready.

  "She went along quietly in order to give me time. Time that I will need. Because I checked the license plate numbers and these thugs were agents for . . ." I took a deep breath, agents for Interstellar Internal and External Revenue."

  "The income tax men," be breathed and his eyes glowed redly. The gun vanished. "James diGriz, Bolivar diGriz, step forward. Accept these graduation certificates as token of your reluctant completion of all courses and of time served here. You are now alumni of Dorsky Military Boarding School and Penitentiary and I hope you will, like the other graduates, remember us with a little curse before retiring each night. I would shake your hands except my bones are getting brittle and I am laying off the hand-to-hand combat.

  Go forth with your father and join him in the battle against evil and strike a blow for me as well."

  That was all there was to it. A minute later we were out in the sunshine and climbing into the car. The boys left their childish possessions behind them in the school and entered the world of adult responsibility.

  "They won't hurt Mom, will they?" James asked. "They won't live long if they do," Bolivar said, and I distinctly heard his teeth grinding together.

  "No, of course not. Getting her release will be easy enough, as long as we can get to the records in time."

  "What records?" Bolivar asked. "And why did Dirty Dorsky help so easily? That's not like him."

  "It is like him because under that veneer of stupidity, violence and military sadism he is still roughly human like the rest of us. And like us, he regards the tax man as the natural enemy."

  "I don't understand," James said, then grabbed the handhold as we snarled around a tight bend just a micrometer from the edge of the vertical drop.

  "Unhappily you will," I told him. "Your lives have been sheltered up until now, in that you have been spending but not earning. Soon you will be earning like the rest of us and, with the arrival of your first credit, sweat of your palms and brow, the tax man will arrive as well. Swooping in ever smaller circles, screaming shrilly, until he perches on your shoulder and with yellow beak bites most of the money from your grasp."

  "You sure turn a nice simile, Dad."

  "It's true, it's true," I muttered, swinging into the motorway and roaring into the fast lane. "Big government means big bureaucracy which means big taxes; there seems to be no way out of it. Once you're involved in the system you are trapped, and you end by paying more and more taxes. Your mother and I have a little nest egg put aside for investing for your future. Money earned before you lads were born."

  "Money stolen before we were born," Bolivar said. "Profits from illegal operations on a dozen worlds."

  "We didn't!"

  "You did, Dad," James said. "We broke into enough files and records to find out just where all the money came from."

  "Those days are behind us!"

  "We hope not!" both boys said in unison. "What would the galaxy be like without a few stainless steel rats to stir them up. We have heard your bedtime lectures about how bank robbery helps the economy. It gives the bored police something to do, the newspapers something to print, the population something to read about, the insurers something to pay off. It is a boost to the economy and keeps the money in circulation. It is the work of a philanthropist."

  "No! I did not raise my boys to be crooks."

  "You didn't?"

  "Well, maybe to be good crooks. To take only from those who can afford it, to injure no one, to be kind, courteous, friendly and irreverent. To be crooked just long enough to be enlisted in the Special Corps where you can serve mankind best by tracking down the real crooks."

  "And the real crooks we are tracking down now?"

  "The income tax people! As long as your mother and I were stealing money and spending it there were no problems. But as soon as we took our hard-earned salaries in the Corps and invested them we ran afoul of the tax people. We made a few minor bookkeeping errors. . ."

  "Like not reporting any of your profits?" James asked innocently.

  "Yes, that's the sort of thing. By hindsight it was rather foolish. We should have gone back to robbing banks. So now we are enmeshed in their coils, playing their games, getting involved in court actions, audits, lawyers, fines, jail terms--the whole mess. There is only one answer, one final solution. That is why your mother went away calmly with these financial vampires. To leave me free to cut the Gordian knot and get us out of this mess."

  "What will we have to do?" they asked in eager unison.

  "Destroy all of our tax records in their files, that's what. And end up broke--but free and happy."

  TWO

  We sat in the darkened car and I nibbled nervously at my fingernails. "It's no good," I said at last. "I am racked with guilt. I cannot steer two innocents into a life of crime."

  There were snorts, indicating strong emotions of some kind, from the back seat. Then the doors were hurled open and slammed shut again just as quickly and I looked up in shocked surprise as they both stamped away down the night-filled street. Had I driven them away? Would they attempt to do the job on their own and bungle it? What disasters lay ahead? I was fumbling with the door handle, trying to make my mind up, when the footsteps grew louder again, returning. I stepped out to meet them when they came back, faces, grim and empty of humor.

  "My name is James," James said, "and this is my brother, Bolivar. We are adults under law having passed the age of eighteen. We can legally drink, smoke, curse and chase girls. We can also, if we choose, decide to break any law or laws of any planet knowing full well that if we are caught in crime we will have to pay the penalty. We have heard a rumor from a relative that you, crooked Slippery Jim, are about to break the law in a singularly good cause and we want to sign up for the job. What do you say, Dad?"

  What could I say? Was that a lump in the old rat's throat, a tear forming in his rodent eye? I hoped not; emotion and crime do not mix.

  "Right," I snapped, in my best imitation of a drill sergeant with piles. "You're enlisted. Follow instructions, ask questions only if the instructions are unclear, otherwise do what I do, do what I say. Agreed?"

  "Agreed!" they chorused.

  "Then put these items into your pockets. They are bits of equipment which are sure to come in handy. Are you wearing your fingerprint gloves?" They raised their hands which glistened slightly in the streetlamp light. "Good. You will be happy to hear that you will be leaving the prints of the mayor of this city, as well as those of the chief of police. That should add a note of interest to an otherwise confusing situation. Now, do you know where we are going? Of course not. It's a large building around the comer which you cannot see from here. The area HQ of the IIER, Interstellar Internal and External Revenue. In there are records of all their larcenous endeavors . .

  "You mean yours, don't you, Dad?"

  "Larceny is in the eye of the beholder, my sons. They take a dim view of my activities, while I in tam look with loathing on their taking ways. Tonight we attempt to even the sco
re. We do not approach the IIER building directly because it has many defenses since they know they are unloved. Instead we enter the building around this comer which, not by chance have I selected it, has a rear that adjoins our target building."

  We walked while I talked and both boys recoiled a bit at the lights and crowds ahead. Sirens screamed as official black groundcars drew up, television cameras churned away, searchlights fanned across the sky. I smiled at their hesitation and patted their back as we walked.

  "Now isn't that a lovely diversion? Who would consider breaking and entering in a setting like this? The opening night, the premier performance of the new opera Cohoneighs in the Fire."

  "But we'll need tickets . . ."

  "Bought from a scalper this afternoon at outrageous prices. Here we go."

  We pushed through the crowd, surrendered our tickets, then made our way from here, not that I had any intention of listening to the bucolic mooing and lowing in any case. There were other advantages to the top of the building. We went to the bar first and I had a refreshing beer and was cheered to see that the lads ordered only nonalcoholic drinks. I was not so elated at other of their activities. Leaning close to Bolivar I took his arm lightly-then clamped down a tight index finger on the nerve that paralyzed his hand.

  "Exceedingly naughty," I said as the diamond bracelet fell to the carpet from his numb fingers. I tapped an exceedingly porcine woman on the shoulder and pointed it out when she turned. "I beg your pardon, madam. But did that bracelet slip from your wrist? It did? No, let me. No, my pleasure indeed, thank you, and may he bless you as well for all eternity." I then turned about and slipped a steely gaze into James's ribs. He raised his hands in the sign of peace.

  "I get the message, Dad. Sorry. Just keeping in practice. For extra practice I put the wallet back in the gent's pocket as soon as I saw Bolivar rubbing his numb arm."

  "That's fine. But no more. We are on a serious mission tonight and want no petty crime to jeopardize our position. There, that's the last buzzer. Down drinks and away we go."