"Guards! Help! We're being rescued!"
NINE
I didn't really expect much gratitude, particularly from an officer, but this was ridiculous. To traverse thousands of light years of space, through dangers too numerous to mention, to suffer the loving embraces of Gar-Baj, all of this to rescue some motheaten admirals, one of whom instantly tried to turn me in to the guards. It was just too much.
Not that I hoped for anything much better. You don't live to be a gray-whiskered stainless steel rat without being suspicious at all times. My needle gun was ready, since I was alert for trouble from the guards, but I was also certainly prepared to get some from the prisoners as well. I flicked the control switch from "poison" to "sleep"--which took an effort of will, let me tell you--and pinged a steel needle into the side of the admiral's neck. He slumped nicely, dropping toward me with arms outstretched as though for one last grab at his savior.
I froze, motionless, when I saw what was revealed on those skinny wrists.
"What's happening?" Angelina whispered from below.
"Nothing good," I hissed. "Absolute silence now."
With a stealthy motion I lowered my head until just my eyes were above the rim of the opening, still conealed by the broken chairs, empty ration boxes and other debris. Had the guards heard the disturbence? certainly the other prisoners had. Two octogenerian officers tottered up and looked at the sprawled form of their comrade.
"What's wrong? Fit of some kind?" one of them asked. "Did you hear what he shouted?"
"Not really. I had my hearing aid turned off to save the battery. Something about Mards Phelp, Meer Seen Plescu."
"Doesn't make sense. Perhaps it means something in his native language?"
"Nope. Old Schimash is from Deshnik and that doesn't mean a thing in Deshnikian."
"Roll him over and see if he's still breathing."
They did and I was watching closely and nodded approvingly when my needle dropped from Old Schimsah's neck when it would be a couple of hours at least before he came to and told them what had hapened. That was all the time I needed. Plans were already forming in my head.
Dropping back down, I grabbed the disc of metal so recently removed, smeared the edge with lepak glue--stronger than welding--and pushed it back up into place. There was a crunching sound as the glue set and the ceiling, not to mention the floor above, was solid again. Then I clambered back down and sighed heavily.
"Angelina, would you be so kind as to turn on some of your lights and to crack out a bottle of my best whiskey."
There was light, and a sloshing glass, and patient Angelina waited until it had been lowered from my lips before she spoke.
"Isn't it time you confided in your wife just what the hell is going on?"
"Pardon me, light of my life, I just had a bad moment there." I drained the glass and forced a smile. "It started when I whispered to the nearest admiral. One look at me and he called the guards. So I shot him."
"One less to rescue," she said with satisfaction.
"Not quite. I used a sleeping needle. No one heard what he said so I slipped away and the opening is sealed, but that is not what is bothering me."
"I know you haven't been drinking, but you don't sound too lucid."
"Sorry. It was the admiral. When he dropped over I saw his wrists. There were red marks like scars around both of them."
"So?" she asked in obvious puzzlement--then her face went suddenly pale. "No, it couldn't possibly be?"
I nodded slowly, finding it impossible to smile. "The gray men. I could recognize their handiwork anywhere."
The gray men. Just thinking of them sent a chill down my back--a back, I must add, that is not chillprone very often. While I am strong and brave and stand up to the physical batterings of life quite well, I, like all of us, find it hard to resist direct assaults on my gray matter. The brain has no defenses once the inputs of the body have been bypassed. Plug an electrode into the pleasure center of an experimental animal's brain and it keeps pushing the button that supplies the electric fix until it dies of hunger or thirst. Dies happily.
Some years ago, while involved in straightening out a little matter of interplanetary invasion, I had been cast in the role of experimental animal. I had been captured and secured-and had seen both of my hands cut off at the wrists. Then had lost consciousness and, when I came to, had seen the hands apparently sewn back on. With scars just like those the admiral had been sporting.
But my hands had never been cut off. The scene had been imprinted directly into my brain. Yet for me it had happened, along with a number of other loathsome things which are better forgotten.
"The gray men must be here," I said. "Working with the aliens. No wonder the admirals are cooperating. Being firmly structured in the physical world of commands and obedience, they are perfect targets for brain stomping."
"You must be right--but how is it possible? The aliens hate all humans and certainly wouldn't work with the gray men. Nasty as they are, they are still human."
As soon as she said it that way I saw the answer clearly. I smiled and embraced her and kissed her, which we both enjoyed, then held her at arm's length since she was a great distraction to clear thought.
"Now hear this, my love. I think I see a way out of this entire mess. All of the details aren't clear--but I know what you must do. Could you bring the boys and a crowd of those Cill Aime back here? Go up through the floor, shoot the guards, put the admirals to sleep, then carry them away?"
"I could arrange that, but it would be a little dangerous. How would we get them clear?"
"That's what I will take care of. If I had this entire planet in a turmoil, no one knowing what was happening next or who to take orders from or anything--would that make the job easier?"
"It would certainly simplify things. What do you plan to do?"
"If I told you you might say that it was too dangerous and would forbid me. Let me say only that it must be done and that I am the only one to do it. I am off in my alien disguise and you have two hours to assemble the troops. As soon as things start falling apart make your move. Get them all to some safe spot, preferably near the spacedrome. I'll get back to my sleeping quarters as soon as I can. Have a guide waiting there for me. But make sure that he knows that he is to wait no more than one hour for me to show up. What I have to do will be done by that time and I will get back. There should be no problems. But if there is and I'm not there he is to report right back to you. I can take care of myself as you know. And we can't jeopardize everything by waiting for one person. When the guide reports back, with or without me, you go. Grab a spaceship then at the height of the confusion and leave this place."
"And about time too. I'll expect you back." She kissed me but did not look happy. "You're not going to tell me what you are going to do?"
"No. If I told you I would have to listen too and then I might not do it. But it does involve three things. Finding the gray men, turning them over to our alien friends--then getting out of it myself."
"Well, you do that. But don't skip any of the steps--particularly the last one."
We climbed into our various disguises and departed quickly before we changed our minds. Angelina clattered off with knowledgeable tread and I thudded off in the opposite direction. I thought I knew the way but must have made a wrong turning. Looking for a shortcut back to the upper levels, I managed to fall through a rusted plate in the decking into what must have been a covered-over lake or underground reservoir. In any case I thrashed on for quite a while in the darkness, my course lit only by my glowing eyes, until I found the far end. There was no obvious way out but I settled that by dropping a grenade from my cloaca and flicking it against the wall with a twitch of my tail. It crumpled nicely and I crawled through the smoky opening back into the light of day. Just in time to see an officer with a patrol of nasties trotting up to see what was the trouble.
"Help, oh help, please," I moaned, staggering in small circles with my claws pressed to my forebead
. Thankfully, the officer was also a TV-news watcher.
"Sweet Sleepery--what is bothering you?" it cried aloud emotionally, showing me about five thousand rotten fangs and a meter or two of damp purple throat.
"Treachery! Treachery in our midst," I cried. "Send a message to your CO to order an emergency meeting of the War Council--then take me there at once."
It was done instantly, and they took me at my word by wrapping a thousand sucker-tipped tentacles around me and rushing me off my feet. This made the trip easier, and saved my batteries, and I was refreshed and relaxed when they finally dropped me at the door to the conference room.
"You are all repugnant lads, and I shall never forget you," I shouted. They cheered and slapped their suckers against the deck with wet shlurping sounds and I galloped into the conference.
"Treason, treachery, betrayal?" I cried.
"Take your seat and make your statement in the proper form after the meeting is correctly opened," the secretary said. But a thing like a purple whale with terminal hemorrhoids was more sympathetic.
"Gentle Jeem, you seem disturbed. We have heard that there has been mayhem in your quarters, and all we can find of the noble Gar-Baj is his tail which doesn't say very much. Can you elucidate?"
"I can--and will, if the secretary will let me."
"Ohh, get on with it then," the secretary grumbled ungraciously, looking more and more like a squashed black frog with every passing moment. "Meeting called to order, Sleepery Jeem speaking re certain grave charges."
"It's like this," I explained to the attentive War Council. "We of Geshtunken have certain rare abilities--in addition to being inordinately sexy, I mean." They appreciated this last and there was a lot of squishy banging on the furniture and wet smacking sounds. "Thank you, and the same to you. Now one thing we can do is smell very good--yes, I know, we smell good too, sit down, boy, you're in the way. As I was saying, my keen sense of smell led me to believe that there was something not strictly kosher about this planet. I sniffed out humans!"
Through the cries of shocked horror I heard shouts of "Cill Airne!" and I acknowledged them with a nod of my head.
"No, not the Cill Airne, the natives of this planet. I detected their traces at once, but they are like mouse droppings and I know the extermination corps is surely taking good care of them. No, I mean humans right here in our midst! We have been penetrated!"
That rocked them back and I let them shout and writhe a bit while I sharpened my claws with a file. Then I raised my paws for silence and there it was in an instant. Every eye, large, small, stalked, green, red or soggy, was on me. I walked slowly forward.
"Yes. They are among us. Humans. Doing their best to sabotage our lovely war of extermination. And I am going to reveal one to you--right now!"
My legs' motors hummed and my power plant grew warm as I sprang into the air with a mighty leap. Sailing in an arc through the air, twenty meters or more. Graceful too. Landing with a horrible crunch that set my shock absorbers groaning. Dropping down crash onto the secretary's desk which crashed nicely. Paws extended so that my claws sank through the secretary's damp black hide. Picking him up and waving him about as he writhed and shouted.
"You're mad. Let me down! I'm no more human than you are!"
That was what made my mind up. Up until this moment it had all been guesswork. The gray men were here, they must be disguised, and the only four-limbed creature other than myself was the secretary. In the position of power to run things, the only really organized alien I had yet encountered. But it was still just guesswork until he had spoken. Roaring with victory I hooked a recently sharpened claw into the front of his throat.
Dark liquid spurted out and he screamed hoarsely.
I gulped and almost hesitated. Was I wrong? Was I going to dismember the secretary of the War Council right in front of the council itself? I had a feeling they would not take that too well. No! It was for only a microsecond that I hesitated--then I tore on. I had to be right. I ripped out his throat, delicately sliced all around his neck--then tore his head off.
There was a shocked silence as the Wad bounced and squashed on the floor. Then a gasp from all sides.
Inside the first head there was another head. A sargraally, mPlanlid, scowling human head. The secretary was
While the council was shocked into immobility the gray man was not. He pulled a gun from a gill slit and leveled it at me. Which of course I had been expecting and I brushed it aside. I was not as quick when be grabbed out a microphone from his other gill and began shouting into it in a strange language.
I wasn't as fast because this was just what I wanted him to do. I gave him more than enough time to get out the message before I grabbed away the microphone. Then he kicked out and got me in the stomach and I folded, gasping and unmoving as he vanished through a trapdoor in the floor.
Recovering quickly I waved away all offers of aid.
"Care not for me," I croaked, "for the blow was mortal. Avenge me! Send out the alarm to grab all the other black ploppies like the secretary. Let none escape! Go now!"
They went, and I bad to roll aside before I was trampled in the rush. Then I thrashed and expired, in case anyone was watching, and peeked through one half-closed eyelid until they were all gone.
Only then did I blow open the locked trapdoor and follow the gray man.
How could I follow him? it might be asked, and I will be happy to answer. During the struggle I had stuck a little neutrino generator into his artificial hide, that is how. A zippy neutrino can pass, undeflected and unstopped, through the entire mass of a planet. The metal of this city's construction would surely not interfere with them in the slightest. Need I add that I had a directional neutrino detector built into my snout? I never go on a mission without a few simple preparations.
The illuminated needle pointed that way, and down. I went that way, and down at the first stairwell, because I wanted to find out just what the gray men were doing on this planet. My fleeing secretary would lead me to their lair.
He did one better than that. He led me to their ship.
When I saw light ahead I treaded more slowly, then peered from the darkness of the tunnel at a great domed chamber. In the center was a dark-gray spacer. While from all sides the gray men were appearing. Some running, undisguised, others still hopping and splotching in their alien garb. Rats leaving a sinking ship. All my doing. The confusion across the planet would now be at its height-and the admirals would be rescued. All working according to plan.
Though I hadn't thought to find their ship. From the look of it they were making a hasty withdrawal, and this was too good an opportunity to miss. How could they be traced? There were machines that could be attached to make following the ship easy but, just for a change, I didn't have one on me. An oversight. Particularly since the smallest weighed about ninety kilos. So what could I do?
My mind was made up for me when the metal net dropped and they swarmed all over me.
I was fighting, and doing well, when someone started on my head with a metal bar. I couldn't move it away and the alien head got crushed in.
Mine, too, an instant later.
TEN
I woke up, gasping for air, muffled, trapped, blind. With the super headache of all time. Where I was, what had happened--I had no idea. I thrashed and writhed ineffectually until it made my head hurt more and I had to stop.
Little by little I dropped the mad-panic approach and tried to figure out what the situation was. First off, I wasn't really choking to death; it was just the soft fabric over my head that had made me feel that way. If I lifted my face and turned it I could breathe all right.
So what bad happened? Through the waves of skull pain, memory finally returned. The gray men! They had trapped me in a net, then beat on my head until I had stopped moving. After that, blackout. What after that? Where did they have me?
It was only when I had tiptoed this far down memory lane that I realized where I was. I had been bashed and caught i
n my alien disguise. Apparently I was still bashed and caught in it. My arms were secured inside the mechanical arms, but by careful wriggling-and ignoring the effect this had on my head--I managed to get my right arm free and back inside the suit. With this I pulled the folds of plastic from in front of my face and realized that my head had slipped down inside the neck of the disguise. By wriggling and pushing even more I got my head further up near the optic unit and looked out at a metal floor. Very revealing. I tried moving my other arm and my legs but they twitched, nothing more. It was all very confusing and I was thirsty and sore and the aching head was still there.
Some bit of keen foresight had caused me to install a small spare tank next to the main water one. I found the nozzle for the water, drank all I needed, then threw the switch with my tongue that changed the liquid supply over to life-sustaining 110 proof whiskey. This woke me up quickly enough and, if it did nothing for the hammers in my head, it at least enabled me to ignore them a bit more easily. If I couldn't move very much, at least I should be able to manipulate the eye controls. With some difficulty I got the one out on the stalk functioning and turned it around in a circle.
Interesting indeed. I very quickly saw that the reason I could not move was because heavy chains secured me solidly to the steel floor. They had been welded into place so there was little chance of escape. The room I was in was small and featureless, except for the rust on the metal and the fact that the ceiling was curved, concave. This reminded me of something and another suck at the whiskey unearthed the fact.
Spaceship. I was inside a spaceship. The spaceship I had seen just before the lights went out. The gray men's ship and, undoubtedly, no longer grounded but in space and on the way somewhere. I had a good idea just where but I did not want to think about that depressing thought just yet. There was an unsolved question that had to be answered first. Why had they secured me inside my disguise?
"Because, dummy, they didn't know it was a disguise!" I shouted. And instantly regretted it since my head echoed like a drum.
The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You Page 7