The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You

by Harry Harrison

  FOURTEEN

  "What evidence do you have that he is at the school?" Hanasu asked.

  "Footprints in the snow. Going in your direction. He is either hidden in your school or he is dead."

  "The students will aid in the search. They know the school buildings well."

  "Issue that order."

  Hanasu turned off the communicator and looked at me coldly. "We will not be able to carry out our plans after all. After they capture you they will use the axion feed to uncover my part in this. Do you wish to commit suicide to protect me?"

  All of this was delivered deadpan with no change in tone. Although the room was chill I felt small prickles of sweat breaking out.

  "Not so fast! All is not lost yet. Let us sort of save the suicide bit as a last resort. There must be some place I can hide?"

  "No. They will look in every place."

  "What about here? In your quarters. Tell them you searched and I'm not there."

  "You do not understand our people. Whatever I--or anyone--might say the search will still go on as planned. We are very thorough."

  "But unimaginative. I'll out-think them." I was feeling very unimaginative myself at the moment. Only the spurt of adrenaline generated by the suicide offer kept my engines chugging away at all. I looked around with a feeling of desperation. "Ile window? I can go through it, hide. . ."

  "It does not open. It is fixed in place."

  "Never opens? Not even in the summer?"

  "It is summer."

  "I was afraid you would say that. All is not lost yet!" There was a tinge of desperation in my voice because I had the awful feeling that everything was lost. "I know. If not inside I'll bide outside. There must be a way to get up onto the roof. Make repairs, nail down loose shingles."

  "There are no shingles."

  I resisted the urge to tear out a handful of hair. "Look--I don't mean it literally. But is there a way to get on the roof from inside the building?"

  "There might be."

  I fought hard with myself not to shake him by the neck until he gave me the right answers. "Are there plans? Blueprints of the school?"

  "Yes. There in the file."

  "Then get them. Quickly if you please." How long would it be before the search squads arrived? I cracked by knuckles and chewed my thumb and grabbed the sheets when he produced them. Flipping through them rapidly. Trying to ignore Hanasu's cheery observations.

  "This is a waste of time. There is no escape. I do not wish to be interrogated with the axion feed. Therefore if you will not commit suicide I will . . ."

  "Stop with the gloom already!" I snarled. It was depressing. My finger stabbed down. "There! What is that, that symbol?"

  Hanasu held the sheet at arm's length, adjusted the light, squinted at it. My pulse rate doubled. "Yes, I see it," he finally said . It is a door."

  I clapped him on the back. "We're home free! If you do just as I say. First--order everyone in the school to get together. Not just the students but the teachers, cooks, gardeners, torture specialists. Everyone."

  "We don't have any gardeners."

  "I don't care!" My voice was beginning to crack and I had to fight a measure of control back into it. "Just get them all together--now--to help in the search. Talk first and I'll explain later."

  He obeyed without question. Good old Kekkonshiki discipline. By the time he had made the announcement I knew what came next.

  "I can't risk being seen, so you will have to get what I need from the labs. I want a power tool--make sure it's fully charged--at least ten long nails or screws, fifty meters of 500-kilo test line, a battery light and a lubricator. Where is the safest place for me to wait while you get them?"

  "Here. There will be people in the corridors. By the time I return they will all be in the assembly hall."

  "That was sort of my idea too."

  "I do not know what you are planning but I will help you. There will be time for me to commit suicide after you are captured."

  "That's it, Hanasu boy, always look on the bright side. Now go!"

  He went and I prowled the carpet and looked for an unchewed fingernail to chew. I jumped when the communicator buzzed, but I stayed far away from it. Hanasu was gone all of four minutes. It felt like four days.

  "They are all assembled and the search squads are here," he said.

  "That's good news. Go down and organize them. See that they do a good and thorough job and work upward from the bottom to the top. I'll need all the time I can get since I have no idea what I will find."

  "You are going on to the roof.?"

  "What you don't know you can't tell. Get moving."

  "You are of course correct." He started for the door and, as he opened it, turned back for an instant. "Good luck. Isn't that what is said in a circumstance like this?"

  "It is. Thanks. Good luck yourself. And I'll see if we can't avoid the mutual suicide pact."

  I was out right behind him, running up the stairs as he tottered down, the construction diagram clutched in my hand. The climb was nice and warming, but I was panting loudly by the time I had reached the top floor. It had been a long day. Down to the end of the corridor to what appeared to be a storeroom. The door of which was locked.

  "Jim diGriz laughs at locks," I laughed as I used one of the large nails to pick the even larger lock. The door swung open with a loud squeaking and I was through and slammed it behind me. There was no light switch that I could find and the air was frigid and musty. I turned on the light I had brought and looked around, treading between the heaped boxes and ancient files. The door I was looking for was at the far end of the room, a good four meters above the floor. There was no ladder.

  "Better and better," I chortled and began to collect boxes that I could climb up on.

  This took some time since I could not drag any of them and leave marks that might be noticed. I had to carry each one and stack it on the ones below to build a pile. Before I was done I was no longer feeling chill. In fact I sweated a bit when I thought of the searchers and wondered how close they were getting. I stacked faster.

  The door was more of a trapdoor, a meter-square lid let into the angle of the roof just below the peak. When I pushed at it it squeaked and a fine rain of rust particles showered down on me, which is about what I expected. I carefully applied the lubricant so it didn't drip, then wiped up all the rust. It would have been obvious it had been opened recently if I left it in its original condition. Now it was just another smoothworking trapdoor--and I only hoped that whoever was in charge of trapdoors like this wasn't around when the search was made. This was a chance I had to take. Now, when I pushed up on the trapdoor, it lifted easily and a blast of freezing air rushed in. I opened it all the way and poked my head out into the freezing night. Stars sparkled in the darkness above giving just enough light for me to see that there was absolutely no place of concealment on the roof.

  "Solve that one when you come to it, Jim," I told myself with false good humor. "One step at the time, you crafty devil. You've licked them so far--you'll win in the end."

  While I babbled this fatuous morale boosting I was driving a heavy nail into the coping outside. When it was well home I tied the end of the line to it. The 500-kilo test had enough diameter to take a grip, which is why I had selected it.

  After that it was simply a matter of putting the boxes back where I had found them while trying not to think of the searchers getting closer every second. I was almost there--though I still wasn't quite sure where "there" was. All I wanted to do was to rush up to the roof and to close the trapdoor. What I did was to carefully go over the entire floor with my light to be sure I had left no traces of my passage. I found a lovely big footprint in the dust of one of the boxes; I turned the box on its side. Only when I was sure that nothing obvious indicated my visit did I go to the line leading up to the opening. After making sure that all my equipment was secure, I turned off the light, stowed it in my pocket and seized the line.

  Behind me in the d
arkness, I heard a key rattle in the lock.

  Now, I don't know if there is any athletic event called the four-meter rope climb. But if there is I am sure that I set a new record at that moment. Without pausing for breath I was up it, hand over hand, grappling with insane desperation. One instant I was on the floor, the next I had the edge of the opening in my hand, was up and through it, stretched full length on the peak of the roof with one leg on each side, pulling up the rest of the rope. It seemed endless and I had finally pulled it all clear and was closing the trapdoor--when a light appeared in the room below.

  "You take that side, Bukai, and I'll do this one," a gruff and toneless voice said. "Look behind all the boxes. Open ones big enough for a man."

  With desperate caution I closed the door, holding fast with my fingertips until it was in place. What next? Would the searchers come up here? To ask the question was to have the answer. Of course they would.

  They would look everywhere a man could possibly be. Then I must find an impossible place. Ile featureless, welded metal surface on the roof filled me with no enthusiasm. It slanted away on both sides at a steep angle. Ahead of me, not five meters away, was the end of the roof. Featureless. Nothing in that direction, so perhaps in the other. I grunted as I pulled one leg up to turn around. It was then that I discovered that the metal was covered with a thin sheet of ice. My feet shot out from under me and I started to slide.

  Down the slippery surface, my fingers scrabbling for holds that did not exist, faster and faster toward the edge and the drop to the frozen surface far below.

  Until I remembered that the line was still attached.

  I grabbed at it with both hands. It slithered through my gloves. Then I gripped harder and held on. The shock on my arms when I stopped was something else again.

  All I could do was hold on. Waiting for the pain to go away. Aware that my feet were hanging over the abyss. As soon as I could I dragged myself up, hand over hand, to the peak of the roof again. Where I re membered the searchers below and the fact that the trapdoor was going to be open very soon.

  Of course the roof in the other direction was as featureless. Maybe they would not see me in the starlight.

  I had to get as far away from the trapdoor as I could. Unfastening the rope with numb fingers, I straddled the peak and began to crawl along it, arms and legs widespread. Dragging myself really, sliding on the ice. Knowing that if I slipped to one side or the other that would be the end.

  The end. That's what the roof did. Stopped. When I looked over my shoulder I saw that the trapdoor was clearly visible. As I would be to anyone putting his head out.

  The line had held me before; it was going to have to do it again. Carefully and slowly, so I wouldn't lose my balance, I worked the power tool out and fitted one of the nails into the jaws. I would have to take the risk that the thick roof would muffle the sound. One touch on the trigger drove the nail in, through the metal, at the peak of the roof at the very end. My fingers were cold--and clumsy in the gloves--as I worked desperately to tie a knot on the line, to slip it over the nail, to tie a loop further down. To fit my foot into it and to let myself slide carefully over the edge. To hang down the end of the building. To ignore the creaking as the nail took up the strain.

  There was a loud bang further back on the roof as the trapdoor was thrown open. I hung quietly, listening, smiling at my success as I heard the searchers talking clearly.

  "See anything, Bukai?"

  "No."

  "Anyone on the roof?"

  "No. Shall I come back inside?"

  Well done, diGriz. The enemy outwitted again, you clever devil.

  "No. Walk along the roof and look."

  They were machines, not men. Any intelligent man would not have ventured out on that icy roof. He would have known better.

  Any intelligent man would not have found me. These machine-minded morons just followed instructions until they succeeded.

  The slitherings and gruntings grew closer and closer--and my rope twitched as someone pulled at it.

  I looked up into the expressionless features of the searcher as he leaned over the end of the roof.

  FIFTEEN

  This was it. My eyes were adjusted to the starlight so that I saw his head jerk when he spotted me. Saw him sit up and turn his head about and open his mouth to &bout.

  "Ahiru."

  Then he slipped. And for the first time I saw expression on the face of a gray man. Horror. He grabbed for the nail holding the rope. And missed.

  His fingers slapped hard on the roof. Then he slid away. Faster and faster. I could hear the sound of his sliding, but he made no other sound. Nothing. Then he was gone and I covered my ears because I did not want to listen to what happened below.

  What next? The chill seeped into my bones as I hung there in the night and waited. There were muffled voices inside the building. I couldn't make out the words, then someone else joined the other man in the open trapdoor.

  "Did Bukai say anything?"

  "He spoke my name."

  "As he slipped and fell?"

  "Yes."

  "That is not good."

  It is not. He is better dead. A man who shows emotion like that." Then the trapdoor closed.

  What nice people. Bukai sure had friends. I suppose I felt sorrier for him than they did. Moral Philosophy! Before my fingers froze completely I pulled myself back up the rope and took a careful look. Trapdoor closed, roof empty. Back onto the peak and a slow and careful slither back. This was no time to Shp and join the much-mourned Bukai.

  After that I waited a long and frigid ten minutes, counting the seconds, until I was sure the room below would be empty. Or hoped it would be. 'Me chill of the cold metal was biting through my insulated suit before I let myself pull at the door. My teeth chattering so hard I was sure they could bear them on the ground below. The room below was dark; they were gone.

  There is a limit to the amount of stress a body can take and mine must have felt that it had had more than enough for the night. So when I rested on the floor for a bit while I thought about what to do next I instantly fell soundly asleep. So soundly that when I woke up, an unmeasurable amount of time later, I bad no idea how long I had been sleeping. A minute or a day; there was no way to tell. What if everyone was awake? I would be trapped in here until nightfall. But how long were the days? I muttered curses at myself for falling asleep as I picked the lock as silently as I could. Opening the door with slow patience. The hall was empty. And the window across from the door was still black with night.

  "Lucked out again, diGriz. Or maybe your subconscious timer is doing a better job than your conscious mind. Back to work."

  The sleep had refreshed me and I tiptoed through the building, senses alert. All the doors were closed and I assumed that students and staff were sleeping off the strenuous affairs of the day. There was a light on in the headmaster's office so I put my eye to the crack as I opened it. He was sitting in the chair, awake, waiting for me. I slid through and closed it behind me.

  "It is you," he said, and I saw that he had a glass of water raised to his lips. He set it down carefully on the desk.

  "If that's water I'll have some," I said, reaching for it. "It has been a thirsty night."

  "It is poison," he said tonelessly as I picked it up. I put it right back down.

  "Suicide?"

  "Yes. If I had to. I had no idea who would walk through the door first."

  "Then they're all gone?"

  "Yes. They found nothing. One of them fell off the roof and was killed. Are you responsible for that?"

  "Only indirectly. But I saw him fall."

  "They assume now that you have frozen to death in the snow. In the morning they will search for your body. It will not be a very stringent search because there is also some thought that you may have gone into the ocean."

  "I almost did. But now that this evening's exhausting adventures are over I think we ought to go back to the topic under discussion when all the fu
n began."

  "Getting a message to the League."

  "That's it. In the quieter moments tonight I have been giving it some thought. I have an idea that might just work. Are you tired?"

  "Not particularly."

  "Good. Then I want to work in the electronics lab tonight. Can I do that--undisturbed?"

  "It can be arranged. What do you want to do?"

  "Dial up the library and get a diagram for a warpdrive detector. I assume you have enough parts and supplies here for me to build one?"

  "We have the unit itself in our supplies. It is part of the training."

  "Even better. Let's get to the lab and get started and I will show you what I want to do."

  With Hanasu doing the fetching and me doing the assembly my device soon took shape. When it was completed I stood it on the bench and stepped back to admire it. A metal tube a meter long, streamlined on the top, open at the bottom, with two metal vanes running the length of it.

  "A work of art," I said.

  "What is its function?" Hanasu asked, a realist to the end.

  "It gets attached to one of your spacers--and that will be our next problem. If I place it carefully it will never be noticed because it is a duplicate of the standard flare ejector that all ships carry. Only this one doesn't have flares--it has these." I held out one of the carefully constructed cylinders of plastic. "Inside the plastic is a power source and a solid state radio transmitter. I have made ten of these radios, which should be enough. Here is what happens. Every time the shireenters normal space its warpdrive will cut off. When this happens the receiver in the nose detects the fact--and it launches one of the radios. There is a built-in time lag of a half an hour. More than enough time for the spacer to get on its way again. Then the radio switches on and begins broadcasting a strong signal on the League emergency wavelength. The signal contains my code identification and the location of this planet. And a call for help. Once the message gets through we simply sit back and wait for the space cavalry to arrive."

  "Very ingenious. But what if there is no receiver nearby when the ship emerges from warpdrive?"