The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted

Chapter 30

Well, yes. This was just about the lowest low moment I had ever experienced. In a life that had been, unhappily, quite filled with low moments. I mean, really. Here was this murderous general leering away at me and fondling the hair trigger of his pistol. Behind him were his potbellied troops looking down the barrels of their cannon. While on all sides my disarmed army was being kicked out of hiding and forced at gunpoint into the square. There can't be many moments lower than this.

"You are not going to get away with this, Zennor," I said. Which was pretty feeble but about all I could think of at the moment.

"Oh yes I am, little man." He raised the gun and pointed it between my eyes and caressed the trigger. Then lowered it. "But I don't want it to be too easy for you. Before I blow you away, you are going to watch me shoot every one of these treacherous deserters. They had the effrontery to attempt to raise their weapons in rebellion against me. They will die for this mistake. Then I am going to shoot the ten prisoners, just as I promised. Then, and only then, will I kill you."

"Not if I kill you first," I growled and felt my lips curl back from my teeth. I had nothing to lose. I raised my hands and stalked toward him. And he ran!

Not far. Just to the nearest prisoner, a grandmotherly woman with gray hair. He pulled her away from the others and thrust the muzzle of his gun against her head.

"Go ahead, diGriz. Take one more step toward me and I pull the trigger. Do you doubt me?"

Doubt him? Never. I did not take the step. The world was coming to an end and there was nothing I could do about it. They had the guns: we had nothing.

It was then, at the darkest moment, through the blackness of my thoughts I became aware of the shuffling of many feet. I turned to look just as Zennor did.

Around the corner came a solid mass of people, filling the street from side to side, an endless number of them. Leading the front rank was Stirner - and Neebe!

"No, don't, go back!" I shouted. Neebe smiled sweetly at me. And kept walking at Stirner's side. Zennor had his gun aimed at Stirner now - who appeared completely indifferent to it. Stirner stopped and called out loudly.

"All of you men with weapons - put them down. We will not hurt you for that is not our way…"

"One more word and I will kill you!" Zennor roared. Stirner turned to him, his face cold as death.

"I believe you will," he said. "Until this moment I really did not believe it possible that a human being could kill another. After seeing you I believe it."

"Good, then you will…"

"Be quiet. I will do just what I came here to do. I will take your weapon. If you kill me, someone else will take your weapon from you. If he fails another will try. Eventually it will be empty, discharged and will be taken from you. You cannot win. Those who follow you cannot win. It is all over."

"It is not!" Zennor shouted. There was spittle on his lips now, a look of insanity in his eyes. He pushed the woman captive away and ground his gun into Stirner's body. "No one has the guts to do that. When I blow your blood all over them they will turn and run. My men will fire a volley and the survivors will flee in panic. That is what I will do and you cannot stop me…"

I dived for him hands outstretched. He pushed Stirner against me and lashed the pistol barrel across my head, aimed it at me, tightened his finger on the trigger.

"Are you volunteering, diGriz? Good. Then you shall be first."

A shadow drifted across the square and an amplified voice boomed against our eardrums. "The war is over. Lower your weapons."

Filling the sky was the biggest spacer I had ever seen, bristling with guns - and all pointed down at Zennor's troops. The Navy had arrived! But a little too late.

"Never!" Zennor cried. "Gunners, fire! Kill the captives! Shoot down that ship!"

Nor was I forgotten. He ground the pistol barrel into my temple and pulled the trigger. The gun did not fire.

I saw his knuckle whiten with the strain - but the trigger would not move. His face went ashen as he realized what was happening. I lashed out and knocked the pistol aside.

Then, from way down on the ground, I brought up a punch that I think I had been saving for all of my life. Up, faster and faster it went, until my fist caught him full on the jaw. Lifted him into the air, dropped him unconscious to the ground. I rubbed my sore knuckles and realized that I was grinning like a fool.

"Your weapons will not work!" the voice from the sky boomed once again, and even through the echoes and distortion I recognized Captain Varod. "This ship is projecting an entropy field that does not permit metal to move against metal or electrons to flow. It does not affect life forms. Therefore if you good citizens of Chojecki would be so kind as to disarm these invaders I would be immensely grateful."

There was the quick thudding of running feet as a number of deserters got there first. The sight of officerial black eyes and bloody noncommissioned noses was a pleasant one. A hatch opened in the ship above and a familiar uniformed figure dropped down on the end of a line. I felt a hand on my arm and turned to look into Neebe's gorgeous, smiling face.

"Then it is all over, Jim?"

"It is - and it has a happy ending as well,"

"What will happen now?"

"The invaders will go and will never come back. Your planet will be your own again. Peace will prevail here forever."

"Will you be leaving too?"

My heart gave a couple of rapid hammerbeats and I squeezed her arm and prepared to drown in those eyes. Then I surfaced and shook myself off.

"I don't know… not true. I do know. As great as the attractions are here," I squeezed the hand of the greatest attraction, "in the long run I would not be happy. Nor would those about me. Your planet, if you will excuse me saying so, is a little too quiet for me. Paradise is fun for a while, but I would not like to make a habit out of it. There are a lot more worlds out there that I haven't seen yet. The galaxy is a very big place. It hurts to say it, but I must move on."

"Stay on this world, Jim," Varod advised as he walked up behind me. "Because if you leave here you will find out that justice and a jail term await you on a certain planet."

"That's what you say, Varod, that's what you say!" I spun about and shook a very angry finger in his face. "You lied to me, tricked me into coming here - then ignored my FTL message and left me here to rot, almost got me and about half of the planet killed…"

"Never! We were in orbit all of the time, watching everything. As soon as we arrived we had Zennor bugged completely with undetectable bugs. We were here two days after you sent the FTL message. Well done."

"Two days? Bugs? That's impossible. Mark Forer would have known about them."

"It did. We have been in constant consultation with that great intelligence. It has been of great help."

"Are you telling me that Mark Forer lied to me - just like you?"

"Yes."

I opened and shut my mouth and ran it all through again. "Why… I mean why hang around and run the risk of things getting out of hand when you could have landed at once?"

"We had to wait until after the elections," he said with infuriating amiability. "we had done everything we could to get Zennor off of his home planet as quickly as possible. Planted all those radio-broadcasting bugs so he would know that he was being watched. We worked on his paranoia, in the hopes that he would stay out of contact with his home base until it was too late. You were very good at causing trouble for him here. I must congratulate you on that. It gave him no time at all to even consider contacting his base. That was very important to us. Once Zennor left on his interplanetary adventure - as we hoped he would - it was possible to stage a little coup d'etat in Nevenkebla. The civilians were more than weary of the endless state of emergency. A palace revolution quickly got rid of the military. A civil government has been elected and peace will prevail from now on. This disarmed army will return and be absorbed in the populace."

"You played me for a patsy," I said, with some warmth.

"I don't know the term, but I assume that it means we took unfair advantage of you and let you do our dirty work for us."

"That will do until a better description comes along. Well - didn't you?"

"Not at all. You became involved in this matter for your own reasons. If we had not watched you and come to your aid you would be dead right now."

Very hard to argue with that. And I had come here of my own accord. I looked down at the prostrate form and resisted the strong desire to kick in a couple of ribs.

"What about Zennor here?"

"Zennor is a sickie and will get the proper treatment in a hospital that specializes in people with problems like his. As of this moment he no longer exists."

"And what about me?"

"You would be wise to stay right where you are now. Escaped prisoner, conviction still pending-"

"Don't shoot me that line of old cagal," I sneered. "I am an undercover operative of the League Navy and will be treated as such. I was responsible for your locating this planet and have suffered in the name of League justice. I have even made financial arrangements on your behalf…"

"Yes, the soldier you promised the credits to, for aiding you. The voice-actuated recorder in the spybird caught your conversation with him. Aspya will be paid."

"Then so will I. Full salary for all the time I have been working for you. Right?"

He rubbed his jaw and scowled. "I suppose that you will be asking for a full pardon for crimes committed on Bit O'Heaven?"

"No. I just want that incident wiped completely from my record so I can walk forth a free man. With my back pay in my pocket."

"I agree. As long as you remain in the Navy employ. Although a bit impetuous, you make a good field agent…"

"Never!" I shouted, shying back and neighing like a horse. "Never! Work for the law? Pay taxes and look forward to a miserable pension in my old age? Death before dishonor! Pay up and wave bye-bye, captain. I have my own career priorities."

"Like following a life of crime?"

"That is different. In all truth I can promise you - never again!" I placed one hand over my heart and raised the other palm outward. "I have learned my lesson. I hereby forswear any interest in a life of crime and pledge my word to be a productive member of society forever after."

"Good, my boy, good. I'll take care of the money for you then. The likes of you don't belong in crime."

"No sir, they don't!" I said.

Lying again, lying and smiling and lying through my teeth. After all - I had some good examples to follow. When a full captain in the League Navy lies to you, when the greatest artificial intelligence in the known galaxy lies to you - should a simple ex-porcuswine swineherd be forced to tell the truth?

My throat was dry and I suddenly felt a great yearning for some of that four-hundred-year-old wine. I looked forward to raising a glass of it very soon. Raising it in a toast.

To my future career out there among the stars. I could almost taste that wine upon my lips and I smacked them dryly, turned to face Neebe and Stirner.

"My friends - this calls for a celebration. Come with me, I beg you. I know of a very exclusive drinking establishment not too far away from here."