The Stainless Steel Rat Goes to Hell

Chapter 17

I was sorely tempted to think get me out of here and take me home but restrained myself. I had a foolproof means of escape, or so Coypu had reassured me, and my escape from the building site had proved him right, so I should hang around for a bit. I wasn't being threatened, at least not yet, and this was supposed to be a reconnaissance mission.

"No hard feelings?" I asked. "Should there be?"

"You tell me. The last time we met, or I met with a number of your incarnations, mayhem and murder seemed to be the name of the game." "Of course. Hell." He nodded. "I wasn't there but of course I was aware of what was happening. That was very good salami—you must give me the name of your supplier."

This conversation was getting a little surrealistic, but I decided to press on. This was the first time I had talked to Slakey without some kind of instant violence in the offing.

"Where is Heaven?" I asked.

"All around you. Isn't it enjoyable?"

"Is this the Heaven the seriously religious hope to go to when they die?"

"Pleasant, isn't it? Did you enjoy the cherubs?" He smiled benignly. I decided to be a little more direct.

"Why are you here in Heaven?"

"The same reason you are."

"Let's get down to facts. You are a crook with a number of cons. A murderer as well, since you shipped all those people off to Hell. And you have been giving suckers daytrips to Heaven. To a variety of Heavens." He pursed his lips and nodded as though in thought.

"If you say so, dear boy. I want no dissension in Heaven."

"What is the purpose of all this? What are you doing with all the money you bamboozle Out of people?"

This time the cold look in his eye was pure Slakey. "You are getting tiresome, Jim. And boring. And a bit of a nuisance don't you think so?"

Now that he mentioned it I realized that I wasn't exactly being the life of the party. "I'm sorry, Professor. I'm not usually like this."

"Apology accepted, of course. It's so nice here in Heaven that we shouldn't quarrel. There—why don't you sit down there and rest?"

There was a chair beside me that hadn't been there an instant before. A good thing too since he was right, I really was tired. Very, very tired. I dropped into it. Slakey nodded again.

"Time to get comfortable, Jim. Take off your boots, stretch your toes—"

What a good idea—or was it? What was wrong with it? I couldn't quite remember. Meanwhile I was taking off one boot, then the other, and tossing them aside.

Slakey smiled toothily and snapped his fingers and my lassittide vanished. The boot heel! Get me out of here! I blasted the thought out so loudly that it rattled around inside my skull.

The boots were gone and nothing had happened. Or rather something not too nice happened, because when I jumped to my feet and turned to run I fell flat on my face. Staring at the golden bracelet around my ankle. Attached to a length of gilt chain that vanished into the ground.

"Good trick," he said sternly, although it came out a little squeakily. I climbed to my feet and sat down again in the chair. "Not really. You are a stupid little man and very easy to outthink. Didn't you realize that your undetectable device would be detected? An interuniversal activator indeed! I sneer at it. My science is so far ahead of yours that I hesitate to describe the difference. Not only my science but my intellect. Mere child's play to outwit you. First I used hypnotic gas to make you amenable, then it was only a matter of simple suggestion to control a simple mind. You were happy to turn over your boots to me. Along with your life, you must realize. I am the master of science, of life and death; time and entropy!"

Also one brick short of a load, one nut short of a nutcake, I thought grimly. It was not going to be easy to get out of this one.

"You are indeed," I said with all sincerity. "But you are also a man of mystery as well. With all your talents why are you going to all the trouble setting up your con games?"

He chose not to answer; insane or not he kept his secrets.

And he was beginning to lose his temper.

"Wispy, time—shortened man—do you know how old I am?"

"No, but I'm sure that you will tell me. Not that I really care."

I turned away and yawned and watched out of the corner of my eye as his face turned purple.

"You have strained my patience, diGriz. You must show respect and, yes, awe for someone like me—who is over eight thousand years old!"

"Amazing!" I said. "I wouldn't pick you as a year over seven thousand."

"Enough!" he raged, leaping to his feet. "I am tired of you. Therefore I now condemn you to Purgatory. Bring him." This last command was directed at a hulking, man—shaped robot that came clanking up the stairs. It was dented and scarred, red with rust and coated with black dust. One electronic eye glowed balefully; the other had been torn out of its socket. It stamped towards me and I quailed back, so great was the thing's insensate menace. It hissed and bent, reached out and with its sharp—bladed fingers it cut the chain that secured me. I jumped away—but it caught' me in midair with clutching hands the size of shovels. Grabbed me and crushed me to its metal chest, its grip unbreakable and painful. Fat and white—haired Slakey grunted with the effort as he pulled himself to his feet and waddled away, my captor clomping after him. Down the stairs we went and out onto the yellow brick road. Slakey stamped his foot and there was a slathering, liquid sound as the road lifted up like a great yellow tongue. A dark pit was revealed from which rose a dreadful stench. "The doomed enter Purgatory," he intoned. "None return. Go."

My captive robot, still clutching me, leaned forward. More and more. Until we dropped face—first down into the pit.

There have been a number of times in my adventurous life when I have strongly wished I was elsewhere. This was definitely one of them. My past life did not flash before me, but the jagged stone walls certainly did. They were lit by a ruddy glow from below that we were rapidly approaching at what must be terminal velocity.

Was this the way it was going to end? Not with a whimper, but with a resounding crash when my metallic captor hit the ground. Which was rushing towards us far too fast. A bleak, black landscape lit by sporadic gouts of flame. I wriggled ineffectively in the robot's iron grasp.

Then we juddered and slowed and I almost slipped out of the thing's embrace as deceleration hit it. But it just clamped harder on my chest until I couldn't breathe.

With a resounding clang we hit the ground and I crashed down as the thing let go of me. Before I could get my breath back it had me by the arm and was dragging me along. I had very little choice; I went. Limping because the stony ground was exceedingly hard on my stockinged feet. I wished that I was back in Heaven with my boots.

What I could see of the surroundings was far from inspiring. A miasma hung in the air that not only stank but irritated my air passages as well. I coughed and, as though in ghastly echo, there was the sound of heavy coughing from up ahead.

We went around a mound of crushed rock and I saw the cause.

Stretching Out and vanishing into the distance, barely revealed by the ruddy light, were long, low, almost table—like structures of some kind. Standing along both sides were bent figures with their arms extended. They were doing something, just what I could not say. As we passed close to one of the structures there was a rumbling sound and from the mouth of an apparatus there fell a mass of some dark powdered substance. A wisp of it came my way and I coughed again for this was the source of the stench and irritation.

It was difficult to see clearly what was going on since my metallic captor neither slowed nor stumbled, just dragged me forward steadily. Yet, since the scene repeated itself over and over, I began to see what was happening. I couldn't understand it—but I could observe it.

The dust was flowing, or being carried, slowly down the length of the table—like constructions. The laborers, they were all women I could see now, ran their fingers over the surface.

That was all they did, slowly and repetitiously, never looking up, never stopping. One of them picked up something, I could not tell what it was, and dropped it into a container at her side.

I dragged by.

By far the worst part was there total lack of interest or attention to anything other than their work. I would have certainly looked up if a giant, decrepit robot dragged someone by me. They did not.

We passed more and more of them. All engaged in the same mysterious task, silently and continuously. This went on for a very long time. There were hundreds, possibly thousands, of laboring women. Then we were past the last ones and I was being hauled off into the semidarkness.

"I say, good robot guide, where are you taking me?" It plodded on. I pried at its clamped fingers. "Cease!" I shouted.

"This is the voice of your master, your human master. Stop now you animated junkyard." It neither slowed nor paid me any heed, dragging me along like a dead beast. I walked again, stumbling, which was somewhat better than being dragged. To a metal door set into the rock face. It opened the door and pulled me through. I heard it clang shut behind us although I could see nothing in the darkness. It started up an unseen stairway, apparently seeing all right with its single operating eye. I fell and banged my shins, fell again and again until I grew used to the stairs. I was reeling with exhaustion by the time it stopped again and opened another door. Seized me up and threw me through it.

Behind me the door clanged shut even before I hit the ground. Reality twisted, the sensation of passing from one universe to another. There was sudden light and I banged down hard onto a stone floor.

Cold light lit the even colder scene; my teeth began chattering. I was in a metal—walled room with a barred door set in the far wall. Snow and frigid air blew in between the bars.

Had I been hauled down to Purgatory, then tossed through the machine, just to be allowed to freeze to death? It didn't make sense. There certainly must be lots of easier and less complicated ways of disposing of me. My blue and bare toes, protruding from the ruins of my socks, kicked against something. I looked down at the heaped clothing, thick boots, gloves. This was a message that I was happy to receive.

My fingers were trembling as I pulled on the heavy socks and trousers, then kicked into the boots. They didn't fit that well—but they kept out the cold. Everything I put on was a depressing shade of ash gray, which did not disturb me in the slightest. The clothing was warm and not too uncomfortable. I wound a scarf around my neck, popped on a seedy fur hat, then wriggled my fingers into the thick gloves.

Right on cue the barred door swung open and more snow blew in. I ignored it and turned around to see if there was any way of getting out the same way I had come in.

"I am called Buboe," a menacingly deep voice said. I sighed and turned to look at my newest tormentor.

Dressed like me. Almost of a height, but he was heavier and wider. In his hands he held a flexible metal rod that I looked at very suspiciously. Particularly when he waggled it in my direction.

"This is Buboe's bioclast. Bioclast hurts lot. It kills too. You do what Buboe say, you live. Don't do it, you hurt and die. This is hurt."

He flicked the thing at me. I jumped aside so that the tip barely grazed me.

This was a new kind of pain. It felt like my flesh had been sliced to the bone and boiling acid then poured into the wound. I could only stand, holding my wounded arm and waiting for the pain to pass. It did, eventually, and it was hard to believe that both clothing and arm were still intact. Buboe waggled the bioclast at me and I shivered away.

"Learn fast, live. No learn, die."

His linguistic abilities were not of the best but he had an unassailable and thoroughly convincing argument. And at least he could talk; I could only nod agreement not trusting myself to speak yet.

"Work," he said, pointing his weapon at the open door. I stumbled through it into blue—lit daylight, a desolate, snow whipped frigid hell. Large machines were moving around me, but until my eyes stopped tearing at the sudden cold I could not see what they were doing.

I soon found out. This was an opencast mine, a great sunken pit of broken stone and heaped gravel. The black layers were being torn open by hulking machines; the rubble they heaped up was then carried away by many—wheeled devices. At first I thought that the machines were work robots. Then I saw that each vehicle had a rider or an operator. The machines did the digging and carrying under the men's guidance.

"You go up." Buboe said, rapping on an immobile machine. The sight of his thin rod sent me scurrying up the handholds on its side. I wriggled into the bucket seat, looked out through the scarred and chipped window before me, wondered what to do next. A loudspeaker above my head scratched to life.

"Detection. Unknown individual. Identify yourself."

"Who are you?" I asked, looking around for an operator, but I was alone. It was my steel chariot that was speaking to me.

"I am Model Ninety—one surface debrider and masculator. Give identity."

"Why?" I asked angrily, having never enjoyed conversations with machines.

"Give identity," was all it would say.

"My name is none of your business," I said sulkily—then regretted the words the instant I had spoken them.

"State work experience with this Model Ninety—one, Noneofyourbusiness."

"I will give the orders. Now hear this…"

"State work experience with this Model Ninety—one, Noneofyourbusiness."

There was no way to win this argument. "None." "Orientation instructions begin."

They did, and they went on for far too long in far too stupid detail, geared to the thought processes of a retarded two—year—old. I listened just long enough to find out how the thing operated, then looked around for some way out of this dilemma. Knowing that it was not going to be easy.

"Power is on, Noneofyourbusiness. Work begins." It surely did. There were levers by each knee, along with the two pedals, controlled direction and speed. A single, knobbed control moved the hydraulically powered arm that projected forward from right below the cab. This was first pressed against the rock surface and the trigger pulled. Fragments of rock blasted out in all directions—including towards the cab, which explained the thickness and scars on the forward—facing window. When enough rock had been broken free I touched the glowing red button that signaled for the bucketbil. This trundled over on its two rows of heavy wheels and backed into position below. I worked the controls for the loading arms which stuck out just below my face.

The first time I dumped a load, I waved to the driver of the bucketbil. His grim expression never changed, but he was considerate enough to raise a thick middle finger to me. I loaded and he left.

Light was fading from the sky. Night approached and work would cease for the day. A nice thought, but not a very accurate one. Work lights came on above, the headlights of my Model 91 illuminated the falling snowflakes and the rock face: the work continued.

An indeterminate, but long, time later there was a warbling sound from the cab's loudspeaker and the machine's power was switched off. I saw the driver of the nearest stopped Model 91 climbing wearily down from his machine. I did the same, and just as wearily. There was another heavily dressed man waiting on the ground, who climbed up the machine as soon as I got down. He said nothing to me—nor did I have anything to say to him in return. I shuffled after the other shuffling man. Through a door in the canyon wall. Into a large and warm hail filled with men and redolent with the strong pong of B. O. My new home.

It was worse than any army camp or work camp that I had ever been in. There was an overlay of despair that could not be avoided. These men were condemned and bereft of any spark of will. Or hope.

The only note of interest came after I had found an empty bunk to dump my heavy outer clothing, then followed the others to the eating tables. I was looking at the appalling food on my battered tray when a large hand seized my shoulder painfully.

"I eat your kreno," said the overweight and obnoxious individual who was attached to the hand. Another hand of the same size reached for the purple steaming lump on my tray. I lowered the tray to the table, waited until the kreno was well clutched—then grabbed the wrist.

Since he was very big, obviously obnoxious and undoubtedly strong, I played no fancy games. As his thick head went by I cracked him across the bridge of the nose with the side of my hand. He squealed in pain so I generously gave him peace by punching his neck in the right place with stiffened fingertips. He kept on going to the floor and did not move. I picked up my tray and took the kreno from his limp fingers. Looked around at the other diners.

"Any of you lot want to try for my kreno?" I asked.

The few who had bothered to look up from their food quickly lowered their eyes. The man at my feet began to snore. The only other sound was the slurp and crunch of masticating food.

"It's really nice to meet you guys," I said to the tops of heads. Sat down and ate hungrily.

Forcing myself not to think about where I was and what I was going to do.

Or what the unforeseeable future might be like.