The Stainless Steel Rat Joins the Circus

Chapter 8

I poured the contents of two bottles of good booze-what a waste-down the drain. And ordered more. The party must go on. A newly patched up Bolivar wandered about the suite, detector in one hand, a barbecued porcuswine rib in the other, checking the detectors. Gloriana had wandered out to see what the excitement was about, squealed woefully when she sniffed her departed relative, and had retired again to her bed. Angelina, attired in a nifty tigerstriped negligee, was repairing the damage inflicted on her fingernails by the night's events.

"As a reward for your medical ministrations I would say that another cool glass of bubbly would be in order," I offered.

"Very much in order." She took it and sipped. I knocked back a double dram of Old Kidney Killer, then took some more-with ice this time. Nibbled a canape or two and let myself relax. But could not.

"What do we do about Bolivar?" I asked, phrasing aloud the question that was prominent in everyone's mind. "This hotel room is not the safest place for him to be."

"Nor this city-nor this entire planet," Angelina said with some venom. "I am uneasy about everything-because everything seems to be falling apart in a most unpleasant way. I am beginning to wish that we had never met Chaise. Or let ourselves by hypnotized by all the money he offered."

I was very much in agreement-but felt that I had to at least attempt to be cheerful."

"It is going to work out-and we will be rich. But first, as you said, what do we do about Bolivar?"

"I'll be just fine," he said. At the very same moment the door chime chimed to contradict his words. "But I think that I'll be finer if I step into the other room."

"The police are a very thorough bunch on this backwoods planet," I said. "So I think that you will be finer still-if you step out onto the balcony instead of the bedroom and hang out about there. I smell trouble."

My prognostic sniffer was indeed right. Three large and burleys filled the hall outside when I opened the door.

"This is a private party and you are not invited," I said and closed the door. Or rather tried to, but a large shoe stopped me.

"National Security Police," the lead goon said, flashing an ornate badge with a hologram of a striking snake. "We are coming in."

"Without permission or a search warrant?"

"None needed. Not on Fetorr. In the name of justice we have the right enter any premises that we deem suspect."

"We are having a bit of a party here-what is suspect about that?"

"You are," he snarled, pushing me in the chest. Normally I would have dropped him for this, but now I was just playing for time. I moved back hesitantly and he smiled. "You were in the presence of a known criminal early this evening."

"That's no crime!"

"It is if I say it is. Out of the way."

They rushed in and I had to step aside or be trampled. Angelina sipped her wine and did not grace them for an instant by acknowledging their rude presence.

"Where is Bolivar diGriz?" the one who spoke asked in a nasty and suspicious way. Perhaps the others couldn't talk.

"Who are you?"

"Inspector Mwavuli. Where is he?" He looked around. "Search this place."

"Where is who? Bolivar? He is in jail-where your fellow officers took him."

"He is not. He escaped."

"That's nice to hear. Drink?"

There was none of that "not on duty" nonsense on Fetorr. He poured a glassful of hooch and knocked it back without taking his eyes off me. His co-conspirators returned from their search of the premises and answered his raised eyebrows with negative grunts.

"Don't leave this city," he ordered. Then they left.

"Charming," Angelina said as she double-locked the hall door, put on the safety chain and propped a chair under the handle.

Bolivar came in from the balcony and touched his finger to his lips. He made a careful search of the suite with his detector and returned with a handful of bugs. They were disguised as coins, soap cakes, picture hangers-and even one roach. He flipped them off the balcony then poured himself a glass of red wine.

"Bolivar-you are going to join the circus," Angelina said.

"My lifetime ambition!'

"Don't be cheeky. I mean it, seriously."

"Of course you do. But I was also thinking of the little matter of reaching the Colosseo. I'm sure that all the police have my photo by now and are on the lookout. The streets are not safe."

"For a young man, yes. But for a young women they are as safe as they possibly could be on this despicable planet. Prepare yourself for a temporary sex change. I pity the thug that tries to get smart with this particular young lady. Shave your legs while I get you some clothes."

The sky was getting light by the time our son was dressed to Angelina's satisfaction.

"What do you think?" she asked.

"Bolivera has never looked better!"

Nor had he. Neatly turned out, long skirt and svelte bosom. Good makeup and a not too wiggy-looking wig. Angelina nodded approval as well.

"Now get a few hours sleep-and don't wrinkle the dress! You will leave by the main entrance. And do try to mince a bit when you walk. Like this."

When he was mincing fine we all retired, very much in need of some rest.

I managed a few hours sleep and awoke feeling a bit better. After a picker-upper pill I felt better still. As I did, first thing every morning, I checked my bank account. The expected four million from Chaise had not come through. But there was a message.

NOT TOO GOOD, JIM. TRY HARDER.

It was late morning before we left. Angelina and I went out first, me with the computer and her leading Gloriana. Bolivera slipping out of our suite as soon as we signaled him that the hallway was clear. He waited for the second elevator since we were sure to be followed. We were. We ignored the tails and hailed a cab to take us to the circus.

"No animals," the driver said, looking suspiciously down at Gloriana.

"This is not an animal," I said as I slipped him a more than generous tip. "It is our daughter who has a piggish spell cast upon her. We are on our way to a witch who had promised, for a price, to restore her to her normal form."

He bulged his eyes at the story. But the money spoke louder than the fairy tale and we followed our sprightly swine into the cab. There was no way of testing the detector so we spoke of nothing important until we were in our dressing room. I swept the room for bugs with my own detector.

"Clean," I said folding the instrument and putting it away.

"Good. Now we must leave a note for Bolivar telling him to wait for us here. Then we must go out and find his dressing room-so we can talk to Gar Goyle. I am sure that he will be happy to help us."

"Why?"

"You will see."

I did not press the matter. I recognized the tone of voice. I would be informed at the right time-and not any earlier. Gloriana squealed lightly when we started to leave, then trotted happily after us when we called out to her. Then grunted enthusiastically when we opened the door to Goyle's dressing room. It had a very barnyardy smell to it. Or zoo, I had smelled it when the act was on stage. An artificial pong to add realism to the act.

The tuxedoed man from the act was sitting at a desk writing something; he did not look up when we came in. Was he Gar Goyle? Or was he the four-armed man who had introduced the acts? He was there now, wearing his kilt and sporran, sitting across the desk from tuxedo, speaking on the phone. I looked around. The rest of the large room was dimly lit: there was just light enough to see the cages. With things in them.

And what things! Some had been in the act. Yet there were lots more. A two-headed carnivore of some kind was pacing its cage: it hissed and bared immense fangs when I looked at it. And there was Mr. Bones-I recognized him from the posters-taking a nap on the couch. He was at least two meters tall, but no thicker through than my arm.

"What do you want?" a voice asked. I turned to see that Gar Goyle was still scribbling away at the desk.

"We wish to speak to you, Mr. Goyle."

"About what?"

Only then did I realize that it was the four-armed man who was talking. "Just general chitchat about the circus, you know. How do you like the weather?"

I continued to ramble on as I walked about the room with my bug detector. I found six of them, five writhing bug bugs and only a single coin this time. I stepped on them all just to make sure. Crushing them with my heel until the detector flashed green.

"We have heard a lot about you," Angelina said, menacingly.

"From the Special Corps," I whispered.

He sat expressionless and silent, shifting only when Gloriana came over and sat by his feet. Then she leaned over and bit him in the arm.

"Naughty swine!" Angelina snapped. "Let go of that man at once."

Only then did the man look down and nod. "She can tell flesh from plastic, you see. A fine nose like all porcuswine."

Then he reached up with his upper set of arms and plunged his hands in the flesh of his neck and ripped down. Angelina gasped as the skin parted. He pulled the opening wide and a man wearing a kilt stepped out: he only had two arms.

"Why do you mention the Special Corps?" I looked from him to the man still writing at the desk. "Don't worry about him. He is a pseudoflesh robot, like all of the others. The audience watches him and never notices that I am controlling the act."

"Misdirection!" I said happily.

"Of course. Now please answer my question."

"Mr. Goyle we have reason to believe…"

"Call me Gar."

"Gar, of course. You will have heard of the Special Corps, the mythical group that fights crime and seeks justice throughout the galaxy."

"Of course. Everyone has heard of it even though it does not exist. But let me ask you a question. If this mythical Corps had a mythical laboratory and research program-what mythical scientist might be head of it?"

I touched my detector again; still green. "Professor Coypu," I said as quietly as I could.

Gar sighed and slipped out of the rest of the four-armed flesh man. Gloriana let go of the arm and lay down. The pseudoman at the desk stopped writing and fell over sideways onto the floor. Gar took his chair. "I had a brief message from Professor Coypu. He has been of great aid to me in developing my troupe. He said that I should help you if you asked."

"Are you in the Special Corps?" Angelina asked.

"I was. Retired. I worked in the forensic lab. Very boring once you got used to it. As the saying goes-see one corpse and you have seen them all. But I did get inspiration from the work, used it in developing my act. So you see, I do have a far more interesting job now."

"This act."

"A cover. I am…" He waved us close, looked around fearfully, then whispered, the word barely audible. "Guu. "

"Goo?" Angelina said, and he fearfully waved her to silence.

"The Galactic Union Union," he whispered. "You must have heard of us?"

"Vaguely. Aren't you union organizers?"

"We are. We go boldly forth to organize unions were none have been permitted to exist before."

"Like here on Fetorr?"

"You have it in one, comrade. And I must say that if a planet was ever ripe for organizing this one sure is."

"It could also do with a little more free enterprise, a good bashing for the police bullies, and the introduction of some pollution controls," I said.

"That about sums it up. But keep it quiet for now. Meanwhile-what can I do for you?"

"Help us hide our son Bolivar."

"Is this the same Bolivar diGriz that cleaned out the bank yesterday, killing a number of women and children when he escaped from the police?"

"The same. Minus the women and children of course. Plus the fact that he did not rob the bank."

"Of course." He rubbed his jaw and looked around the room. "Do you think he would mind being Megalith Man? He's having trouble with feedback controls, see."

There was a stirring in the darkness and a gray creature stumbled forward. Angelina gasped and I had to struggle not to do the same. A rotund bulging forehead almost covered its eyes. Prognathous jaw, clawed fingers and suchlike combined to produce a really disgusting simulacrum of a human being. Gar smiled and nodded.

"Good, isn't he? One of my best creations." The creature groaned, rolled its eyes up-and crashed to the floor. "Your son will be safe in there."

"He certainly will," Angelina sniffed. "And knowing him I am sure that he will probably enjoy it very much as well."

"When he arrives we will get in touch with you," I said. "Thanks."

"No thanks. The Corps takes care of its own.

I had locked our dressing-room door when we left-and it was still locked. Obviously this hadn't slowed down the once again male Bolivar who was now staring at the computer screen.

"Your disguise obviously worked," Angelina said. "I'll pack those clothes away." He nodded abstractedly as he typed a quick command into the machine.

"Interesting," he said. I made quizzical noises.

"I have been using the search engine on your employer."

"Chaise? Have you found anything of interest?"

"A good deal. For one thing-he doesn't exist."

"He must! We have met him!"

"I don't mean the physical form, he was there all right. I mean the story about Imperetrix Von Kaiser-Czarski, the richest man in the galaxy. I can find no trace of him."

"Those banks he owns-all over the galaxy…"

"Are not owned by him. They are held by corporations who in turn are owned by other corporations. I have traced back through a number of owners and they all appear to be. different. No trace of Chaise. It looks like everything that he has told you is a lie."

My head was beginning to hurt. I sat down heavily and checked off the facts on my fingertips. "Firstly-he must be very rich or he would not be paying us four million credits a day. Except for yesterday of course. I checked. Not only didn't he deposit the money-he left a very insulting note."

"Of course he paid you. You had to think that he was whom he said he was. The large sums involved made his story plausible. Think how suspicious you would have been if had offered, say, a hundred credits a day."

"I would have kicked him out! But let us stick with what we know. Secondly, we know that all those banks on all those planets were robbed-that's a matter of public record."

"They were indeed. It is the secondary information about those planets that I am concerned about."

"Such as?"

"The circus performances, what acts were playing on what dates, that kind of thing."

The coin was slowly dropping into the slot.

"Of course! When you examine a database there is no way of telling if the events ever really happened as they are listedor if they are figments of imagination that a skilled hacker had planted. And there is no way of determining facts from planted facts on a distant planet without getting right into the records themselves, to see if they had been altered. Which, of course, cannot be done from light-years away."

"My thinking exactly. Which is why I have been snooping around in the databases here on Fetorr. Without much success. There are security locks on almost everything except train timetables. Lots of electronic doors were slammed in my screen."

"They don't like snooping."

"I was sure of that before I started. So I routed all my queries though a number of other systems. I didn't want them getting back to this computer."

Even before he had finished speaking the words there was a hammering on the dressing-room door.

"Open up in there! You have thirty seconds to comply before we break this door down."

"Who is there," Angelina said.

"Computer Crime Corps. Do not attempt to resist. You are guilty of illegal computer use and the searching of restricted files."