The Stainless Steel Rat Joins the Circus

Chapter 9

The Police, of all kinds, were entirely too efficient here on Fetorr. I looked around desperately. There were no windows in the room and but the single door. There was only the screen, which offered privacy when changing costumes, which might provide even a feeble chance to hide our son.

"Bolivar-behind the screen!" I hissed. He was across the room in an instant: the door shuddered and creaked as it was pounded. "Stop hammering-I'm coming!" I shouted.

Angelina was moving too. She closed the computer and put it on the floor, then pulled the armchair in front of the screen, sat down on it. Holding tight to Gloriana's chain as the disturbed porcuswine champed and raked the floor, her quills all aquiver. I went and unlocked the door and threw it wide. "Did you knock?" I asked sweetly.

He was immensely fat with hanging jowls and giant belly. He pointed an accusatory finger at me and said, "You have been using an illegal computer on these premises."

"Never ! "

"Search this room carefully, Hafifu," he ordered. His partner, who was about as skinny as his commander was fat, scuttled into the room. He looked around slowly, beady eyes glinting, thin nose twitching like a rat's. He looked at the computer, then looked away. Undoubtedly mistaking the computer for a leather suitcase.

"I don't see no computer here," he said in a thin and reedy voice.

"Then look behind that screen," the fat cop blurbled. "You saw the readings. There is a computer in this room someplace. Our detectors never lie."

Hafifu obeyed the command and walked over and started to look behind the screen. Screamed and retreated as flashing tusks savaged his trouser legs, not to mention his ankles. Instant decision was needed-and saving Bolivar was far important than saving the computer.

"Step back!" I ordered. "That is a savage watchpig trained to kill anyone foolish enough to approach its owner. In any case-the computer is over there. It is built into that suitcase."

Hafifu circled wide of his porcine persecutor and grabbed up the computer. He opened it, pulled out the keyboard, turned it on and typed furiously. "This is indeed the criminal instrument," he squeaked.

"What criminal? I was just searching the public records. Is that against the law?"

"Yes!" Fatty said with great enthusiasm. "That is because there are no public records here on Fetorr—everything on record is private. I am confiscating this machine." Hafifu was out the door with it before I could raise a word of protest. "As well as fining you five hundred credits for attempting to illegally access the private public records."

"You can't do that!"

"I certainly can. With power vested in me by the state I can make on-the-spot fines, as specified by the statues. If you have reason to believe this confiscation is doubtful in any way you may ask for a trial."

"A trial, right!"

"That will require a two-thousand-credit deposit for the trial chamber, plus a five-hundred-credit fee for the judge."

I opened my mouth to protest. Shut it when I realized I was being stupid. "Do you take checks?"

"Yes-but there is a fine equal to double the amount of the check if it bounces."

Angelina let out a bit of chain as I scribbled the check. I didn't have a Fetorr bank account. I wrote a check for five hundred Galactic Credits. I remembered that they were on a par with the Fetorr Credit. Gloriana grunted ferociously and hurled herself forwards. Fats lurched towards the doorway, grabbed the check in passing and was gone. I locked the door behind him.

"Very efficient," Bolivar said, emerging from behind the screen. "We are going to need a new computer."

"We probably will, eventually," I said. "But they seem to be as much use as doorstops on Fetorr. For the time being we will just have use our own brains-which were around long before the electronic ones were invented."

"And writing as well," Angelina said, taking a pad and stylo from the drawer of her dressing table. "Let us first list what we know-and then what we must find out."

"Right," I said as I paced the floor and cudgeled my slightly fuzzy brain. "There is the ongoing mystery about our employer, which is not germane at the present moment in time. Who or what he is can wait …"

"As long he keeps depositing payments daily," Angelina said with great practicality.

"Very true. And we can forget all the other banks on the other planets that were robbed as well. They may not have any relevance to this investigation, since the facts that apparently linked them together were probably fabricated."

"Why?" Bolivar asked.

"That is the question we must answer. The easy answer is that Chaise wanted us to come to this planet. Ostensibly to investigate the bank thefts. Though I am beginning to doubt that story as well. Why he did it in this roundabout way is not important now. We are here and on the job."

"And theoretically investigating Puissanto," Angelina said. "Which, as I dimly remember, was the reason we came here in the first place. Shouldn't we take a closer look at him?"

"We should-but things have been rolling downhill at a furious rate," Bolivar said. "What with a bank being robbed almost as soon as we got here. And me being fingered as the criminal."

I shook my head. "I think that was pretty accidental. The thieves had no way of knowing you would be here when they planned their heist."

"I agree," Angelina said. "Chaise went to a lot of effort to get us here at this time. Bolivar's arrival certainly wasn't part of whatever game plan he is pursuing."

"What is his plan?" I asked, then answered myself. "For us to find the thieves who are emptying out his bank or banks. To do that we must first find out just how the bank was robbed. We need someone on the inside-that's why it was perfect when Bolivar was working there."

"I'm not working there any longer."

As he said this, and I considered the implications-inspiration struck.

"Yes you are. You will be restored to your former pinnacle of banking success."

"For about two seconds before the police arrive."

I rubbed my hands together with gleeful self-admiration. "They won't arrest you because they will think you are your twin brother James. Who will come here as soon as he is summoned-and incidentally will bring along a new computer."

"How will that help?" Angelina asked. "James knows nothing about banks."

"But Bolivar does!" I chortled. "He will just resume his old position. Since Chaise owns the bank he will help us to fake the identification, retina patterns and all that."

"Congratulations," Bolivar said. "It sounds so insane that it has to work."

"I agree," Angelina said. "I'll send an interstellargram right now to tell him that his presence is strongly requested."

She unleashed Gloriana, who scratched under her collar with a rear hoof. Then the pleasant rattle of quills stopped suddenly. She was on her feet, head cocked and ears erect. I touched my finger to my lips-then pointed to the door. There was a gentle scratching there. Bolivar slipped back behind the screen as Gloriana trotted over to the door, muttering swinish oaths in the back of her throat. Something white appeared under the door and she had it in a flash.

"A sheet of paper-a message perhaps," I said. "Good swinelet, bring it to daddy."

She click-clacked across the floor and dropped it at my feet. I turned it over and read: "Burping Barney's Robot Takeaway-free and most speedy delivery."

"Sounds interesting," Bolivar said, emerging from his hiding place. "It has been a long time since breakfast."

"Featuring free beer with every order over fifteen credits. Vegetarian nutburgers, carnivore girafburgers, Styrofoam dietburgers—plenty of good stuff."

Angelina phoned in the order and the service really was fast; there was a tootling of tinny trumpets in the hall. Even before Angelina had contacted the local communication center and finished phoning in her interstellargram. The robot steam table-shaped for some obscure marketing reason like a coffin-rolled in. Accompanied by a recorded organ recital and the smell of ancient grease. I poured in five-credit coins until a bell dinged and the coffin lid flew open. The food was hot, the beer cold, and the damned coffin stayed there playing gloomy liturgical music until I stuffed more coins into the tip slot and kicked its wheels until it exited.

"Good," I said as I licked my fingers and watched Gloriana munch her way delicately through a spiced bananaburger.

"Too greasy," Angelina said, "as well as being bad for the waistline." Then she picked up the phone when it chimed. Listened and nodded. "Ten minutes," she said, then hung up.

"That was the front box office. A reporter from the Fetorr Times-Picayune wants to interview the Mighty Marvell for their Live Today, Everyday Program. You must remember that we show people do thrive on publicity, so I said yes." She rose and beckoned to Bolivar. "This dressing room is getting entirely too busy. Come Believer, let us get you over to Gar's before the press arrives."

I changed into my tail suit, and was just tying my tie when there was a discreet tapping on the door. I opened it and stared up at the large and impressive silver robot that was standing there.

"Greetings," it said in a mellow voice. "I am robreporter number thirteen, representing the Fetorr Times-Picayune. A friendly newschannel bringing you all the news as it breaks. Here is my identification." It extruded a green press pass from a slot in its thorax, gave me a quick glimpse, then pushed it back out of sight.

"Might I come in? Thank you." I jumped aside before it ran me down. "It is rather dark in here. I will need more light."

The transparent top of the creature's domed head flared brilliantly. A camera popped out of its chest, pointed at me. A directional satellite dish on the creature's back buzzed as it oriented itself. Then a screen just below the camera lit up and I was staring at my glazed expression; I smiled theatrically and showed my teeth, which was a bit of an improvement. Number thirteen began to speak.

"Greetings to all our viewers with the news as it happens, where it happens, why it happens, however it happens. This is Baridi Baraka, your favorite reporter on the magical scene now with none other than the Mighty Marvell."

The camera lens whirred and my image on the screen was joined by a dark-skinned man in a green suit who was apparently talking to me. Only he wasn't there. I mean in the room with me-but he was on the televised image. Which meant that he was just a computer-generated image of a reporter. They saved a lot of money this way.

"Now tell me, Mighty Marvell—what is it like to be a magician?"

"It is a laugh a minute, Baridi old friend. Something is always happening. Like this."

I waved my hand in the air, distraction, then raised my other hand with a bouquet of black flowers apparently plucked from thin air. And held them out to thin air. On the screen the reporter bent over and sniffed them, smiled with pleasure.

"I tell you viewers-real flowers, just like that, smell great too. You are a master of your profession, Marvell, I can see that. Do you like being a magician?"

"Like it, Baridi old buddy-I just love it. I love to travel and love to entertain crowds." The door opened and Angelina came in. I waved her over with an expansive gesture. "And even more I love my assistant, Angelina, who never minds being sawn in half every evening and a matinee on Saturday."

"Hi, Angelina," our invisible interviewer said. "Say `Hi!' to the millions of viewers out there who are hooked on magicand hooked on you as well, of course. Now, without giving away any magic secrets, just how do you get sawn in half?"

Angelina smiled deliciously, and was beginning to explain absolutely nothing in words of one syllable or less to the millions of morons who were watching daytime television, when our friendly reporter broke in. The computergenerated reporter had been nodding his head as if he had understood every word. When she had spoken for exactly thirty seconds-which was probably the attention span of his viewers-he interrupted and thanked her. Turned back to me.

"Tell our viewers, Mighty Marvel, what was the most exciting moment in your exciting career?"

"That's an easy one. It was during a performance I was giving on a distant planet named Wirtschaftlich, much given to farming and like pursuits, that there was an accident in the road outside the theater. One of the vehicles involved was a farm vehicle transporting a ravening porcuswine in must. It escaped from the battered transport and attacked the theater doorman, obviously enraged by his red uniform. The doorman fled into the theater with the great beast right behind him. I knew instantly what I had to do. I ran towards the creature, crying aloud and flapping my cloak, which has a red lining. The beast then charged me! The ending is obvious. I lifted my magic wand and, before the horrified gaze of the audience-did my vanishing porcuswine act. Would you believe the creature was gone in an instant?"

"No, I wouldn't believe it."

"I would wring your computer-generated neck if I could get my hand on it!" I shouted as my hands clutched at empty space. It looked better on the screen as I happily throttled him.

"Temper, darling, temper," Angelina said soothingly, gently pulling me away from my tormenter.

"Well, if you put it that way, ha-ha, of course I believe you. Now, Mighty Marvell-and Angelina-don't go away quite yet because I know that you have plenty more exciting anecdotes to tell about the marvels of magic to our millions of viewers. But I have been told that a big news story is breaking. Over to Patikana Peke who is, yes, now at the very scene of the crime." The screen flared, died, brightened again with another computerized reporter standing in front of a bank.

"Just behind me," the image said, "is the BankrottGeistesabwesed Bank. Peaceful and prosperous. Even if its name is unpronounceable, until a short while ago and just about to open for the day when this happened." The screen widened to take in the front of the bank, now torn open. Computergenerated oohs and ahhs oohed and ahhed, along with the sound of breaking glass. "Hard as it to believe that this bank robbery occurred right in the middle of the day, right here in lovely downtown Fetorrscoria. One moment peace and prosperity reigned. The next moment…" An immense explosion echoed out, followed by more breaking glass. "This was happening. The bank was not broken into-it was broken out of? The thieves apparently gained access to the money vault sometime last night and entered the vault. Not only did they break into the vault-but they took their armored motorcycles inside with them. Well! I'll bet you can just imagine the look on the bank manager's face when he spun the wheel and opened the vault door! Vroom! Right out of the vault they came-and right over him. If you look closely you will see him lying inside the bank and being treated for wheel marks. Over him and across the lobby and right through the plate-glass window of the bank. To instantly be lost in traffic. A city-wide police hunt is on for the thieves. Keep watching and we will bring you this incredible story as it breaks. I have a bulletin, stand by, yes. They have made good their crime. They have escaped in broad daylight, taking their loot with them. The police made contact and pursued them but, unhappily, they have now managed to make their escape into the industrial zone by leaping a high wall on a prepared ramp."

There were more quick scenes of crowds at barricades, police holding them back, confusion and alarms. Then a grayhaired uniformed officer emerged from the bank and walked towards the reporter who managed to keep on talking without flagging in the slightest.

"And there is more news-evidence has been found at the scene of the crime. Evidence that may lead the police to the thieves, to track them down and apprehend them. Tell us what you have there, captain!"

"Evidence. Found in the vault. A telltale clue we are sure."

"What is it?"

"A clue."

"Yes, you said that." Did I detect a note of electronic exasperation? "Would you please tell our millions of viewers just what kind of a clue you are holding in your hands?"

They were big hands, and the camera was jiggling around irritatingly trying to see the clue in question. "A metal clue," the policeman said. Then finally held up the object in question. "As you can see I am holding what appears to be a cutout figure made of thin metal of some kind, of a sort of rodent, a mouse maybe."

The camera panned in until the object filled the screen.

"The captain is right, yes he is, that is a metal rodent if I ever saw one. Too big to be a mouse, it must be a rat. Yes, screen viewers, you can see it now very clearly."

And, yes we could see it very clearly.

"Stop me if I am wrong viewers. But I do believe, yes it is-that must be an image of-a stainless steel rat!"