The Golden Years of the Stainless Steel Rat

The transparent cover of my cheap plastic watch was so scratched that I could barely make out the numbers. I held it up to the light, twisted it and panted with the effort, finally made out the time.

"Dinner at six, oh deary me. Must get out when the door unlocks." I shuffled up to it just when the lock clicked open, pulled it wide, and stumbled through.

It was pretty obvious where the chow hall was, with the feeble horde of gray-clad geriatric figures all shuffling in the same direction. I joined the shuffle, took a tray at the entrance, held it out for dollops of institutional sludge. I could not tell what it was by looking at it, knew even less after I had tasted it. Well, hopefully it contained nourishment. I spooned it up with trembling hand.

"I never seen you before," the octogenarian seated beside me said suspiciously. "You a police spy?"

"I'm a convicted felon."

"Welcome to Purgy, heh-hee," he chuckled, cheered to see a newcomer. "Ever hijack a spaceship?"

"Once or twice."

"I did three. Third was a mistake. It was a decoy. But I ran out of credits, bad investments, nearing eighty and couldn't see so well..."

The reminiscences droned on like a babbling brook and were just about as interesting. I let them burble while I finished my muckburger and gunge. As I was choking down the last depressing morsel a familiar and detested voice cut through the clatter and slurp.

"Rusty Rat. You're finished with your dinner. So rattle your ancient bones to see the doc. Now."

"How do I find him?"

"Follow the green arrows on the wall, numbnuts. The green ones with the little red cross. Go."

I dragged to my feet and went. There were arrows of different colors pointing in both directions on the corridor walls. I blinked and leaned close and made out the ones I needed. Lurched off to the left.

"Come in, sit down, answer my questions, are you incontinent?" The doctor was young, in a hurry, impatient. I scratched my head and muttered.

"Don't rightly know..."

"You must know!"

"Not really. Don't know what the word means."

"Bed-wetting! Do you wet the bed at night?"

"Only when I'm drunk."

"Not much chance of that in here diGriz. I've been looking at your charts. You're a wreck. Spots on the lung, pins in the hips, staples in the skull—"

"I led a rough life, Doc."

"Without a doubt. And your electrolytes are all skewed. I'll give you a couple of shots now to slow the deterioration, then you take one of these pills three times a day."

I took the jar and blinked at the bullet-sized tablets.

"Kind of big."

"And you're kind of ill. Specially formulated for your multiple problems. Keep them with you at all times. A buzzer in the lid will tell you when to take one. Now—roll up your sleeve."

He wielded a wicked needle. I swear the point hit bone a couple of times. With aching arms I stumbled around looking for my room, got lost, got put right by passing attendants, finally found it. The door locked when I closed it and a few minutes later the lights began to dim. I fumbled off my clothes, fumbled on the sickly orange pajamas, dropped onto the bed, and was just pulling up the covers when the lights went out.

This was it. End of the line. Purgy. The purgatory before hell. Fed and healed to make the stay that much longer. The sentence with only one end.

Oh yeah! I said silently to myself, and permitted a wide grin to brush my lips under the cover of the blankets. My back itched under the transparent plastic patches and I scratched them happily. They were invisible to the eye, but coated with a lead-antimony alloy that blocked X rays. I had gambled on the fact that this place would not have expensive tomographs or such—and had won. On the two-dimensional X-ray plates the plastic patches on my legs looked like metal pins, on my skull dark staples. They had done their job, would dissolve and vanish the next time I washed.

I had done it! The first part of this operation was complete. Finding out about this hospital-prison had been the hardest part. It took a lot of risky work getting into planetary-government files before I managed to track it down. Risky but interesting. Guiding the twins in their successful semilegal careers had kept Angelina and me pretty busy. Now that they were successful, and rich I must add, we had been enjoying what might be called semiretirement. This suited Angelina quite well since she was happy with all those pleasure planets and luxury cruises. I, as you might very well imagine, loathed it. If I hadn't been able to polish off the occasional bank or lift a lucrative space yacht I might have gone around the twist. But it wasn't real work. Then this wonderful opportunity had revealed itself. A tiny item in the nightly news. I printed it out and brought it to Angelina. She read it swiftly, put it down in silence.

"We ought to do something," I had said.

"No" was her quick response.

"I think we owe him something—or at least you do."

"Nonsense. A grown man makes his own decisions."

"Yes, of course. I still want to find out where they have sent him."