The Stainless Steel Rat

"Galactic medals, your majesty. A younger son of the provincial nobility, his family impoverished by the greedy and corrupt, can find little opportunity to advance himself here on Freibur. That is why I took service offplanet and served for the best years of my youth in the Stellar Guard. These are for commonplace happenings such as battles, invasions and space boardings. But this is the one I can really take pride in—" Ifingered through the jingling hardware until I came to an unsightly thing, all comets, novas and sparkling lights. "This is the Stellar Star, the most prized award in the Guards." I took it in my hand and gave it a long look. In fact I think it was a Guard decoration, given out for re-enlisting or five years of K.P. or some such.

"It's beautiful," the Queen said. Her taste in medals was no better than her taste in clothes, but what can you expect on these backward planets.

"It is that," I agreed. "I don't enjoy describing the medal's history, but if it is a royal command… ?"It was, and given very coyly indeed. I lied about my exploits for awhile and kept them all interested. There would be plenty of talk about me in the morning and I hoped some of it would trickle down to Angelina's ears, wherever she was hiding. Thinking of her took the edge off my fun, and I managed to excuse myself and go back to the bar.

I spent the rest of the evening talking up the wonders of my imaginary history to everyone I could nail. Most of them seemed to enjoy it, since the court was normally short on laughs. The only one who didn't seem to be getting a charge out of it wasmyself. Though the plan had seemed good at first, the more I became involved with it the slower it appeared. I might flutter around the fringe of these fantastically dull court circles for months without finding a lead to Angelina. The process had to be accelerated. There was one idea drifting in and out of my head, but it bordered on madness. If it misfired I would be either dead or barred from these noble circles forever. This last was a fate I could easily stand—but it wouldn't help me find my lovely quarry. However—if the plan did work it would shortcut all the other nonsense. I flipped a coin to decide, and of course won since I had palmed the coin before the toss. It was going to be action.

Before coming I had pocketed a few items that might come in handy during the course of the evening. One of them was a surefire introduction to the King in case I felt that getting nearer to him might be of some importance. I slipped this into an outer pocket, filled the largest glass I could find with sweet wine, and trundled through the cavernous rooms in search of my prey.

If King Villelm had been crocked when he arrived, he was now almost paralyzed. He must have had a steel bar sewn into the back of his white uniform jacket because I swear his own spine shouldn't have held him up. But he was still drinking and swaying back and forth, his head bobbing as though it were loosely attached. He had a crowd of old boys around him and they must have been swapping off-color stories because they gave me varying degrees of get-lost looks when I trundled up and snapped to attention. I was bigger than most of them and must have made a nice blob of color because I caughtVilly'seye and the head slowly slewed around in my direction. One of his octogenarian cronies had met me earlier in the evening and was forced to make the introduction.

"A very great pleasure to meet your majesty," I droned with a bit of a drunken blur to my voice. Not that the King noticed, but some of the others did and scowled. "I am by way of being a bit of an entomologist myself, if you will pardon the expression, hoping to follow in your royal footsteps. I am keen on this and feel that greater attention should be paid on Freibur, more respect given I should say, and more opportunity taken to utilize the advantageous aspects of theforminifera[?], lepidoptera and all the others. Heraldry, for instance, the flags might utilize the more visual aspects of insects…"

I babbled on like this for a while, the crowd getting impatient with the unwanted interruption.The King—who wasn't getting in more than one word in ten—got tired of nodding after a while and his attention began to wander.My voice thickened and blurred and I could see them wondering how to get rid of the drunk. When the first tentative hand reached out for my elbow I played my trump card.

"Because of your majesty's interest," I said, fumbling in my pocket, "I carefully kept this specimen, carrying it across the countless light years to reach its logical resting place, your highness's collection." Pulling out the flat plastic case, I held it under his nose. With an effort he blinked his watery eyes back into focus and let out a little gasp. The others crowded around and I gave them a few seconds to enjoy the thing.