The Stainless Steel Rat

Someone else was coming down, someone wearing the same kind of military boots. I found the door to the hall, opened it behind me and slipped through. There was a long hall in front of me lined with offices of some kind. I began to run the length of it, trying to reach a turning before the door behind me could open and those exploding slugs tear me in half. The hall seemed endless and I suddenly realized I would never reach the end in time.

I was a rat looking for a hole—and there was none. The doors were locked, all of them, I tried each as I came to it, knowing I would never make it. That stairwell door was opening behind me and the gun was coming up. I didn't dare turn and look but I could feel it. When the door opened under my hand I fell through before I realized what had happened. I locked it behind me and leaned against it in the darkness, panting like a spent animal. Then the light came on and I saw the man sitting behind the desk, smiling at me.

There is a limit to the amount of shock the human body can absorb. I'd had mine. I didn't care if he shot me or offered a cigarette—I had reached the end of my line. He did neither. He offered me a cigar instead.

"Have one of these,diGriz,I believe they're your brand."

The body is a slave of habit. Even with death a few inches away it will respond to established custom. My fingers moved of their own volition and took the cigar, my lips clenched it and my lungs sucked it into life. And all the time my eyes watched the man behind the desk waiting for death to reach out.

It must have shown. He waved towards a chair and carefully kept both hands in sight on top of the desk. I still had my gun, it was trained on him.

"Sit down diGriz and put that cannon away. If I wanted to kill you, I could have done it a lot easier than herding you into this room." His eyebrows moved up in surprise when he saw the expression on my face. "Don't tell me you thought it was an accident that you ended up here?"

I had, up until that moment, and the lack of intelligent reasoning on my part brought on a wave of shame that snapped me back to reality. I had been outwitted and outfought, the least I could do was surrender graciously. I threw the gun on the desk and dropped into the offered chair. He swept the pistol neatly into a drawer and relaxed a bit himself.

"Hadmeworried there for a minute, the way you stood there rolling your eyes and waving this piece of field artillery around."

"Who are you?"

He smiled at the abruptness of my tone. "Well, it doesn't matter who I am. What does matter is the organization that I represent."

"The Corps?"

"Exactly.The Special Corps.You didn't think I was the local police, did you? They have orders to shoot you on sight. It was only after I told them how to find you that they let the Corps come along on the job. I have some of my men in thebuilding,they're the ones who herded you up here. The rest are all locals with itchy trigger fingers."

It wasn't very flattering but it was true. I had been pushed around like a class M robot, with every move charted in advance.The old boy behind the desk—for the first time I realized he was about sixty-five—really had my number.The game was over.

"All right Mr.Detective,you have me so there is no sense in gloating. What's next on the program?Psychological reorientation, lobotomy—or just plain firing squad?"

"None of those.I'm afraid. I am here to offer you a jobin[?] the Corps."

The whole thing was so ludicrous that I almost fell out of the chair laughing.Me. James diGriz, the interplanet thief working as a policeman.It was just too funny. He sat patiently, waiting until I was through.

"I will admit it has its ludicrous side—but only at first glance. If you stop to think, you will have to admit that who is better qualified to catch a thief than another thief?"

There was more than a little truth in that, but I wasn't buying my freedom by turning stool pigeon.

"An interesting offer, but I'm not getting out of this by playing the rat. There is even a code among thieves, you know."

That made him angry. He was bigger than he looked sitting down and the fist he shook in my face was as large as a shoe.

"What kind of stupidity do you call that? It sounds like a line out of a TV thriller. You've never met another crook in your whole life and you know it! And if you did you would cheerfully turn him in if you could make a profit on the deal. The entire essence of your life is individualism—that and the excitement of doing what others can't do. Well that's over now, and you better start admitting it to yourself. You can no longer be the interplanet playboy you used to be—but you can do a job that will require every bit of your special talents and abilities. Have you ever killed a man?"

His change of pace caught me off guard, I stumbled out an answer.

"No… not that I know of."