The Stainless Steel Rat for President

"That's more like it," she said. "A little holiday from crime will do us both a world of good." "Then we were on the ground and the lock was opened; warm air and sweet music rolled in from outside. I settled my camera around my neck, put on my sunglasses, took Angelina by the arm and joined the ecstatic throng. Their happiness was catching. Angelina caught it, smiling and laughing with the others, humming along with the catchy music. I was immune. I chortled and grimaced with the best of them, but inside it was the same old hot-tempered and cold-blooded diGriz who peeped out at the world.

But it was hard to be a curmudgeon in a place like this. The spaceport was sited at the ocean's edge; the salt tang in the air was delicious and sharp. The sun was as warm as advertised. Smiling native girls, bare-busted and buxom, greeting the tourists with wreaths of flowers and tiny bottles of some golden beverage. I pocketed the bottle and sniffed the flowers, pretending indifference to the mammalian magnificence on all sides, knowing full well that Angelina had her steely eyes on me. The crowd of voyagers moved forward so smoothly that within a few moments we were facing the official at passport control. He was as brown-skinned and smiling as the girls, but was wearing a shirt, no doubt to demonstrate his executive position.

"Bonvenu al faraiso-Aqui," he said, extending his hand. "Viaj pasportoj, mi petas." "So you speak Esperanto on this planet," I said, responding in the same language as I passed over my interstellar identity card. Forged of course.

"Not everyone," he said, still smiling, as he slipped the card into the machine before him. "Our language is the beautiful Espanol. But everyone you will meet will speak Esperanto, have no fear." He looked at the machine's screen while he talked, which of course revealed nothing except the blandest untrue information about me. When he returned the card he pointed to the gadget-covered camera about my neck.

"That is indeed a fine photographic apparatus you have there." "It should be-cost me more credits than you see in a year I bet, ho-ho." "Ho-ho,";he echoed, the smile not quite so sincere now. "May I look at this machine?" "Why? It's just a camera." "There are certain regulations about cameras, you see." "Why? Got something to hide?" The smile was definitely pasted on now and his fingers were twitching. I smiled back-then passed over the camera. "Careful now, that's a delicate machine." He took it from me and the back instantly sprang open. As it had been rigged to do. Coils of film rolled out. I grabbed it back.

"Now look what you've gone and done!" I wailed. "Spoiled all the film of my wife and our friends on the ship, and everything." I struggled with the film and ignored his apologies-and walked pasthim with Angelina at my side. All according to plan. Our luggage was clean and we had no concealed devices about our persons. But the camera was a masterpiece of complicated gadgetry. It would take pictures-and do a number of other interesting things, all of which were strictly illegal. The day was starting well.

"My goodness, look at that!" Angelina squealed, an exact imitation of the other squeals rising on all sides. "Are they dangerous?" "What are they?" "Please, ladies and gentlemen, if I could have your attention. " A uniformed guide spoke to us through a voice amplifier. "My name is Jorge and I am your tourist representative. If you have any questions, please come to me. I will now answer the first question that I know you are all asking. These friendly creatures between the traces of the little wagons are known as caballos in our language. Their history is lost in the midst of time, but the story is told that they came with us from the legendary planet called Earth, or Dirt, the fabled home of mankind. They are our friends, harmless creatures who pull our wagons and till our fields. Unprotesting and happy, they will convey you to your hotels. We leave!" The cabaUos, and their rickety wagons, combined to provide one of the most uncomfortable modes of transportation I had ever had the misfortune to experience. And they weren't caballos at all but hay-burning horses which I had encountered before during an unplanned trip through time to Earth, the very real and unlegendary home of all mankind. But I wasn't mentioning that in the present company. Who, despite the discomfort of the journey, were laughing and calling out shrilly to each other. Even Angelina seemed to be enjoying herself. I felt like a skeleton at a wedding.