The Stainless Steel Rat for President

Then he bent forward and cut the man's throat with a single vicious swipe of the sharp knife. There was a gurgling cry as the blood spurted out of the awful wound. It was very realistic.

"Take the body away!" I shouted, and turned back to the captain. If I had been impressed-even though I knew that the flesh-colored apparatus filled with blood had been fixed to the front of the man's neck, that the shriek came from an apparatus in the knife-well, you can imagine the effect this had on the captain. He staggered and the blood drained from his space-tanned face. I had made my point.

There were no problems after that. Both captain and crew cooperated to the best of their ability. We cleared for takeoff with spaceport control and lifted into orbit. As we were jockeying into position near the first satellite, the boys opened the crate and extracted one of the self-powered interrupters. I had been studying the wiring diagram of the satellite and had pinpointed the place where it should be connected. The wire leads were color-coded; there would be no problems. "I'll suit up now," I said.

"Let one of the boys go," Angelina said. "Your ribs aren't healed yet." "Healed enough to get this job done. There'11 be enough work for all of us if we are to install these on every satellite. I want to put the first one in myself in case there are any problems. " "You just want the glory-and the fun of a spacewalk." "I couldn't agree more. Without a little excitement life would be so dull." And it was indeed fun. The blue globe of Paraiso-Aqui floated serenely below me, clear and sharp. I admired it briefly, then jetted over to the communication satellite, ducking under the outstretched arms of solar cells and up to the pitted central structure. It was the work of a moment to find the right plate and to swing open the hatch in the thick insulating skin. The carefully constructed cannister slid into the opening, while a few touches of the plasma iron sealed the connecting wires into place.

"Ready for testing," I said into the radio.

"Right, testing now." Nothing was visible since all of the operating mechanisms were solid state and it is not easy to see electrons slipping through circuits. "Works fine. Cuts in and out just like it should." And so it went. The installation of the interrupter devices was not difficult or time-consuming, but matching orbits was. The ship's computer flashed its little numbers, which were translated into orbital positions, then into firing increments for the jets. The entire job took almost four days to complete and we were all getting more than a bit tired by the end.

"There are dark little satchels under your eyes," Angelina said, pushing the bottle of ron in my direction. "Which in a way rather balances the bloodshot condition of the eyes themselves. " "Well we're just about done. And we can rest when we get back. " We had just eaten so a single little ron should do me no harm. Might even help. It had been an exhausting job, because in addition to the work the crew had to be watched and guarded at all times. The boys looked as tired as I did. Only Angelina, who had labored as hard as any of us, showed no sign of stress. Eternal youth! The ron tasted good. "I wonder how the election campaign is going?" she asked.

"Slowly, I'm sure. But the marquez is holding the fort and issuing press releases every day-even if no one knows about them. Which situation will change as soon as we get back and put this new system into operation." "It's still unnerving to be out of touch with things for so long." She poured a tiny ron for herself and sipped it.

"We had no other choice. If the forces of evil knew what we were doing up here they would blast this ship out of the sky. They'll never think that anything is wrong here as long as we stick to routine transmissions, with the radio closed down the rest of the time. What's to worry? The election is still a month away. By election day we will have ninety-nine percent of the voters lined up behind us and it will be a landslide." "You're right, of course. It must be the fatigue that is putting all these strange fears into my head. After we all have had a bit of rest I'm sure that I'll be all right. I think." She scowled in my direction. "Now don't laugh, Jim diGriz or I'll break both your arms. But I have an intuition that something is very wrong." She looked at me very closely and I fought down any tendency to laugh, giggle or find fault with her in the slightest. In fact I had no such tendency at all. I shook my head and searched the bottom of the ron glass for an answer.

"Don't you laugh either," I said. "But something is bothering me too. The lack of contact I suppose. Though I can't imagine what could possibly go wrong at this time." "We'll know in a few hours," she said, most practically. "Now get down to the brig and send James up for his food." As she was saying this the spacesuited Bolivar clumped in, his helmet in his hand.