The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge

"I doubt it—not unless you come up with some bright idea very quickly. They have a solid ring with aerial cover around the area and are tightening it." I was still recovering from the heroic treatment of the drive-right pill and had not collected all my wits. There was a direct connection from my muddled thoughts to my vocal cords that had no intervening censor of intelligence.

"A great start to marriage. If this is what it is like no wonder I have been avoiding it all these years."

The car swung off the road and shuddered to a stop in the deep grass under a row of blue-leaved trees. Angelina was out, had slammed the door and was reaching for her bag before I had time to react. I tried to tell her.

"I'm a fool…"

"Then I'm a fool too for marrying you." She was dry eyed and cold of voice with all of her emotions strictly under control. "I tricked you and trapped you into marriage because it was what I thought you really wanted. I was wrong, so it is going to end right now before it really gets started. I'm sorry, Jim. You made an entirely new life for me and thought I could make one for you. It has been fun knowing you. Thank you and good-by."

By the time she had finished, my thoughts had congealed into something roughly resembling their normal shape and I was weak but ready. I was out of the car before she had finished talking and standing in front of her, blocking her way, holding her most gently by the arms.

"Angelina, I will tell you this but once and probably never again the rest of my life. So listen well and remember. At one time I was the best crook in the galaxy, before I was conned into the Special Corps to help catch other erodes. And I caught you. Not only were you a crook but a mastermind criminal as well and a cheerfully sadistic murderess. " I felt her body shiver in my hands and held her tighter. "It has to be said, because that is what you were. You aren't any more. You had reasons to be that way and the reasons have been removed and some unhappy quirks in your otherwise pristine cortex have been straightened out. And now I love you. But I want to remember that I loved you even then during your unreconstructed days, which is saying a lot. So if I buck at the harness now, or am difficult to deal with in the mornings, just remember that and make allowances. Is it a deal?"

It apparently was. She dropped the bag—on my toe, but I dared not flinch—and wrapped her arms around me and was kissing me and knocked me over into the deep grass and I had a jolly time kissing her right back. The newlywed effect I suppose you would call it, great fun…

We froze, rigid, as a pair of flywheel cycles moaned and skidded to a stop by our car. Only the police used these since they move a good deal faster than the peat-powered steamers. They are tricycle affairs with a great heavy flywheel encased between the rear wheels. They plugged them in at night so their motor-generators could run the flywheel up to top speed. During the day the flywheel generated electricity to drive the motors in each wheel. Very efficient and smog-free. Very dangerous.

"This is the car, Fodder!" one of the police shouted out over the constant moan of the flywheels.

"I'll call it in. They can't have gone far. We sure have them trapped now!"

Nothing infuriates me like the bland assurances of petty officials. Oh yes, really trapped now. I growled deep in my throat as the other uniformed incompetent poked his nose around the car and gaped at our cozy cuddle in the grass. He was still gaping when I lunged an arm up and around his neck with a tight squeeze on his throat and pulled him down to join us. It was fun to watch his tongue come out and his eyes pop and his head turn red but Angelina spoiled it. She whipped off his helmet and rapped him smartly—and accurately—on the temple with the heel of her shoe. He turned off and I let him drop.

"And you talk about me," my bride whispered. "You've got more than a touch of the old sadist in your own makeup."

"I called it in. Everybody knows. We've sure got than now…" the enthusiastic remaining officer said, but his voice rattled to a stop when he looked down the muzzle of his associate's riot gun. Angelina dug a sleep capsule out of her bag and snapped it under his nose.

"And now what, boss?" she asked, smiling happily at the two black-uniformed, brass-buttoned figures by the side of the road.

"I have been thinking," I said, and rubbed my jaw and frowned with deep concentration to prove it. "We have had over four months of worry-less holiday, but all good things must end. We could extend our leave. But it would be hectic to say the least and people would get hurt and you—while that is a fine shape—it is not quite the shape for flight aid pursuit and general nastiness. Shall we return to the service from which we fled?"

"I was hoping you would say that. Morning sickness and bank robbery just don't seem to mix. It will be fun to get back."