The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge

I slipped my hand from his treacherous embrace, wiped my fingers on my pants leg and grabbed back my cigar.

"I'm sure that you will see that I have the best funeral the Corps can afford. Now, would you care to squeeze out a few details or would you prefer to blindfold me and shoot me out in a one-way cargo rocket?"

"Temper, my boy, temper. The situation seems to be quite clear. There has been little word about this in the news media because of a certain political confusion surrounding the invasions, plus a rigid censorship by the planets under consideration. As we have reconstructed it—and good men have died getting this information—the responsible world is named Cliaand, the third planet in the Epsilon Indi system. There are two score planets orbiting this sun, but only three are inhabitable. And inhabited. Cliaand took over both the sister worlds some years ago, but we considered this no cause for alarm. What is alarming is the fact that they have expanded their scope. Interstellar conquest, heretofore considered an impossibility. They have invaded and conquered five other planets in nearby systems and seem poised for bigger and better things. We don't know how they are doing it, but they must be doing something right. We have had agents on the conquered worlds but have learned little of value. The decision has been made, a high level one I assure you—you would stand and salute if you heard some of the names of the people involved—that we must get a man to Cliaand to root out the problem at the core of the woodpile and cut the Gordian knot."

"Other than being contained in a mixed and disgusting metaphor I think the idea is a suicidal one. Instead of this we could…"

"You are going. There is no possible way to wriggle out of this one. Slippery Jim."

I tried. But nothing worked. I was given a copy of all the known details, a cortex recording of the language and the master key to a fast pursuit ship to take me there. I returned gloomily too our quarters where Angelina, tired of doing her hair and her nails, was throwing a knife at a head-sized target on the far wall. She was very good. Even underhand, after a quick draw from her arm sheath, she could hit the black spot of either eye.

"Let me get a pic of Inskipp," I said. "It will make a more interesting target and one that you can get a degree of pleasure out of."

"Is that evil old man sending my darling out on a job?"

"That dirty old goat is trying to get me killed. The assignment is so top secret I can't tell a soul about it, particularly you, so here are all the papers, read them for yourself."

While she did this I slipped the Cliaand language recording into the stamping machine. This recorded the material directly on my cortex without the boring and time consuming intermediary of any learning process. The first session would take about a half an hour with a dozen or more shorter reinforcing sessions after that. I would aid up speaking the language and having one hell of a headache from all the electronic fingering of my synapses. But there was a period of total unconsciousness while the machine operated and that was just what I felt like at the moment. I slipped the helmet down over my ears, settled on the couch and pressed the button.

There was a flicker of no time and Angelina was carefully lifting off the helmet and handing me a pill at the same instant. I swallowed it and kept my eyes closed while the pain ebbed away. Soft lips kissed mine.

"They are trying to kill you, but you will not let them. You will laugh and win and someday you will have Inskipp's job."

I opened one eye a crack and looked at her jubilant expression.

"Come home with my shield or on it? Go to glory or the grave? Are you worried about me?"

"All of the time. But that is a wife's job. I certainly cannot stand in the way of your career—"

"I didn't know I had one until you told me just now."

"—and will do everything I can to help."

"You can't come with me, for a very obvious and protruding reason."

"I know that. But I will be with you in spirit all the time. How are you going to land on this world?"

"Board my nimble pursuit ship, come in straight and fast behind a radar screen, zing down into the atmosphere—"

"And get blasted into your component atoms. Here, read this report by the survivor of the last ship to try this approach."

I read it. It was most depressing. I threw it back with the others.

"I heed the warning. This planet appears to be militarized to the hilt. I'll bet even the house pets wear uniforms. Bulling in like that is approaching these people on their own terms, competing in the area where they are best organized. What they are not organized against is a little bit of guile, some larceny, a smooth approach covering a devious attack. Insinuate, penetrate, operate and extirpate."

"All at once I am beginning not to like it," my love said, frowning. "You will take care of yourself, Jim? I don't think worrying would be good for me right now."