The Stainless Steell Rat Sings the Blues

"That's not my fault-you're the ones who lost the thing. You must understand that now I know all about it-as do all of my brothers in telepathekinesis who have been listening to my thoughts. But we are sworn to silence! If you wish your secret to remain a secret it will be secret. But you must aid us in keeping this secret secret. Look about you. See this ugly-looking type in the horned helmet? He is just about to kill me. And when you entered you probably stepped over the wreckage of a very armed and deadly machine-you did?, nod yes-good. That thing was going to kill me and my friend, but he got it first. So just turning off the temporooter and skedaddling is out of the question. You will leave behind a deadly and destructive situation."

"What must we do?" Vesta asked. Palm of my hand.

"First you will help me by permitting myself and my associates to escape before the time stasis has been turned off."

"That should be possible," Othred said.

"Then that's agreed. Secondly I will need another temporooter to take back with me…"

"Forbidden! Impossible!"

"Hear me out, will you please. Another temporooter to take back that does not function. A realistic fake that will disguise the fact that you and your machine have been here. Catch on?"

"No."

They sure bred them dumb in the future. Or without imagination or whatever. I took a deep breath.

"Look. I want you to remember that all the scientists here, in this time, know that there is a device of some kind that looks like your temporooter. Only they think that it is an alien artifact from the far past. Let us convince them that their assumption is true. If we do that, why no one will ever know about you and your lost equipment. Just have your technicians get some million-year-old rock and carve out something that looks like this. We'll pass it off as the original, the secret will be kept, honor satisfied, all's well that ends well."

"Excellent idea," Vesta said, and pulled a microphone from her armored suit. "I'll have one constructed now. It will be here in a second or two — "

"Wait. I have another small favor to ask. I will need certain functions built into the duplicate to convince our scientists that it is not a dummy. Just a simple device that will destruct after a single operation. This will pose absolutely no difficulties for your techs, I am sure."

It took me a bit longer to convince them of this necessity, but in the end they reluctantly agreed. The duplicate was an exact physical duplicate of the original. It blinked into existence floating in the air before us. Othred reached up and tugged; there was a popping sound as he pulled it down and handed it to me.

"Wonderful," I said, tucking it under my arm. "Shall we go?" They nodded agreement and put their helmets back on.

I had my temporal companions first release the stasis field on Floyd's hand so I could disarm him. Like our mutual enemy his finger was also tightening on the trigger. What a world of nascent danger do live in! I tucked the gun into my belt and nodded to the tempotechs.

Give Floyd that-his reflexes were great. He was twisting and chopping towards Othred's neck the second he moved — stopped when I called a halt.

"Friends, Floyd, Down boy! Ugly-looking monster friends who are getting us out of here. If you look around you, you will see that all our enemies are paralyzed with indecision-and will stay that way until we are gone. Don't trip over the pieces of the Killerbot on the way out. And, Vesta, if you please. Tap that fake ball of fur with your magic wand so it can join us."

"What the hell is going on?" Floyd said, blinking in confusion as he tried to understand what was happening.

"I feel that some explanation is in order," Aida said, and Fido barked with exasperation.

"Second the motion," Floyd said.

"Forthcoming. As soon as we are out of here. Will you be so kind as to lead the way back to the surface."

I turned to thank my temporal saviors, but they were already gone. Not only short on imagination but bereft of manners as well. And when they had vanished they had taken the time stasis with them; I could hear our footsteps for the first time. I looked back with a sudden feeling of horror but, right, the stasis was still working for the enemy as the silent form of the gun-toting snarling Commander indicated.

"Time to leave," I said. "Since I have no idea how long the nasties are going to stand around that way. Go?"

"Explain!" Floyd shouted. Not in the best of moods.

"In a moment," I equivocated — and stopped dead. For I had suddenly been possessed of an even more horrifying idea. All this playing with time — what had it done for my personal poisonous deadline! I groped for my pendant skull-computer but of course it was gone with the rest of my equipment. How much time had passed? Was the poison now taking effect? Was I about to die…?

Sweating and trembling I dropped the replacement artifact temporooter and grabbed up the plastic poodle.

"Aida — is Fido transmitting?"

"Of course."