The Stainless Steel Rat eBook Collection (125 page)

‘Very
good,’ he said. ‘Coming along nicely.’

‘Have you uncovered any
traces of Kraj’s tampering yet?’

‘Traces!’ His nostrils flared and he puffed out his cheek. ‘They are like heavy boot marks all through your cortex! Butchers, those people, simply butchers! Lucky in a way because their traces are so easy to find. Memory blocks all over, traces of amnesia with connections to patterns of false memory.
These memories are the only thing of any clinical value and I must find out what techniques they use. They were placed there very quickly, you told me that, yet they are incredibly complete, all senses involved, and detailed as well.’

‘I’ll vouch for that.’

‘I think you will have found them impossible to tell from real memories, that is the strength of their technique. I have removed some major
ones that seemed to be disturbing you and in later sessions I will take care of the others. Now – look at your wrists and tell me about the red lines you see there.’

‘They look just like red lines,’ I said. Then I remembered waking up in the cell and, for some reason believing that my hands had been cut off. I don’t know why. They were just red lines.

‘A false memory?’ I asked.

‘Yes, and an
outstandingly repulsive one. I’ll tell you about it at the next session. But right now you need rest.’

‘A fine idea, after I get something to eat …’

The door flew open and Taze ran in and, as she passed, I had a quick glimpse of the horrified expression on her face. Sudden fear hit me in the stomach and I sat, watching her, saying nothing while she turned on the TV. The Cliaandians had a propaganda
station operating now, though no one bothered to watch it.

The screen lit up and I found myself looking at Kraj. He almost smiled as he spoke.

‘It’s a tape, it keeps
repeating,’ Taze said.

‘… that we want him to know. Someone out there must know the man known as James diGriz. Contact him. Tell him to listen to this broadcast. This message is for you, diGriz. We want you back here. I have Angelina
here. She is unharmed – as
yet –
and will remain that way until dawn. I suggest you contact me and see me.

‘Welcome home, Jim.’

I
HAD A NUMBER OF MOMENTS
of numb
shock after this, during which period I wished to be alone. Taze was understanding enough to leave when I pointed at the exit, but the doctor tried to start a conversation which I terminated by clutching his neck and the seat of his trousers and heaving him through the door which she obligingly held open. Then I kicked in the TV set, an act of
wanton destruction that helped a bit, before I poured a stiff cogitating drink. With this in hand I dropped into the chair, looked out unseeingly at the star spread sky, and worked out a plan. This was not going to be simple – and dawn was not that far away.

The thought that kept nibbling at the edge of my awareness was finally faced. I was going to have to surrender and get a collar back on
– there was no way of avoiding that. My memories of what that was like were not very nice, in fact my brain sort of twitched a bit inside the bone case at the thought. There had been entirely too much traffic through my gray matter of late and I was not looking forward to any more. Yet it was unavoidable. The collar and torture box had to be part of any plan, and they had to be neutralized. Not a
very easy thing to accomplish. I mumbled over all the possibilities and when the attack plan was blocked out I sent for Taze and told her what I was going to do.

‘You can’t,’ she said, and I swear those lovely large eyes were filled with tears, ‘turn yourself over to those fiends. To save a woman. If
only the
men
on this planet were like you. Impossible to believe …’

I resisted the impulse to
enjoy a little warm female solace and turned to snapping open some of the weapon containers. At the sight of the grenades Miss Taze retreated and Sergeant Taze looked on with interest.

‘This will be a two part operation,’ I told her. ‘I’ll take care of the first part myself, which will be the penetration of the building and freeing Angelina. I hope to grab a gray man as well, but if that slows
me down we’ll save that part of the job for another time. The second part of the operation will be getting out of the Octagon, and for that I am going to need your help. I’ll need plans of the building, I want to talk to someone who knows his way around it well, someone on the custodial staff if possible, so I can find an area of vulnerability. Can you do this now?’

‘At once,’ she called back
over her shoulder as she left. A reliable girl, our Taze. I dug into the equipment containers.

Dawn was only two hours away before we were ready to move. I had completed my part of the operation, but setting up the escape afterwards wasn’t that simple. The Octagon was very much like a fortress in the eyes of the small forces we could muster quickly. And we were hampered by our lack of any aircraft
or heavy equipment. There seemed no way out by air or on the ground. It was one of the maintenance staff, finally located and dragged in shivering, who found the exit and pointed it out with a trembling finger on the blueprints.

‘Cable tunnel, sir and ma’am, goes under the street and under the walls and comes up in sub-basement 17. Big tunnel for wires and telephone and that kind of thing.’

‘It’s sure to be bugged,’ I said. ‘But if we plan this right it won’t matter. Take note, ladies, because I don’t want to repeat myself. This is how the operation is going to work.’

By the time everything
had been taken care of it was less than twenty minutes to dawn and I was in a cold sweat. The first units were moving into position when I put the view-call in to Kraj. We were connected at once
and I talked before he could say anything.

‘I want to see Angelina instantly, and talk to her. I have to be absolutely sure she has not been harmed.’

He didn’t argue, he had been expecting this. She came into focus and I saw that hated collar with its cable leading up out of the picture.

‘Are you all right?’

‘As fine as I could possibly be while in the same room with this creature,’ she said
calmly.

‘They’ve done nothing to you?’

‘Nothing as yet, other than to clap this collar around my neck and hook the thing up to the ceiling so I wouldn’t run away. But you can imagine the threats this repulsive man has made. I don’t think I could live for a moment with a mind like his …’

She stiffened then and her eyes rolled up out of sight although her lids didn’t close. Kraj had given her
a shot of the nerve torture. I knew at that moment that he would never live if I could get my hands on him. His face reappeared on the screen and it took an effort I did not think myself capable of to stare at him calmly and say nothing.

‘You’ll come to me now, diGriz, and surrender. You only have a few minutes left. You know what will happen to your wife if you don’t. If you surrender she will
be released at once.’

‘What proof do I have that you will keep your word?’

‘None whatsoever. But you don’t have a choice, do you?’

‘I’ll be there,’ I said as calmly as I could manage and turned the phone off – but not before I heard Angelina’s shouted
no
in the background.

‘Are those clothes dry
yet?’ I asked, tearing off my shirt and kicking out of my boots at the same time.

‘Just about,’
Taze said. She and another girl were holding hot air blowers to a Cliaand uniform that I thought was just right for this occasion. It had been soaked in a chemical bath and was now being force dried.

‘Almost is good enough, we can’t wait any longer.’

There were some damp patches, but nothing that mattered. We left, and the powerboat was waiting at the hotel dock below, motor rumbling. So far
so good. And the car was there on shore with Dr. Mutfak in the back, black bag on his knees, muttering to himself.

‘I don’t like it,’ he said. ‘It is really a violation of my medical code of ethics.’

‘War is a violation of any code of ethics or morality, a monstrosity against which any weapons must be used. Do what you have been asked.’

‘I’ll do it, that goes without saying, but a man is allowed
to comment upon the ethics involved.’

‘Comment. But fill the needle at the same time.’

We parked in a side street, in the darkness, with the Octagon just around the corner.

‘Catalyst,’ I said, ‘and don’t spill any. Under my arms where the dampness won’t be noticed.

I raised both arms and felt the warmth of the liquid from the insulated container, then quickly lowered my arms to trap the wet
fabric between my upper arms and my sides. Then I climbed out of the car and put my hand back in through the window. The needle bit into my flesh and that was that. As I started around the corner I heard the car pull away.

The Octagon loomed up like a mountain before me, the sky beginning to lighten behind it. We had cut this very close. There was an entrance ahead, the one I had been directed
to, and two of the gray men were waiting. Both wore gausspistols which
were still in the holsters. They were very sure of themselves. I walked up to them silently and one of them clamped a come-along cuff on my wrist and led me in through the doors and past the silent guards. I stumbled going up the stairs and after that looked down carefully to see where I put my feet. The injection was beginning
to take effect. There was nothing I wanted to say and my captors, they in their usual fashion, had nothing to say to me. They prodded me in the direction they wanted me to go and pushed me through the doorway of the room they wanted me to enter. Once inside they covered me with their guns while the wrist-cuff was unlocked.

‘Clothes off,’ one of them ordered.

It was an effort not to smile. There
was the fluoroscope off to one side and the other test equipment. These characters were running true to type, following the same routine they had used when I had first been captured. Didn’t they realize that routine was a trap and a losing game? No they did not. I fumbled off my clothes and let them work their will upon me.

They found nothing, of course, since there was nothing there to find.
Or rather there was one thing that I was sure they would not find. And they didn’t. They slowly plodded through their routine examinations and I began to wish they would finish and be done. My head was getting a little foggy from the drug and I felt as though I were wrapped in cotton wool. The injection must be reaching the peak of its effectiveness and would be tapering off soon. What I had to do
must be done when the drug was at the height of its power – or close to it – or all the preparations would be useless.

‘Put these on,’ a wooden faced captor said and threw me the familiar transparent dungarees. I bent to pick them up – and to cover the smile that I could no longer resist. Done it! They did not seem impatient when I fumbled with the closing on the
clothes. I had to watch my fingers
carefully to be sure they did their job. When the collar locked around my neck I almost heaved a sigh of relief. We were getting close, and the timing was just about perfect. As one of the guards took the torture box and led me out I lowered my head so I could see where I put my feet so I would not stumble. If this generated an illusion of defeat all the better. We went down a wide corridor
and past a staircase, and I made a mental note of its location, even counting the paces after it to get some estimate of its distance from our destination.

Which was Kraj’s lair. He was waiting behind his desk, as patiently and as emotionlessly as a spider in its web. Angelina sat before him, her torture box hooked to the ceiling.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked as I came through the door.

‘Of
course. Nothing has happened. You shouldn’t have come.’

As soon as I had this reassurance I turned my attention to Kraj, aware at the same time of the guard closing the door behind us.

‘You’ll release her now, won’t you?’ I asked.

‘Naturally not. There would be no advantage in that.’ His expression never changed while he spoke.

‘I didn’t think you would. Is there any reason why you shouldn’t
tell me how you caught her?’

‘Your memory contained an exact description of your wife. When we discovered that two women had aided your escape we naturally assumed that one might have been this Angelina. The computer identified her as soon as she entered the building.’

‘We were foolish to take the risk,’ I said, apparently turning to face her, but looking at the guard instead. He was about to
hook my torture
box to another hook in the ceiling - and if he did we were trapped.

All I could do was make a dive for him.

‘Stop him!’ Kraj shouted and the guard looked at me and pressed a quick pattern on the red keys on the box.

I can’t pretend that it felt nice. Enough pain leaked through to tear at my stomach with nausea and to knot my muscles. I stumbled and fell at the man’s feet, not
quite reaching him. The drug I had taken blocked most of the pain, but not all of it. There still had to be nerve pathways open for motor control. My eyes filled with tears and I could not wipe them so my vision blurred and swam. There was a shoe before me and that was no good, and a uniform leg, bad as well.

And then the guard’s hand as he bent over to take hold of me. I lashed out with my extended
middle finger and scratched the skin on the back of his hand.

He shivered just a bit and kept on bending, almost in slow motion, until he crumpled on the floor next to me, dropping the control box. It was just close enough to reach out and tap the
off
button.

The pain was over, instantly. And Kraj was behind my back. I scrambled and rolled, fighting my knotted muscles, climbing to my feet.

In a few moments since I had attacked the guard the situation had changed drastically. Angelina lay across Kraj’s desk, holding on to her collar, writhing in pain. Kraj was on his knees behind the desk reaching for his gun. I dived for him just as he raised it. I was not going to make it, I was too late, he was going to fire and that was that.

But at precisely that moment the distant explosion
went off and the floor heaved, dust and bits of plastic shook down from the ceiling and the lights flickered. Kraj had not been expecting this – and I had - and his attention wavered for that vital
instant as I slithered across the desk towards him and my fingernail nicked his skin.