The Stainless Steel Rat eBook Collection (18 page)

‘I don’t believe a word of it. Tell me who you bribed or you’ll be in the brig and in big trouble.’

‘My dear captain, your honest crewmen would never take bribes!’ He ignored the unbelieving snort. ‘I have proof. All of my not inconsiderable fortune is intact and in my pocket.’

‘Out,’ the captain instantly ordered all the men in the control room. ‘All of you. I’ll take this watch. I
want to question these two more thoroughly.’

The officer and the crewmembers shuffled out, their faces expressionless under his gaze. When they were gone the captain sealed the door and spun about. ‘Let’s have it,’ he ordered. The Bishop passed over a very tidy sum and the captain riffled through it, then shook his head. ‘Not enough.’

‘Of course,’ The Bishop agreed. ‘That is the opening payment.
The balance after landfall on some agreeable planet with lax customs officers.’

‘You ask a lot. I have no desire to risk trouble with planetary authorities by smuggling in illegal immigrants. It will be far easier to relieve you of the money right now and dispose of you as I will.’

The Bishop was not impressed at all by this ploy. He tapped his pocket and shook his head. ‘Not possible. Final
payment is with this registered cheque for two-hundred thousand credits drawn on Galactic Credit and Exchange. It is not legal tender until I countersign it with a second signature. You may torture me, but I will never sign! Until we are standing on firm ground.’

The captain shrugged meaningfully and turned to the controls, making a minor adjustment before he turned back. ‘There is a matter of
paying for your meals,’ he said calmly. ‘Charity does not pay my fuel bills.’

‘Absolutely. Let us fix a rate.’

That appeared to be all there was to it – but The Bishop whispered a warning as we went back down the corridor. ‘The cabin is undoubtedly bugged. Our luggage searched. I have all our funds on me. Stay close so there are no accidents. That officer, for one, would make an excellent professional
pickpocket. Now – what do you say to a little food? Since we have paid we can end our enforced fast with a splendid feast.’

My stomach rumbled loud agreement with this suggestion and we made for the galley. Since there were no passengers the fat, unshaven cook served only Venian peasant food. Fine for the natives, but it took some getting used to. Did you ever try to hold your nose and eat at
the same time? I didn’t ask the cook what we were eating – I was afraid he would tell me. The Bishop sighed deeply and began to fork down his ration of gunge.

‘The one thing I forgot about Venia,’ he said gloomily, ‘was the food. Selective memory I am sure. Who would want to recall at any time a feast like this?’

I did not answer since I was gulping at my cup of warm water to get the taste out
of my mouth.

‘Small blessings,’ I said. ‘At least the water here isn’t as nasty as the stuff from the tap in our cabin.’ The Bishop sighed again.

‘That is coffee that you are drinking.’

A fun cruise it was not. We both lost weight since it was often better to avoid a meal than to eat it. I continued my studies, learning the finer points of embezzling, expense account grafting, double and treble
entry bookkeeping – all done in Esperanto until I was as facile as a native in that fine language.

At our first planetfall we stayed in the ship since soldiers and customs officers were thick as sandfleas about the ship.

‘Not here,’ the captain said, looking at the screened image of the ground with us. ‘Very rich planet, but they don’t like strangers. The next planet in this system is one you
will like, agricultural, low population, they can use immigrants so there isn’t even a customs office.’

‘The name?’ The Bishop asked.

‘Amphisbionia.’

‘Never heard of it.’

‘Should you have? Out of thirty-thousand settled planets.’

‘True. But still …’

The Bishop seemed troubled and I couldn’t understand why. If we didn’t like this planet we could liberate enough funds to move on. But some
instinct had him on edge. In the end he bribed the purser to use the ship’s computer. When we were
toying with our dinner he told me about it.

‘Something doesn’t smell right about this – smells worse than this food.’ This was a horrifying thought. ‘I can find no record of a planet named Amphisbionia in the galactic guide. And the guide is updated automatically every time we land and hook into
a planetary communication net. In addition to that, there is a lock on our next destination. Only the captain has the code to access it.’

‘What can we do?’

‘Nothing – until after we land. We’ll find out then what he is up to.’

‘Can’t you bribe one of the officers?’

‘I already did – that’s how I found out that only the captain knows where we are heading. Of course he didn’t tell me until after
I paid. A dirty trick. I would have done the same thing myself.’

I tried to cheer him up, but it was no use. I think the food had affected his morale. It would be a good thing to arrive at this planet, whatever it was. Certainly a good thief can make a living in any society. And one thing was certain. The food would
have
to be better than the sludge we were reluctantly eating now.

We stayed
in our bunks until the ship touched down and the green light came on. Our meagre belongings were already assembled and we carried them down to the airlock. The captain was operating the controls himself. He muttered as the automatic air analyser ran through its test; the inner lock would not open until it was finished and satisfied with the results. It finally pinged and flashed its little message
at him and he hit the override. The great hatch ground slowly open admitting a whiff of warm and pungent air. We sniffed it appreciatively.

‘Here is a stylo,’ Captain Garth said. The Bishop merely smiled.

The captain led the way and we followed with our bags. It was night, stars were bright above, invisible creatures called from the darkness of a row of trees nearby. The only light was from
the airlock.

‘Here will do,’ the captain said, standing on the end of the ramp. The Bishop shook his head as he pointed at the metal surface.

‘We are still on the ship. The ground if you please.’

They agreed on a neutral patch close to the ramp – but far enough from the ship to foil any attempt to rush us. The Bishop took out the cheque, accepted the stylo at last, then wrote his careful signature.
The captain – ever suspicious – compared it
with the signature above and finally nodded. He walked briskly up the ramp as we picked up our bags – then turned and called out.

‘They’re all yours now!’

As the ramp lifted up, out of our reach, powerful lights came on from the darkness, pinning us like moths, Armed men ran towards us as we turned, trapped, lost.

‘I knew something was wrong,’ The
Bishop said. He dropped his bags and grimly faced the rushing men.

A resplendent figure in a red uniform strode out of the darkness and stood before us twisting a large and elegant set of moustaches. Like someone out of an historic flic he actually wore a sword which he held firmly by the hilt.

‘I’ll take everything you two have. Everything. Quickly!’

Two uniformed men came running up to see that we did as we were told. They were carrying
strange looking guns with large barrels and wooden stocks. Behind us I heard a creaking as the ramp came back down with Captain Garth standing on the end of it. I bent over to pick up the bags.

And kept turning – diving at the captain, grabbing him.

There was a loud bang and something whirred in my head and spanged off the ship’s hull. The captain swore and swung his fist at me. Couldn’t have
been better. I stepped inside the blow, grabbed the arm and levered it up into the small of his back. He screeched with pain; a lovely sound.

‘Let him go,’ a voice said, and I looked over the captain’s trembling shoulder to see that The Bishop was now lying on the ground with the officer’s foot on his chest. And his sword was not just for decoration – because the point of it was now pressed to
The Bishop’s throat.

It was going to be one of those days. I gave the captain’s neck a little squeeze with my free hand before I let go. He slithered straight down and his unconscious head bonged nicely on the ramp. I stepped away from him and The Bishop climbed unsteadily to his feet, dusting himself off as he turned to our captor.

‘Excuse me, kind sir, but might I humbly ask you the name of
the planet on whose soil we stand?’

‘Spiovente,’ was the grunted answer.

‘Thank you. If you permit, I will help my friend Captain Garth to his feet, for I wish to apologise to him for my young friend’s impetuous behaviour.’

No one stopped him as he turned to the captain who had just regained consciousness.

He lost it again instantly as The Bishop kicked him in the side of the head.

‘I am
normally not a vindictive man,’ he said, turning away and digging out his wallet. He handed it to the officer and said,
‘But just this once I wanted to express my feelings before returning to my normal peaceful self. You understand, of course, why I did that?’

‘Would have done the same thing myself,’ the officer said, counting the money. ‘But the games are over. Don’t ever speak to me again or
you are dead.’

He turned away as another man appeared from the darkness with two black metal loops in his hands. The Bishop stood, numb and unresisting, as the man bent and snapped one onto his ankle. I didn’t know what the thing was – but I didn’t like it. Mine would not be put on that easily.

Yes it would. The muzzle of the gun ground into my back and I made no protest as the thing was snapped
into place. The thing-snapper then stood up and looked me in the face, standing so close that his sewer breath washed over me. He was ugly to boot, with a puckered scar that added no improvement to the face. He pushed a sharp finger into my chest as he spoke.

‘I am Tars Tukas, servant of our lord the mighty Capo Doccia. But you never call me by name, you always call me master.’

I started to
call him something, something that was quite an improvement on master, when he pressed a button on a metal box slung from his belt.

Then I was on the ground, trying to shake the red fog of pain from my eyes. The first thing I saw was The Bishop lying before me, groaning in agony. I helped him to his feet; Tars Tukas needn’t have done that, not to a man of his age. He was grinning a lop-sided
scarred grin when I turned.

‘Who am I?’ he asked. I resisted all temptation, for The Bishop’s sake if not my own.

‘Master.’

‘Don’t forget, and don’t try to run away. There are neural repeaters right around the entire country. If I leave this on for long enough all your nerves stop working. Forever. Understood?’

‘Understood, master.’

‘Hand over everything you’ve got on you.’

I did. Money,
papers, coins, keys, watch, the works. He frisked me roughly and seemed satisfied for the moment.

‘Let’s move.’

A tropical dawn had come quickly and the lights were being turned out. We didn’t look back as we followed our new master. The Bishop was having difficulty in walking and I had to help him. Tars Tukas led us to a battered wooden cart that was standing close by. We were waved into the
back. We sat on the
plank seat and watched while crates were lowered from the cargo hatch of the spacer.

‘That was a nice dropkick on the captain,’ I said. ‘You obviously know something about this planet that I don’t. What was the name?’

‘Spiovente.’ He spat the word like a curse. ‘The millstone around the League’s neck. That captain has sold us down the river with a vengeance. And he is a smuggler
too. There is a complete embargo on contact with this stinking world. Particularly weapons – which I am sure those cases are full of. Spiovente!’

Which didn’t really tell me very much other than that it was pretty bad. Which I knew already. ‘You couldn’t possibly be a bit more informative about this millstone?’

‘I blame myself completely for getting you involved in all this. But Captain Garth
will pay. If we do nothing else, Jim, we will bring him to justice. We’ll get word to the League, somehow.’

The
somehow
depressed him even more and he dropped his head wearily onto his hands. I sat in silence, waiting for him to speak in his own good time. He did finally, sitting up, and in the reflected light I saw that the spark was back in his eye.

‘Nil carborundum, Jim. Don’t let the bastards
wear you down. We are landed in a ripe one this time. Spiovente was first contacted by the League over ten years ago. It had been isolated since the Breakdown and had thousands of years to go bad. It is the sort of place that gives crime a bad name – since the criminals are in charge here. The madhouse has been taken over by the madmen. Anarchy rules – no, not true – Spiovente makes anarchy
look like a Boy Sprouts’ picnic. I have made a particular study of this planet’s system of government while working out the stickier bits of my personal philosophy. Here we have something that belongs in the lost dark ages of mankind’s rise. It is thoroughly despicable in every way – and there is nothing that the League can do about it, short of launching an invasion. Which would be completely against
League philosophy. The strength of the League is also its weakness. No planet or planets can physically attack another planet. Any one that did would face instant destruction by all the others since war has now been declared illegal. The League can only help newly discovered planets, offer advice and aid. It is rumoured that there are covert League organisations that work to subvert repulsive
societies like this one – but of course this has never been revealed in public. So what we have here is trouble, bad trouble. For Spiovente is a warped mirror image of the civilised worlds. There
is no rule of law here – just might. Criminal gangs are led by Capos, the swordman in the fancy uniform, Capo Doccia, he’s one of them. Each Capo controls as large a capote as he can. His followers are
rewarded with a portion of the loot extracted from the peasantry or from the spoils of war. At the very bottom of this pyramid of crime are the slaves. Us.’