The Stainless Steel Rat eBook Collection (77 page)

Pleasures better lived without. But this was a royal command and no way to get
around it. I took a bit of diple-fast and rubbed my jaw smooth, combed my hair and tried not to scowl at myself in the mirror. I was the last to emerge and we boarded the Transport of Delight in silence, rolled ponderously to our destiny.

“I wonder why all three of us?” Steengo said, sipping his glass of chilled wine. “Last time it was you alone at the training-film session, wasn’t it, Jim?”

“I have no idea,” I said, wanting to change the subject. Nor was I too pleased with his light-hearted attitude. I tried to think about Madonette going in alone to the other city, but my thoughts kept trundling back to Iron John. What was going to happen now?

When we entered the Veritorium I was surprised at how big it really was. It was better lit now and I saw that rows of seats reached up in
a semicircle. They were all filled now—with the oldest collection of Paradisians I had seen so far. Bald heads and gray hair, wrinkles and toothless jaws.

Iron John himself stepped forward to greet us. “You are all truly welcome here—and these seats are for you.” They were three of the best in the front row—separated from the others. “You are our honored guests, musical Stainless Steel Rats.
This occasion is a special one—specially so for young James diGriz. You are the youngest man here, Jim, and very soon you will
find out why. Your companions will, I am sure, watch with pleasure. Not only pleasure but I sincerely hope that they will learn by observation. Now we begin …”

Cued by his words the lights died and darkness filled the Veritorium. Footsteps sounded in the darkness, and
there was a small laugh. Light appeared and I saw the small boy hurry forward, stumbling a bit under the weight of the box he was carrying. He put it down and opened the lid, took out a top that started spinning when he touched its switch. Then he took out a tray of blocks, started to build a tower with them. When it was high enough he turned to take another toy out of the box. He was a very concentrated,
very intense young boy, about eight years old. He rummaged deeper in the box, then looked around with a childish frown.

“Don’t hide, teddy,” he said. Looked behind the toy box, then into it again and then—with sudden determination—turned and hurried off. He vanished from sight but I could hear his footsteps going away, stopping. Then coming back. Carrying a teddy bear. A commonplace, slightly
worn, very ordinary teddy bear. He propped it against the toy box and started building a second tower from the blocks.

The scene grew lighter and I realized we were back in the castle courtyard. The boy was alone—or was he? Something was there in the darkness, a shape that grew clearer.

It was an iron cage and, sitting silently, inside it was Iron John. The boy shouted and knocked over the block
towers, ran to pick up the strewn blocks. Looked at Iron John, then away. The cage and its occupant must be a familiar sight to him.

Nothing else happened. The boy played, Iron John watched him in silence. Yet there was an electric tension in the air that made it hard to breathe. I knew that something vitally important was about to happen, and when the boy reached again into the toy box I found
myself leaning forward.

When he took the small golden ball from the box I realized that I had been holding my breath; I let it out with a gasp. Nor was I the only one for around me in the darkness there were echoes of my gasp.

The ball bounced and rolled and the boy laughed with pleasure.

Then he threw it once, harder than intended, and it rolled and rolled. Through the bars of the iron cage
to stop at Iron John’s feet.

“My ball,” the boy said. “Give it back.”

“No,” Iron John said. “You must unlock this cage and let me out. Then you will have your golden ball back.”

“Locked,” the boy said.

Iron John nodded. “Of course. But you know how to find the key.”

The boy was shaking his head
no
as he backed away.

“Where is the key?” the man in the cage asked, but the boy was gone. “Where
is the key? But you are only a boy. Perhaps you are too young to know where the key is. You must be older to find the key.”

There were murmurs of agreement from the invisible audience. It was very important to find the key, I knew that. The key …

It was then that I became aware that Iron John was looking at me. He was there in the cage; it wasn’t a holoflic. He looked at me and nodded.

“Jim,
I’ll bet you know where the key is. You are no longer a boy. You can find it—
now”

His voice was a goad. I was on my feet, walking forward to the box of toys. My foot touched a block and it rattled aside.

“The key is in the toy box,” I said, but I didn’t believe the words even as I spoke them. I looked at Iron John who shook his head
no.

“Not in the box.”

I looked down again and realized that
I did know where the key was. I raised my eyes to Iron John and he nodded solemnly. “See you
do
know where the key to the cage is. You can let me out now, Jim. Because you know the key is there. Inside …”

“Teddy,” I said.

“Teddy. Not a real bear. Teddies are for children and you are no longer a child. Inside teddy.”

I reached out, blinked away the tears that were blurring my vision, seized
up the toy, felt the soft fabric between my fingers. Heard a loud voice that slashed the silence.

“Not quite right, Jim, not right. The key is not there—it has to be
under your mother’s pillow!”

Steengo had come forward to join me, had to shout the last words to be heard over the roar of voices.

“Mother doesn’t want her son to leave her. She hides the key to the Iron man’s cage under her pillow.
The son must steal the key …”

The shouting voices drowned him out. Then it went dark in an instant and someone ran into me knocking me down. I tried to stand, to call out, but a hard foot walked on my hand. I shouted aloud at the sudden pain but my voice went unheard in the clamor. Someone else jarred into me and the darkness became even more intense.

“Jim—are you all right? Can you hear me?”

Floyd’s face was just above mine, looking worried. Was I all right? I didn’t know. I was in bed, must have been asleep. Why was he waking me?

Then I remembered and sat upright, grabbed his arms.

“The Veritorium! It got dark, something happened. I can’t remember—”

“I’m not much help because I can’t either. It seemed like a good show. Hard to follow the plot but you were in it, do you
remember
that?” I nodded. “Seemed to be enjoying yourself, although you didn’t look happy about tearing the stuffing out of the teddy bear. That’s when Steengo joined you onstage and all the fun started. Or stopped. It all gets vague about that time.”

“Where’s Steengo?”

“You tell me. I saw him last on the stage. I was sleeping myself, just woke up. Looked around, no Steengo. Found you here snoring away
and I gave you a shake.”

“If he’s not here …”

A muted knock sounded at the door, and a moment later it opened and Veldi looked in.

“Gentlemen, a happy good morning to you both. I thought I heard your voices and hoped you would be awake. I bring you a message from your friend …”

“Steengo—you’ve seen him?”

“Indeed I did. We had a friendly chat before you awoke. Then, before he left, he made
this recording. Told me to give it to you. Told me you would understand.”

He placed a small recorder on the table, stepped back. “The green button is to play, red to stop.” Then he was gone.

“A message?” Floyd asked, picking the thing up and staring at it.

“Press the button instead of fiddling with the damn thing!”

He looked startled at my tone, put it back on the table and turned it on.

“Good morning there, Jim and Floyd. You guys are sure sound sleepers and I didn’t want to wake you before I went out. You know, I’m beginning to think that this city is not for me. I need some space to get my thoughts together. I’m going to take a walk back down the wall, get some air to breathe, some space to think in. You hang in there and I’ll be in touch.”

“That old Steengo,” Floyd said. “What
a character. That’s
him all right. His voice, sure enough, and his way of thinking. Some guy!”

I looked up, looked him in the eye. His face was as grim as mine. He shook his head in a silent
no.
I did the same.

Steengo had not left that message. It was his voice all right. Easy enough for the electronic technicians to fake that.

Steengo was gone.

What
had happened?

“I
really slept,” I said. “Like a rock. Thirsty.”

“The same. I’ll get some juice and a couple of glasses.”

“Great idea.”

I had scribbled the note by the time he came back, slipped it to him when I took the glass. He opened it behind the pitcher, read it.

Place bugged. What do we do?

He nodded as he passed me my glass of juice.

“Thanks,” I said, watching him turn over the note
and write on the back. I don’t know if there were optical bugs as well as the audio ones. Until we found out we had to act as though there were. I kept the note in my palm when I read it.

Steengo much concerned. Left these for you before we went to the show.

I finished the juice, put my glass down, lifted my eyebrows quizzically. He pointed quickly at his closed fist. When he stood and passed
me he dropped something small into my lap. I waited a minute before I poured more juice, drank it, sat back with my hand in my lap. Two small, soft objects. Familiar. I rubbed my nose and glanced at them.

Filter nose plugs. For neutralizing gas. Steengo had known something—or guessed something. He also knew how affected I had been by the sessions in the Veritorium. He had suspected that something
physical, not just the training session itself, had gotten to me.

Of course! Obvious by hindsight. I knew of a dozen hypnotic
gases that lowered the ability to think clearly, that left the brain open to outside influences. So it hadn’t been emotion but plain old chemistry that had carried me away. Steengo had suspected this—but why hadn’t he told me? Depressingly, I realized that the state of
mind I had been in, probably caused by drugs in the earlier session, rendered that impossible. He knew he couldn’t tell me. But had been suspicious enough to wear the plugs himself.

And when he saw me getting deeply involved in the ritual he had interrupted before it was too late, had brought the whole thing to a screeching halt. I felt my teeth grating together and forced myself to stop.

He
had talked about mother and the key under her pillow—to these people who denied that women even existed!

With the realization of the enormity of his crime in the eyes of the Paradisians I felt a sudden overwhelming fear for his safety. Would they kill him—or worse—had they killed him already? They were certainly capable of anything, I was sure now of that.

What next? Communication with our backup
team in the spacer above was very much in order. I had to get into the open, away from the bugs, and contact Tremearne. Bring him up to date. Something had happened to Steengo. And the rest of us surely were in danger as well—and Madonette, this might affect her. This entire affair was getting a nasty and dangerous edge to it.

And thinking about dangerous, there was the other
dangerous
always
hanging over my head. My computer flashed me the highly unwelcome message of a flickering red nine. I had been asleep longer than I had realized.

Artifact or no I was just nine days away from my personal destiny. When I had first heard the thirty-day deadline on the poison I had not been too concerned. Thirty days is a lot of time. I thought.

Nine days was definitely not a lot of time at all.
And with Steengo suddenly vanished I had more problems, not less.

“Going for a run,” I called out to Floyd, leaping to my feet in a spasm of fear-sponsored energy. “Feel logy after all that sleep. Got to clear my head.”

I slammed out the door and down the road even as he was answering. Taking a different route from my usual one—then changed direction at random. Up ahead was a field of polpettone
trees, laid out in neat rows and bulging with fruit. I jogged into a path beside the trees, looking around as I ran. No one in sight. There was little chance the Paradisers would put bugs in among the trees.

But they could have. I turned into a freshly plowed field and ran between the furrows. I should be safe enough here. I clamped my jaw twice.

“Hello, Tremearne, are you there?”

“Very much
so, Jim. We have all been awaiting your report. Can you tell us what is happening—the recorder is running”

I jogged in position for a bit, then bent to tie my shoe—then gave up and just sat on the ground while I finished the detailed report. I was tired; the chemicals still kicking around in my system had not been kind to me.

“That’s it,” I finished. “Steengo is gone. Might be dead …”

“No.
I can reassure you on that score. A few hours ago we had a radio message from him, just a few words, then contact was lost again. He must be somewhere deep in the city, behind walls the radio signals can’t penetrate. He might have been moved from one site to another, was in the open long enough for a brief transmission.”

“What did he say?”

The recording was brief and scratchy. Beginning with
static and dying in static. But it was pure Steengo all right.

“… never enough! When I get my fingers on you,
you …”
The next word was hard to make out—but I could think of a half dozen that filled the bill.

“What do you think we should do? Break out of here?”

“No—go along with everything. You will be contacted.”

“Contacted? By whom, what, which? Come in, Tremearne’

There was no answer. I
rose and brushed off my shorts. Very mysterious. Tremearne was up to something—but he was not talking about it. Must be worried about eavesdroppers. Maybe he knew something that I didn’t.