The Stainless Steel Rat Saves The World (13 page)

19

I WAS ONLY out a fraction of a second, long enough for my wrists and ankles to be tied and all my weapons that they could find to be stripped from me. For this disaster I can blame only myself and my inattention. Fatigue and stimulants may have contributed, but my own stupidity had been the cause. I cursed myself under my breath, which did no good at all, as I was dragged across the ground and dumped down by Angelina.

“Are you all right?” I croaked.

“Of course. And in far better shape than you are.”

Which was true. Her clothing was torn and there were some bruises where she had been knocked around. Someone was going to pay and pay well for that. I could hear my teeth grating together. And she was tied just as I was.

“They thought you were dead,” she said. “And so did I.” There was a wealth of unsaid feeling in her words, and I tried a smile which was a little more twisted than I like. “I don’t know how long we lay there; I was unconscious, too. When I came to, I was like this, and they had taken the guns and everything and were loading it all into the cars. Then we left. There was nothing I could do to stop them. All they speak is that same horrible language.”

They looked as horrible as their language sounded, all scruffy clothing and greasy leather straps, bushels of matted dirty hair and beard. I had an entirely unnecessary closer look at one of them when he came over and twisted my head to one side and the other while he compared my crunched features with a good photograph of myself that he had. I snapped my teeth at the filthy fingers, but he pulled them away in time. These must be He’s men; the photo proved that, though I had no idea where he got it from. Taken during one of our tangles in time, no doubt, and treasured in his pocket ever since. At this point I noticed the ugliest and smelliest of the lot ogling Angelina, and I snapped at his ankle and was kicked aside for my pains.

Give Angelina that, she is a very direct-minded girl. When she knows what she wants, she gets it, no matter what. Now she saw the only way we could get out of this mess and she used it. Woman’s wiles. With no hint of disgust at the ugly brute she lavished her attentions upon. She could not speak their language, but the language she did speak was as old as mankind. Turning away from me, she smiled at the hairy beast and gave a twist of her head to call him over. Her shoulders were back, her charming figure prominent, her hips tilted coyly.

Of course it worked. There was a bit of lively discussion with the other two, but Hairiest knocked one of them down, and that was that. They looked on with burning jealousy as he stalked over to her. She smiled her warmest and held out her slim, bound wrists.

What man could resist that unspoken appeal? Certainly not this shambling hulk. He cut the thongs on her wrists and put his knife away as she bent to free her ankles. When he hauled her to her feet, she arose eagerly. He locked her in a bear like embrace, bending his face to hers.

I could have told him that he would be safer off trying to kiss a saber-tooth tiger, but I did not. What happened next only I could see because the jealous watchers were blocked from sight by the bulk of his body. Who would imagine that those delicate fingers could shape themselves into that hard a point, that the thin wrist could propel the hand so deep into bushy’s gut? Lovely. He bent to her and, with only a gentle sigh, kept bending. For a moment she supported his weight—then stepped back and screamed as he folded to the ground.

A picture of feminine innocence, hands to cheeks, eyes staring, shrieking at the strange occurrence of a strong man collapsing at her feet. Of course the other two ran over, but there were the beginnings of expressions of cold suspicion on their faces. The first one carried my gun.

Angelina took care of him. As soon as he was close enough and bringing up the gun, she let fly with bushy’s knife that she had removed before she dropped him. I did not see where it hit because the third man was passing me and I had drawn my legs back in hopes that he would. He did. I kicked out and got him below the knees, and he went down. Even as he fell I was jackknifing forward, and before he could get up again, I let him have it with both boots in the side of the head. And a second time just because I was feeling nasty.

That was that. Angelina removed the knife from her unmoving target, wiped it on his clothing, then came to free me.

“Will you kill the ones who are still twitching?” she asked demurely.

“I should, but cold-blooded revenge is not for me either. They are what they are, and I suppose that is penalty enough. I think if we took all their supplies and wrecked their wagon, it would be revenge enough. You were wonderful.”

“Of course. That’s why you married me.” She kissed me quickly because she had to turn an instant later to land her heel on the forehead of bushy, who was beginning to twitch. He slept on. We packed and left.

Our goal was not too far away. A few hours later we felt a stirring of the air that grew stronger as we continued down the track through the hills. A sudden turn brought us to the brink of a valley with a sharp drop, and I kicked the vehicle into a swirling spin and darted it back out of sight again.

“Did you see that?” I asked.

“I certainly did,” Angelina replied as we slipped forward on our bellies, more cautiously this time, and looked around the turn.

The wind was stronger here, pouring up the wide valley from some invisible source below. The air was cooler, too, and though there were the ever-present clouds above, there was no fog in the valley to obscure the view. Across from us the hill rose, turning to a solid cliff that reared up vertically, glossy black stone. Erosion had carved it into a fantasy of towers and turrets; men had carved these further into a castle city that covered the mountaintop.

There were windows and doorways, flags and pennants, stairs and buttresses. The flags were bright red inscribed with half-seen black characters. Some of the towers had been painted crimson as well, and this, with the mad frenzy of the construction, meant only one thing.

“It’s not logical, I know,” Angelina said. “But that place sends a definite shiver down my spine. It seems, hard to describe, perhaps insane is the best word.”

“The absolute best. Which means that since this is the right world and time, a place that looks like that must be where He is.”

“How do we get to him?”

“A very good question,” I said in lieu of an intelligent answer. How
did
we get into this kooky castle? I scratched my head and rubbed my jaw, but these infallible aids to thought did not work this time. There was a slight movement at the edge of my vision, and I looked and grabbed for my gun—and froze the motion halfway.

“Don’t make any sudden motions, particularly in the direction of your weapon,” I told Angelina in a quiet voice. “Turn around slowly.”

We both did. Doing nothing that might produce anxiety in the trigger fingers of the dozen or so men who had appeared silently behind us and stood with leveled and firmly aimed weapons.

“Get ready to dive forward when I do,” I said and turned back to see another four men who had appeared just as silently in the valley just in front of us. “Belay that last command, and smile sweetly and surrender. We’ll chop them up after we get in among them.”

This last was meant more as a morale booster than an assurance of action. Unlike the wild-eyed men from whom we had taken our multiwheeled transportation, this lot was much cooler and firmer. They were dressed alike in gray one-piece plastic outfits that turned into hoods to cover their heads. Their weapons were as long as rifles, gape-orificed and lethal-looking. We trotted forward obediently when one of them waved that instruction in our direction. Another member of the closing circle stepped closer and looked us over, but not close enough for anyone who wasn’t suicide-prone to attempt to seize his weapon.

“
Stragitzkruml?
” he said, then continued when we remained silent.

“
Fidlykreepi?
”

“
Attentottenpotentaten?
”

When there was no response to these incomprehensible requests, he turned to a bulky man with a red beard who seemed to be in charge.

“
Ili ne parolas konantain lingvojn
,” he said in clearly accented Esperanto.

“Well, that’s more like it,” I answered in the same tongue. “Might I ask why you gentlemen find it necessary to pull guns on simple travelers like ourselves?”

“Who are you?” Red-beard said, coming forward.

“I might ask the same of you?”

“
I
am pointing the guns,” he answered coldly.

“A well-made point and I bow to your logic. We are tourists from the land across the sea. . . .” He interrupted with a short and nasty word.

“That is impossible as we both know since this is the only landmass on this planet. The truth now.”

We both hadn’t known, though we did now. A single continent? What had happened to Mother Earth during those twenty millennia? Lying had been no good, so perhaps the truth might work. It did upon occasion.

“Would you believe me if I told you we were time travelers?”

This hit the target all right, and he looked startled, while there was a stir of movement among the men close enough to hear what I had said. Red-beard glared them into silence before he spoke again.

“What is your connection with He and those creatures in his city up there?”

A lot depended upon my answer. Truth had worked once, and it might turn the trick again. And he had said “creatures,” which was a giveaway. I couldn’t believe this calm and disciplined force could be associated with the enemy.

“I have come to kill He and wipe out his operation.”

This really did produce the right effect, and some of the men even lowered their guns before being growled back into line. Red-beard muttered a command, and one of the men hurried off. We remained in silence until he returned with a green metal cube about the size of his head that he handed over to the commander. It must have been hollow because he carried it easily. Red-beard held it up.

“We have over a hundred of these. They have been floating down out of the sky for the past month, and all of them are identical. A powerful radio source inside leads us to them—but we cannot cut or dissolve the metal. On the outside, on five faces of the cube, they are covered with lines of writing in what appear to be different languages and scripts. The ones we can translate all read the same way. Bring this to the time travelers. On the bottom of the cube are two lines of writing that we cannot read. Can you?”

He slowly held out the cube toward me, and I took it just as gingerly as every gun was trained on my body with careful precision. The metal looked like collapsium, the incredibly tough stuff used for atomic rocket tube liners. I carefully turned it bottom up and read the lines in a single glance before handing it back.

“I can read them,” I said, and they were aware of the new tone in my voice. “The first line says that He and his people will all leave this period exactly 2.37 days after my arrival here.”

There was a murmur over that, and Angelina beat Red-beard to the punch with the important question.

“What was in the second line?”

I tried to smile, but it didn’t seem much good.

“Oh, that. It says that the planet will be destroyed by atomic explosions as soon as they go.”

20

THE TENT WAS made of the same gray fabric as the clothes our captors wore and was a chilled refuge from the steambath atmosphere outside. A squat machine whirred in one corner, dehumidifying and cooling the air. Even cooler drinks had been produced, and I drained and brooded over mine, trying to see a way out of this dilemma before the deadly deadline was reached. Though guns were still in evidence, an unspoken truce was in effect; Redbeard decided to formalize it.

“I drink with you,” he said. “I am Diyan.”

It seemed very much like a ritual, so I repeated the formula and introduced myself, as did Angelina. After this the weapons vanished, and we were all much more chummy. I sat down where I could benefit from the full breeze of the cooler and decided to ask some questions myself.

“Do you people have any weapons heavier than these handguns?”

“None that are available. The few we brought have been destroyed in battle with He’s forces.”

“Is this continent so big you can’t get more of them here quickly from your country?”

“The size of the continent is of no importance. Our space vessels are very small, and everything must be brought from our home planet.”

I blinked rapidly, feeling I was getting out of my depth.

“You are not from Earth?” I asked.

“Our ancestors were, but we are all native-born Martians.”

“You wouldn’t care to give me a few more facts, would you? The sound of confusion I keep hearing appears to be inside my own head.”

“I am sorry, I thought you knew. Here, let me fill up your glass. The story really begins many thousands of years ago when a sudden change in solar radiation raised the temperature here on Earth. By sudden I of course mean a matter of years, really centuries. As the climate changed and the ice caps melted, the continued existence of life on the surface of the planet was threatened. Coastlines were altered and immense areas of low-lying land inundated; great cities were drowned. This in itself might have been dealt with had it not been for the seismic disturbances brought about by the shifting weight on the Earth’s surface as the poles were freed of their ice burden and the released water covered other areas. Earthquakes and lava flows, sinking lands and the rising of new mountains. All quite terrible, we have seen the recordings many times in our schools. An incredible international effort was launched to terrafy the planet Mars—that is, make it suitable for human habitation. This involved the creation of an atmosphere there with a high carbon dioxide layer to trap the increased radiation of the sun, the transportation of ice mountains from the rings of Saturn, things like this. It was a noble ambition that in the end did succeed, but it bankrupted the nations of Earth who gave their all in this unbelievable effort. Eventually there was dissent and even warfare as weakened governments fell and greedy men fought for more than an equal share of space on the new-made world. Through all this the waters continued to rise on Earth and the first Martian settlers struggled against the harsh rigors of a barely livable world to establish the settlements. In history these are known as the Deadly Years because so many people died; the figures are unbelievable. But in the end we survived, and Mars is a green and comfortable world.

“Earth did not fare as well. Contact was lost between the planets, and the survivors of the once-teeming billions here fought a dreadful battle for survival. There are no written records of that period, thousands of years long, but the results are clear enough. This single large continent remained above the sea, as well as some island chains to mark earlier mountain ranges. And madness rules mankind. When we were able, we rebuilt the ancient spaceships and brought what help we could. Our help was not appreciated. The survivors kill strangers on sight and take great pleasure in it. And all men are strangers. The almost-unshielded solar radiation here produced mutants of all kinds among man, plants and animals. Most mutations died off quickly, but the survivors are deadly to a universal degree. So we helped where we could but really did very little. The earthmen were a continuing danger to each other but not to Mars. That is not until He united them some hundreds of years ago.”

“Has he really lived all that time?”

“It appears that he has. His mind is as bent as theirs, but he can communicate with them. They follow him. They actually work together, building that city you have seen, building a society of sorts. He is certainly a genius, albeit a warped one, and they have factories going and a rudimentary technology. The first thing they did was ask for more aid from Mars and would not believe us when we said that they were getting the maximum already. Their mad demands would not have bothered us had they not unearthed rockets armed with atomic bombs that could be directed at our planet. It was after the first of these arrived that this expedition was organized. On Mars we survived by cooperating, there was no other way, so we are not a warlike people. But we have made weapons and will reluctantly use them to ensure our own survival. He is the key to all the troubles, and we must capture or kill him. If we must kill others to accomplish this, we will do that as well. Thousands are dead at home and radioactivity is increasing in the Martian atmosphere.”

“Then our aims are identical,” I told him. “He has launched a time attack against our people with equally disastrous results. You have summed up our retaliatory plans quite neatly.”

“How do we go about it?” Diyan asked eagerly.

“I’m not sure,” I answered gloomily.

“We have a little over ten standards hours left to operate in,” Angelina said, precisely. Like all women, she was a true pragmatist. While we wasted time nattering about the past, she faced the fact that the decision would have to be made in the future and tackled that, the real problem. I yearned to demonstrate my affection for her but decided that would have to wait for a more appropriate time, if more time did exist at all.

“An all-out attack,” I said. “We have weapons we can add to yours. Attack on all fronts, find a weak spot, concentrate our forces, blast through to victory. Do you have any large weapons left?”

“No.”

“Well . . . we can get around that. How about crashlanding one of your spacers inside the castle up there, get a fighting force behind their backs that way?”

“All of them were destroyed by saboteurs, suicidal ones. Others are coming from Mars but will arrive too late. We are not really very good at war and killing while they have always lived with it.”

“Not to give up hope yet, ha-ha.” I laughed, but it had a very hollow ring to it. The dark gloom was so thick in the air you could have cut chunks of it out.

“The grav-chute,” Angelina said quietly so only I heard her.

“We will use the grav-chute,” I said loudly so all could hear. A good general depends on able staff-work. The complete plan was now clear, written in letters of fire before my eyes.

“This is a go-for-broke operation. Angelina and I are going to drain the charges from all our unessential equipment to put a full charge into the grav-chute. Then we will rig a multiple harness for this. I’ll do the exact computations later, but I would guess that it will lift five or six people up over those walls and inside before it burns out. Angelina and I are two, the rest will be your best people. . . .”

“A woman, no, this is not work for a woman,” Diyan protested. I patted his arm understandingly.

“Have no fear. Sweet and demure as she is, she can outfight any ten men in this tent. And everyone is needed. Because the troops outside will be launching a
very
realistic attack that might break through. General at first, then concentrating on one flank. When the noise is at its highest, the commando squad will lift over the opposite wall and bore in. Now let’s get things organized.”

We got things organized. Or rather Angelina and I did because these peaceful Martian plowboys knew but nothing about scientific slaughter and were only too happy to turn the responsibilities of leadership over to us. Once things were under way I lay down for a quick sleep—I had been awake or clubbed unconscious something like two full days and 20,000 years, so was understandably tired. The three hours I grabbed were certainly not enough, and I awoke chomping and blinking and chewed a stimtab to make up the difference. It was dark outside the tent and still just as hot.

“Are we ready to roll?” I asked.

“Any minute now,” Angelina said, cool and relaxed and showing no signs of her labors; she must have been at the stimtabs, too. “We have about four hours to dawn, and we will need most of that to get into position. The attack begins at first light.”

“Do the guides know the way?”

“They have been fighting in and around this position for almost a year now, so they should.”

This was the showdown. The men were all aware of it. It was there in the set of their faces and the brace of their shoulders. There could be only one winner this day. Perhaps they weren’t born fighters, but they were learning fast. If you are going to fight, you fight to win. Diyan came up leading three more of his men who carried the jury-rigged metal harness with the grav-chute built into the center of it.

“We are ready,” he said.

“Everyone knows what he is to do?”

“Perfectly. We have already said our good-byes and the first attack units have moved out.”

“Then we’ll get going, too.”

Diyan led the way, though how he found it in that steam-heated darkness I have no idea. We stumbled along behind him, sweating and cursing under the burden of the clumsy harness, and the less said about the following hours, the better. Dawn found us collapsed under the far wall, the highest and apparently the strongest, that was our target. As it appeared out of the haze above us, black and grim, it did not look at all attractive. I squeezed Angelina’s hand to show her I was fearless and to cheer her up. She squeezed mine back to show that she knew I was just as frightened as the rest of them.

“We’ll do it, Jim,” she said. “You know that.”

“Oh, we’ll do it all right; the continuing existence of our particular hunk of the future proves that. But it doesn’t indicate how many are going to die today—or which of us will live on into the foreseeable future.”

“We’re immortal,” she said with such surety that I had to laugh and my morale soared up to its usual egotistical heights, and I kissed her soundly and well for the aid.

Explosions sounded suddenly in the distance, rumbling and rolling like thunder from the rock walls. The attack had begun. The clock was running and everything was timed from here on in. I helped everyone strap in and kept an eye on my watch at the same time. As our scheduled hop-off drew close, I buckled in as well and touched the grav-chute controls.

“Brace yourselves,” I said, watching the numbers flutter by. “And be ready to cut free when we hit at the other end.”

I hit the button, and with a metallic groan from the harness my little force of six rose into the air to the attack.