The Stainless Steel Rat Saves The World (5 page)

7

MY HANDS WANTED to shake, but I would not let them as I took out the detector and placed it gently on the floor. The field strength was 117.56, and I made a rapid note of this. Then I dropped and sighted along the needle at the exact spot under the window where it pointed. Running over quickly, I marked a big X on this spot, then rushed back to check it. As I took the second sight, the needle began to drift, and the meter dropped to zero.

But I had them! Whoever they were, they were operating out of this era. They had used their time apparatus once, and they were sure to use it again. When they did, I would be waiting for them. For the first time since I had been whipped back to this crude barbarian world I was warmed by a small spark of hope. Up until now I had been operating by reflex, just staying alive and learning to make my way in this strange place, and all of the time keeping my thoughts away from the future that would not exist unless I could bring it into being. And that was just what I was going to do.

After a hearty dinner and a snowfall of fluttering banknotes I went to sleep. Not for long though, a two-hour zonk pill put me under in the deepest possible sleep, with almost constant dreaming, and I awoke feeling much more human. There were a number of interesting bottles in the bar in the next room, some of them rather palatable and I sat down with a filled glass in front of a glass-eyed instrument called a TV. As I had guessed, my accent in the local language left a lot to be desired, and I wanted to listen to someone who spoke a better form of it.

This was not easy to find. To begin with, it was hard to tell which were the educational channels and which were there for entertainment. I found what appeared to be a morality play in historical form where all the men wore wide-brimmed hats and rode on horses. But the total vocabulary used could not have been more than 100 words, and most of the characters were killed by shooting before I could discover what it was all about. Guns seemed to play an important role in most of the dramas I watched, though this was varied with sadism and assorted kinds of mayhem. All this violence and hurtling from one place to another in various conveyances did not leave the people much time for intersexual activity; a brief kiss was the only manifestation of affection or libido that I saw. Most of the dramas were also difficult to follow since they kept being interrupted by brief playlets and illustrated lectures about the purchase of various consumer goods. By dawn I had had enough of this and my speech had improved only microscopically, so I kicked in the glass picture tube as fitting comment and went to wash myself in a pink room filled with museum pieces out of the history of plumbing.

As soon as the shops opened in the morning, I had a number of hotel employees at work with a great deal of money and my purchases soon poured in. New clothes to fit my high station, with expensive luggage to carry it in. Plus a number of maps, a carefully made gadget called a magnetic compass, and a book on the principles of navigation. It was simplicity itself to determine the exact direction that the detector had pointed and to transfer this to a local map and to get a fairly accurate measurement of the distance in the measurement units called miles to the source of the time energy field. A long black line on the map gave me my direction, a slash across it to show distance—and I had my target. The two lines crossed at what appeared to be a major center of population, in fact, the largest one on this map.

It was called, quaintly, New York City. There was no indication where Old York City was, and it did not matter. I knew where I had to go.

Leaving the hotel was more like a royal abdication than a simple parting, and there were many glad cries for me to hurry back. As well there might be. A hired car whirled me out to the airport, and ready hands rushed my luggage to the proper exit. Where a rude shock was awaiting me since I had completely forgotten about the bank robbery. Others had not.

“Open up da bags,” a grim-looking defender of law and order said.

“Of course,” I said, very cheerily. I noticed that all of the passengers were being subjected to this same search. “Might I ask what you are looking for?”

“Money. Bank robbery,” he muttered, poking through my possessions.

“I’m afraid I never carry large sums,” I said, holding the bag with my massed banknotes tight to my chest.

“These are OK. Let’s see that one.”

“Not in public if you please, officer. I am a high-placed government official, and these papers are top secret.” I quoted this word for word from the TV.

“In the room,” he said, pointing. I was almost sorry I had kicked the thing in since it had been so educational.

In the room he looked shocked when I opened a sleepgas grenade rather than the bag, and he slumped nicely. There was a large metal locker against the wall filled with the numerous forms and papers so dear to the bureaucratic mind, and by rearranging them, I managed to make room for my snoring companion. The longer he remained undiscovered, the better. Unless there were unforeseen delays I would be in New York City before he regained consciousness—a process that would have to be a natural one since there would be no known antidote for my gas.

When I left the room, another of the uniformed officials was glowering at me, so I turned and called back through the still open door. “Thank you for your kind aid, no trouble at all, I assure you, no trouble at all.” I closed the door and smiled at him as I passed. He raised a reluctant fingertip to the visor of his cap and turned away to grab at the luggage of an elderly passenger. I went on with my bag, not too surprised to notice the finest of pricklings of sweat upon my brow.

The flight was brief, uninteresting, noisy, and rather too bumpy, in a great fixed-wing craft that appeared to be powered by jets burning a liquid fuel. Though the smell of this fuel was everywhere, and familiar, I could not bring myself to believe that they were burning irreplaceable hydrocarbons. I had a moment of expectation when we disembarked, but there did not seem to be any alarm. Reaching the center of the city from the outlying airport was a painful ordeal of hurtling vehicles, shouts, noise of all kinds, and it was with a feeling of great relief that I finally fell through the door of a cool hotel room. But once reason was restored by the quiet, plus a couple of belts of the distilled organ destroyer I was becoming attached to, I was more than ready for the next step.

Which would be what? Reconnoiter or attack? Sweet reason dictated a careful stalk of the time energy source to determine what I was up against; who and what. I had half settled on this course and was berating myself mildly for even considering attack before the force of logic clanked through to its last link. I turned and pointed at myself in the mirror.

“You are a dum-dum.” I shook a disgusted finger at myself. “What the cabdriver called the other cabdriver. A joick and woise.”

There was only one advantage that I had—and that was surprise. Any bit of reconnoitering might tip my hand, and the time warriors would know that they were under investigation, perhaps attack. Since they had launched the time war, they were surely prepared for possible retaliation. But how can guards stay alert for weeks and months, possibly years? Once they knew I was around, at this time and place, all sorts of extra precautions would be taken. To prevent this, I had to hit and hit hard—even though I had no idea whom I was hitting.

“Does it make a difference?” I asked, snapping open a grenade case. “It might be nice to satisfy my curiosity and find out who has attacked the Corps—and why? But is it relevant or important? The answer is no.” I glared across a small atomic fusion bomb at my red-eyed mirrored image and shook my head. “No, and no again. They must be destroyed, period. Now. Quickly.”

There was no other course open to me, so calmly and surely I fitted about my body the most potent weapons of destruction ever devised by millennia of weapons research, always a favorite of mankind. Normally I am no believer in the kill-or-be-killed school of thought; affairs are usually not that black and white. They were now, and I felt not the slightest guilt over my decision. This was undeclared war against all mankind of the future—or why else had the Special Corps been the first target of attack? Someone, some group, wanted control of
everything
, probably the most selfish and insane plan ever conceived, and it did not really matter who or what they were. Death for them, before they killed everything of value.

When I left the hotel, I was a walking bomb, an army of destruction. The black box of the time energy detector was in the attaché case I carried, the indicators visible through holes I had cut in the lid. Somewhere out there was the enemy, and when he moved, I would be waiting.

It was a short wait. There was an unseen burst of time energy unleashed, close by if the action of the needle was any indication, and I was on the trail. Direction and distance, I worked out the vector as I plunged ahead, almost ignorant of the people and vehicles around me, but slowing and becoming more careful after a close miss by a lumbering truck.

Now a wide thoroughfare with green in the center of it, tall buildings of a uniformly depressing design, great slabs of metal and glass looming up in the polluted air. One very much like the other. Which one did I want?

The needle swung again, quivering with the intensity of its reaction, turning as I walked, the meter rising to a distance reading right at the top of its scale.

There. In that building, the copper and black one.

In I went, prepared for anything.

Anything that is except what happened next.

They were locking the doors behind me, lining up and blocking them even as they did so.
Everyone
. The visitors to the building, the elevator starters—even the man behind the cigar counter. Running, pressing forward, coming toward me with the cold light of hatred in their eyes.

I had been discovered; they must have detected
my
detector; they knew who I was. They were attacking first.

8

IT WAS A nightmare, come alive. At some time in our lives we are all touched by incipient paranoia and feel that everyone is against us. Now I was faced with the reality. For a single instant this basic fear possessed me; then I shrugged it off and tried to win.

But that slight hesitation had been enough. What I should have done was shoot, kill, fire, destroy, just as I had planned. But I had not planned to face all these people in this manner; therefore, I could not win. Of course, I did some damage, gas and bombs, a bit of violence, but it wasn’t enough. More and more hands tore at my clothing, and there was no end to them. Nor were they gentle about it, coming at me with the same raw hatred I felt for them, opposite sides of the coin, both seeing destruction in the other. I was pursued and run down, and unconsciousness was almost a blessing when it dropped.

Not that I was allowed this peace for long. Pain and a sharp smell burning in my nostrils drew me back to face unpleasant reality. A man, a large, tall man, standing and facing me, his features blurred by my unfocused eyes. It seemed that many hands held me, squeezing tight and shaking me. Something moist was pulled across my face clearing away whatever had obscured my vision, and I could see. See him as he saw me.

Twice as tall as a normal man, so much bigger than me that I had to lean back to look up at him towering there. His skin a suffused red, his eyes angled and dark, many of his teeth pointed when he opened his mouth.

“When are you from?” he asked, his voice a harsh drum, speaking the language we used in the Corps. I must have reacted to that because he smiled, with victory but not with warmth.

“The Special Corps, it had to be. The one flare of energy before darkness. How many of you came? Where are the others?”

“They . . . will find you,” I managed to say. A very minor success for my side weighed against the victories of the other. As yet they did not know that I was alone, and I would stay alive until they discovered it. Which would not be long. I had been stripped efficiently, all my devices removed. My defenses gone. They would backtrack me to the hotel and find out soon enough that there was no more to fear.

“Who are you?” I asked, words my only weapon. He did not answer but instead raised both fists in a victorious gesture. The words came automatically to my lips. “You’re mad.”

“Of course,” he shouted exultantly and the hands holding me pulled and swayed at the same time. “That is our condition, and though they killed us once for it, they will not kill us again. This time we will be victorious because we will destroy our enemies even before they are born, doom to nonlife oblivion the ones who did it.”

I remembered something Coypu had said about this Earth being destroyed in the far past. Had it been done to stop these people? Was it being undone now? His screamed words cut off the thought.

“Take him. Torture him most profoundly for my pleasure and to weaken his will. Then suck all the knowledge from his brain. Everything must be discovered, everything.”

As the hands tore me from the room, I knew what I had to do. Wait. Get away from this man, away from the crowds, to the specialized skills of the torturers, to some needed privacy. The opportunity came as technicians in a white laboratory beat at the people who held me and dragged me from them. They were as brutal to one another as they had been to me, a hierarchy of hatred. They must be mad as he had said. What perversion of human history had brought these people upon the scene? There was no way to imagine.

Again I waited. Calm in the knowledge that I had only a single opportunity and I should not throw it away. The door was closed. I was pressed back against a table, and my ankles were secured to it. There were five men in the room with me. Two had their backs turned, attention on their instruments; the others were pushing me down. I moved my jaw forward and bit down as hard as I could upon the last tooth.

This was my final weapon, the ultimate weapon, one that I had never used before. I normally did not even carry it, considering the normal life-and-death dustups not worth this price of winning. The present situation was different. When I bit, the artificial tooth cracked and the drops of bitter liquid it contained ran down my throat.

As the pain hit, it was obliterated, engulfed even as it began by the nerve-deadening drug that enabled me to withstand the onslaught of the other ingredients. They were a devil’s brew that the Corps’ medics had worked out at my suggestion, that had only been tested before in smaller quantities on test animals. Here were all the stimulants ever discovered, including the new class of synergators, the complex chemicals that enabled the human body to perform the incredible feats of hysterical strength that had been long known but impossible to duplicate.

Time speeded up, and the men hovering above me moved slowly. Seeing this, I waited those fractions of a second more for the drugs to take complete effect before reaching out my hands. Though each of the heavyset men had his full weight on one of my arms, it did not matter. There was no feeling of weight or even effort as I lifted them each clear of the floor at the same time and drove their skulls together before hurling them bodily at the third man at the foot of the table. All of them impacted, rolled, fell, their faces twisted in strange contortions of pain and fear. I sat up even as they dropped and seized the solid metal bands that bound my ankles and tore them free. It appeared to be the easiest and most obvious thing to do. This seemed to cause some damage to my fingers, but I was aware of it only as a passing comment and of no real importance. There were two more men in the room who were still turning toward me as though the destruction of the other three had only taken a few moments. Which it surely had. Seeing them still unprepared, one with a weapon half-raised, I threw myself at them, sparing a fist or a clutching hand for each, striking them down and hurling them toward the others into the writhing bundle of twisting bodies. They were five to my one, and I could afford to show them not even the slightest mercy even had I cared to. I struck, with my feet now since my hands were not so good; until there was no more motion in the heap, and only then could I permit the cold thoughts of logic to penetrate the hot berserker rage.

Next? Escape. My own clothes were rags, and I tore them from me in strips. My torturers were dressed in white garments, and I took the time to open all the unfamiliar fastenings and dress myself in the least soiled of their clothing. There was a ragged wound in my forehead, which I covered with a neat dressing—there would be other bandages here after the battle in the entrance—then put wrappings about my hands. I was not interrupted, it could not have taken long, and when I was done, I left the room and went hurriedly back down the hallway, retracing the course over which I had been so recently dragged. There was a buzz like a disturbed hive in the building, and everyone I passed seemed too preoccupied to notice me, even the people milling about in the anteroom where my weapons had been spread out on a large table to be examined. If it had been a time for smiling, I would have smiled.

Gently, without disturbing anyone, I reached over and actuated a rack of gas bombs, holding my breath as I groped for the nose filters. It is a fast gas, and even those who had seen what I had done had no time for warnings before they fell. The air was hazy with the concentration of the gas when I picked up a gausspistol and threw open the great door to the next room.

“
You
!” he called out, his massive red body standing even as the gas felled the others around him. He swayed and reached for me, fighting the gas that should have dropped him instantly, until I slammed the pistol into the side of his head until he stopped. Yet his eyes, murderous with hatred, were on me all the time as I bound him in the chair. Only when the door was sealed behind me did I take the time to look him in the face again and see that he was still conscious.

“What kind of man are you?” The words were on my lips, unasked. “Who are you?”

“I am He who will rule forever, the mind that never dies. Release me.”

There was such a power in his words that I felt myself drawn closer, swaying despite myself, the roundness of his eyes growing before me. I was hazy, the effects of my own drugs wearing off perhaps, and I shook my head and blinked rapidly. But another part of me was still alert, still unimpressed by great power, great evil.

“A long rule, but not a comfortable one.” I smiled. “Unless you do something about that bad case of sunburn.”

It could not have been better spoken. This monster was utterly humorless and must have been used to nothing except slavish obedience. Just once he howled, a speechless animal sound, and then there was speech enough, a torrent of babbled insanity that washed around me as I made preparations to end the time war.

Mad? Of course he was, but with some kind of organized madness that perpetuated and grew and infected those around him. The body was artificial. I could see the scars and grafts now, and he spoke to me about it. A fabricated body, a transplanted, stolen body, a metal-framed monstrosity that told me all too much about the manner of mind that would choose to live in a case like this.

There were others like him, he was the best, he was alone—it was hard to make sense of everything, but I remembered what I could for future reference. And all the time I was taking off the ventilating grille and dusting my powders into the air system and making preparations to throw a large monkey wrench into this satanic mill.

He and his followers had been destroyed once in the fullness of time. He had told me that. In some unknown manner they had planned a second chance at the mastery of the universe—but they were not to have it. I, Slippery Jim diGriz, single-minded freebooter of no fixed address had been called upon for many big tasks before, and I had always delivered. Now I was asked to save the world, and if I must, I must.

“They could not have picked a better man,” I said proudly as I looked in at the great workings of a time laboratory neatly peppered with sprawled bodies. The great green coiled spring of a time-helix glowed at me, and I smiled back.

“Bombs in the works and you for a ride,” I called out happily as I made just those preparations. “Wipe out the machinery and leave the nuts here for the local authorities, though perhaps Big Red deserves a special treatment.”

He certainly did, and I wondered what I was waiting for. I was waiting to do it in the heat of passion, I imagine, no cold killer I even of the coldest of killers. Though I would have to be this time. I steeled myself to this realization, thumbed the selector on the gausspistol to explosive charges, and turned to the other room.

Opportunity presented itself far more quickly than I had imagined. A great red form was on top of me, striking out, hitting me. I rolled with the blow, across the room to the wall, twisting and bringing up the gun.

He was moving fast, tripping a switch and hurling himself at the end of the time-helix.

Bullets move fast, too, and mine hissed out of the gausspistol and into his body, exploding there.

And then he was gone. Pulled into time, forward or backward I did not know because the machinery was glowing and melting even as I ran. Would he be dead when he arrived at his destination? He had to be. Those were explosive charges.

Some of the drugs were beginning to wear off, and rattling fingers of pain and fatigue were already beginning to scratch at the edge of my awareness. It was time to go. Get my equipment first, then get out. To the hotel and then to a hospital. A little rest cure while they patched me up would give me the time to consider what to do next. The technology of this era might be advanced enough for the construction of a time-helix, and I still had the professor’s memory locked in that black box. I would probably need a lot more money, but there were always ways of getting that.

I exited with an unhealthy stagger.